Greetings, Amathus
How my heart leapt when I read the scroll your brave courier risked his life to bring. My own life has moved far from those innocent days when we gave that thin and trembling boy food and shelter. For several years we raised you as one of our own. I helped, of course, and watched and studied that intense boy with the blue-green eyes.
It has always been the custom among the Môecini to let the fates weave their pattern, especially within the minds and hearts of those in the care of the Druid tribes. So, when they saw us falling in love, they let us be; knowing that the life-thread would both add to the depth of my training as Priestess, and broaden the dimensions of your young life.
I know, without asking, that we hold in our hearts the memory of that final parting, in the grove by the sacred pool, when we pledged, on the light of the full moon, our undying love for each other…
How life broadens the view of such moments. Can the child determine what is right for the mature warrior or priestess? Of course not; and so I had cast you from my mind, dear Amethus, thus freeing you to continue your adventures… and me to turn, forcefully, to the study of the magic of the women and men who walk the paths of the spirit, in the love of the land.
We have both changed so much, my love…
I put aside my cloak of power; my wrought silver that sings to the Moon; my twin daggers that determine life and death when cast into the shallows of the waters by the grove when she is full.
I put them aside, for but a moment, so that I may speak to you as you remember me, and only for that moment; so that we may share one more time, and for the last time, the joy and the thrill of our short journey, together.
I do this because I, too, remember how perfect that love was. But like the traces of the far-line of the returning sea on the beaches of Môna, it was swept away by currents bigger and more righteous than our little hearts.
Do not strain your Centurion’s heart for me, my once-love. Do not think in terms of blood and sacrifice. We have long known that our days were ending. We do not see the divisions of life and death; only the turning of life-seasons, as the plant rises above the soil, ripens, is taken for its goodness, falls and is returned to the soil, again, to leave the root to work its magic in the dark places and re-kindle that silver blood that is life in the world.
Your leader, Suetonius Paulinus is well known to us. His coming, and its meaning, are written in the living silences of the sacred groves. We do not fear what must come to pass.
Be peaceful. Learn to read what must be, and study its unfolding for what others miss. We taught you this, once. Honour us, now, by holding it in front of your heart with the sword you must wield. My little gift accompanies this wish. May your courier ride on the hidden wings of the night.
Do your duty, brave warrior. Do not question that my flesh and blood are the fateful price of that meeting to come… Be true to the weave.
Camma, High Priestess, Môecini Druid People.
Other parts of this story:
Môna Insula was the Roman word for the Isle of Anglesey, the location for the Silent Eye’s December 2016 pre-Solstice weekend and the last stronghold of the Druids in A.D. 60.
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