The Apple and the Thorn

by Walter William Melnyk; Emma Restall Orr

  I could feel the humming of lake communities on the edge of open water, fires burning in roundhouses set upon their unstable spreads, the elders reciting their people’s stories to the children in the damp air. And I could see still with my grandmother’s eyes the lake village she knew so well, on the southern edge of Llyn Hydd, a community now scattered, its spreads now submerged beneath the slowly rising water.

  Every curve of land, softened by trees and cloud, every colour and flow of water, each thicket of thorn, bramble and nut tree, each blaze of yellow gorse and blur of reeds and marsh withies, every story told in the firelight, everything before me I knew better than my own body. In water and mud and bark, in cloud and tree not yet clothed in leaves, I saw before me the flesh of my gods. Every whisper was a note in the songs of my ancestors, a part of their stories which must ever be told.

  And furthermore, as I sighed that day, I was conscious of everything before me, each curve of hill and shore, each ripple of water, being an extension too of my own ageing body. For on that day as on every day, as I gazed out over the world, I could feel every touch, every axe blow and every prayer, every paddle that pulled through the ancient water.

  How could he know this?

  I turned and sighed, looking down towards the walkway that stetches over the marsh, lost in the mist that now covered the island’s low south west, the white haze lingering on the waters, barely stirring beneath the warm breezes that moved softly over the hill top.

  Taking the track heading west, to avoid the crowd gathered by the springs in the valley, I walked through the forest and down, heading for his dwelling near the lower slopes of Bryn Fyrtwyddon. On any day, it is a beautiful walk and, even amidst the seething of my soul that day, my thoughts found peace in the shimmering of the spirits waking and stretching, sap rising and leaf buds pushing from dreams into new green-tipped life. Yes, I almost found enough calm to meet him gently.

  The cracking blow of his axe reached me before I could see him through the soft mist as I came to the edge of the forest. His back towards me, his tunic cast off, dressed only in the creased wraps of his leggings and his old Roman boots, he swung the blade down into the fallen wood. And even beneath the anger, I was aware that in my old heart I smiled softly as I watched, for though he wheezed, wet with the sweat of his exertion, he looked strong and well. Tending to his own needs, and giving to the community, heaving water, logging wood, had brought him health in these past moons. I felt a wash of relief.

  He had not seen or heard me through the mist-soft and muffled air and, as I stepped from the bare forest canopy, I made a decision. Instead of approaching him, within a veil of silence I walked to the small hut he had built himself a little way from his own roundhouse. As it faced east, away from the focus of his working, I was soon hidden behind it.

  I knew it was not honourable for me to intrude, but the visions of the sand god’s rage would not leave me, and a seething loyalty in my heart propelled me on, loyalty to my land and to my gods. I had seen this small building and never asked him about it, nor had he offered any words of explanation, yet its purpose was obvious and increasingly so as time wore on, for the colours and currents of the air around it were clearly changing: no longer the russet, grey and green of the island, here the air was bleached.

  In the tenderness of truth, however, I was aware too of a clawing deep desire to reach some intimate part of this old man’s soul. It was longing that lay as a fog within my mind, concealing a deeper grief I did not want to feel, and I pushed it away as my hand touched the carefully hewn wood of the doorway.

  Something was nailed to the frame: a tiny box, upon it inscribed a six pointed star. Some invocational amulet honouring the ancestors, I assumed, those whose spirits dwelled in the stars of the dark sky. There was no softness in its magic, however. My fingers felt for its essence, but the current seemed one only of words and habit. Was it there to keep me out? I didn’t feel that to be its purpose, yet it did not welcome me.

  Over the hide that draped the door was a worn woven cloth of an unnatural blue, albeit faded by the sun. It was a dye not local to my lands. Trimmed in fine silver, the wear on this edging showed its age and I wondered if it were a possession of his bloodline, and how often it had been hung upon a temple door, in how many places across the world. As I pulled it back, with the heavy goat hide beneath, I felt I were stepping not into his own heart, but into the heart of his people. Though no spirit was with me, I did not feel alone.

  Though the hut was no more than a woman’s height from wall to wall, I was immediately sickened by what I felt inside, for it seemed to me as empty as the dwelling of a rich man unloved. There was little light but that cast by a small lamp, burning as if it had been so for a long time: the smell of pungent grease hung thickly in the new thatch and daub. In the scent was an incense of unfamiliar herbs and resin, and the burning bowl beside the lamp showed where it had been smouldering. I touched the blackened debris and brought my fingers to my nose: frankincense and cinnamon, some ground leaf that seemed to hold within it an earthy spirit of another land, and a musty red spice I did not know. These were laid upon a rough wooden altar, set carefully upon logs, and this upon a rug of coarse woven wool, dyed with a similar blue.

  Beneath the altar I saw a simple polished wooden box.

  Is this where you hide it, Eos?

  I closed my eyes, conscious of the extent of dishonour in what I did, wondering just whom I was protecting with the most vigour: the young lad whom the Romans killed, who remains so alive in his heart, or my own land and my people? Or myself.

  Yet, I opened the box and found nothing. In it was a scroll, and upon it were lines of Greican letters. For a moment I wished I had learned this tongue, used by the druids and traveling priests. I lifted it out and sought out the invocation written into its ink, the current of prayer, yet it felt like the little box upon the door: filled simply with stories, the spoken words of a people declaring their identity. It had no value to me and, replacing it, I closed the box quietly, hearing still the slam of his axe as he worked the wood outside.

  Where, I wondered, was the source of this energy I could feel? But for some stale flat barley bread under a cloth on the altar, there was nothing else. It seemed the hut itself, by its very intention, was the source, radiating the beliefs of his people, like a beacon on the green slopes of my island.

  I closed my eyes, retrieving another vision so often seen in my soul: the cup of blood. If I knew just what this cup was, it would be easier to find, or to understand its power and relevance. Pausing in the half light of his temple, I reached out across the waters of my mind, seeking, feeling again the certainty that Eos had brought with him some object that brims with the life of that murdered young Iuddic priest of his blood.

  So did I call, within that temple and against my own judgement, my Lady, show me what I need to see here. The effect was immediate. Hurled from that place, my soul battled again the storm of sand, filling my lungs as I struggled to breathe, and I screamed, Who are you? The change was as immediate, the sand disappearing, leaving me standing in a shaft of blinding light. I knew I was not alone, for I was one amongst a crowd who stood close, holding to each other, yet the loneliness was crushing. I had never felt so alone. I looked around me, assuming I was the outlander, expecting to see ease, but I saw loneliness in every face, each soul holding onto the people around them, and above, always this presence, searing, watching, blinding. In the harsh power of that light, horrified, I called within my soul, my Lady, what is this?

  The soft earth took my weight as I found myself again in Eosaidh’s

  hut, opening my eyes to perceive my grandmother beckoning me to the doorway,

  Come, leave this place, leave now, come ...

  Seething at my own inability to understand, seething at his presumption to construct a temple to this isolated god, here upon my land, this god of dust and heat, of human insolence and disdain, I gathered myself up, and breathing in the power of the land I stro
de from the hut out into the afternoon’s light, down to where Eosaidh was still chopping wood. While still a good few paces from him, the words rose from my soul.

  “What right do you have to invite your god to my land?”

  Startled, he dropped the axe and reached for his tunic, hastily pulling it over his head as he turned towards me, “Vivian?”

  I stopped a few yards from him, pointing back towards the hut, “Are you so blind as to not realize the damage that you do?”

  “I didn’t bring him to your land, Lady.” His face was all confusion. “He was here already.”

  “He was not!” His words are incomprehensible.

  “He has always been here! As has your goddess. Lady, all gods are everywhere,” he raised his hands in explanation, but his words were simply salt and dry elder on the fire of my rage.

  “You are so very wrong! This is a land of water and apples. There is nothing your Adonai can bring but dust and hunger. Do you not understand the danger you bring? Such power here can only bring devastation!”

  Wresting the axe from the log between us, he swung it through a high and sweeping arc, bringing it crashing down into the wood with a ring that echoed out across the island and shuddered through the marshes. Startled, several herons took flight from the along the water’s edge, circling out of sight around the western end of Myrtwydden, but he did not stop to watch their flight, instead dragging the axe again from the wood to bring it crashing down. A lapwing rose up from the cusp of the forest, crying out its peewhit, peewhit, seeking to distract whatever intruder there may be from her nest, a handful of crows lifting onto their wings with chattering indignance, and my heart pounded. I stared into his soul, but for some time he only continued to cut and split wood as though I were not there, taking out his wild anger upon that downed elm which, unlike me, could not respond. Sweat shone on his brow as the anger in his heart blazed through the straining muscles of his shoulders and arms. One final, great swing buried the axe head almost completely, and he turned to me, barely able to control his voice.

  “Lady of Affalon, hear me! I speak Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Cornish, and the Brythonic common tongue of these islands. I have traveled the length and breadth of the world, and the lands that surround the central sea. I have seen the worship of the Tyrian Ba’al, I have been at Herod’s Temple to the God of my people, I have seen the Temple of Diana of Ephesus, the Gods of Athens and of Rome, I know Cernunnos of Gaul, and Manannan who inhabits the Cornualle seas. Whether these be many gods, or all manifestations of the One, I know not. But I do know the wide world is bigger than you imagine, and that there is more to the Holy than this collection of islands on the edge of civilization.”

  I shake my head. “And why do imagine that I care anything of the lands beyond here? What are they to me? This mud is my soul, this mist is my breath, as it was the body of my mother and her mother before her.”

  “But you know nothing of the world, Lady!”

  “What do I need know? That beyond these lands, the world is peopled by common thieves risen to steal my mother’s body? Why do they come, Iudde? Because you travel the world to display our wealth, digging deep into the sacred earth for more of this shining treasure that lures these bloodsoiled magpies of Roma! Who can your god be that calls to the magpie?!”

  “I did not come here to start a war of the gods, Lady. I came here because we once were ... ” He lifts a hand to his forehead, for a moment closing his eyes. Then again he finds the strength to look into my face with frustration. “I came here because I need a friend who understands my agony. Instead, I find only cold welcome and conflict!”

  As I stood before him crying out in my rage, it was as if my soul had gathered up every little island of the marshes beneath the folds of my cloak, such was my desperation to protect this place from all he brought. Were we friends now? Were we ever? I could see the memories flicker through his soul, yet in that moment I closed my mind so as not to remember. Already he had provoked more weakness in me than anyone had done before. I whispered prayers to the goddess of the land and felt her holding me, breathing me.

  In my voice there was ice.

  “How can you honour a god that shows no honour for other gods?”

  “How can you, Vivian? The Lady you call Mother - ”

  “You know nothing of her!”

  “I know she is the one you believe nurtures the hills and apples and waters of Affalon, but you have hedged her about with so many laws that even on this holy isle I cannot find my way to her.”

  “You would not know where to begin.”

  “But you will not teach me!”

  His words lingered in my mind ... I cannot find my way to her. I looked into his face and wondered, Would you want to? Are you seeking her? But the words found no sound. Instead I looked down and spoke quietly, hearing the ice still sharp in my tone.

  “I protect her from thieves.”

  “I am no thief!”

  Our eyes met again and he looked away.

  “Besides,” I added, “you must be used to laws. Your religion is thick with laws.”

  “True, but the Torah of my people is the teaching of Adonai, not his fences. It is the way to find him, not to hedge out foreigners.”

  “That is not what is taught of the Iuddic tribes, Eosaidh. Your people are scattered for their land is already broken, torn apart by the warriors of Roma. But this land, tinner, this sacred land is not yet lost! Do you not see how I must protect it? And yet you come, as a friend, and tear a rent in my cloak of keeping!”

  He shook his head, breathing to control his rage. The spirit of the blade-hacked elm shimmered in the air between us like sharp bronze dust. He pulled the axe from its fallen trunk, wiping off the head, and slung it across his shoulder. Sweat glistened on this forehead and, drawing his sleeve across his face, he gazed at me, his eyes filled with anger and pain.

  “Eos,” I whispered. “I ask you simply to take down that temple.”

  “It is not a temple, Vivian.”

  “Whatever word you use to name it, it hurts.”

  He looked down, pausing for a moment. “Yes. It all hurts.”

  And with that, he turned his back on me, picked up his staff of thorn and strode purposefully towards his dwelling house.

  Our conversation was over.

  ~~~~~

  “Food, my Lady.” Gwenlli’s gentle voice draws me from my memories. Seeing my face, she no longer offers me the bowl but puts it carefully on the bench beside me, the tender concern in her eyes softening my heart.

  “Bless you, dear child.”

  She pours water into another bowl, adding a spoonful of dried herbs and petals.

  “You are grown tired this moontide, my Lady.”

  “Yes,” I sigh, “I know.”

  She is quiet for a while, sitting at my feet, stirring the tea.

  “You’ve not spoken to him?”

  “No.”

  “Fianna says that he is thinking of leaving, my Lady.”

  Her words, so softly spoken, kick into my heart with an unexpected force.

  “Has she been talking to him?” I say too quickly.

  “Only because she cares for the children. He loves the children and has been a great help to Fia when there is much to do. My Lady?”

  Tears are rising in my throat. That she notices makes me feel like a child. I close my eyes, wondering how stupid I have been, how stupid I am now. And how stupid I can yet be. I have not felt so lacking in answers since I was younger than this sweet girl. Taking the spoon from the bowl, she carefully places the tea in my hands.

  “I must speak to him, Gwenlli.”

  “In the morning, I’ll send - ”

  “No, Gwenlli. Now. It is only just dark and he will not be sleeping.” I pass her back the bowl and start to clamber to my feet, but she holds me.

  “No, my Lady. You are not strong enough to go.”

  “Of course I am!”

  “No.” Our eyes meet, and I see a strength
in her I have not seen before. She bows, “Forgive me, my Lady. As I said, with respect, you have grown tired. I will send Morfrenna to see if he will come.” Setting the tea upon the bench, within a moment she is gone.

  Footsteps gather outside, the whispering voices of the girls and Eosaidh’s soft growl, then spirit-light footsteps as Morfrenna creeps away, and Gwenlli lifts the hides of the door, saying, “My Lady, he is come. Would you see him now?”

  My heart is beating too fast and I nod, closing my eyes to find again the stillness and strength of the earth beneath me, my Lady of the dark mud, feeling my roots lying deep within her soul. When I look up, his figure fills the doorway and I bow my welcome.

  “Shalom,” he murmurs and bows in return.

  “Forgive me for - ”

  But he shakes his head, “I was half way here already.”

  “You were?”

  “Forgive me if I have broken more of your rules, Lady.”

  I close my eyes, turning away from his antagonism, but his tone softens, almost apologetic. “In truth, I was by that old black oak, high on the ridge, at the base of the tor, watching the sun setting above the mist. I suppose I had been waylaid by my thoughts when your scout came searching for me. I fear my presence was more than a surprise to the young thing,” he smiles, though with sadness.

  “I am glad you have come,” I say softly.

  Our eyes meet, full of hurt and questions.

  “As am I,” he murmurs.

  “Sit,” I motion to him. “Come and sit.”

  Gwenlli puts another log on the fire, filling the kettle from a jug. I whisper to her in the old language, “Leave us, dear one, just for a while?” She questions me with her eyes, but I insist, “I’ll be alright.” She bows and leaves, though not happy to do so, and when the hides are down again, Eosaidh looks at me with curiosity and concern.