A Moment in Time

time. What was it that she would learn? It was a puzzle that was beginning to fascinate her more now than it had before.

During the next few days Wynne rested and studied with Madoc in his high tower chamber. His knowledge of ancient Celtic medicine simply astounded her, and he willingly passed on to her a great deal of this valuable knowledge. It was unfortunate that some of that lore would be useless to her because many of the ingredients, once so easily available for the taking, could no longer be found growing. They had simply disappeared. They were irreplaceable, of course, because no one knew with what to replace them in the formulae.

Once there had been a special parasitic mistletoe that grew only upon the sacred oaks so beloved of the Celts. It had been used for healing serious cancers, but the mistletoe now available was not the same plant that had been used in those long gone days. That particular growth, Madoc told her, had been lost along with their sacred hosts when the Romans, and those other conquerors of the island of Britain who followed after them, viciously destroyed the oaks in an effort to wipe out the Celtic culture.

Madoc would have taught Wynne certain forms of spells and bindings, but she would not let him. His special knowledge was a great temptation that she feared she might be unable to control. Wynne knew that if she had Madoc's knowledge of sorcery, no matter her good intentions, she might one day lose her temper and do a harm she might later regret and be unable to undo. She remembered a fairy tale her grandmother used to tell about an unhappy queen, stepmother to four beautiful children, the three sons and the daughter of a king called Lir. Jealous, the queen had used her knowledge of magic to turn the children into swans. Quickly regretting her hasty actions, the queen found she could not undo her spell, and her husband died brokenhearted.

There were other dangers in Madoc's knowledge. It made his neighbors and those who did not know him well fearful of him. If her own learning extended too far past mere medicine, and word of it got out, which it always did, she might attract the attention of those who would seek to use and control her for their own wicked purposes. As it was, there were some, particularly in the Church, who would feel her knowledge was too great for a woman. Women like that were always a danger. She had the children she would bear Madoc to consider. She must walk a fine line.

The weather had turned warm, perhaps too warm for late March. Wynne fretted that there would be no flowering branches with which to decorate the Great Hall of Raven's Rock when their wedding day arrived. She grumbled about this to Madoc as they rode out over the hills one afternoon, and he laughed.

'The warmth is but a brief thing, dearling. It will storm by nightfall and turn cool, I promise. There will be more than enough flowers and flowering branches when May first arrives,' he assured her.

'If it gets too cold the buds will be frosted and ruined,' she grumbled.

'There will be no frost,' he replied.

'You are certain?' she demanded.

'I am,' he chuckled. 'Like Nesta, I am sensitive to the weather. It will rain for the next few days, I promise you.'

'Then perhaps tonight,' Wynne told him, 'I will begin my journey in time.'

'So soon, my dearling?' His blue eyes bespoke his distress.

'Madoc,' Wynne said in the severe tone of a mother reasoning with an unruly child, 'You want me to go, and then you do not want me to go! I no longer care! I do this for you. Tell me yea or nay, now! Then we will have no more of it!'

'You must go,' he finally agreed, 'though I fear your return even more than your going.'

Wynne reached out and took his hand in hers. 'I love you, Madoc of Powys. What has been done is done for me. It is the present and the future that I love and reach out for; not a past that seems to haunt you so.'

'I pray it be so, dearling,' he said squeezing her hand.

'Though I must do this alone, Madoc, I ask of one thing of you,' Wynne said softly.

'Anything!' he vowed.

'Be there when I awaken, my lord. Let your dear face be the first thing that I see when my eyes open once again upon this time and this place,' she replied.

'I will be there, my love! I swear it!' he told her, and she was startled to see tears in his beautiful blue eyes.

Wynne reached out and touched his face with her hand, comforting him as best she could. Though the past meant nothing to her now, she had to learn the truth of what had once been between them for both their sakes. The sadness his face had taken on unnerved her. What was so awful that he feared for her to know it, and yet insisted that she did? 'Let us hurry home, my lord, for I feel my nerve beginning to waver, yet go on this journey in time I must!'

When they returned to Raven's Rock, Wynne kissed Madoc in such a way that he knew she was saying her farewell to him. He could not remain within their apartments, and fled to his tower for comfort. Megan had prepared her mistress's bath, and Wynne bathed quickly, donning a soft silk chamber robe in her favorite grass-green, which was lined in an equally soft rabbit's fur. Megan was instructed to pour her lady a goblet of sweet wine. Wynne mixed Madoc's herbs into it.

'Go to my lord, Megan,' Wynne told the girl, 'and say that I have taken his sleeping mixture. When I awaken I shall know all. Remind him also of his promise to me.' Then lifting the goblet, Wynne immediately drained it. She handed the vessel to Megan and lay back upon her pillows.

Almost at once her eyes felt abnormally heavy. Her entire being seemed to be sinking, but before she could even consider being fearful, Wynne fell into a deep slumber. She felt as if she were falling, falling, falling; and yet there was now a weightlessness to her body. She wanted to open her eyes, but she could not. There was no sound. It was as if she floated within a great nothingness. I want to know! she thought desperately. I must know what it is that binds me to, yet separates me from Madoc! I must know!

Then suddenly above her a raven cried. Remember! Remember! About her a faint mauve mist blew like pieces of shredded silk gauze, obscuring her vision. Then all at once the mists were gone. Wynne found herself in a thick woods. A voice was calling to her, and yet it was not she who answered-or was it? She could feel her own life force ebbing, even as another life force surged forward; but she was not afraid.

'Rhiannon! Rhiannon, where are you?!'

'Over here, Angharad. Oh, come and look! Do come!'

Angharad, catching sight of her elder sister at last, prodded her mount through the trees to the edge of the dark green and gold forest where Rhiannon sat upon her own horse, peering intently through the trees. 'What is so interesting that you would not answer me?' she demanded. Though younger than her sister, Angharad had always felt older, wiser, and protective of her beauteous elder sibling.

Rhiannon pointed with a slender finger.

Sapphire-blue eyes followed her sister's delicate direction. Angharad stared for a moment, and then she said in a disappointed tone, 'It is only a party of Cymri huntsmen, Rhiannon. There is nothing particularly fascinating about them.'

'Not all of them, silly,' Rhiannon admonished her sister. 'Him! Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. Is he not the most beautiful creature that you have ever seen in all of your existence?'

Angharad looked again and, seeing nothing she thought unusual, she wrinkled her pretty nose. 'He is Cymri,' she repeated, as if that explanation should be enough for her sister's understanding.

'Ohhh, look!' the besotted Rhiannon cried out. 'He is dancing upon the mound! Is he not amusing, sister?'

'He's drunk with mead,' replied Angharad pointedly, 'or else he would not dare to do it. The Cymri believe that those mounds are entries into the worlds below the earth. What foolish beings they are. I've heard it said that they think if they tread even accidentally upon those grassy hillocks that they will invite enchantment. What silliness!'

'Pwyll,' called one of the huntsmen to the dancer. 'Come down off that damned mound! Are ye courting