Judging from Gothreg’s map, Caelym expected to get to Aleswina’s ancestral lodge (as he’d come to call it) in two or at most three days. The innkeeper, however, had been under the impression that they were going to be traveling on the road—so, as it turned out, it was Herrwn’s map with its three grim giants warning of unforeseen hazards that proved the more accurate.
Finally, after weeks of backtracking out of dead-end canyons, searching out fords across rivers in flood, and detouring around cliff sides, the group came to the top of the last ridge before the spot that Gothreg had marked KL.
The ridge, by comparison with some that they had crossed, was a low one. Looking over the edge, they could see the path switch back through scattered stands of beech and alder before it crossed a broad clearing and ran straight on to the front gate of a dilapidated fence that enclosed a cluster of rundown buildings. The largest and centermost was a long low structure with the smoke from its hearth fires rising up through a shabbily thatched roof.
“What’s that?”
In two words, Arddwn captured the sense of letdown Caelym was feeling, as he’d expected a residence belonging to a king— even a dead one—would be more impressive.
“That,” he said with forced enthusiasm, “is Ales—Ethelwen’s ancestral lodge.”
“Which log is the ancestral one?” Lliem’s grasp of Celt was not yet complete, and he’d misconstrued what he’d overheard Caelym and Annwr saying to each other to mean that they were going to get some sort of magical piece of wood.
This was neither the time nor the place to resolve all of the boys’ disappointments and misunderstandings, so Caelym temporized, “The earthly abodes of gods and goddesses must be kept veiled from human eyes.”
Neither Annwr nor Aleswina said anything—either when they looked down at the lodge or when they went back to the hollow where they’d left the packs. There was something in their silence that silenced the boys, who whispered, “Yes, Aunt Annwr,” when she told them to play quietly for a while.
With Aleswina sitting close beside her, Annwr sorted through their things, muttering, “You’ll keep to your disguise as a boy, revealing your true identity only to Millicent, and she can say you are her sister’s grandson come to visit. I’ve put your cross in with your habit, wimple, and veil for when you go on to the convent. The money Benyon gave you is in this pouch for your dowry. Remember the story you are to tell about being the daughter of a rich Briton—let’s say he was a merchant who disowned you when you ran off with the son of his rival, and then that lover, whose name you will never reveal, abandoned you, and so you have come to join them, renouncing both wealth and men forever.”
Aleswina nodded, took the pouch, and pushed it down to the bottom of her pack.
“This other pouch has the things for you to keep for remembrance, the gifts that the boys gave you and the seeds for your new garden, and . . .” Annwr had been busy rummaging and sorting, but now she turned to face Aleswina, holding a delicate golden brooch with a few stray threads hanging off it. “You had this when we first met. Do you remember it?”
Aleswina shook her head.
“I think it may have been your mother’s, and so you should keep it.”
Aleswina shook her head again.
“Well, you may want it later, so I’ll put it with the rest.”
Caelym, who’d been tuning his harp nearby, paused as Annwr listed off the gifts that she and the boys had given to Aleswina. He waited for her to mention his knife and when she didn’t, he guessed this was no mere oversight but a renewal of her past accusations that he was ungrateful for all the things Aleswina had done for him.
Not about to let this slight go unanswered, he reached for his shoulder bag, determined to find another gift—one that Annwr could not ignore.
Sitting with his legs crossed and his satchel on his lap, he took out and laid aside his healing kit, his maps, Aleswina’s parchment prayer sheet, Annwr’s sheaf of medicinal herbs, and a golden pendant that had been Feywn’s gift to him when she named him her consort.
Digging deeper, he found a reed flute. Did nuns play flutes? He thought not.
There was his embossed and only slightly dented box of flints and tinder—but of what use would that be to her, living indoors with others to cook her meals?
One of his protective amulets? For a moment he thought that was the answer, but he quickly realized a Druid talisman was no safe gift for anyone to carry into a Christian convent.
With almost the entire contents of his pack stacked on the ground beside him, there was nothing left except a coil of twine he’d forgotten he had.
Looking up, he saw Annwr starting to tighten the draw cords of Aleswina’s pouch of gifts, so he shifted onto one knee and strummed a chord on his harp.
“I, too, have a gift to give you.”
Both Annwr and Aleswina turned, looking startled—as if they’d forgotten he was there.
He struck a second chord.
“You know that Annwr has another daughter, one who is close to you in age.” Here Caelym smiled at the recollection of Aleswina lying on Annwr’s lap and pretending to be asleep. “Now I will tell you that when Cyri determined to be a physician as well as a midwife, it fell to me to teach her everything a physician must know—not just about healing and remedies but also understanding the living world of plants and of animals. I was then but nineteen years old, as you are now, and had only just become a physician myself, and I was afraid that I did not know enough to be teaching any other. So on the day that our lessons were to start, I took Cyri with me to a marshy spot near the edge of our sacred lake. I then took a piece of twine . . .”
Caelym set his harp aside and opened his hand to reveal the coil of twine, the way a magician might conjure a coin out of the air.
“Then I had her hold her arms straight out . . .”
With that, he took hold of Aleswina’s wrists and stretched her arms out straight.
“And I measured the twine so that it was the length between her farthest fingertips.”
Again, Caelym matched his actions to his words.
“Then, together, we cut small pegs from willow twigs. I used one to mark the center of what would soon be a circle. I tied the twine to that, then I stretched it out to its full length and at its far end I set in another peg. Doing this again and again, I made a ring of pegs—twice as wide across as Cyri’s arms could reach. Do you see in your mind what I am saying?”
Aleswina nodded.
“Excellent! Now you can image how this was not so big a space, so you will understand how confident Cyri was when I told her that for her first task she must count everything living within that circle, and she would not be finished until I could not show her even one more thing that she had not seen for herself. Even as she was nodding her head, I could see that she expected to be finished with this and off to some more interesting lesson by the end of the day. Now, I wonder whether you can guess how long actually it took her to complete this task?”
Aleswina shook her head.
“Then I will tell you that Cyri labored on through long days and weeks and months. Time and again she proclaimed she was done, only to have me prove her wrong by showing her one more thing that she had missed, until at last, she understood that there was no end to this task. However many things you think you know about the earth, there is always more to find out. That was the lesson that Cyri learned, and forever after she has looked at all the world as carefully as she did her small circle of earth, always discovering something new and wonderful.
Caelym looped the string back into a coil, put it into Aleswina’s hand, and folded her fingers around it.
“This, then, is my gift to you who have given me so much. It is my dearest hope that when you are in your new Christian convent and again have a garden, you will take this string and make a circle of earth as Cyri did, and you too will take on the task of finding everything that lives there—all of the plants and all of the creatures, down to the smallest thing that moves. You must remember that when you are inside that circle, you are to watch and seek to understand what you see without judging or interfering. And when you are doing that, you will know that my spirit is with yours, and that I am seeing those wonders as well.”
Caelym got to his feet and held out his hand.
“And now, while Annwr stays here and watches over the boys, I will take you to your ancestral lodge to rejoin your loving servant, Millicent, who will guard you with her life until the nuns of Saint Agned, whose convent will be your sanctuary forever more, open their gates and welcome you in.”
“Not until I have all her things ready, and I’ve gone first to make sure that Millicent is there, and it is safe to leave her!” Annwr spoke so fiercely that Caelym drew his hand back and stepped away as she snapped, “And you will stay here and watch the boys!”
Caelym’s story about Cyri had touched Annwr deeply—as, no doubt, he’d intended it to—but she wasn’t about to let him be the one to make the final judgment over whether it was safe to leave Aleswina with Millicent.
Softening her tone, she went back to what she’d been saying before he interrupted.
“Now, Dear Heart, you’ll need to pick a Celtic name to give when you enter your new convent. What about ‘Brighid’? That’s a pretty name.”
Aleswina nodded.