In fugue and darkness did Gildas awake
To cooing of crones, he leaned to listen,
‘A fine gift to the Witchmother he’ll make!’
With strength futile, wrestled with his prison,
They heard his works, ‘Oh? Our man is risen!’
Lowenna, see he’s servile to coven.’
Beheld, the sorceress in night woven!
Yet as he saw her now, comely she seemed,
A black swan pied with white and rouge alloyed,
Blush lips in bud, how jade her cats-eyes gleamed!
With lilied arms she bathed his wounds and toyed,
‘You leer, foul knight. Is thy chivalry void?’
He dropped his gaze, but stirring loins felt her,
And in the heat between them sweltered.
She drew herself close to his heaving chest,
Her breath upon his neck, ere he realise
His cross purloined, now hung before her breast.
He launched with fury, but restrained by ties,
‘Such wrath for this meek rood?’ she feigned surprise,
‘Hold thine evil tongue! My Lord thou wilt not blight.
My strength and song, the wellspring of my might!’
‘Adrift his course, I am want to languish,
But humbly pray, and with his strength, I’m blessed.’
Her wry smirk vanished, and face showed anguish,
‘Prayers answered? Tut, make not so crude a jest.
Such discourtesy makes for poor a guest!
Elect they, who upon thy lord’s sun faces,
Ever have I been shunned of his graces.’
‘Mark me, crude man. I did keep and cherish
My sweet sister, of pestilence stricken,
O Heaven hear me! Let her not perish!
I prayed, but her aches would only quicken,
How I pled for me instead to sicken!
‘Til alas, I held her sickly hand and
Did concede, our prayers hath god abandoned.’
‘As one way denied, another beckoned,
The Witchmother’s embrace revealed true craft.
Those famous arts, more potent I’d reckoned
Than thine invocations. Poor fool!’ she laughed,
But wanton tears made her mocking daft.
‘Thy sister,’ Gildas asked, ‘did she survive?’
‘It was too late. Her will would not revive.’
She turned away, exposed with flesh displayed,
‘Look not so soft on me, fiend am I not?’
‘All may be redeemed,’ but his thoughts betrayed–
With fire and brimstone! In her web you’re caught!
With the strength of Samson, he pulled the knot
And tore his bonds asunder, rage supreme!
Upon her pouncing before she could scream.
He felt her trembled limbs beneath him frail,
Her eyes met his with shame and submission.
She was no monster. Behind the black veil–
A little girl afraid, playing magician.
To his feet, with now escape his mission,
Gildas charged ahead, his lance to retrieve.
Bewitched, Lowenna watched him take his leave.
From earthy chambers came Gildas afar
From grace, here pentacles suffused the caves!
Through deathly odours and omens bizarre–
Creatures of the elderwood, nymphs and knaves,
Weyward sisters chanting with their forked staves!
He fled the cackles of an eyeless crone
At her spinning wheel, ‘All wilt be is sewn!’
With faith, at last he left the filthy lair,
To find his comrades slain with innards reaped,
Their saving he would pray, once free from there.
In stodged trodding through sodden marshes steeped,
And through the fog, across the great yeo leaped.
As the scorched weald behind him withered,
The witches’ words in his conscience slithered–
‘Hail Mithras! Heed our perpetual choir!
What deeds be done by a stray thread’s pull!
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For thou shalt partake with profane fire,
In foul the slaying of a sacred bull,
The unconquered sun in his splendour full!
Eye of Capricorn! Temple of the stars!
Thy lot be mapped upon this earth of ours!’
‘God forgive my soul if this fate doth loom.’
Surely heathen tongues spun only falsehood?
Be they righteous or agents of his doom,
He swore himself an instrument of Good.
To a welcome light, he parted Selwood.
For shapely hills and there atop the breast,
Surveyed the wetlands ahead looking West.
A summer land when winter floods recede,
Fair isles of apple, alder and willow,
Of swamp and sluggish waters, sedge and reed,
Where wild moors of Elysium billow,
Bestrewed by lonely tors, in beds pillow.
A crane swept low across the drowned heath,
And Gildas returned to camp with relief.
A hillock proud above yellow birches,
Cadbyrig, from whence embarked their platoon;
Settled with tents and stables and churches,
Where once heathens wassailed beneath the moon,
In temples prayed and whiteleaved oaks festoon.
Such earthly larks called to mind his sister,
He wanted now to speak how he’d missed her.
His arrival fervoured greetings of cheer,
‘Praise God! Thy fiercest soldier is returned!’
Old Boniface pushed to the front, ‘He’s here?
Bless thee, my son. A staunch salute you’ve earned!
Art thou abused? What toil and trouble churned?
But tarry! That may wait, gather thy sleep.’
He withdrew and spied Constance on the steep.
‘Dear brother! O summer’s day!’ How he’d missed
This cherub teeming with mirth at his wake.
In meeting, his hand and forehead she kissed,
He presented her with honey oat cake,
‘Hey-ho!’ she beamed, ‘might Cael perhaps partake?
He cruel-needs sustenance!’ and at her side,
There stood a craggy man in fur and hide.
By his bearing, a tempered gale there lurked.
Tousled strands of a black tangled mane
Fell past his keen eyes in a glare that irked
Our knight. Native by garb and lineal strain,
Cagey with stalker’s strout in home terrain,
Yet no lines weathered his high freckled cheeks.
They locked eyes as two off-standing peaks.
‘Be thee of the levels? Bless thy webbed feet,
For ere I was a cuckoo pent alone!’
‘Gildas!’ Constance trilled, ‘prithee, fan no heat!’
‘Purt not, sister. Blood knows a bosom tone.’
‘I know thee not, gallant. Nor have I known-’
A bout came over the sallow woodwose,
And Constance traced after his fits and throes.
Betwaddled so, but fatigued to protest;
Gildas retired to sleep, but mind played bawd
To lecherous guise of allured undress.
That heathen temptress on his conscience gnawed,
Sunk in sin, he ‘twixt lust and loathing awed.
A rush of blood– her form then took to flame,
He aroused in sweat, by calling of his name.
At ward’s watch ‘neath a dusk befallen haze,
Sentries gave the summons of his mentor.
With labour to conceal his fraught malaise,
He shuffled to the camp’s crested centre,
At the great pavilion he would enter.
The tear at his gut, he could not suppress,
As there knelt Lowenna in rued duress.
Beshrewed his heart, with but a helpless glance,
Then downcast her Medusan eyes forlorn.
What madness bid her take such fickle chance?
Whips and irons on racks of torture worn,
From shadow, Boniface emerged in scorn.
‘We caught this flittermouse prying about,
Wring her heathen tongue and the truth will out.’