Blood, Soul and Magic by Elizabeth Davies

Author:Elizabeth Davies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elizabeth Davies
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The crow of the cockerel woke me as it did every morning. The darned thing started before the sun had risen, and if it was in the mood it would carry on for most of the day. Keeping my eyes closed to eke out the last remnants of sleep, I stretched, easing out bed-stiffened muscles. The smell of oatcakes lingered, and my stomach rumbled in response. I adored Herleva’s oatcakes. She made them with honey and those tiny dried-up fruits they called raisins. I had not seen them before I came to Normandy, for we did not grow grapes in Wales. Too wet and cold for them, apparently.

Giving in to the cockerel’s insistence and the need to start the fire before Fulbert and his sons demanded their breakfasts, I opened my reluctant lids. The light was wrong, the shadows slanting, hard and crisp across the floor. Early morning light in high summer was softer, more delicate.

‘Hello?’ I called.

I sat up.

Silence. Not even the cockerel answered and the hearth was similarly quiet, the fire almost out. Someone must have been up early and lit it. I wondered why I had not been woken, if not deliberately, then by the noise of Herleva baking her oatcakes.

Pushing back the thin blanket, I saw I was still fully dressed, though my boots were paired neatly beside the pallet. The last thing I remembered was Arlette waking me to help with a cow in calf. I recalled I had put on my work dress, followed Arlette outside, and then felt unwell. Everything afterwards descended into dream-fuelled delirium. A cat, indeed. Huh! At least they had let me sleep off my fever, and had left me a plate of oatcakes. The kindness was from Herleva, I suspected. Arlette was not at all thoughtful and the men of the house ignored me, for the most part.

Stiff and a little sore, my muscles trembling with remembered ache, I got to my feet. Two of them, not four. The dream had been so real, so vivid, even clearer than the ones I’d had of Herleva before I arrived in Normandy. The ones I had called visions.

Herleva had said in my dream we had a connection, that I was bound to her. Maybe she was right. My mother and I had been the same. I would dream of her, only for her to confirm the truth later. My dreams had not been dreams at all, but visions, so she claimed. I had so wanted to be like her, but Father was a Christian, and Mother insisted I was not to follow in her footsteps. Her religion was a dying one, fraught with danger if discovered. Heretics and pagans were hung if caught. But the connection was there, all the same, regardless of our different gods.

Was Herleva a follower of the pagan ways I wondered, as I bit into an oatcake. Sweetness exploded in my mouth and I moaned with delight. I could not recall the last time I had felt such hunger.

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