Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

‘Thank you,’ Joanna managed.

He grinned again. ‘It’ll be rough once we’re out of the shelter of the island,’ he said. ‘You may be sick or you may not; people are different. If you’re sick, remember to eat whenever you can; better by far to be sick when you have something to be sick with.’

As he spoke those disconcerting words, there came the sound of voices from above and she felt the ship give a sort of bounce. Then there was a definite sensation of movement, quickly accelerating. She sat down heavily on the bed and Meggie gave a small cry.

The captain was already half out of the cabin. ‘Come up on deck if you wish,’ he said, ‘but do not get in anybody’s way.’

Over the next three days Joanna experienced so may new sensations — some of them wonderful, some unspeakably awful — that, by the end of the crossing, she felt as if it had lasted half a lifetime. She was very seasick at first, heaving up her stomach’s contents into the bucket, then, when she felt the instant relief that comes just after being sick, hurrying up aloft to empty the vomit over the side and to eat some dry bread and drink a mug of watery beer before the nausea began again.

But the sickness subsided and soon Joanna began to congratulate herself on being as good a sailor as Meggie, who had watched her mother’s convulsions and listened to her moans with a polite look of puzzlement on her little face, as if asking what all the fuss was about; Meggie had suffered no ill at all. Then it was heavenly to stand up on deck, warmly wrapped and with Meggie held against her body inside her cloak, feeling the bite of the wind and the sea spray in her face and watching the endlessly changing waters race by.

In time she thought she saw land; there was a line of reddish-brown on the horizon which gradually resolved itself into low cliffs. As the ship neared shore, the water seemed to change from grey-blue to a sparkling, vivid green that looked like emeralds.

And, not long after that, the ship furled her sails and slid into a narrow, secretive bay. As before, a boat was lowered; Joanna and Meggie were helped down into it and rowed the short distance to the shore. The fearsome red rocks at the mouth of the bay surprisingly hid a small area of sandy beach, where two men appeared to help Joanna on to dry land. She was so busy trying to keep her footing in the deep, soft sand that she forgot to turn round until it was too late and the ship that had carried her south was already moving off towards the mouth of the bay.

The men took her to a small cottage deep in woodland and left her in the care of a woman and a younger girl, who looked after her for a couple of days. She was offered a bath and the women took every single garment she and Meggie possessed, washing them and hanging them out to dry on the holly and hazel bushes that grew in abundance around the cottage. While her clothes dried, Joanna moved about wrapped in a soft length of woollen cloth; such was her instant familiarity with the two women that, had the late March weather been a little warmer, she might have even done away with the wrap.

The women spoke a version of the language that Joanna had been speaking on Mona’s Isle; which, indeed, she had always used with her own people and which she dimly recalled having spoken with Mag Hobson. The ordering of the women’s days was familiar too; the pattern of life was very well known to her. .

When Joanna, her child and her limited wardrobe had been fully restored, the women took her off on yet another journey. This time they travelled south into the heart of Brittany, and were soon deep in a vast forest that seemed to go on for ever. They made two, perhaps three, overnight camps — again, Joanna was experiencing a disorienting sense of timelessness — and then one morning they entered an area where the rocky granite outcrops rising up among the trees and the grassland were as red as the cliffs that had called out a welcome up on the coast.

They followed a narrow track that wound under trees, the beaten earth beneath their feet as red as garnets. Then they came to a small settlement: some of the typical temporary dwellings but, this time, also some low and sturdy little cottages made of the local pink granite. From one side of the settlement a path marked with stones along either side wound away up into a particularly dense area of forest, where pine, birch and holly gradually supplanted the broom and the gorse; both women gave a bow of reverence in that direction, as if something precious lay hidden there.

Then they approached the largest of the stone dwellings and the elder woman tapped softly on the door. It was opened by a man of perhaps sixty, vigorous even in age, with a tanned and weather-beaten face and long white hair and beard. He wore a deep blue robe which, as it caught the light, sometimes looked silver. He nodded to the two women and said something to the elder one, waving a hand back inside the house to where a jug of ale and a loaf of bread had been set out, together with a pat of butter and a round cheese with a particularly piquant smell; Joanna thought it might be goat. Her stomach gave a growl of hunger.

The white-haired man turned, gave her a wide smile and then, opening his arms, said, ‘You are Beith. I am Huathe. You and your girl child are expected and all is ready for you.’

Joanna moved into the circle of his arms and was given a powerful hug which, because Meggie was still in here sling, included her too; Joanna heard the infant give a soft gurgle of happiness and she was just thinking that it was odd for Meggie to respond so positively to such a robust greeting from a complete stranger when the man spoke again, inviting her inside to eat and drink her fill.

Loosening the hug but keeping hold of Joanna’s hand, he led her into the house. ‘This place,’ he said, ‘is called Folle-Pensee. Here we heal those who are sick in body and in mind, and here too we teach those healing skills.’ There was a pause and then he added, ‘Welcome to your new home.’

Quite soon after her arrival in the secret place at the heart of the forest of Broceliande, Joanna discovered why the location was so precious to her people.

The revelation came about on a bright April morning of sudden warm sunshine after several days of rain. There was peaty standing water in the low-lying areas of sallow and dogwood around the settlement, which gave off a pungent, invigorating scent that was the very distillation of growth. The trees were putting on their spring green raiment, the tender, unfurling leaves brilliant with raindrops, and the air smelt heady and sweet, like a potent drug. Joanna and the younger of the two women who had escorted her to Folle-Pensee — the older woman had returned to her cottage near the coast — had just finished clearing away their breakfast meal when Huathe came to the door of the shelter.

‘Fearn will take care of the child,’ he commanded, and the young woman jumped to obey; Joanna had been in the process of washing Meggie’s rosy bottom prior to dressing her, and Fearn took the cloth out of Joanna’s hand and resumed the task.

Huathe was already setting off along the path marked with stones. Obediently Joanna fell into step behind him. They walked for a hundred or so paces and Joanna noticed that the path was getting narrower; the stone border had petered out and suddenly she had a weird sense of having stepped beyond the human realm and into some strange place that belonged solely to the woodland. To the trees, the flowers, the birds and the small, secretive animals whose presence was only detectable by tiny rustlings in the grass.

Perhaps some sort of reaction was common at this spot; for Huathe turned and gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Not far now,’ he said.