Rhiannon

by Vicki Grove

  Rhia planted her knuckles upon her hips. “How’s this, then? I have a plan for hearing the boasts the squires may make about Aleron’s scarf! I am to meet Sir Leonard and his friends to celebrate Beltane Eve at Wythicopse Ring, though there be dragons about, or might well be! Or one, anyhow,” she rambled. “I’ve heard its fiercesome sighs with my own ears! It’s held in an underground chamber, the roof of which is made of tiny flat stones that make up magical pictures—a brown hare, and a fine lady with large dark eyes! Though I figure you won’t believe me, I nevertheless say to you that my friend Maddy has also seen the very same—”

  “And has the hare a pink nose?” Jonah called back. “The lady holds a red flower, I’ll wager. Look further and you may see an ancient man upon a donkey, as well.”

  She stood stunned for a moment, then drew in a sharp breath. “How’d . . . how’d you know?”

  Thaddeus, meanwhile, had cornered with the plow and now was staggering back in their direction. He noted the expression on Rhia’s face and pulled the reins taut, throwing his full weight backward to bring the stubborn cow to a reluctant, mooing halt.

  “I said, how’d you know?” Rhiannon again called to Jonah, stomping her foot. As he’d chosen to ignore her the first time, this time she was outright bellowing.

  Jonah calmly replied, “Rhiannon, how I know of that chamber can be of little importance to you, as you’ll not be joining their party on Beltane Eve or at any other time. I don’t know how you could consider it with what we suspect of that bunch.”

  He turned again toward the woods.

  “He’s right, Rhia,” Thaddeus said, quietly and firmly. “We won’t hear of it. I too am shocked you would consider such a thing, if you want the truth.”

  Well, it was the worst course the two of them could have taken, as Rhia now saw red and would not have been dissuaded from attending had a band of angels come to order her to desist.

  “When did you two become the lords and I your vassal?” she fumed. “For your information, good sirs, I go where I choose to go and do what I choose to do, and I’ve been much looking forward to attending this party! I suppose I can spy upon a private conversation as well as anyone else, including the two of you!”

  And then, her anger made her do a thing she might elsewise never have done.

  “As for you, Sir Jonah?” she called at the top of her lungs, her heart beating fast. “Would you be so reckless with the feelings of your own true sister, Adela? For her sake, heed my distress and come tell me what you know of that chamber! I must needs know everything of it in advance, as I will go there on Beltane to confront those we figure to be Aleron and Jim’s dire enemies, and there’s naught in the wide world you can do to stop me!”

  Lifting her trembling chin, and in a more courteous voice, she added, “In particular, if it please you, I’d know if there be a dragon.”

  Sir Jonah again stopped walking, but this time he stood frozen in the bracken at wood’s edge. He slowly turned in her direction, then he took the ax from his shoulder and drove it easily into the nearest oak. An oak is a very hard tree, Rhia thought. She gulped, somewhat regretting that she’d opened her mouth.

  He meanwhile trod with measured step and downcast eyes to where she waited with Thaddeus. “Tell how you knew of my sister,” he demanded, staring at the ground.

  “You mentioned her yourself this morn, remember?” Rhiannon answered. She cleared her throat and forced air into her lungs. “And, well . . . you mistook me for her, several times, when you were ill and not yourself.”

  He lifted his eyes and looked at her. “I loved my sister,” he whispered raggedly. “I tried to save her. Her screams!” He pressed his hands to his ears. “I took the oars from Aleron and rowed back for her—I did! Naturally I did! But the small craft was only meant for a few, and it capsized and quickly sank when so many jumped inside.”

  His anguished eyes suddenly filled with tears that he made no move to conceal.

  “Why, why, why could I not have perished with the rest?” he whispered. “Why did God give Aleron strength to pull me to shore and revive me from my drown? In His mercy, why would He not let me sleep eternal with the others?”

  “But it could not have been your fault that . . .” Rhia began.

  But Sir Jonah did not want to hear, and indeed had already turned from them to run blindly toward the forest, stumbling across the rough ground, punching and kicking the brambles aside as he went. This time it was Rhia who started after him, and Thaddeus who reached to stop her.

  “He needs to be alone,” he said simply.

  Rhiannon whirled to Thaddeus, some exasperated.“Say it, Thaddeus, won’t you, finally? Just put words to what we both know.”

  Thaddeus stared at the place in the treeline where Jonah had just disappeared. The leaves and rushes there still quaked as from a typhoon.

  “Yes, Thaddeus said with a small smile. “I believe he is.”

  Chapter 21

  Now that they’d decided Jonah’s hidden identity must indeed be fact, not vague imagining and far-fetched conjecture, Rhia felt dizzy with the knowledge of it. “I bent my knee to him in the chapel last night,” she whispered. “He asked me for friendship’s sake never to do that again, nor to tell anyone he’d been seen here upon our bluff.”

  Thaddeus nodded. “You heard him say that he and Aleron traveled incognito to those shrines, and that his only wish is to die seeking Divine pardon. He cannot bear the shame of owning up to his rightful station, nor the turmoil it will bring. I truly fear he would end his life rather than resume it as Prince William Aethling. We have to respect his honorable decision. Even to you and me he must always remain Sir Jonah.”

  “Of course, Thaddeus,” she whispered. “As a pilgrim, he may eventually find some measure of peace. With the world watching and judging him, how could he ever?”

  They stood together in silence for a while, marveling at the secret they shared.

  Then Thaddeus cleared his throat. “Rhia? I can understand that you now wish to overhear what you may at Wythicopse Ring on Beltane Eve. But, well, why did you consent to be a part of the Beltane revels there to begin with? Forgive me if I presume too much, but it seems unlike you to join such a dangerous and . . . well, frivolous party.”

  Her neck felt aflame at this unexpected query. “I would never have said yes to such a thing, except that I was . . . trapped by my friend Maddy.”

  Thaddeus gave her the slightest frown. “Trapped? How trapped?”

  Rhia closed her eyes. “What she tells me to do, I must. I cannot naysay her, as when I try, she comes up with a different road to the same thing, and I am hoodwinked before I know it! Ever since we were little girls, Maddy’s begged to be brought to our chapel at some midnight. See, she likes a scare, and she likes a frolic, as well. Her new boyfriend is one of the squires, and she wanted to impress him and his mates this Beltane with a scare and a party, at our sacred chapel! Which is ridiculous, of course. I had to say I’d join them at Wythicopse Ring so she’d drop her insistence on coming up to our bluff!” She put her face in her hands and shook her head. “I know, I know. It sounds right daft. But . . . if you knew Maddy. I must please her or . . . or else.”

  Thaddeus looked glassy-eyed. “I confess, I’ve little experience with such things.”

  She sighed and nodded. “Being an oblate for holy brotherhood, you mean.”

  He shook his head and gave a laugh. “Nay, I mean I’ve had little experience with such complications because I’m male. Our friendships be true and simple, thank God!”

  He strode toward the treed ax, still shaking his head and laughing.

  “Well, sir!” Rhia called after him. “I thank God that I am female, and therefore do not traipse through life unaware of friendship’s necessary complications. I marvel that boys have friends at all, as careless as they treat each other, what with their constant rough brags and crude jokes and punches to the arm and . . . and so forth.”

  She could not resist a bit
of laughing pantomime, swaggering with her arms held from her body in rude imitation of a boy, her mouth gone slack and her features pulled stupid.

  Thaddeus watched, amused, as he meanwhile struggled to free the ax. “Fair trade, then, lady. I’ll stay simple and sleep nights, whilst you brood about your girlish entanglements.” With a final smile, he yanked the ax free and turned to begin cutting the wood for Mam.

  As she headed back to the cot for her seed bag, Rhia thought how she might have added that her girlfriends did not run so abruptly to the woods when they were upset, either, leaving their mates to do their afternoon work for them.

  Mam was not about when Rhiannon reached the cottage, and Granna still dozed beside the fire. Rhia grabbed the seed sack from its peg. She was tiptoeing back toward the door when from above her came a plea. “Sister Rhia! Take us with you!”

  She looked up to see Daisy grinning hopefully down at her from the loft with Sal doing likewise over Daisy’s shoulder. Sal had spent the day with them as they observed her reactions to Sir Jonah. At mealtime she’d seemed unfazed by him, so mayhaps she was no longer spooked and might soon go back to her own dwelling.

  Rhia put her finger to her lips. “Come along, then, but quickly and quietly!” she whispered. “Have a care you don’t wake Granna, or she may have inside jobs for us!”

  On such a bright and warm afternoon, that would truly rankle.

  Daisy came clomping down the ladder, made clumsy by dragging her tortoise along. Rhiannon hurried to lift her down the last two rungs, then she climbed up to the top and steadied Sally from behind as she climbed slowly step-together down. Rhia then grabbed the hands of both girls and hustled them outside.

  “Three fish, three fish!” Sally cried when they were standing upon the violet-studded new grass. She clapped her hands, squinting up at the sun, heedless of its dazzle.

  “What’s that noise?” Daisy asked. “Sounds exactly like thunder, only different.”

  “ ’Tis merely Thaddeus, cutting wood,” Rhia answered, staring at the lumpish bundle the young girl carried. “Daisy, why is your pet wrapped to resemble a sausage?”

  Queen Matilda was wearing a red stocking of Granna’s. It was pulled taut over her shell’s wide girth, then had been cinched closed around her scrawny neck and stringy tail with dandelion chains.

  “Tildy is dressed for a wedding,” Daisy proudly explained, holding her up.

  “Or someone’s funeral, if Granna misses that sock,” Rhia murmured, shaking her head. “And how may she walk, as you’ve trapped her feet within her gown?”

  “She’s to be pulled to the wedding in a fine carriage,” Daisy answered with a dignified air. “Meanwhile, I shall carry her majesty where’er she pleases to go.”

  The animal had perceived that she was now outside and batted within the woolen sock so furiously that she slipped from Daisy’s hands. She fell the short distance to the ground and, though she’d doubtless expected freedom, was panicked by finding herself still stranded within her woolen dress. She opened and closed her beak several times, still struggling and squirming, then stretched her neck to its entire amazing length as her eyes bulged with distress.

  Sally covered her own eyes with her hands at this pitiful sight and crouched down, crying, “No! Stop!”

  Rhia immediately bent to pull apart the flower chains that bound the animal. “Queen Tildy’s now free, Sal,” she said quickly. “And Daisy, hear me—Granna’s best red stocking must not be shredded by a rampaging ...”

  But Daisy was staring at Sal. “She said new words!” the child whispered.

  Rhia’s heart raced, for indeed she had! She dropped to crouch knee-to-knee with Sal and took Sal’s hands from her face. “Oh, Sally, you spoke a different speech!”

  But Sally looked back at her with empty eyes. “Three . . . fish,” she whispered.

  Rhiannon kept tight hold of Sal’s hands, as over her shoulder she gave quick orders to Daisy. “Take Queen Matilda right this minute and leave her in the large bucket beside the beehives, hear? Elsewise she may meet with mischance at bluff’s edge. We’ll put Granna’s stocking in the seed sack so’s not to wake her by returning it to the cottage just now, but hurry with the other, so’s we may go on along!”

  Daisy did not argue but grabbed her pet and ran quickly, not wanting to miss anything.

  “Now, Sally, while we are alone, say it again,” Rhiannon ordered in a fierce whisper. “Say your new saying. ‘No, stop!’ Say those words for me, Sally, please? Please?”

  Sally would not. But she now looked at Rhia direct, and drew her brows into a frown.

  Rhiannon had never seen Sally frown. She let go Sal’s hands and noted that her own hands were suddenly shaking a bit, though Sally was smiling her simple smile again, waiting for Rhiannon to pull her to her feet and lead her where she would.

  Rhia stuffed Granna’s stocking into the seed sack, then pulled Sally to a stand. At that, Gramp, who’d kept one eye upon them from his roost in the yew tree, opened the other eye as well, stretched from his off-and-on doze, and flew to join them.

  “I’m back!” Daisy announced as she thrust herself between Rhia and Sally, taking a hand from each. “Sally’s hand is dry and warm,” she sang out as she skipped along. “Rhiannon, your hand is damp. Eeeeuw.”

  “Well, if you like not holding my hand, go home right now,” Rhia told her peevishly. “As at the bluff’s edge you must hold my hand at all times, or if not my hand, then the hem of my skirt. And if not my hem, then the cord at my waist. I must feel you at all times, Daisy, and know you are on the clearing side of me, never the bluff side.”

  In the air, Gramp may well have rolled his eyes to hear Rhia of all people become instructress regarding safe behavior at bluff’s edge.

  There were few seeds left to gather that late in the day. The birds and the wind had snatched the better part of the night’s scatterings. Still, Rhiannon was glad to have some time to think out the snags from morning with female company, and that on the young side, so Rhia herself could be the boss of them. She was boss to very few in this world, and it oft seemed a great many were boss of her.

  She quick gave up her order that Daisy hold on to her garment. Daisy and Sal sat upon the ground near the opening from the trail, playing at Daisy’s favorite patty-cake game. Sal’s hands were palm up where they rested on Sal’s lap, and Daisy happily patted them as though Sal patted back. As long as Rhia could hear the gentle pat of Daisy’s hands on Sal’s and the singsong of Daisy’s high voice, she knew where they were and could safely work with her back to them.

  Besides, Gramp sat upon his faery rock, watching the girls’ every move.

  It made a pleasant harmony—the gentle pat of the girls’ four hands and the sharp and rhythmic resound of Thaddeus’s ax in the distance. For the first time since Sir Jonah had come fully awake, Rhia relaxed. She breathed a deep sigh, having found more air in the world when Thaddeus and Jonah were not nearby to absorb it all. She’d missed voicing her thoughts aloud as she worked, too—letting them progress from her lips all willy-nilly, as she oft did when alone with Gramp, or Sally. With Jonah and Thaddeus, she’d had to consider before she spoke, always on guard lest she offend Thaddeus, or upset Jonah, or sound ridiculous to one or the other or both. That last, being ridiculous, had been her great concern, to tell it true. Was it always so when boys were around?

  Anyhow, now she eagerly picked up her habit of gabbing without regard.

  “Gramp, here’s the thing. As you well know, Mam must let me go where I will on Beltane Eve, as that’s the custom. Last year I went with some other girls to the bonfire on the green and didn’t come back till morn.” She squinted at an unfamiliar seed, then tossed it aside, as it was not seed at all but merely some ragged pod of milkweed. “Some nerve Thaddeus and Jonah have, naysaying a thing even a mother would not dare forbid. Can you believe their nerve, saying I may not go to Maddy’s party, Gramp?”

  “Come, come, lollywaggle, slap, slap, slap,” sang Daisy
from a ways behind her. Rhia heard the soft slap of the girls’ hands just as the monk’s sharp ax bit into oak.

  “It would be a relief to yield to their nags and stay home, I’ll admit it. But what of Jim, then, Gramp? His days of sanctuary wane, and soon he’ll face the gallows. The true murderer must be flushed out and made to confess. And so I will go to Wythicopse, though there is a dragon beneath that rocky picture seal, I’m certain of it at this point.”

  “Go ye wiggle-woggle, off with thine cap!” Rhia waited for the girls’ squeals, as here was the point in the game where Daisy reached to ruffle Sal’s hair, a thing they considered hilarious, no matter how often they did it. They squealed, right on time.

  “Grrrrrahhhhh,” complained Gramp, hard-eyeing them.

  “It’s just a game, Gramp,” Rhia murmured, intent on separating a few tiny seeds from a large handful of briars. “They only play. Pay them no mind. You must give your attention instead to my dilemma. I should join that bunch tomorrow eve, wouldn’t you think? Or not? Give me a peck upon the rock for yes, two pecks for no.”

  But Gramp kept his eyes tight upon the girls, who’d now started over on their game.

  “Come, come, here’s a woggle, there’s a woggle, lilly-lolly slap!”

  “Grah-raaaahhh!” Gramp, very perturbed now, stretched up tall on his birdy toes, lifting his wings so high above his frowsy ear feathers that Rhia feared he’d lose his balance on the holed rock and fall backward into thin air. “Graaaahhhck-ack!”

  Rhiannon stopped her work, surprised by his folly. “Gramp, settle yourself, please! Do you not recall how the last time you fell backward from that rock, you nearly collided with the water e’er you got your wings outspread enough to fetch air and get flying? The girls are only playing at slapping! Daisy is not hitting Sal, and would never!”

  She shook her head, smiling in amusement as she resumed scooping her little piles of seed onto the wide sycamore leaves she’d use as wrappers. When each leaf was neatly folded and stored within her sack, she stood and tightened the string, calling over her shoulder as she turned toward them, “Girls, I’ve finished and it’s time . . .”