Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 794 C.E.
The young woman who was rescued from intentional drowning on Christmas, then chained in the tower as demon possessed, then escaped, and found by me on this river bank contemplating grief, is talking with me about perspective.
The tiny specs of human existence on the opposite bank of the Don are this child’s whole life. What to her is untamed forests concealing a world of paupers, was the only world she had known until she was taken by a powerful “Mister,” I think she means ealdorman, into a castle (a simple house) and there she was the victim of this little man, bearing his child, then being “trashed” or discarded, or dismissed, when the infant was a year old. Without the care of a mother, the baby died, and now grief is the largest thing in her landscape.
So now where can she go if she could survive all this? I ask her about the paupers in the woods.
“Are the people in the woods your family?”
“No, they are old and poor.”
“Before you were a child with them in the woods who cared for you?”
“They said I once had a mamma, who gave her baby to them. She is gone. Only ones left are them now, who traded with Mister — me, for the King’s letter.”
“What names do you call them by?”
“Gramps and Old Ma and…”
“Do you think they miss you, now?”
“No, no, not me. They wanted a princess from the castle. The princess was always in their stories all shared around, and then they traded me, and I was supposed to change into the princess in the castle until… (she is sobbing) I can’t go back to them and tell them I was dismissed. Mister will want the King’s letter back. And here I am not a real princess, with nothing at all, no baby prince, no riches, no crown, no nothing –only one old robe.”
She is still wrapped in my own fine cloak. My cloak is no “old robe,” it is the scholar’s cloak that I traded with Cloothar for a monk’s robe and a few days’ work.
Now, when we walk along the river in the direction of the sea and come to the mooring harbor. There, are the little boats waiting for high tide to row up the river. I see Cloothar’s boat is moored here today, either a very fine coincidence, or a blessing.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 