With that she lifted the hem of her cloak and stepped slowly down into the grass like one easing herself into a pool. The rain fell on her steadily, and she pulled her hood further over her head before taking her next steps into the tall nettles.
“Wait a few moments and we’ll walk with you,” Axl called after her. But he felt Beatrice’s hand on his arm and heard her whisper: “Best not meddle with her, Axl. Let her go.”
When Axl walked over to where the old woman had stepped down, he half expected to see her somewhere, impeded by the foliage and unable to go on. But there was now no sign of her.
“Thank you, friends,” the boatman said behind him. “Perhaps for this day at least, I shall be allowed peace to remember my childhood.”
“We too will be out of your way, boatman,” said Axl. “Just as soon as this lets up.”
“No hurry, friends. You spoke judiciously and I thank you for it.”
Axl went on staring at the rain. He heard his wife say behind him: “This must once have been a splendid house, sir.”
“Oh, it was, good lady. When I was a boy, I didn’t know just how splendid, for it was all I knew. There were fine pictures and treasures, kind and wise servants. Just through there was the banqueting hall.”
“It must sadden you to see it like this, sir.”
“I’m simply grateful, good lady, it still stands as it does. For this house has witnessed days of war, when many others like it were burnt to the ground and are no more now than a mound or two beneath grass and heather.”
Then Axl heard Beatrice’s footsteps coming towards him and felt her hand on his shoulder. “What is it, Axl?” she asked, her voice lowered. “You’re troubled, I can see it.”
“It’s nothing, princess. It’s just this ruin here. For a moment it was as if I were the one remembering things here.”
“What manner of things, Axl?”
“I don’t know, princess. When the man speaks of wars and burning houses, it’s almost as if something comes back to me. From the days before I knew you, it must be.”
“Was there ever a time before we knew one another, Axl? Sometimes I feel we must have been together since we were babes.”
“It seems that way to me too, princess. It’s just some foolishness coming over me in this strange place.”
She was looking at him thoughtfully. Then she squeezed his hand and said quietly: “This is a queer place indeed and may bring us more harm than the rain ever could. I’m anxious to leave it, Axl. Before that woman returns or something worse.”
Axl nodded. Then turning, he called across the room: “Well, boatman, the sky looks to be clearing so we’ll be on our way. Many thanks for allowing us shelter.”
The boatman said nothing to this, but as they were putting on their bundles, he came to assist them, handing them their walking sticks. “A safe journey, friends,” he said. “May you find your son in good health.”
They thanked him again, and were proceeding through the arch when Beatrice suddenly stopped and looked back.
“Since we’re leaving you, sir,” she said, “and may not meet with you again, I wonder if you’ll allow me a small question.”
The boatman, standing at his spot by the wall, was watching her carefully.
“You spoke earlier, sir,” Beatrice went on, “of your duty to question a couple waiting to cross the water. You spoke of the need to discover if their bond of love is such as to allow them to dwell together on the island. Well, sir, I was wondering this. How do you question them to discover what you must?”
For a moment the boatman seemed uncertain. Then he said: “Frankly, good lady, it’s not for me to talk of such matters. Indeed, we shouldn’t by rights have met today, but some curious chance brought us together and I’m not sorry for it. You were both kind and took my part and for that I’m grateful. So I will answer you as best I can. It is, as you say, my duty to question all who wish to cross to the island. If it’s a couple such as you speak of, who claim their bond is so strong, then I must ask them to put their most cherished memories before me. I’ll ask one, then the other to do this. Each must speak separately. In this way the real nature of their bond is soon revealed.”
“But isn’t it hard, sir,” Beatrice asked, “to see what truly lies in people’s hearts? Appearances deceive so easily.”
“That’s true, good lady, but then we boatmen have seen so many over the years it doesn’t take us long to see beyond deceptions. Besides, when travellers speak of their most cherished memories, it’s impossible for them to disguise the truth. A couple may claim to be bonded by love, but we boatmen may see instead resentment, anger, even hatred. Or a great barrenness. Sometimes a fear of loneliness and nothing more. Abiding love that has endured the years—that we see only rarely. When we do, we’re only too glad to ferry the couple together. Good lady, I’ve already said more than I should.”
“I thank you for it, boatman. It’s just to satisfy an old woman’s curiosity. Now we’ll leave you in peace.”
“May you have a safe journey.”
They retraced their steps along the path they had beaten earlier through the ferns and nettles. The storm had made the ground underneath treacherous, so for all their anxiety to put the villa behind them, they proceeded at a careful pace. When they finally reached the sunken lane, the rain still had not ceased, and they took shelter under the first large tree they could find.
“Are you soaked through, princess?”
“Don’t worry, Axl. This coat did its work. How is it with you?”
“Nothing the sun won’t soon dry when it returns.”
They put down their bundles and leant against the trunk, recovering their breaths. After a while, Beatrice said quietly:
“Axl, I feel afraid.”
“Why, what is it, princess? No harm can come to you now.”
“Do you remember the strange woman in dark rags you watched me talking to up by the old thorn that day? She may have looked a mad wanderer, but the story she told had much in common with the old woman’s just now. Her husband too had been taken by a boatman and she left behind on the shore. And when she was coming back from the cove, weeping for loneliness, she found herself crossing the edge of a high valley, and she could see the path a long way before and a long way behind, and all along it people weeping just like her. When I heard this I was only partly afraid, saying to myself it was nothing to do with us, Axl. But she went on speaking, about how this land had become cursed with a mist of forgetfulness, a thing we’ve remarked on often enough ourselves. And then she asked me: ‘How will you and your husband prove your love for each other when you can’t remember the past you’ve shared?’ And I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Sometimes I think of it and it makes me so afraid.”
“But what’s to fear, princess? We’ve no plans to go to any such island or any desire to do so.”
“Even so, Axl. What if our love withers before we’ve a chance even to think of going to such a place?”
“What are you saying, princess? How can our love wither? Isn’t it stronger now than when we were foolish young lovers?”
“But Axl, we can’t even remember those days. Or any of the years between. We don’t remember our fierce quarrels or the small moments we enjoyed and treasured. We don’t remember our son or why he’s away from us.”
“We can make all those memories come back, princess. Besides, the feeling in my heart for you will be there just the same, no matter what I remember or forget. Don’t you feel the same, princess?”
“I do, Axl. But then again I wonder if what we feel in our hearts today isn’t like these raindrops still falling on us from the soaked leaves above, even though the sky itself long stopped raining. I’m wondering if without our memories, there’s nothing for it but for our love to fade and die.”
“God wouldn’t allow such a thing, princess.” Axl said this quietly, almost under his breath, for he had himself felt an unnamed fear welling up within him.
“The day I
spoke with her by the old thorn,” Beatrice continued, “the strange woman warned me to waste no more time. She said we had to do all we could to remember what we’ve shared, the good and the bad. And now that boatman, when we were leaving, gives the very answer I expected and feared. What chance do we have, Axl, the way we are now? If someone like that asked of us our most treasured memories? Axl, I’m so afraid.”
“There, princess, there’s nothing to fear. Our memories aren’t gone for ever, just mislaid somewhere on account of this wretched mist. We’ll find them again, one by one if we have to. Isn’t that why we’re on this journey? Once our son’s standing before us, many things are sure to start coming back.”
“I hope so. That boatman’s words have made me all the more afraid.”
“Forget him, princess. What do we want with his boat, or his island come to that? And you’re right, the rain’s stopped out there and we’ll be drier stepping out from under this tree. Let’s be on our way, and no more of these worries.”
Chapter Three
The Saxon village, viewed from a distance and a certain height, would have been something more familiar to you as a “village” than Axl and Beatrice’s warren. For one thing—perhaps because the Saxons had a keener sense of claustrophobia—there was none of this digging into the hillside. If you were coming down the steep valley slope, as Axl and Beatrice were that evening, you would have seen below you some forty or more individual houses, laid out on the valley floor in two rough circles, one within the other. You might have been too far away to notice the variations in size and splendour, but you would have made out the thatched roofs, and the fact that many were “roundhouses” not so far removed from the kind in which some of you, or perhaps your parents, were brought up. And if the Saxons were happy to sacrifice a little security for the benefits of open air, they were careful to compensate: a tall fence of tethered timber poles, their points sharpened like giant pencils, completely encircled the village. At any given point, the fence was at least twice a man’s height, and to make the prospect of scaling it even less enticing, a deep trench followed it all the way around the outside.
That would have been the picture Axl and Beatrice saw below them as they paused to catch their breaths during their descent down the hill. The sun was setting over the valley now, and Beatrice, who had the better sight, was once more leaning forward, a step or two in front of Axl, the grass and dandelions around her as tall as her waist.
“I can see four, no five men guarding the gate,” she was saying. “And I think they’re holding spears. When I was last here with the women, it was nothing more than one gate-keeper with a pair of dogs.”
“Are you sure there’ll be a welcome here for us, princess?”
“Don’t worry, Axl, they know me well enough by now. Besides, one of their elders here is a Briton, regarded by all as a wise leader even if he’s not of their blood. He’ll see to it we have a safe roof tonight. Even so, Axl, I think something’s happened and I’m uneasy. Now here’s another man with a spear arrived, and that’s a pack of fierce dogs with him.”
“Who knows what goes on with Saxons,” said Axl. “We may be better seeking shelter elsewhere tonight.”
“The dark will be soon on us, Axl, and those spears are not intended for us. Besides, there’s a woman in this village I was wanting to visit, one who knows her medicines beyond anyone in our own.”
Axl waited for her to say something further, and when she went on peering into the distance, he asked: “And why would you be after medicines, princess?”
“A small discomfort I feel from time to time. This woman might know of something to soothe it.”
“What sort of discomfort, princess? Where does it trouble you?”
“It’s nothing. It’s only because we’re needing to shelter here I’m thinking of it at all.”
“But where does it lie, princess? This pain?”
“Oh …” Without turning to him, she pressed a hand to her side, just below the ribcage, then laughed. “It’s nothing to speak of. You can see, it hasn’t slowed me walking here today.”
“It hasn’t slowed you one bit, princess, and I’ve been the one having to beg we stop and rest.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Axl. So it’s nothing to worry about.”
“It hasn’t slowed you down at all. In fact, princess, you must be as strong as any woman half your age. Still, if there’s someone here to help with your pain, what’s the harm in going to her?”
“That’s all I was saying, Axl. I’ve brought a little tin to trade for medicines.”
“Who wants these little pains? We all have them, and we’d all be rid of them if we could. By all means, let’s go to this woman if she’s here, and those guards let us pass.”
It was nearly dark by the time they crossed the bridge over the trench, and torches had been lit on either side of the gate. The guards were large and burly but looked panicked by their approach.
“Wait a moment, Axl,” Beatrice said quietly. “I’ll go alone to speak with them.”
“Don’t go near their spears, princess. The dogs look calm but those Saxons look foolish with fear.”
“If it’s you they fear, Axl, old man that you are, I’ll soon show them their great error.”
She walked towards them boldly. The men gathered around her and as she addressed them they threw suspicious glances towards Axl. Then one of them called to him, in the Saxon language, to step closer to the torches, presumably so they could see he was not a younger man in disguise. Then after a few more exchanges with Beatrice the men allowed them through.
Axl was puzzled that a village which from a distance looked to be two orderly rings of houses could turn out to be such a chaotic labyrinth now they were walking through its narrow lanes. Admittedly the light was fading, but as he followed Beatrice, he could discern no logic or pattern to the place. Buildings would loom unexpectedly in front of them, blocking their way and forcing them down baffling side alleys. They were obliged, moreover, to walk with even more caution than out on the roads: not only was the ground pitted and full of puddles from the earlier storm, the Saxons seemed to find it acceptable to leave random objects, even pieces of rubble, lying in the middle of the path. But what troubled Axl most was the odour that grew stronger and fainter as they walked, but never went away. Like anyone of his time, he was well reconciled to the smell of excrement, human or animal, but this was something altogether more offensive. Before long he had determined its source: all over the village people had left out, on the fronts of houses or on the side of the street, piles of putrefying meat as offerings to their various gods. At one point, startled by a particularly strong assault, Axl had turned to see, suspended from the eaves of a hut, a dark object whose shape changed before his eyes as the colony of flies perched on it dispersed. A moment later they encountered a pig being dragged by its ears by a group of children; dogs, cows and donkeys under no one’s supervision. The few people they met stared silently at them, or else quickly vanished behind a door or shutter.
“There’s something strange here tonight,” Beatrice whispered as they walked. “Usually they’d be sitting in front of their houses or perhaps gathered in circles laughing and talking. And the children would be following us by now asking a hundred questions and wondering if to call us names or be our friends. Everything’s eerily still and it makes me uneasy.”
“Are we lost, princess, or are we still going toward the place they’ll be sheltering us?”
“I’d been thinking we’d visit first the woman about the medicines. But with things the way they are, we may be better going straight to the old longhouse and keeping out of harm’s way.”
“Are we far from the medicine lady’s house?”
“As I remember it, not far at all now.”
“Then let’s see if she’s there. Even if your pain’s a trivial thing, as we know it to be, there’s no sense in feeling it at all if it can be taken away.”
“It can wait till the mornin
g, Axl. It’s not even a pain I notice till we’re speaking of it.”
“Even so, princess, now we’re here, why not go and see the wise woman?”
“We’ll do so if you particularly wish it, Axl. Though I’d have happily left it for the morning or maybe the next time I’m passing through this place.”
Even as they were talking, they turned a corner into what appeared to be the village square. There was a bonfire blazing at its centre, and all around it, illuminated by its light, a large crowd. There were Saxons of all ages, even tiny children in their parents’ arms, and Axl’s first thought was that they had stumbled upon a pagan ceremony. But as they stopped to consider the scene before them, he saw there was no focus to the crowd’s attention. The faces he could see were solemn, perhaps frightened. Voices were lowered, and collectively came through the air as a worried murmur. A dog barked at Axl and Beatrice and was promptly chased away by shadowy figures. Those among the crowd who noticed the visitors stared their way blankly before losing interest.
“Who knows what concerns them here, Axl,” Beatrice said. “I’d walk away except the medicine woman’s house is somewhere near. Let me see if I can still find my way to it.”
As they moved towards a row of huts to their right, they became aware of many more people in the shadows, silently watching the crowd around the fire. Beatrice stopped to talk to one of them, a woman standing in front of her own door, and after a while Axl realised this was the medicine woman herself. He could not see her well in the near-darkness, but made out the straight-backed figure of a tall woman, probably in her middle years, clutching a shawl around her arms and shoulders. She and Beatrice went on conferring in low voices, sometimes glancing towards the crowd, sometimes at Axl. Eventually the woman gestured for them to enter her hut, but Beatrice, coming up to him, said softly:
“Let me speak with her alone, Axl. Help me take off this bundle and wait out here for me.”