Agnes Unvirgin by Adele Megann
In a fictionalised version of medieval Ireland, scruffy and absent-minded Agnes consults some curiously clairvoyant locals about how to become a saint.
Once there was Agnes. She lived in a little village in Medieval Ireland. I won't bother to describe it, because you've already got a picture of it your head, a false one, as false as any with which I might provide you. Whatever. Our joint illusions have provided my story a setting. It's time to climb into this story together, and move on.
So! Agnes. I know what you're thinking. What kind of Medieval Irish name is Agnes? (You weren't?) Agnes' biggest problem was not her name. Agnes's biggest problem was that she did not quite fit the medieval Irish village. Some might say that she was ahead of her time, but no, she was right there, in her time.
Agnes was not a misfit in a blaring way. She was rather like someone whose buttons are not done up right. From a distance they look just a little off. Closer up, there's definitely a problem.
Agnes never went to bed at quite the right time. Either too early or too late, both to the distress of family and neighbours. She was often in the wrong place. For example, alone.
Worst of all, she somehow always looked as if her clothes were about to fall off. Before you think, "Ah, slut," let me tell you, that, in fact, her ignorance of the social laws of modesty had more to do with a preoccupied mind than with flirtatious desires. And the men of the village knew that. They grinned at Agnes, and nudged each other as she walked by, and said, "Get a load of Agnes," or the medieval Irish equivalent. Their wives would just roll their eyes, because none of the men actually touched Agnes. They could tell the difference between Agnes', "What's it to me if you can see my ankles?" and Mairéad's "Come hither." Agnes was a virgin, but not. But not by having ceased to become one. She never was. An unvirgin, so to speak. Agnes Unvirgin.
But Agnes' biggest character flaw was in the asking of questions. In these days, she might quietly go off to a library or the Internet or one of those stores, seeking answers. But in those days, she had to be noisy about it. She had to ask live people. Why does the moon disappear? Why do men and woman dress differently? What's in that book?
This was Agnes' favourite question. If she could have answered it herself, she probably would never have asked another question. But Agnes was illiterate. Not unworded. She memorized great chunks of words, including poetry, songs, genealogies, prayers, and parts of the Mass. In Latin, a language she did not know.
So, you ask, from where did these books come, at which Agnes was pointing? Doesn't your stereotypical Irish village have a monastery plunk in the middle of it? Mine does. And a round tower. Picture the round tower: no doors, just windows, so far off the ground that they can only be reached by a ladder. Up which the monks would escape with their precious books when the Vikings were on their way.
Vikings come and go in medieval Ireland, and Agnes' part of Ireland was in a Viking lull during her lifetime. But the round tower was not neglected. Father Alcuin regularly hoisted himself up there with the most precious books of the monastery. Practice, he said. Vikings not being evident, he left the ladder in place. And Agnes climbed it.
"Where are you going?" a young monk yelled at her.
"Confession," she yelled back. Father Abbot witnessed this exchange and shook his tonsured head. What could he do? Irish monks had invented auricular confession, and they were rather proud of it. Father Alcuin was old, and although he was a little odd now, he had been a revered scholar. Besides, Father Alcuin was one of those kindly, wise, desexed - safe - father figure types. He spent most of his time reading, staring into still tubs of water, and talking utter nonsense about the things he saw there.
"Come in, Agnes," said Father Alcuin, as he helped Agnes through the window. "Why are your hands green?"
"I was practising," she replied.
"Ah, like I. Are you hiding from Vikings as well?"
"Whistling through blades of grass. All my brothers can do it. Why not I?"
Agnes recognized the book that Father Alcuin was studying today. It was the Sacramentary, the big book that the priest read out of during Mass. In the 19th century this very book will be discovered in a mortuary basement, and cause scholars no end of consternation and glee, disrupting and confirming theories left and right. For now it was on Father Alcuin's knee. She tapped the cover with a green finger. "What's in that book?"
"Haven't you heard it, Agnes?" replied Father Alcuin. "You've probably heard every word in this book read aloud at some point."
"Indeed," retorted Agnes, "In Latin. What's in that book?" This time she tapped the cover insistently enough that the young novice discretely sweeping pebbles at the foot of the tower could hear the taps. "I want to know what it means."
Father Alcuin laughed. "Why Agnes, just like your Great-Aunt Maeve! She always wanted to know what was in these books. That's how you came by your name."
"It is?" Agnes had never why known why she was so named. She just knew that her name wasn't Irish enough.
"St. Agnes is mentioned in the Eucharistic Prayer. Maeve remembered her, and insisted that you be named after her."
"Who is St. Agnes? Does she find sheep, or cure warts, or prevent blight?"
Father Alcuin found the green cord trailing out of the book, and turned to the page it marked. "There she is. Virgin and Martyr. She was stabbed in the throat."
"Lovely. What is Virgin and Martyr?"
"A class of saints."
"Class of saints?" asked Agnes. "There are classes of saints? Like, farmer, fisherman, soldier, invader?"
"Not quite." Father Alcuin pulled on the red cord. He found the page and smoothed his hand over it. "Here they are. The Commons of the Saints, listed by class. Popes who were martyrs. Popes who weren't martyrs. Bishop and martyr. Plain bishop. Priest and martyr. Plain priest. And so on."
"Doesn't sound like there are many classes for people."
Father Alcuin laughed. "All those saints were people, Agnes. They would probably be surprised now to see such labels attached to them."
"They aren't farmers or fishermen or soldiers."
"St. Martin was a soldier. Most of the apostles were fishermen. St. Benedict was a farmer, of course, as well as a monk. The occupations are somewhat represented."
"What about women?"
"There are several classes for them. For example, Virgins and Martyrs."
"And I suppose that there are martyrs not virgins," asked Agnes.
"Certainly, like Perpetua."
"How do you know that she was not a virgin? Did they check?"
"She was married when she was thrown to the lions. So we assume the best. Or the worst, depending on your point of view. Some Church Fathers recommended virginity even within marriage. We can assume that they weren't Irish and had no need of lads to plough fields."
"Are there virgins not martyrs?" asked Agnes.
"Indeed. Such as St. Bridget. They usually founded convents. Or live as hermits near wells. Like St. Winifred."
"So a woman has to be a Virgin or a Martyr, preferably both, to be a saint?"
"Not necessarily. A woman could be a nec nec."
"Excuse me?"
"Nec virginis nec martyris. Neither Virgin nor Martyr. It's right here at the very end of the list." Father Alcuin turned the page and ran his finger down to the bottom.
"Who are they?" asked Agnes.
"Mostly widows," replied Father Alcuin. "Generally queens. They do good work after their husbands die. They usually do good work before their husbands die, too, like hold the kingdom together. But it's not polite to notice that. So if they feed a few orphans, the grateful people proclaim them saints."
"Does a woman have to be a widow in order to be a nec nec? Could she be married, or well, just, fallen?"
"She couldn't be fallen. She'd have to be reformed."
"That's what I meant," said Agnes, almost crossly. "I know we're talking about saints here."
Father Alcuin sat. Dying beams of sun angled in the window. There could have been dancing motes of dust, except Ireland is pretty bloody damp, so there's not much dust dancing around, especially inside stone round towers.
"There's Mary Magdalene," he said finally.
"She's a saint?" asked Agnes.
"She was the first to witness the resurrection. So they didn't have much choice than to make her a saint. Plus, she's in the Bible." Agnes nodded. She knew Bible stories. Father Alcuin liked to tell them during Mass.
"That's it?" asked Agnes. "A woman would have to know Jesus personally if she wanted to be a saint without being a virgin or a martyr or a widow or a queen?"
Father Alcuin sat and thought. The dust motes floated, or not, as you prefer. Finally he roused himself. "Have you ever heard of Scotland?"
"I haven't," answered Agnes. This was a lie. Agnes' Aunt Niamh had told her that Scotland was rocky land where savage people wore blankets, and lived on mountaintops with sheep. Agnes always answered "No" when anyone asked her if she'd heard of something or someone, because that's how she might learn more.
"A sturdy people," frowned Father Alcuin. "With great potential. They will have a Saint Margaret, wife of the King. She will die four days after he does. Of a broken heart. So she's neither a virgin nor a martyr, and barely a widow. Or will be. She will be a Queen, though."
"How do you know this?" asked Agnes.
"I'm ahead of my time," smiled Father Alcuin.
"I know what I want to be." Agnes stabbed the Sacramentary with a green forefinger. "I want to be a nec nec." She thrust her chin up, so that her own n-e-c-k was quite apparent. "I will redeem the memory of my namesake by being what she couldn't."
"Well, Agnes, " said Father Alcuin "You're well on your way. And perhaps it's time you did that."
"Do what?" asked Agnes.
"Go your way."
"What way?"
"Your own way."
"I don't get it," said Agnes.
"Don't be dense. Necs necs don't cut it in medieval Irish villages. Any woman who puts any finger on a sacred book, let alone a grass-stained one - the finger that is - needs to leave town to find her full potential."
"What's town?" asked Agnes.
"Oh, boy," said Father Alcuin. "All will be revealed in time. Let's just say it's time to think about going."
"Going where?" asked Agnes.
"Elsewhere," answered Father Alcuin.
Agnes hesitated and said nothing.
"My faith in you is immeasurable," said Father Alcuin. More silence. "To tell you the truth, Agnes, I don't have faith in much else. If this wasn't the middle ages, I'd probably be an agnostic history professor. But those days are yet to come. I believe in you. You must be believable." More silence. "What do you think?" asked Father Alcuin.
"I think you're right," said Agnes.
If anyone had asked Agnes to imagine one hundred things that Father Alcuin might have said in that round tower that fall day, she never would have guessed "leave town," even if she had known what "town" meant. Agnes couldn't see the future, but she often recognized it unfolding. So Agnes went home and collected her shoes and put them in a bag with both her pairs of socks and the few mysterious personal items that even a poor medieval peasant girl might have amassed. She said, "I'm off," to her mother and father and six siblings and four aunties, and left.
But Agnes had spent much of the day with Father Alcuin, and she had little daylight left. "I should have left in the morning," she thought. "People usually do, I suppose." In fact, when Father Alcuin spied Agnes and her sack trundling down the road, he yelled: "I didn't mean now! I meant eventually! For example, spring!" But by the time he had climbed down the ladder from his tower, Agnes had disappeared.
So Agnes had not gotten far before she needed a place to stay. When she came about the home of the tinker.
Now Agnes should have been scared. She should have been terrified. Because the tinker was, well, the tinker was a Jew, and this was the Middle Ages, remember, and Agnes had heard all about Jews. Aunt Niamh explained how they ate babies and peed in baptismal fonts, travesties which Agnes did not consider equivalent. Plus, they said the Mass backwards and inflicted deadly fevers just with their magic eyes.
But Agnes had not failed to notice that her fellow villagers had no problem buying the wares of the Jewish tinker. They ran their fingers over his fabrics, tapped on his pots, admired themselves in his mirrors. The day he brought a strange fruit, people came from miles around. Aunt Niamh traded three embroidered handkerchiefs for one of the fruits, and found it so dreadful, she told dreadful stories about Jews all night. Most of the villagers thought she just should have peeled it.
In any case, Agnes was not afraid. She walked up to the tinker's house, and knocked. The tinker's house was in fact his wagon with a teeny tiny house built on it. His donkey sat under a tree, untethered. The tinker opened the door. "What do you want?" he asked.
"I need a place to stay for the night."
"Are you sure you should be here? Apparently, Jews eat children and you look pretty young to me. Haven't you heard?"
"I've heard that you are magic."
"You've heard that?"
"Because you make stories sprout wherever you walk. Stories rise up from your footprints like bog gas."
"Indeed," said the Jew. "Horrible stories. Aren't you afraid?"
"I'm not," said Agnes. "I am only afraid of boredom. Anyone who can inspire such marvellously horrible stories cannot be boring."
"But what if the stories are true?"
"All stories are true," said Agnes. "And false. Are you going to let me in?"
He did. "What brings you out on this dark night?"
"I'm leaving. Going elsewhere."
"Ah. The road."
"I'm not going to stay on the road all the time," said Agnes crossly.
"Agnes, I'm not talking about this cow path. The life of the road. You will inspire many to leave town and enter history. The road is a far more Irish activity than your people are willing to admit."
"What is 'town'?" asked Agnes.
"All in good time," said the tinker. He cleared a wooden box and a basket off a bench and said, "Sit. Have you eaten?"
"I haven't," said Agnes.
"Then I will feed you. Would you like a barley pancake?"
"I would love one."
"Indeed you would not. No one loves barley pancakes. Oh, the world will change, Agnes, yours and mine, when the potato comes to Ireland. Pancakes, Agnes. Latkes, boxty, colcannon, blood, tears. Nothing will ever be the same. Blood and tears. The poor turnip. Everyone in Europe will forget it, except the Irish. They have soft hearts for humble things. But it will not save them from the potato."
"What's potato?" said Agnes. "What are latkes and boxty?"
"Have you ever been told, Agnes, that you ask too many questions?"
"Many times," answered Agnes. "I think that's why I'm here."
"To ask me questions?"
"Not exactly."
The tinker sighed. "Agnes, did you know that it's traditional to run away from home in the spring? I think it's time I showed you some Jewish magic." He reached behind a stack of linen and pulled out a bottle, a green glass bottle.
"Oh my," said Agnes. The only glass containers she had ever seen were the bottles that held the water and wine in church.
"Oh, Agnes," said the tinker, "The contents are even more oh my. Have you ever heard of Scotland?"
"I haven't," she lied again.
"Now, Agnes, no one drinks like the Irish. The Irish drink with greater sorrow and joy and anger and laughter than anyone. I would rather drink with no one else in the world, including the Italians who are the greatest fun. But that stuff you drink!" He uncorked the green glass bottle. "It's good the Irish become drunk quickly. The sooner they can no longer taste the stuff, the better. The Scots are not the greatest drinkers, nor the most fun. They mostly get angry and break things. Usually their heads. But the Scots, they can make the stuff. Now, that is magic." The tinker tapped the bottle. It chimed confidently. "Every fall I acquire one bottle of Scottish magic." The tinker reached into a box and produced two tin cups. "I trade whatever I have. A bale of linen if required." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Every night I cover the bottom of my cup." The tinker poured liquid into one cup. "When the bottle is empty, spring is here. Never fails. It's that simple. This year's is the best I have ever tasted. And I've tasted a lot." He poured some into the other cup. "And this year, because of you, Agnes, spring will come one day sooner. And that is Irish magic."
The tinker picked up the cup and gingerly sipped. "Go ahead, Agnes," he said.
She slipped her hand around the cup. She raised it to her lips and drank.
And coughed. And coughed.
"It's a sipping drink," said the tinker. "Sorry. I should have warned you. Try again."
And she did. And there she was, in Scotland, on a mountain with a million tiny flowers of every colour. Yellow and red and blue and green lichen. And moss you could sleep on. Agnes set down the cup.
"I didn't know mountains could be so beautiful," she said.
"Mountains?" asked the Jew, raising his eyebrows.
"Scotland," she replied. "It is rather beautiful, if stark."
The tinker raised his eyes further, and started to laugh. And Agnes remembered that she was supposed to know nothing about Scotland. She blushed. And Agnes wasn't given much to blushing.
In the morning, Agnes headed back over the road, after bidding farewell to the tinker. "When the sun is setting," said the tinker, "You will reach a village where there is another woman who shouldn't be there. Find her. That is where you will spend the winter."
But you want to know what happened after the Scotch whiskey, don't you? Well, I'm not telling, because no matter what I say, you'll get the wrong idea. You already have it. Let's just say that the tinker was particularly looking forward to spring arriving a day early this year. And he had absolutely no doubt that it would.
At sunset, Agnes met a boy whistling down the road. "Where can I find the woman who does not belong here?" she asked.
"Besides you?" answered the boy. Before she had time to respond to that crack, he waved his hand towards the woods. "The Moor. The one who weaves."
Agnes found the weaver's cottage in a brief clearing. Again, she knocked on a door. The strangest woman she had ever seen answered it. She was dressed like a priest on a feast day. Her skin was darker than the O'Leary girls'. Towards whom people would nod, and say "Spanish sailors sometimes come ashore." Still, the O'Leary girls were blonde, because Vikings sometimes come ashore, too. This weaver's hair was as dark as black sand. Her robes wafted around her body, and a veil hovered around her head, just like in a picture of the Virgin Mary.
"The tinker sent me," Agnes announced. "I'm spending the winter here."
"The Jew?" The weaver threw back her veiled head, and laughed. She had big white teeth. "He loves to play jokes on me. Come."
She sat down at the largest loom Agnes had ever seen. In the weaver's cottage, things hung. Really big rugs. Skeins of wool and thread. Rugs too big to go on a floor in anyone's home. In the Church, perhaps. Except Agnes has never seen anything like them in a church. First of all, there were no pictures of anything on the rugs. Only designs. Round and square and pointed and not. And colours. Insistent colours that Agnes had never seen. She spotted a familiar one. "That one there." She pointed. "That dark sort of yellow. I saw that colour on a fruit that Aunt Niamh bought from the tinker for three lace handkerchiefs. It tasted terrible. She complained so much he gave her one handkerchief back, although he scolded her for not eating it right."
"He is a trickster," said the weaver. "The fruit was an orange. So is that colour. See." She gave a little twirl. The women's outfit had so many colours that Agnes couldn't take them all in at once.
Then she noticed it on one of the layers. "That's ornage, too."
"It is. Orange, rather. Shall we talk about colours all day? That would suit me. Few people in Ireland are content to spend long conversations on colours."
"I could talk about colours all day. For example, why there are not enough names for them. Take blue - which blue? The sky in the morning? At dusk? Iris-blue? Mussel shells? Babies' eyes? Stained glass blue. Why don't they all have names?"
"Oh, someday they will, Agnes, and you are a pioneer in that field. Many of your names will catch on. Your name will not go down in history, but your work will live on."
"But colours are so important. There are things in the world that could not exist without, well, without org, orn."
"Orange, Agnes. Have you ever heard of Spain?"
Of course Agnes had heard of Spain. As I told you, with reference to the O'Leary girls (rather, the medieval equivalent of O'Leary, of course, which I am unable to pronounce for you), Spanish sailors sometimes came ashore. As if one needed to explain dark-skinned Irish and redheaded Indians and Jewish Africans and Chinese Cockneys. People get around. Always have, always will. There's no need for further explanation. But people ask anyway. In any case, you already know how Agnes is going to answer that question.
"I haven't," she said.
"In Spain," continued the weaver, "there are so many oranges, they grow on trees. There are so many orange trees, they grow in orchards so big you could walk through them all day. Oh, to walk amid the orange and lemon trees. One can breathe there in the hottest part of the day when one can breathe nowhere else."
"What's lemon?" asked Agnes.
"All in good time. Did you taste the orange?"
"I didn't. Aunt Niamh was rather possessive of it. We watched."
"Can you imagine a country where one weary orange glows for miles around, where the act of one woman improperly eating an orange is a spectacle which inspires stories for years?"
"I can," answered Agnes. "That would be Ireland."
The weaver sighed. "It is. Exactly what I sought. Such a country." She sighed again. "You have no idea, Agnes. But you will. I have no oranges today. But I have these." The weaver took the lid off a crock, and reached in. She scooped up a handful of somethings and laid them on the table. They were small, like buds, and wrinkly. Agnes was quite disappointed, but did not want to say so. Their colour did not deserve its own name.
"What colour are they?" asked the weaver.
"Brown," said Agnes firmly.
"Indeed, they do not impress. To look at. Do you remember the smell of the orange?"
The orange was subtle in its fragrance, and Agnes would have forgotten it, aside from a faint memory, if Aunt Niamh had not bitten into the skin, spraying an oily liquid on her face and hands. With that, the whole room was shocked into wakefulness. Everyone gasped, especially Aunt Niamh. Judging from Aunt Niamh's expression, the smellers had a better experience of the orange than the eater.
"I remember," answered Agnes.
"Recall that smell." The weaver picked up a wrinkly thing, and offered it to Agnes. "And eat."
Agnes ate the thing. And the sun broke into that little room in that little cottage in that little glen. Agnes could see the orange trees. She could almost see lemon trees, whatever they were. "I can see Spain," she said.
The weaver laughed. "Taste better than they look, don't they?"
Agnes nodded. "These things might be brown, but yellow is hiding inside them."
"Agnes, have you ever heard of grapes?"
Agnes frowned and forgot to lie. "They're in the Mass somewhere."
"The Mass?"
"Church. Mass is what we do in Church."
"Ah. Of course, you drink wine. Wine is made from grapes."
"I don't drink wine," said Agnes. "Only priests do that."
The weaver laughed. "What a strange country this is! It continues to astonish me." She scooped some more things into her palm and held them up to Agnes. "These are raisins. They are made from grapes."
Agnes' eyes widened. "They absorb the sun."
The weaver nodded. "They lie in the sun, like pliant maidens. They let the sun sink in, they sacrifice their smooth skins. As a rewarded for their sacrifice, they carry the sun with them, as far away as Ireland, all winter. They will keep us healthy."
Agnes stood up. "I must leave."
"Leave? Why?"
"Because of me, you will have half as many rises, races..."
"Raisins," supplied the weaver.
"Raisins. You will not be nearly so healthy in spring as if I stay here all winter."
The weaver laughed again. Agnes noted that she laughed quite a lot, and in unexpected moments. "Did the tinker show you any Jewish magic?"
"He did," answered Agnes tentatively, because she was not sure exactly how she would explain that, if she was pressed by the weaver.
But she wasn't. The weaver continued. "This winter you will see Muslim magic. We will both be healthy when spring comes. Raisins are marvellous mixed with dried apples. Try to imagine, Agnes, a country where a crisp, fresh apple is a novelty. That would be my country."
"What's a novelty?" There were so few in medieval Ireland that there was no name for them.
More laughing. "I will teach you to weave. You will learn patience. And in the spring, I will reteach you impatience."
Agnes wondered how far one would have to carry an apple before reaching a land where it might impress. "Maybe I will go to Spain. Is it far?"
"Oh, it is far, Agnes. Far in miles, and far in mind. But you could go there. I came here."
"How did you do that?" Agnes didn't ask why. Clearly the weaver was escaping oranges and seeking apples.
But you want to know what a Muslim woman is doing alone in medieval Ireland. You know, you all know, that everyone in medieval Ireland was Catholic, what we now call white, and obedient to all the rules. We like to think that we are the first for whom anything goes, but let me tell you, anything always went and anything always will go. Of course, Agnes didn't know that she lived in medieval Ireland, so she did not imagine for herself the same constraints that we do. She did not need to imagine constraints. They were self-evident.
"Much like you," continued the weaver. "I left. I walked. Unlike you, though, I was followed. Three strong brothers come after me like the wind. Do you know the Leveche?"
Agnes said she didn't, and this time she wasn't lying.
"It is a wind, hot, fast and punishing. They were coming, my brothers, like the Leveche, to punish me. For my disgrace. No, not my disgrace. Theirs. My family's. The disgrace I had heaped on them by walking too far. They followed me to the ends of Europe."
"What's Europe?" asked Agnes.
"We're in it," answered the weaver. "It's like Ireland, only bigger. Spain is in it, too."
"And we're at the end of it?" asked Agnes.
"Indeed we are," answered the weaver. "At one of its ends. The western end. The wildest, most uncivilized part. The pit of the infidel. Where people hardly ever bathe."
"People bathe here," said Agnes, "Every year."
The weaver did not laugh this time, but sighed, a great, heaving sigh. "Indeed. More on that later. The great wild west. Even your St. Paul warned his new Christians against the pagans of the West."
"Aren't you pagan?"
"That's a good question. Everyone knows the other is a pagan. But no one believes oneself to be one."
"How do you know what St. Paul wrote?"
"I can read."
There was quite a long silence after this statement. The weaver continued to throw her shuttle and squeeze her frame, or whatever it is you like to imagine that weavers do. But neither woman spoke. Finally the weaver said, "I will teach you to read." There was more silence. There needed to be silence, because in that sentence, the world turned on a dime. That sentence reached down into history and changed it forever. Even our lives, yours and mine, were shifted, gently but irrevocably, by that sentence. That's pretty powerful for a fictional sentence. But for now, we can go back to the weaver's tale of the hot, fast, punishing brothers.
Agnes looked around cautiously. "Did your brothers punish you? Is that why you are living in this glen?" Agnes knew that living in little glens was actually quite popular in Ireland, especially for very holy people. But Agnes' mind was beginning to expand, and she was slowly imagining a world where living alone in a tiny Irish glen might be a punishment.
"Oh, my brothers are not nearly so creative. They dashed into Ireland on their thundering horses, the swiftest of Araby."
"What's Araby?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Agnes, let the story be." Agnes was quite surprised at this outburst. It was the most Irish the weaver had sounded yet. "So hot they were, they would have swum the Irish Sea in pursuit of me, and dried it up with their rage, but no, they came by boat, like everyone else, at much discomfort to the horses. But they hit the ground running, the horses and the brothers vying in impatience. The storming of hooves shook the whole island. Word travelled of the furious Moors. But the Irish had no need to fear. The brothers only had eyes for me. Until." The weaver paused, but Agnes was afraid to say anything. "Until they passed a girl on the road, tall, black-haired and fair of face, leading a cow. My first brother passed. My second brother passed. They did not even see her. My third brother - stopped. She was making no effort, that girl, to be fair or enchanting or even handy with cows. She was just trying to get home before sunset. But it was too late for my youngest brother. He was history, and he became history. He followed the maiden home, his noble stallion plodding beside him. And so history is made. His children are baptized, no less, infidels all, and the line of the Irish horse is stronger than ever."
"Were your other brothers displeased with him?" At a glance from the weaver, Agnes remembered to let the story be.
"They didn't even notice," continued the weaver. "They were too hot and strong and fast. Until they passed a brown-haired girl, everyday height, prodding a goat. Making no effort to look charming or competent. My first brother did not see her. He passed. My second brother fell right off his horse, or so it seemed, and disappeared into the mists of history, leading a princely steed, and following a brown-haired girl who can handle goats. So Ireland has yet more dark-skinned Christians, and the Irish horse is further ennobled."
"And the last brother?"
"My eldest brother did not notice his second missing brother. He drummed down that road, and down every road in Ireland, bent on finding me, his disgraceful sister." She paused.
"Until..." supplied Agnes.
"Indeed," said the weaver. "Until the red-haired girl. Carrying a lamb. Making no effort to look compassionate or determined. As if compassion would have ever moved my brother. But those freckles! He leaped right off his horse after them."
"Did he, too, disappear into the mists of history?"
"Not exactly," answered the weaver. "He's now a famous fiddler. He is much in demand at dances. And his horse is much in demand as a stud."
"What's a fiddler?" asked Agnes. I suppose that you didn't know that the fiddle didn't reach Ireland until the 17th century. Or so it was previously thought.
"I'm not quite sure. I've never heard my brother play. My brother is quite entrenched into Ireland, but I don't want to risk reviving any buried memories."
Agnes absorbed the weaver's story, and looked around the colourful cottage.
"Why doesn't the tinker sell your rugs?" she asked.
"Oh, he does. Not in your village. Your Aunt Niamh couldn't crochet enough lace handkerchiefs in her lifetime for one of my carpets. The tinker brings me thread and wool, and takes my carpets away. We have made each other quite comfortable, if not rich. Can you spin?"
"Not well," said Agnes.
"He sells them throughout Europe. The finest linen of Ireland, and the finest carpets of Araby. The tinker is known for his wide range of goods. Can you card?"
"Not..."
"Here." The weaver tumbled a cloud of wool into Agnes' lap.
"What colour is that?" she asked.
The weaver handed her two cards. "Try it. In the spring, he will come for your carpets, Agnes, as well as mine. But we will keep one for you. We will keep a flying carpet for you."
"What is..."
"Sit, Agnes. And listen. Let me tell you another story."
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So! Agnes. I know what you're thinking. What kind of Medieval Irish name is Agnes? (You weren't?) Agnes' biggest problem was not her name. Agnes's biggest problem was that she did not quite fit the medieval Irish village. Some might say that she was ahead of her time, but no, she was right there, in her time.
Agnes was not a misfit in a blaring way. She was rather like someone whose buttons are not done up right. From a distance they look just a little off. Closer up, there's definitely a problem.
Agnes never went to bed at quite the right time. Either too early or too late, both to the distress of family and neighbours. She was often in the wrong place. For example, alone.
Worst of all, she somehow always looked as if her clothes were about to fall off. Before you think, "Ah, slut," let me tell you, that, in fact, her ignorance of the social laws of modesty had more to do with a preoccupied mind than with flirtatious desires. And the men of the village knew that. They grinned at Agnes, and nudged each other as she walked by, and said, "Get a load of Agnes," or the medieval Irish equivalent. Their wives would just roll their eyes, because none of the men actually touched Agnes. They could tell the difference between Agnes', "What's it to me if you can see my ankles?" and Mairéad's "Come hither." Agnes was a virgin, but not. But not by having ceased to become one. She never was. An unvirgin, so to speak. Agnes Unvirgin.
But Agnes' biggest character flaw was in the asking of questions. In these days, she might quietly go off to a library or the Internet or one of those stores, seeking answers. But in those days, she had to be noisy about it. She had to ask live people. Why does the moon disappear? Why do men and woman dress differently? What's in that book?
This was Agnes' favourite question. If she could have answered it herself, she probably would never have asked another question. But Agnes was illiterate. Not unworded. She memorized great chunks of words, including poetry, songs, genealogies, prayers, and parts of the Mass. In Latin, a language she did not know.
So, you ask, from where did these books come, at which Agnes was pointing? Doesn't your stereotypical Irish village have a monastery plunk in the middle of it? Mine does. And a round tower. Picture the round tower: no doors, just windows, so far off the ground that they can only be reached by a ladder. Up which the monks would escape with their precious books when the Vikings were on their way.
Vikings come and go in medieval Ireland, and Agnes' part of Ireland was in a Viking lull during her lifetime. But the round tower was not neglected. Father Alcuin regularly hoisted himself up there with the most precious books of the monastery. Practice, he said. Vikings not being evident, he left the ladder in place. And Agnes climbed it.
"Where are you going?" a young monk yelled at her.
"Confession," she yelled back. Father Abbot witnessed this exchange and shook his tonsured head. What could he do? Irish monks had invented auricular confession, and they were rather proud of it. Father Alcuin was old, and although he was a little odd now, he had been a revered scholar. Besides, Father Alcuin was one of those kindly, wise, desexed - safe - father figure types. He spent most of his time reading, staring into still tubs of water, and talking utter nonsense about the things he saw there.
"Come in, Agnes," said Father Alcuin, as he helped Agnes through the window. "Why are your hands green?"
"I was practising," she replied.
"Ah, like I. Are you hiding from Vikings as well?"
"Whistling through blades of grass. All my brothers can do it. Why not I?"
Agnes recognized the book that Father Alcuin was studying today. It was the Sacramentary, the big book that the priest read out of during Mass. In the 19th century this very book will be discovered in a mortuary basement, and cause scholars no end of consternation and glee, disrupting and confirming theories left and right. For now it was on Father Alcuin's knee. She tapped the cover with a green finger. "What's in that book?"
"Haven't you heard it, Agnes?" replied Father Alcuin. "You've probably heard every word in this book read aloud at some point."
"Indeed," retorted Agnes, "In Latin. What's in that book?" This time she tapped the cover insistently enough that the young novice discretely sweeping pebbles at the foot of the tower could hear the taps. "I want to know what it means."
Father Alcuin laughed. "Why Agnes, just like your Great-Aunt Maeve! She always wanted to know what was in these books. That's how you came by your name."
"It is?" Agnes had never why known why she was so named. She just knew that her name wasn't Irish enough.
"St. Agnes is mentioned in the Eucharistic Prayer. Maeve remembered her, and insisted that you be named after her."
"Who is St. Agnes? Does she find sheep, or cure warts, or prevent blight?"
Father Alcuin found the green cord trailing out of the book, and turned to the page it marked. "There she is. Virgin and Martyr. She was stabbed in the throat."
"Lovely. What is Virgin and Martyr?"
"A class of saints."
"Class of saints?" asked Agnes. "There are classes of saints? Like, farmer, fisherman, soldier, invader?"
"Not quite." Father Alcuin pulled on the red cord. He found the page and smoothed his hand over it. "Here they are. The Commons of the Saints, listed by class. Popes who were martyrs. Popes who weren't martyrs. Bishop and martyr. Plain bishop. Priest and martyr. Plain priest. And so on."
"Doesn't sound like there are many classes for people."
Father Alcuin laughed. "All those saints were people, Agnes. They would probably be surprised now to see such labels attached to them."
"They aren't farmers or fishermen or soldiers."
"St. Martin was a soldier. Most of the apostles were fishermen. St. Benedict was a farmer, of course, as well as a monk. The occupations are somewhat represented."
"What about women?"
"There are several classes for them. For example, Virgins and Martyrs."
"And I suppose that there are martyrs not virgins," asked Agnes.
"Certainly, like Perpetua."
"How do you know that she was not a virgin? Did they check?"
"She was married when she was thrown to the lions. So we assume the best. Or the worst, depending on your point of view. Some Church Fathers recommended virginity even within marriage. We can assume that they weren't Irish and had no need of lads to plough fields."
"Are there virgins not martyrs?" asked Agnes.
"Indeed. Such as St. Bridget. They usually founded convents. Or live as hermits near wells. Like St. Winifred."
"So a woman has to be a Virgin or a Martyr, preferably both, to be a saint?"
"Not necessarily. A woman could be a nec nec."
"Excuse me?"
"Nec virginis nec martyris. Neither Virgin nor Martyr. It's right here at the very end of the list." Father Alcuin turned the page and ran his finger down to the bottom.
"Who are they?" asked Agnes.
"Mostly widows," replied Father Alcuin. "Generally queens. They do good work after their husbands die. They usually do good work before their husbands die, too, like hold the kingdom together. But it's not polite to notice that. So if they feed a few orphans, the grateful people proclaim them saints."
"Does a woman have to be a widow in order to be a nec nec? Could she be married, or well, just, fallen?"
"She couldn't be fallen. She'd have to be reformed."
"That's what I meant," said Agnes, almost crossly. "I know we're talking about saints here."
Father Alcuin sat. Dying beams of sun angled in the window. There could have been dancing motes of dust, except Ireland is pretty bloody damp, so there's not much dust dancing around, especially inside stone round towers.
"There's Mary Magdalene," he said finally.
"She's a saint?" asked Agnes.
"She was the first to witness the resurrection. So they didn't have much choice than to make her a saint. Plus, she's in the Bible." Agnes nodded. She knew Bible stories. Father Alcuin liked to tell them during Mass.
"That's it?" asked Agnes. "A woman would have to know Jesus personally if she wanted to be a saint without being a virgin or a martyr or a widow or a queen?"
Father Alcuin sat and thought. The dust motes floated, or not, as you prefer. Finally he roused himself. "Have you ever heard of Scotland?"
"I haven't," answered Agnes. This was a lie. Agnes' Aunt Niamh had told her that Scotland was rocky land where savage people wore blankets, and lived on mountaintops with sheep. Agnes always answered "No" when anyone asked her if she'd heard of something or someone, because that's how she might learn more.
"A sturdy people," frowned Father Alcuin. "With great potential. They will have a Saint Margaret, wife of the King. She will die four days after he does. Of a broken heart. So she's neither a virgin nor a martyr, and barely a widow. Or will be. She will be a Queen, though."
"How do you know this?" asked Agnes.
"I'm ahead of my time," smiled Father Alcuin.
"I know what I want to be." Agnes stabbed the Sacramentary with a green forefinger. "I want to be a nec nec." She thrust her chin up, so that her own n-e-c-k was quite apparent. "I will redeem the memory of my namesake by being what she couldn't."
"Well, Agnes, " said Father Alcuin "You're well on your way. And perhaps it's time you did that."
"Do what?" asked Agnes.
"Go your way."
"What way?"
"Your own way."
"I don't get it," said Agnes.
"Don't be dense. Necs necs don't cut it in medieval Irish villages. Any woman who puts any finger on a sacred book, let alone a grass-stained one - the finger that is - needs to leave town to find her full potential."
"What's town?" asked Agnes.
"Oh, boy," said Father Alcuin. "All will be revealed in time. Let's just say it's time to think about going."
"Going where?" asked Agnes.
"Elsewhere," answered Father Alcuin.
Agnes hesitated and said nothing.
"My faith in you is immeasurable," said Father Alcuin. More silence. "To tell you the truth, Agnes, I don't have faith in much else. If this wasn't the middle ages, I'd probably be an agnostic history professor. But those days are yet to come. I believe in you. You must be believable." More silence. "What do you think?" asked Father Alcuin.
"I think you're right," said Agnes.
If anyone had asked Agnes to imagine one hundred things that Father Alcuin might have said in that round tower that fall day, she never would have guessed "leave town," even if she had known what "town" meant. Agnes couldn't see the future, but she often recognized it unfolding. So Agnes went home and collected her shoes and put them in a bag with both her pairs of socks and the few mysterious personal items that even a poor medieval peasant girl might have amassed. She said, "I'm off," to her mother and father and six siblings and four aunties, and left.
But Agnes had spent much of the day with Father Alcuin, and she had little daylight left. "I should have left in the morning," she thought. "People usually do, I suppose." In fact, when Father Alcuin spied Agnes and her sack trundling down the road, he yelled: "I didn't mean now! I meant eventually! For example, spring!" But by the time he had climbed down the ladder from his tower, Agnes had disappeared.
So Agnes had not gotten far before she needed a place to stay. When she came about the home of the tinker.
Now Agnes should have been scared. She should have been terrified. Because the tinker was, well, the tinker was a Jew, and this was the Middle Ages, remember, and Agnes had heard all about Jews. Aunt Niamh explained how they ate babies and peed in baptismal fonts, travesties which Agnes did not consider equivalent. Plus, they said the Mass backwards and inflicted deadly fevers just with their magic eyes.
But Agnes had not failed to notice that her fellow villagers had no problem buying the wares of the Jewish tinker. They ran their fingers over his fabrics, tapped on his pots, admired themselves in his mirrors. The day he brought a strange fruit, people came from miles around. Aunt Niamh traded three embroidered handkerchiefs for one of the fruits, and found it so dreadful, she told dreadful stories about Jews all night. Most of the villagers thought she just should have peeled it.
In any case, Agnes was not afraid. She walked up to the tinker's house, and knocked. The tinker's house was in fact his wagon with a teeny tiny house built on it. His donkey sat under a tree, untethered. The tinker opened the door. "What do you want?" he asked.
"I need a place to stay for the night."
"Are you sure you should be here? Apparently, Jews eat children and you look pretty young to me. Haven't you heard?"
"I've heard that you are magic."
"You've heard that?"
"Because you make stories sprout wherever you walk. Stories rise up from your footprints like bog gas."
"Indeed," said the Jew. "Horrible stories. Aren't you afraid?"
"I'm not," said Agnes. "I am only afraid of boredom. Anyone who can inspire such marvellously horrible stories cannot be boring."
"But what if the stories are true?"
"All stories are true," said Agnes. "And false. Are you going to let me in?"
He did. "What brings you out on this dark night?"
"I'm leaving. Going elsewhere."
"Ah. The road."
"I'm not going to stay on the road all the time," said Agnes crossly.
"Agnes, I'm not talking about this cow path. The life of the road. You will inspire many to leave town and enter history. The road is a far more Irish activity than your people are willing to admit."
"What is 'town'?" asked Agnes.
"All in good time," said the tinker. He cleared a wooden box and a basket off a bench and said, "Sit. Have you eaten?"
"I haven't," said Agnes.
"Then I will feed you. Would you like a barley pancake?"
"I would love one."
"Indeed you would not. No one loves barley pancakes. Oh, the world will change, Agnes, yours and mine, when the potato comes to Ireland. Pancakes, Agnes. Latkes, boxty, colcannon, blood, tears. Nothing will ever be the same. Blood and tears. The poor turnip. Everyone in Europe will forget it, except the Irish. They have soft hearts for humble things. But it will not save them from the potato."
"What's potato?" said Agnes. "What are latkes and boxty?"
"Have you ever been told, Agnes, that you ask too many questions?"
"Many times," answered Agnes. "I think that's why I'm here."
"To ask me questions?"
"Not exactly."
The tinker sighed. "Agnes, did you know that it's traditional to run away from home in the spring? I think it's time I showed you some Jewish magic." He reached behind a stack of linen and pulled out a bottle, a green glass bottle.
"Oh my," said Agnes. The only glass containers she had ever seen were the bottles that held the water and wine in church.
"Oh, Agnes," said the tinker, "The contents are even more oh my. Have you ever heard of Scotland?"
"I haven't," she lied again.
"Now, Agnes, no one drinks like the Irish. The Irish drink with greater sorrow and joy and anger and laughter than anyone. I would rather drink with no one else in the world, including the Italians who are the greatest fun. But that stuff you drink!" He uncorked the green glass bottle. "It's good the Irish become drunk quickly. The sooner they can no longer taste the stuff, the better. The Scots are not the greatest drinkers, nor the most fun. They mostly get angry and break things. Usually their heads. But the Scots, they can make the stuff. Now, that is magic." The tinker tapped the bottle. It chimed confidently. "Every fall I acquire one bottle of Scottish magic." The tinker reached into a box and produced two tin cups. "I trade whatever I have. A bale of linen if required." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Every night I cover the bottom of my cup." The tinker poured liquid into one cup. "When the bottle is empty, spring is here. Never fails. It's that simple. This year's is the best I have ever tasted. And I've tasted a lot." He poured some into the other cup. "And this year, because of you, Agnes, spring will come one day sooner. And that is Irish magic."
The tinker picked up the cup and gingerly sipped. "Go ahead, Agnes," he said.
She slipped her hand around the cup. She raised it to her lips and drank.
And coughed. And coughed.
"It's a sipping drink," said the tinker. "Sorry. I should have warned you. Try again."
And she did. And there she was, in Scotland, on a mountain with a million tiny flowers of every colour. Yellow and red and blue and green lichen. And moss you could sleep on. Agnes set down the cup.
"I didn't know mountains could be so beautiful," she said.
"Mountains?" asked the Jew, raising his eyebrows.
"Scotland," she replied. "It is rather beautiful, if stark."
The tinker raised his eyes further, and started to laugh. And Agnes remembered that she was supposed to know nothing about Scotland. She blushed. And Agnes wasn't given much to blushing.
In the morning, Agnes headed back over the road, after bidding farewell to the tinker. "When the sun is setting," said the tinker, "You will reach a village where there is another woman who shouldn't be there. Find her. That is where you will spend the winter."
But you want to know what happened after the Scotch whiskey, don't you? Well, I'm not telling, because no matter what I say, you'll get the wrong idea. You already have it. Let's just say that the tinker was particularly looking forward to spring arriving a day early this year. And he had absolutely no doubt that it would.
At sunset, Agnes met a boy whistling down the road. "Where can I find the woman who does not belong here?" she asked.
"Besides you?" answered the boy. Before she had time to respond to that crack, he waved his hand towards the woods. "The Moor. The one who weaves."
Agnes found the weaver's cottage in a brief clearing. Again, she knocked on a door. The strangest woman she had ever seen answered it. She was dressed like a priest on a feast day. Her skin was darker than the O'Leary girls'. Towards whom people would nod, and say "Spanish sailors sometimes come ashore." Still, the O'Leary girls were blonde, because Vikings sometimes come ashore, too. This weaver's hair was as dark as black sand. Her robes wafted around her body, and a veil hovered around her head, just like in a picture of the Virgin Mary.
"The tinker sent me," Agnes announced. "I'm spending the winter here."
"The Jew?" The weaver threw back her veiled head, and laughed. She had big white teeth. "He loves to play jokes on me. Come."
She sat down at the largest loom Agnes had ever seen. In the weaver's cottage, things hung. Really big rugs. Skeins of wool and thread. Rugs too big to go on a floor in anyone's home. In the Church, perhaps. Except Agnes has never seen anything like them in a church. First of all, there were no pictures of anything on the rugs. Only designs. Round and square and pointed and not. And colours. Insistent colours that Agnes had never seen. She spotted a familiar one. "That one there." She pointed. "That dark sort of yellow. I saw that colour on a fruit that Aunt Niamh bought from the tinker for three lace handkerchiefs. It tasted terrible. She complained so much he gave her one handkerchief back, although he scolded her for not eating it right."
"He is a trickster," said the weaver. "The fruit was an orange. So is that colour. See." She gave a little twirl. The women's outfit had so many colours that Agnes couldn't take them all in at once.
Then she noticed it on one of the layers. "That's ornage, too."
"It is. Orange, rather. Shall we talk about colours all day? That would suit me. Few people in Ireland are content to spend long conversations on colours."
"I could talk about colours all day. For example, why there are not enough names for them. Take blue - which blue? The sky in the morning? At dusk? Iris-blue? Mussel shells? Babies' eyes? Stained glass blue. Why don't they all have names?"
"Oh, someday they will, Agnes, and you are a pioneer in that field. Many of your names will catch on. Your name will not go down in history, but your work will live on."
"But colours are so important. There are things in the world that could not exist without, well, without org, orn."
"Orange, Agnes. Have you ever heard of Spain?"
Of course Agnes had heard of Spain. As I told you, with reference to the O'Leary girls (rather, the medieval equivalent of O'Leary, of course, which I am unable to pronounce for you), Spanish sailors sometimes came ashore. As if one needed to explain dark-skinned Irish and redheaded Indians and Jewish Africans and Chinese Cockneys. People get around. Always have, always will. There's no need for further explanation. But people ask anyway. In any case, you already know how Agnes is going to answer that question.
"I haven't," she said.
"In Spain," continued the weaver, "there are so many oranges, they grow on trees. There are so many orange trees, they grow in orchards so big you could walk through them all day. Oh, to walk amid the orange and lemon trees. One can breathe there in the hottest part of the day when one can breathe nowhere else."
"What's lemon?" asked Agnes.
"All in good time. Did you taste the orange?"
"I didn't. Aunt Niamh was rather possessive of it. We watched."
"Can you imagine a country where one weary orange glows for miles around, where the act of one woman improperly eating an orange is a spectacle which inspires stories for years?"
"I can," answered Agnes. "That would be Ireland."
The weaver sighed. "It is. Exactly what I sought. Such a country." She sighed again. "You have no idea, Agnes. But you will. I have no oranges today. But I have these." The weaver took the lid off a crock, and reached in. She scooped up a handful of somethings and laid them on the table. They were small, like buds, and wrinkly. Agnes was quite disappointed, but did not want to say so. Their colour did not deserve its own name.
"What colour are they?" asked the weaver.
"Brown," said Agnes firmly.
"Indeed, they do not impress. To look at. Do you remember the smell of the orange?"
The orange was subtle in its fragrance, and Agnes would have forgotten it, aside from a faint memory, if Aunt Niamh had not bitten into the skin, spraying an oily liquid on her face and hands. With that, the whole room was shocked into wakefulness. Everyone gasped, especially Aunt Niamh. Judging from Aunt Niamh's expression, the smellers had a better experience of the orange than the eater.
"I remember," answered Agnes.
"Recall that smell." The weaver picked up a wrinkly thing, and offered it to Agnes. "And eat."
Agnes ate the thing. And the sun broke into that little room in that little cottage in that little glen. Agnes could see the orange trees. She could almost see lemon trees, whatever they were. "I can see Spain," she said.
The weaver laughed. "Taste better than they look, don't they?"
Agnes nodded. "These things might be brown, but yellow is hiding inside them."
"Agnes, have you ever heard of grapes?"
Agnes frowned and forgot to lie. "They're in the Mass somewhere."
"The Mass?"
"Church. Mass is what we do in Church."
"Ah. Of course, you drink wine. Wine is made from grapes."
"I don't drink wine," said Agnes. "Only priests do that."
The weaver laughed. "What a strange country this is! It continues to astonish me." She scooped some more things into her palm and held them up to Agnes. "These are raisins. They are made from grapes."
Agnes' eyes widened. "They absorb the sun."
The weaver nodded. "They lie in the sun, like pliant maidens. They let the sun sink in, they sacrifice their smooth skins. As a rewarded for their sacrifice, they carry the sun with them, as far away as Ireland, all winter. They will keep us healthy."
Agnes stood up. "I must leave."
"Leave? Why?"
"Because of me, you will have half as many rises, races..."
"Raisins," supplied the weaver.
"Raisins. You will not be nearly so healthy in spring as if I stay here all winter."
The weaver laughed again. Agnes noted that she laughed quite a lot, and in unexpected moments. "Did the tinker show you any Jewish magic?"
"He did," answered Agnes tentatively, because she was not sure exactly how she would explain that, if she was pressed by the weaver.
But she wasn't. The weaver continued. "This winter you will see Muslim magic. We will both be healthy when spring comes. Raisins are marvellous mixed with dried apples. Try to imagine, Agnes, a country where a crisp, fresh apple is a novelty. That would be my country."
"What's a novelty?" There were so few in medieval Ireland that there was no name for them.
More laughing. "I will teach you to weave. You will learn patience. And in the spring, I will reteach you impatience."
Agnes wondered how far one would have to carry an apple before reaching a land where it might impress. "Maybe I will go to Spain. Is it far?"
"Oh, it is far, Agnes. Far in miles, and far in mind. But you could go there. I came here."
"How did you do that?" Agnes didn't ask why. Clearly the weaver was escaping oranges and seeking apples.
But you want to know what a Muslim woman is doing alone in medieval Ireland. You know, you all know, that everyone in medieval Ireland was Catholic, what we now call white, and obedient to all the rules. We like to think that we are the first for whom anything goes, but let me tell you, anything always went and anything always will go. Of course, Agnes didn't know that she lived in medieval Ireland, so she did not imagine for herself the same constraints that we do. She did not need to imagine constraints. They were self-evident.
"Much like you," continued the weaver. "I left. I walked. Unlike you, though, I was followed. Three strong brothers come after me like the wind. Do you know the Leveche?"
Agnes said she didn't, and this time she wasn't lying.
"It is a wind, hot, fast and punishing. They were coming, my brothers, like the Leveche, to punish me. For my disgrace. No, not my disgrace. Theirs. My family's. The disgrace I had heaped on them by walking too far. They followed me to the ends of Europe."
"What's Europe?" asked Agnes.
"We're in it," answered the weaver. "It's like Ireland, only bigger. Spain is in it, too."
"And we're at the end of it?" asked Agnes.
"Indeed we are," answered the weaver. "At one of its ends. The western end. The wildest, most uncivilized part. The pit of the infidel. Where people hardly ever bathe."
"People bathe here," said Agnes, "Every year."
The weaver did not laugh this time, but sighed, a great, heaving sigh. "Indeed. More on that later. The great wild west. Even your St. Paul warned his new Christians against the pagans of the West."
"Aren't you pagan?"
"That's a good question. Everyone knows the other is a pagan. But no one believes oneself to be one."
"How do you know what St. Paul wrote?"
"I can read."
There was quite a long silence after this statement. The weaver continued to throw her shuttle and squeeze her frame, or whatever it is you like to imagine that weavers do. But neither woman spoke. Finally the weaver said, "I will teach you to read." There was more silence. There needed to be silence, because in that sentence, the world turned on a dime. That sentence reached down into history and changed it forever. Even our lives, yours and mine, were shifted, gently but irrevocably, by that sentence. That's pretty powerful for a fictional sentence. But for now, we can go back to the weaver's tale of the hot, fast, punishing brothers.
Agnes looked around cautiously. "Did your brothers punish you? Is that why you are living in this glen?" Agnes knew that living in little glens was actually quite popular in Ireland, especially for very holy people. But Agnes' mind was beginning to expand, and she was slowly imagining a world where living alone in a tiny Irish glen might be a punishment.
"Oh, my brothers are not nearly so creative. They dashed into Ireland on their thundering horses, the swiftest of Araby."
"What's Araby?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Agnes, let the story be." Agnes was quite surprised at this outburst. It was the most Irish the weaver had sounded yet. "So hot they were, they would have swum the Irish Sea in pursuit of me, and dried it up with their rage, but no, they came by boat, like everyone else, at much discomfort to the horses. But they hit the ground running, the horses and the brothers vying in impatience. The storming of hooves shook the whole island. Word travelled of the furious Moors. But the Irish had no need to fear. The brothers only had eyes for me. Until." The weaver paused, but Agnes was afraid to say anything. "Until they passed a girl on the road, tall, black-haired and fair of face, leading a cow. My first brother passed. My second brother passed. They did not even see her. My third brother - stopped. She was making no effort, that girl, to be fair or enchanting or even handy with cows. She was just trying to get home before sunset. But it was too late for my youngest brother. He was history, and he became history. He followed the maiden home, his noble stallion plodding beside him. And so history is made. His children are baptized, no less, infidels all, and the line of the Irish horse is stronger than ever."
"Were your other brothers displeased with him?" At a glance from the weaver, Agnes remembered to let the story be.
"They didn't even notice," continued the weaver. "They were too hot and strong and fast. Until they passed a brown-haired girl, everyday height, prodding a goat. Making no effort to look charming or competent. My first brother did not see her. He passed. My second brother fell right off his horse, or so it seemed, and disappeared into the mists of history, leading a princely steed, and following a brown-haired girl who can handle goats. So Ireland has yet more dark-skinned Christians, and the Irish horse is further ennobled."
"And the last brother?"
"My eldest brother did not notice his second missing brother. He drummed down that road, and down every road in Ireland, bent on finding me, his disgraceful sister." She paused.
"Until..." supplied Agnes.
"Indeed," said the weaver. "Until the red-haired girl. Carrying a lamb. Making no effort to look compassionate or determined. As if compassion would have ever moved my brother. But those freckles! He leaped right off his horse after them."
"Did he, too, disappear into the mists of history?"
"Not exactly," answered the weaver. "He's now a famous fiddler. He is much in demand at dances. And his horse is much in demand as a stud."
"What's a fiddler?" asked Agnes. I suppose that you didn't know that the fiddle didn't reach Ireland until the 17th century. Or so it was previously thought.
"I'm not quite sure. I've never heard my brother play. My brother is quite entrenched into Ireland, but I don't want to risk reviving any buried memories."
Agnes absorbed the weaver's story, and looked around the colourful cottage.
"Why doesn't the tinker sell your rugs?" she asked.
"Oh, he does. Not in your village. Your Aunt Niamh couldn't crochet enough lace handkerchiefs in her lifetime for one of my carpets. The tinker brings me thread and wool, and takes my carpets away. We have made each other quite comfortable, if not rich. Can you spin?"
"Not well," said Agnes.
"He sells them throughout Europe. The finest linen of Ireland, and the finest carpets of Araby. The tinker is known for his wide range of goods. Can you card?"
"Not..."
"Here." The weaver tumbled a cloud of wool into Agnes' lap.
"What colour is that?" she asked.
The weaver handed her two cards. "Try it. In the spring, he will come for your carpets, Agnes, as well as mine. But we will keep one for you. We will keep a flying carpet for you."
"What is..."
"Sit, Agnes. And listen. Let me tell you another story."
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