‘She is a brave young woman who saved Galahad’s life,’ Father Yvain said, using the iron poker to push the log back into the fire’s red heart, his words stirring more murmurs and low talk.
‘You saw her kill three Saxons?’ Father Brice asked me, even though I had already told him the story. ‘Saw it with your own eyes, Galahad?’
‘I swear it by the Thorn, Father,’ I said.
The monks looked at one another in the way of men who did not need words to share thoughts. On the one hand they struggled to accept that Iselle had killed three Saxon warriors. On the other, they could not believe that I would lie about it.
‘And you had no part in the killing?’ Father Brice asked.
Father Judoc scoffed at that. ‘Galahad is not his father,’ he said, glaring at me. ‘I cannot even imagine what delusions compelled you to go into the marsh. Are you sick?’ He turned to Father Dristan. ‘Has anyone felt his brow?’
‘I’m not sick, Father,’ I said. ‘And I did not kill anyone.’
He was right about who I was, though. I had been a helpless, frightened fool, and had it not been for Iselle I’d be dead.
‘That is a Saxon sword, I can tell you that much,’ Yvain said, at which every eye turned towards Iselle, who looked up from the fire, raking her gaze across each of the monks in turn, as if challenging them to question how she had come by the blade. Her fierce eyes seized on Father Judoc, who seemed to shudder in his skin before letting his own gaze slide away.
‘You’ve rare courage, girl,’ Father Yvain told Iselle. ‘Plenty of seasoned warriors would not have taken on three Saxons with nothing but a hunting bow.’
‘Someone has to kill them,’ Iselle said, with no less flint in her eyes for Yvain than for Judoc. ‘My arrows work better than your prayers.’
Father Brice and some of the others made the sign of the Thorn at that blasphemy, though none found the words to argue with her.
‘While you hide here on this island, the Saxons slaughter and rape and burn.’
I stood there gaping like a fish in the bilge. That this young woman dared to speak to the brothers in such a way. At the steel in her voice and the fire in her eyes.
‘While you hide here, fear spreads among our people like flames in dry straw,’ she rasped, throwing an arm out behind her.
But Father Judoc would hear no more. ‘Enough!’ he snapped, glancing at Father Folant as though he feared the man would embark on one of his rants about the death of Britain and the end of our order. But Father Folant, who stood back in a dark corner, was lost in his own thoughts.
Iselle bit her lip, as though fighting to keep further words unsaid. Then she looked back into the flames.
‘Well, Galahad,’ Father Brice said, ‘if there is any good to have come out of your reckless disobedience, it is that we may bury the babe with the cobbler. I pray the mother will find solace in knowing her poor child will find his way to heaven with Eudaf’s help.’
‘Or to Annwn,’ Father Judoc said through his teeth.
Father Brice dipped his tonsured head. ‘Which of us can claim to truly see beyond the veil, Brother?’ he asked, at which Judoc was not the only one to thread his fingers in the sign of the Thorn. ‘We will bury the child and the man tomorrow and, afterwards, Galahad will accept his punishment. I do not think we need trouble Prior Drustanus with this matter. It would only hurt him to know that Galahad had broken our rules and put himself in danger.’ He looked up at me and I held his eye. ‘Thirty strikes of the Thorn upon his flesh. One for each shoot which sprouted from Joseph of Arimathea’s staff when he thrust it into the earth.’
Father Yvain made a gruff sound in the back of his throat at this, and even Father Brice frowned. ‘You do accept this punishment, Galahad?’ he asked. Perhaps he feared I might not, as was my right, seeing as I had not yet taken the tonsure. None of them could stop me leaving Ynys Wydryn altogether. But where would I go? The brothers had taken me in, and I would not abandon them. But thirty strikes! I doubted even Father Judoc would have pronounced a harsher penalty.
‘I accept, Father,’ I said, to Brice’s relief. I chanced a look at Iselle and, from the expression on her face, she thought me a fool or a coward or both.
‘What about the girl?’ Father Judoc asked.
‘No good can come of her being here. You mark me, Brothers,’ Father Folant said, the first words he had spoken since Dristan had built up the fire.
‘She saved Galahad’s life,’ Father Yvain said, and there was weight in his words. Apart from Yvain himself, they had all been Brothers of the Thorn when I was brought to Ynys Wydryn. They had all heard the stories about me. They had listened as Prior Drustanus proclaimed that I was given to the order by God.
‘And she helped bring the cobbler here,’ Father Brice added, ‘for which we are grateful.’ Saying the words seemed almost to cause him pain, yet he persisted. ‘I say she may stay with us until the storm yields. With us, not among us,’ he clarified. ‘She will sleep in the byre. It will be warm enough in there, I think.’
My eyes met Iselle’s and she gave a slight nod as if to say that she was content to sleep in the byre with the cows. Perhaps she would even prefer it, and who could blame her after how we had treated her?
‘We are all tired,’ Father Brice said, ‘and some of us are soaked to the skin. Let us rest before prayers and be thankful that our brother Galahad has returned safely.’
‘And give thanks that three Saxons who were breathing this morning are feeding the fox this night.’ Father Yvain nodded at Iselle in a gesture as solemn as it was respectful.
‘Have Brother Meurig make you some hot food, Galahad,’ Father Brice ordered. ‘You must be hungry and will need your strength tomorrow.’ He saw me look at Iselle. ‘She will be fed, Galahad,’ Brice assured me, then nodded at Dristan, who half scowled, picked up a horn lantern and asked Iselle in a quiet voice to follow him to the byre.
I stood by the fire a little longer, letting it warm my wet clothes, then I went to find Father Meurig, who made me a bone broth thickened with parsnips and sweet chestnuts that soured with his chiding.
‘What got into you, Galahad? Going into the marsh alone! And without the Prior’s consent. Are you unwell? Did some malevolent spirit compel you?’
‘Perhaps,’ I teased, though I still shuddered to think of it.
‘Well, what did you see out there? Tell me or I shall not feed you.’ On and on he went, drawing the day from me like a man wringing foul water from a cloak’s hem. ‘The Saxons. Tell me about them. What did those devils look like?’
I slurped the hot broth down and made my escape, but even at prayers I felt the brothers’ questions weighing in their stares. They watched me from beneath heavy brows and from the corners of their eyes as they sang their praises to Christ and the Thorn. I felt their suspicions as a presence in the flame-played dark, as the storm tore at the thatch above our heads. I felt their mistrust, as sharp as the wind which sought through cracks in the old walls where the hazel and ash wattle showed.
For I had been out there in the marsh, beyond the sanctuary of Ynys Wydryn. I had seen with my own eyes things which only existed amongst us as whispers and rumour. The children of the reeds, as thin as the bulrushes, their swollen eyes watching me as I passed. The gallows creaking with the weight of the hanged. And, of course, our enemies the Saxons, who had been alive and fierce-eyed one moment and dead the next, their souls released to the afterlife by Iselle’s arrows. I had seen all these things and perhaps they had left a mark on me which changed my appearance in the brothers’ eyes. Like a scar which I had not had the day before, but which now compelled them to stare.