Keeping his head down, Hereward allowed himself to be washed along by the rush of bodies. He ignored the horns of mead thrust in his direction by the drunken revellers. He wanted his wits clear.
The morning was crisp and bright, a perfect day for the Feast of Fools. The throng swept through the gate of the minster enclosure and milled among the halls, the barns and the school in front of the church’s western door. For a moment, he watched the man in the wolf mask bound and frolic. ‘Follow me now, good men and women,’ the wolf called, ‘into this stone house so that we may consecrate our boy pope. And when we are done, he will rule over an upside-down kingdom. The Lord of Misrule!’
Hereward pushed his way towards the edge of the crowd.
‘Let the deacons, the priests, even the archbishop himself, keep well away from this festival,’ the wolf-man continued loudly, ‘or be prepared to pay the full price. A drenching in freezing meltwater. Let that wash their pious faces!’ The crowd laughed. Hereward could sense the hope that one of the clerics would accidentally stumble out to get a soaking. The mockery served its purpose, he knew: release from the burdens of a straitened life, if only for a while. A moment when the lowest in the land could be the highest and dream the world their way before power was torn back from their fingers. The warrior saw true value in that disordered world. There were times when he felt every one of the highest in the land plotted only to their own ends. Where was concern for the weak, the innocent, the women? In this land of wolves, where was the strong protector? Perhaps the world should be turned on its head. And perhaps he should be its Lord of Misrule.
With raucous cries, the crowd thundered into the church. Few paid attention to the glory of the soaring stone tower as its builders had intended. When most were inside, the man in the boar’s mask carried the boy in and approached the altar. Two men dressed in the white tunics of clerics followed, each wearing a mask with the nose and mouth shaped like human private parts, one male, one female. The mock-clerics intoned words in a made-up language that echoed the solemn Latin tones of the priests. The profane consecration of the Abbot of Unreason would have sickened the churchmen if they had not been in hiding, Hereward knew, but the throng laughed more loudly at each new mockery in the fake ritual.
Seizing his moment, he pulled up his hood and crunched through the deep snow from house to shack to hut in the jumble of ecclesiastical structures surrounding the stone church. Some were the dwellings of the churchmen, and he kept away from those, as he did Archbishop Ealdred’s grand hall. But he searched the stores and the scriptorium and the school and all the other buildings where the churchmen organized their lives.
At the back of a room thick with a dusting of white flour where the daily bread was made, he found Alric slumped on dirty straw. Fettered, the monk looked miserable and exhausted, but his face lit up when he saw Hereward. His joy faded quickly.
‘I should kill you where you lie,’ the warrior spat. ‘It would be a mercy, compared to what lies ahead for you.’
‘You know, then.’ The monk hung his head.
‘That you live a lie? That you pretend to be a man of God, but are no more than a common killer of women? It is no surprise that you kept your filthy secret when I saved your life.’
Alric looked up with a fierce expression, his eyes bright with tears. ‘Do not judge me. You do not know the truth. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems in the telling.’
Leaning against the wall, Hereward folded his arms, his face cold and accusatory. ‘Enlighten me, then.’
Kneading his hands, Alric looked as if the strain of keeping his secret was finally about to tear him apart. ‘I had taken the word of God to a village not far from where we met. They had no church, no priest, not even a stone cross where I could preach. It felt a godless place, and a lawless one too, with too many still worshipping the old ways, even now in this Christian land. It was a place where I could do good works. Or so I believed.’ The young monk fell silent for a moment, and then wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand. ‘I did my duty well. I was a good monk, hard-working, visiting every home, preaching whenever I could, teaching the children what I knew. The men and women accepted me, liked me even, I think. They kept me fed. There was one man, a merchant, who asked me to tutor his son and he would send payment to my monastery in return. And the merchant had a daughter.’
‘You fell in love with her.’
‘Yes. I am a fool. It should be me out there, made king of this feast.’
Hereward saw the remorse in the monk’s face. ‘And you murdered her because she gave you ungodly thoughts.’
‘No!’ Alric brushed the tears from his eyes. ‘I… I followed the wishes of my father and mother. I had given myself to God. I was content with my path, dedicated. I wanted nothing else. But then the daughter and I talked about my mission, and God’s plan, and she paid more heed to my teaching than her brother. And we laughed, and we walked together, and from nowhere feelings rose. Love, a pure love, of the kind I had never felt before for any human, only for my…’ The word choked in his throat, and he almost spat it out. ‘God.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Sunnild.’ The monk swallowed. ‘The force of that passion, it almost drove my wits from me. Something that powerful could only come from God.’ He looked to the warrior for approval, and then hung his head again when he saw none. ‘I fought against my feelings. Time and again I could have taken advantage of her. She made her own feelings for me clear. But I resisted, even though my heart was breaking. And then, one evening before the snows came, we walked in the woods and I became consumed by madness. I could hold my feelings in check no longer. And I kissed her.’
‘That is all?’
‘Yes, I swear. And, Hereward, though God strike me down, I felt as though I had been transported to heaven.’
‘From one kiss?’ the warrior asked with wry disbelief.
‘But then her brother found us in the midst of our embrace.’ Alric’s face darkened. ‘He flew into a rage, accusing me of deceiving him and his father. He acted as though all I had done in that place had only been a ploy to steal Sunnild’s honour. And he drew the knife he used for carving toys for the children, and attacked me to defend that honour.’
Hereward listened to the squeals of delight from the women and the drunken bellows echoing from the church. Time was short. Soon the ritual would be over and the people would rush back into Eoferwic to continue their celebrations.
‘We fought,’ the monk continued in a flat tone. The warrior guessed Alric had played the moment over so many times that all life and emotion had been sucked from it. ‘There was no time to reason. I was struggling for my life. Sunnild was in tears, pleading with her brother to spare me. She claimed that she was to blame. Even then, when other women would have protected themselves, her love for me was clear. As the brother and I fell around the wood, she came between us to try to separate us. Somehow I had the knife in my hands. And I struck out, in panic, and the blade plunged into her heart.’
Alric held out his hands as if he could still see the blood upon them.
‘She died instantly. In shock, I ran, with her brother’s cries of vengeance ringing in my ears.’
‘And her kin set those Viking pirates upon your trail. A blood-feud.’
‘Believe me or not, Hereward, but in that moment I wanted to die too, so I could be with Sunnild, and for a while I considered taking my own life, to my shame.’ The monk began to cry silently. After some moments, he steadied himself and added, ‘But I would never reach heaven or Sunnild’s side if I wasted what God had given me. I have to make amends in this world if I am ever to scrub the stain from my soul.’