The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [153]
"We'll not be ready a moment too soon," he said. "The rumour's going round of fresh trouble coming. Have you heard anything?"
"Nothing. But if it's recent news I wouldn't have had it. We've been on the move for nearly a week. What kind of trouble? Not Octa again, surely?"
"No, Pascentius." This was Vortimer's brother who had fought with him in the rebellion, and fled north after Vortimer's death. "You knew he took ship to Germany? They say he'll come back."
"Give him time," I said, "you may be sure he will. Well, you'll send me any news that comes?"
"Send you? You're not staying here?"
"No. I'm going on to Maridunum. It's my home, you know."
"I had forgotten. Well, perhaps we'll see something of you; I'll be here myself a bit longer -- we've started work on the church now." He grinned. "The bishop's been at me like a gadfly: it seems I should have been thinking of that before I spent so much time on the things of this earth. And there's talk, too, of putting up some kind of monument to the King's victories. A triumphal arch, some say, the old Roman style of thing. Of course they're saying here in Caerleon that we should build the church for that -- the glory of God with Ambrosius thrown in. Though myself I think if any bishop should get the credit of God's glory and the King's combined it should be Gloucester -- old Eldad laid about him with the best of them. Did you see him?"
"I heard him."
He laughed. "Well, in any case you'll stay tonight, I hope? Have supper with me."
"Thanks. I'd like to."
We talked late into the night, and he showed me some of his plans and designs, and seemed flatteringly anxious that I should come back from Maridunum to see the various stages of the building. I promised, and next day left Caerleon alone, parrying an equally flattering and urgent request from the camp commandant to let him give me an escort. But I refused, and in the late afternoon came, alone, at last in sight of my own hills. There were rain clouds massing in the west, but in front of them, like a bright curtain, the slanting sunlight. One could see on a day like this why the green hills of Wales had been called the Black Mountains, and the valleys running through them the Valleys of Gold. Bars of sunlight lay along the trees of the golden valleys, and the hills stood slate-blue or black behind them, with their tops supporting the sky.
I took two days for the journey, going easily, and noticing by the way, how the land seemed already to have got back its bloom of peace. A farmer building a wall barely looked my way as I rode by, and a young girl minding a flock of sheep smiled at me. And when I got to the mill on the Tywy, it seemed to be working normally; there were grain sacks piled in the yard, and I could hear the clack-clack-clack of the turning wheel.
I passed the bottom of the path which led up to the cave, and held on straight for the town. I believe I told myself that my first duty and concern was to visit St. Peter's to ask about my mother's death, and to see where she was buried. But when I got from my horse at the nunnery gate and lifted a hand to the bell, I knew from the knocking of my heart that I had told myself a lie.
I could have spared myself the deception; it was the old portress who let me in, and who led me straight, without being asked, through the inner court and down to the green slope near the river where my mother was buried. It was a lovely place, a green plot near a wall where pear trees had been brought early into blossom by the warmth, and where, above their snow, the white doves she had loved were rounding their breasts to the sun. I could hear the ripple of the river beyond the wall, and down through the rustling trees the note of the chapel bell.
The Abbess received me kindly, but had nothing to add to the account which I had received soon after my mother's death, and had passed on to my father. I left money for prayers, and for a carved stone to be made, and when I left, it was with her silver and amethyst cross tucked