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

by Imogen Rhia Herrad

  People’s looks began to hurt me like blows. I would cower down and cover my head in my hands the way she had.

  Finally I went to the holy man in the clas and told him I had heard told stories of other women and men who’d wanted to devote themselves to the god and gone to live somewhere in the wilderness all by themselves; and how I wished I could go and live in the wilderness all by myself too.

  He looked at me long, and then he went and talked to the lord of the llys and came back to me and said that I could, only I’d have to build my own hut and come to the llys gates every midday for my bread, to learn humility.

  I am doing what I think she would have wanted, because she always said she wanted to be free, even if I think she sometimes didn’t know how to.

  I can almost feel her next to me, every day, her ghost haunting me and being company; because I must never forget what I have done.

  Maybe that’s her feet now I can hear rustling in the grass, snapping twigs.

  But it’s not her; I can see it’s a man on a horse coming towards me, and all of a sudden I am running, stumbling down the hillside while behind me the horse’s hooves are thundering on the dry earth and I can hear it coming, closer, closer, closer.

  The man is calling her name, my name now, Eiliwedd! Eiliwedd!

  There’s the ford across the stream; once I’m past that, it’s not far to the llys gates. But the horse is much, much faster than I am.

  I’m in the water, breathing in gasps because I am so afraid; my feet are slipping on the pebbles in the water and the current is tugging at my legs; and behind me I can hear the man’s voice.

  Eiliwedd! It’s no good trying to run away, I always told you. I always told you I’d come after you, and I’d get you in the end, and now I have. This is for you, Eiliwedd you little whore, for going against me.

  There’s something whistling though the air and then pain explodes on the side of my neck and I stumble in the water and fall; and the horse splashes past me.

  I can’t breathe, my neck hurts like it did that time someone was trying to strangle me, tighter and tighter. There’s a pounding in my ears and a voice that whines, Eiliwedd, Eiliwedd, help me, help me.

  My feet are cold from the water, my legs, my whole body; all I am now is the pain and a voice that whimpers her name.

  cold, cold water, cold cold i’m so cold

  cold is better than the pain that is everywhere.

  Dead.

  I think I am dead, I wish I could see Eiliwedd again and tell her that I died for her, and ask her to forgive me.

  When I open my eyes again it’s dark; I can hear the water in the stream rushing and I’m cold, so cold; and there’s a terrible pain in the side of my neck whenever I move, whenever I breathe.

  I’m not dead.

  I’m still alive and Eiliwedd is still dead.

  * * *

  I have left my hut on the hill. I can’t stay now that she is dead again, and everyone knows it.

  Her story is being told now, just like all those god stories in the book that she told me about.

  People tell her story as if she was someone they’d made up. How she ran away from home so she wouldn’t have to marry the man her father chose for her. How she lived in Christian poverty but was run out of villages because people thought she was a thief, homeless, a woman of the road; and how her god later sent plagues to those villages, to punish them. How she finally found charity with a big lord who let her live on his land, and how the man she’d refused to marry - others say it was her father himself - went after her. And how she defended her chastity and died for it.

  Everybody knows she’s dead now; they heard the man brag about how he’d killed the bitch that had gone against his orders. Someone saw me lie in the stream, white and bleeding from the neck. They wouldn’t want me to be alive now. Maybe they wouldn’t even want her to be alive. When I got up and crawled away, they just said it was a miracle; her dead body disappearing like that.

  They’re beginning to call her a saint, not because she was sweet and tried to be free and not to harm anybody; but because they say she was a virgin, and because she is dead.

  Yesterday I began to collect acorns and horse chestnuts and shells from the stream for a necklace. I hope she can see me. I hope she can forgive me for having twice stolen her life.

  I miss her.

  Eurgain

  First century AD

  eurgain (obsolete) adj – of golden brightness, golden and beautiful

  Eurgain was the daughter of Prince Caratacus (Caradog) of Glamorgan. Around 50 AD, he and his family were taken to Rome as captives in the wake of the Roman conquest of Britain.

  In Rome, Eurgain is believed to have taken on the revolutionary new Christian faith. When she returned to Wales some years later, she brought the religion and, so the story goes, a group of Christians with her and started spreading the word. This would make her the first missionary in Britain.

  Many women in the early church were active as deacons, preachers and missionaries: either alone, in pairs or with their husbands.

  Her church came to be called Côr Eurgain or Bangor Eurgain. It was already an old place by the time – some 400 years later – that Saint Illtud came to live there. Today, Côr Eurgain is known by his name: Llanilltud Fawr, Llantwit Major.

  Arddun! Arddun!!

  They said you might get here today. It is so good to see you! How long has it been – six years?

  Come on! Let’s go down to the beach and talk.

  I’ve only been back a couple of weeks; me and Grandfather, we travelled together. Mother and Father and Gwyn and Einir and Gwladus are still in Rome. Gwladus got married last year.

  She’s fine, doing really well. She changed her name to Claudia. You know. More Roman.

  Oh, come on. Rome’s OK.

  No, really. It’s a great place.

  It’s HUGE. Look at that field there, and that, and that one, and then that hill and those two over there as well. And now imagine they’re all covered with stone streets and stone houses, and crowded with people. That’s how big just one of the quarters of Rome is.

  There are houses there, higher than trees. In the tenements, you walk up flights of stairs, up and up and up like a mountain. Some of those houses have five or even six storeys! They are called insulae - islands, you know - and when you’re on the top floor of one and you’ve got your breath back and look out, it is a bit like being on an island; only you’re surrounded by a sea of buildings and people and donkeys and shouts and smells...

  No – I am glad I’m back, honest! And you’re still my best friend in the world, Arddun, of course you are. You don’t know how glad I am to sit here again with you, in the dunes like we used to when we were kids. It’s just... I’ve been away for six years – that’s nearly half my life. And it’s really weird being back here now. It’s like it’s almost not home anymore, you know? Everything’s so different.

  Or, I don’t know. Maybe I’m different.

  I miss Rome. I know we were there as prisoners really, but that was only in the beginning. Then they let us free, after Father and Mother paid homage to the Empress Agrippina and the Emperor Claudius.

  Hades. Don’t let Tegau catch me saying that! She doesn’t like the thought of any of us paying homage to another king. I don’t think she really believes Rome exists....

  You remember her, don’t you – Tegau, my old nurse? She still thinks I’m a kid, and I’m not! I’m fifteen, a grown woman.

  You know I freed Tegau? I freed all my slaves, and I asked Grandfather to free all his. We pay them now for what they do, and some of them have left. Imagine! I wouldn’t have expected that they would just want to go off like that, after they’d been with us for so long. I mean, I thought they’d be pleased with me about their freedom. Sometimes I almost wish I hadn’t freed them. Or that Grandfather had forbidden it. But somehow, I think he understands.

  Well, it’s because we were slaves when we first went to Rome. All of us!
We were taken to Rome in chains, because of Mother and Father starting that rebellion against the Romans. You should hear the bard, he doesn’t half go on about it. He’s written a whole bloody epic. It’s all made up though. It’s all about how heroic and brave we were, and I can tell you, we weren’t! First of all there was that really, really awful journey to Rome, on the boat. We didn’t know what they would do to us. There were other slaves on board and they said we were going to be a spectacle in the arena – you know, in the circus. Torn apart and eaten by wild animals as the Enemies of Rome, with a huge crowd looking on and roaring and laughing and drinking and farting. And you die and scream with pain...

  Sorry.

  Didn’t mean to be morbid. I just still dream about it, sometimes.

  No, no, no, of course it didn’t really happen, I wouldn’t be here otherwise – would I? We were taken to watch once, later, after we were freed, when we were the guests of the empress and emperor.

  It was terrible. Oh, Arddun, it was horrible. I think that was when I became a Marian. After, I mean. When we got there, I wasn’t even sure what was going to happen at first. I thought it was going to be acrobats, magicians, like those you can see in the streets only much grander. Then the people came into the arena. Criminals, gladiators, men, women... Oh, Arddun, you can’t imagine.

  But they’re not doing it for the gods! It’s for entertainment, can you believe it? The people in the audience, they were enjoying it.

  I hated it. I sat there and hated it, and I hated all of them. I kept thinking, this could have been us. Gwladus and Einir and Gwyn and Mother and Father and Grandfather and me, being killed like that. I heard the people in the arena scream and howl for mercy. And then I saw the looks on people’s faces around us in the audience. They were really getting off on it.

  I threw up on a whole row of them. I wish I could have puked on the whole amphitheatre!

  Don’t laugh, Arddun, it’s not funny. Really it isn’t.

  No, I’m not crying.

  Piss off.

  I’m going for a walk.

  * * *

  Oh.

  Arddun.

  Yeah, I’m fine.

  Look. I’m not in much of a mood for talking now. See you tomorrow, OK?

  No - it’s nothing personal. Honest. It’s nothing to do with you.

  Of course I’m still your friend!

  Well – it’s just... you don’t really know me. I mean – you know me from when I was a kid. I was nine when we left here, and I’m fifteen now and... well. I’ve changed, do you know what I mean?

  Exactly. We’ve both changed. And it’s really difficult here, you know? I keep forgetting words, I’m probably thinking in Latin. It’s like I’m half Roman now, and half not.

  I missed home so much when we got to Rome. I missed you. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I kept thinking about home and missing it and really, really wanted to come back. Only there was no way the Romans would let us go while the fighting here was still going on. We had to wait and wait. And I was really worried as well.

  About you! I didn’t know if you’d been killed in the fighting or taken captive or what!

  And now I’m back and it’s really weird. It’s all so different.

  I don’t know... Like, it’s not just that I’ve changed and stuff, that I’m different from how I used to be. I mean, that too. But I’m different, do you know what I mean? I don’t fit in. Not in Rome. I’m still a sort of barbarian there. I thought I’d be OK once I got back here again. But now Prydain doesn’t really feel like home either.

  Oh, Arddun, don’t look like that.

  I just don’t know what I’m going to do now. And Nesmut’s bored out of her skull because she can’t talk to anyone...

  My friend. Nesmut – the one who came with us from Rome.

  Yeah, the dark one with the big eyes.

  She’s not stuck up – she just doesn’t understand what people are saying. She only speaks Latin and Greek and Coptic, and that’s not going to do her much good here, is it?

  What?

  Marianism. How do you know about that?

  Did I? Oh. Yeah, I think I did. When I was telling you about that godawful circus we went to...

  No, I’m not upset.

  Yes, OK, I am. It’s just... Oh, all right, I’m going to tell you.

  I knew one of the people there.

  One of the people in the arena. One of the gladiators.

  Abra.

  I couldn’t believe it was her there. I’d known she was training to be a gladiator, but the way she’d talked about it, I thought it was all for show. Like dancing, she said it was. Beautiful movements. Skill. A trained body. She said she’d always wanted to be a gladiator.

  I sat there and saw her fight and die. And then I was sick and we had to leave.

  Oh, Arddun, it was terrible. I sat there and saw her die, and I couldn’t do anything.

  I still have nightmares about it. I’m there in the arena holding a knife, and she’s on the ground with all her wounds and I try to run to her and kill her to stop the pain but I can’t move. I can’t move. And I wake up and think, Why do I want to kill her? She was my friend, she was only a few years older than me. She was my favourite slave in the house and I shouldn’t want to kill her in my dream, I should want to save her; but I always want to kill her.

  Every time.

  After that, I became a Marian. It’s a new religion from the East. Mary is a great prophet. She is travelling and preaching all over the Roman empire. She used to travel with another prophet called Jesus, but he was killed. Like Abra.

  He hadn’t done anything. He was just a good man. A carpenter.

  Some of the slaves in Nesmut’s house were Marians; they told me about it first. Marianism is about justice and wisdom.

  Well, for example, Marians say that all people have a spirit. The spirit is the most important part of you. It’s the light of Sophia in every one of us that goes back to the sun after we die. Sophia means wisdom. So if everybody has a spirit, it’s not fair to keep slaves, right? Because they’re the same as you. That’s what Junia says, only she puts it better than that. Junia’s a sort of friend of me and Nesmut – she’s an apostle and a preacher in Rome. An apostle is somebody who follows the path of Mary and Jesus. I want to be like her, and like Mary.

  Mary’s not from Rome. She’s from a place called Magdala in the province of Syria. Look, I’ll draw a map in the sand for you. This is Britannia, and Germania and Gallia and Hispania over there, and Italia here. The sea is called the Mare Internum. Syria’s right at the other end of that, there. That’s where Mary comes from. She is from a people called Jews, and most of those who believe in her and Jesus’s religion are Jews too, but you don’t have to be one to be a Marian.

  Well – me and Nesmut and Junia for example – we call ourselves ‘Marians’, after Mary. And others call themselves Christians, after Jesus. Because he is also called Christ. Some believe that he was a god.

  No, I don’t think so. I think he was the same as Mary – a prophet. She wants to change things, and so did he. To make the world better for everybody.

  Well, for example, I think if Abra hadn’t been a slave she could have become something other than a gladiator.

  Yes, I know, she did want to become one, but gladiators are mostly slaves. There are very few free ones, and even fewer free women gladiators. So if she’d been free, she could have done something else. She could have been a bodyguard or a farmer or a market trader. Something else!

  She wouldn’t have needed to die like that.

  So what if she was a slave? She was a person! She was my friend.

  I was a slave when we first came to Rome. Me and Gwladus and Einir and Gwyn and Mother and Father and Grandfather – we were all slaves. We were paraded round Rome in our chains to show that the emperor’d defeated the barbarians.

  Oh, don’t be so dense, Arddun. What do you think? We were the barbarians! To the Romans, we’re barbarians.

 
; They could have killed us at any moment. Sold us. Raped us. Anything. We were lucky that nothing happened. And then we were really lucky when the emperor and empress set us free after a few years. We didn’t know they were going to let us go. One moment, Einir and me were being the empress’s little pets – she showed us off to guests the same as she did her monkeys and that leopard she kept. And then the next minute it was: you’re free! We didn’t know what to do. We were so used to obeying commands. That was about three years ago, and I’m sort of beginning to believe that I’m really free now – you know, forever?

  It’s just so weird, all of it.

  I mean, to begin with, I’m a princess in Prydain, right. You know, with my own slaves and clothes and jewellery and stuff. Then suddenly, I’m a captive and I get carted off halfway across the world and become a foreigner and a barbarian. And then I’m a slave. A nobody with nothing. No past, no future. And finally, the most gracious emperor and empress set us free and then I’m a freedwoman, get that, and a foreign princess again. And I’m sort of like half a Roman now, but I’m also still a barbarian. Or, you know, people think I am. I mean – that’s what makes it so weird. In Rome, they think I’m a barbarian because I’m from Prydain. And here, they think I’m a barbarian because I’m, like, half a Roman, with my clothes and my accent and my hairstyle and stuff.

  And I don’t know what I am.

  I don’t even know if I want to stay here or not. I get really homesick for Rome sometimes.

  Yes, I know that I said that it can be really horrible there, and there’s lots of things wrong with it, and the Romans aren’t always that great... but there are people from all over the empire in Rome, loads of different sorts of foreigners; I like that. And all sorts of religions – like Marianism. And for example, we have a woman prophet, and priestesses. They’re independent. Free. They do what they like. That’s unusual.