“You’re not from Newport, are you, lad? I gather you’re English.”
The vicar had not approached Pen since the day he’d helped haul him home from the King’s Head. Now he spoke as he would address the simple boy, friendly, straightforward, without condescension. Kinder than the hilarity and teasing Pen had encountered at the tavern all those days ago when he’d admitted he didn’t know his family, his history, his occupation, or his name.
It was all still a frustrating blank, locked in a part of his brain he couldn’t access, memories wafting beyond his grip like gauzy curtains in the breeze.
“I wish I knew where I’m from,” Pen said. “I wish I could remember anything.”
“I’m sure someone’s looking for you,” the vicar said. He was a soothing presence, soft-spoken but direct, without guile or hidden motives. Pen liked that about him.
“What if they’re not?” Stanley’s kind manner struck a nerve. He couldn’t recall details, but he could recall feelings. And Pen had an awful fear that no one in his life would much care if he tumbled off the edge of the world.
His shoulder burned, and he rubbed it for relief. “What if I’m stuck here, friendless, alone, never knowing my name? Useless and castaway in St. Sow’s Sty for the rest of my life.”
With Gwen. At least he would be near Gwen.
Stanley merely stood next to him, linked his fingers, and regarded the set of carved arches. To Pen the thick stone triangles looked like teeth. They might close on a man if he dared step through.
“An interesting history to this church,” the vicar remarked. “Gwynllyw, a wealthy and respected Welsh prince, retired here sometime in the fifth or sixth century and took up the life of a hermit, building his cell here on Stow Hill. His wife, Gwladys, set up her own hermitage not far away. After his death they say a timber church was built here, and it became a place of pilgrimage.
“After it burned down—sacked, I would guess, by the Northmen, or Vikings as they are called—it was rebuilt in stone by an Anglo-Saxon king who had converted to Christianity. Then the Normans came and built their new port and castle and gave the church its tower. At some point it became Woolos—I suppose the Saxons couldn’t pronounce Gwynllyw.”
Pen didn’t say anything. He couldn’t pronounce these Welsh words either.
“Then in the uprising of Owain Glyndwr, St. Woolos was destroyed again. And rebuilt again. And now it is what you see today.”
Pen couldn’t see that it was anything impressive, with its single tower sticking out of the hill like a sore thumb, brambles growing nearly to the door, the stained glass letting in a muddy light, and half the gravestones tipping over in the churchyard. But he waited until the vicar came to his point.
“It was destroyed many times, and rebuilt each time. Each time was a chance to make it better.”
He paused, and Pen refused to meet his inquiring gaze. Was the vicar hinting thatPenhad an opportunity to rebuild his life? What foolishness. He didn’t need to reinvent anything. He needed tofindwho he was, because of a certain, he was someone important. Maybe rich. That would be nice, to return to a life of luxury and never have to empty his own chamber pot, or eat gruel, or play nursemaid to a simpleton again.
It stung, though, that the people of St. Stiffin’s thoughthewas the simpleton. That night Tomos was welcomed warmly for dinner and invited to talk about his experiences. Pen got a bowl plunked in front of him full of something they called onion cake, which looked to him like sliced potatoes covered in cheese. Apparently everyone else thought this a treat. He ate it, and wasn’t about to admit there was anything tasty about it. In his real life, his rich life, he had five course meals and footmen to place each dish before him. Or would have, someday.
The thought that his real life was elsewhere, and he would return to it soon, kept him going through the next hideous days. The old crone, Mother Morris, made him mop the floors—stone floors! With cracks everywhere! A nightmare!—and then laughed and jabbered at him in Welsh when he upset the bucket of filthy water and suds over the scullery floor he’d just mopped. She repeated the story at dinner, in English this time, and everyone laughed, even the simpleton.
The Widow Jones thought his horror and revulsion hilarious when she asked Pen to take the laundry out of the soaking bucket and, when he held his nose at the strong scent of ammonia, informed him that the “chamber lye” was made up of the contents of chamber pots.
“Just the liquid portion, mind you. It’s called lant, and it’s wondrous at lifting stains. Makes the fabric workable.”
He was so desperate to wash his hands that he grabbed the nearest pot of water and poured it over his palms, scalding his fingers. The widow clucked and scolded as she fussed over him, but she didn’t let him leave his post. Instead, she set him to poking the laundry with a stick while she poured the rest of the hot water into a bowl, scraped a few shavings from a bar of soap into it, and whipped it into a sudsy froth. The wet fabrics were heavy to stir and wring, then rinse and wring again, then spread over the lawn and every available surface to bleach. His sheets alone weighed a stone. His muscles hurt by the end of the afternoon, and the scents of ash and lye burned his nose. By God, he’d never do a lick of manual labor when he went back to his life, Pen swore.
But that was all the others did. Dovey was always in the garden or whisking about the house. Her daughter was ever underfoot, running errands and singing snatches of song as she went. Evans never seemed to sit still except in the evening, after their light supper, when the group sat together on the front porch when the weather was fine. If the weather was less fine, they gathered in a room they called the chapter house, which was built like a large parlor full of uncomfortable benches and chairs. Once in a while they lit a fire in the hearth and sat around chatting, telling stories and playing games.
Some nights Gwen sang and played on a small traveling harp of hers, and those were the only moments when Pen could bear the place. These weren’t his people. He was quite sure he was accustomed to being around men with their plain speech and rough ways; in his real life, he didn’t waste his time making idle, polite speech with women. But when Gwen played the harp, it was like a heavenly spirit came among them. The room warmed; the angry chatter in his head subsided. Even his ribs and shoulder hurt less when he listened to her voice. She was an uncommon gem and she was buried here, in this hinterland. How could she bear it?
Those were his times of peace: the rare evenings when Gwen sang, and the nights he woke in the solid dark to the scent of bluebells and honey and her soft, soothing voice rousing him from a nightmare. They were becoming more frequent and violent, the dreams. As if some urgent message from his past was trying to break through the fog in his mind.
One morning, remarkably, he woke with the sense that he had slept. He felt refreshed in a way he hadn’t felt since—well, he couldn’t remember. The small casement high in the wall of his room let in light telling him the sun had climbed Stow Hill, and motes swirled in the air like a smattering of pixie dust. He started as his fingers brushed something soft and warm, and looked down to find that his hand rested on the back of a woman.
Gwen’s rear end was seated on a small stool beside his cot but she had slumped forward in sleep, her head pillowed upon arms crossed upon the side of his bed. A wrapper and shawl covered her shoulders, and her half-loose braid spilled thick ashy brown hair over his hip. Her face was turned toward him, and an ache spread through his belly at her relaxed features, achingly lovely. Her dark lashes and brows stood out against her lightly tanned skin. The shape of her face was so elegant, brow and nose and chin almost stern in their clarity, but her lips, red and full, betrayed her soft heart.
He stroked her hair, feeling he touched a holy relic, one too pure for his handling. Her lips curved in a smile and her eyes opened, that soft grey-green of a deep forest where a man could wander, enchanted, and become lost forever.
“What is that awful racket outside?” he whispered as a clatter of noise poured in the window, which flickered with the shadow of passing wings.
She said a stream of words in Welsh, then translated. “We have a pair of choughs nesting above the chapter house. That’s the cry you heard—there. The others—” She paused, listening. “Chaffinch. Thrush. That little peep—that’s the nuthatch. Tomos loves them particularly.”
He stared at her as the noise became music. He’d never cared to listen to the natural world before. He’d never had someone to translate it for him.
