The
year that followed was a bountiful one for the village, with many
lambs and calves in the spring, and many bushels of wheat and barley. It was a year
with rain more gentle than usual, and fewer storms from the sea. It
was a fertile year for the forest, with more saplings at its edges
and greater ferns within, and Meg could tell there would be good
hunting.
It was an odd year for Meg, as Deirdre demanded that she boil her
water before drinking it, and wash her hands after using the outhouse, and milk the cows more often, without a word of
explanation as to why. To this Meg could only sign "Yes my
beloved wife" and hope that someday Deirdre would elaborate. It
was certainly not something Meg remembered Deirdre ever doing, in
their years of adventure. Possibly she had done it, and the memory
had simply not returned yet. But none in the village could remember
her ever doing such a thing either.
It was also a clingy year for Meg, as now she had vague memories
of why she had gone after Deirdre in the first place, and was loath
to leave her sight for even a moment. It took an awful lot of
convincing on everyone's part that Deirdre would be fine. Meg still
remained on high alert for any signs of plague. Deirdre explained to
her that boiling water and washing her hands was closely related to
that matter, but again, no explanation was forthcoming.
It was an even more intimate year for Meg, as her hunch about how
to regain her memories seemed to have worked – every time she and
Deirdre kissed, Meg was able to recall the context surrounding old
intimate moments. The fact that the two of them had often made out in
front of people was faintly embarrassing to Meg now, older and wiser
as she was, but it was ultimately highly convenient. She could
remember how each witness had reacted, whether with laughter, shock,
or scolding. Not a perfect method of recall. Some things were lost
for good. But Deirdre was here, now, to fill in the gaps with her own
memory. That was good enough.
It was an odd year for the village, as their mighty protector,
having regained many of her memories regarding each of them, became
more talkative than ever in her efforts to catch up on how they had
been doing for a year, and yet, talkative entirely in sign language.
She seemed unwilling to speak a single word aloud if it would leave
her dear Deirdre out, whether or not she was present.
It was a fruitful year for Fia, as she began to master the craft
of writing, and alongside Deirdre, she began to teach it to her
fellow villagers. So it was also a frustrating year for Fia, because
she was still not used to sitting in one place. Teaching frequently
required sitting in one place while someone slowly scratched a letter
on a slate. Teaching writing also frequently involved a student
asking her why all of this was necessary, and what it was for, to
which Fia still could not answer.
But it pleased Deirdre to no end that her daughter was following
in her footsteps. Deirdre often confided in Meg that she could never
be certain how many more years either of them had, as no one ever
could be. In Fia she found some reassurance that the idea of
education would not die too quickly.
But despite this, and despite having all of Meg back, Deirdre was
still frequently frustrated. She would sometimes leave Meg, and
wander to one house or another, examining whatever goods they had
there; or she would take her spindle and distaff and she would go up
on the hill overlooking the clan chief's village, and she would spin
her wool there, and stare into the far distance.
On a fine summer morning, when Meg was driving the cattle out to
pasture, she saw Deirdre up on the hill. She gave a sharp whistle,
and she could see Deirdre look down at her. But her wife did not come
down from the hill.
Meg flung her arms wide as she signed, "Something troubles
you, beloved. Is it the same trouble as ever?"
Deirdre chuckled, and at last descended the hill, to give Meg a
peck on the cheek, and followed beside as she drove the cattle,
spinning yarn all the way.
When they reached the pasture, she put her spinning down, and
signed, "Same trouble as ever. No matter how I think of it, I
can't figure out how to make paper out of any materials we have
around here. It would require special metal pieces, and wooden
frames, and…I feel like I'm missing something."
Fia stepped out of the tall grass. "Who says you need paper?"
"Well, I…" Deirdre's hands came to a halt, and her
face went blank, as she appeared to be processing this concept. "I
can't think of anything else to write on. Unless it's a slate and a
pebble like you did, but I’d much prefer chalk, and there’s
hardly enough of that around here to serve. Are you suggesting
something?"
Fia pulled a rag out of her pocket, and handed it to Deirdre. The
rag was covered in stains that almost looked like letters. It also
had some smudged black markings that looked even more like letters.
"I've been using bits of cloth for lessons," signed Fia.
"There's not very much slate to spare here, but there are old
rags, and pieces of charcoal, and mud. It's not anything permanent,
but neither is a scratch in a rock, right? And it's more portable
than slate. I can stick it in a pocket."
Meg and Deirdre exchanged glances.
"It's something," signed Meg. "If we could make the
markings more permanent then it would even be a solution."
"There are even other methods," signed Fia. "Ask
old Boann about using mud. She’s down at the creek. Might as well
get some advice from someone who knows clay." Then she stepped
into the tall grass and disappeared.
...
"There’s a thing called clay tablets," said Boann, as
she sat at the creek and scooped mud into her hands. "Something
like our writing slates, only, well, made of clay."
"And clay is your area of expertise," signed Meg. "Being
the potter and all. That’s why we’re asking you. So what do you
do with these tablets? Arrange them in shapes?"
"Might not only be Boann who knows," signed Deirdre.
"Another of your afterlife secrets?" signed Meg. "How
many of those do you have, anyway?"
Deirdre giggled, and winked, putting a finger to her lips. "I’ll
let Boann here field the question."
Boann sighed. "Gods know I’d rather have your voice back
than have to follow all those hand signs, Deirdre. But all you do
with the clay is draw on it, or...press shapes into it with a reed,
or something like that. Something my ancient grandmother once spoke
of, that she’d seen from her journey to a faraway land, a hot and
dry and dusty land, where rivers flowed vaster than any we’ve ever
seen, great rivers like seas themselves...They wrote on the clay, and
then left it to dry in the hot sun, or swiped it off and wrote
something else."
"So you know about this writing business," signed Meg.
"I’ve heard of it," said Boann. "I’ve even seen
a few of those tablets that made their way to our shores, carried by
the occasional trader...I never tried to make them myself. What do
you think, would it work?"
Meg looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful sunny summer day
alright – but the air was only less humid than usual, not totally
dry. And this was the only part of the year where there would be more
sun than cloud. "Sun-dried, huh? Seems like a weak way to set
the clay. We ought to chuck these things in the kiln."
"Oh sure," grumbled Boann. "Sure, take up valuable
space in the kiln and risk breaking everyone’s hard work. You fire
them separately or I’m not letting you near the kiln."
"And use up more fuel?" signed Meg. "We can’t
waste that stuff."
Deirdre was looking nervous.
"Don’t tell me you have another afterlife secret to give
away," signed Meg.
"Actually," signed Deirdre, "I don’t want anyone
to ever know about that one, ever, at all. So I’d be more
interested in figuring out how to stop people from discovering it for
themselves. I...can understand why the Gods don’t want people
knowing all the secrets of the afterlife."
Meg felt an odd vibration in her feet, and the water of the creek
seemed to tremble as the stalks of the river-reeds rattled. "I
have an idea," she signed. "Don’t mention them again if
you can help it."
"I’ve got a better idea anyway," said Boann. "Have
either of you ever heard of papyrus?" Meg shook her head.
Deirdre nodded. "I shouldn’t have asked you," said Boann.
"You probably know everything by now. You must know papyrus
would be impossible in this damp land. But you must also know about
using soot to make ink. Right? Did the afterlife give you the
recipe?"
Deirdre pursed her lips. "I know that it exists. The
afterlife showed me what existed, and some of the why and the how.
But it didn’t give me specific recipes for anything."
"Ah ha." Boann chuckled. "So close to knowledge,
and yet so far. But now that you know any sort of stain is enough to
write on scraps of cloth...well, if you like you can grow beets to
make beetroot juice, or you can scrape the soot off the chimneys, or
anything you like, really. Cattle blood and sheep blood, during
slaughter-time."
"All kinds of options," signed Meg. "Which
means...we might have everything we need to get your plan going,
Deirdre."
"We haven’t figured how to get so many scraps and rags,"
signed Deirdre.
"I will grant you," said Boann, "obtaining that
much cloth seems like too much work. All the time it takes to make
linen or spin a good yarn –"
"Fia didn't show us a good linen," said Meg. "She
showed us a rag of hemp cloth."
Everyone turned their heads toward the barley field, where hemp
was grown on the edges.
"It might take some more work," said Boann. "Turning
over more land to cultivation, harvesting more…ah, but we have two
fine and strong young women here to handle that!" She winked at
Meg. "Shouldn't be too much of an extra burden."
"The things I get myself into," signed Meg.
…
So the villagers, a little confused and skeptical as to why, turned over more soil for the sake of hemp, and Meg looked forward to
what that would allow when the crop came in. In the meantime, over
the rest of that year, as Fia grew a bit taller and Tally seemed to
be losing some grey from his hair, Deirdre was busy trying to figure
out what manner of writing material was best. Her first attempts with
beetroots showed some promise, with how well the juice stuck to the
hempen cloth through many washings. But try as she might, Deirdre
couldn’t concentrate the juice enough to make application easy. She
turned to blood next, draining a cupful from one of the stronger
cattle, and it was easy enough for her to dip her finger in and then
draw letters on the cloth – but the blood dried to a rough and
flaky texture, half of it washed off when Deirdre swirled it in
water, and when she tried to dip her finger in the cup again she
realized Dammit, where's an anti-coagulant when you need oneit had all congealed.
So Deirdre had nearly thrown the cup out the door, before Meg had
reminded her that a decent cup mustn’t be wasted.
So Deirdre had turned to the last option, that of the soot-stain
paste...which she had no real recipe for. Which meant that she
had to go through many days of trial and error to get the formula
right, and it was mostly error. Nothing seemed to stick as well as
she had been hoping.
On an early autumn evening, when the latest attempt had proven
still less than Deirdre desired, Meg sat by her at the fire, and
signed, "Do you think a passing trader would know how to make
this soot-stain paste? This...What did Boann call it?"
Deirdre took a stick, dipped it into a little dish full of the
inferior paste, and wrote three letters upon the rag: I-N-K.
"Ink?" said Meg aloud.
Deirdre showed her the corresponding hand sign.
"Interesting word," signed Meg. "But that doesn't
answer my question."
Deirdre threw the rag to the floor. "I don’t want the word
to get out about what we’re doing. It’s bad enough that the gods
might be paying attention. I...I’m sure I must have come to
understand the basic ratio of soot to water, and there was...one more
ingredient that I can’t remember. That’s why my efforts aren’t
going anywhere here. And that’s only one kind of ink, there’s
another kind made from some kind of iron and..vegetable juice? It’s
lost to me."
"Uh oh," signed Meg. "Memory trouble. You have
become too much like me."
"You threw a piece of your heart into the cauldron,"
signed Deirdre. "And the golden ring. Ooh, what if you did make
me more like you?"
"I doubt it," signed Meg. "You are much as I
remember you, dear. With some interesting additions." She took
Deirdre's hand and kissed it.
Deirdre laughed, and took back her hand. "I remember you were
always quite the charmer. Good to know that part of you wasn’t lost
with your memory."
"Yech," said Fia, sitting across the fire.
"Do not mock this," signed Deirdre. "Someday you
will know it yourself."
Fia rolled her eyes. "Sure. As soon as I find someone who can
keep up with me." She took up a rag and a needle, and resumed
sewing.
"I thought you didn't enjoy embroidery," signed Meg.
"I don't," said Fia. "But I figured, maybe if we're
working with cloth, we can just sew the letters into the fabric and
they would be permanent. So I'm trying it."
Deirdre chuckled. "How about that. We seem to be doing this
writing business out of order. We've gone from paper to tapestry."
"Tapestry?" signed Meg.
"Please," signed Deirdre. "You've seen one or two
in the halls of the High King."
"Oh dear," signed Meg. "I just can't remember."
Deirdre gave her a light punch on the shoulder. "Don't joke
like that."
"Perhaps you shall have to kiss me to help me remember,"
signed Meg, with a devilish grin.
"I hardly need an incentive anyway," signed Deirdre, and
then she lunged forward and gave Meg a kiss right on the lips – Meg
remembered a kiss like this, while she’d been looking over the
wheat crop to see which stalks were growing the most grains, so they
could save those for seeds and maybe have a stronger crop next year.
"I've seen a fair few tapestries," said Tally, who was
playing his lyre across the fire. "Mostly in the halls of the
High King, some in other courts. Difficult things to keep around in
this damp land, let me tell you! Mostly I've seen them in the Fairy
King's palace. The Good Neighbors know how to keep their home dry,
better than us."
At the mention of this title, Fia looked perplexed. "Fairy
King?"
"Don't go running after him, child. You'll never catch him."
Now Fia looked intrigued. "Does that mean the fairies – "
"The Good Neighbors," said Tally.
Fia rolled her eyes. "Does that mean the 'Good Neighbors' can
keep up with me?"
Deirdre cleared her throat loudly. "Don't encourage her,"
she signed.
"Changing the subject," signed Meg, "it occurs to
me that Deirdre and I did our relationship out of order. We adopted a
child, then we moved in together, then we fell in love. I'd say we're
good at doing things backwards."
Now Deirdre looked apprehensive. She gave Tally a nervous look,
then signed, "Talking of things out of order…there are certain
things I wanted to explain to everyone as soon as I could. But I
decided to do the paper first, to see what I could get away with."
"You're about to push it farther than you should,"
signed Tally. "Leave it."
"Or you will leave?" signed Deirdre.
"I just might."
"I'm going for a hundred-mile jog," said Fia, and in an
instant she was gone, leaving a swirl of air in her wake that whipped
the fire into a corkscrew. Everyone flinched backward.
Tally sighed, and signed, "Please. Don't do this."
Deirdre scowled.
"Do what?" signed Meg.
"Try to save lives," signed Deirdre.
Tally crossed his arms.
"Don't give me that," signed Deirdre. "Don't call
it a dilemma when the lives of children are on the line. All we have
to do is tell people to boil water before drinking it, and wash their
damn hands, and handle the milking more often. We don't have to tell
them anything about why. I know exactly how and why getting a case of
the cow-scabs means you won't get the deadly scabs later. I know how
boiling water makes it clean. But I won't sign a word as to why.
Alright?"
Tally remained silent for a moment, then finally relaxed. "You
do realize," he signed, "that you are risking being taken
away by the gods, back to the underworld. You know Meg doesn't
want to lose you – "
"I go where she goes," signed Meg.
" – but I don't want to lose you either," continued
Tally. "Because I love you two, as much as an immortal bard of
Annwn can love anyone."
"Immortal?" signed Deirdre.
"Annwn?" signed Meg.
"Give it a year," signed Tally. "If you manage to
survive the next year without the gods coming down upon your heads,
then I'll explain what I just said. Not now."
And he left the roundhouse without another word.