Chapter 34: Eadweard
She leads me back to the village. She and Adsiltia make me perform my duties; they keep me sober. It makes me bad-tempered, it is so painful not to blur the memories with something, but I have to learn to live with them. Cador walks with me every day. I am allowed no privacy at all, which stretches my patience to breaking point. After I upset Adsiltia, the whole village joins in with keeping an eye on Bearchan and me, and what people think we are up to. I suspect Father's involvement with that. We recognise that we can't fight everyone, so we have to give in, but not with a good grace.
Deprived of the activities which were occupying most of my day, deprived of Bearchan's company, I take to sitting in my house, feeling sorry for myself. The healing goes on round me, and I can't resist making the occasional comment on the decisions Adsiltia and Bella are making. Adsiltia finds my remarks barbed rather than helpful (but I think she just wants to hit back at me after our argument) and eventually challenges me to do it myself, if I think they are making such a bad job of it. So I do. Bella and I fall back into our old pattern of working. The nearness of her, the occasional, accidental brush of hands, the meeting of eyes over a task, the sound of her voice, all awaken memories of better times; times I came to enjoy, that would gladden my heart. How far we have come since I first agreed – so reluctantly back then – to teach her what I know.
The traders come, and the stories start to trickle in about what really happened with the Iceni and the Romans. The destruction of Camulodunum, the burning of Londinium, the sack of Verulamium – the triumphs of the Iceni queen. Then the last battle, with its massive, unimaginable loss of British life and the death of the Iceni queen, by her own hand, so the story went, so the Emperor could not have her dragged to Rome in chains. Bearchan and I did not know she was dead. At first, we don't know what to make of that, what that should mean for us. But we do think we notice a subtle change in people's attitudes. They are awe-struck that we survived; they consider us chosen by the gods, not cowards, as we see ourselves.
Summer's End is coming. Bella and Adsiltia make me prepare, or Adsiltia prepares for me. I feel bad that I was not here for Lughnasa, and I ought to want to make up for that, but deep inside I am anxious about which spirits might walk that night. If I stay close to the fires, the spirits will not be able to approach. I used to look forward to walking with the spirits and the ancestors, and I would be disappointed if I did not feel their presence. But now I am afraid.
The bonfires are built without my guidance, but people know what to do, almost better than I do: the village has done this for generations. They let their hearth fires go out. There is an air of anticipation: people, especially the families who have lost loved ones, are expecting their spirits to return. The door to the spirit world will open; we will be as close as we ever can be to those who have gone before us to the other place. Father does not say anything to me about it, he knows how badly I feel that Cador did not return, but I can't help but notice the burning brand he places outside his house. Can he see the spirits of the dead? Can he feel their presence? We have never talked about it. I have never noticed the scent of the sweet-smelling smoke in his house. I have always assumed not.
Adsiltia pushes and guides me through the ceremony. I hurry the sacrifices; I have had enough of killing this year. No-one notices. The ritual of re-lighting the hearth fires is soothing, a return to the good ways.
Bella surprises me yet again. She makes me take her to the sacred place. I have not been there since my return. I have not felt able to, or worthy enough. I could not bring myself to carry out the ritual cleansing after the sacrifices. The gods do not speak to me at present, so I do not think my failure will anger them any more than they are already angry.
The grandmother's ribbon is still intact, fluttering in the slight breeze. The fire is out, and this is what she has brought me to re-light. She has to lead me inside the ribbon; I feel anxious, and unable to step inside by myself. I am afraid: of the anger of the gods; or of finding that they have fled, and there is nothing here. I so want to find that they are here; I want to be at one with the spirits and the ancestors again. This is my spiritual home, special only to me.
Once I have re-lit the fire, she seats me in the entrance to the hut. I hold the torch and watch, hardly able to believe my eyes, as she takes off her clothes. When did she get so bold? It is too late to worry if the spirits of this place are offended, but I think not. They rustle the leaf litter and shake the few remaining leaves on the branches as she enters the water. I feel a rush of relief: they are still here. She is respectful. She follows what she remembers from our first and only visit. The torch makes the shadows jump between the trees: the ancestors have come. When she rises from the pool, water streaming down her, she is a goddess. She is strong now, from all the work in the fields; she is lean and spare, no longer the soft Roman woman. I realise I have been holding my breath.
She extinguishes the torch, so there is just the glow of the brazier and a tiny sliver of moonlight coming down through the bare branches. We can just about see each other. Her eyes are huge and shining, but doe eyes no longer. She undresses me. I am totally under her spell. I want to fill up my senses with her, to drown in her. She leads me into the water. She wipes the paint off my face. She kisses me, and I kiss her back, for the first time since I came home. My body awakens: it has been a long time coming. How long, how patiently she has waited for me to come back to her. Again she tells me she loves me. This is her incantation, the magic she places her trust in. And it works. This time it reaches into my heart. I feel it. When I embrace her, a lot of the anguish of the past few months runs down with the rivulets of water. If they are cold, I do not notice. Her skin is cold and damp, and the feel of it against mine is wonderful, like the first time, but that seems like a lifetime ago. I hold on to her like I never want to let her go, looking round at my special place, the place where I used to be most content. And I realise I can be, again. I can be forgiven. I am home.
We make love, as we did the first time I brought her here. When I am slow to respond at first, she places my hand on her cheek, showing me her anxious face. I hesitate only because I do not feel worthy of her, but she seems worried that I no longer desire her. Nothing could be further from the truth now. There is nothing I want more at this moment than to surrender myself to her. There is no romance this time, no lingering, by either of us. We both need to lose ourselves as quickly and fully as possible in the scent, the touch, the taste of the other, after so long. I had forgotten the sweetness, the innocence of her. She purifies me. But she also kisses me with a hunger, with a passion. How long I have made her wait for this. It is over quickly, this love-making.
Afterwards it is she who holds me, who tells me everything will be all right, she will keep me safe. She has made sure there is sweet smoke, and while she sleeps, I see Mother and Cador in my dreams. My tears flow because he has come home after all and they are together now. As he has shown himself to me, I take this as a sign of his forgiveness. I take it, too, as a sign that all can be well between us, as it was before we left. I am also moved because I recognise I can be one with the spirits and the ancestors again. I am not the man I was before I went to war, but I can be something like him. My faith has been badly damaged, but Bella is leading me back to it. She completes me and the gods of this place knew this when they chose her for me. She was meant to come here, and find me. She is my hope and my salvation.
I apologise to her for the way I treated her, but she does not reproach me, even now. I know that I have hurt her, even though she tried to hide it. I still do not deserve her, but I will try to.
I love her. That is the feeling I could not name before. The feeling that overwhelms me when I look at her; when I wake in the night and I have to move closer to her, so we are touching; the feeling that makes me reach for her hand; the warmth that I feel when we are together. I want to protect her and care for her, and be the one she can lean on, in the same way I have discovered I can lean on her. She makes me laugh, and I have not done much of that recently. When she smiles, it is like the sun coming out. Knowing that I would willingly lay down my life for her. Knowing that it is her, and only her, that I want to come home to. It's called love . . .