The family saw many more monks on Glastonbury, all with the
same hair style. They at first didn’t recognize Father Drew as he came,
smiling, into their presence. “Welcome, Gwilym! Welcome Grainne! And welcome to
you too, Bleddyn, Jac and Llawen. And you two must be Madoc and Brice. Let me
show you to the guest house.”
Father Drew took them along the street towards the abbey. The
houses lining both sides of the street leading from the dock to the abbey were
built with knee-high stone foundations and the daub was all in good repair. The
walls were all painted white. The roof thatch all seemed twice as thick as
normal.
They stopped at the door of a substantial home. The front
door opened into a large hall with a fire-pit in the center and lots of niches
in the walls full of bedding. There was a trestle table with four chairs and a
bench. Cooking implements rested on the short wall of the fire-pit. The fire
was going and Gwilym noted with satisfaction that smoke was making its way
through the thatch without filling the room. Half of the room had a loft as a
ceiling that caused Gwilym to duck his head.
There was a smaller room attached to this hall. Shelves
stretched from wall to wall, their ends built into the walls. The shelves were
already stocked with barrels of flour, corn-meal and salt. Dried meat, bags of apples,
vegetables and fungi hung from a beam.
“Thank you father,” said Gwilym. “We’ll be most comfortable
here.”
“I will leave you to settle in here, Gwilym. Shall I escort
you to Avalon now, Grainne?”
Madoc gave his mother a sharp look. She smiled at the
priest. “Not just yet, Father Drew. Gwilym and I still have things to discuss.”
The priest blushed deep red, looking from Gwilym to Grainne.
“Oh…” he stammered. “Will you all join me for supper in two hours?”
Gwilym’s family moved into the house while Grainne unpacked a
few items from her cart. Gwilym, noticing this, asked her what her plans were.
He had enjoyed the three weeks they had spent together and was afraid of losing
her now.
“Let’s walk up the tor!” she announced to the family. The
boys raced ahead, Bleddyn with Brice on his shoulders, leaving the adults to
walk up alone. Grainne took Gwilym’s large hand in hers.
“You are a wonderful father. You will raise your boys to be
strong men. Strong in every way. Smart, caring, learned, careful, funny,
loving.”
Gwilym smiled and looked at her, surprised that tears were
flowing from her eyes. “What is the matter, my love? Why do you cry?”
“Can I leave Madoc with you? I’ll visit almost every day.
But I have to return to Avalon. And he can no longer live there. Can he stay
with you? Play with his brothers, learn how to be a man?” Her tears were
flowing down her cheeks and dripping off her chin.
“You told him you wouldn’t do that. I thought we could all
stay together. Why not marry and raise all the boys together? What about Brice?
Won’t he miss his brother?”
Grainne stopped and knelt down on the grass halfway up the
Tor. She covered her face but Gwilym couldn’t fail to hear the heartbreaking
wail that tore from her chest. He sat in front of her and wrapped her in his
arms. “Grainne, my love. Why? What is more important than raising your sons?”
She shook her head and kept crying. Gwilym stroked her soft
hair with his calloused hand. He looked behind him to see his boys playing on
the top of the Tor, trying to scale the large rock standing there.
Finally, Grainne calmed down and uncovered her face. She
looked at Gwilym and he was shocked to see emptiness in her large, green eyes.
“You ask what is more important than raising my sons. There is only one thing
more important. Protecting them and other children from the danger that comes
next year is more important.”
“When the hordes stream out of their boats, do you think
they’ll leave our boys alive to fight against them when they get older? Of
course they won’t! They’ll slaughter them!”
“Protecting our offspring and other British children,
hundreds, thousands of years in the future is more important than staying with
my son this year. But I will miss him. And Brice will miss his brother. So we’ll
visit almost every day. We won’t be far.”
Grainne stood up and they climbed the Tor. The boys had
stopped playing and were watching the adults. They smiled at the boys to
reassure them. Gwilym looked over the lake. There seemed to be a connection
between the surrounding land and the island through swampy land to the woods. Further
away from this peninsula he saw swamp dwellings sitting on poles like herons at
the water’s edge. He noted the ferry he had taken earlier today. He was
troubled to see that this was the sole island in this portion of the lake.
“Where is Avalon, Grainne? I see the willow where I summoned
you many years ago. But this is the only island. And apart from the woods
behind us, it seems to be made up of the Glastonbury religious settlement. Is
Avalon in the woods? I see no buildings, no smoke rising.”
Grainne gave a half-smile. “We share this island, Gwilym.
Avalon and Glastonbury are one place in two different times. The priests cannot
come to Avalon but we can travel to Glastonbury
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