The Rood and the Torc Page 7

  Nonetheless, until he had sung for Aewin in the hall of Frotha, not once had he enjoyed his task. For a task it was. Though the previous six years had made his voice and harp-fingers rusty from lack of use, only a few days into the voyage they had become sore from overuse. The wagon-master, a short fat talkative fellow named Ulfgar, had kept the young monk busy singing nearly every night. When Kristinge hadn’t spent the evening sweating in the walled estate of a rich kin of Gundomer, trying to entertain the household and all its guests, he had spent it singing to a rowdy crowd of merchants and artisans in some little tavern or wayfarers’ inn such as could be found in the larger settlements.

  Neither setting had pleased the neophyte bard, but if he had felt a preference for the safer manors of the nobleman, the wagon-master had shown a stronger preference for the bawdier inns—places in which he was usually known by name. In fact, Ulfgar’s knowledge of the inns had been equal to his knowledge of the roads themselves; he took considerable pride in his assessment of which served the best beer and mead, and which where most likely to have a strumpet, or a maid whose morals were loose enough that she might be bought for the evening. Kristinge was not sure which had horrified him more, Ulfgar’s unashamed patronage of such services, or his use of his master’s wealth to pay for it. But during the day, the wagon-master was friendly enough to the monks, keeping them well-entertained with his endless stories and his wealth of knowledge about the land through which they traveled. And he had known his business. He had steered the wagons well, protected the merchandise, and proven himself a stingy bargainer. Thus even if Gundomer knew about his servant’s occasional pilfering, he was probably happy with him.

  And Kristinge also, tiring as the journey was and little though he looked forward to his work each night, had no real cause for complaint. At least not against Gundomer. Though more than once he grumbled against Willimond for having forced him into an unwanted vocation, he had eaten well and slept beneath a roof every night but one after leaving Gundomer’s estate. And he had grown in both his skill and confidence as a bard. By the time he reached Friesland and performed for the first time on his home soil in the Frisian mead hall of Frotha—singing for the young Aewin whose sparkling eyes he still remembered from years earlier, though he doubted she remembered him—he had a large enough repertoire to occupy an audience through a least a few mugs of mead. Thus the evening, despite his renewed anxiety, had been a success. Once he had gotten over his initial nervousness, the excitement of being back among his own people and the flutter of seeing Aewin again, he had done well. Even Aewin had been pleased.

  The journey had been a blessing in another way also. As Gundomer had promised, it had proven much faster than a journey on foot. And safer also. With Ulfgar’s savvy dealing, two wagons nearly full of good quality tanned skins—wolf and sheep acquired from peasants in the mountains and also bear taken in hunt in the woods surrounding Gundomer’s estate—had garnered a fair price in Auxerre and at a few estates along the way. While hidden beneath the skins was an even more valuable load: iron weapons fashioned by Gundomer’s smith. As the miserly nobleman had not been one to risk a loss of his valuable merchandise to robbers, a small escort of mercenary guards had been sent with Ulfgar and the monks. Two rode on horse and another three drove the second wagon. Altogether there were eight of them. Not a war band by any means, but a larger party than some. And though the monks would have proved useless with a sword had they been called upon, each soldier was a match for three or four poorly armed robbers. As a result, they had been left alone. Had it not been for the anxiety that awaited him every evening, Kristinge would have traveled in relative peace for many days.

  But poor Willimond. Along with Ulfgar and the mercenaries, he had been forced to listen to the same songs night after night. Kristinge looked across the hall toward the older monk, thinking how tired he must have become of hearing Deor’s Lament repeated so often. It took a minute to spot Willimond’s form, supine on one of the benches. The old monk had already fallen asleep. Kristinge smiled. So that was the reason was why his traveling companion hadn’t complained. He slept through the songs each night.

  Kristinge then turned back toward Frotha. It was now a late hour. The singing was done. The feasting was over. Others around the hall were growing quiet. The traders with whom Kristinge had been traveling since Paris—others who had now heard his songs more than once—had also laid their heads down for the night. The chieftain was talking privately with two of his thanes. For a brief moment, as he looked at Frotha, Kristinge imagined Finn seated in his hall in Hwitstan talking with his thane Ulestan. A sudden twinge of regret came simmering to the surface of the young monk’s emotions—a hint of sorrow that he had never know his own father. Or his brother Finnlaf. Only Hildeburh had he known, and she only as one of Willimond’s flock, not as his mother. He turned away before any tears could well in his eyes.

  He looked next for Aewin, still afraid to meet her eyes but unable to resist any longer. To his disappointment, however, she was nowhere to be seen. Some time after the final song, she had slipped from the hall with some of her retinue. Where she had gone to spend the night, Kristinge didn’t know, but her absence added to his sense of sadness. He was almost sure now that this was the same young girl he remembered from Hwitstan. Though she had grown in the intervening years, as had he, her eyes had not changed. And no two women could have those same eyes. Did she still remember him? Did she remember those few days she had spent at Finnsburg? Did she still wish she had married Finnlaf?

  Suddenly Kristinge’s heart was pounding. He knew that Aewin had long since reached the age when she might be given in marriage. Was she now promised to another? Or perhaps already married? It was a question he shouldn’t be concerned with. He knew that well enough. He could not allow himself even to imagine. He was not Finnlaf. He was not Finn. He was a monk, not a chieftain. Still, he wondered how she saw him. As a bard? As a stranger? Or perhaps she didn’t think of him at all. It was foolish to think she would. It was foolish to wonder if he would see her again.

  Foolish. He repeated the word. He should have long since given up trying to foresee where his path would take him. He cleaned off his harp and replaced it in its skin case. Several of the hall’s guests had now left for other lodging. Only Frotha’s thanes along with a few others such as Willimond and Kristinge remained. There was room on the bench beside the monk-bard. He laid his head down beside him and lifted his feet. It was time to sleep. Earlier the next morning, he would be departing for Danemark. He closed his eyes.

  But sleep did not come. His heart was still beating too fast. Foolish… He should not even imagine…

  He opened his eyes. The red light of a fading fire still flickered on the ceiling. Where indeed would his path take him, and whose paths would his cross? What of the prophecies that had been spoken of him? Was he really destined to lay aside the monk’s calling and take up the harp’s bard forever? What he had found in Paris had shaken every perception he had of his vocation.

  “You wish to go to the monastery?” Ulfgar asked as the wagons rattled through the Marne valley approaching Paris.

  “To Jouarre, yes,” Willimond answered slowly, as if he had been disturbed out of a trance or waking dream.

  “That is too bad. Then you will not see the king.”

  “The king?” Kristinge asked eagerly.

  “I heard rumor in Auxerre,” the wagon-master explained, “that Clovis has come from Burgundy to meet with the Austrasian seigniors to discuss the kingship of Austrasia. With him are the queen and palace mayor.”

  “But I thought Childebert, the son of the mayor, had been named king of Austrasia,” Kristinge said, repeating the rumor he had heard at Luxeuil.

  The wagon-master looked at him oddly. Then he laughed. “That’s true enough. He was named king.”

  Kristinge wanted him to explain, but Willimond was uninterested. “You know where Jouarre is?”

  “I do.”

  “Is it far from Paris
?”

  Ulfgar shrugged. “A long day’s walk. Forty miles. Maybe more.”

  Kristinge felt a twinge of disappointment at the wagonmaster’s words, as he was reminded again that he could spend an extra three days of travel delivering Walbert’s message. Yet the journey by wagon all the way to Auxerre and beyond had already saved him several days. And as they learned the next day, Ulfgar had managed to save them another by detouring further north and coming into the city from the other side, closer to the monastery. In the morning when Ulfgar let the monks off he surprised them, “Jouarre is not far from here. With a steady stride, three hours of walking will suffice.”

  Kristinge breathed a sigh of relief. They thanked the wagonmaster and gave him their blessings, then turned and strode in the direction he had sent them. By early afternoon they were approaching the monastery. As Walbert had told them, Jouarre was a masterpiece of stonework. Its patrons, the aristocracy of Paris and the Marne valley, had desired through this architecture and artwork to establish prestige for the young monastery, and thus fame for themselves as well. Not monks but professional Gallic artisans, likely trained by Greeks, or perhaps by Byzantine and Coptic masters, had carved and dressed the stone. The main walls and door frames were engraved with traditional religious scenes: Christ and the Apostles, the Symbols of the Evangelists, and other depictions of the life of the Lord. While the cornerstones, foundations, and even the crypt walls were decorated with elaborate geometric patterns: squares, diamonds, octagons, and an assortment of intricate shapes. It was an impressive work. The effect was made even more striking by the contrasting pink clay used as cement. Kristinge, who had never been to any monastery other than Luxeuil, stood in awe at the architecture as he waited by the gate. The structures of Luxeuil and Annegray, constructed from timbers and rough-hewn rocks of the surrounding lands by the unskilled hands of monks and local peasants, were crude by contrast.

  Yet Jouarre’s order was similar to that of the monastery Kristinge had just left. Both had adopted the rule of Benedictus. And though the implementation of the rule depended as much on the personality of the current abbot or abbess as on any written codification, at present both still had a strong Irish influence. Jouarre’s founder, Adon, had been a disciple of Columbanus and a Luxeuil monk. Like Columbanus, he believed his monks should lead a simple life of vigorous work, meager food, as little sleep as possible, and immediate unquestioned obedience to their superiors. The result was that both monasteries were small and austere compared the much older Gallic monasteries under the rule of the Roman bishops. And yet their severity was neither self-centered nor proud, but rather holy and humble. It was, perhaps, this humility that the Franks found so refreshing and which was leading so many to join the Irish monastic ranks while the Gallic monasteries dwindled.

  But now Kristinge’s thoughts were on something else. Jouarre did differ from Luxeuil in one significant way. It was a double monastery with separate cloisters for women and men. This was a fact that Kristinge found somewhat curious. Columbanus had never despised nor been afraid of women, nor had he preached as some monks did that women were the root of evil; the Irish monk had been a well-educated scholar as well as poet, and was equally comfortable with women as men; even his first patroness had been the Dowager Queen Brunhild with whom he had spent considerable time before the infamous feud between them had erupted. Still there were no women at Luxeuil except for rare occasions when female guests were welcomed. And so Kristinge wondered if the presence of women monks in close proximity to the men made some difference to the nature of life there, despite the fact that there was very little interaction between them. He was staring at a stone on the front gate with a scene of Christ at the Judgment day, and wondering about the nature of the double monastery, when a young monk approached. Speaking in the Frankish tongue used for visitors, he asked them who they were seeking.

  “We are looking for the Abbot,” Willimond answered him in Latin.

  Kristinge wrestled his eyes back down from the beautiful art work. The young Jouarre monk was now looking them over carefully, taking note of their monastic robes. His eyes stopped when he saw Willimond’s unusual tonsure. “Brother Agilbert is at prayer,” he replied in Latin. “He may be gone for several hours.”

  “Willimond,” Kristinge whispered. “Jouarre is ruled by an abbess. Her name is Telchild. Walbert’s message is to be delivered to her.”

  Willimond corrected himself. “Pardon me, brother,” he said to the monk at the gate. “We seek the abbess. We have a message from Abbot Walbert of Luxeuil.”

  At the mention of Luxeuil and Walbert, the monk grew more attentive. He looked at Kristinge and then back at Willimond. “I will inform brother Agilbert of your presence. The abbess is his sister, and he may wish to meet you or to hear your message.” Before Kristinge or Willimond could stop him, he turned and disappeared. He did not reutrn for several minutes. While he was gone, Kristinge apologized to Willimond for not having told him earlier who the message was for, but Willimond only shrugged. Then they both fell quiet, inspired perhaps by the architecture or the spirit of the place to return to their monastic practice of silence. Eventually the young monk returned. He appeared embarrassed. “Brother Agilbert is busy with other duties and cannot be disturbed, but he has asked me to lead you to the Abbess Telchild.” He paused, then bowed in greeting. “I am sorry. Forgive my lack of hospitality. I am brother Wilfrid.” He led the two visitors through the outer gate, past a small cluster of buildings toward another large chapel surrounded by a low wall with a gate. Within was the cloister of the women’s monastery. He rang a bell at the gate, and then waited. “We will meet outside,” he said. “Men do not enter here.”

  A few minutes later a young woman appeared dressed in a simple hooded robe similar to that of Wilfrid. She bowed in greeting to the three men, then turned toward Wilfrid. They exchanged a few words, and then she turned and left. A minute later she returned with another woman whom Kristinge had no difficulty guessing was the abbess. She was tall and stately, forty years old or older, and wore her hood down revealing long auburn hair streaked with gray and bound in the back with a single strand of wool the same color as her robe. In her face was a look that Kristinge found at first hard to identify, but later came to name as holiness. She greeted Wilfrid with a kiss on each cheek, and then turned to the guests.

  “Abbess Telchild, these are Brother Willimond and Brother Kristinge, guests from Luxeuil,” Wilfrid explained. “They bring you a message from Abbot Walbert.”

  “Greetings in the name of Christ,” Telchild said, in a rich voice that sounded more feminine than Kristinge expected.

  “Greetings,” Willimond and Kristinge answered simultaneously. Hands folded at the waist, they bowed. Kristinge noticed then that Willimond had put his hood back up, and he did the same.

  Wilfrid, having done his task, turned to leave. “You will stay with us this evening,” he said. “I will see that guest rooms are prepared.” He departed before they had a chance to accept or decline.

  “Come then,” Telchild said. “Let us walk. We will talk in the garden.” She turned to the young female monk beside her. “Dear Begga, please bring us a loaf of bread. And some wine.”

  “Yes, Mother,” the younger woman replied.

  Kristinge was surprised by the abbess’s offer of hospitality. He had expected simply to deliver the message, and then to depart—though he wasn’t sure why he had that expectation since Walbert and Petrica had also always greeted visitors at Luxeuil hospitably. But Telchild did not yet take any interest in Kristinge’s message. Instead, as they walked around the perimeter of the monastery wall, she spoke casually to Willimond. “You are from Britain?”

  “I am from Iona, and then Lindisfarne in Northumbria.”

  Telchild looked him over carefully. “Lindisfarena? I know that name well enough. I should have known from your tonsure. Were you there during the rule of Aidan?”

  Willimond smiled in appreciation to hear the abbess refer to h
is old monastery using its Saxon name rather than the Latin version. “For a time I dwelt there,” he said. “Too short a time. Aidan was like a father to me. I was a young child when he took me into Iona, and I went with him to Lindisfarena at the call of the English king Oswald. But I spent only one year there before I was sent to Friesland. I did not even see it finished. That was so many years ago.”

  “To the Frisii?” Telchild said. Now she looked even more surprised. “Time passes quickly, does it not? Friesland. I did not know there was a mission there. Put your hoods down, my brothers,” she said. Whether it was command from a ruling abbess or a gesture of friendship and equality, Kristinge did not know. But she was studying Willimond through deep green eyes that Kristinge only now noticed. As he and Willimond rolled back their hoods, she continued. “My brother Agilbert has been to Lindisfarne. He may be able to tell you something about it since you left. He will be returning to Britain soon. He has been called there by the Roman church, though I confess he has a difficult time with the Anglo-Saxon tongue. I, too, once met Aidan before his death. He was a holy man—fierce in his love of peace, and fiercer still in his zeal for the Gospel.”

  “He was a father to me,” Willimond repeated.

  Telchild nodded. There was both knowledge and understanding hidden behind her sea-green eyes; both gentleness and authority in her manner. Though she was twice Kristinge’s age, he was surprised to find himself suddenly attracted to this abbess. He flushed with a mixture of guilt and embarrassment at feelings that were foreign.