“Go and take your walk, Anselm. See if your thoughts can add anything to our cause. We’ll send for you if we need you. But I would like to speak to you later in any case.” I nodded and went on my way.
I walked a mile or so up the next hill and looked back the way I’d come. The monastery was active, with nuns and monks clearly visible, bustling this way and that in the early sunshine on the business of the Synod, or that of the Abbess, or perhaps just looking busy in order to avoid the conscription into some task or other by their Superior. The neatly cultivated fields were empty today: even the Synod wouldn’t intrude on the Lord’s Day to that extent. I saw my three fellows emerge from their sleeping quarters and make their way over to Hilda’s office. Agilbert and Wilfrid emerged from their quarters in the convent’s infirmary and proceed to Oswy’s chambers, bestowing blessings as they went. The guards barred their entrance as they had mine and they turned away after a few moments’ fruitless argument. I smiled. There was an air of tranquillity, holiness and Peace - I could almost discern the capital P - over the establishment but how long it would continue, once the arguments started was anyone’s guess. Oswy, Colman, Cuthbert, Cedd, Agilbert, Wilfrid and Hilda: all the principal players were in place. What role I may have would become apparent in good time.
One more to come.
The thought flashed into my mind and out again, but not before I had registered it. I wondered for a moment who it would be, then continued on up the hill and away from the monastery. There was no point in trying to rush anything.
Near the top of the hill I turned and looked back again. A slow-moving train of riders was climbing into view, up from the direction of Streanashalch. There were heavily-armed outriders ahead and behind was a wheeled litter drawn by two horses that was closely guarded by four armed soldiers on foot. A fifth figure was also in close attendance, leaning frequently toward the curtained carriage and even, on occasions, bending his head into the enclosure.
Eanfleda. The Queen of Northumbria would be in attendance. It wasn’t any sort of surprise, given her famous piety and rumoured part in the generation of this congress. The fifth walker was, I could now see, wearing a clerical habit and so would probably be Romanus, her chaplain. We would meet in good time.
The top of the hill revealed a view that stretched for miles in all directions. To the west and south were the woods of Northumbria, fresh with the green of early spring under the bright sun. Westwards they stretched unbroken to the Inner Sea: where the border with British Elmet or Strathclyde was couldn’t be discerned from a bird’s eye as it flew from coast to coast. To the south, Oswy’s kingdom reached to the Wash and marched with chastened Mercia and wary Anglia. Eanfleda’s homeland was further south still. Cool and windy Northumbria must have been a shock after the warm and tranquil valleys of Kent. To the east and north was the sea over which had come the English and Saxon.
There was peace between Northumbria and Strathclyde for the moment but what was happening in the far south, on the borders of Wessex and Gwent? Or Cornwall, the rump of once-great Dumnonia? Was there blood being spilt even now by expansionist Saxons and by British in their desperate defence? Oswy had begun to allow British into his armies - for they were ferocious, if undisciplined fighters - but they were kept in lowly ranks and were barely trusted even there. Maybe it would improve in time. I gazed over the North Sea, whose surface was lightly tickled by a gentle breeze. Half way to the horizon I could see about a dozen boats making their way with determination towards the coast on which I stood, probably bringing another band of settlers to lands they had been led to believe were empty and ripe for exploitation. Those who made a living from ferrying the new arrivals had no motivation to tell their passengers about the small farmers and homesteaders who were here already, with families, children, herds and crops, trying to carve a humble living from land that wasn’t always co-operative.
I was distracted by the sound of deep buzzing. A bumble bee had emerged from a gorse flower by my knee and the sound of its flight ended as suddenly as it had started as it dived into another blossom in search of nectar, then revived and died again as it went from flower to flower. I had an irrational affection for bumble bees; they were a friendly shape and did no-one any harm. I didn’t know of anyone who had been stung by one and they efficiently fertilised the flowers and plants of the wild parts of the country - of which there were plenty still. They reminded me of a cheerful fat friar or publican, serving simple folk in their simple way. They looked as if they shouldn’t be able to fly, their wings were too small to support that big, hairy body. But obviously no-one had told them, and they went on flying anyway.
The gorse bush to my left and was being explored by a determined bunch of honey bees, probably from the monastery’s hives. I watched as they efficiently investigated every bloom on the bush in less time than the bumble bee had taken to cover a tenth of its own.
“We can learn much from observing Nature, can we not?” a voice intruded. A tall young man came striding purposefully up the path towards me. He was very close already and had approached without my noticing. My warrior’s training seemed to be atrophying through lack of use. The young man stood a good hand taller than myself, and I wasn’t small. He had a face that had turned many a female head, young and old. It had more than a trace of arrogance in it, something that could add to the attraction in many eyes in a violent and unpredictable world. He was dressed in a fine soutane with bone buttons that reached from the neck to the hem and he wore a green woven woollen cloak edged in yellow braid, fastened at the neck by a double chain of either gold or highly polished brass and set into finely worked clasps. His blonde hair was cut short and the Crown-of-Thorns tonsure was invisible from face on: nonetheless, there was no mistaking Prior Wilfrid of Ripon, even if his reputation was all that had preceded him.