“It’s a fine day,” Alys commented, squinting at the cloudless sky.
“I was wed in rain,” Old Benedikt said with a chuckle, “and never noticed a drop of it.”
She smiled at him. “I remember your wedding day,” she said. “And Ailish, all smiles. You must miss her, Ben.”
He nodded. His wife of many years had died from a sudden fever the winter before, with their children and grandchildren watching in sorrow. She was buried now in the village graveyard with a small stone marker marking her place, and room beside her for Old Benedikt when his time came.
“Look there, at Tall Andras, watching the girl,” Old Benedikt said with a chuckle, and pointed. “He’s bent near double with longing for her, isn’t it so?”
They both watched with amusement as the young man’s lovesick gaze followed Claire, who was helping with the flowers. She hardly noticed him.
“She puzzles me, Benedikt.”
“Aye. She’s a mystery. But a splendid one!” While they watched, Claire lifted one of the little girls and helped her weave daisies into the twigs of the bower. The other little ones waited eagerly for their turns. “They follow her like kittens after the mother cat, don’t they?”
“Do you know she fears cats? Even kittens? As if she never see’d such before,” Alys told him.
“And birds, I hear.”
“Lame Einar caught a bird for her, and wove a cage for it. She’s learning to like it now, for it sings nicely. But, Ben—?”
“Aye?”
“I had to tell her the colors of it. She don’t know the names! Yellow, and red: it’s as if they are new to her. And yet she’s clever! Clever as can be! She creates games for the little girls, and helps me with the herbs, but—”
“I never knowed one who couldn’t say the colors. Not even one who is weak in the mind, like Ailish’s nephew, who’s like a young boy though he’s thirty! Even he cries for his blue shirt instead of the green,” Old Benedikt said.
“Not Water Claire. She may long for the blue but don’t know its name. She’s learning now. But she’s like a babe about it.”
“So you’ve got you a wee babe to tend, after all these years without,” he teased her.
He patted her hip through her thick skirt, and she pushed his hand away. “Let me be, you old fool,” she told him fondly.
Five
Tell me about weddings,” Claire asked as she and Alys carried the nutcake they had made to the feast table, where it would be placed with the festive puddings and sweets. “Does everyone have one? Did you?”
Alys laughed. “Not me,” she said. “But most do, when they reach an age, as Martyn and Glenys. When they choose each other, and the parents say aye, then we have the Handfasting. Always in summer, usually at new moon.”
Summer. Claire had learned, already, from Alys that summer is a time of year, the time of sunshine and crops and the birth of young animals. It had been one more thing she had not known.
She waited while Alys rearranged some of the other foods in order to make room. Then she set down their cake and together they decorated its edge with yellow daisies.
The village people were gathering. No one, not even the fishermen, was at work today. Babies perched atop their fathers’ shoulders. Claire saw Tall Andras with his parents, the three of them scrubbed and dressed in their best clothing. She could see that his mother was not well; she leaned on her son, and was flushed with fever, though she smiled and greeted the others.
Bryn waved to Claire. She was holding Bethan’s hand. For once the three little girls were separate, each with their families. Claire could see that beneath her lace-trimmed apron, Bryn’s body had thickened with the coming child. Alys thought the time of danger was past and that this one would survive.
“Oh! What’s that?” Claire asked, startled at a sound. From the path, several young village men approached and the crowd opened to make way for them. One was blowing into a carved flute. Another kept time on a small drum made from an animal skin stretched across a hollowed gourd. The third plucked at strings stretched across a long-necked instrument made of wood. Moving in time with the melody, they entered the circle that had opened to admit them as Claire watched from where she and Alys stood at the edge.
“It’s so lovely! Listen! How they make the sounds go together! I’ve never heard anything like that before!”
Alys frowned. “It’s music, child. Have you never heard music? Have you forgotten it?”
“No, never,” Claire whispered. “I’m quite sure.”
The Handfasting ceremony ended as Martyn and Glenys kissed each other, and the red ribbon that had been wound around them unfurled, loosened, and freed them. The musicians began again, with a louder, rollicking tune, and the villagers cheered and turned to the waiting feast.
Claire stood silent, awed by the music, puzzled by the concept of love, and moved by both the solemnity and the celebration of the occasion. When she turned to look through the noisy, laughing throng for Alys, she suddenly noticed Lame Einar standing alone on a small rise at the edge of the meadow. While she watched, he adjusted the two sticks that supported him, turned, and hobbled slowly away. For a moment she thought of running over to invite him back, to entice him to join in. But her attention was drawn by the music. Never had she heard such an enticing thing as music, she was sure of it! And now the villagers were choosing partners, forming lines, and moving in time to the cheerful melody. Surely Einar would enjoy watching, even if he couldn’t do the quick hopping steps that they all seemed to know. They could watch together. But when she looked back for him, it was too late. He had disappeared into the woods.
Back to daily tasks after the excitement and holiday of the Handfasting, Tall Andras knelt in the field and meticulously tied together the thick branches that would form the body of the mommet. Then, after he had decided on a spot, in the center of the young, sprouting crops, he pushed the main branch into the earth and patted the dirt firmly around its base so that it stood upright without tilting. He dressed it, carefully fitting the wide sleeves of a ragged coat over the two stick arms. He tied a sash around the middle to hold the coat closed, but loosely, so that the breeze would lift and sway the fabric. He stood back and watched with satisfaction as the cloth moved. The ends of the arm branches, extending from the sleeves, looked like beckoning, skeletal hands.