Flann enters into the valley

“Miss me?” Catan laughed.

“I always worry about you when you’re away, big sister.”

“Ach! You’re almost as bad as Paul, except that he worries about me even when I’m not away.”

The front door opened again, letting in the hot yellow light of late afternoon as well as a tall elf.

“I heard that,” Paul said.

“You hear everything!” Flann groaned. “You probably heard every oath I swore today, all the way from Godefroy’s house.”

“Why?” Now it was Paul’s turn to hug her. “Was this old elf importuning you in our absence?”

“I didn’t know what I was doing wrong?” Osh wailed. “I follow her around for two days, and never once to get a hug. And you go away for two days, and when you come, she hugs everybody.”

“So go away for a while!” Cat suggested.

“Agreed,” Flann said, “but make it more than two days.”

“My darling!” Osh sighed. “How long to go away before you will kiss me?”

“That depends on what Cat tells me about Leila’s brother. So?” she asked her sister in Gaelic. “Is he handsome? Is he married?”

She was not truly interested for herself, but it was still fun to pretend.

“He’s not married, but watch out! It’s a true Mohammedan he is!”

“Never!” Flann gasped.

“He is, though! It’s twice and thrice a day he prays to Mohammed. Wait till we tell Father Aelfden!”

“What will Leila do?”

“She had better get to him before Father Aelfden does. However, he is handsome. If you like very dark men with very blue eyes.”

Cat eyed her shrewdly. Flann knew she was watching for a reaction, still searching for the slightest hint as to who the father of her baby might be.

“You know I’m not particular,” Flann sniffed. “Not about the color, anyway.”

“Well.. he’s not particularly tall, but taller than I, and he’s rather slight. How do you like that?”

Flann grinned and shook her head. “The important question is: How does he look from behind?”

“I don’t know!” Cat laughed. “He was always wearing loose robes, such as doctors wear in the south. I might as well try to tell you what Father Aelfden looks like from behind. A skeleton, probably!” she snickered.

Flann smiled to herself. Cat might have been right about the ever-​​fasting Abbot, but she happened to know that a priest could look delicious from behind, if only one removed the robe.

“But, listen, sister!” Cat gasped. “Speaking of priests! It is the most amazing story, how Joseph found his sister. It’s a sad story, but it has a happy ending.”

“How?”

“Are you remembering how the old true Pope died last spring?”

“Aye…”

“So, at that time, when he lay a-​​dying, a great many of the priests and Cardinals were there with him, and do you know who was there?”

“Who?”

“Father Brude!”

This time Flann was too stunned to pretend she was unaffected, but Cat did not seem to notice, and went on with her story.

“And a great many doctors were with him, too – all the Christian doctors in the city! But since Joseph is not a Christian doctor, he was not, and so one day a mysterious, beautiful noblewoman asked him to go to help a penniless priest who was a-​​dying as poorly as the Pope was dying richly. And who was that priest?”

Flann could not answer. She felt her heart pounding its way up her throat, and she feared that if she opened her mouth, it would come flopping out and throb upon the floor.

“Father Brude!” Cat cried. “And Father Brude said he knew a Saracen woman who had run off with an Englishman, and Joseph said his sister had run off with an Englishman, and between the two of them, they decided it was Leila! And Father Brude told him how to find her before he died.”

“Before he…” Flann whispered through clenched teeth, though her heart beat directly behind them upon her tongue.

“Before he died. Ach!” Cat sighed. “That’s the sad part of the story. And a shame it is, for he was a sweet man and a good priest, and the Lord knows it’s easier to confess in Gaelic, particularly when one sins like a Gael.” Cat smiled and nudged Flann with her elbow. “But it’s so wonderful that he was able to see Joseph before he died. He did a lot of good for dear Leila, even as he lay a-​​dying. It was like him! May God bless him. Leila declares she will name her next son Brude.”

“Is he certain he died?” Flann hissed. Her face must have been a frightening white or a frightening red, but she had to know.

“It’s his own doctor he was!” Cat cried defiantly, as if Flann had accused her of telling tales. “It’s certain I am he knows a dying and a dead man when he sees one, even if he does pray to idols.”

“Mina, won’t you please lie down now?” Paul whined.

“Ach, Paul! We were busy discussing how Joseph must look from behind, and you want me to lie down.”

“It was a long ride in the hot sun,” he grumbled.

“Your dew-​​baby won’t dry up,” Cat sighed. “I shall lie down only if you come lie down with me.”

“I believe I shall go lie down a while myself,” Flann murmured, unspeakably grateful to have this opportunity to escape.

“And I shall lie down only if Flann will come lie down with me,” Osh declared, but his face was graver than his joke demanded. Flann feared he could see something on hers. She had to escape.

“Another time, Osh…”

Flann waddled for the stairs without awaiting further comment.

She took the steps slowly, one hand heavy on the railing and the other clutching her skirt to lift it away from her toes.

There were fourteen steps, as there were fourteen angels watching over her when she slept, and often when she climbed to bed she counted them: two to guard her head, two to guide her feet, and so on, up unto the two who were tasked to lead her to Heaven. She counted them now to distract her mind.

But she halted a moment in the doorway of her room, for she saw then that she had climbed as high as she could alone: as high as she would ever go until the last two angels came to take her away. She could open this door, but there was no door beyond. She would live in this little room until she died.

Osh had painted the walls with his idea of her country, based on her and Cat’s fantastic descriptions: impossibly towering mountains, scrubby hills, and men in boats – a theme that still fascinated him, for the elves did not venture onto the water in any sort of craft.

She had laughed when she had first seen it, but it seemed a tragedy to her now. These were the ends of her world: impossible mountains on the east wall and impossible mountains on the west.

There were mountains but no passes, hills but no roads, lakes but no rivers. She would never leave this melancholy, monochrome valley that Osh had reproduced from wistful memories of misty moors: colorless as fog, gray as storm-​​clouds – as Brude’s eyes.

Her love had told her that he would do everything in his mortal body’s power to return to her, but his mortality had been too much for his body.

He had told her he would perhaps do more. Slowly she came to understand that he had. He had not died this afternoon, nor two days ago when Leila’s brother had arrived with the news. He had died months before, and all through these months of contented waiting, of pure faith, of absolute certitude that he would return…

He had already returned. He was already with her. It was what he had meant with his “perhaps”. There were fifteen angels watching over her now.

It was little comfort, but she would have to learn to take it. If she was to bear the many years of life that remained her, she would have to learn to be content without waiting. She had already passed as close to Heaven as she would ever be until the last three angels came to take her away.