by Jean Gill
‘Then we go home,’ he promised.
ON SANTA BARBA’S DAY, Estela rose very early and went to the kitchen in search of soup bowls. The Welsh often made a soup they called cawl, and she had no problem finding suitable bowls. Three would not be missed among so many, and three was the number required by the seasonal tradition of her homeland.
Then she went outside and scooped enough earth from the kitchen garden to fill the bowls. She untied the little pouch she’d carried across land and sea, and shared the wheat seed between the bowls.
Musca and his little friend Primo should have been with her. They were old enough this year to put soil in the bowls with their stubby fingers, to press the seeds into the top, and to watch the magic of the next three weeks which would open those dry cases and let the green shoots grow.
She remembered her mother reminding her to water them each day; her own excitement as green shoots poked through the surface and sprang tall; her pride at table on Christmas Eve when she placed her three fine fields of wheat by the three candles. Had her father praised her or did her memories add love that never existed?
Her mother’s warmth was no false imagining and she wished with all her soul that she could be to her son all that her mother had been to her. More than that: she wished she could be the heart of a domain as her mother had been to Montbrun. The heart of Dragonetz’ domain.
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Estela took the three bowls back into the kitchen, to the great fireplace, where yesterday’s logs kept their heat without flames, ready to spark anew when today’s wood joined them.
She placed the three bowls carefully at the back of the hearth, where they would be warm and get some light, but would not be scorched. She told a cook what she intended and the woman had taken pity on the foreign guest, assured her that the wheat for Santa Barba would come to no harm.
Satisfied with her work, Estela returned to her accommodation, slipped out of her gown and back into bed. Dragonetz half-woke, murmured, ‘You’ve got mud on your nose,’ and closed his eyes again.
Estela rubbed wet and soil around on her face, then went back to sleep.
RHYS AND MAREDUDD HAD turned into the most considerate of hosts – or of gaolers. Estela was not sure which but she accepted all the invitations to ride out with them. Dragonetz must take every opportunity to plead for King Henri and she would do her part. In truth, discovering the Cantref Mawr, the land at the heart of Deheubarth, was no hardship to a curious mind. A wise traveller took every opportunity to learn all he – or she – could about a place and its people.
Before the brothers had regained their previous kingdom, Cantref Mawr had been all they were allowed to keep, a tiny portion of Deheubarth but a green land of woods, lakes, streams and legends.
‘This is all part of the region where my mother and father lived in the woods, before he left for the north, and she for the last battle.’ Maredudd told them, as they looked out across a vast lake, turquoise as kingfisher’s wings. ‘When we are at war, we retreat here, to the land around Caio. Our people can live in the woods, be harder to find than the Tylwyth Teg, build huts in a day and move as quickly.’
‘On a day just like this, with the winter-fowl calling on the lake, my father passed by, returning from the English court, with some of the King’s greatest lords for company. Earl Milo of Hereford mocked my father’s claim to noble blood. He said there was a saying in Gwalia that should the land’s rightful ruler order the birds on this lake to break into song, then they would obey.
‘Then go you first,’ said my father, ‘as you believe in your right.’
First Milo, then Payn Fitzjohn, each in his turn, ordered the birds to sing but nothing happened.
Then my father prostrated himself as before a battle and prayed, saying to the Lord, ‘If I am the true descendant of the five princes of Cymru, let these birds announce it in your name!’ Then all the birds on the water, each in his manner, beat its wings and sang to acknowledge their rightful ruler.’
‘It is a good tale,’ Rhys pronounced, ‘but I would not test it.’
‘It is our tale, brother!’
They rode from the lake to the River Cothi, ‘famed for its sewin’. Maredudd and Dragonetz exchanged a smile.
Did your people build something there?’ Dragonetz was pointing into a ravine, towards what looked like a ruined tower.
‘No, that’s an illusion. It’s just a stone,’ Maredudd replied, ‘but there are initials carved there and red bricks from old times, from the Romans who lived here centuries ago. They called it the Red Town for its red rock. There are old mineworks and a rock called Clochdy Gweno haunted by the ghost of a girl, Gweno.’ He looked hard at Estela, ‘She went exploring beyond the limits of the rock, into the caves and tunnels, and was taken by the forces of evil–’
Rhys cut in. ‘Dragonetz has no interest in ancient history or ghost stories.’ He turned his horse away from the ravine more smoothly than he turned the subject. ‘When your King comes to his throne, will you ride beside him? Against Deheubarth?’
‘He will have no need to ride against Deheubarth if you are his ally. And why would you not be?’ countered Dragonetz. ‘King Henri has done you no wrong and has no reason to love the lords you’ve defeated. He has regained his rightful kingdom, that his mother lost. You have regained your rightful lands, those your father lost. How could he not take your part? Especially when you keep the Marcher Lords from abusing their power.’
Rhys frowned. ‘They will take their grievances to him, threaten to cause uprisings if he does not make good their claims to our land and help them get it back.’
‘Yes, they will. And Henri will have to choose the force which offers his new kingdom more stability; the might of Deheubarth or a handful of Marcher Lords, who bicker among themselves at the drop of a gauntlet. He’ll have to consider which poses the greater threat; Deheubarth slighted or that same handful of Marcher Lords. I know what choice I’d make, were I king! Or do you think so little of the might of Deheubarth?’
Rhys was no dullard and cut to the heart of what Dragonetz did not say. ‘There is no question of our might. But if the king decides he cannot trust Deheubarth, he will choose the lesser force.’
‘Can he?’ asked Dragonetz. ‘Can he trust Deheubarth?’
The question hung in the air. ‘And if he doesn’t. Will you ride with him against us?’ Rhys answered question with question.
‘I hope to be far from here, in my own domain, from which I have too long been absent.’ Dragonetz also ducked the question. This was news to Estela. Did he mean Malik’s villa in Zaragoza?
‘But you are vassal to King Henri,’ observed Rhys, pressing the point.
‘As are you,’ was Dragonetz’ riposte.
‘We do not acknowledge your system. No Welsh are vassals.’ Rhys was adamant. Which is why they can’t be trusted thought Estela. ‘But you have taken an oath. One that matters to you.’
‘Yes,’ said Dragonetz.
‘And you don’t even know what the man looks like!’ Rhys grunted his contempt and no more was said on the matter.
Later that evening, when they were alone, Estela broke off from describing her favourite parts in the day’s ride when she saw that Dragonetz was not listening.
‘What’s wrong?’ she quizzed him. ‘You have sowed the seeds that should bloom into an alliance if the Welsh lords have any sense. They could not have been more amiable to us.’
‘That’s what worries me. They know I am Henri’s man and yet they are showing me how attractive their lands are. They have hidden nothing from me of their military strength and tactics. In their place, I would hide every asset.’
‘Maybe they trust you. And they wouldn’t consider me important.’
‘Maybe.’
Chapter 24
The vagaries of Winter weather in Cymru – Gwalia, as we call the land
When snow has fallen, the wise traveller should avoid boys, and men who behave like boys. Such peo
ple will look for every opportunity to compromise the dignity of others, whether by rendering paths slippery underfoot or by hurling compacted balls of snow.
Estela smiled as she sucked her bedraggled quill. Not since she’d been a girl bombarding her brother and Gilles from a perch in a tree had she so much enjoyed pelting a man with snowballs. Her face still glowed from the fresh cold and her back tingled, wet from a handful that had been thrust down the neck of her gown in very unchivalrous manner. Dragonetz was no doubt suffering from melting snow too. She smiled to herself again and hoped no prying eyes had followed their excursion into the glittering woods.
Perhaps they should have walked backwards so their footsteps hid an escape attempt, like that of King Henri’s mother, Empress Matilda, when she left her castle prison. They too could have kept going, hired horses, fled to England and a sea-port, chartered a ship for home.
As if they would be able to hire horses! When she’d been told a million times, on every ride, that this was Deheubarth land, for days in every direction. The brothers would find them easily. And then there would be no leaving, ever. Her good humour vanished.
Patience. Tonight was Christmas Eve and there would be a celebration, with song. Maredudd and Rhys had promised them fine entertainment over the coming days and a chance for them to sing. Patience. Only thirteen days to wait.
THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES were a mix of familiar and foreign traditions. Estela watched with approval as two men, chosen for their hulking strength, hobbled into the Great Hall with a Yule log that must have been half a well-aged tree. It would have been a fruit tree back home. Another familiar Christmas custom was the decoration of the Hall with boughs of holly, ivy and mistletoe, to keep evil spirits away.
Yes, that should burn through the twelve days, she thought, as the huge log was joined by its ceremonial partner. Rhys brought in the small, half-charred remnant of last year’s Yule log, and lit it from kindling already burning in the great fireplace. The wood of the old year sparked the future and the flame lived on, witnessed by all the courtiers.
She could not sprinkle wine on the log, as should be done, but she reached for Dragonetz’ hand and squeezed it, sharing the moment.
He murmured the appropriate blessing in Occitan, ‘Alègre, Diou nous alègre Cacho fio ven, tout ben ven; Diou nous fagué la graci de veïre l’an que ven, Si sian pas mai que siguen pas men. Good is coming. May God bless us in the coming year; if we are not more, may we not be fewer.’
The fasting of Advent had given an appetite for Christmas fare but Dinefwr plans were all for the banquets from Christmas Day onward. Estela missed the supper that was a Christmas Eve tradition at home, where salt cod and cardoons were followed by fresh and dried fruit, nuts and nougat. The desserts would be left on the tables throughout the twelve days of Christmas.
Here in Deheubarth, the Christmas Eve supper was a simple but filling soup. Vegetables, as always, were added like herbs, for flavour not substance, but meat was plentiful, and there was much talk of the feast planned for the next day. Estela knew from her visits to the kitchen that roast boar was on the menu and a dessert that required six hundred eggs. Her stomach liked the idea that there would be dessert, whatever it might be.
As the boys commenced serving, Estela excused herself. She met six well-rehearsed page boys in the kitchen and gave each one his precious burden. Solemn, with well-scrubbed faces, they paraded the length of the Hall to the High Table. Under Estela’s supervision, they carefully placed their three candles and three bowls of wheat shoots in front of Rhys and Maredudd, who looked to Dragonetz for an explanation.
‘My wife will explain our custom to you,’ he told them.
‘This is lo blat de la Santa Barba, the wheat planted on Santa Barba’s Day,’ she told them. ‘If the wheat grows well, so shall your harvests in the year to come. If you plant these shoots in offering to the land, she will be fruitful in return. This is what we say, in my country.’
Rhys was at his most gracious. ‘It is a beautiful tradition, my Lady.’ He looked to Maredudd and said, ‘We thank you.’
‘Does it grow well?’ Maredudd asked, looking at the spindly shoots.
‘Very well, my Lord,’ Estela reassured him.
‘You will see one of our traditions this night,’ Rhys told her. ‘We celebrate Mass during the darkest hours, in our ceremony of Plygain.’
Long past midnight, long past the hour when Estela thought of oxen and asses, their speech as miraculous as the birth they witnessed, she and Dragonetz joined a torchlight procession to Mass in the chapel.
The Latin service was familiar, with the priest and the monk each playing their part, from the thrice rung bell to the raising of the chalice. What followed, however, was uniquely Welsh.
Four men made their way to the altar, through the crowd standing there. They formed a line and faced the congregation, then they began to sing. Music fit for such a time and place resounded from the stone as if a whole choir of brethren gave voice.
The songs were tales of Christ’s death and birth, but also of everyman’s life. Estela could not understand all the words but she could hear the music in them. Some songs were twenty verses or more but nobody stirred in complaint at their length.
What made the music heavenly was the combination of voices, and Estela suddenly understood what she was hearing, what she had heard before among the women in Llansteffan kitchen but thought she must have dreamt it. She was hearing what Dragonetz had dreamt and what none of their countrymen believed possible. The men were singing in parts, each his own, different melody. It was nothing like the effect of different voices singing in unison. Each voice followed its own melody. When one voice soared, another fell, and the blend was beyond beautiful.
‘B flat,’ murmured Dragonetz as he moved towards the altar and the singers, like a child seeing the Christmas desserts on the table. ‘They start and end on B flat.’ Then he was out of her hearing, as close as he could get to the music that had been his quest for two years.
Estela watched him listening. He was lost to everything but the way each part contributed to the whole. In between songs, he turned to look at her, to share the Christmas miracle. His eyes brimmed with unshed tears.
For now, they let the music flow through them. The words they did understand were markers, like boulders in the stream of sound, giving shape to the current.
Later, they would analyse the techniques used, argue about how many voices could follow different paths. Dragonetz’ vision had seven voices. Was this possible? For the Welsh, such music was their tradition, both in church and out of it, with no thought that it might be unfit for praising God.
‘Bestial,’ Dragonetz muttered bitterly. ‘That’s what the Abbot of San Pau told me such a variation from their chant would be.’
‘Nobody could listen to such music and think that!’ Estela was outraged. ‘You must show them! Talk to the Welsh singers, find out all you can and we’ll bring your dreamsong to life!’
Dragonetz shook his head at how impossible their discovery seemed. ‘How can a race of such barbarism be so cultured? Like a pearl, made from common dew and growing in a coarse shell.’
Estela put that same question to herself many times during the period she still thought of as the Calendale, the festive season. Stuffed to bursting with all the foods missing during advent, Estela still found room each day for a little more roast boar, venison, bacon with mustard, partridge pie, hen stew or pottage with lashings of butter, cream and cheese. There was even the luxury of whole pieces of vegetable to aid digestion, cabbages and leeks, which grew well in these lands.
Rhys had not exaggerated. Interludes between feasts were filled with dancing, music and poetry. Estela found herself ringing handbells while Dragonetz hit the tambour, and the Lords of Deheubarth started a dance movement by making reverence to their partners. Within the span of one turn of the dance circle, Estela was the one gracefully accepting reverence from Rhys while Dragonetz bent his right knee to a giggling
Welsh matron.
The diners were awash with spiced wine when cake was served. Six hundred eggs, thought Estela, as she found just enough room for a small piece – and then another one.
A sudden commotion at the far end of the Hall was followed by rowdy cheers. A man was lifted onto the table where he danced a little jig and sang an impromptu ditty whose sole lyrics were variations on, ‘I found the bean.’ He raised the item in question so everybody could see the cause of his celebration. Nobody could, so they all took his word for it. There was only one bean in the cake and closer inspection proved that this was indeed a bean, complete with cake crumbs.
‘John Halfpenny,’ groaned Dragonetz, his head in his hands.
Maredudd stood, calmed the gathering and confirmed John Halfpenny’s authority as the Lord of Misrule. Somebody found a staff with a fool’s head and John Halfpenny began reciting jokes in what was clearly poor Welsh and even poorer taste, to judge by the groans.
Estela whispered to Dragonetz, ‘Don’t they usually kill the Lord of Misrule after Twelfth Night and plant him in a cornfield?’
‘I do hope so,’ Dragonetz replied, earning a wave of the fool’s staff in his direction, and a barbed comment which was some play on the words ‘Long Shadow’ that Estela preferred not to understand.
To give Halfpenny his due, he did not lack inventiveness, and if he occasionally drew blood with his satirical humour, he also drew laughter with the games he proposed. Exactly what was needed during the dark season.
Estela was drawing breath after a particularly vigorous game of blind man’s buff, when Halfpenny shook the bells on his staff and made his announcement.
‘This was your idea, wasn’t it!’ Estela accused Dragonetz, whose mischievous eyes appeared above the blindfold as he loosened the ties and removed the frayed band.
‘Maybe,’ he acknowledged. ‘Just as well for you, too. I nearly had you.’
