body’s shape clearly enough. Guthered had again taken my arm as if I could protect him against Eadred’s sorcery. Eadred, meanwhile, gently unwrapped the linen and so revealed a dead bishop robed in white and with his face covered by a small white square of cloth that was hemmed with golden thread. The corpse had an embroidered scapular about its neck and a battered mitre had fallen from its head. A cross of gold, decorated with garnets, lay half-hidden by his hands that were prayerfully clasped on his breast. A ruby ring shone on one shrunken finger. Some of the monks were gasping, as though they could not endure the holy power flowing from the corpse and even Eadred was subdued. He touched his forehead against the edge of the coffin, then straightened to look at me. ‘You know who this is?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘In the name of the Father,’ he said, ‘and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,’ and he took the square of golden-hemmed linen away to reveal a yellowed face blotched with darker patches. ‘It is Saint Cuthbert,’ Eadred said with a tearful catch in his voice. ‘It is the most blessed, the most holy, the most beloved Cuthbert. Oh dear sweet God,’ he rocked backward and forward on his knees, ‘this is Saint Cuthbert himself.’
Until the age of ten I had been raised on stories of Cuthbert. I learned how he had trained a choir of seals to sing psalms, and how the eagles had brought food to the small island off Bebbanburg where he lived in solitude for a time. He could calm storms by prayer and had rescued countless sailors from drowning. Angels came to talk with him. He had once rescued a family by commanding the flames that consumed their house to return to hell, and the fire had miraculously vanished. He would walk into the winter sea until the cold water reached his neck and he would stay there all night, praying, and when he came back to the beach in the dawn his monk’s robes would be dry. He drew water from parched ground during a drought and when birds stole newly-sewn barley seed he commanded them to return it, which they did. Or so I was told. He was certainly the greatest saint of Northumbria, the holy man who watched over us and to whom we were supposed to direct our prayers so that he could whisper them into the ear of God, and here he was in a carved and gilded elm box, flat on his back, nostrils gaping, mouth slightly open, cheeks fallen in, and with five yellow-black teeth from which the gums had receded so they looked like fangs. One fang was broken. His eyes were shut. My stepmother had possessed Saint Cuthbert’s comb and she had liked to tell me that she had found some of the saint’s hair on the comb’s teeth and that the hair had been the colour of finest gold, but this corpse had hair black as pitch. It was long, lank and brushed away from a high forehead and from his monkish tonsure. Eadred gently restored the mitre, then leaned forward and kissed the ruby ring. ‘You will note,’ he said in a voice made hoarse by emotion, ‘that the holy flesh is uncorrupted,’ he paused to stroke one of the saint’s bony hands, ‘and that miracle is a sure and certain sign of his sanctity.’ He leaned forward and this time kissed the saint full on the open, shrivelled lips. ‘Oh most holy Cuthbert,’ he prayed aloud, ‘guide us and lead us and bring us to your glory in the name of Him who died for us and upon whose right hand you now sit in splendour everlasting, amen.’
‘Amen,’ the monks chimed. The closest monks had got up from the floor so they could see the uncorrupted saint and most of them cried as they gazed at the yellowing face.
Eadred looked up at me again. ‘In this church, young man,’ he said, ‘is the spiritual soul of Northumbria. Here, in these chests, are our miracles, our treasures, our glory, and the means by which we speak with God to seek his protection. While these precious and holy things are safe, we are safe, and once,’ he stood as he said that last word and his voice grew much harder, ‘once all these things were under the protection of the lords of Bebbanburg, but that protection failed! The pagans came, the monks were slaughtered, and the men of Bebbanburg cowered behind their walls rather than ride to slaughter the pagans. But our forefathers in Christ saved these things, and we have wandered ever since, wandered across the wild lands, and we keep these things still, but one day we shall make a great church and these relics will shine forth across a holy land. That holy land is where I lead these people!’ He waved his hand to indicate the folk waiting outside the church. ‘God has sent me an army,’ he shouted, ‘and that army will triumph, but I am not the man to lead it. God and Saint Cuthbert sent me a dream in which they showed me the king who will take us all to our promised land. He showed me King Guthred!’
He stood and raised Guthred’s arm aloft and the gesture provoked applause from the congregation. Guthred looked surprised rather than regal, and I just looked down at the dead saint.
Cuthbert had been the abbot and bishop of Lindisfarena, the island that lay just north of Bebbanburg, and for almost two hundred years his body had lain in a crypt on the island until the Viking raids became too threatening and, to save the saintly corpse, the monks had taken the dead man inland. They had been wandering Northumbria ever since. Eadred disliked me because my family had failed to protect the holy relics, but the strength of Bebbanburg was its position on the sea-lashed crag, and only a fool would take its garrison beyond the walls to fight. If I had a choice between keeping Bebbanburg and abandoning a relic, then I would have surrendered the whole calendar of dead saints. Holy corpses are cheap, but fortresses like Bebbanburg are rare.
‘Behold!’ Eadred shouted, still holding Guthred’s arm aloft, ‘the king of Haliwerfolkland!’
The king of what? I thought I had misheard, but I had not. Haliwerfolkland, Eadred had said, and it meant the Land of the Holy Man People. That was Eadred’s name for Guthred’s kingdom. Saint Cuthbert, of course, was the holy man, but whoever was king of his land would be a sheep among wolves. Ivarr, Kjartan and my uncle were the wolves. They were the men who led proper forces of trained soldiers, while Eadred was hoping to make a kingdom on the back of a dream, and I had no doubts that his dream-born sheep would end up being savaged by the wolves. Still, for the moment, Cair Ligualid was my best refuge in Northumbria, because my enemies would need to cross the hills to find me and, besides, I had a taste for this kind of madness. In madness lies change, in change is opportunity and in opportunity are riches.
‘Now,’ Eadred let go of Guthred’s hand and turned on me, ‘you will swear fealty to our king and his country.’
Guthred actually winked at me then, and I obediently went on my knees and reached for his right hand, but Eadred knocked my hands away. ‘You swear to the saint,’ he hissed at me.
‘To the saint?’
‘Place your hands on Saint Cuthbert’s most holy hands,’ Eadred ordered me, ‘and say the words.’
I put my hands over Saint Cuthbert’s fingers and I could feel the big ruby ring under my own fingers, and I gave the jewel a twitch just to see whether the stone was loose and would come free, but it seemed well fixed in its setting. ‘I swear to be your man,’ I said to the corpse, ‘and to serve you faithfully.’ I tried to shift the ring again, but the dead fingers were stiff and the ruby would not move.
‘You swear by your life?’ Eadred asked sternly.
I gave the ring another twitch, but it really was immovable. ‘I swear on my life,’ I said respectfully and never, in all that life, have I taken an oath so lightly. How can an oath to a dead man be binding?
‘And you swear to serve King Guthred faithfully?’
‘I do,’ I said.
‘And to be an enemy to all his enemies?’
‘I swear it,’ I said.
‘And you will serve Saint Cuthbert even to the end of your life?’
‘I will.’
‘Then you may kiss the most blessed Cuthbert,’ Eadred said. I leaned over the coffin’s edge to kiss the folded hands. ‘No!’ Eadred protested. ‘On the lips!’ I shuffled on my knees, then bent and kissed the corpse on its dry, scratchy lips.
‘Praise God,’ Eadred said. Then he made Guthred swear to serve Cuthbert and the church watched as the slave king knelt and kissed the corpse. The monks sang as the folk in the church were allowed to see Cuthbert for themselves. Hild shuddered when she came to the coffin and she fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face, and I had to lift her up and lead her away. Willibald was similarly overcome, but