The Rood and the Torc Page 19

  “Why do they not listen?”

  “In this land, vindication comes by the sword, not by words. Truth is whatever is spoken by the mightiest warrior. No. I was already known to them as the mother of Finnlaf, and so I risked nothing in speaking for the dead. But you must be silent, unless you desire to join your brother and father in the grave.”

  Kristinge was about to object, but Willimond spoke first. “She is right. The event is many years past and there are no witnesses whom the Danes will accept. They will believe only what they want to believe. History will remain veiled to all but a few. I tell you also that you bear a striking resemblance to Hildeburh. When you sit side by side with heads unveiled, it is difficult to miss. Even if you hold your tongue on this matter, they may still guess soon enough whose child you are if you are not careful.”

  “And I do not want to lose another son,” Hildeburh added, with tears in her eyes. “Not so soon after finding you. We must show great care. Your secret must remain hidden.” She paused and then turned to Willimond. “So also should your identity as monks.”

  Now it was Willimond who objected. “Hide our faith in the Lord?”

  Hildeburh looked in his eyes. “Have you come here as monks to preach our Lord’s gospel? Then do so in obedience and accept your martyrdom. But if you have come to find me, then take care.” Kristinge was surprised to hear from his mother echoes of the wisdom of the Abbess Telchild. “I tell you the truth that it is more dangerous for you to be monks here than to be blood-kin of Finn.” She glanced at the tops of their heads. Though they had ceased shaving, and some hair had returned to their pates, their tonsures were still evident. “I fear some may have guessed already what you are. Our boats have seen the monasteries on the Frankish, Anglish, and Saxon coasts. And the skald could not have missed your final song.” She looked at Kristinge as she said this, but whether it was pride or fear in her eyes he could not tell. “He is a shrewd one, and wicked. He was responsible for the death of our last bard, and for less reason than you have already given him. You were wise to come as a bard and not a monk. But what will you do?”

  “Continue as a bard,” Kristinge replied with no small amount of pride. “At Fjorgest’ own invitation!”

  “And I as a fisherman,” Willimond added. “But we will not hide our faith. For I am first and foremost a fisher of men. The monk’s garb we can lay aside. Our faith we cannot.”

  “We do have much to speak about,” Hildeburh said. “How I have missed your teaching, but I have not forsaken the Faith.”

  Though he had guessed already that his mother was still a follower of Christ, Kristinge’s heart leapt at Hildeburh’s proclamation. The older monk—with so many of his past flock having died or abandoned the Christian faith—also beamed with joy at the news. They might have talked much longer despite the late hour, but as Hildeburh pointed out it was not so large a village that by sunset the next day half the clan would not know of her visit and how long it had lasted. “There is little privacy here,” she sighed. “Not for me.” And so she departed from the hut a short time later, promising to return as soon as it was wise. The monks let her depart with God’s blessings, and praised their Lord for his goodness in bringing about their reunion. It was with a deep sense of peace and contentment that Kristinge fell asleep a short time later, and he slept more soundly than he had in many days.

  When Kristinge awoke the next morning, the air was cold, still and damp with a thick fog. And with the chieftain and most of his warriors gone, the village seemed deathly quiet. The young monk, however, was not the least troubled by the weather, and the quiet was welcome. With Psalms already on his lips, he arose early—as he had not done more than a handful of times in the many weeks since his departure from Luxeuil—and spent the hour before dawn wrapped in his warm cloak sitting at the edge of the village in meditation. The hour after dawn he spent reciting the Gospels so that he would not forget what he had struggled for so long to learn. Then he returned to the hut to find Willimond also in meditation. Together they chanted the prayers of Matins.

  No sooner had they lifted their eyes after finishing their prayers, than Hildeburh stood at the entrance of their abode. “I come with another meal for our new bard,” she said. Kristinge stared at her, still finding it difficult to believe he had found her. “Must I stand outside forever?” she asked.

  Willimond motioned for her to enter, which she had already begun to do without invitation. Kristinge saw that she was bearing a large wallet. She proceeded to empty its contents: a supply of dried fruit and meats, sufficient for two people for a day. “I am, after all, still a daughter of Hoc and close kin of Fjorgest,” she explained when she saw the Willimond looking nervously out the door. “I need no excuse to visit a bard.”

  “It is not your safety I worry about,” Willimond replied, with a sidelong glance at Kristinge. “Whether you are free or not, if one guesses—”

  “I understand,” Hildeburh interrupted. “But perhaps there is less cause for fear then we imagined.”

  Kristinge’s hopes rose. “Why?” he asked.

  “Consider it providential that Fjorgest is gone these few days. In his absence I can provide for his new bard without arousing suspicion. Indeed, since Kristinge has been taken into his service, it is my responsibility as Fjorgest’s closest kin to do so. Is it not the duty of the chieftain’s wife to present the mead cup to the honored guest? Well Fjorgest has no wife.”

  Willimond shook his head in doubt. “I do not mean to lessen your son’s accomplishments, but he is a bard, not an honored guest. And I am under the impression that bards are given little honor in Fjorgest’s hall.”

  Hildeburh paled for an instant, and Kristinge guessed that she was remembering the fate of the previous bard. But she smiled again. “Perhaps a bard is not held in the same high honor as a visiting chieftain, but neither am I held in the same honor as were I a chieftain’s wife.” Then she sighed more deeply, half in relief and half in lament. “If truth be known, I do not believe any among the Hoclinges any longer notice what I do or do not do.”

  Willimond still looked doubtful, but he said nothing. Kristinge, more willing to accept any excuse to be with his mother, welcomed her reasoning without question. “Come and share the meal with us,” he said. He sat on floor beside the small table where the food was laid out, offering his mother the one seat in their hut. But she also chose the floor, apologizing as she sat down that there was so little to eat.

  “It is a feast,” Willimond replied cheerfully. “At Luxeuil we ate but a single meal a day, smaller than this.” He spoke a prayer of thanksgiving for the food. Then they broke the night’s fast together. When Kristinge, feeling a suddenly awkwardness in Hildeburh’s presence, fell silent—eating his meal as if he were back at Luxeuil under Benedictus’ rule—it was Willimond who entered into easy conversation with his former queen. It was the everyday remembrances of life in Hwitstan that started them talking: the trees and fields that surrounded Finnsburg; the rivers and weirs and hills; the curve of the beach; the storms, and floods, and changes of season. For a time, that way, they avoided the more painful memories. But eventually Hildeburh’s thoughts turned toward the people and events of their past, the various thanes and peasants they had both known. They spoke of the servants of Finn who had been most loyal: Beowlaf son of Beow; Finn’s fast friend Aelfin; Guthman and Guthric who were hot of head and full of pride but true to the death; the faithful Froda, who did not fail in the end though it cost him his life. Though only distant names to Kristinge, they were people whom Willimond and Hildeburh had both known well. Peasants, too, they remembered: Lopystre and Lawyrke the fishermen, and others of their small congregation. They spoke at length of Daelga the poet, and of favorite songs that one or the other still remembered. And when their thoughts turned to Ulestan, Willimond recounted joyfully the old thane’s last years and the peace he had found at Luxeuil.

  If at first Kristinge was jealous over the easy relationship the other two fell into and
the intimacy from which he felt excluded, his jealousy soon faded. He knew well enough that Hildeburh could not be blamed if even now she confided more readily in Willimond, whom she had known so well. So for a time he was content to sit silent and listen, learning what he could about his mother, and even growing to know Willimond in ways he had not known him before. Even when they spoke of Daelga and Ulestan, whom he had known well, he could not bring himself to speak.

  Hildeburh departed before the morning was over, leaving the monks to their work. One full day had passed since their arrival in the village, and another was already partly gone. With the daylight hours already grown short, Willimond was eager to begin his work as a fisherman. “I hope to have a first catch before Fjorgest returns,” he commented.

  “How will you start with this new way of catching fish?”

  “I am not without knowledge about the ways of fishing,” the old monk replied defensively. “When I was a monk at Lindisfarne—long before you were even born—I caught many fish out of the sea with nets. And lest you forget, I also spent many years working the weirs of Hwitstan. That was my trade.”

  Kristinge laughed at him. “You know neither the river nor the trade,” he said. “Nor even the type of fish to be found here. You will be lucky to catch anything all winter.”

  “I trust in Something greater than luck,” Willimond replied.

  Kristinge shrugged, and set off into the village with his former mentor to find the implements necessary for his new vocation: baskets, creels, ropes, and especially a net. As it turned out, fortune was with them. The second peasant they spoke with, a cowherd who was standing near the Great Hall with a half dozen scrawny cattle, pointed to a hut on the far side of the village. He mumbled the name of a trader, said a few incoherent phrases in a heavy Danish dialect that Kristinge could not decipher, and then said, very clearly, “bad fisherman.” Following the directions, the monks found an old trader in his hut. The man, whose bald head and gnarled hands made him look thrice Kristinge’s age, had tried the vocation of fishing one summer years before, thinking he had grown too old for the cold days on a seabound trading vessel. But he hadn’t had the patience for it, and after a hungry summer had returned to his old occupation. Once they got him to stop talking about his travels, they discovered he was still in possession of a pair of disused woven nets and a few other supplies. “They might come in handy to one interested in that sort of work,” the old many commented casually. Of course once he found that his guests were interested in acquiring the merchandise, their value suddenly rose. They bargained for a while, and eventually agreed to a price, namely all the coins remaining in Kristinge’s purse.

  What the monks acquired were a pair of nets, old and disused, plus an odd assortment of baskets, lines and hooks. Neither Willimond nor Kristinge had ever seen fishing line before, though they had heard of fish taken on hook and bait in the mountain lakes east of Luxeuil. The line was made of braided horse hair. “Three strands if you use feathers, and five if you fish deep,” the old trader had explained, reciting the lore he had picked up from the Frankish fisherman who had sold it to him. Skeptical of their chance for success, Kristinge and Willimond nonetheless departed with the equipment in their possession. They labored through the remainder of the day, and by sunset were able to restore the nets to usable condition. Willimond also made another improvement. Fascinated by the thought of luring a fish using a hook and bait rather than simply netting it, he took the few hand-carved wooden hooks he had purchased to Fjorgest’s metal-smith and convinced him to fashion some sturdier metal hooks out of brooch pins. By the end of the day, they were outfitted.

  Hildeburh returned just as the sun was setting. She had brought with her two loaves of hearty bread and some salted cheese. Though the early darkness of late autumn had already fallen, neither monk was yet ready for sleep. They invited her again to join them for their evening meal, and they resumed their conversation where it had left off in the morning. Feeling less awkward than he had in the morning, and no longer content just to listen to the other two reminisce, Kristinge started questioning Hildeburh long before she had finished her bread. “Tell me more of your life here. Was it difficult to learn to live among the Danes?”

  “Difficult?” Hildeburh repeated. “Perhaps you have forgotten that I am a Dane. That you are half Dane.” Kristinge blushed, but Hildeburh was not looking at him. “Difficult? It is not so different. When your brother Finnlaf was young I used to tell him stories about his uncle Hnaef and his grandfather Hoc, and what a Danish village was like.” She paused, and sighed a sigh that was already becoming familiar to Kristinge. “Difficult. Alas, there is little more to say but what I have already told you. My life has not been as exciting as yours. I am fed and kept warm, but I know little love here. My family is gone. God alone is my comfort.” She fell silent a moment. Kristinge, sensing the melancholy turn his question had brought about, regretted having asked it. “I feel older than I ought to feel,” Hildeburh finally said. “Finn made me feel young. Younger than I have felt until…” She turned to Willimond as if to add something, but she did not finish.

  “He was a great king,” Willimond agreed. “He bore the chieftain’s torc proudly. Friesland has not been the same since Folcwalda’s line departed.”

  Hildeburh nodded. And for the first time since their reunion, she and Willimond began to speak openly of Finn. Kristinge, knowing little about his father, could only listen as Hildeburh told both of her husband’s love and of his pride; of the great battles he had won and how he had gained the loyalty of so many Frisian chieftains; of his last year of life and what happened to him following the death of his son; and finally of Finn’s own death. Her voice was hushed and somber as she spoke, not only for fear of being overhead—Hildeburh did not speak Latin and so they conversed in the Frisian dialect which any Dane would have understood had they listened closely enough—but because the subject demanded it. And because it was the first time since Finn’s death that Hildeburh had been able to speak about it. Willimond added a few words here and there, but mostly it was Hildeburh speaking. She wept as she told of their last few days together, and of standing with Daelga atop Finnweard watching the final battle. Of the deaths of her brother Hnaef and her oldest son Finnlaf, she would not speak. It was long past dark when she finally left the hut, promising to return the next morning to guide Willimond to the river where he would fish.

  “You were quiet tonight,” Willimond said after Hildeburh had left.

  “There was little for me to say,” Kristinge replied. “I did not know my father.” He paused a moment, then continued. “Nor did I know my mother. It is different for me. For you, it was merely a long separation. You have not seen her for many years, but there are still many memories you shared.” The twinge of jealousy started to rise, but he quelled it. “I have never known her.”

  “You did—” Willimond began to object.

  “As queen, perhaps,” Kristinge forestalled. “Even as part of the small congregation. But not as my mother.”

  Willimond acknowledged Kristinge’s thoughts with a nod of his head. “She feels the same way about you, I think. But she wants to know you.”

  “Tell me about her. I want to know her.”

  Willimond leaned back on his mat. The fire was burning low. Kristinge prodded it with a long branch, and threw on another small log. “She watched you,” Willimond said. “As much as she could, she kept her eye on you. And whenever you were not around, she asked me about you. But she was afraid. Afraid of getting too close to you for fear she might start to love you too much as a son she was not allowed to have. Afraid, perhaps, that her actions might reveal more than she was allowed to reveal—a fear she has again now.”

  Kristinge waited for a time, hoping Willimond would say more, but the older monk had fallen silent. Eventually, the younger monk gave up waiting. He pulled his covering over him and drifted to sleep dreaming of his days in Hwitstan.

  As promised, Hildeburh met them the next mor
ning ready to guide them to the river where Willimond was to fish. Kristinge, dressed in his heavy woolen tunic, was waiting outside with Willimond when she arrived. Hildeburh was silent at first, as she led them northward out of the village. There was a spark in her eyes that Kristinge had not seen the day before. Willimond looked the same way, though Kristinge was slow to identify what it was. After they had put some distance between themselves and the last of the huts, Hildeburh began to question Kristinge more about life at Luxeuil. They fell into easy conversation as he described for her the countryside of southwestern Francia. Never having seen peaks as high as those of the Vosges mountains, Hildeburh had difficulty even imagining them. He told her also of his tasks at the monastery, which he had earlier described briefly. Of his work in the fields she showed little interest in hearing. It was peasant labor. But about the copying of scripture and other ancient manuscripts, and his work translating, she was fascinated, especially his work as the scribe for Abbot Walbert. He told her how he had transcribed the Abbot’s account of the history of Luxeuil and its founder Columbanus. Some of the stories of Columbanus were of such a miraculous nature that Kristinge had found them difficult to believe. To his surprise, however, Hildeburh had no trouble believing the tales of the Irish monk. When he told how the Lord had protected Columbanus from King Theoderic and his grandmother Queen Brunhild, Hildeburh stopped walking.

  “He just walked out of the king’s prison?” she asked.

  “He not only walked out himself,” Kristinge responded, repeating what he had heard from Walbert. “He struck the chains free from all the other prisoners as well, and then led them all to chapel where the jailer found them repenting of their sins and asking forgiveness.”

  “Like the Apostle Paul?”

  Kristinge raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Yes,” he answered, not mentioning that he had never thought of that.