London - Edward Rutherfurd [78]
These simple folk then, nearly all pagans, were to be his flock. They would come, perhaps, from time to time to the little stone cathedral he would build in the middle of this deserted citadel. He must love them and cherish them and, if God gave him grace, even inspire them.
The missionary bishop was a realist but also a man of faith. As he always told his priests: “Our Lord saved the world. You must learn to accept a humbler role. If, when you preach, you save a single soul, you will have done well.” As he gazed out at the rustic crowd, the bishop smiled to himself. “Which of these souls shall we save?” he murmured. “Only you, Lord, could even guess.”
Offa watched with fascination. The service was not long. The ten priests sang psalms and other responses in Latin, so that Offa had no idea what they were about. The singing was strangely nasal, though it had a melancholy, haunting quality amongst the cold grey ruins. Growing a little bored, the young fellow might have stolen away before the end had it not been for his sudden curiosity when the bishop with the head like an egg began to address the little crowd not in Latin, but in Anglo-Saxon English.
And what English. As Mellitus got under way, young Offa was amazed. He remembered from their meeting that the strange priest spoke the island tongue, but this was astonishing. He must have been studying with the poets who sing to the king, he thought.
Anglo-Saxon English was a language of tremendous richness. Its vowels, which could be mixed together in many ways, gave it subtle moods and echoing tones. Its Germanic consonants could declaim or whisper, crack and crunch. Even in formal verse, the lines varied their stresses and length, falling into the natural rhythm of the scene the poet wished to evoke. It was the tongue of Nordic sagas and of men who lived by the sea, river, and forest. When poets recited, their listeners could almost feel the swinging axe, see heroes fall, sense the deer in the thicket, or hear the singing saw of the swans’ wings over the water. Above all, the art of the poet lay not in rhyme but in the clever use of alliteration, to which this strong tongue so obviously lent itself, searching its riches for an endless supply of evocative repetitions.
And this the preacher had already begun to master. How simply and sweetly he spoke. He talked of the coming of the Lord upon the Earth: this man god who, it seemed, had opened the way for mankind to enter the wonderful place he called heaven. Not only heroes who had died in battle, not only kings and nobles, but poor men, women and children, even slaves like himself, young Offa discovered. It was astounding.
And who was this Lord? He was a hero, yet more than a hero, Mellitus explained. He was like Frey, the priest said, only greater. And he was born in winter, in this very season. Born in midwinter, but bringing promise of a new spring, an everlasting life to come.
Offa knew about Frey. This was a handsome young god of the Anglo-Saxons, kindly and loved by all. Fervently, using these Anglo-Saxon terms, the bishop declared: “The Frey of mankind, this young hero was God Almighty. It is He who washes our sins away with water, the laver of life.” This Frey, then, the one they called Christ, had been sacrificed upon a cross – a rood as the Anglo-Saxons called it.
“Reared up on the Rood, He rose again,” the preacher cried out. “He sacrificed Himself for our sins, and gave to us life everlasting.” How wonderful it sounded. Mellitus was doing his work well.
Why had this Frey been raised upon a cross? Offa was not sure. But the spirit of the preacher’s words was clear. Somehow this young god had given himself for them all. It was strange but wonderful. For the first time in his life Offa had a sense that fate itself, the grim, unknowable Wyrd, might instead be something reassuring, happy. It produced in him a feeling of ineffable joy that made him tremble.