Page 174 of The Evening and the Morning

Wigbert produced a large pair of shears, blades gleaming from recent sharpening. A murmur rose up from the crowd. Looking atthe faces of his neighbors, Aldred saw with disgust that many of them were avid for blood.

Sheriff Den said: “Go ahead and carry out the ealdorman’s sentence.”

The purpose of this punishment was not to kill the wrongdoer, but to doom him to life as merely half a man. Wigbert manipulated the shears so that the twin blades could close on Cuthbert’s testicular sack without removing his penis.

Cuthbert was moaning, praying, and weeping all at the same time.

Aldred felt ill.

Wigbert cut off Cuthbert’s testicles with one decisive motion. Cuthbert screamed, and blood ran down his legs.

A dog appeared from nowhere, snatched up the testicles in his jaws, and fled; and the crowd roared with laughter.

Wigbert put down the bloodstained shears. Standing in front of Cuthbert he put his hands on the priest’s temples, touched the eyelids with his thumbs, and then, with another practiced motion, thrust his thumbs deep into the eyes. Cuthbert screamed again, and the fluid from his burst eyeballs dribbled down his cheeks.

Wigbert undid the ropes binding Cuthbert to the stake, and Cuthbert fell to the ground.

Aldred caught sight of Wynstan’s face. The bishop was standing next to Wilwulf, and both were staring at the bleeding man on the ground.

Wynstan was smiling.

CHAPTER 24

December 998

nly once before in Aldred’s life had he felt utterly defeated, humiliated, and despondent about the future. That had been when he was a novice at Glastonbury and had been caught kissing Leofric in the herb garden. Until then he had been the star among the youngsters: best at reading, writing, singing, and memorizing the Bible. Suddenly his weakness became the subject of every conversation, discussed even in chapter. Instead of talking in admiring tones of his bright future, people asked one another what was to be done with a boy so depraved. He had felt like a horse that could not be ridden or a dog that bit its master. He had wanted only to crawl into a hole and sleep for a hundred years.

And now that feeling was back. All the promise he had shown as armarius of Shiring, all the talk of his becoming abbot one day, had come to nothing. His ambitions—the school, the library, the world-class scriptorium—were now mere daydreams. He had been exiled to the remote hamlet of Dreng’s Ferry and put in charge of a penniless priory, and this would be the end of the story of his life.

Abbot Osmund had told him he was too passionate. “A monkshould develop an accepting disposition,” he had said when saying good-bye to Aldred. “We can’t correct all the evil in the world.” Aldred had lain awake night after night chewing over that judgment in bitterness and anger. Two passions had undone him: first his love for Leofric, then his rage at Wynstan. But in his heart he still could not agree with Osmund. Monks ought never to accept evil. They had to fight against it.

He was weighed down with despair, but not crippled by it. He had said that the old minster was a disgrace, so now he could throw his energy into making the new priory a shining example of what men of God ought to do. The little church already looked different: the floor had been swept and the walls whitewashed. The old scribe Tatwine, one of the monks who had chosen to migrate to Dreng’s Ferry with Aldred, had begun a wall painting, a picture of the Nativity, a birth scene for the reborn church.

Edgar had repaired the entrance. He had taken out the stones of the arch one by one, trimmed them to shape, and reset them so that they sat precisely on the spokes of an imaginary wheel. That was all that was needed, he said, to make it stronger. Aldred’s sole consolation in Dreng’s Ferry was that he saw more of the clever, charming young man who had captured his heart.

The house looked different, too. When Degbert and his crew left they had naturally taken with them all their luxuries, the wall hangings and the ornaments and the blankets. The place was now bare and utilitarian, as monks’ accommodation ought to be. But Edgar had welcomed Aldred with a gift of a lectern he had made of oak, so that while the monks were eating they could listen to one of their number reading from the Rule of Saint Benedict or the life of a saint. It had been made with love, and although this was notthe kind of love Aldred sometimes dreamed of, not a love of kisses and caresses and embraces in the night, nevertheless the gift brought tears to his eyes.

Aldred knew that work was the best solace. He told the brothers that the history of a monastery normally began with the monks rolling up their sleeves and clearing ground, and here in Dreng’s Ferry they had already started to fell trees on the wooded hillside above the church. A monastery needed land for a vegetable garden, an orchard, a duck pond, and grazing for a few goats and a cow or two. Edgar had made axes, hammering out the blades on the anvil in Cuthbert’s old workshop, and had taught Aldred and the other monks how to chop down trees efficiently and safely.

The rents Aldred got as landlord of the hamlet were not sufficient to feed even the monks, and Abbot Osmund had agreed to pay the priory a monthly subsidy. Hildred had, of course, argued for an amount that was hopelessly inadequate. “If it’s not enough you can come back and discuss it,” Hildred had said, but Aldred had known that once the subvention was fixed the treasurer would never agree to an increase. The upshot had been an allowance that would keep the monks alive and the church functional but no more. If Aldred wanted to buy books, plant an orchard, and build a cowshed, he would have to find the funds himself.

When the monks had arrived here and looked around, the old scribe Tatwine had said to Aldred, not unkindly: “Perhaps God wants to teach you the virtue of humility.” Aldred thought Tatwine might be right. Humility had never been one of his strengths.

On Sunday Aldred celebrated Mass in the little church. He stood at the altar in the tiny chancel while the six monks who had come here with him—all volunteers—stood in two neat rows on theground floor of the tower, which served as the nave. The villagers gathered behind the monks, quieter than usual and awed by the unfamiliar sense of discipline and reverence.

During the service a horse was heard outside, and Aldred’s old friend Wigferth of Canterbury came into the church. Wigferth visited the west of England frequently, to collect rents. His mistress in Trench had recently given birth, according to monastic gossip. Wigferth was a good monk in other respects, and Aldred remained friendly to him, restricting himself to the occasional disapproving frown if Wigferth was so tactless as to mention his illicit family.

As soon as the service was over, Aldred spoke to him. “It’s good to see you. I hope you have time to stay for dinner.”

“Certainly.”

“We’re not rich, so our food will save you from the sin of gluttony.”

Wigferth smiled and patted his belly. “I stand in need of such salvation.”

“What news from Canterbury?”

“Two things. Archbishop Elfric has ordered Wynstan to return the village of Wigleigh to the ownership of the church at Dreng’s Ferry, which means you.”