The Evening and the Morning

CHAPTER 28 May 1001

n the outskirts of the village of Trench, the monks began to sing.

All eight from the Dreng’s Ferry priory were present, including blind Cuthbert, plus Edgar to work the mechanism. They walked in solemn procession on each side of the cart, with Godleof leading the ox by the ring in its nose.

The effigy of the saint and the yew chest containing the bones were on the cart but covered by cloths that also prevented their shifting.

The villagers were working in the fields. They were busy, but it was the time for weeding, and that task was easy to abandon. As they heard the singing they unbent from the green shoots of barley and rye, stood upright rubbing their backs, saw the procession, and came across the fields to the road to find out what was going on.

Aldred had ordered the monks not to speak to anyone until afterward. They continued to sing, solemn-faced, looking straight ahead. The villagers joined the procession, following the cart, talking among themselves in excited whispers.

Aldred had planned everything carefully, but this was the first time he had tried it out. He prayed for success.

The cart passed between houses, drawing out all those who were not working in the fields: old men and women, children too young to tell the difference between crops and weeds, a shepherd with a sickly lamb in his arms, a carpenter with a hammer and chisel, a milkmaid carrying a butter churn that she continued to agitate as she fell in behind the cart. The dogs came, too, excitedly sniffing the robes of the strangers.

They all arrived at the center of the village. There was a pond, an unfenced communal pasture where a few goats grazed, an alehouse, and a small wooden church. A large house presumably belonged to old Thane Cenbryht, but he did not appear, and Aldred presumed he was away from home.

Godleof brought the cart around so that its rear end was in line with the church door, then released the ox and put it to graze in the pasture.

The relics and the effigy could now be smoothly lifted and carried into the church by the monks: they had practiced this maneuver to be confident of doing it in a dignified manner.

That was Aldred’s plan. But now he saw the village priest standing in front of the church door with his arms folded. He was young, and he looked scared but determined.

That was strange.

“Keep singing,” Aldred murmured to the others, then he approached the priest. “Good day, Father.”

“Good day to you.”

“I’m Prior Aldred of Dreng’s Ferry, and I bring the holy relics of Saint Adolphus.”

“I know,” said the priest.

Aldred frowned. How did he know? Aldred had told no one his plans. But he decided not to get into that discussion. “The saint wishes to spend tonight in the church.”

The man looked troubled, but he said: “Well, he can’t.”

Aldred stared at him, astonished. “You’re willing to provoke the anger of the saint, with his sacred bones there in front of you?”

The priest swallowed hard. “I have my orders.”

“You do God’s will, of course.”

“God’s will, as explained to me by my superiors.”

“Which superior told you to deny Saint Adolphus a temporary resting place in your church?”

“My bishop.”

“Wynstan.”

“Yes.”

Wynstan had ordered the priest to do this—and, worse, he had probably sent the same message to every church between Glastonbury and Dreng’s Ferry. He must have moved quickly, to get word out so fast. And for what purpose? Merely to make it difficult for Aldred to raise money? Was there no limit to the bishop’s malice?

Aldred turned his back on the priest. The poor man was more terrified of Wynstan than he was of Saint Adolphus, and Aldred did not blame him. But Aldred was not ready to give up. The villagers were waiting for a spectacle, and Aldred was going to give them one. If it could not be in the church, it would just have to be outside.

He spoke quietly to Edgar. “The mechanism will work with the effigy on the cart, won’t it?”

“Yes,” said Edgar. “It will work anywhere.”

“Then get ready.”

Aldred moved in front of the cart, faced the villagers, looked around as they fell silent, and started to pray. He began in Latin. They did not understand the words but they were used to that: in fact the Latin would convince doubters, if there were any, that this was a genuine church service.

Then he switched to English. “O most omnipotent and eternal God, who reveals to us through the merits of Saint Adolphus your mercy and compassion, may your saint intercede for us.”

He said the Lord’s Prayer, and the villagers joined in.

After the prayers, Aldred told the story of the saint’s life and death. Only the bare facts were known, but Aldred embroidered freely. He portrayed the Saxon king as a raging egomaniac and Adolphus as amazingly sweet-tempered and pure-hearted, which could not have been far from the truth, he felt sure. He credited Adolphus with numerous invented miracles, believing that the saint must have performed them or similar wonders. The crowd was rapt.

Finally he addressed the saint personally, reminding people that Adolphus was actually present here in Trench village, moving among them, watching and listening. “O holy Adolphus, if there is anyone here, in the Christian village of Trench, who is feeling grief today, we beg you to bring consolation.”

This was Edgar’s cue. Aldred wanted to look back, but resisted the temptation, trusting Edgar to do what had been arranged.

Aldred made his voice boom out over the crowd. “If there is anyone here who has lost something precious, we beg you, O holy saint, to restore it.”

Behind him he heard faint creaking, which told him that Edgar, behind the cart, was pulling smoothly on a stout cord.

“If there is anyone here who has been robbed or cheated, bring justice.”

Suddenly there was a reaction. In the crowd, people began to point at the cart. Others stepped back, murmuring in surprise. Aldred knew why: the effigy, which had been lying on its back on the cart’s flat bed, was beginning to rise up, emerging from its wraps.

“If anyone here is sick, bring healing.”

Everyone in front of Aldred was staring past him in shock. He knew what they were looking at. He had rehearsed this many times with Edgar. The feet of the effigy remained on the cart but the body tilted upward. Edgar could be seen pulling on a cord, but the mechanism he was operating was not visible. To peasants who had never seen pulleys and levers, the statue seemed to be rising up of its own volition.

There was a collective gasp, and Aldred guessed the face had appeared.

“If anyone is tormented by demons, cast them out!”

Aldred had agreed with Edgar that the effigy’s rise would begin slowly then speed up; and now, as it stood upright with a jerk, the eyes came into clear view. A woman screamed and two children ran away. Several dogs barked in fear. Half the people crossed themselves.

“If there is anyone here who has committed a sin, turn your gaze upon him, O holy saint, and give him the courage to confess!”

A young woman near the front fell to her knees and moaned, staring up at the blue-eyed statue. “It was I who stole it,” she said. Tears streamed down her face. “I stole Abbe’s knife. I’m sorry, forgive me, I’m sorry.”

From the back of the crowd came the indignant voice of another woman. “Frigyth! You!”

Aldred had not been expecting this. He had hoped for a miraculous cure. However, Saint Adolphus had given him something different, so he would improvise. “The saint has touched your heart, sister,” he announced. “Where is the stolen knife?”

“In my house.”

“Fetch it now, and bring it to me.”

Frigyth got to her feet.

“Quickly, run!”

She ran through the crowd and entered a nearby house.

Abbe said: “I thought I’d lost it.”

Aldred prayed again. “O holy saint, we thank you for touching the sinner’s heart and making her confess!”

Frigyth reappeared with a shiny knife having an elaborately carved bone handle. She passed it to Aldred. He called Abbe, and she stepped forward. She wore a faintly skeptical look: she was older than Frigyth, and perhaps not so ready to believe in miracles.

Aldred said: “Do you forgive your neighbor?”

“Yes,” said Abbe without enthusiasm.

“Then give her the kiss of mercy.”

Abbe kissed Frigyth’s cheek.

Aldred handed Abbe the knife then said: “All kneel!”

He began a prayer in Latin. This was the cue for the monks to go around with begging bowls. “A gift for the saint, please,” they said quietly to the villagers, who could not easily move away because they were on their knees. A few shook their heads and said: “No money, sorry.” Most fished in their belt purses and came up with farthings and halfpennies. Two men went to their houses and returned with silver. The alehouse keeper gave a penny.

The monks thanked each donor, saying: “Saint Adolphus gives you his blessing.”

Aldred’s spirits were high. The villagers had been awestruck. A woman had confessed a theft. Most people had given money. The event had achieved what he wanted, despite Wynstan’s attempt to undermine it. And if it worked in Trench it would work elsewhere. Perhaps the priory would survive after all.

Aldred’s plan had been that the monks would spend the night in the church, guarding the relics, but that had to be abandoned now. He made a quick decision. “We’ll leave the village in procession and find somewhere else to spend the night,” he said to Godleof.

Aldred had one more message for the villagers. “You may see the saint again,” he said. “Come to the church at Dreng’s Ferry on Whitsunday, the feast of Pentecost. Bring the sick and the troubled and the bereaved.” He thought of telling them to spread the word, then realized that was unnecessary: everyone would be telling the story of today for months to come. “I look forward to welcoming you all.”

The monks returned with their bowls. Edgar lowered the effigy slowly, then covered it with cloths. Godleof returned the ox to the shafts.

The beast lumbered into action. The monks began to sing, and slowly they left the village.

On Whitsunday Aldred led the monks to the church for the predawn service of Matins, as always. It was a cloudless May morning in the season of hope, when the world was full of promising green shoots, plump piglets, young deer, and fast-growing calves. Aldred’s hope was that the tour he had made with Saint Adolphus would achieve its object of attracting pilgrims to Dreng’s Ferry.

Aldred planned a stone extension to the church, but there had not been enough time to build it, so Edgar had put up a temporary version in wood. A wide, round arch opened from the nave into a side chapel, where the effigy of Adolphus lay on a plinth. The congregation in the nave would observe the service taking place in the chancel and then turn, at the climax of the rite, to see the saint rise up miraculously and stare at them with his blue eyes.

And then, Aldred hoped, they would make donations.

The monks had trudged from village to village with the cart and the effigy, Aldred had repeated his rousing sermon every day for two weeks, and the saint had struck awe into the hearts of the people. There had even been a miracle, albeit a small one: an adolescent girl suffering from severe stomach pain had suddenly recovered when she saw the saint rise up.

The people had given money, mostly in halfpennies and farthings, but it had added up, and Aldred had arrived home with almost a pound of silver. That was very helpful, but the monks could not spend their lives on tour. They needed the people to come to them.

Aldred had urged everyone to visit on Whitsunday. It was in God’s hands now. There was only so much a mere human could do.

After Matins, Aldred paused outside the church to survey the hamlet in the early light. It had grown a little since he moved here. The first newcomer had been Bucca Fish, the third son of a Combe fishmonger and an old pal of Edgar’s. Edgar had persuaded Bucca to set up a stall selling fresh and smoked fish. Aldred had encouraged the project, hoping that a reliable supply of fish would help people in the area to observe more strictly the Church’s rules on fasting: they should eat no meat on Fridays, nor on the twelve festivals of the apostles or certain other special days. Demand was strong, and Bucca sold everything caught in Edgar’s traps.

Aldred and Edgar had discussed where Bucca should build a house for himself, and the question had prompted them to draw a village plan. Aldred had suggested a grid of squares for household groups, the way it was usually done, but Edgar had proposed something new, a main street going up the hill and a high street at right angles along the ridge. To the east of the main street they zoned a site for a new, larger church and monastery. It was probably a daydream, Aldred thought, albeit a pleasant one.

All the same, Edgar had spent a day marking the sites of houses in the main street, and Aldred had decreed that anyone willing to build on one of the sites could take timber from the woods and have a year rent-free. Edgar himself was building a house: although he spent a lot of time at Outhenham, nevertheless on the days he was at Dreng’s Ferry he preferred not to sleep at his brothers’ house, where he often had to listen to Cwenburg have sex with one or other of them, noisily.

Following Bucca’s lead three more strangers had settled in Dreng’s Ferry: a rope maker, who used the entire length of his backyard for plaiting his cords; a weaver, who built a long house and put his loom at one end and his wife and children at the other; and a shoemaker, who built a house next to Bucca’s.

Aldred had built a one-room schoolhouse. At first his only pupil had been Edgar. But now three small boys, the sons of prosperous men in the surrounding countryside, came to the priory every Saturday, each clutching half a silver penny in a grubby hand, to learn letters and numbers.

All this was good but not good enough. At this rate Dreng’s Ferry might become a great monastery in a hundred years. All the same, Aldred had forged on as best he could—until Osmund died and Wynstan cut off the money.

He looked across the river and was heartened to see a small group of pilgrims on the far side, sitting on the ground near the water’s edge, waiting for the ferry. That was a good sign so early in the morning. But it looked as if Dreng was still asleep and no one was operating the boat. Aldred went down the hill to wake him.

The alehouse door was closed and the windows shuttered. Aldred banged on the door but got no reply. However, there was no lock, so Aldred lifted the latch and went in.

The house was empty.

Aldred stood in the doorway, looking around, baffled. Blankets were piled neatly, and the straw on the floor was raked. The barrels and jars of ale had been put away, probably in the brewhouse, which had a lock. There was a smell of cold ashes: the fire was out.

The inhabitants had gone.

There was no one to operate the ferry. That was a blow.

Well, Aldred thought, we’ll operate it ourselves. We have to get those pilgrims across. The monks can take turns. We can do it.

Puzzled but determined, he went back outside. That was when he noticed that the ferry was not at its mooring. He looked up and down the bank, then scanned the opposite side with a sinking heart. The boat was nowhere to be seen.

He reasoned logically. Dreng had gone, with his two wives and his slave girl, and they had taken the boat.

Where had he gone? Dreng did not like to travel. He left the hamlet about once a year. His rare trips were usually to Shiring, and you could not get there by river.

Upstream, to Bathford and Outhenham? Or downstream, to Mudeford and Combe? Neither made much sense, especially as he had taken his family.

Aldred might have been able to guess where if he had known why. What reason could Dreng possibly have for going away?

He realized grimly that this was not a coincidence. Dreng knew all about Saint Adolphus and the Whitsun invitation. The malicious ferry owner had left on the very day when Aldred was hoping that hundreds of people would come to his church. Dreng had known that the absence of the ferry would ruin Aldred’s plan.

It must have been deliberate.

And once Aldred had figured that out, the next logical deduction was inevitable.

Dreng had been put up to this by Wynstan.

Aldred wanted to strangle them both with his bare hands.

He suppressed such irreligious passions. Rage was pointless. What could he do?

The answer came immediately. The boat was gone, but Edgar had a raft. It was not moored here by the tavern, but that was not unusual: Edgar sometimes tied it up near the farmhouse.

Aldred’s spirits lifted. He turned from the river and set off up the hill at a fast walk.

Edgar had decided to build his new house opposite the site of the new church, even though there was no church there yet and might never be. The walls of the house were up but the roof was not yet thatched. Edgar sat on a bale of straw, writing with a stone on a large piece of slate that he had fixed into a wooden frame. He was making a calculation, frowning with his tongue between his teeth, perhaps adding up the materials he would need to rebuild the saint’s chapel in stone.

Aldred said: “Where’s your raft?”

“On the riverbank by the tavern. Has something happened?”

“The raft is not there now.”

“Damn.” Edgar stepped outside to see, and Aldred followed. They both looked down the hill to the riverside. There were no vessels of any kind in sight. “That’s odd,” said Edgar. “They can’t both have come untied accidentally.”

“No. We’re not talking about an accident here.”

“Who . . . ?”

“Dreng has vanished. The tavern is empty.”

“He must have taken the ferry . . . and taken my raft, too, to prevent us using it.”

“Exactly. He will have set it adrift several miles away. He’ll claim he has no idea what happened to it.” Aldred felt defeated. “With no ferry and no raft, we can’t bring the visitors across the river.”

Edgar snapped his fingers. “Mother Agatha has a boat,” he said. “It’s very small—with one person rowing and two passengers it’s crowded—but it floats.”

Aldred’s hopes rose again. “A little boat is better than nothing.”

“I’ll swim across and beg a loan. Agatha will be happy to help, especially when she finds out what Dreng and Wynstan are trying to do.”

“If you’ll start rowing the visitors over, I’ll send a monk to relieve you after an hour.”

“They’re also going to want to buy food and drink at the alehouse.”

“There’s nothing there, but we can sell them everything in the priory stores. We’ve got ale and bread and fish. We’ll manage.”

Edgar ran down the hill to the riverside and Aldred hurried to the monks’ house. It was still early: there was time to get passengers across the river and turn the monastery into a tavern.

Fortunately it was a fine day. Aldred told the monks to set up trestle tables outside and round up all the cups and bowls in the hamlet. He mustered barrels of ale from the stores and loaves of bread both fresh and stale. He sent Godleof to buy all the stock Bucca Fish had in his store. He built a fire, spitted some of the fresh fishes, and started cooking them. He was run off his feet, but he was happy.

Soon the pilgrims began to come up the hill from the river. More arrived from the opposite direction. The monks started selling. There were rumbles of discontent from people who had been looking forward to meat and strong ale, but most of them cheerfully entered into the spirit of emergency arrangements.

When Edgar was relieved, he reported that the queue for the boat was getting longer, and some people were turning around and going home rather than waiting. Aldred’s fury with Dreng surged up again, but he forced himself to be calm. “Nothing we can do about that,” he said, pouring ale into wooden cups.

An hour before midday the monks herded the pilgrims into the church. Aldred had hoped the nave would be packed shoulder to shoulder, and was prepared to repeat the service for a second congregation, but that was not necessary.

With an effort he turned his mind from managing an improvised alehouse to conducting Mass. The familiar Latin phrases soon calmed his soul. They had the same effect on the congregation, who were remarkably quiet.

At the end, Aldred told the now-familiar story of the life of Saint Adolphus, and the congregation watched the effigy rise. By now most people knew what to expect, and few were actually terrified, but it was still an impressive and marvelous sight.

Afterward, they all wanted dinner.

Several people asked about staying the night. Aldred told them they could sleep in the monks’ house. Alternatively they could take shelter in the alehouse, even though the owner was away and there would be no food or drink.

They did not like either option. A pilgrimage was a holiday, and they looked forward to convivial evenings with other pilgrims, drinking and singing and, sometimes, falling in love.

In the end, most of them set out for home.

At the end of the day Aldred sat on the ground between the church and the monks’ house, looking downstream, watching a red sun sink to meet its reflection in the water. After a few minutes Edgar joined him. They sat in silence for a while, then Edgar said: “It didn’t work, did it?”

“It worked, but not well enough. The idea is sound, but it was undermined.”

“Will you try again?”

“I don’t know. Dreng operates the ferry, and that makes it difficult. What do you think?”

“I have an idea.”

Aldred smiled. Edgar always had ideas, and they were usually good. “Tell me.”

“We wouldn’t need the ferry if we had a bridge.”

Aldred stared at him. “I never thought of that.”

“You want your church to become a pilgrim destination. The river is a major obstacle, especially with Dreng in charge of the ferry. A bridge would make this place easy to reach.”

It had been a day of emotional ups and downs, but now Aldred’s mood went from deeply pessimistic to wildly hopeful in the biggest switch yet. “Can it be done?” he said eagerly.

Edgar shrugged. “We have plenty of timber.”

“More than we know what to do with. But do you know how to build a bridge?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. The hard part will be making the pillars secure in the riverbed.”

“It must be possible, because bridges exist!”

“Yes. You have to fix the foot of the pillar into a large box of stones on the riverbed. The box has to have sharp corners pointing upstream and downstream and be firmly fixed on the riverbed, so that the current can’t dislodge it.”

“How do you know such things?”

“By looking at existing structures.”

“But you’ve already thought about this.”

“I have time to think. There’s no wife to talk to me.”

“We must do this!” Aldred said excitedly. Then he thought of a snag. “But I can’t pay you.”

“You’ve never paid me for anything. But I’m still taking lessons.”

“How long would the bridge take?”

“Give me a couple of strong young monks as laborers and I think I can probably do it in six months to a year.”

“Before next Whitsunday?”

“Yes,” said Edgar.

The hundred court took place on the following Saturday. It almost turned into a riot.

The pilgrims were not the only people who had been inconvenienced by Dreng’s disappearance. Sam the shepherd had attempted to cross the river with hoggets, year-old sheep, to sell at Shiring; but he had been obliged to turn around and drive the flock home. Several more inhabitants on the far side of the river had been unable to take their produce to market. Others who liked to come to Dreng’s Ferry just on special holy days had returned home dissatisfied. Everyone felt they had been let down by someone they were entitled to rely upon. The head men of the villages berated Dreng.

“Am I a prisoner here?” Dreng protested. “Am I forbidden to leave?”

Aldred was sitting outside the church on the big wooden stool, presiding over the court. He said to Dreng: “Where did you go, anyway?”

“What business is that of yours?” Dreng said. There were shouts of protest, and he backed down. “All right, all right, I went to Mudeford Crossing with three barrels of ale to sell.”

“On the very day when you knew there would be hundreds of ferry passengers?”

“No one told me.”

Several people shouted: “Liar!”

They were right: it was impossible that the alehouse keeper should be ignorant of the special Whitsunday service.

Aldred said: “When you go to Shiring you normally leave your family in charge of the ferry and tavern.”

“I needed the boat to transport the ale, and I needed the women to help me manhandle the barrels. I’ve got a bad back.”

Several people groaned mockingly: they had all heard about Dreng’s bad back.

Edgar said: “You’ve got a daughter and two strong sons-in-law. They could have opened the alehouse.”

“There’s no point in opening the alehouse if there’s no ferry.”

“They could have borrowed my raft. Except that the raft disappeared at the same time as you did. Wasn’t that strange?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Was my raft tied up alongside the ferry when you left?”

Dreng looked hunted. He could not figure out whether to say yes or no. “I don’t remember.”

“Did you pass the raft on your way downstream?”

“I might have.”

“Did you untie my raft and set it adrift?”

“No.”

Once again there were shouts of: “Liar!”

Dreng said: “Look! There’s nothing that says I have to operate the ferry every day. I was given this job by Dean Degbert. He was lord of this place and he never said anything about a seven-day-a-week service.”

Aldred said: “Now I’m lord, and I say it is essential that people are able to cross the river every day. There’s a church here and a fish shop, and it’s on the road between Shiring and Combe. Your unreliable service is not acceptable.”

“So are you saying you’ll give the service to someone else?”

Several people shouted: “Yes!”

Dreng said: “We’ll see what my powerful relatives in Shiring have to say about that.”

Aldred said: “No, I’m not going to give the ferry to someone else.”

There were groans, and someone said: “Why not?”

“Because I have a better idea.” Aldred paused. “I’m going to build a bridge.”

The crowd went quiet as people took that in.

Dreng was the first to react. “You can’t do that,” he said. “You’ll ruin my business.”

“You don’t deserve your business,” Aldred said. “But as it happens, you’ll be better off. The bridge will bring more people to the village and more customers to your alehouse. You’ll probably get rich.”

“I don’t want a bridge,” he said stubbornly. “I’m a ferryman.”

Aldred looked at the crowd. “How does everyone else feel? Do you want a bridge?”

There was a chorus of cheers. Of course they wanted a bridge. It would save them time. And no one liked Dreng.

Aldred looked at Dreng. “Everyone else wants a bridge. I’m going to build one.”

Dreng turned and stamped away.