by Rebecca Tope
‘ “But, Nurse, the bird calls out in the name of the loving God, and thou hast taught me that we must do whatever be asked us in that name.”
‘The nurse had no answer to that, and so Dierdre opened the little door in their secret mountain home, and looked out. There was a man, just awakening from his sleep, and she stared at him in amazement. He got up and came into the room where a fire burned merrily and food lay on the table. The nurse ran to him and whispered to him that he might eat and sleep until morning, but that he must not speak a single word.
‘ “I will keep silent,” said the hunter, “when I have first told you that I know of men in the world who would not rest if they knew what a wondrous creature you are keeping hidden here. They would come and take her, for her beauty.”
‘ “What does he say?” demanded Deirdre. “What men does he speak of?”
‘ “Silence!” commanded the nurse, despairing that she could not keep her promise to obey Malcolm’s orders. Already, she feared, the damage was done.
‘ “I speak of the sons of Uisnech, brother of our King’s dead father,” gabbled the hunter, before putting a hand over his lips and glancing apologetically at the nurse.
‘ “Sons? Brother? King?” questioned Dierdre. “What are these words? To what do they refer?” ’
Sons...I have a son. He performs miracles and wise monks admire him...
‘The nurse was flustered and annoyed. “I told you to keep silent,” she raged at the man. “The girl is not to hear such things.” ’
Secrets. Mysteries. A land across the sea...
I realised that the thread of the hermit’s tale had become muddled with my own thoughts, as I began to doze in the warm hut. He continued to tell of Deirdre and her emergence from her hidden home, but I missed it, scarcely bothering to resist the sleepiness that was overtaking me. I was brought back to reality with a shock when the hermit clapped his hands sharply.
‘Enough!’ he cried angrily. ‘I see my tale has wearied you. Sleep then, since I am bound to offer hospitality to all who come to my door.’ He flung himself across the hut, seizing a thick wolfskin and tossing it towards me. Outrage consumed him, and I felt ashamed of my rudeness. Cuthman blinked foolishly, and I wondered if he too had fallen asleep. He had, after all, far more cause to be tired than I had.
‘The story was a good one,’ I said. ‘I shall always remember it. The girl in the secret place beneath the hill, far away from men. Tell me, friend, how does it conclude?’
The hermit flipped a gnarled hand carelessly. ‘Oh, you might guess. She meets and loves the King’s son, runs away with him, the King is infuriated and has them both killed. A Druid kills them, with pagan magic. A tragic tale, full of meaning. It occurred to me that your Christian son might gain some benefit from its theme.’
Cuthman appeared to be puzzled by this. I too was unsure of what the man meant. How did pagan magic differ from the miracles that Cuthman had performed? Magic was magic.
‘Sleep, woman,’ ordered our host. ‘The occasion is past. Maybe you and your boy will recall the interruption in time to come. But the gods are merciful to such as you, and there may be a second chance to hear the tale.’
Uncomfortably, I settled to sleep, my mind restless and questioning. A story half told is an irritation, a thorn which stings and nags. Incompleteness is a danger, the message in the tale unheard or misinterpreted. I dreamed, clear and vivid, of my girl Wynn and a desperate search I was making for her. She was hidden, buried in an earthy foxhole with Spenna guarding the entrance, firmly turning me away. A great druid magician swooped down on us, a blazing sword in his hand, which he waved over Wynn and turned her to a small pile of ash. Cuthman sat in the distance, his back to us, fashioning a small crucifix of hazel twigs, like a child idly playing. He ignored my calls to him. A great crow flew over, blotting out the sun and I tried to scream.
I awoke before the night was over, and lay still, waiting for the terror and misery to pass. I wept, as quietly as I could, for my first child, who had been such a good daughter to me. I wanted her now, with a longing I had never felt before. I reproached myself bitterly for my coolness towards her, my dependence on her from so young an age. Soon I had convinced myself that she was dead; that she had died of cold and hunger and lack of her mother’s care. It seemed, in that dark dawn, with rain dashing itself at the trees outside, that I had let her go with scarcely a thought, casting her lightly adrift as if she meant nothing. The crow in my dream meant death. Somewhere my own child was lying in a ditch with great black birds pecking her decaying flesh. The picture came into my mind so clear that I raised my head and cried, ‘No!’ in the hermit’s small hut.
‘Bad dreams?’ came the strange man’s voice, calm and somehow satisfied. Cuthman was mumbling, fighting free of his bedclothes, by the sound of it. Everything was in darkness, muffled and unreal.
‘My girl,’ I explained, brokenly. ‘I believe she must be dead.’
‘Killed by a druid?’ he said, with a brief laugh. A new terror gripped me. This man had created my dream in some way. He was inside my thoughts, a voice which could fashion whatever pictures he wished. I said nothing, and he continued, ‘Such things can happen when a tale is left unfinished.’
‘Then finish it now,’ I pleaded. ‘Show me a different ending.’
‘Impossible,’ he replied. ‘Besides, I told you how it ends. No changing that.’
‘Then what? My heart hurts. I am sick. And tis your doing.’
He laughed longer this time. ‘Nay, woman. I did nothing. The hour before dawn brings its own visions. I merely supplied the parts. But wait a while and I can set your heart at rest, if you wish me to. I bear you no malice, believe me.’
‘Might I sleep then?’ came Cuthman’s voice, half annoyed, half wary. Whatever was taking place that night was between me and the hermit, and the lad could see no part for himself in it. I recalled his turned back in my dream and concluded that he was to be of no use to me in this.
‘Get your sleep,’ I snapped at him. ‘No need for you to be disturbed by your mother’s misery.’
The slight hope of relief offered by the hermit was enough to see me through to first light. I slept in snatches, afraid of new terrors, forcing myself to see harmless images of sheep and flowers and sheltering trees. It was true that my heart was hurting. A pain swelled and throbbed, forcing me to breathe quickly. Something had gone awry with me, something connected with Wynn and the hermit and the unforgiveable weakness of falling asleep in the story.
The familiar discomfort of an over-full bladder brought me fully awake as the sun forced some wavering light through the rainclouds. Mindful of the excitable monk of the previous day, I rolled myself off the bed and crawled to the hut door, using my hands and knees. Movement seemed to come more easily than for many weeks, and my back seemed merely weak from lack of use. As it had once or twice in recent days, the thought came to me that I could perhaps manage to walk with some practice and encouragement. And as before, I pushed it away. Awkward hobbling, as I had managed before Edd died, would be of no use to Cuthman, in his urgent pilgrimage. Better I kept silent and accepted the penance of the barrow for a while longer yet.
The rain had stopped and the wet woodlands were shining in the early sun. Glistening droplets frilled the undersides of the bare branches, and a bird somewhere was rejoicing with a kind of madness, its song loud and beautiful. But the memory of my dream was still with me, and I looked about fearfully for the evil druid before I huddled beside a bush for my pissing.
When I had finished, the hermit appeared, as if waiting for me to be ready. He looked deep into my eyes, reading me completely. His look was calm, accepting everything he found, and I felt my breath slowing, my heart pain fading. His dark eyes seemed to me to contain the promise of everything I wanted. If only I knew what that might be.
‘Wynn,’ I whispered. ‘I want Wynn.’
‘Then come with me,’ he said, and held out a strong thin arm. I put my hand i
n his, and he ducked his shoulder underneath me, supporting me in a crooked walk. ‘I can show her to you.’
Chapter Thirteen
He took me to a pool, hidden amongst a crowd of willow, hazel and elder trees. The water stood deep and dark, its brown colour somehow veiled and unreflecting. The light of the sun did not penetrate the dense trees.
‘Kneel,’ the man ordered, and lowered me onto a mound of damp dead leaves, beside a fallen tree patched with moss. The pool was a foot’s length in front of me, and I leaned over it, eager for what it could show me. The tips of my hair dragged in the water, but barely disturbed the surface. I could not see my own image, which alarmed me. The pool took on a secret character, its depths concealing more than I wished to know.
‘Is she there?’ I asked the hermit. ‘How do I find her?’
‘Ask,’ he grunted at me. Then he turned to leave, and I felt fear flush through me. The water might contain a monster or demons, which would reach out and take me if I was left alone. But I clamped my lips together and said nothing. I wished beyond anything to see my Wynn again, after what seemed like a terrible long time without thinking of her. If the pool could help, then I must have courage.
When the man had gone, I grasped my hair in both hands and pulled it back, out of the way. My knees were cold and stiff on the winter leaves, and as I leaned again over the water, I imagined how it might be if I lost my balance and pitched head first into the magic pool. So I wound my hair into a knot and held it with one hand, resting the other on the mossy log beside me. The sideways tilt caused a pang in my back, which took a moment to pass. As I fidgeted and fussed, there was a growing sense of waiting; a stillness in the air. I could not avoid it for much longer, and with a deep breath I settled myself for what was to come.
‘Holy pool, show me my girl,’ I whispered.
Nothing stirred, but I thought I could see something beneath the surface of the brown murk. Strands of waving hair, and a mouth trying to speak. I recalled the story of Geat’s betrothed, and her abduction by the water god. But that had been a river and the water had been crystal clear.
‘Show me, I beg you,’ I said, a little louder. ‘Let me see that she be safe.’
I bent my face closer, until I was a hand’s breadth from the pool’s surface, peering into the depths, struggling to find a picture there. Nothing. In the trees above my head two crows were flapping and one gave a sharp squawk which seemed to split the air. Distracted, I thought of the bird in my dream, and the spring coming and the eggs which Cuthman could gather for our sustenance as we travelled. Would we still be walking the roads when Easter arrived? Would we honour the Lenten fast this year? Pilgrimages ought not to take place in Lent, it seemed to me. It was a time for quiet preparation and purifying.
But Imbolc broke the winter’s back and thrust the attention forward to the year ahead, demanding that we work the ground for sowing, and bring the sheep close to home for the lambing. Confused, I tried to channel my thoughts onto Wynn. Wynn, Wynn, I muttered to myself. Where are you now, my sweet girl?
The crow called again, closer than before. A scrap of dead twig fell down from the tangle of waterside trees, a little distance from me, and splashed into the pool. It bobbed a little and then floated towards me.
Everyone knows that a crow means death. The twig was dead. The water lay before me, flat and secretive, telling me nothing. All at once I understood. My firstborn child was lost to me. Lost to the living world. I would never see her again. I shuddered and pulled away from the hateful pond, letting my hair fall around my face again. Inside me was a great hollow, an empty space where my daughter had been. No tears came. I had not truly expected to meet Wynn again, now that my son had transported me so far from home. If she had died, I hoped there had been no pain. I hoped she was happy with Jesus in heaven. She deserved a special place for her patience and goodness. But I felt nothing. No sorrow or self-reproach. Scrappy images flitted through my mind - the serious little face framed by dark curls, knees scratched and scabby, her skill with clay and wool, the day we celebrated her womanhood. A brief life, lived without any undue notice or passion. I reached out and took the twig from the pool. My poor sight required that I hold it close to my face before I could properly distinguish its shape. It had two short branches protruding from it, close to the top, at a downward-pointing angle. With a stab of surprise I recognised the rune that Wynn had chosen for herself on that afternoon. Os: the rune that indicated ‘Messages’. Gripping it tight, I stared up at the treetops. The message was received, and understood. Wynn, my child, was dead. Although, I recalled with a pang, Os denoted messages of hope, not despair, gladness, not misery.
Something rustled behind me, and I turned slowly, careful of my back. Cuthman stood there, several paces away. A shaft of sunlight seemed to have come with him, lighting him from behind and hiding his features from me. He was so like an angel that I cried out.
‘Ma?’ he questioned. ‘Are you ill?’
‘Wynn is dead,’ I said, flat and weary.
‘No. She is not,’ he countered, equally flat, but certain too. ‘Where did that idea grow from?’
‘From the crow. The rune-twig. The horrible brown pond which could show me nothing.’
‘Show me the rune,’ he said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. I reached the twig up to him, hope and foolishness beginning to seep together into my emptiness.
‘This is Os the rune for glad tidings,’ he said. His surprise pleased me. I knew something before he did, for once.
‘I know it is,’ I said. ‘She drew that rune at her menses rite. You might not remember.’
‘The crow means solitude, not death,’ he told me, twirling the little stick between his fingers.
‘Yet death is a solitary state,’ I said, simply to be clever. Already I felt I had been stupid to think Wynn had died. Was I misreading all that the hermit and his secret world had been trying to tell me?
‘She is not dead,’ Cuthman said again.
‘Then maybe you can see her in the pool, where I failed?’ I suggested, hoping perhaps that it would remain just as blank for him as it had for me.
He looked at the water with a kind of longing, as if tempted by something wonderful and wicked, and shook his head. ‘Tis a heathen thing,’ he said. ‘I must place my trust in the good Lord, and have faith that my sister lives happily, as she deserves.’
A poof of disappointment and scorn escaped me. ‘Faith?’ I questioned. ‘Is your certainty based on no more than that? Show me, son, so that I too might be sure that she lives.’
Cuthman shook his head, angry and confused. It surprised me to see how shaky his faith could be, at the least challenge from me. What kind of holy man was he, at heart? Someone who had a knack of magic, who had once encountered an angel and conceived a plan which had in truth been based on necessity as much as inspiration. There was beneath me a great void of futility and fear. The world was full of struggle and conflict, pagan against Christian, Celt against Saxon, with no certainties of what lay ahead. Never in my life had I encountered a person with a vision of how it could be on this earth, for living people. Only a rose-tinted dream of a realm in the clouds, where God and Jesus and the angels played sweet music and soothed away all pains.
‘Show me!’ I demanded again. ‘Just see if you can.’
He moved quickly then, as if keen to get it all over and done with. ‘Here then,’ he snapped, and I saw that he was shaking. He knelt close to the edge of the water, the ground crumbling a little with his weight, small clods of earth slipping into the pool. He swept his left arm over the water, skimming the surface, as if peeling away a curtain to reveal what might lie beneath.
Ignoring my stiff body, forgetting any fear of falling into the pond, I leaned forward further than before. Already a picture was forming, where Cuthman’s arm had passed. Two faces looked back at me, smaller than life-size, but quite clear. I had not seen anything so clearly since I was a child.
One of the face
s was Wynn. Her hair was shining and clean, her skin smooth and healthy. She smiled out at me, so warm and friendly that I felt bathed in love and wellbeing. As I watched her, she somehow shrank back, so that I could see her whole body. Turning sideways, she showed me a belly swollen with a growing child. She held the palms of her hands together, in a gesture of reassurance and farewell.
‘There!’ said Cuthman. ‘I told you.’
‘Wait,’ I said, afraid that he would somehow close the water again. The other figure was taking Wynn’s place, and I wanted to see who it was. I had expected Spenna, but now I realised it was a strange woman, someone I had never seen before. She was old and lined, her skin almost black in the dark water. Wisps of grey hair fell across her face and she smiled to show a mouth of strong but stained teeth. Her nose was crowned by a great wen, almost as big as the top joint of a finger. The kind of face which frightens children and suggests some special power. ‘A witch!’ I breathed. ‘Who is she?’
Cuthman made no reply. I watched the woman, as she went on smiling, looking into my eyes. I wanted her to speak to me, but no words came. Instead, a succession of clear sentiments moved across her face. First amusement and friendliness. An open look of welcome and generosity despite her ugly features. Then a more guarded expression, a little frown of displeasure, which deepened until the face was deformed and ravaged by a great rage. Fear sliced into my former sense of loving confidence. Something had gone terribly wrong, and it seemed that I might be responsible. The hag was clearly enraged with me, and me alone. At last she faded, not gently bidding farewell as Wynn had done, but turning over and over as if blown by a great whirlwind, shaking her fists as she disappeared from my sight.
‘Tis someone we shall meet one day,’ said Cuthman. He was trying to keep his voice light and careless, but some darker feeling choked him. I sank back on my heels, exhausted.
The sun was high overhead, veiled by a thin covering of white cloud, throwing no shadows, and shedding no warmth on us. My knees ached with the damp, and I found I was shivering, as we dragged back to the hermit’s hovel. We were late in getting started on that day’s trek, each of us shaken by the morning’s events. Cuthman brought me bread and meat that the hermit had left on his table. The man himself was nowhere to be seen, which I did not find surprising. I ate quickly, and then allowed my son to settle me into the cart with a new layer of dried bracken beneath me. Slowly he fastened the straps around his shoulders, and grasped the handles. I had not seen him so low in enthusiasm since we left the moors, and it seemed to me that he was losing sight of his reason for the journey, with no known destination and little to assure him that he did the right thing.
