And I dissolve, through the wood, into the waters of the lake.
Chapter Two
The Flowering Thorn
(Eosaidh)
I am not accustomed to piloting so tiny a craft, a flat-bottomed dugout made from an oak of the Isle of Mist, and it rocks crazily under my weight as I struggle to get the feel of the paddle. For a moment I hover, leaning over the dark water, some of my precious provisions slipping over the side. The words I mutter are not the holiest of prayers, I fear. A flatboat is the only way to get across the marshes that lie ahead, but here in the open water off Bryn Llyffaint it is treacherous. I risk a glance over my shoulder. Already the island hill fort is fading into the moonless dark, the outline of our trading vessel lost in shadow. These last two days we have sailed northeast from Pendunn near Land's End, headed for the lead mines up in the Mendydd. The hill fort is an outpost of the Dumnoni, and a logical place to pull up for the night before the final leg of the journey. The crew will be expecting me to sail with them at dawn; the mines need looking into in the midst of this latest fighting. But there is no future for Eosaidh of Cornualle in the lead mines of the Mendydd, nor in the tin of Carn Euny, my home. Only a few allies among the Dumnoni will know of the secreted boat, the provisions for a camp, and the disappearance of a mine owner. They will tell no one that I have faded into the marshes of Affalon.
Though still in open water, it is quiet on the broad inland sea, and cold. I pull my furs around me, settling into a remembered rhythm with the small paddle. It is just past midnight. The Hunter is high in the sky, but scudding clouds and a fresh breeze from the northwest tell of bad weather approaching. Which of us, I wonder, will reach the island first? I left with the turning of the tide, by our best reckoning. With luck, I will travel the fifteen or so miles, find my way through the marshes at high tide, and make landfall by midmorning.
Looking away to my left I can see campfires up in the Mendydd. The tribes are battling for control of the mines, each hoping to be in a better position to bargain with Vespasian when he arrives with his legion. But I have lived long enough among the Romans to know the tribes have no hope. With a wry chuckle I remember that I have known Vespasian long enough as well. Even now he comes from the east, stopping only to conquer and pacify each town, village, and hill fort along the way. He is patient and thorough, and very effective. It has been nearly two years since the Romans landed along the southern coast. Vespasian's march toward us is patient, but inexorable. Soon he will be here, and there will be no winners among the tribes. The mines that have belonged to my family will belong to the Romans, and many of our people will be slaves. Not a noble ending for the great metals trader of the Mediterranean world, known once to Rome as Joseph of Arimathea, Minister of Mines in far off Iudea, trader in lead and tin.
For a moment, a wave of regret sweeps over me as if raised by the rising wind. I rest my paddle on my knees and let the boat slow to a stop. Without a keel, it turns in the wind. The far hills, the water, the reeds spin gently about me. Overhead, the Hunter disappears behind a veil of dark cloud; the night is gloom.
Slowly the bow swings back to the east, and I lower my paddle to keep it steady. There is nothing but darkness ahead. Somewhere out there the water will turn to marsh, and the marsh to sacred land. Somewhere out there is the village of the lake people, and the wooden walkways they have built across the marshes to their grazing grounds in the south. Somewhere off to the left, off the shores of the Mendydd, are the mysterious reed-ringed islands of Affalon; the most mysterious of all, the hidden island of the Lady whom I seek this night. But it is the Isle of Mist my eyes search for in the darkness, for it is there I have met her before, and it is there I am bound. For a moment my mind fills with the rich wonder of old and tender memories that seem more dream than real.
The seawater sloshes under the flat bottom of my boat as it slowly rocks upon the waves. Otherwise it is quiet out here, alone, on the water. I hear the slow rhythm of my breath, see the faint vapors of it in the cold air. Very nearly I hear the beating of my heart. Painfully, I remember that I am alive, and the lad is not. So I seek the Lady, in whose realm, I hope, to find refuge not only from the approaching Romans, but also from the loneliness of my own soul. I pull back on the paddle, and the boat glides forward once again.
I hadn't counted on how much time there would be to think out here, to remember. I remember the last time I saw the Lady of these marshes, years ago, long before the Romans decided to come to this far-off corner of the world. The lad was with me then. He had come with me several times to the tin mines of Carn Euny and the lead mines of Pryddy. Miryam, his mother, had as always not wished to be parted from him. It was less a fear for his safety, I think, as a desire to cherish every moment of their time together. Even then she knew, with the heart of a mother, that the number of his days was short. We had stood on the docks at Caesarea, beside the Phoenician vessel that would take us to Massalia, the main port of the Gaulish tin route. I could feel the worry in my niece's heart for the lad, but it did not penetrate my knowing self-assurance. If he is to be a builder of more than Galilean houses, he needs to learn the metals trade! Roman forts and Greek temples make use of pipes and gutters as well as wood and stone. And it is our mines that are the origin of these metals for the known world, our mines in Cornualle and the Mendydd, which the Romans and Phoenicians call the Casseritides, the Isles of Tin.
And so we sailed to Massalia, and then up the Rhodanus and down the Sequana to the Great Channel, and on to the island port of Ictus. We crossed Cornualle overland to avoid the treacherous currents around the land's end, and sailed from Pendunn to Bryn Llyffaint, and so to the mines at Pryddy. Ah, Pryddy! The little village that was summer home to us as well as mine head. The lad loved it there. One evening, our inspections finished, he stood on a bluff overlooking these waters. I could pick it out even now if it were day. The sun was low in the sky to our right. To our left, across the marsh, its rays lit the strange cone of a hill, the high tor of the Isle of Mist, with an unearthly red glow. I can hear his voice still, as clearly as I hear the swish of my paddle in this quiet darkness.
"Tomorrow, Uncle Eos," the lad said, "Let's take the flatboat over to that island. I have a mind to see that hill that seems to rise to the heavens!" And so we did.
The sudden scratching of reeds across the bow wakens me from memories. I have reached the edge of the marshes, where the open water narrows into the entrance to Llyn Cimwch, named for the abundance of crayfish in its shallow waters. Along the eastern horizon the first faint glow of light tells of the coming dawn, and outlines the thatched roofs and palisades of Pentreflyn, just ahead. I shake my head and wonder at the improbable stick houses set upon a patchwork of logs, clay and available debris, literally floating upon the bog. Hanging in the balance between earth and open water, and the tribal powers of the Durotriges and Dobunni, they are a curiously solid presence in the midst of shifting elements and events.
The scent of cooking fires means that many are already well into their day, and will easily spot me if I come closer. I have met them before traveling between the mines in Cornualle and the Mendydd, so my only fear is of the delay of friendship. I skirt the village far to the north, staying to the edge of open water and avoiding the wooden walkways that disappear into the marshes to the south. These folk, too, will not survive the advance of Vespasian. For years the changing climate in these parts has meant rising water levels and more difficulty in maintaining the village. The Romans will merely complete what nature has begun. The lake people will soon seek higher, safer ground.
In the growing daylight I find a main channel into the marshes, and settle back into a routine paddling. Ahead I can see the tor outlined against the dawn, but the clouds that passed over me in the night have now passed over it, too, and soon will overcast the entire horizon. The wind has stilled for the moment of dawn; a cold mist rises from the reeds. The lower slopes of the tor disappear in a white shroud. I will not be able for long to use it as a
guide. The lake village slips by on my right, and once again all is quiet, save for the swish of the paddle, the song of the flat bottom of the boat on the waves, and the calls of the waking animals of the marsh. I crash through a tangle of reeds and a startled heron takes flight just off my bow. On a rock, thirty yards off my right, sits an otter with a shell of some sort in his paws. I fancy he looks at me with a mixture of curiosity and mild annoyance. Who is this strange creature that rides on a log and disturbs the morning business of the marsh? Time passes as slowly as the reeds.
The tor and the marshes ahead are now fully enshrouded in mist. By a sense of filtered light, changing water depth, and the gathering choke of reeds, I feel my way toward the island that the lad and I visited that day, long ago.
I remember the hard, rasping sound as we beached our boat. The lad was first out, leaping onto the stones. With the sweep of a muscled arm he grabbed the gunwale and hauled us up onto the shore! Even now I marvel at his strength, wondering whether I will be able today, at my age, to drag this old oaken dugout out of the water even with two hands.
She was there at the springs when we arrived. I remember to this day the tenderness of the look that passed between us after such long absence. I remember, too, the strange look that passed between her and the lad, as if they shared some secret of destiny. She sent him on his way up the tor, warning him that there he would find the beginning of what he was searching for. If she knew what was ahead for him, or if he did, I never heard another word about it. The Lady and I sat by the springs and talked as we had years before. I told her my tales of the outside world. She led me on inner journeys of the spirit. What a strange and unlikely pair we might have seemed to others' eyes, a priestess of the mysteries and a trader in tin. I wonder would they find it strange, or scandalous, to know the whole story? But no one ever saw us together except for the lad, who thought us not unlikely at all. He never saw the tor again. On another high hill, outside of Jerusalem, he ran afoul of the Romans. He preached love and freedom, and they crucified him for it. Now, at the other end of the world, I flee the same Romans, and hope that Vivian can tell me the meaning of the lad's death.
A sudden lurch of the boat pitches me forward onto a pile of supplies. I have found the Isle of Mist, I am confident, but where I am on its shoreline, I have no idea. I stow the paddle and step out into the cold, shallow water. At the bow, with both arms and a bowed back, I struggle the boat onto solid ground. Before me the land begins to rise. It is one of the four hills of the island, but which one? The shore is lined with hawthorns, a tree known by the tribes for granting strength of heart. I cut a long staff from one, and begin the climb. Perhaps, as often happens, the top will rise above the mist and I will see where I am. As I climb, the wind freshens once more from the northwest. The temperature drops with the wind, and the mists begin to part, the sky above remains gray and threatening. The last shreds of mist are torn away as I reach the summit, and instantly I know where I am - atop the long ridge of a hill that stretches out to the southwest like the neck of a great swan. Bryn Fyrtwyddon it is called, but I once heard a trader call it Wirrheal. In either case, it is the Hill of Myrtles.
Atop Wirrheal I get my bearings. To the west I can see the open water across which I have come, and Bryn Llyffaint in the distance. By now my crew will be scratching their heads, having no answer to the mystery of my disappearance. I utter a prayer to wish them well.
Just below me to the left a small rounded island rises out of the marsh. It is sacred, I know, to the tribes, a hill of the goddess of the land. I can see the remains of a huge bonfire in the meadow beneath it, left from the celebration of her festival only a few nights ago. There is a gentleness about her service that makes me wonder about the desert warrior God of my own people. Yet I often saw that same gentleness in the lad.
To my right rises the mysterious tor, the high hill that seems to connect the worlds. Below it is the smaller, rounded Hill of Apples. Between them, the steep, wooded cleft that is the Valley of the Springs.
There I am headed when a sudden blast from the approaching storm nearly knocks me from my feet, and I clasp the thorn staff tightly for support. Suddenly the sleet is upon me like a flying wall from the northwest, stinging in its horizontal rage across the hilltop! Nearly blinded by the onslaught, I duck for shelter into a thicket of hawthorn, leaving my staff propped against the largest of the trees. It is no drier here, but the tangle of bare branches provides something of a windbreak. I pull my furs over my head, sit on the ground, and bend low to form the smallest target for the weather. There is nothing to do but wait it out.
The wind howling around me raises doubts about the wisdom of coming here. As far as I know, no one lives on this island, though the Lady and her priestesses come often to seek the wisdom and comfort of the Holy Springs. Certainly the island shows little intention of hospitality towards me at the moment! Will it welcome me, a world-weary Iudde who knows more about the Roman gods than his own, or those that watch over these shores? Then, what can any man know of the gods? Every time we think we have Adonai figured out, he surprises us with something new. The Romans will never sort out their gods, adding to their number with each new region they conquer. Some in Iudea, and this is the greatest wonder, some in Iudea are even beginning to say strange things about the lad . . . But what can a man know of the gods? Partly, that is why I am here.
It seems well past noon when the wind begins to ease and the sleet comes to an end. I stretch stiff, cramped limbs and climb out of my thicket. The sun breaks from fleeting clouds, bathing Wirrheal in radiance. All about, the trees are covered with sparkling clusters of ice! I reach for my staff and it, too, is covered with ice blossoms. Blossoms! It is as if this whitethorn staff has flowered in midwinter, and all the hilltop with it! I raise the staff toward the sky for Adonai to see. And perhaps the goddess from her rounded hill, and whatever other gods there may be on this Isle of Mist. Like Aaron of old, it seems I have been given a flowering branch as a blessing and sign of favor, and of welcome. Together this flowering thorn and I turn down the eastern slope of Wirrheal and head for the springs. I pull some bread and cheese from my bag and, as I descend, eat a first meal in a new world.
The darkness of evening begins to mingle with the darkness of ancient yews as I follow a stream uphill to the place of watersmeet. Here two ancient springs flow together, joining their mysteries. The waters of both seem clear enough. But on the left the iron rich water of the Red Spring turns all it touches a bright blood-red. On the right, the White Spring covers the rocks and branches over which it flows with a fairy coating of white calcite. The Red Spring comes from the Hill of Apples, the White Spring from the tor itself. It is among the apples that I am likely to meet the Lady, so I follow the Red Spring to its source. Here I find the grotto of rocks, and the deep pool in which the spring rises, bubbles over, and spills out into its downward journey to the marsh.
The grotto is surrounded by yews. Beyond them, wild apple trees climb toward the brow of the hill. It is still, except for the churning of the water and the song of a blackbird high in the trees. In Eriu, they call the bird the Black Druid. Three stars shine above, marking day’s end. I drop my bag by the pool, and lean my staff against one of the old yews. The sleet-flowers are gone, but still it pulses with the promise of life. I lie down beside the pool, drawing a second fur over myself, suddenly realizing my exhaustion. The earth and rock beneath me are a welcome enough bed and sleep will come quickly, though what dreams will arrive with it I cannot guess. In the eastern sky the Hunter begins to rise again through the trees. The Black Druid ceases his song. I have never known such silence.
Chapter Three
The Scent of Apples
(Vivian)
Gwenlli is angry with me: I have not eaten. She rakes the paddle through the water as if it had no soul, her vision clouded by her irritation. Slightly tipping the boat, I lean a little from where I sit so that my fingers can slip over the silvery surface of the water. Now and then I br
eak its dark glossy mantle, sharing with it in silence the laughter of tiny splashing ridges, feeling the power washing through my soul. Yet still the young woman pushes down the alder paddle in anger. I turn to her, “Be gentle, Gwen.”
“But, my Lady, I was given instruction, I must be sure that you - ”
“No, child,” I shake my head. And turning back, I sigh. “You are thinking of yourself.”
“My Lady, I am concerned, I am thinking of you.”
“Think of the water, Gwenlli.” My fingers leave dark ripples that float over the surface, drifting out to the sturdy winter reeds that edge this narrow course, thick brown stalks, a thousand lines, unmoving as we pass. “Think of the water,” I whisper, and close my eyes.
A smile touches my face as, reluctantly, she resets her focus, slowly remembering the ways she has been taught, and I breathe the songs of connection as the boat becomes lighter. Before long, we are gliding smoothly through the deep silence of accord, human spirit touching wood spirit touching water spirit in peace.
Though much of the night was clear, by the time I was willing to release into the tides of sleep there was already the heavy scent of damp in the air, seeping into every pocket, every comfort, every breath, clinging with the claw-threat of frost. We woke to the marsh mist, in some places floating a man’s height off the water, as if with uncertainty, unsure what to do. Yet, as we move now through the dawn towards the sacred isle, the mist is so thick it seems as if the spirits of the waters have exhaled their essence into the air, breathing out into the skies, for there is not a glimpse of life above us, nor beyond an arm’s length in any direction: nothing but white mist.
The Apple and the Thorn Page 2