Page 31 of The Road to Avalon
“What d’you mean?” I asked, my eyes darting between my furious brother-in-law and my stepson. “Where’s she gone?”
Llacheu swallowed. “Coventina gave her permission. I couldn’t really stop them– her. What was I supposed to do? Lock her up when her mother had said she could go?”
Cei loomed over him. “Did you not think thatIwouldn’t givemypermission for such a thing? That this was not what I had planned for my daughter?”
Llacheu remained seated. Maybe he suspected that if he got to his feet Cei might deck him. His uncle certainly had his hammy hands clenched into enormous fists.
Arthur did stand up, and put a restraining hand on Cei’s arm. “You haven’t told uswhereshe’s gone yet.”
Cei spluttered as though he could barely get the words out. “She’s gone to Ynys Witrin.” His breath was coming in heaving breaths as though he’d been running. “She’s gone to be a…religious.” He said the last word with so much venom anyone would have thought she’d gone to sell sex on the streets of Caer Baddan.
“Is-is that so bad?” I ventured. Not what I’d want for Archfedd, but this was an era of strong religious beliefs, so if Cei’s daughter had decided the life of a nun was for her, who were we to object? Not that I’d ever noticed her having a strong religious bent before. That she should suddenly decide she had one puzzled me a bit.
The door opened and Coventina limped in.
“Well,” Arthur said with a hint of exasperation. “That’s almost all of us. Now we just need Medraut and Amhar, and the whole family’ll be here giving their opinions.”
Cei swung round on his wife. “Why did you let her go?”
Coventina sank into Arthur’s vacated chair and put her head in her hands. “I couldn’t stop her. She told me she had a vocation. A calling. I couldn’t stand in her way. What would you have had me do?”
For answer Cei just growled.
Arthur frowned. “Wait a minute. We’ve only been gone three weeks. How does a girl come by a religious vocation in so short a time? Answer me that, someone?”
Cei nodded. “He’s right. What’s been going on?”
A silence fell.
At last, Coventina raised her head from her hands. “She’s been riding over to Ynys Witrin,” she whispered. “With Medraut and Amhar.”
Everyone stared at her.
“Why?” Cei asked after a moment, his voice laden with menace. “Why has she been riding with them? Who let her do that? A girl with two men. Was she unescorted?” It didn’t matter that they were her cousins. A young unmarried girl shouldn’t be alone with a man– still worse with two of them.
Llacheu eyed his aunt. “I didn’t know she was until it was too late.”
Of course. Archfedd had told me how Medraut had pestered her to ride out with him. With her gone, had he turned his attentions to Reaghan? What was going on here? The suspicion that Medraut had some hidden purpose nudged at me. He wasn’t a young man who did anything without a good reason. But why encourage Reaghan to a religious life? How did that suit him? I refused to consider that he just wanted to be friends with his younger cousins– there had to be an ulterior motive behind his actions.
And for some reason Amhar had involved himself in this, as well.
Coventina bit her lip. “He’s such a polite young man,” she whispered. “And he’s her cousin. As is Amhar. He asked me if he could take her riding and I– I said yes. I didn’t find out they’d been going as far as Ynys Witrin until it was too late.”
Arthur’s frown deepened. “But what were they doing on the holy island? The monks at the abbey wouldn’t have let Reaghan in. They don’t take in female religious devotees. They’re all male.”
Tears trickled down Coventina’s cheeks. “You’re right. They don’t. But there’s a little chapel there that a woman called Brigid set up. She was an Irish woman, fled from the wilderness that’s her homeland. She came here a few years ago and settled on Ynys Witrin, but I think she’s gone, now. They call her chapel Bec Eriu. It’s there that Reaghan’s gone.”
“Then I’ll go and fetch her back,” Cei stormed. “No daughter of mine is wasting her life in a chapel when she could be married and giving me grandsons.”
Coventina shook her head. “She won’t come. She’s set her heart on this. I did try to dissuade her, I promise you, but she has it in her head that she has a calling. That she’s meant to live the life of a religious, like Brigid did.”
“She’ll do as she’s told,” Cei snapped.
Arthur rubbed his chin and shook his head. “Do you really want to charge over there and drag her back kicking and screaming?”
Cei nodded. “Yes, I do. She’s my daughter and she has to do as I say.”
“What do you think that will do to her?” For once Arthur was showing insight into how our children thought, although if this were Archfedd he’d already be on his way to snatch her back. Easier to be sensible about someone else’s child.
