by Robin Morgan
She stretched warily, feeling joints creak and muscles twinge as she turned over in bed. Grimalken, a scrap of dove-grey velvet barely out of kittenhood, woke from her nest in the quilt’s folds. All eyes, ears, and tail, she came alert in an instant, decided the movement signaled playtime, and pounced on Alyce’s toes with the full ferocity of her tiny body.
“Alright—Owww!” Alyce called out, “I said alright! You caught the toe and bravely killed it, alright?” She feinted a little kick in self-defense and Grimalken, now in full night-hunter mode, leapt off the bed with a low growl to go in search of other prey.
“Yes, please do,” Alyce called after her, “Go sit watch at the hole where you once spied a mouse back in 1066. But keep that watch, now! One never knows.…”
She eased herself back onto her side, curled her legs up into a position that relaxed the ache in her spine a bit, and with a wince of a smile wondered why she could not successfully treat herself as a patient. She had long ago reconstructed her medicinal shelves. She had brought the children through croups and teethings, fevers, broken bones, influenzas—and now, with the older ones, adolescent skin rashes, first blood, stomach-ache, and the heart-ache of unrequited love. She had a healer’s reputation again, for miles around. But she could not heal herself—not from the black, cold sickness deep inside her. She knew she hid it well. None of the children suspected. Except perhaps Sara …
At the thought of the children, her heart lifted a little. If Sara’s curiosity continued to drink in knowledge as it did, she would grow into one of the most skilled Lore and Legend Keepers in all the Isles—and the child only twelve summers old. So self-assured, too; when she spun tales for the other children, even the older ones sat spellbound. She had a way with language, sensing naturally how well-spun words could ensorcell. And how enchanting she looked, with those blonde ringlets, not as pale as her mother’s white-gold hair but with the same fine texture.
Her mother …
Feeling suddenly chilled, Alyce pulled the quilt up tighter under her chin, her thoughts turning obsessively to the past, as they had for so many nights over so many years. This was an interval she had come to loathe: the drowsy time when her brain rang, helpless, under the same hammering questions before sleep lent her a brief, merciful unconsciousness; it was the space where she knew her thoughts were spinning but going nowhere, like cart wheels mired in mud.
Will, sweet young Will … a man now. All her letters unanswered. Surely there would have been some way, some secret manner in which … beloved Will, whose heart was always greater than his judgment. Again and again, her brain dredged the lake of memory, trying to find an acceptable answer to the puzzle; over and over, as one might pick through poppy seeds to estimate the safe amount for a soothing balm of forgetfulness.
And why had she never heard from any of the others? Surely most of the fugitives had made it to England, or at least Wales. Even if—she tensed at the thought—even if some had been apprehended, why no word from the rest? All of the scouts she had employed to search for them, both in England and Wales, to no result.… Perhaps they had not wanted to be found? Perhaps they wanted to resettle on their own, free from all attachment to their mistress? Certainly she had seen to it that each of her people had been given more gold coin than they had ever seen before. Nor had she forgotten those faces, fervent with their own purposes, defying her in the torchlight of the castle cellar. Yet surely the parents of the young ones she had been raising, they would have tried to find their children! Night after night, year after year, these questions. But there were no answers, and no forgetting. Only the same riddles, the same sick wave of despair at never, ever, being able to solve them.…
A banging at the door brought her fully awake again.
It was not her bedroom door. It was the great door downstairs.
She sat up, listening cautiously. No one wished her harm here in England, but she was on guard all the same from years of habit. The pounding came again, louder. Then she remembered that she had sent her doorkeeper—Edgar, the tottery old man she had taken in as a stray last year—to bed with a poultice for his ague. So she heaved herself out of bed, grunting with soreness and effort, and drew a cloak around her nightdress against the Eanáir cold. “January,” she muttered, as she thrust her feet into slippers and reached for the added warmth of a heavy wool shawl, “January, not Eanáir. I must remember to name the months in English, not Erse. You would think after all this time … I am a slow learner, t’is the wretched truth …” She struck tinder for a flame, then hastened down the stairway, clutching her candle.
“Who goes there?” she cried, scuttling through the lower hall toward the door.
The reply came as if from a far distance, as if from out of time.
“Helena. Helena Galrussyn. From Kilkenny.”
“Helena!” she gasped. Fingers fumbling in eagerness, she hurriedly unbolted the door.
But when she swung it open and peered out, no one was there.
Then she looked down—but scarcely recognized the creature hunched on the snow before her. It was a woman half as tall as Helena had been, a woman stooped and twisted, leaning heavily on a gnarled staff. Only the face squinting up at her was vaguely familiar.
“Helena!” she cried again, trying not to show her dismay. She engulfed the woman in an embrace and hurried her inside.
“Where—when—” Alyce began in a frantic voice. But seeing how haggard her guest looked, she drew her quickly through the hall to the kitchen, where she stirred alive the last embers glowing in the fireplace, adding some kindling and a log. Her visitor slouched down onto a stool, wordless, staring at the hearth as flames began to lick and crackle, feeding on the fresh wood.
“Well,” Alyce said nervously, “I—I shall not ask, hear, or answer anything until you are warmed and fed, so … so you rest there.”
Swiftly, she cleared the table of its pile of books, a spindle, and a skein-winder in mid-yarn, and brought bread and cheese. With shaking hands, she poured brandywine into a goblet and pressed it on Helena, who took a gulp and collapsed in a fit of coughing.
“No, no, sip it slowly,” Alyce said, “Oh. Water. You are thirsty. Of course.” She poured some from a jug and placed the cup before Helena, who grabbed it and gulped it down. “Good, good. Drink, my dear. Here, more water. Then sip some brandywine, but slowly. It will warm you. Warmth, yes. Here.” She stripped off her heavy shawl and wrapped it around Helena.
“Soup. You need soup.” She ran to the larder, took down a kettle, and filled it with soup from a large crock, then rushed back to the kitchen—Grimalken having reappeared to weave between her ankles in hope of getting fed. Swinging the spit to one side, Alyce hung the kettle on its hook over the fire. There she hovered, stirring it with a wooden spoon, hardly able to keep from gawking at her visitor’s haggard face.
Helena drew her stool closer to the stone-topped table and fell on the bread like a starving beast. While she ate, she watched her host through wide, frightened eyes, as if seeing a phantom. Alyce ladled the now steaming leek-and-mushroom soup into a bowl and placed it in front of her. Helena ate and drank rapidly, furtively, glancing over her shoulder, as if the food might be taken away at any moment.
Finally she slowed her pace, breaking her silence with one word:
“Dana?”
“Safe. Thriving. A bonny, bright, loving child. Almost ten and a half. I have told her many stories about her parents and her grandfather and how much you all loved her. Do you want to see her now? I can wake her—” Alyce was moving toward the door, but Helena stopped her.
“No. Later. Not while I be like—this. I only needed to know if she—if she be—” Helena broke down, able only to sit clutching a chunk of bread, tears raining down her face. Alyce ran to her side, knelt, and held her. The half-sentences that followed were fractured by sobs.
“—to know if she be … alive. Safe. Fed. Ten summers old already and I never even … my nursing babe, my Dana. Sysok’s daughter. John
’s grandchild. Came so early and so hard. You remember …”
“Yes, Helena. I remember the night she was born. She is safe and healthy and fine,” Alyce soothed.
Gradually the outburst subsided, and Helena was able to speak without gasping.
“I canna remember when last I wept. Years, mayhap. I dinna think I ever could weep again.… Ach, what have they done? What have they done to us?”
Alyce drew up a stool and sat beside her. Fire-lit, the women’s shadows were cast high on the walls, two giant house-spirits outlined against the stone of an old English dwelling. A lame wren fluttered down from a shelf, hopping about the table with a slight limp to peck at Helena’s crumbs. One wing was bandaged while its fragile bones, reset by Alyce, were knitting.
“Tell me.” Alyce placed her hands perfectly still in her lap by an act of will, readying herself for the news she had hungered for yet dreaded over ten years. “Tell me, Helena. Please.”
“What do ye know? Have any of the others—”
“I know almost nothing. I have made inquiries, countless times. All my inquiries, formal or private, have gone unanswered. It is as if a wall rose between me and Ireland. Finally, last year, I gave up sending scouts. I continue to write to my son, but he … I know one thing only. I know that Will was captured and imprisoned for two months, but then released. He himself has never written. I am certain he dare not, even after all this time. Or perhaps my letters have never reached him. It was Roger Outlawe, his kinsman, who sent me word, years ago. But he too has not written since, no matter how often I have sent to him.… He wrote that Will had been fined—sentenced to pay for the cost of re-roofing St. Canice’s Cathedral all in lead—and also ordered to attend mass thrice a day.”
“Aye,” Helena said, “t’is true.”
“Apparently Roger did much to help Will, paying his fine and bringing family influence to bear. The sentence seemed fairly light—thanks be to The Mother—so I assumed that others, too, if they had been apprehended, also had … that is, I hoped.”
Helena closed her eyes at the realization of how little this woman knew. She felt unspeakably weary, and her breathing came hard.
But she opened her eyes, looked at Alyce, and began, as gently as she could.
“T’is true the Lord Justice and your son’s other relatives on his father’s side came to his aid. With great pots of money. But they did so only for him. T’is also true that in further penance, your Will was sent on a pilgrimage to Saint Thomas’s Shrine at Canterbury. Ye were not told about that?”
Alyce shook her head.
“At Canterbury … Your Grace, at Canterbury … he recanted. He renounced The Craft. He forswore everything he had ever done as a Wiccan.”
“Oh … well. That is to be expected. A public recantation hardly means—”
“Then your William was wed, M’am. To the Seneschal’s niece. The Bishop celebrated their nuptial mass at the Cathedral. They were permitted to take up residence at Kyteler Castle, but Lord William was allowed to preside only over the castle keep and nearest outlands. All other lands are confiscate.”
“All other … well, at least Will is alive. And at home, on his own ancestral land, even if there is less of it now.… I promised him that one day he would manage the estate, and be good at it, too. I am certain he secretly welcomes Wiccans and quietly holds Sabbats. I am certain he—”
“He holds no Sabbats, Lady Alyce. Him and his Lady be active in the Church, giving alms and observing saints’ feast days and proving they be devoted Christians. I heard tell the Covenstead is grown over in tall grasses and briars. Your son be lost to The Craft, my Lady. He renounced it. He renounced you. By name. Publicly. As apostate, heretic, and damned. T’is sure the real reason he has not written.”
A tiny muscle jerked in Alyce’s temple.
“He—was ever a dear lad, though … sometimes a bit clumsy. You remember? He must have had no choice. You know, he was really so impressionable … I remember how he scampered after Robert de Bristol like a puppy, wanting to imitate whatever Robert did. He was too young to face this. And I myself told him … I told him we all must do whatever was necessary to survive this catastrophe, whatever was necessary to keep the land. So it is not his fault, you see, really, he merely—” She knew she was babbling, and she could not avoid seeing the pity in Helena’s eyes. Tears smarted, but she controlled them. “So. It would seem that the precious land was saved—well, a bit of it. If the precious son was lost, that was a too-costly exchange.… Still, the land may yet work its own magick on him, so that someday he will remember, he will realize—perhaps when he himself has children … do you know if—?”
“Sorry, M’am, I dinna know,” Helena shrugged.
“By now, probably he—he surely must …” Alyce’s words were withering in her throat. She knew that she must put this subject away for now. She knew that later, when alone, was the time to unfold it, in what would be many private midnight grievings, for the rest of her life. She swallowed hard.
“May my son Will carry himself honourably. May he act like the gentle knight he is. May he walk always in Her sight, whether—whether he knows it or not.” She paused, bracing herself. “Please. Go on.”
“The Cailleach be demanding Her justice, though. T’was less than a year after the Cathedral was repaired—all that costly lead roofing being too heavy—that the roof caved in. Aye. Brought down the choir, the side chapels, all the bells. No one can claim She be lacking a sense of humour,” Helena murmured, the wince of a smile flickering across her face.
“But Helena, the others … you. How did your back—”
“Me. I … be in prison these seven years. On bread and water. Chained to the floor.”
“Oh Helena,” Alyce whispered.
“T’is part of why my back got twisted—though also I did heavy labor, later on.… The sole reason I be set free was the Bishop made himself too many important enemies, himself wanting ever more power than he already had. At last, the Archbishop of Dublin brought a charge of heresy against him—aye, he did. So the Bishop was forced to scamper back to France, to hide beneath the Pope’s skirts.… Otherwise t’is in prison I should be still—caged, chained, for the rest of my days. In a foul, stinking cell acrawl with vermin.”
“Helena, my dear—” Alyce reached out to her.
“Dinna touch me. If ye do, I likely canna finish. The Bishop, he be gone. But naught will ever be the same. People be practicing The Craft only in secret now. Can ye believe it? In Eire!”
“But—then the people themselves are still …? Where is Sysok?”
“Dead,” Helena replied in a flat voice. “We be captured that very night, right outside Clonroche. He struggled with the yeomen. They killed him. One sword thrust, just like that. He looked so surprised. Only later did I come to grasp he had good fortune. To go so quick, I mean. His father perished on the way back to Kilkenny. Soaked, frozen. The yeomen took the warm clothing ye gave us. And the horses. And the cart. And sure the gold. They marched us that whole night through with no stopping, in the harshest storm in memory. John was old, you know. He tried hard to keep up, but he fell again and again and they …”
Alyce stared into the fire, thinking of Sysok in the prime of his manhood, Sysok of the quick temper and quick intelligence. And Old John, whose gnarled, skilled cooper’s hands she had never seen idle, Old John who voiced what others dare not speak.
But Helena had lived so long with her dead that she continued her narrative in a level tone.
“Henry and Alyce, they be taken in the forge before they even had a chance to leave. The Bishop must have suspected we be fleeing. Henry and Alyce were both slain on the spot. They fought, though. They took four of the Bishop’s men with them to their deaths.
“Eva de Brounstoun—we be in prison together. Not at the beginning, but later on. A bitter first winter it was there, and them permitting no aid for any sicknesses. Her lungs, you know … she be coughing red spit and she be daft with fever at th
e end, ranting on about how it was time for lambing and kidding and that she was needed out in the fields.… She died in my arms.”
Alyce moaned softly. But Helena continued in her calm, listless voice.
“Annota Lange, somehow she be getting separated from her traveling companions. Once at Wexford, she must have gone about trying to find the others. But twenty of the Bishop’s men found her first. Twenty soldiers against one widow. By the time they brought her body back, she had abandoned it.”
Alyce covered her face with her hands.
“Robert de Bristol was in prison, too. But I dinna know what became of him. I heard he was pardoned at last and planned to take holy orders as a friar, but I dinna know for certain. Will Payn and his family … they were sentenced to be whipped through the streets to the marketplace with the rest of us—Eva and me, too, before we were shut in prison—but Will Payne, somehow he kept singing through it, to keep our spirits up. So they took him and they … they burned a cross into what was left of the flesh on his back.
“Others mayhap got away, for some were sentenced, ‘in absentia’ they call it, to banishment and excommunication. I be thinking that likely means they had already escaped the Bishop’s reach.… Still, whilst I worked my way here these past three years—in contract serfdom to pay my passage—along the way I be asking everyone did they know anything. But people be fearful about saying things now. One man who worked the boats at Wexford said he thought he had once shipped across with some people who sounded like ones I be describing. But he said t’was a long time ago, and then he said his memory was faulty. Nobody at the Cardigan port in Wales be remembering a thing. I went to the Fishguard port, too, in case.… But if you heard naught about ’em or from ’em, if they never tried to find you, as I did, t’is not likely …” Her voice trailed off. “So now I finally know, too,” she added dully, “I be the first. And t’is all but certain I be the last. Likely the rest never even got so far as Wales.”