Saint Cuthbert Trilogy

Chapter 5

Any thoughts about going home that Edwy and I nurtured were nipped in the bud when I asked Lord Berhtred.

“The king has ordered me not to disband our force. There’s no chance of your returning to your village Aella, at least, not until next summer is over. King Ecgfrith is waiting for next spring and then we move again. The weather should be better where we’re headed.”

“Not Ériu again,” I groaned.

He grinned, “No, not Ériu!” but would say no more.

This meant we had to stay in Babbanburgh and, apart from getting my candlestick melted down into small ingots, there was little for me to do except weapon practice. So, I went to Berhtred and asked if I could have leave to visit Bishop Cuthbert. He gave me a quizzical look,

“Don’t tell me you’re becoming a Christian, after all!”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Just don’t let it make you soft. I prefer my warriors to be as tough as your old leather!”

I reassured him that I only wanted to find out more about the religion I’d accepted and he permitted me, saying that he’d send Edwy to fetch me if my presence was needed.

I approached the shore.

“Hey! Where d’ye think yer goin’?”

A fisherman sitting on a bollard called to me as I reached the pathway to the island. The weather-beaten face crinkled into a broken-toothed smile.

“Can’t ye tell yon tide’s comin’ in? If ye wants to be crossin’ to Lindisfarena, ye’d best be waitin’ for the ebb tide.”

“And when will that be, friend?”

“I can see yer a landlubber! Ye just come an’ wait here by me an’ I’ll tell yer when it’s safe to cross. There’s many a pilgrim got himself into trouble wi’ yon tide rip. It’s a league across from here to yonder, ye know.”

I thanked him for the information and watched him mend his net, learning that his favourite time for fishing was the last hour before darkness fell.

At last, gazing out to sea, he said, “It’s on the turn, now.”

I didn’t know what he meant.

“The tide, it’s on the turn. You can cross now and it’ll be safe until mid-afternoon. Ye just follow the retreating waves if ye can’t wait any longer.”

tideI made my way slowly across the sand and mudflats until, after more than an hour, I reckon, I struggled onto the island amid its dunes, scattering piping, protesting oystercatchers as I plodded ashore. From the top of a dune, I looked back at the mainland and fancied it was nearer than the three miles the fisherman had said, although my legs told me otherwise. The place seemed large from where I was standing but the net-mender had said the isle was three miles from east to west and half as long from north to south.

I found a track and followed it towards what I supposed would be the centre of the island and soon came to the wooden enclosure of the monastery. At the gate, I asked a monk for Bishop Cuthbert, but he took me by the arm and led me away from the entry and pointed to a path.

“You’ll find the bishop in the church. Just follow the track that way. You can’t go wrong.” He scurried back to his post. I wondered if I would be the only person to seek something of the fellow that day—his seemed a very boring job.

Less than four hundred yards down the trail and I was gazing at a building made of hewn oak, in those days its roof made of reeds. When I returned years later, it was covered in lead. Bishop Cuthbert was inside the church deep in prayer. Loth to disturb him, I sat on one of the sturdy wooden benches behind him. He heard the movement, I’m sure, because not long after, he murmured, “Amen,” made the sign of the cross and turned to stare towards me. On seeing me, he rose quickly and clasped his head in his hands,

“Oh, my head, I mustn’t jump up like that!”

I wondered if his health was as good as it might be.

He beamed at me, “It is you, Aella! Back from the war. Tell me, are you well?”

is“Your Grace, I thank you, very well. I have come in search of learning. You once said you would teach me about the faith upon my return. Well, I am back,” I ended lamely.

He grinned and took my hand, “So it shall be,” he said, “but not here in God’s house. Come, it’ll be better done in His wide world. I know just the place!”

The bishop led me away from the church and farther still from the monastery towards the sound of crashing waves.

“There’s a lovely little cove down here, Aella, I come here whenever I want to contemplate. I was used to the life of a hermit, you know?”

I did not. There was so much I wanted to learn about him and I told him so as we sat on the springy turf among the purple sea thrift and tiny yellow tormentil.

“You wish to know about me, Aella? Surely, Our Lord Jesus would be a more appropriate subject. I am but a poor wretch.”

“But one, Your Grace, who has stayed in my thoughts since the day we met.”

“Well, God moves in mysterious ways, Aella, so I shall do your bidding. Although Heaven knows, I do not like talking about myself.” Bishop Cuthbert took a deep breath and began,

“Now, Kenwith, I like speaking about her!”

Kenwithher!“Kenwith?” I wondered who the woman was and what she meant to him.

As if reading my mind, he said, “She was my foster-mother. I did not know my true parents, so she was a mother to me. Did you know, I was a warrior, like you, Aella.? My foster-father had me trained in arms, as a young man and I fought in a battle.”

I swear he shuddered.

“But that all changed when I was on guard duty one night and had a vision.”

There was something strange and rapt in his expression that made me think he was reliving the experience.

“I did not know it then, but that night, at that precise moment, the blessed saint, Aidan, died—he who founded the monastery here, Aella. I saw a peculiar light in the starry sky and it carried to Heaven a soul.” He seized my arm, “It was the soul of Aidan and the brilliance must have been an angel. I made up my mind on the instant, although I could not abandon my post. Within days I had taken my leave of my comrades and marched through Lauderdale to the new monastery of Melrose. I wished to be admitted as a novice. I said as much at the gate, where by God’s grace, Prior Boisil was stationed.” Cuthbert paused with a faraway look in his eyes, then said, “He was a disciple of the same Aidan and upon seeing me and hearing my request, he uttered, Behold, the servant of the Lord! You see, Aella, he understood and told me that I would rise to a high degree in the Church. He knew, just like I know with you.”

Behold, the servant of the Lord!knewyou“With me?” I protested—I, who had no intention of becoming a churchman.

meCuthbert, who was endowed with extraordinary shrewdness, smiled,

“I do not mean that you will be a bishop or even a priest, Aella, but I assure you, God has chosen you for his work. I know this!”

I wondered what he meant, but letting the matter be, breathed deeply and pressed him to continue his life story.

“Once accepted into the priory at Melrose, the saintly Boisil befriended me and taught me the sacred scriptures of which, I, like you, was ignorant. I became his close companion and together we went on a mission preaching from village to village and, undoubtedly, Boisil’s knowledge of curative herbs enhanced his reputation, for he treated the sick with much success. The prior could foretell the future, Aella, prophecy is a gift of God. The holy man predicted the plague that would sweep the land and claim his body. He also foretold that I, too, would succumb but that God would spare me.” Cuthbert stared at me as if to test my stance on the matter. In a measured voice, he said, “All this came about. When he died, I became Prior of Melrose according to his divination. And yet, I fear the life of settled administration is not for me. You do not know this, but my present position was thrust upon me against my will. It went like this: at Melrose, I continued preaching in the countryside and left my duties to be fulfilled by a good man: my vice-Prior. My long absences were ascribed, thankfully, to my proselytising—”

“What’s that?”

“It means bringing men into Christ’s fold.”

“Ah!”

He smiled and went on,

“Anyway, I made an oratory at a place in the north called Dull, with a stone cross and a cell for me to contemplate…” he raised a hand and pointed around, “…look around you, my friend, gaze upon the beauty of God’s Creation, does a man not need time to ponder it?”

I picked a five-petalled tormentil and handed the splendid tiny yellow flower to him, saying,

“Is this not just as perfect as the restless sea or the sun in the sky?”

He opened his eyes wide, leant over me and, to my surprise, planted a kiss on my cheek.

“That is the most beautiful thing I have heard, Aella, in many a long day. I am not wrong. God has chosen you.”

has“Ay, but what for?” I muttered.

“He will show you your path in His good time, my friend.”

“Now, what was I saying?” Despite his strong intellect, he was distracted and I helped him,

“You were telling me about Melrose Priory.”

“Ah yes, but I retired from there and went to live on a small isle over yonder.” He pointed behind us.

“Do you mean another island near here?”

“Ay, in a cave.”

I was aghast, “But weren’t you lonely and cold?”

“Lonely? Never, not with God’s presence.”

I gasped. This man was truly different from any I had known.

“And cold? Ay, of course. But Our Lord suffered agonies for us on the Cross. Do you know ought of his five wounds, Aella?”

I admitted what little I knew was from my foster-mother’s garbled accounts, so he patiently recounted the Easter story of Jesus Christ. When he’d finished, I was suitably moved and he flung a hand round my shoulders.

“Be not sorrowful, for it is a tale of joy—how Our Lord rose on the third day for our redemption!”

“I want you to tell me more about this, Your Grace, but first, you must finish your story.”

He gave me the hardest possible look to interpret. At first, I thought it was withering or angry, but later, I came to believe it was a mixture of embarrassment and modesty. Luckily, he continued,

“There’s not much more to tell. I have fifty winters weighing on me and think that soon God will call me to Him. People came to seek my counsel on the island, for no man may completely shut himself off from the world. In my absence from Melrose, oddly, my reputation for sanctity grew. One day, King Ecgfrith and a group of people came to persuade me to take up the bishopric of Hexham. But I refused. I cared too deeply for the contemplative life. In the end, I agreed to exchange bishoprics with the obliging Bishop Eata, who was bishop here on Lindisfarena. It suits me better to be near the sea, Aella.”

“I understand.”

“And now you and I are here, brother. We will come every day unless it rains. I will instruct you in the sacred scriptures, as Boisil, of blessed memory, taught me.” And so, he did and we became the firmest friends. To tell the truth, he grew into a hero for me—not every paragon needs to wield a weapon. Cuthbert was the strongest man I ever met, stronger even than Berhtred—but not physically, in another way.

Before this first day’s conversation was brought to an end, I had the pressing matter of the occurrence in Ériu to raise. I recounted the episode of how I had unwittingly spared the priest.

I could see the thunder on his brow when he learnt of the sacking of the churches.

“God will surely punish Ecgfrith for this sacrilege,” he said, eyes full of sorrow. “But, Aella, every time you open your mouth, the conviction grows in me that God has chosen you.”

Again! This insistence unnerved me.

“I must explain to you the concept of god in three persons.”

When he had finished, he stared hard at me,

“Now do you understand, Aella?”

“I-I think so. You are saying that the Holy Spirit intervened to move me to spare the life of that priest.”

“You are a good student: a swift learner.”

I think that, rather, he was a gifted teacher. Even so, I felt compelled to declare:

“But I felt no sign that the Holy Spirit was working within me.”

He laughed and patiently explained how much effort was needed to achieve a state of grace. Promising to help me attain it by teaching me how to pray and the benefits that would accrue, he brought this first session to an end. As we walked towards the monastery, I had a profound sense of change in my life. Mostly, I recognised that I had found a hero and the good fortune to be befriended by such a man. Even so, I could not begin to suspect that day, just how influential Bishop Cuthbert would be in my life. Meanwhile, I spent the whole of winter in the monastery, learnt to pray and follow the rhythms of monastic life. I spent my first Christmas there and learn about the Babe of Bethlehem.