There was no escaping the limits imposed by my weak back. Walking was still an ordeal for me. I could take steps only when bent forward, one hand pressing hard on the central place where the damage had occurred, the other holding the ash wood prop that Edd had sought out with great care, and shaped so it fitted my hand. It left me shuddering from the effort, feebleness overtaking me, as if I had stumbled and staggered the length and breadth of the moors. The pain rippled outwards, down to my knees and up to my breast. But it was better than being a perpetual cripple and I had a firm hope that one day I would be my old self.
When the blessing was at last decided on, we debated ways of conveying me to the church. Even if we’d had a pony or donkey, I was unsure whether I could safely balance on its back. A donkey-drawn cart would have bumped over the rough moorland beyond endurance. In any case, such luxuries were far beyond our means. Edd even suggested he carry me on his back.
‘Oh, yes,’ I sneered, ‘and who will carry the babe?’ Edd fell silent then, and we talked no more that day.
The next morning my mood was dark. The child must be blessed for the sake of his soul. The holy water, drawn from St Bride’s well, would wash him clean. The church stood on a sacred spot, where once a great oak had grown. My mother’s mother recalled to me, in my childish years, the day the tree had been taken down, for fear it would fall on the church in its old age. Before the winter, the child must be protected from the damnation which would befall him if he were to die unshriven.
There was another reason why it seemed urgent for him to be taken into God’s Family. Cuthman had brought injury and suffering to his mother, as he was being born. He had an ill omen upon him from that. There were days when I could scarcely abide him near me, for thinking of what he had done to me. These days had not grown fewer with time or with the easing of my pain. At first, the sweet newness of the babe had overcome my resentment, but as he grew so blithe and assured I came close to turning against him. I would do him no harm, and no-one knew that such black moods came on me now and then. I could not tell Edd that our son must be cleansed of the demon I glimpsed in him. Not then, at any rate.
And yet we still could see no way for me to be present at the baptism.
‘Go without me,’ I said, pretending to a greater bitterness than I truly felt. ‘It seems I am never again to leave this place.’ I turned my face away from Edd’s indecision. The way was steep to the church, with a ford across the river Ock and a stretch of bog to traverse. ‘Unless there be a miracle,’ I muttered to myself. If this great God so badly wanted Cuthman to join his flock, might he not ensure in his own way that the child’s mother be present?
Edd dressed the child, in a bleached embroidered linen gown which had been my mother’s. We had carefully laid it at the back of the hut in a dry press. Wynn had worn it for her baptism. I fingered it for a moment, as it hung over my man’s arm. It shamed me that I could not witness the holy ritual, but when I forced myself to stand and walk to the doorway, I could scarcely lift my feet from the ground. Shuffling through a bog, splashing into the icy river water, falling over the rocks on the cruel hill up to the church - all were unthinkable. I dashed away the tears and chivvied Edd into departing. He gave Wynn one hand, and Cuthman perched on his arm. I had not the heart to keep Wynn with me, although I felt terribly alone when they had gone.
And constantly, throughout the day, I glanced out, scanning the sky and the distant moors, waiting for something to happen which would transport me to the church. An angel, surely, would come to carry me? Once, the dogs all barked from the barn and I held my breath, sure that this at last was the miracle. Mutinous thoughts flitted through my mind — if we had been devoting the child to Morgana, or the great Mother, there would not be this shutting out of the one who had given birth to him. Faeries would come in swarms and waft me to the sacred forest grove where my son would be promised to Wicca and the earth spirits. Whispering to myself, I remembered the hints and secrets that women passed amongst themselves over their spinning, secrets which had to be kept away from the priest and the menfolk who embraced the Christian God so obediently.
The hut was untidy with loose straw. The corn had been threshed and the chaff and straw drifted everywhere. Although the Lammas festival was over and the corn dollies made, I took it into my head to make another, as a pastime. Carelessly, I gathered some good stalks, though none had the ears on them as they do for the real thing and they were mostly broken and short. This would be something different, then. With no real intent I stacked them, weaving others in and out to fix the uprights in place. It became a little wall, like the wattle hurdles we made for controlling the sheep. My fingers worked faster, some magic directing them, some greater magic holding the tiny sticks together. I made two more woven walls in the same way and stood them up, forming a miniature open-fronted hut. Scratching round for further straw, I quickly found the materials for a roof.
Standing it on the table, I moved back for a better view. I could scarcely credit that I had made it myself. It seemed perfect. No gaps to let the rain in, the sturdy little house stood foursquare. It merely needed a front wall with a door and a smoke hole under the eaves to be complete. And decoration, I thought. It called for some elaboration to make it purely my own.
I made the additions, losing myself in the amusement it provided. The decoration consisted of rowan berries from a cluster I had saved for a healing potion, threaded into the walls in intricate designs, as well as a variety of seedheads from grasses and weeds which grew around the house. A row of beechmast outlined the edges of the roof. A home for the faeries, I decided, glancing briefly over my shoulder, afraid that I might be inviting something into my hut that I might afterwards regret.
Hungry and tired, I realised that the sun was low on the sky, and Edd should be back with the children. The church was a good distance away, but I had expected them home before this. The priest would have arranged a small meal to celebrate the new Christian, there would have been dancing and a song or two - it would all take time, I supposed, and there would be no haste to return to the ratty bent thing that I had become.
Finally, they appeared down the tussocky path, weary and quiet. Edd’s arm remained locked for a few moments when he set the baby down, and I realised what a weight he’d carried so far. Wynn was pale, red juice on her face from the fruit she’d eaten. She was the first to notice my little straw house. Her face came alive and her hands reached out to it. ‘Oh!’ she cried, in real delight.
Edd turned to look. I saw surprise, admiration and then fear cross his face. ‘It’s a faery house!’ he hissed. ‘Destroy it! What would the priest think?’
My laugh was a little forced. ‘Nonsense!’ I said. ‘Just my little amusement during a long day. I’ll smash it, if you want me to.’
I raised my fist over the toy, but then lowered it again. Wynn had whimpered in protest, and the baby also seemed very taken with it. I found myself fiercely reluctant to break it.
‘I’ll put it outside,’ I said. ‘It’ll blow apart in a few days.’ Edd made no protest and I clumsily took it up and shuffled out and around to the back of the hut with it. There was a small place under a thorn bush which seemed the natural spot to place it. I set it lightly on the ground, and tried to straighten my back before going into the hut again.
Two things happened. For the first time in over seven months I stood unbent without pain. And something rushed past my head, with a whirring of wings like a little bird. Bewildered I turned my head from side to side and raised my arms to the sky. Then I lifted my feet one by one, disbelieving, my heart stopped from shock. I was cured.
With a loud cry of triumph, which echoed over the moors like the call of a seabird, I flew back to the hut to show myself.
Edd stared at me as I rushed in. ‘I am cured!’ I sang, a madwoman with my hair outflung.
Wynn ran to me, throwing her arms about my thighs. ‘I prayed for it!’ she boasted. ‘Just as Father Brendan said we should.’
‘Then I thank you,’ I laughed. ‘With all my soul.’
‘But the faery house really did it,’ she added, suddenly solemn. I lowered myself to be level with her face, the stiff muscles only mildly complaining.
‘We must not place our faith in faeries,’ I said, gently. ‘But perhaps they have given our Lord a little help?’
She nodded wisely, and I hugged her to me. She and I were restored to each other thanks to the end of my crippledom and I rejoiced in it. We all slept soundly that night, after a day we would not quickly forget.