Wales from Anglesey, once called Mona, and before that other names as well.
Bangor had been a place of ritual for the Druids, but that was long ago.
Something stirred in me when I saw the view from there. Was it some ancient racial memory? Something buried deep in my flesh and bones?
Lila rode behind me into the village. My eyes were alert for trouble. From here our destination was clear: from the north coast a boat to Ireland; then to lose ourselves in that war-torn island where marched the armies of Lord Mountjoy.
Eyes turned upon us when we dismounted, for we were strangers, and Lila as tall as any man here, and as broad in the shoulders. She looked the Viking woman whose ancestors had once raided these shores, then settled here and across the water as well. They had founded Dublin. What was it the name first meant? Dark Pool, if I recalled correctly.
Recalled? How could I recall? But so I did ... no doubt something heard, something read, something dimly remembered from another time.
Yet I seemed to have passed this way before. Too many strange memories came to me now, too many whose origin I could not recall.
There was a roadside inn where fishermen and sailors stopped, or travelers like ourselves. And we went there now and sat at a table and were brought without asking-fish, bread, and ale.
The people were Welsh. Yet there might be spies among them, although I hoped my pursuers were far from us, seeking in Bristol, Falmouth, or Cornwall.
Traveling with a woman may have helped to fool them, for that they had no reason to suspect-nor that I would go into Wales. Yet I was ever a cautious man.
A distinguished-appearing man sat near us, with a thoughtful but stern face.
That he was a man of the Church was obvious.
'You travel far?'
Smiling, I said, 'It is my hope.'
'It is not many who come here,' he continued. 'I come for my health. It is the air of the sea, the smell of the ocean.'
'It is a place for poets,' I said, 'or warriors.'
'Are they not often the same?' He looked from Lila to me. 'Your accent is strange,' he said, 'yet your companion, I'd say, is of Anglesey.'
'You'd be right,' I said. 'She lived here once.' About myself I said nothing. He was curious, yet I liked the man. He was someone I should have liked to spend a few hours with, talking over the ale, and watching the ships, feeling the wind in my hair.
'I am Edmund Price, of Merionethshire,' he said.
'You are a poet,' I said, 'spoken of in London and Cambridge.'
'So far off? I had not realized my poor talents were known.'
'The tongue of Wales is music, and you write it well.'
'Thank you. That was well said. You are a poet also?'
I shrugged. 'I am nothing. A man of the sword, perhaps. A man yet to shape his way.' I looked at him with respect. 'You, they say, are a man of vast learning, familiar with many languages.'
He shrugged. 'The more one learns the more he understands his ignorance. I am simply an ignorant man, trying to lessen his ignorance.'
'I spoke of travel,' I said, 'and not lightly. I go to Raleigh's land.'
'Ah, yes ... Raleigh. Well, he has acquired a name these last few years, has he not? Men speak of these new lands. I wonder if they are new.'
'Who knows? Where man is able to go, man has been. The Irish, they say, sailed over the sea long since, and the Welsh, under Madoc.'
'The Irish at least,' he replied. 'Do you know the tale of Gudlief Gudlaugson, who sailed from the west of Ireland in 1029 with a northeast wind, and was driven far to the southwest, and finally found shelter upon a lonely coast and found there Bjorn Ashbraudson, who had left Ireland thirty years before? It is a known story among us, and many another like it.
'There were Danes settled in Ireland who heard the old Irish stories, and for many a year the land now called America was called Greater Ireland, and the stories were the Irish had been to far western lands even as they had to Iceland.'
'I know nothing of these stories. I only know what I have said, that where men can go, they will go, and what is so hard about crossing a sea? It is sailing along shore that is dangerous, and men had sailed from Egypt to Crete and even to the western ocean shores of Spain in the time of Solomon, which is a farther distance than from Iceland to America.'
We talked of many things, and it was a pleasure. But the time drew on, and Lila nudged my foot under the table.
'Now we shall go,' I said.
'Go,' Edmund Price said, 'and may the Good Lord go with you.'
'Thank you,' I said.
I turned toward the door, where Lila already was, and reached for my purse.
Edmund Price lifted a hand to stop me. 'Please! Allow me, Barnabas Sackett.'
And I was in the saddle and riding out of town before I realized that he had called me by my name!
Anglesey was a lower land, a flatter and sunlit land. And we rode swiftly up the coast toward the point from which we must take to the water, and there were behind us no apparent pursuers.
Where now was Abigail? Where was our ship? How far at sea? Whose hand was at the helm? Who lined up the fo'm'st on a distant star?
We rode across the moors, past quiet farms and between stone walls that guarded fields to right and left. We rode at last to Trearddur Bay, and to a small house there of sticks and plaster, a cozy and warm cot, under low trees with vines all about and some flowers, and it had a view over the bay, and of the mountain that towered to the north.
At the door we drew up. Lila called out, and the low door was opened by a tall man, a very tall man, for when he straightened up from the door he was taller than Lila, a man with a red beard and shoulders rolling with muscle under a flimsy shirt.
'Ha!' He looked at Lila. 'You've come home, have you? And who is the man?'
'His future belongs to my mistress. We seek a boat, Owain.'
'A boat? To where would you sail, sister?'
'To Ireland to find a ship for America.'
'America, is it? You'd go there?'
'It is my destiny.'
'Well, look for cousins there. We had those who sailed with Madoc, long, long ago. And others who went looking for them later. And once I talked to a Dane who had gone there in an Irish ship. He was an old man, very old, yet he spoke of wonderful things, palm trees like those in Africa, and great stone buildings, and people who wear feathers. You go to a wild land, but it is at a good time you come, for a ship lately here lies now off Ireland, if you can catch her. She is small, but seaworthy. Her captain is from Iceland. But how to get there? I do not know how it will be done.'
'Is it far?'
He shrugged a heavy shoulder. 'If you wish to know, you must ask the wind.' He looked closely at me. 'Is it because of the girl that you hurry? Or are there those behind you?'
I smiled at him. 'A little of both. The girl, of course, for I love her very much, and would be with her. As for those behind me, if I am caught it goes hard with me and I do not think I will let them take me. The sea is too close, and my sword too sharp. There would be a fight, I think.'
He chuckled, deep in his heavy chest. 'There speaks a man. Go within.' He gestured. 'Your mam will see you, Lila. Feed him. He will need his strength where he goes now, and if he sails with the Icelander, he will need it well. Go.
I shall find a boat, and if there be strangers coming, I'll give a call in time.
