WEORTHFULLICE TO LIBBANNE

[thesmellypocket 1841]

"Ic wilnode weorthfullice to libbanne tha hwile the ic lifede. And aefter minum life than monnum to laefanne the aefter me waeren min gemynd on godum weorcum."

Hengst, Father and King of the Churls.

("In short, I wanted to LIVE WORTHILY as long as I lived, and leave behind, for the people who would come after me, the memory of me in good works.")

 

 

 

"Men of Churland! Oaths ye have taken! Now, fulfil them all!"-King Phillipe of the Churls. 

 

I

The words of the sacred oath every Churlish boy makes at the Taking of the Shield chipped away at the mind of OFFA, each clause piercing his heart like so many wounding darts. He was now in the Weiss inn in Haense; thus no longer, to his regret, was he too cold to think of them. For now he was sat by a warm fire and they pierced him more keenly than cold any cold. "Lette notte he who fleeth in the fas of the enemie presume to call hymself a manne," one dart flies and hits the mark exact. "Become thyself a warrior, or notte at all", and another, and the last, O so dreadfully aimed "Be preparyed to looke deathe in the fayce, or call not thyselfe a Churlish Manne of the Fyrd." Offa could only sit and take this internal beating, astray and scattered abroad, with not one to call "friend." He had sometimes considered suicide as the remedy for his dishonour. He would look upon death as a release. But his religion taught him that to God alone belonged the right to take life, that his life was not wholly his own, and that he would have to render an account. O, how terrible and dread an account...So Offa thought naught or seldom of God, for the thought dreaded him only, and he was wont to put it off, although, not atheistic, it was belief enough to prevent the Langseax from plunging into his own stomach. 

 

Suicide was a definitive action, and Offa was not prepared for definitive action. But he could indefinitely postpone his ancestors' call "werotfullice to libbanne", by seeking remedy in drink. He could not help thinking, he could not bear thinking...he needed to stop the thoughts that accused him, that called him not a man, a traitor, a man who knows only how to flee, for, according to the oath he had sworn, that was who he was. He had fled in the face of the enemy. But not just once. Was not his entire life but a constant act of flight? Often he had wanted to do the right; often he had found himself wanted and reproached himself into in-potency. He looked in the mirror and saw only cowardice and contempt.

 

The bar was empty. "Cowin' bar be empty." He grumbled. He heard some words of stern command in a woman's voice from the other side of the bar, and a little girl of tan complexion came out and offered him a drink, informing him that drinks were free. "Drinks be free? Sprechst thu truly?" He said. "Somefin' strong." He asked for. He wanted to be drunk fast, to forget his woes, even if for so brief a time. "Ea can mix!" She said, mixing 'Carrion Black' with a curious, clear, alcoholic liquid. She leant forward and smelt it. "Da, very strong! I call it the Weiss Mix!" The Churl supposed it was this 'vodka' which hitherto he had only but heard: for the Churls are aliens to spirits and drink only ales, and sometimes Auverginian wines. Wanting to be the more quickly inebriated, he downed a good deal of it: and at last felt faint. Whatever sense of manly honour that had not been crushed by melancholy was ashamed, for he feared he had been vanquished by the native drink of the country. He did not feel good; he revolted backwards and vomited. "Ea have killed you!" The girl shouted. "Papa will know what to do!" As she went to fetch her father, Offa managed to sit down. His whole body seemed to be in revolt and convulusion, and as he attempted to search for some rational explanation, he found himself really believing that he would die. He could no longer be so indefinite about mortal matters by resorting to drink: death confronted him. Did he really WANT to die? He found that death, abstractly considered, seemed a good release. But, faced with it, he found himself desiring to live and not to die. He did not want to go to his Maker so ill-provisioned; he did not want to die in so unworthy a way; he did not want to die having left behind so unworthy a life; and however unworthy his life had proved, he found still he would rather live it than not. Before him flashed his parents, and how all hope of reconciliation with them would be forever lost. Those few folk in his life who had showed him kindness and had placed their trust in him. He knew that, for all his folly, if the Void took him now, a narrative, a story, a PERSON, something beautiful, something unique, would be lost forever, and he found the whole fibre of his being crying out against that dreadful prospect. For however disfigured the image of God and dirtied the blood of his fathers was in him, His image it was and the blood of Hengst and Aethelflaed it was, just as truly. And he realised that it was not God's will for that image to be lost nor would his ancestor Hengst give up easily on his own flesh and blood. All this he did not articulate in his panicked mind, but it was no less present in seed. 

 

Passing phantasms of his old life flashed in his mind as the door thrust open. "Come, ea will bring you to papa." The girl helped him to his feet, and unsteadily he went forth: outside stood an impressive, grim but friendly man who wore the plate of a great knight. "Take this, comrade!" He cried. It was a black substance. Charcoal it was.. He then drunk it entirely, and found himself, vomiting, and them vomiting, vomiting, and vomiting more. Then he stood and seemed to stop for a moment. Then vomiting, and vomiting, and vomiting more. "Push, my comrade, let it all out." He urged. And, with one final act of the will, he let out one final bout of 'yellow bile' upon the snow-covered Hanseti earth. He was not to die. Was he ever really in danger of death? Offa could not say, but he certainly believed he had been, and so credited the man with the saving of his life. "Well done, Comrade. Next round of drinks is on the house."

 

"What did you give him?" Offa, having sat down to recover, heard this words from the man who had saved him. "WHAT! You give him to drink that of which we use to clean the FLOORS!?" The girl was apologetic, but Offa was forgiving. The girl certainly had not killed him: on the contrary, perhaps she had saved him. 

 

 

 

II

 

"This people love to drink and eat without ceasing. Are they not little more than Great Hobbits?"-An ancient author on the Churls. 

Offa spent the next few hours recovering, sat down at the same fire at which he had been reproaching himself so shortly before. And whilst this melancholia had not magically disappeared, he was now focused on reflecting on what had just happened. But that did not take long. Soon, the public house, denoted by the strange and foreign-sounding word 'tavern', began to fill with folk of all kinds. Offa once more came to his senses and began to take in the scene around him. To him, it was a thing remarkable. Completely had he misjudged the nature of the 'tavern.' It was not a place for young and old men to get drunk on hard drink as he had thought it, rather around him was a sketch of the whole community: women, children, soldiers; civilians. He released what it was: it was like the Churlish country pub he himself had worked at when he was the girl's age. A strange feeling of nostalgia took him. It felt, in the strangest way possible, like a small piece of home, a piece he had taken so so long to find. He was the only man of his nation, to his estimation, in the entire city: and yet it felt like some giant had taken up a little piece of his native country, ripped it from the country and replanted it on Hanseti soil. 

 

A veritable troop of little girls petitioned the veteran who had saved him for various childish drinks, and soon the girl, who introduced herself as Reza, (Properly, Lady Reza), offered him one of their orange beverages. Offa politely partook. The girls were soon engaged in childish conversation and controversy about whether a toy was really alive or not. Riveting as that doubtless was, Offa found his gaze attracted to a soldier who came walking in. He must have been of Waldenian stock, and Offa was glad to find the language so similar to the Old Churlish with which he had been raised. This was even more fascinating to him. He immediately engaged him in conversation, interested no so much in what he said, but how he carried himself. Here was a serving soldier who carried himself with gravity and courtesy. Around him, little children played. It was like...He was a man of the Fyrd. Respectable, honourable, welcome in a respectable, honourable and welcome place. He did not think that foreign soldiers had this mettle; for indeed in his own native country the only foreign soldiers were mercenaries, men little better than criminals. 

 

He was interrupted by Reza, who asked him a question that took him off guard: "Sir, do you have a job?" She asked. "No." The lonesome drifter replied. "I think that, in return for almost killing you, maybe my papa could give you a job." Offa did not really know what to make of this - was this little girl really capable of getting him a job? But he found himself unable to refuse such a brilliantly childish request. And he had searched in his heart for a name to give the man who had saved him, for noble-hearted and gentle and brave was he, who had received Offa with such courtesy and honour, and Offa could only think of the word Aelfwine, a name which is a term of the highest honour among his people. "I will serve this Aelfwine," he decided, and soon after, the man, a certain Walter Weiss, offered to take him into his service. But that name soon drifted from Offa's mind: soon, the name and title Aelfwine took hold of his mind in relation to him. And so Offa had stumbled into this 'tavern' from the cold - but finding the Hanseti air so cold, he found that God, to make up for this, had made the hearts of the people warm. 

 

III

 

"Nihil operi Dei praeponitur."-St. Benedict, Founder of Churlish Monasticism. 

 

Offa knelt and wept in a chapel full of skulls. He knew that before he entered upon any service, he could no longer trust himself to do so. It was the first time he had entered a church or chapel since he had fled the monastery as a boy-novice all those years ago. That place had been more like hell than heaven, and had been the key that opened the door to the ruination of all that he had once loved and known. And there was more than this to be overcome. His dread of God prevented him from taking a step into that place. He had proven so unworthy, he fell so short, and would it not be supreme arrogance and pride to expect mercy from God in his state? 

 

But he had happened upon a 'Mech-Priest', and, being a man of some learning himself, could not find a 'way out' of the Priest's syllogistic and unambiguous speech. And so he half-forced himself to follow the Mech-Priest to the Church. He knew that he needed mercy and redemption. But he was too far from his own country to access the customary rites of his own people to obtain that pardon. And so, in a victory that cost him greatly in terms of overcoming fear and doubt, he had petitioned the Mech-Priest for Baptism. And so it was. By gratuitous grace and whole plenitude of mercy, washed had he been of sin and wrongdoing. And, as the penitent widow had once clung to the feet of Benedict, he insisted, he demanded that God remain, that He abide, that He leave him not. He had a lot to catch up on in respect of God. But whereas before he clinged to the edge of the church entrance, now he knelt before the very sanctuary. 

 

"I have always fled. I have lost my honour. Lord, help me to regain my honour in Thee. All romance and bardesong is echoed but flatly and hath gone clean out of mine lif: Help me to live again, and naught as ever I lived even before."

 

"Lord, Thu know'st what I have done and who I be. But thu shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed, thu shaelt wash me, and I shall be mad whiter than snow. For it is said that bist glorified most in stooping and showing mercy. O, what a pardon, for what a height of virtue can I not fail to hope? For I perceive not more wretched than myself, and so I think that Thu shalt raise me up in this wise, in that for none shalt Thu have stooped for none as Thu wilt have stooped for me. Thus will I glorify thee, in my weakness...

 

Thu hast entered me into Thy covenant. Thu hast made me a partaker of the flame, of Owyn's flashing Aelfsward, and given me a crown incorruptible. Lord, how dare I approach Thee, I who have been a stranger to prayer all these years. But Thu hast promised, nay, Thu hast COMMANDED me be virtuous, and Thu commandest not that which is impossible, but, in giving the ordinance, give also the power to put the selfsame into effect. Thu hast given me a dignity beyond man's bearing. Therefore I ask Thee...

 

MAKE ME WORTHY, O GOD. MAKE ME WORTHY."

 

And Offa thought that perhaps he had been heard. The howsoever, whensoever and in what form soever in which the prayer would be fulfilled he knew not. But he began to hope that one day, in some unknown wise, in some better time, would be fulfilled the words: 

 

"Ic wilnode weorthfullice to libbanne tha hwile the ic lifede. And aefter minum life than monnum to laefanne the aefter me waeren min gemynd on godum weorcum."

 

Even in respect of the man in the mirror. 

 

 

 

((Thanks to all those who interacted with Offa the other day and thus helped to shape this story. I wrote this to reflect on how he was shaped by his arrival in Haense.))

 

Edited January 18 by thesmellypocket