The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales

by Imogen Rhia Herrad

  There is sunshine now, Arganhell, on your waters that glint and gleam like silver; and on the arm of the body that is my arm, Arganhell. The sunshine is warm and I try to purr like the cat purred when I stroked it but there is only a croaking in my throat; perhaps I have forgotten how to purr, perhaps I can only hiss and spit now.

  I move the hand up the arm and over the shoulder and on to the neck, and the other hand too; they encircle the neck and there is a pain around the throat where the croaking is; a pain all around the inside of my throat that grows tighter and tighter and I can’t breathe. My hands stroke the neck and I make the croaking sound again; I remember sitting in the sunshine on the threshold of the great hall with the cat that was purring because it was happy and it liked me; and I remember that I was happy, a long time ago when I was still alive, like you are alive, Arganhell. The pain in my throat gets worse and worse and the croaking gets louder and louder and I can’t breathe.

  I say your name and I lie down and dip my face into your waters and drink and the cold silver water runs down my throat. There is water now in my face but salty, not sweet like your water, and it is warm not cold. And the croak in my throat turns into a roar and the body is rocking and swaying as if a big hand was holding it and shaking it; and everything hurts, Arganhell.

  * * *

  I think what I am doing is crying; I remember I used to cry a long time ago when I was still alive, and now I sit and cry for a long time by your waters and then I sit and watch the water stream past and then I fall asleep.

  When I wake up one hand is numb and I hold it with the other; it begins to crawl like ants and I am afraid and I shake it and shake it to shake off the ants, and the crawling stops. One side of my face is hot from the sun and the other is cold from the soil and the grass that it has lain on. I lift a hand and pass it over the face; there are the shapes of blades of grass on the skin of this side of the face; the skin is cool and damp and there is a green smell on my fingers. The skin round the eyes is hot and dry and the lashes are like fine grass. The hair of the eyebrows is smooth and dry under my fingertips. I listen to your waters talking and mumbling and laughing and telling me stories while I sit for a long time stroking first one eyebrow and then the other, stroke, stroke, stroke.

  The skin of the forehead is cold and my hand feels warm on it. The hair is still wet; I smooth my hands down it like the man did, slowly, gently, down and down and down until it is all dry. I take a strand of it in my mouth and it tastes salty and bitter and warm.

  And then my feet twitch and I get up and I walk a few steps, slowly because it is so long since the body walked by itself, without being dragged or pushed. I walk a few steps away from the water and then I walk the same steps back and alongside you because I don’t like not being near you, Arganhell. I have been with you for so long.

  The feet are uncertain, they are clumsy and they stumble but they walk on, not as fast as your waters are flowing but they walk on.

  After a long time they stop by the water’s edge and my legs fold and I am crouching over you and looking into your water and there is a face looking up at me. Its lips are moving, my lips are moving, and I say,

  I am Arganhell.

  Eiliwedd

  Sixth century

  Also known as Almedha, Aled or Eluned.

  One of the many sons and daughters of King Brychan of South Wales.

  She was expected to marry a certain prince of a neighbouring kingdom, but would not do so and ran away from home instead. She attempted to hide herself in rags in three villages, but was hounded out of each as a thief or a vagrant. Later, plagues from heaven were visited upon all three villages. Eiliwedd finally convinced the lord of a manor near the town of Brecon to let her stay as a hermit in a simple hut on his estate and give her alms to live on. But the prince (or, in other versions of the legend, her father) finally found Eiliwedd, and when she refused to come back with him he beheaded her. A spring is said to have welled up at the spot where she was murdered.

  I knew her.

  I used to know her. When she was still alive.

  The sound of her footsteps follows me wherever I go.

  They feed me well, the people in the llys, god knows why. She sometimes said that. God knows why. Perhaps her god does know.

  She said as far as she knew, he knew everything. Omniscient, she said, was the word for that. He was, so she’d been taught, everywhere at once. Omnipresent, she said. That’s what you call that.

  Always tried to teach me words, that girl. Always tried to learn words off me too. What do you call this bird, what’s the word for that bush, that animal here, that thing there? Didn’t teach her much behind those castle walls, did they?

  Not the right things, anyway, if you ask me.

  Not that you would.

  Who’d ever ask me anything, other than how much for a quick hour in the hay or the grass, or the pig-sty? They know it won’t be much I’ll ask.

  But that’s all over.

  I used to know her, when she was still alive. I used to think I liked her, in the sort of way you like a cat or a dog you can’t eat. Not much use, but a bit of company maybe.

  I used to think she liked me too. I could be useful to her you see, showing her the things her booklearning hadn’t even mentioned.

  I did lose patience with her more than once; she was so nice and so slow, that girl; didn’t understand anything. Didn’t understand that you have to kick them before they can think of kicking you; didn’t understand that begging is good but stealing is better; because their contempt hurts less when you’ve done something contemptible – other than just existing and getting in people’s way, I mean.

  She never understood that.

  I used to think it was because life must have been so different for her; maybe her people were so rich that even girl children were welcome there and treated well.

  I found out after a while that it had not been so. They’d treated her like everybody else treats their daughters. But then, she’d rarely gone hungry; not really; not like rats biting and tearing at your insides and the fear that this time it’s going to be the last and you’re going to die; and then worse than the fear, the not caring. That’s the last thing before the pains start, and after the pains are done with you, you die.

  She didn’t know about things like that.

  She knew about words, and stories from that book all about her god who she said was everywhere and knew everything.

  I can hear her footsteps again. She is walking on the wind.

  She was so young.

  Two years younger than me, but she’d never catch up.

  Didn’t know anything, didn’t understand. Not much use except for the company, like a cat or a dog you can’t eat, or a tame bird.

  Sang like a bird, when she was happy. She sang to her god, but she wouldn’t sing to earn us some bread.

  I understood that; I hate people gawking and measuring you up with their eyes, the men for a quick lay and the women because they see their men look at you like that. What you think doesn’t count; what you are nobody’s interested in.

  Who you are, she said one evening when I went on like this. Not what.

  You may be a who, I told her, but I’m a what, that I know for a fact, and so are you now you’re on the road like the rest of us.

  She smiled at me and shook her head, and stretched out her arm and gave me something she’d been working on with her clever white fingers; a necklace she’d made from acorns and horse chestnuts and bird feathers and shells from the river.

  For you, she said. It will look beautiful against your skin.

  Maybe she’d just made it and tired of it and wanted rid of it; or perhaps it was to show me that she thought I was a who, not a what; or maybe she made it for me as a gift because she was sweet and a little simple in her head. But all I thought of was the bread she could have stolen instead; the hares she could have snared or the fish caught; or even the men she could have earned a few coins from, although that w
as something even I only did when there was nothing else, and she, never.

  But there she sat, smiling as if she was pleased with herself, with me; as if I should be pleased with her; when all I could think of was being always hungry and cold and never having a place to go home to.

  You silly little bitch, I said, then shouted; you simple-minded useless piece of woman-flesh, and I tore the necklace out of her hand and broke the string and scattered acorns and horse-chestnuts and shells everywhere, and feathers flew. Because the truth was that she had reminded me that I was nothing, not even what, and I wanted her to stop.

  It will look beautiful against your skin she had said, as if beautiful and I could go together. Those words of hers were clawing open the graves of things I’d buried long ago and was finally rid of. She was bringing back all the dreaming and the hoping I’d killed off and put away because the pain was too much. So I had to stop her.

  She was sweet and simple-minded and didn’t understand; and at first I thought I could knock the nonsense out of her like it had been knocked out of me, but I couldn’t.

  And maybe it hadn’t been knocked properly out of me either; because I’d never been much good, and look at me now; a beggar woman after all. And I think I’ve done well for myself.

  The shadows gather; twigs are cracking under the tree.

  Who’s there?

  But it’s only me and her ghost.

  Only me.

  I didn’t see her for a while after that time with the necklace.

  She ran away from me and I don’t blame her; she was a runner-away, that’s why she was still around. She was sweet, and simple in her head, but she did know some things about looking after herself. She knew better than to stay with a woman who’d lay into her like I did that night.

  She never fought back, or even screamed. She just curled up until it was all over, her hands holding her head; and then she looked at me and got up and backed away; and then she turned round and ran away into the dark.

  She had more sense than to stay with someone who’d beat her like I had done that night.

  She had more sense than me. I had stayed with someone like that until I’d been kicked out; and even then I’d hung around the door hoping to be let back in. No pride.

  She told me that in the castle, they’d taught her that pride was wrong.

  They’d taught her that her god had said that if someone hit her on the one cheek, she had to turn her other one as well; not run away or fight.

  Stupid, I told her. Fight, that’s what you have to do. Running is for cowards.

  I’ve not been able to do either.

  I can’t turn the other cheek, she said, in a serious voice, as if she was really thinking about it. I would like to, but I couldn’t. Maybe if I’d had the choice...

  They beat you at home, in the castle? I asked. I’d never met a girl that’s not been beaten, as a child or later, when she would bring shame over the family. Boys people are sometimes careful with, if it’s an only son; but if a girl dies from a beating, there’s money saved and one husband less to find.

  Yes, she whispered, as if it was something shameful.

  I could see that she’d kept her dreams and her hoping; she’d not killed them and buried them like I had. She’d kept the pain too, and it was hurting her then.

  What was that?

  But there’s nothing there. It’s only the little stream whispering to itself. Not far to the llys now, to the big wooden doors where I’ll stand with my face covered and in the shadows, begging for a crust of bread. They feed me well, but I have to come here every day and ask them, hold up the cage and show them my pride is still safely locked up inside it; no chance of it getting out and incommoding them.

  Incommode. That’s another of her words; she used it once, when I’d only known her a few weeks; and then she laughed and said she’d never have to say that word again, because now she was free.

  The wind is rustling in the trees and the dry grass, snapping and sighing in the branches like voices arguing.

  Sometimes I wish she’d come back and haunt me, properly I mean, so that I could see and touch her; and hear more than just her footsteps following me.

  There’s only her invisible ghost here now; only her ghost and the wind stalking through the dry grass.

  I didn’t see her for a while after she’d run away from me; I thought I’d never see her again, but a few weeks later she turned up again. The group I was with had gone on to another little market town, and there she was, on the market, driving geese and suckling-pigs for the farmers, helping herself to apples and loaves of bread and smiling at everyone.

  I remember thinking, there she is, stealing like me now, bold as brass. She’s learned something; maybe I’ve beaten some wisdom into her. Then she turned round and vanished in the crowds, and I thought maybe I’d imagined her there after all, because I wanted to see her.

  But I met her again a few days later; and she hadn’t been stealing at all that day I saw her. She’d found work in the llys of a local prince and the other servants had taken her to the village on market day.

  But you’re from the big castle in the town, I said, and now you work in a place not half the size of your castle?

  Yes, she said, and laughed with her teeth showing. And, see, they even give me money for it! At home, I had to do work and all I got was my sisters boxing my ears and my Lord Father coming into my bed at night...

  She stopped, I could see that she hadn’t meant to say that. Then she talked on, about how her new lord believed in her god too, and let her go on believing and do her singing and her praying in peace. And she said again that she was happy, and she was free.

  If I don’t like it here, she said, I’ll move on, live on the road again, like you, find other work. Are you not happy for me?

  I did not tell her what I thought, that I do not think you can be in somebody’s pay and still be free. She was sweet, and a little simple in her head, but even she would have seen that I was crying down what I could never have. And also I could not forget her face when she held up the necklace for me; and the way it changed when I started cursing her, and beating her.

  So I tried to smile for her and marvelled that she should not be afraid of me. But perhaps now that she had a place in the world again and even owned something she’d honourably come by, she felt that I was less of a threat to her. I who was nothing.

  Early the next morning I woke up from the place I had found for myself to sleep, in a stable. There was a commotion in the street, screaming and yelling. I stumbled outside. It was cold, the sky green and pale blue.

  A knot of people was standing in the middle of the street. There were shouts of ‘Thief’ and ‘Robber’; and some people were throwing stones. I heard another voice, screaming and crying, ‘No, no...’ and then the thwack of another stone hitting its mark.

  I’d been caught like that once, and I’d been lucky to run away. This one wasn’t so lucky.

  I craned my neck and sidled my way through the crowd; and there she was lying on the ground, holding on to a chicken, hiding her head in her hands but it was no good; I’d only been using my hands on her, but these were heavy stones with sharp edges, and already there was blood running through her fingers, and although her legs were still twitching and her body writhing she’d stopped crying. Stopped making any sound.

  I stood there, knowing I should help her, and also knowing in my bones that I was too late, or that soon now would be too late; that nobody would listen to me; I who was known to be a thief and a vagrant; who’d believe me if I told them that she was sweet and simple and happy not to have to steal any more? And still I wish, oh how I wish I had spoken; she might have heard me turning my cheek to protect her, she might have known that there was someone on her side, someone who knew her. She would have known that I was sorry I had beaten her. You shouldn’t hurt something that wants to be free if you have no need, she’d once said when she let the rabbit in our snare escape. I’d beaten her for that
too, but not very much because I knew that she wanted to be free and she thought that I did too. She didn’t know that it was too late for me.

  So I stood there doing nothing until it was too late for her and she was dead.

  I was still standing there when all the people had left, the excitement being over.

  I couldn’t bear her being dead.

  She was the only one who’d ever looked at me as if I was somebody.

  She couldn’t be dead.

  I went back the way she had come, stealing a chicken on the way. I didn’t know if she’d been taking the one she’d held in her hand to her new lord’s cook, or whether she’d decided to run away and had taken it with her.

  I stole a chicken and took it back to her lord’s cook; I didn’t want them to think she was a thief. I was going to tell them that she wasn’t.

  But the man didn’t even look at me; he snatched at the bird and cursed because I was late and boxed my ears.

  He thought I was her; he didn’t know what she looked like. He’d not even looked at her and he didn’t look at me.

  So I stayed, because for as long as I took her place and did her work, people wouldn’t know that she was dead. She wouldn’t really be dead, because I was the only one who knew.

  So I stayed; but then after a while I couldn’t bear it when people saw me or looked at me. I heard more about her god and the stories people told about him; and I thought there must be a sign on my forehead like on the forehead of Cain who killed his brother Abel in one of the stories; because I had stood and watched and let them kill her. I had beaten her although I know that she would not hurt anyone.