"The angels took her by the hand": No ordinary abbess.
Chapter 2 | Hild's Tale | A Serialised Historical Fiction Novel
This is Chapter 2 of Hild’s Tale, a historical fiction novel based on (though not tied to) real events that took place in the kingdom of the Northumbrians during the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Abbess Hild, or Saint Hild as she later became known, was a woman who defied social and political expectations to become one of the most powerful people - yes, people, not women - in seventh-century England. Despite this, she was sidelined in the major contemporary histories; this story aims to give back the spotlight she so rightly deserves.
Chapter 1 saw the famous historian Bede (often name ‘the venerable Bede’) arriving at Whitby Abbey, Hild’s home for many years before her death. Determined to include a life of the famous abbess in his History of the English Church and People, Bede had travelled down the coast from his own monastery at Jarrow to find out what the nuns could tell him about her. What he discovered shocked and delighted him in equal measure: a thriving community of nuns engaged in exquisite work.
You can read Chapter 1 at the link below.
Chapter 2
It seemed like only moments had passed since Bede had laid down on the bed, yet he was shocked to see through the tiny rounded window that darkness had fallen.
He rubbed his forehead, throbbing with a deep headache from days without water. Though rain had fallen almost the entire journey between Jarrow and Whitby, it had soaked his clothes rather than filled his wooden water vessel, and what little water he’d managed to collect had been thrown into the sodden earth when his horse was spooked by a wolf calling into the night.
The pain sat right behind his left eye, radiating upwards from his neck and through to his jaw, wrapping round to the base of his skull. He dropped his head forwards, adding pressure with his hands, trying to ease off some of the muscle ache making his it worse, but it was no good. Only a proper night’s sleep and bucket load of water would heal him.
A crackle alerted him to a log glowing in the small hearth next to which he lay under a mountain of woollen blankets; Sister Ælfflæd must have lit the fire before she left him.
Sister Æfflæd. His eyes darted around the room as the mist clouding his memory began to clear.
Sister Ælfflæd - the nun who had shown him to his room from his encounter with the abbess.
Bede blushed as he remembered meeting Abbess Æthelhild, her parting instruction to him as he moved towards the door of the wonderful scriptorium.
“My only request, dear brother, is that you respect the nuns’ vows of holiness and chastity: allow me to chaperone your meetings.”
Yet Ælfflæd must have been here, in his room, when he was sleeping, to light the fire. Did she not respect his vow of holiness and chastity?
Bede rubbed his head once more, trying to shake the frustration from it.
This was all too confusing. The women, the luxury, the warmth… At his own monastery in Jarrow, some sixty miles further north along the Northumbrian coast, ice would form along the interior windowsills; his abbot argued that it brought them closer to Christ to suffer in the ways that he did. Here, though, he found a fire in his own room, blankets piled on top of him as he slept.
What kind of place is this?
It was not long after he’d woken that a gentle knock and whispered voice at the door invited him to join the nuns for their evening meal.
“Sisters,” the rich voice of Abbess Æthelhild echoed effortlessly across the great hall once they’d all sat down. Her audience were at rows of simple trestle tables and benches, wooden bowls and cups waiting to be filled with rich stew and wine. “It will not have escaped you that we have a visitor amongst our ranks tonight.”
Hushed but vibrant conversation, with an occasional giggle, escaped from the nuns.
She turned to face him. “Brother Bede, whose commentaries you will have been taught from if you have been here for any length of time, will be joining us for the winter season to write a Life, a Vita, of our blessed founder, Abbess Hild. Many of you, of course, will have known her personally, having dedicated your long lives to Christ and the service of our abbey here in Whitby for many decades. Others will have heard stories of her life from other sisters. Brother Bede is here to hear it all and ascertain what will be most befitting for his Vita.”
He smiled, noting her subtle misstep once again; she had done it in the scriptorium too. Bede began to wonder whether the abbess was wilfully reinterpreting his mission, preferring to frame it as a service to the community here rather than work done for their king, Ceolwulf.
“Brother Bede would be grateful, while he winters here, for any memories you have of the blessed Abbess Hild as well as any texts or other relevant information you are aware of in our library. For now though we must eat.” She joined her hands together. “Let me say a prayer of thanks to our gracious Lord and Saviour before we enjoy the good sustenance he has given us this evening.”
Bede could not remember ever having eaten such decadent food. Devoted to the community at Jarrow at just eight years old, he had long been used to simple meals: porridge, bread and thin soup, perhaps the occasional hunk of cheese or sliver of meat at feast times. That evening, however, he enjoyed tender cuts of lamb softened by hours spent cooking in a rich herb-infused sauce.
It was as he wiped the final dregs of his meal with the fresh, crusty roll that he heard the faintest whisper close to his ear, self-assured yet wearied by age.
“I saw her ascend to the angels, you know.”
The evening meal complete, wooden cups drained of the thick, spiced wine that warmed them from within during the ice-bound months, he had been preparing to bid his farewell to the abbess and retire to his room, eager to get a good night’s sleep ahead of his first full day of research.
The light touch of his elbow, followed by the whispered voice, had made the hairs on his neck stand on edge despite the roaring hearth. He turned his head slowly to see who would dare approach a brother so closely, so inappropriately intimately.
Her eyes glowed with wonder, the remnant of her youthful beauty scarred by the deep lines that come to all fortunate to live into their twilight years. Her gnarled hand gripped his elbow harder, willing him to believe her fantastical tale.
She intensified her stare.
“The night she died. I saw her.
“I was in my room, sleeping on the little mattress bed alongside the other novice nuns. I was far away-” she grasper him tighter - “far, far away. By the monastery enclosure, next to the cliff.
“She came to me, in a vision as I slept, with such a deep sense of peace that she could only have been sent by our blessed Father.
“When I saw her, walking through the long grasses towards the sea, she was beautiful radiant, her face and body restored yet more perfect than it could ever have been in this life. I knew then that this was no dream, that she was journeying to meet with the saints around the throne of heaven.
“She paused-” the nun paused too, dramatically, Bede urging her on, hungry to hear the conclusion of her tale - “lifted her face to the sky, opened her arms wide, and whispered, ‘Father, I am ready. I am ready to meet you face to face, to worship the Lamb.’ She took a deep breath, and then the angels came, took her by the hand, and led her to her eternal rest. She ascended to the sky and departed this world in a flash of light, as with the summer storms. Except this was no storm.
“I woke at once and bid the other novices gather immediately to pray for the soul of our beloved abbess.”
She dropped her hand from his elbow, smiling softly.
“I just thought you’d want to know. For your research, Brother Bede.”
Her eyes flashed, and then she shuffled away before he had the chance to respond, hand leaning heavily on a twisted wooden stick.
Bede exhaled loudly.
What have I got myself into?
You’ve been reading Hild’s Tale, a serialised historical fiction novel by Holly Brown.
The next instalment will be available on Thursday 12th December, exclusively on Substack. Subscribe now to make sure you never miss a chapter, and receive it straight to your email or app inbox as soon as it becomes available.
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Wow, I absolutely adore your writing!