We waited, listening to the wind rustle across the thatched roofs and moan in the ruined houses. I waited a long time, letting the memory of the rattled door subside.
“It must be close to midnight,” Gisela whispered.
“Whoever opens the door,” I said softly, “has to be silenced.” I did not know what was happening inside the church, but I did know it was so secret that the church was locked and a coded knock was needed to enter, and I also knew that we were uninvited, and that if the man who opened the door made a protest at our arrival then we might never discover ?thelflaed’s danger.
“Leave him to me,” Finan said happily.
“He’s a churchman,” I whispered, “does that worry you?”
“In the dark, lord, all cats are black.”
“Meaning?”
“Leave him to me,” the Irishman said again.
“Then let’s go to church,” I said, and the three of us crossed the street and I knocked hard on the door. I knocked three times, gave a single rap, then knocked three times again.
It took a long time for the door to be opened, but at last the bar was lifted and the door was pushed outward. “They’ve started,” a robed figure whispered, then gasped as I seized his collar and pulled him into the street where Finan hit him in the belly. The Irishman was a small man, but had extraordinary strength in his lithe arms, and the robed figure bent double with a sudden gasp. The door’s inner curtain had fallen across the opening and no one inside the church could see what happened outside. Finan punched the man again, felling him, then knelt on the fallen figure. “You go away,” Finan whispered, “if you want to live. You just go a very long way from the church and you forget you ever saw us. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” the man said.
Finan tapped the man on the head to reinforce the order, then stood up and we saw the dark figure scrabble to his feet and stumble away downhill. I waited a brief while to make sure he had really gone, then the three of us stepped inside and Finan pulled the door shut and dropped the bar into its brackets.
And I pushed the curtain aside.
We were in the darkest part of the church, but I still felt exposed because the far end, where the altar stood, was ablaze with rushlights and wax candles. A line of robed men stood facing the altar and their shadows shrouded us. One of those priests turned toward us, but he just saw three cloaked and hooded figures and must have assumed we were more priests because he turned back to the altar.
It took me a moment to see who was on the altar’s wide shallow dais because they were hidden by the priests and monks, but then the churchmen all bowed to the silver crucifix and I saw ?thelred and Aldhelm standing on the left-hand side of the altar while Bishop Erkenwald was on the right. Between them was ?thelflaed. She wore a white linen shift belted just beneath her small breasts and her fair hair was hanging loose, as if she were a girl again. She looked frightened. An older woman stood behind ?thelred. She had hard eyes and her gray hair was rolled into a tight scroll on the crown of her skull.
Bishop Erkenwald was praying in Latin and every few minutes the watching priests and monks, there were nine of them altogether, echoed his words. Erkenwald was dressed in red and white robes on which jeweled crosses had been sewn. His voice, always harsh, echoed from the stone walls, while the responses of the churchmen were a dull murmur. ?thelred looked bored, while Aldhelm seemed to be taking a quiet delight in whatever mysteries unfolded in that flame-lit sanctuary.
The bishop finished his prayers, the watching men all said amen, and then there was a slight pause before Erkenwald took a book from the altar. He unwrapped the leather covers, then turned the stiff pages to a place he had marked with a seagull’s feather. “This,” he spoke in English now, “is the word of the Lord.”
“Hear the word of the Lord,” the priests and monks muttered.
“If a man fears his wife has been unfaithful,” the bishop spoke louder, his grating voice repeated by the echo, “he shall bring her before the priest! And he shall bring an offering!” He stared pointedly at ?thelred who was dressed in a pale green cloak over a full coat of mail. He even wore his swords, something most priests would never allow in a church. “An offering!” the bishop repeated.
?thelred started as if he had been woken from a half-sleep. He fumbled in a pouch hanging from his sword belt and produced a small bag that he held toward the bishop. “Barley,” he said.
“As the Lord God commanded it,” Erkenwald responded, but did not take the offered barley.
“And silver,” ?thelred added, hurriedly taking a second bag from his pouch.
Erkenwald took the two offerings and laid them in front of the crucifix. He bowed to the bright-gleaming image of his nailed god, then picked up the big book again. “This is the word of the Lord,” he said fiercely, “that we take holy water in an earthen vessel, and of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and he shall put that dust in the water.”
The book was put back on the altar as a priest offered the bishop a crude pottery cup that evidently held holy water, for Erkenwald bowed to it, then stooped to the floor and scraped up a handful of dirt and dust. He poured the dirt into the water, then placed the cup on the altar before taking up the book again.
“I charge thee, woman,” he said savagely, looking from the book to ?thelflaed, “if no man hath lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another man instead of thy husband, then be thou free of the curse of this bitter water!”
“Amen,” one of the priests said.
“The word of the Lord!” another said.
“But if thou hast gone aside to another man,” Erkenwald spat the words as he read them, “and be defiled, then the Lord shall make thy thigh to rot and thy belly to swell.” He put the book back on the altar. “Speak, woman.”
?thelflaed just stared at the bishop. She said nothing. Her eyes were wide with fear.
“Speak, woman!” the bishop snarled. “You know what words you must say! So say them!”
?thelflaed seemed too frightened to speak. Aldhelm whispered something to ?thelred who nodded, but did nothing. Aldhelm whispered again, and again ?thelred nodded, and this time Aldhelm took a pace forward and hit ?thelfaed. It was not a hard blow, just a slap around the head, but it was enough to force me to take an involuntary step forward. Gisela snatched my arm, checking me. “Speak, woman,” Aldhelm ordered ?thelflaed.
“Amen,” ?thelflaed managed to whisper, “amen.”
Gisela’s hand was still on my arm. I patted her fingers as a signal that I was calm. I was angry, I was astonished, but I was calm. I stroked Gisela’s hand, then dropped my fingers to Serpent-Breath’s hilt.
?thelflaed had evidently spoken the right words because Bishop Erkenwald took the earthen cup from the altar. He raised it high in front of the crucifix, as if showing it to his god, then he carefully poured a little of its dust- fouled water into a silver chalice. He held the pottery cup high again, then ceremoniously offered it to ?thelflaed. “Drink the bitter water,” he ordered her.
?thelflaed hesitated, then saw Aldhelm’s mailed arm ready to strike her again and so she obediently reached for the cup. She took it, held it poised by her mouth for a brief moment, then closed her eyes, screwed up her face and drank the contents. The men watched intently, making certain she drained the cup. The candle flames flickered in a draft from the smoke-hole in the roof and somewhere in the city a dog suddenly howled. Gisela was clutching my arm now, her fingers tight as claws.
Erkenwald took the cup and, when he was satisfied that it was empty, nodded to ?thelred. “She drank it,” the bishop confirmed. ?thelflaed’s face glistened where her tears reflected the wavering light from the altar on which, I now saw, was a quill pen, a pot of ink, and a piece of parchment. “What I do now,” Erkenwald said solemnly, “is in accordance with the word of God.”
“Amen,” the priests said. ?thelred was watching his wife as if he expected her flesh to start rotting before his eyes, while ?thelflaed herself was trembling so much that I thought she might collapse.
“God commands me to write the curses down,” the bishop announced, then bent to the altar. The quill scratched for a long time. ?thelred was still staring intently at ?thelflaed. The priests also watched her as the bishop scratched on. “And having written the curses,” Erkenwald said, capping the ink pot, “I wipe them out according to the commands of Almighty God, our Father in heaven.”
“Hear the word of the Lord,” a priest said.
“Praise his name,” another said.
