“Stop!” Cai fell to his knees. He shouted, “Stop! This is all a mistake; I will show you what I have…”
“No, Cai! It’s alright, there’s no need…!” Gwion shouted.
“Get down on your knees, too, Gwion,” snarled Maelgwn, pointing his sword at Gwion’s throat. Gwion reluctantly lowered his hand and bent down slowly on one knee.
“Show me…” demanded Maelgwn.
Cai looked down at his old, leather bag, now stiff as a board from its soaking in the sea. Carefully untying the front flap, he searched inside with his hand and slowly brought out a coiled piece of rope, laying it in front of him, then a small, wooden bowl, followed by the dirty cloth that had wrapped the cup, and finally the cup itself, lined up side by side in front of him. They looked very ordinary for a traveller, a cup and bowl for meals and a pillow for sleeping, with a bit of rope for snares and repairs.
Maelgwn couldn’t hide his disappointment, he strode forward and grabbed the bag and shook it hard, to make sure there was nothing else in it, then tossed it to one side.
“Where is it?” he spat at Cai.
“Wh… where’s what?” Cai replied, shaking.
“The gold cup. The cup of Christ. The Grail. The cup that heals and brings the dead back to life. The cup that delivers eternal life!” raged Maelgwn, now physically dancing with anger. He put his boot on Gwion’s shoulder, who was still kneeling, and kicked him over on his side.
But as Gwion picked himself back up off the floor, he began to laugh, brushing the dust off his tunic, softly at first then growing into a full belly laugh and saying, “You really don’t believe in those stories, do you? The golden cup of Christ?! Well, here it is, look…” He leaned over and picked up the cup and handed it to Maelgwn. “Oh, and look here, Ceridwen’s cauldron of plenty,” and he held out the boy’s wooden bowl scornfully. “…And perhaps that’s a magic rope that binds your enemies all on its own?”
Don’t push it! thought Cai.
“This boy…” Gwion continued, “was stealing fish from our traps, cut himself and almost drowned. He will need to be disciplined. But that is the Abbess’ decision.”
Maelgwn arched his back and let out a roar of frustration, then threw the cup away disgustedly. It bounced once on the courtyard floor before rolling to a stop at the feet of one of his troop’s horses. The horse looked down and gently nuzzled the cup.
Maelgwn leapt back up onto his horse and shouted, “You will pay for this.” Then turned to his men. “Burn this place down! The bishop can come home to warm himself on a real fire!” he bellowed as he galloped off through the gates, and back towards his fortress at Degeanwy. Shouting, Maelgwn’s men grabbed burning embers from the braziers in the courtyard and threw them on top of the thatched roofs, the smithy, grain stores and the dormitories for visiting pilgrims – all quickly set alight and soon towering, crackling, crimson flames leapt skyward.
Cai stood still, copying the abbey people who didn’t move a muscle until the last of Maelgwn’s soldiers had galloped back through the gate. They all knew that if they resisted it would just be an excuse for them to be killed. Their preparations had already meant that no-one was hiding in the buildings, and any children at the school had all been led away down to boats by the sea through secret doors in the Abbey walls when the soldiers were first spotted.
The instant the last soldier had ridden out of the courtyard through the gate, everyone ran to pull the burning thatch from the buildings to the floor, with hooks and rakes, while others fetched water from the rainwater cisterns and troughs surrounding the courtyard, to dowse the fires. Gwion, however, rushed to where the cup had landed and scooped it up into a fold in his tunic. He then stood up tall, by the open gates, looking back at Cai with proud eyes.
Just as their eyes met, Gwion staggered forward a strange half-step, still looking at Cai, then ever so slowly he slumped to his knees. A black shaft of an arrow was sticking out from his back. It had been shot by one of Maelgwn’s men as they had ridden away. Cai leapt forward towards him. Their eyes still locked until Gwion’s glazed, and he finally toppled forward like a great, felled tree, planting his face in the courtyard mud.
“Noooo…!!!” Cai could hear himself shouting as he ran.
It felt like he was floating weirdly outside his body, watching from above. The noise around him disappeared. He dived at Gwion’s head and tried to lift his body and face out of the dirt. He was a big man, and Cai wasn’t strong enough, his hands kept on slipping. He cried out for help. Then a rush of hands appeared around Cai, pulling him gently back and then gripping Gwion, picking him up and carrying him off. Cai was left alone on the floor. As he stared at the imprint of Gwion’s body in the mud, he saw the cup on the ground, it must have tumbled out of his clothes as he fell. Cai pushed himself up and quickly picked the cup up. Men and women were still rushing back and forth dowsing fires and rounding up escaped pigs and geese.
“Where have they taken Gwion?” he shouted, as each ran by.
At last, one replied. “To the hospice…” pointing to a low, wooden building on the opposite side of the courtyard.
As Cai entered the building, he saw a group of men and women kneeling, praying silently around a bed. One small man, wearing a leather apron splashed with blood, stood over the bed, his hands holding the bloody tip of an arrow. He looked up and saw Cai.
“I’m sorry, boy, but your uncle will not survive the night.” Cai stopped dead, stunned by his directness, and because he’d called Gwion his uncle. One of the Abbey nuns rose from her knees and bustled across the stone floor and wrapped Cai in her arms.
“I’m so sorry, my dear. The physician can be too blunt. To lose your father and your uncle so quickly like this sometimes makes us all question God’s plans.”
“But Gwion isn’t… I don’t… I’ve never known my father… I don’t have a father… Gwion was my master’s brother.”
“Yes, yes,” said the nun. “I know it’s all a lot to take in at this time.”
And then it happened, just for the very briefest of moments, the scent of rosemary and thyme on the nun’s clothes transported him back to the faded memories of his mother. But today the mists of his memory dissolved, and the vision cleared. This time, when he looked up into his mother’s laughing face, he could see her features clearly, and then across to another face that had also been hazy before. This time, his eyes focussed, and he saw the other face crystal clear for the first time. It was Julius, his master, the centurion. No, it couldn’t be, but they were both laughing and smiling together, and he was in the middle, between them. All his memories suddenly joined up like the constellations of stars in the night sky and he realised for the first time that the person who was his master had also been his father. Waves of emotion poured through Cai’s head – happiness, sadness, fear, despair – all swam confusingly in his mind as he tried to process it all.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour but must have been seconds, a strange, deep calm washed over him. He no longer felt overwhelmed, but was filled with an unexpected certainty, a clear knowledge of what he had to do next. He broke gently away from the nun’s embrace and walked slowly towards the body of Gwion lying motionless on the low, wooden-framed bed. He knelt down by his side and took Gwion’s hand. In his other he held the cup that he had picked up just minutes before.
The physician spoke something to him, his lips and jaw moved but there was no sound, he couldn’t hear or understand what had been said. Instead, it felt as if there was someone else now by his side. He was being urged to offer the cup up to Gwion. He looked to his side and saw another boy, about his age, black hair, olive skin and brown eyes, who had put his hands on Gwion’s and beckoned with his head for Cai to do the same. Cai clasped the cup to Gwion’s hands as well. Fine beads of sweat trickled from the forehead of Gwion’s ashen face, his eyes were closed, and his lips moved but with no sound, as his body fought the fever of death. Cai too easily remembered looking at just such a face, the face of his master, only a few days before. The thought kindled a deep rage in his heart. The thought of losing everything that he had just learned, a family, a future, he was not going to let this happen. He shook with emotion, clasping hands and cup together, and shouted in his head with all his might, I will not let you go. I will not let you go!
As dawn approached, he woke up on the floor beside the bed. Someone had put a cloak over him. He didn’t know how long he’d stayed kneeling by the bedside before falling asleep and there was no sign of the other boy. He stood up stiffly and looked around. There was a huddle of monks and nuns around the physician, who was shaking his head gravely. Cai looked at Gwion. His face, no longer contorted in struggle, was peaceful and still. Only now did Cai think he could see himself in Gwion and wept.
“What are you crying for?” a voice mumbled.
Cai looked down and saw Gwion had one eye open and was looking up quizzically at him.
“You’re… alive!” Cai shouted.
“More than alive,” Gwion winked, and flashed the cup from under his covers at the astonished Cai. Both eyes fully open now, and seemingly comfortable, Gwion sat up and continued. “I remember looking at you, after Maelgwn’s men had gone. I had something that I needed to tell you. Something that we had all heard rumours about. And there, looking at you properly, I could see it. But then I felt a punch at my back. It knocked the wind out of me, and I didn’t remember any more, until a boy very like you spoke to me. We were standing in the light, and he leant forward and asked me to drink from the cup he held in his hand. I recognised it, of course, and took a deep draught of the liquid it contained. It was like sweet, cool water. I thanked him and was giving the cup back when I woke up here, the cup still in my hand, and you asleep on the floor. I couldn’t feel any pain and checked where the physician had dressed me, and the wound had healed. The physician couldn’t believe it!”
Cai looked back towards the door. The physician was now standing in a circle of monks and nuns, and they were in an animated discussion, arms being thrown up, some making the sign of the cross on their chests, others pointing upwards and all were talking at once. The physician strode forward towards Cai and Gwion.
“I don’t understand what happened last night, Gwion, but I do know that your recovery was beyond anything I could do or have ever seen. We have decided that it was, indeed, a miracle. The bishop will be informed, and if he agrees, it will be known as one of the great wonders of Britain.”
That next evening, when everything was calmer and all the fires had been extinguished, the bishop and abbess returned. They all gathered in the great hall, its slated roof and stone walls mostly untouched by Maelgwn’s fire, for a modest feast to celebrate Gwion’s recovery, the saving of the Abbey and the revelations of the cup. Sitting around its long, oak tables they ate a simple meal of cawl, bread and cheese, followed by strawberries all washed down with the Abbey beer. Cai sat next to Gwion, in a place of honour at the bishop’s top table. Later, Gwion, his brow shining brightly in the firelight, sang a song he had crafted about Maelgwn and the recent miraculous events.
After the feast and songs, Gwion came back to sit next to Cai.
“What will happen to the cup now?” asked Cai.
“It is a most holy relic,” said Gwion, “as I am proof. If the old stories are true, then it has great and terrible powers that should only be used to help those most in need. In truth, we do not know what its power is yet. But we cannot let people like King Maelgwn own it, or even know of its existence here, or he will try to take it for his own uses. I think he believes that he can bring his dead warriors back to life, to build an army that cannot be conquered, to rule the world, and to give himself eternal life. There will always be people like Maelgwn, to him it is a weapon, to us a healing miracle. It may be both, of course!”
“Where will you keep it?” asked Cai.
“We need to keep the cup safe, just as my brother Julius had done, until it is time for it to be passed on, just as it was to you,” said Gwion.
“But I gave it to you and the Abbey, Gwion,” said Cai, “I think your brother had always meant to bring it to the Abbey for safekeeping.”
Gwion looked across at Cai, “But you are free now, how would you like to stay with us here, and rebuild the Abbey?”
Cai was both sad and very happy, at the same time, realising that Gwion was the closest he had to family now, and so he eagerly agreed to stay.
Gwion said, “You know, Cai, there is a saying, ‘Hidden in plain sight’, when you ‘hide’ something by not hiding it so that it seems worthless or of no consequence. You did well with Maelgwn.”
“I didn’t do anything,” replied Cai.
“Ah, but you did, your honesty and openness was like a mist in front of the eyes of someone like Maelgwn,” retorted Gwion. His voice then went to a low whisper. “We’ve decided to keep the cup in the small chapel, not locked away or chained to a stone, but just loose on a windowsill, to make out as if it has no merit or value. The people who need it will find it, or it will find them, that is the beauty of magic things. We’ve already sent some stories about that it was so powerful and precious, with its gold stem studded with jewels, that it needs to be locked away in the iron chests of the Abbey at Bangor-is-y-coed, or was it Caerdiff… or Glaestonbury?” he winked. “Maelgwn won’t be happy, and I do plan to tease him and his court with some of my riddles!”
The feast ended, and later Gwion was keen to know what his brother had been doing over the past many years. So, the two of them talked long into the night, swapping stories, Cai anxious to know more about his father and their adventures when they travelled to Rome and Constantinople, and Gwion about Cai’s and his brother’s life in Abona and beyond.
Outside, the wind picked up, and the first leaves of autumn blew up and over the Abbey palisade gathering in great drifts in the courtyard, a soft brown crispy carpet, flecked with red and gold, covering the ash and mud, erasing the memory of the raid.
As the years rolled by, Cai found a favourite spot at the Abbey where he could sit and look out to sea. It was the wide stone entrance step to the Abbey. Smooth, flat and white and a perfect spot from which to watch the comings and goings from the Abbey. It was also warm to the touch after a sunny day, and perfect for sitting and thinking. He and Gwion would often sit there long into the evening planning their futures and the Abbey’s. The Abbey thrived and grew, and became a palace, where Bishop Anian, Abbess Melangell, Gwion and Cai played host to travellers and pilgrims from across Britain and the old empire; but success can breed jealousy from some, and a chance to settle old scores was seized during the later wars in the defence of Gwynedd, which saw the fortress of Degeanwy pulled down stone by stone, and the Abbey Palace and its sacred gardens looted and burned, never again to be occupied, and all its secrets dismissed, its people and their memories scattered, lost and forgotten, or washed away into the sea.
But sometimes, just sometimes, they wake and call out from the past to those who will listen, yearning to be discovered again.