I am watching the simmering grain, its aroma filling my senses, when Vivian returns. She touches my hand gently as she passes by, to sit again where she had been before. As she passes, she leaves the scent of burning herbs and cold, dry air. She sits in stillness, as if she had never left. This is a magical woman, a magical place. For all I have heard of Affalon, never have I understood the depth of its meaning. There is a sacredness here as great as the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple. Yet it is different. It is the sacredness of women. Perhaps, I suppose, of the Goddess who is honored by them. It is something beyond my knowing, beyond my understanding.
It is now fully dark outside the doorway. Gwenlli is stirring the simmering grain on the fire. Vivian is as still as stone, yet it seems I can hear the beating of her heart. Her eyes tell me to finish the tale.
“Two years ago, the Roman legions landed on the southern coast. Last week I received word that Vespasian’s army has swept past the old stone Temple on the great plains of the Belgae, and is occupying scores of their villages. Those which do not capitulate are burned. He will be here soon. The Mendydd are in turmoil. Even Cornualle is no longer safe. Our mine holdings are all but lost.”
I look at Vivian with eyes that cannot decide whether to plead or demand, though my heart tells me either choice would be an error. Her expression is grave, and confirms that fear in my heart. Yet what she is really thinking I cannot begin to guess. I have sat across the table from Roman governors and Phoenician traders, and struck bargains that required the insight of a seer. Yet I cannot guess the mind of this mysterious woman. I know she will accept nothing but complete honesty. I hope that I have given it, as far as I know how. She leans toward me and again looks deep into my eyes. She is reaching into me, reaching to find the last crumbs of truth, to touch the very emotion that has raged like the sea within me. How does she know of that which has yet lain unexpressed? Only now do I feel it myself, as it rises up within my inmost being.
“And you thought of me,” she says.
“Yes, I remembered you, Vivian, my old friend of the mists. ‘I will go to her,’ I said. ‘I will go to her, and perhaps I will find answers.’”
“Perhaps.” She looks down, listening deep within herself, as if gazing into the dark waters of a pool. “Sometimes, Eos, there are no answers. Or none we would accept. But perhaps you will find peace.”
Vivian looks up and murmurs to Gwenlli in their own strange language. Gwenlli rises, stirs the pot once again, and bows to her Lady before leaving the hut. Leaving us alone before the fire. The scent of the brew drifts into the air, but neither of us pays it heed. Vivian turns to me and looks into my eyes with a sharp clarity I have not seen in her before. Her eyes are deep and black, seemingly bottomless. For a moment, in the shadows of the oil lamp and the flickering fire, in the twilight of the hut, doubt again moves over my soul.
“Do you have anything that was his?” she asks.
Does she know? Can she know? I know in that moment I should be truthful, but fear clouds my judgment and I hide the fact of the cup hidden in my little boat, pulled up on the shore beneath Wirrheal. There is a silence like a fragile bridge spanning a high divide, which she holds in place with her eyes.
“I have seen much of this in visions, Eosaidh. His pain. His death. And he is dead, though I have seen, too, how many would have it not so. Both those who loved him, and those who feared him. Eos, many wish to use him still, and use him they will.”
Her words are asking whether I, too, am planning to use the lad, for what ends I cannot yet guess. The question hurts. But it is not, after all, her question only; it haunts my own mind as well.
“Lady,” I respond. “Whether he is dead or not, that I do not know. I have seen much death in my life, but perhaps I have never understood it for what it is. Not because of the words of his disciples, but from my own experience of these fifteen years I know he is not dead in any sense of the word that I have known.” I pause, and gaze into the fire. “Nor is he alive in any sense known to me.”
I look back in her face, and realize she does not know, in this moment, whether I am friend or foe. What can I possibly be bringing to this sacred hearth that threatens her world? And yet, I know in my heart that it must do so, and must threaten me as well.
“There is something in this that is not of this world, Vivian,” I say at last. “I know not what it is. It may be danger, or it may be hope. You are the last friend to whom I can turn, to find the answer.”
“Is that what you think I am? A friend?”
My voice drops to a whisper. “I am no threat to you, my Lady.”
Her onyx eyes flash as black a night and her rage hits me with a crippling force, as though she had thrust the end of her yew staff through my gut! Mentally I reach for my own hawthorn staff, which is leaning by the door. I would be even now swinging it in self-defense, but it is beyond the reach of my arm. In my head I hear her angry words: What could you ever know of this? For an instant I consider drawing my blade. It feels as though I am being confronted by forces of darkness. The oil lamp gutters, and the hearth fire retreats within itself. A raging wind howls in the silence, but whether it is a wind of this world or some other I cannot say.
Then, as quickly as the storm began, it disappears. Vivian turns away, and I can see the anger drain from her and fade into the air. The flames of lamp and fire revive, and the darkness dissolves. I relax my tensed body but a little, my hand still on the blade at my side, one eye on the Lady of Affalon, the other on my staff beside the door.
Moments pass. Eternal moments.
When she speaks, it is with a quiet, gentle voice that bears no resemblance to the rage just past. A voice that seems to be a part of the mud and reeds of this hut, a part of the fire and the twilight of shadows. A voice that is one with the slow, dark waters of the rivers and marshes that surround us. It is then I understand we are strangers to each other, for I am of the open sea of Cornualle, and the desert sun of Iudea. And in realizing she is alien to me, I understand the threat I am to her.
“If you do not leave tomorrow,” she begins, seeming to decide upon her words as she speaks them, or perhaps listening to one who gives words to her, “if you do not leave tomorrow, then a place will be found for you. Here, on the island. And if you stay, you will not leave the island, nor the valley of your dwelling, not without my consent. You will be told where you can walk and where you cannot. Food will be given you, and you will spend time each day at work, helping with the heavy tasks.”
I weigh her words silently. In these last few moments I have ceased in my own mind being a supplicant. We are, I now understand, key actors in the meeting of worlds. She has powers I cannot guess at. But now I know that I do as well. Different powers, but powers nonetheless. I cannot guess whether that was partly the cause of her rage, but it is indeed partly the result. From this moment onward, our relationship has changed, changed from those meetings so long ago, in a younger time. Changed from the last few hours of this day. Does she imagine I will be quick to comply? I think not. I think she is demanding integrity, not subservience. But can I accept these terms? Gwenlli is staring at her Lady in disbelief from the doorway, amazed that I am being allowed to stay. Vivian turns to her and whispers something, and she looks down, waiting. Then Vivian looks straight at me. Somehow in all that has happened, we are both standing, facing one another across the hearth.
“Know that my words are for your own protection. If you cannot agree, you must leave at dawn.”
I walk slowly to the door and retrieve my staff without answering. From this moment on, the thorn will always be at my side. I turn to look at the Lady, whose eyes are again calm, and still. Outside, a gentle rain is beginning.
Chapter Five
Apple Blossom
(Vivian)
“Here, let me show you.”
“But it will die!’ His voice is desolate.
“Hold out your hand, little one.”
He uncurls small pink fingers and ont
o his palm the old man places the little honey-brown worm. The child’s mouth opens out into a grin, quickly followed by a breaking peal of giggles. “It tickles, it tickles!” he squeals.
His sister watches with a gentle smile.
“You have to be still, Marni, you don’t want to frighten it.” Eos looks at her with a gentle curiosity and respect.
“No, lad, you mustn’t frighten it.”
“No,” he whispers and, holding out his hand with determined solemnity, he looks up into the tinner’s face. “But it’s still going to die. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, little one. But it has spent its short life in a warm heap of food, growing fat and long and wriggly,” and with his fingers he tickles the child again, who wriggles and giggles. “And when a creature lives a good life, it becomes not just food to nourish the body, but food for the soul as well.”
Wide eyed, the little boy nods and, turning, searches the orchard, “And for red robins and glas chits and black marsh chits and ... and ... ”
Saillie laughs, “Not glas chits, silly, they eat barley grain and meadow seeds!”
Eos smooths his hand over the boy’s mess of hair, “Let’s see who comes.”
And I watch, comfortable in the knowledge that the little gathering does not know I am there, some way up the hill beneath the broad canopy and heavy blossom of another old apple tree. To see him in such gentle relationship it is funny to imagine this man as the important and wealthy trader that he was, traveling the world, able to read and write, to speak so many tongues, a man who has shared food with chieftains and leaders. In his solitude here, cutting his own wood, sitting with the children, sometimes I catch a glimpse of that side of him, like a shine polished into a stone that has moved through many rivers. And I remember how much he has lost.
I breathe the sadness of lives lived and feel the warmth of spring. The sunshine is richer today, reflecting in the golden yellow of the cowslips and daffodils, flowers that peek through the fresh flood of new grass beneath the trees, and with eyes closed, for a while I listen to the chatter of the birds, feeling the innocence and excitement of the children’s sweet pleasures: a bowl of Siona’s chicken worms from the store and an old traveler to show them how to hand feed the nesting robins.
“My Lady!” The voice stirs me and I open my eyes, but before turning to the girl who has called, my gaze meets that of Eos who has looked up the hillside at the sound of the voice, and found me. There is stillness between us, the heavy silence of words that can’t be spoken, words that have not yet found their sound. Has this shadow been upon my heart since his arrival, almost two long moons ago, or has he simply given it a clearer form?
Then the girl is beside me, “My Lady?”
I turn, “Yes, I am with you.”
“I don’t wish to disturb, but we have found toothwort flowering by the alders at Farydd Brook, for the first time in many cycles.”
“On the alder?”
“I have not myself seen. I was sent to bring you.”
I sigh, “Yes, I am coming.”
Her basket is filled with prickly woodruff and periwinkle, muddy radish and green motch, a dozen winter burrs riding the skirt of her cloak, her face flushed with health and learning. She glows with spring’s new life and I smile as I take her arm, though in truth it is hard to feel a part of her new cycle. I glance again at Eos, who still gazes up at me though the children are pulling at his robe.
Six nights have passed since last we spoke.
“Yashi, Yashi,” Marni tugs, “can we feed another one?”
With fingertips I touch the tender green of the honeysuckle and, for a moment simply breathe, the look in his eyes touching my soul. The soft song of the honeysuckle washes quietly through me, these old climbers that bring the first spring leaves to the orchard, some opening out on old grey growth, some on the stretch of soft new tendrils, winding as they do around the apple’s branches, never pushing yet gently holding on so perfectly tight. I sigh and turn away.
“At Fern Brook, did you say?”
“Farydd, my Lady ... ”
~~~~~
Though the days are now a little longer than the nights, and some are so blessed with the warming sun, the dusk is still clothed in a biting chill. Furthermore, as this night embraces the island, I am distracted by an uncomfortable cold within me. It is Gwenlli’s hand on my sleeve that brings me from my scattered thoughts; I’ve been fidgeting with the fire and, with her touch and a silent bow of her head, she pushes me from it.
Yes, child, I smile, feeling both her care and her admonishment.
I wanted to return to my own dwelling on Ynys y Cysgodion, but conversations about foxes and chickens, about toothwort and young hawthorn leaves, have kept me here too long. Resigned to another night spent on Ynys y Niwl, I sit down upon the hides. Picking up the small disk of peat-black oak, given me by a traveling druid from Eriu’s land, I sigh, recalling once again my last conversation with Eosaidh.
In the black water I had seen a vision of fighting in a temple, though how I knew it was a temple was not overtly clear. It seemed a stark building, holding sacred only the emptiness of a human soul undisturbed, a human soul alone. No bird song or music of the breeze, no river’s flow or fruiting tree, the temple was crafted with the wit of human invention, and within its hard stone walls a crowd of men were shouting, their voices echoing around pillars and off the sharp lines of stones with corners, the ceiling heavy above them, dark and flat. Their souls seemed to me just as the ceiling was: untouched by the bright wands of sunlight that scoured the bare and dusty floor.
And in that place I had asked to see what was honoured, and no soul was revealed to me, yet I became aware of a power that loomed with an oppressive force, as if watching every move and taking every breath. As I closed my eyes, the inner eyes of my soul that allow me this gift of vision, instead of clearing my sight I descended from that place into the very sand beneath their feet. Yet the sand was not of the earth but of the skies, and it drove through the wind like snow in a blizzard. There was no air to breathe, no way to see through the storm, and my eyes became enraged with the stinging salt of sand. Choking, again I stepped back from the vision, this time freeing myself from its clasp.
White petals of apple blossom were floating on the water as I opened my eyes, giving the sweetest touch of welcome to my soul so bruised. I bowed in gratitude, oh blessed spirits, I thank you, yet I needed at once to stand, to stretch my legs and breathe, breathe the cold clear air of these Brythannic islands. With my hands upon the apple bark, my soul entwined with their old grey roots deep in the mud, I sought out the serenity of understanding. Each time I had journeyed to comprehend what the tinner brought, this sand had choked me, and yet I was no closer to finding resolution. How I longed to find resolution, but that day I had felt only the surging tide of frustration.
So did I rise and walk, and as my feet took me striding through the orchards, chickens and wild birds scattered before me, even the goats in the low meadow bleating from the trail of indignation that was laid with my every step. And with every step that indignation rose higher within me: for how dare he bring this god to our islands’ shores! It is one thing to honour the gods of your people when upon the road and traveling far from home, but another to call their power to another’s lands! I knew it had to stop. I had to stop it.
At the top of the hill, I stopped to catch my breath, wearied from my pace and the swell of anger, and there remembered the words of a traveling sapher. Taking the floor at a gathering of druids and priests, speaking of the Iuddic faith, he had declared that to them there is only one god, “For the Iudde say that all others were long ago denuded of their grace and are now no more than mist and delusion ... ” Was this the god that Eosaidh honoured? A god that considered himself to be above all others, or even to have conquered others? The idea flickered through my head like a dragonfly upon the lake, unable to find a place to settle, or any depth of understanding.
I leaned against the old oak
on the hill’s rise and closed my eyes. Struck by lightning some time during my childhood years, it had been such a beautiful cave of soot and scent and solitude to me as a young girl. Now, its ruin a haven for a thousand creatures, I honoured its spirit and breathed my soul to find calm. Questions were colliding in my mind: why was it that I felt so deeply disturbed? As if my soul - and the soul of my people and the land - were being struck, excruciatingly slowly, by some force of lightning, I lay fallen, like the oak, with the vulnerability of my roots exposed. Yet nobody else had noticed. I ran my fingers over a ridge of dry grey bark, and felt the oak spirit move through me.
“Would you guide my thoughts?” I whispered, “oak brother?” I stepped away, feeling the spirit’s quiet direction. Look at me, he murmured, Look. And in the beauty of his rotting body, glowing in the spring’s soft light, he who had sheltered and comforted me almost every day throughout the whole journey of my life, I saw a glimmer of hope. Yet, I turned away, yet, brother, must we die? And I gazed out over the beauty of this sacred land.
From the highpoint, looking north, I could see the orchards, the thickly forested hills, the precious green meadows that ran down to the reeds where this blessed island’s shores dissolve into marsh, everything humming with the waking breath of spring.
Few paths through the marshes are visible from near or far, yet I know them so well. As I looked out I could feel where each current flowed into clear water. I knew just what the mists were hiding, and my heart moved to each island that rose through their soft white cloak, even as far as the ridge of the mainland, the Mendydd hills, and the rivers that flow from the tribal wells at Llw Ffynnon.
The Apple and the Thorn Page 5
