At that moment a solitary fat bee buzzed over the hill and past us, its legs bulging with nectar and its fur dusty with pollen. Wilfrid waved an irritable hand but it swung away from him, surprisingly agile for one so plump and laden.
“You don’t have to control everything, Wilfrid. Some things can get on just fine on their own.” We walked in silence for a while, back towards the monastery.
“The cities and towns are growing.” Wilfrid’s tone was just short of petulant. “They will spread. Civilisation is returning and with it: order. Your freewheeling, undisciplined days are numbered, Anselm. Any future you and your brothers have is only within the Roman rule and discipline. Your Church will fade away and be forgotten. The ultimate triumph will be ours, because you are so weak, so kind and forgiving. But your kindness is cruel, because it leaves the people in darkness, outside salvation.”
“We look around and see beauty and goodness. You see darkness and Sin, a burden which no human can avoid because, you say, it’s at the core of our being, the act of creation itself! So you take power over everything, even the most intimate of moments, and fill it with guilt. You fill them with despair and take to yourself the power of forgiveness and administering of God’s grace. What presumption!”
“And you would let the people be crushed into the power of Hell by your softness! You accuse me of arrogance? You say you care for the people but you leave them to stumble and fall, you don’t put a hand out to save them! We are all born with the weight of Adam’s Sin. Only through the grace of God and guided by the Church can we be saved.”
“Bright silk vestments and gold a-plenty are not the redeeming sacrifice of the bleeding, broken body of the man on the Cross, who did it of his own volition.”
“You really believe that man is born good? Look around you! Do you see good in the world, bursting out of everybody? Can you?”
“Do you see evil everywhere you look? Is it evil that looks back at you from the mirror in the morning? Yes, there is evil in the world, great evil,” I paused, thinking of what I had encountered at the glade above Dumbarton, in the Ballaugh and back in Innisgarbh, as well as other places along the way. “But it is a choice that we make and we all have the power to make it, freely. We ourselves choose whether to do good or ill. There is great good as well, even among the heathens. Don’t they love their children? Don’t they take care of their old and sick? Don’t even they give help and aid to the poor?”
“Don’t anger me too much, Columbine,” he responded, his voice quivering with anger. On his lips, ‘Columbine’ was a deliberate insult. “It will be the worse for you when we win. You are deep in sin and heresy. For now, the hand of forgiveness is offered to you. Take it, or next time it may come carrying a sword.”
Further argument could wait for the Synod. I started to draw away from the proud Englishman.
“I’ll tarry here a while. I like the serenity of this area. Will you stay or return?” Wilfrid turned and began to stride back towards Whitby.
“I will return to the monastery. I have business with King Oswy and his Queen, when she arrives.”
“She has arrived.”
“What’s this? Your famous Sight?” Wilfrid snapped.
“No. I saw her train approaching a short time before you joined me.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me? I must attend her! She will wonder where I am!” and with that he left, running down the hill in a most undignified fashion.
“You never asked,” I said to his retreating back. I let him get well ahead and then started back to the monastery myself. I, too, had business with King Oswy and it should be attended to. The thought of the warrior-king dampened my mood a little but didn’t darken it: it was much too nice a day for that. But just then a cloud crossed the sun and I shivered in the sudden gloom. But it, too would pass in time. I would not be downhearted.
17
Oswy
Oswy, King of Northumbria, had unified the two kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira under his rule after the death of his brother. His succession was by no means inevitable, for these were violent times and a student or weakling would not have been tolerated. Oswy had proved himself to those who mattered - his thanes and fighting-men - by years of skilful leadership, fearless fighting, heavy drinking and lusty bedding. He’d mourned his brother genuinely but had taken to the throne eagerly. That eagerness in the early months of his reign had nearly led to disaster at the hands of the rival kingdom of Mercia, under its long-serving, cunning and savage King Penda. Oswy suffered a series of heavy defeats and he had nearly been driven into the hills of Lothian. Bamburgh itself, his brother’s impregnable castle, was under siege for months.
Those times had taught him greater caution thereafter. He never attacked unless he was sure of victory. He was never sure of victory until he had the advantage in both ground and numbers. He would harry and hound mercilessly until those advantages were gained.
Against all apparent odds he had broken the Mercian kingdom, which had dominated the country for decades. I knew well what had happened; I had been there, at the Winwaed, when the Mercian army tore itself apart. I had been the unwitting means of its destruction; I had, completely unaware, brought an Apple of Discord in the form of a treasure box, right into the heart of the Mercian camp. I had come in answer to a summons to join the Mercian army when I was hundreds of miles away, across the Narrow Sea and in the foothills of the Alps. The treasure box was one I had taken from the Frankish boy-king Clovis, when he had rewarded me for my service to him by sending a trio of assassins to kill me.