Alys Clare - The Enchanter's Forest

She thought about him now, smiling as she recalled Josse’s predictable response to being told that her only other lover was a man who could turn himself into a bear. Never mind, dear Josse, she thought lovingly; it’s not imperative that you accept every aspect of my new life and you certainly don’t have to wrestle with the truly incredible ones.

Even Joanna sometimes found it hard to accept the concept of the bear man.

As they rode on through the afternoon, always following the same generally southerly direction, Joanna repeatedly checked the unfolding landscape against the markers stored in her mind. She had been told what to look out for, not having trodden this road before; when, the previous year, she had travelled from the north coast of Armorica down into the Broceliande, she had set out from further west than Dinan. But her people knew how to give foolproof directions and that ability, together with her own growing skill at finding her way, gave her the confidence to know that she would not lead her small party wrongly.

As evening approached, she saw ahead the line of hills which, growing up into a dome, formed a sort of crown right in the heart of the Broceliande. Even though they were not approaching from exactly the same direction, she recognised its shape and knew for sure that she had not led them astray. Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow I shall try to find a track that leads to the south-west, for over there lies Folle-Pensee.

But that was for tomorrow. There was yet tonight.

She and Josse lay together in the darkness a short distance away from Meggie, fast asleep in her blanket, for they had just made love again.

She sensed that there was something on Josse’s mind. Reaching up her hand to stroke his hair away from his hot forehead, she said gently, ‘What is it, my love?’

She saw his brown eyes turn to look into hers. The golden lights in his irises caught the faint glow from the fire. He said without preamble, ‘I have come looking for you in the forest, three times since you told me about Meggie. You said then that I might come to see you, yet each time I came, I could not find you.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Twice I couldn’t even find that hut of yours when I came looking.’

She had known he would speak of it sooner or later. Such was their intimacy that she was glad it was sooner, so that — with any luck — they could discuss it and get it out of the way. She thought for a moment and then said, ‘I did warn you that I might not always be there to be found.’

‘Aye, but three times!’

Oh, she thought, but I have hurt him. ‘I am sorry,’ she said gently. ‘It was never my wish to cause you pain. On two occasions I genuinely was not there.’ And these, she reflected, would be the times he had not been able to locate her hut, such was the power of the concealing force that she was now able to cast around the spot when she was absent.

‘What of the third time? Were you hiding inside, keeping Meggie quiet in case she heard me and called out?’

There was bitterness in his voice and she ached for him. ‘No, Josse. It was not like that. I knew you had come, I will not deny it, for I was close by and could have emerged from my seclusion so that we might have spent some time together.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘No,’ she agreed. She was thinking furiously, determined to find the right words to make him understand. ‘I was very deeply involved in what I was doing. Some things that I have been taught to do require a great deal of concentration — it’s almost as if I leave my own body and travel in my mind to some other place or some other reality.’

‘And that’s what you were doing when I came to find you?’ Despite himself, he sounded curious.

‘Yes. I was on what we call a soul journey, although perhaps spirit journey describes it better.’

‘Were you far away?’

‘In a way, yes I was. I had gone back to the land beyond the seas from which we believe that our ancestors originally came, and that was drowned beneath the waves.’

She had his attention now; she sensed it. But she had not predicted what he would say next. With almost a reproof in the words, he said, ‘And what of Meggie when you are off on your spirit journeys? Who watches out for her and makes sure she does not wander off or fall in the stream or into the hearth?’

Oh, Josse, she wanted to say, Meggie is a child of the wildwood and has far too much sense to do any of those things. But then he was the child’s father and he had a perfect right to make sure she was safe. Again weighing her words, she said calmly, ‘When it is a matter of merely a short period of intense concentration, I put Meggie in the hut and fasten the door if I am at all concerned for her. When I know that my attention will be elsewhere for a longer time, I ask one of the others to look after her for me.’ That was true, as far as it went, and indeed Joanna had asked Lora more than once to do just that service. What she kept to herself was that, when the Great Festivals came round, increasingly Meggie went with her and joined in the worship and the celebrations.

Meggie, as so many of Joanna’s people had kept pointing out, was a very special child. .

Josse was silent. After a moment she said, ‘What are you thinking about?’

He laughed, but she sensed behind the brief sound an underlying unease. ‘I think I just acted like a real father and I’m wondering whether I ought to apologise for even suggesting that you don’t know how to look after our daughter.’

‘Josse, you are a real father.’ She hugged him tightly, feeling his strong heartbeat pump against her bare chest. ‘And there’s no need to apologise for something you have every right to ask.’

They lay close, breathing to the same rhythm, and she sensed that he was relaxing more with every breath. But then, tensing slightly again, he said, ‘Do they — your people — know Meggie’s mine?’

‘Of course! I’m very proud of the fact, and so will she be when she’s old enough to consider such things.’

‘They don’t object?’

Now it was her turn to laugh. ‘No, why should they?’

‘Oh — I just wondered if they preferred children to be — er, to be fathered by men of the tribe.’

I had forgotten, thought Joanna, how the world thinks. She realised how thoroughly she was becoming one of them, her people, that a reminder of the ways of the outside world should so pull her up short. ‘It is up to a woman to choose who fathers her child,’ she said. ‘We have a special ceremony wherein the male spirit of the people is put into a chosen woman’ — he went to say something, but stopped himself — ‘but, other than that, it’s our own decision. Sometimes children are conceived in the celebrations that follow one of our festivals, and those children are regarded as the Goddess’s particular gift.’

‘But — what about property? Land? How do you decide who owns what? I mean, normally a wife bears children for her husband and they inherit, if they’re sons, that is. But. .’ He drifted to a confused stop.

Oh, but the gap between how he saw the world and how she now did was just so vast! ‘We don’t really have property like that,’ she said kindly. ‘Our life is very different. And as for a woman’s children inheriting their father’s name and wealth, our system is not like that at all.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No. Josse, we trace our descent solely through the female line.’

He thought about that. Then he broke his rather shocked silence with one word: ‘Why?’

She wanted to laugh, it was so obvious. But she didn’t; in the same kind tone she said, ‘Because only a woman knows with absolute certainty who fathered the child she bears.’ Even she, she wanted to add, will not know for sure if she has made love with more than one man at the time of conception. But she didn’t speak the thought aloud. Poor Josse was looking quite sufficiently aghast already. ‘Therefore,’ she concluded, ‘it is far more reliable to record our families through the women than through the men.’