‘We would welcome your help,’ I said in Latin.
He looked at me in surprise, as I did not have the appearance of someone with an education.
‘The lad tells me that you came out of a small boat,’ he said, switching to the same language.
‘We’re travelling to the court of the Frankish king,’ I replied.
Again he looked surprised.
‘I supposed you are shipwrecked mariners or perhaps pilgrims. We sometimes see pilgrims from across the water, on their way to Rome.’
‘We had to abandon ship,’ I lied.
I was met with a puzzled look.
‘There has been no storm.’
‘A fire on board,’ I invented hastily. ‘The cook was careless. The other passengers and crew got away in another boat. If you could set us on our way, I would be grateful.’
The old priest hesitated, looking uncertain.
‘Carolus, our king, could be in any of a dozen places. He has no fixed residence.’
It was my turn to be taken aback. I had imagined the great ruler of the Franks to be living in a splendid palace in a settled capital, not wandering from place to place like a nomad. Life would be more difficult if Osric and I had to go searching his vast kingdom to catch up with him.
‘But most likely he is at Aachen in this season,’ said the priest. ‘He is engaged in building works there, an extraordinary project I understand.’
‘Then perhaps you could tell me the best way there, and how far we must travel,’ I said.
‘What about your boat? Will you be leaving it behind?’
I guessed that the priest considered a small boat to be an item of considerable value.
‘I will be glad if you accept the boat as a thankgift. I have no further use for it,’ I said magnanimously.
The priest glanced at Osric standing crookedly a pace behind me.
‘You will need the permission of my abbot if you and your companion are to go any further.’
He spoke a few words to the boy. Doubtless he was telling him to go to the beach and secure the boat before it drifted off for the lad scampered away over the dunes.
‘Come with me!’ he said, ‘There’s a village nearby where you can rest. Tomorrow we will go on to the monastery and meet the abbot.’
We squelched along the footpath which wound through the reed beds. The priest led the way, splashing through the puddles. The ragged hem of his gown was dark and sodden. We skirted several large ponds, their dark brown water still and silent. I shivered at the memory of my brother’s death.
‘My name is Lothar,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You were fortunate that I was in the area when you arrived, or no one would have understood you — they speak their own local dialect. The village belongs to my monastery and is a very poor place. The families live by fishing and by collecting whatever is cast up along the shoreline.’
From his tone of voice I gathered that he was still not fully convinced that Osric and I were genuine castaways.
‘I didn’t see any fishing harbour,’ I said.
‘The coast here is too exposed to heavy winter storms. The villagers keep their boats in a river mouth nearby, and in bad weather they net the inland ponds.’ He could no longer restrain his curiosity. ‘Where did you learn to speak Latin so well?’
‘My father arranged for a priest to teach me.’ I did not say that the priest had been on the run. Bertwald was being pursued by the Church for theft and had arrived with his mistress in tow, a wild-looking slattern with a dramatic bush of wiry, auburn hair. My father, who believed in the Old Ways, took pleasure in giving shelter to a renegade from a religion for which he had no use. Bertwald had stayed with us for nearly ten years, with little to do except breed children and instruct me, his only pupil. Together he and Osric had been the two great influences of my growing up and I was only just beginning to appreciate how good a teacher Bertwald had been. Besides Latin, he had taught me how to read and write and even some grammar and logic. When he was drunk he would boast about the importance of the foundation to which he had once belonged. He’d claimed it had its own school and a library with fifty books. But in the end his loose talk undid him. One of our local Christians betrayed him to his former bishop and he had left as hastily as he had arrived.
We reached the fishing village, a huddle of small huts thatched with reeds. There were nets everywhere. They were heaped outside doors, draped over roofs, stretched between posts to dry, and strung out at a convenient height so they could be repaired. Every able-bodied man who was actively employed was mending nets. Unsurprisingly, the place reeked of fish.
Our supper was stale bread and shellfish stew, and we passed the night in one of the huts, asleep on mattresses of discarded nets. When we rose in the morning, we too had a distinctly fishy smell.
‘We’ll bathe when we reach the monastery,’ Lothar assured me. It was not yet full daylight, and a dozen villagers joined us. In the half-darkness each man was bent forward under the weight of a large wickerwork pannier strapped to his back. I thought I heard a faint creaking as if their burdens were alive.
The dawn came, dull and grey and with not a breath of wind as we walked inland. The ground rose gently, the landscape changing from wet marsh to dry uncultivated heath. Flocks of small birds rose from the low bushes on either side of the path, and a large hare lolloped away before stopping and turning to look back at our little column as we tramped along. It was a wild and desolate place and we saw no sign of human habitation. After three hours we stopped briefly for a meal of chewy strips of dried fish washed down with lukewarm water from leather bottles. There was no conversation. The accompanying villagers were a taciturn lot. They sat on the ground, not removing the panniers from their backs. Eventually, soon after midday, we came to an area of open woodland and finally saw some buildings. Our guide quickened his pace. ‘We should arrive in time for nones,’ he said.
I had been expecting his abbey to be something substantial and impressive, yet the place could have been mistaken for a large farm sheltered by an outer wall.
We plodded in through the gate and found ourselves in a large unpaved courtyard surrounded by stables, cattle byres and storage sheds. The abbey itself formed one side of the yard and was no bigger than my father’s great hall. A priest on his way in through the abbey’s entrance door turned and called out greetings. Lothar waved to him but our silent companions who had tramped up from the coast ignored him. They went directly to a large stone trough set to one side of the yard. One by one, they halted in front of the trough, bent forward at the waist, and a colleague unfastened the lid of the pannier. Out from the basket poured a writhing brown and black mass. It cascaded over the porter’s head and landed wetly into the trough and slithered and thrashed. An image flashed into my mind of the lily root that had drowned my brother and my stomach heaved. The villagers had been carrying a delivery of live eels, most of them as long as my outstretched arms. They knotted and wriggled, vainly trying to climb up the sides of the trough and escape.
Relieved of their burdens, the porters were already making their way back towards the gate. They wanted to be back in their homes by nightfall.
‘How often do they bring eels up here?’ I asked the priest.
‘Every second month. They net them in the ponds and keep them until it is time to pay their tithe.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘One of God’s wonders. Fish of the sea and fish of the rivers come and go with the seasons, but eels are always there. A constant crop.’
A strikingly dressed figure emerged from the doorway of the main abbey building and darted across the courtyard to inspect the roiling mass of eels. A short, balding, rotund man, he wore a pink tunic of fine wool with dark-blue leggings and orange cross garters. His fashionable shoes had long, pointed upturned toes and were bright yellow. There was an expensive looking chain around his neck.
‘There’s Abbot Walo. You can explain yourselves to him,’ said Lothar.
I noted a jewelled Christian cross suspended from the neck chain.
‘You have done well, Lothar,’ said his abbot, rubbing his hands together briskly. The crucifix bobbed up and down on his paunch. ‘There is enough here to meet our obligation.’
Abbot Walo reminded me of an active plump bird with bright plumage, an impression strengthened by the beady-eyed look he gave me.
‘And who are you?’ he demanded.
‘He came ashore near the village and says he is on his way to the king’s court,’ explained Lothar.
‘My name is Sigwulf,’ I broke in. ‘I am travelling to the Frankish court at the request of King Offa of Mercia.’ I
