Cenwulf opens the room

Cenwulf took a torch with him when he went to open Colburga’s room. He did not think the torch or lamp left in the room would light after so long.

The room was stuffy with nine months of dust and the heat of June. Everything was as they had left it – they had not even made the bed after lifting her body from it. It was not merely a timeless, empty room – it was the room she had left, frozen in time at the instant she had left it – and she had only left a moment ago.

If only they had smoothed out the blankets after she had been carried out! He didn’t doubt that he would find the depression made by her head in the pillow. It was cruel – it was unbearable. But perhaps it had been his command. He no longer remembered what he had done or said in those days.

He took the old torch from the bracket and hung up the new.

The corners of the room were filled with cobwebs now. The spiders had been at work here, if the maids hadn’t.

And there, on the floor, leaning against the wall with its back to the room, was the mirror. He could right it now. He went and hung it, and stood before it a moment, staring at his face in the gloom.

He had not seen his own face in so long. It was shocking how much it had changed in so short a time. He knew he had lost weight, but he had no idea how loosely the skin hung over his cheeks now. He was not thinner – he was emptier.

He turned back into the room and saw the great chest standing against the wall. All of her gowns were still inside. He would see.

He pulled open one of the drawers, and was stunned by the odor – it was her. The smell of her cut straight through him as no sight or sound could have done. After all these months of dull, wearying heartache, he had forgotten that it was possible to feel such sharp, blinding pain.

He shoved the drawer closed again with a boom and turned back to the bed in desperation. The sheets were wrinkled where she had lain. The pillow still lay as if it bore the weight of her head. This he could alter.

He grabbed the edge of the blanket and yanked it up over the bed. He smoothed out the pillow as well, but when he stood he found a long, red hair wrapped over the back of his hand.

He shook it off in horror and then stood with his head in his hands, shaking with sobs that would not come.

It was too cruel, it was too unbearable. She had been dead for nine months already, but all was as if she had just left, and now he felt again all he had felt that day. It had been a mistake to come here. A cruel mistake.

He would not sleep here again. He would put a bed in the storeroom above his study. It could only be reached by a ladder, and would not be the most practical place to put a baby. But he could not bring Baldwin here. It would be too cruel.