Historical Setting, 629 C.E. The Farm in the Vosges Mts.
Haberd said Hannah wasn’t at the farmhouse today. He suspects she left after the clean-up from the wedding with that Avar fellow she met there.
“Don’t worry, Papa, you know Hannah – she’s the very measuring stick of healthy rules.”
“She’s an adult, of course. I never worry about Hannah.”
I ask Haberd about the horses that are here. “Are Gaillard and Greg being any more considerate in using your pastures these days?”
“They aren’t going off with an army just now, and these few horses are fine here. Greg and Gaillard are here too, just now, so they didn’t leave me to tend their beasts for them this time.”
Haberd is back at his chores. I would help him, but my mind is on an unspoken worry. I need this moment to notice better things. The purity of contentment, that happily ever after flows rich in the winds off this hilltop. The beautiful beasts graze naked of their war armor in these peaceful days of midsummer.
I’m thinking of that summer so many years ago, when Ana and I rode horses through the island sandbars in the rivers of Gaul. She was a fair maiden then on her quest for learning all the newest things of medicine for women. Now, after all these children, she sends me up to the farm to find that one daughter who is the physician herself, now, growing and learning in the shadow of her mother. She wants Hannah’s blade to pierce her breast and capture that pit of death that looms before us. She knows full well what this means, and how rarely a surgeon’s blade can lessen the threat. But it is something to try. Dear God, stay close.
Somewhere in my thoughts, here is Greg standing next to me in person, not just imagined.
“Is everything all right, Papa?”
“I was just thinking about horses. You know, before you were born your mother and I rode all through Burgundy with messages from Father Columbanus to the Frankish bishops.”
“I know. The Celtic Father was hoping to make a peace with them but it never was.”
“Well, regardless of the failed politics of that mission, it worked out quite well for your mother and I. But now, I don’t even know if your mother still dreams of beautiful journeys.”
“Do you want to borrow two horses for a journey, Papa?”
“Thank you, Greg, I’ll ask her.”
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 