“How is he?”
“Still very ill. The battle has turned and the poison is being neutralised, but it’s hard, very hard. It had a chance to settle before I got here. There is some damage that will take me a couple of days to repair if he is to be restored to full health.”
“Is it too much? Are you tired?”
“I’m tired by the effort but no, it’s not too much. I just have to pace myself, that’s all.”
“Shall I get you some food?”
“Shortly, yes please. Tell me how your meeting is going.”
“Not well. Not well at all. I think we’ve lost - in fact, I’m certain we have, unless Oswy has a sudden change of heart and allows us a final chance. I don’t think he will, though. Wilfrid of Ripon rocked him to the core and we were unprepared.” Ieuan nodded.
“Why don’t you just throw them out, these invading Romans? Why not drive them back into the sea?”
“Two reasons: that isn’t our way, and it would be pointless anyway. They are already well established in the south, and there are hordes more on the continent itself. It’s not an option.”
“There must be a way of getting rid of them. I’m sure I could help you, show you a way of getting rid of them.” It seemed that the temperature dropped another notch.
“No, Ieuan, I don’t think so. Maybe the Roman way is the right way for the people: we monks can work towards our God in the ways we have been taught, the people can be taught the new way. Old gives way to new, haven’t you noticed?” I put an affectionate hand on my friend’s shoulder. “And I still live in hope that you will convert before too long.” The shoulder was stiff and unbending, concentrating on Cedd, I thought, and I let my hand drop.
“So you give up?”
“No, of course not. I’ll continue to live my life the way I’ve become accustomed.”
“But you will let them have their way?”
“We may have no choice, not here in Northumbria, anyway. But there are other kingdoms in Britain, and the great wide world beyond. We won’t give up anything, least of all hope.” Ieuan didn’t reply. It was I who broke the silence. “I’ll go and get you some food.”
And I went, loaded a plate up with food, brought it back to Ieuan and then returned to my brothers. Again I noticed that the temperature fell inside the infirmary. I must ask Hilda about it but, right now, there were comforting words to be dispensed to my distressed comrades, calming words to the angry, and reassurance and hope for all. We went to bed in apprehension, and it was an hour and more before the last of us finally dropped off to sleep.
26
A Fall Like Lightning
I woke earliest of all, rested and refreshed but still troubled in my heart. I went alone to the chapel and celebrated my morning office in quiet solitude. I still didn’t know what I would do after Oswy gave what I believed to be his inevitable judgement. It wouldn’t affect me as much as some of the others because Iona was in Dalriada, two kingdoms away from Northumbria. We could continue in the old ways as long as we wished but our pilgrimages may be curtailed somewhat if the east and south of Britain went with Rome. And we would lose Lindisfarne.
I wandered down to the tented village outside the monastery. I was turning in on myself too much and it would help to be distracted from introspection by the needs of others.
It was still quite dark, but not the full pitch black of night. In the east the sky was lightening, the false dawn before the true light of the rising sun. The village was coming to life. Fires were being raised from the night’s embers and breakfast smells were beginning to waft around the place. A couple of excited squeaks told me that the children were ready to play the day away again, and I smiled.
I looked up at the fading stars in the sky and caught the dying fall of a shooting star. It seared brilliantly across the sky, trailing sparks and flame behind it as it died into the western horizon. I heard whispers of concern from the village. “A sign!” someone called, but there were few to take any notice. I knew what it was. An angel, a messenger from God. Beautiful in its fall, it was the brightest, most brilliant object in the whole firmament as it went, cascading and tumbling in its plunge into the darkness. I remembered Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus spoke to his returning missionaries. “And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” The messenger’s fire died as I watched it, in a fall like Lucifer, brightest of the Angels, most magnificent, who had led so many into opposition and eternal exile from Heaven, whose despair had led to utter defeat. A last glimpse of glory, a final, defiant railing against the power and strength of God, a terminal burst of magnificence.
A Fall like Lucifer, I mused, brightest of Angels, whose pride led him to despair and took so many with him.
A fall from greatness, which turned to spite and even now waged war against God’s creatures on Earth, corrupting, despoiling, filling with despair and then seducing to evil.
A dying fall.
The camp was coming awake. It was as if a veil lifted, and I saw the scene for the first time. Children sat and gazed in wonder at an early juggler. A group of toddlers giggled at a clown. The mob of swimmers charged through the camp again. Soldiers on temporary leave sat at their tents, smiling and playing with their children. A woman was nursing her baby while another howled with outrage at something or other. Two boys were wrestling each other in the dirt, a group of their friends encouraging them on with shouts. Little girls sat together and played house with their little peg dolls. A puppeteer entertained another group of children. Children swung from the trees. Children made a noise. Children squealed and laughed and fought and played. Everywhere, the noise and racket of children at play. Nothing unusual, no, nothing unusual at all. The soldiers with their children: nothing strange at all.
This was normal, utterly normal. The noise of children was normal everywhere, in small villages and large towns, packs of children playing, shouting, crying, laughing - it was everywhere.
But Dumbarton had been so quiet. There were so few children there. A place like that should be teeming with them, as the river teemed with salmon. The thoughts I’d had, the discussions I had with Eata, I had missed what was in front of my eyes when I was at Strathclyde’s capital, what I had been told in my Vision. The only excuse I could offer myself was that I’d just come from Iona, and of course there were no children there at all, but even then I’d known that something was amiss. I had known it, and now I saw it. I compared Dumbarton’s almost silent castle and town with this riot of noise, and I knew something was seriously wrong, it wasn’t an outbreak of infertility, or the absence of the soldiers on Owain’s campaigns, it was something else. It was something that was so awful that I could barely bring myself to confront it, not now, not yet, not here lest the very thought bring disaster on everyone in the camp.