Chapter 3: Sins of the Father
The Lord of Lancaster was widely renowned for his wisdom and for his kindness. Both of course pleased him greatly, though in the matter of his eldest son, he often found himself lacking.
Elfwine had always been reclusive. Not exactly quiet but hardly rambunctious either. He had a cleverness to him, yes, and the ambitious nature that came from a family of rebels. Recent events however had revealed a different side to the child. He walked as though the world walked in step with him. He had the manner and bearing of a veteran warrior, whom had survived a thousand blizzards and slain as many enemies. And his requests-or rather, orders, to the people surrounding him. Peculiar though some were, people
listened. Elfwine had the ear of the mercenaries and housecarls, and spoke with them often. Trained with them too, and in a way that demonstrated he was not merely precocious but experienced in the Art of War. Several times Wigberht saw men saddled with dozens of missives riding out to who knows where, bringing back a steady stream of workmen, builders, craftsmen, suppliers, carnival freaks and Heaven knew what else.
He shook his head. The boy asked for a pittance after the event with the Bear Guard, and had since somehow returned back to the treasury multiple chests of coin, wax, hides, land treaties and all manner of assorted items Wigberht had never seen before. In truth, the tyrant that resides inside all men of power rankled that his son was presumptive enough to run his own enterprise, and worse still do it well. Yet Wigberht and his own father both agreed on Lancaster being a home for the homeless, as their family was when they cast themselves out of Mercia. In fact, that Elfwine was by accounts welcoming and encouraging to the new arrivals, as well as the original inhabitants of the city, warmed the father’s heart considerably.
It did however make the boy’s complete dismissal of family rather more alarming.
Amaudru was beside herself. Whilst Wigberht could well understand a young man coming into his own finding some way to be angry with his father (indeed had he not done much the same in his own youth?), to shut out the mother was unheard of. There had been no argument, no parting of ways between Elfwine and anyone of his House. Yet…he was absent. Out of everything peculiar going on in the realm of Lancaster these days, this was the thing that vexed Wigberht most rightly. And it was this that meant that he was finally going to confront his son on his issue, and discover what troubled him so.
Of course, it was at the moment he decided this course that Elfwine changed course and availed himself upon him, citing the sanctity of confession of all things!
The Lord of Lancaster was no monk, though he adopted their habits as his own and indeed was a father of the Church in Lancaster. Still, very few had ever found their need so great to come to him and not their parish, least of all his own blood! The sanctity had been invoked regardless. Thus, he duly placed his palm on his son’s head and bade him come forth and confess.
“Thank you, father,” Elfwine said, seating himself before the table. “This may take a while and I anticipate you will have may questions. I beg you to hold them until I am done. You may wish to write a reminder to that effect.”
Curious and curiouser. Wigberht sat and wrote the vow, promising to himself to hear the boy out. “What is it that you would like to confess?”
His father’s gentle probing elicited a small smile from Elfwine. “Everything.”
Everything? Wigberht forced himself not to react. Of all the sinister words…
“Well then, my son…you may begin.”
Elfwine’s smile became fixed.
“I am Elfwine Lancaster, and until recently I was the King of this realm of Lancaster. Husband to three dearly departed, Father to many more.” His hands tensed into fists. “When I died, I was ninety-seven years old, by our reckoning. I awoke to a world I did not recognise…and a father I did.” It was easier to speak, once begun. “I do not recognise my siblings or your wife. Nor does the recent history of the world match my own. However, through various means I have been
advised to
accept that you are, that is to say…my family.”
Elfwine dropped his head and paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. Wigberht ached to reach out towards his son and yet kept his seat. He had been rendered quite powerless by revelation, though of what kind still eluded him. He also knew the look of a man about to confess to his worst crimes.
“This place is alien to me, after so long,” the boy whispered. His gaze had still yet to rise higher than the table. “There is no hall where I married my last. No chamber where my grandchildren breathed their first. No hill upon which snowdrops weep and under which my son doth sleep.” He shuddered, and Wigberht saw the light catch the small tears. “I am undone in this place, if it is not a fantasy. For if it is not, then it surely is my punishment. I have slaughtered many in my quest for power. My kingdom was legion across all the lands of the Saxons. Many were killed so that many were fed. There was not a place in these lands or abroad that had not felt the roar of my Guard, or the shudder of my presence or the hunger that was sated. Many, amongst them my people, my children, paid the price of my desires. I wanted to be God, and I made sure that I was.”
He slowly looked into the white face of his father and spoke his last, “It was only as I lay eviscerated upon this very floor, the blood of my son upon your mace, that I awoke to my madness. I lay convalescent in bed, whilst my wife attended to me and my realm burned in the chaos I had so generously sown. I awoke, and so my second form was chosen. I had been the Great Destroyer and so now too I could be the People’s Saviour.” He chuckled between two sobs. “It was another lie. Another delusion of being the Almighty. And so much harder to dispel for it worked. The realm
was quietened, the country
was peaceful, the children
were fed and the people
were happy. And I was quite full of myself once again. And then again, I nearly destroyed my own son. Riches upon riches, duchy after duchy, till the lad could take no more. I wanted-needed him to replace his mother and myself all at once. And then they were both dead, and again I was alone in a great palace with children who feared me and a realm that worshipped the false idol of my vanity.”
Elfwine sniffed and wiped himself clean. “My salvation came yet again, undeserved as much as the life that yet clung to me like a disease. Again, I was placed in the heart of a family. Again, I raised my children, kindly I hoped though now I am plagued with doubt once more. I saw to their needs and wants. Instead of war, I helped build my neighbours into safer realms of their own. On these islands, at least for the last decade or so…things were…good there.” He shrugged. “It is of little consequence. There is no pit black enough for my torment. No doom that can reply to that which I dished out so liberally onto others.”
The room was quiet for a long time, save for some sniffling from the boy.
“Do you think, my child, that God sent you here to be punished?”
Elfwine looked at his father, first blankly, and then with incredulity. “Is there another purpose so obvious?”
A quite sigh and a little laugh launched from Wigberht quite unintentionally. “I see now what you mean about delusions of Godhood,” he said quietly.
Elfwine blinked. “Yes?”
“My boy,” Wigberht straightened up and leaned across the table, “you cannot presume to know the mind of the Creator, nor any Man for that matter. What is written upon your heart and soul is between you, and God. But your actions, including words, exist in the mortal realm.”
The boy edged around on his seat, struggling to maintain eye contact with the older man. “What does that mean?”
“That you were not sent here to be judged,” his father said, decidedly. “How on earth could I do such a thing? There is no,” he paused for the word, “
set of law that fits your crimes, whether real or no. What you seek is not within my power to give, though I wish it were.”
“Then what else is there?”
“My dear boy,” his father said, almost fondly, “in your many years, did you neglect your Christian teachings?”
“Of course not.”
“Then you know of Christ’s great purpose.”
“To save us from our sins – you must be joking.”
He smiled at the suddenly infuriated young man. “Oh yes, I think it makes a great deal of sense, if what you say is true. Why send you back to the world of Men, if not to learn to be as us? Revelation and Repentance, that’s your quest, unless I’m very much mistaken. I would like to consult the articles of faith on this but I have an innate sense of rightness when I say it thus. You may yet have your reckoning with the Almighty of course, but this is not then.”
Elfwine looked at him wordlessly.
“You might begin by speaking with your siblings, and apologising for your atrocious manner to your mother,” Wigberht said, pointedly.
“You would place me amongst children
now?”
“Why, are you going to kill them?” Wigberht said lightly, and then turned his face somewhat stonier, “Of course, you won’t. You will never inflict such or any pain on
anyone whilst I am Lord in Lancaster.”
“Yes father,” Elfwine said immediately, surprised at how cowed he felt.
His father apparently was more amused by that fact however. “So, there is still a child within you, somewhere. That suggests more to me that there is a Man there too. Both the Great and the Good have their hearts, dear Elfwine. Look to it. Find it in yourself and your fellow Men.” He noted the disconsolate face on his child and continued. “I have done terrible things too, to keep the peace in Lancaster, to keep the people protected and fed. Indeed, by some within the Church, I rather enjoy my wife a little too much.” He smiled again, “What you carry, you must let go. The feelings of Greatness, the guilt over past sins, all of it must go. Give yourself the freedom to fail, and fall, and rise again.”
He realised he was going too quickly. “Elfwine, hear what I propose. You will make amends with your family, for they are your brothers and sisters. You will seek out my wife and speak with her before I do. And then…” he thought for a moment, “and then, go and take Secret, the bear of yours, and simply be present. Be here in this world, not your own. Play in the fields, or take in the flowers, or look at the sky. Spend a day of rest with your friend and look for me at evening. Go and be at peace my son. I cannot give you what you seek, but I might set you on the right path to it. And...know that I love you, always.”
A small hand came into his, and did not let go.
