Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

And Joanna, with them, one of them, joined in.

In the course of her subsequent instruction, Joanna was taught the cruel reality that lay behind the tale. Her people were the indigenous race of the islands of Britain, old in their ways long before the invader from the hot south arrived. Driven progressively westwards, they had thought to be left in peace, for they had yielded the prime lands to the relentless newcomers and it seemed for a time that, having gained military dominance, the invader would be satisfied with that and allow the people to live and to worship as they saw fit. But the people had a strong and enduring power that the invader perceived to be a threat; as systematically as they did everything, the leather-clad, sword-wielding armies from the south began the annihilation of their rivals. The Great Ones of the people fled before them, making their way in the end to the holy groves and the sanctuary of Mona’s Isle, but this sanctuary was but illusion.

The leader of the invaders drew up his men on the far shore and commanded them over the water and on to the attack. The men were afraid, for rumour of the people and their strange powers had spread like sickness through the southerners’ ranks, but their commander was not a man to abandon a mission. He ordered the most vociferous of the reluctant ones to be brought forward and he ordered savage punishment. Having thus made an example of the cowards, once again he gave the order to proceed across the water. This time there was no hesitation.

‘They killed everyone that they found,’ sighed the old man who was Joanna’s teacher in this vital part of her instruction. ‘Men, women, children; mercy was shown to none. Then they cut down the trees, for Suetonius was a wily man and he knew that destroying our sacred groves would be a blow from which we would not recover.’

There was an extended silence. Finally, when she could bear it no longer, Joanna said, ‘But you did recover!’

The old man smiled. ‘Oh, yes.’ Then, after a pause, he went on, ‘Have you ever seen a tree in a dry summer? Hm?’

‘Er. .’ She thought frantically what he meant. Then suddenly she knew, or believed she did. ‘We had a birch tree in the place where I grew up,’ she said softly. ‘One year there was a prolonged drought and the birch put out a myriad small seeds. They went everywhere and we were finding them in the house for months afterwards. Later we noticed that there were dozens of little birch saplings.’

‘Well done.’ The old man was nodding his approval. ‘Your Lady Birch perceived the threat and she put forth her strength and ensured her survival; even had she herself perished, she would live on through her daughters.’ Leaning forward, he said, ‘In this same way did the sacred oaks of Mona make sure that they would endure.’

Joanna frowned, trying to absorb this. ‘But they — that is, the trees’ — she was finding it difficult to speak as naturally as her teacher did of trees as sentient beings — ‘they could not have known in advance that they would be destroyed, so how could they have had the time to produce a particularly generous crop of acorns?’

The old man was watching her. ‘They knew,’ he said simply. ‘That is a fact for, even as the armies went marching away back to the conquered lands, already the acorns were putting down their tap roots. By the time Boudicca died those roots were strong and, the next spring, the first leaves appeared. Four hundred years later the invader went away, as do all invaders in the end, and here in the sacred grove, it was as if he had never been.’

‘And what of the people?’ Joanna whispered, although she felt she already knew what the old man would say.

The old man smiled gently. ‘If a tree can survive, so can men and women,’ he said. ‘Child, from what you already know of us your people, can you believe that, unlike the oaks, we had no forewarning?’

Something about what he said snagged in her mind but she was preoccupied with discovering how they knew and did not pause to look at what it might have been. ‘Do you mean that the people saw the enemy on the far shore?’ she asked. ‘Or that they had sent out spies to see what the soldiers were doing?’

‘Both of those things, naturally, for they are common-sense actions. But think beyond such things. Think how it is that you, even you, young and green as you are like a slim birch sapling, know when your child needs you, even when she is out of range of your eyes and your ears.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s a mother’s instinct,’ Joanna said without pausing to think.

‘Instinct,’ the old man repeated. ‘The use not of eyes, ears or touch, but of something far more fundamental and subtle. Ponder that, child, and come back to me when you have done so.’

It was the old man who bestowed her new name. He must have likened her to a birch sapling knowingly for he named her Beith. The birch, she learned, was the first tree to grow after the retreat of the ice and so was sacred to the Mother Goddess. Among her people Joanna was so called for ever more.

There was no warning of what came next. She was shaken awake very early one morning soon after the spring equinox — and when, indeed, she and the rest of the community were still catching up on their sleep following the extraordinary night of celebration — and told to pack up, feed Meggie and get herself ready. She had learned that it would do no good at all to say, ‘Ready for what?’ and she did not, instead meekly doing as she was ordered and then sitting down patiently to wait.

It was the man with the gold earring who came for her and the fact of its being him straight away gave her a clue. Sure enough, and without allowing the time for goodbyes, he led the way out of the settlement by the grove and back across the grassy moor land to the shore, where once again he helped her into his little boat to ferry her across the narrow channel. On the mainland shore he gave her a nod, wished her good speed and the Great Mother’s protection, then nimbly turned his boat and paddled swiftly away.

She had no idea where she was to go. Back home to the hut in the forest? Surely not, for there had been hints in plenty that something was being planned for her that had nothing to do with quietly returning to where she had come from.

She waited for much of that day. At sunset, a small, neat ship entered the channel from the north-east and, its sails furled, slipped quietly along until, offshore from where she stood, it lowered an anchor. As she watched, a small boat was lowered and rowed across the water towards her. A man with weather-roughened skin called out to her and, picking up her pack, she ran down the beach and jumped into the boat, Meggie in her sling bouncing up and down with the violence of the action. The man gave a nod and in silence rowed her out to the ship, where he helped her climb up a rope ladder hanging down from the wooden deck. A group of sailors stood watching her; a couple of them gave her friendly smiles.

Then a tall man in black stepped forward from the shelter of a companionway. ‘I am called Nuinn,’ he said in a rich, deep voice. ‘I am to take you south across the sea to Armorica, which is the Land Beside the Sea. It is a long way. Come with me’ — he stepped back inside the entrance — ‘and I will show you to your quarters.’

The cabin was tiny but at least she and Meggie had it to themselves. There was room on the floor — which was spotlessly clean — for her pack but for little more, and the rest of the space was taken up by a narrow bed with several thick woollen blankets and a small pillow. Under the bed were a bucket and a jug, both at present empty.

‘The bucket is for your personal use,’ the captain said tactfully; ‘come up on deck and empty it to leeward before it’s full, else you’ll spill what’s in it and have to mop it up.’ He gave her a swift grin. ‘Jug’s for washing water; you’ll be told when it’s available.’