Day 11 - Llangynllo

Accepting that he would be trekking in the dark before he reached the village, he kept on, sack slung over his back, and a gnarled walking stick in one hand. He couldn't quite recall when or where he had acquired this prop. Likely back when he was still in the forest and the branches were plentiful. Trees were more scarce in this area and, while not completely without, any communities nearby would well have harvested them for fuel.

Hours later, in the dark, with the cold damp of night setting into his clothes, Renaldo heard distant voices. He walked toward them and soon he was able to make out the dim lights of cooking fires ahead. A bit farther and he could smell those cooking fires and the meals upon them.

"Ydych chi'n ffrind?" came an urgent voice nearby. A young woman's voice, inquiring but not at all afraid. Are you a friend?

"Yr wyf yn ffrind. Cefais fy ngeni yng Nghymru," he replied. I am a friend. I was born Welsh.

The voice became a solid figure of its speaker. "I am Juliana, daughter of Hopkin the miller" she continued in Welsh. "Please be welcome to our village."

"I thank you," replied Renaldo. "I am Re-nal-do," he enunciated slowly, "son of…" he paused. "...of Angharrett of Rhayader," he named his mother.

"Ach! Welcome to Llangynllo! I have kin in Rhayader!" The urgency wore off her speech and evaporated into warm welcome. "Please, it is late. My mother will be able to find you supper. Come with me."

Renaldo accepted, grateful of his acceptance, and followed Juliana past a communal stone oven that glowed upon the few bakers remaining to collect their loaves for supper. The emanating heat was a comfort to his cold, travel-worn body. He would liked to have stayed here to warm for a bit, but checked his weariness and continued after his host.

They soon arrived at the door of a house that cozied up to a fast-flowing creek. Juliana opened the door and swept her arm to invite her guest inside.

"Mother, we have a guest for the evening," she called out. "He hails from Rhayader!"

The call drew her mother from the adjacent room, of which there were two in this dwelling. She was a short woman, but not diminutive.

"Pray, traveller," Juliana's mother said. "Be welcome. Are you hungry? I have some fish and small ale left from supper. Hopkin got a nice catch of trout from the Lugg this morning. Small things, but plenty of them."

"Thank you," replied Renaldo. "They sound very satisfying."

"Of course," replied the mother, as she set about the process of selecting and filleting from a bucket that she pulled seemingly through the window. Renaldo looked on in puzzlement.

"Oh," laughed Juliana, catching his confusion, "we don't always hang our food in buckets out the window! Mother, show him what you've done!"

Mother winked and put the bucket out the window and let out a rope Renaldo had missed seeing a minute ago. After many lengths out, it grew slack, and she hoisted it back in again. She pulled it to the window ledge and set it on the sill, dripping with water.

"The river runs behind our house," explained Juliana. "It's fast-running and turns our water wheel well, but there's also a hole just below our window where the water catches and pools a bit before slipping back into the stream. It is our good luck to have it there and so close to the kitchen; our trout always tastes freshest of any in the village!"

Renaldo walked over to the window behind Mother and poked his head through the open pane.

"Yes, what good luck you have to use the water this way!" Good luck--pob lwc--was always welcome, especially when concerned with food in village life.

"It was good luck, too, when we found it," said Mother as she deftly relieved the fish of its skin. "The baron sought to navigate this river some years ago and much of the village was employed to make it wide and deep enough in the necessary spots. At the time, this house abutted a large rock where that hole is now--a rock nearly as big as the water wheel!

"The townspeople knew better than to try and move the rock, so they chose to circumvent it and move the river away from the house which, unfortunately, would also pull the river away from our wheel."

"Father's great-grandfather built that wheel," interrupted Juliana. "We're generations of millers because of that wheel."

"Yes," replied Mother. "A new course for the river would mean much adjustment for our family, and for the villagers that rely on our help to grind at harvest.

"So the baron provided the villagers some horses to help pull his troughs so that they could dredge the huge amount of riverbank that would need to move. All of the village was needed for this particular effort."

"Including the children," put in Juliana.

"Yes," agreed Mother. "Including the children. Juliana and her brother, though he was only four years old at the time, and a handful to manage.

"But," she continued, "his help was needed and so he joined me at our assigned rear of the trough, knee-deep in river water as we guided it along.

"Well, the dredging worked, and we were able to pull a great depth of mud and clay from the river bottom, but it was hard-going…"

"Because of the suction!" interrupted Juliana. "It was like the river was pulling back against the earth we were removing! And Evan…"

"Yes, Evan," picked up Mother, "got distracted in the effort and lost his balance, toppling himself into the void we had created. And the river didn't stop sucking! He was pulled right under before anybody could reach him!"

"Mother started screaming," said Juliana. "I was so scared!"

"Yes, I lost my head," said Mother. "But thankfully Elton was nearby and at my side as soon as he heard me. He was immediately up to his waist, holding onto the rock, and reaching his arm for where his son might be.

"'He's stuck!,' he cried. 'He's partly under the rock and he can't get his head above water!' Elton was panicking and his voice was unearthly with fright."

"And then," Juliana continued, "Father lifted the rock off Evan. Plum straight off! He just rolled it to the side as though it weren't as tall as our wheel!"

"Aye," said Mother as she watched Renaldo's astonishment. "We like to tease him that his ancestors practiced lifting all the flour sacks in Wales just so he could inherit the strength of 20 Welsh ponies!"

"He indeed much be strong!" exclaimed Renaldo. He was truly impressed.

"Nay," laughed Juliana and her mother smiled encouragingly. "The rock was full of, guess what? Holes!"

"Holes?" Renaldo confirmed.

"Holes too tiny for a bird's beak, but holes nonetheless. The entire rock--all the whole of it--was… what was it, Mother?

"Mandyllog." Porous. "It was found to be light, so full of spaces without rock!"

Mandyllog, thought Renaldo. A surprisingly light stone. This was indeed surprising.

"And Evan," inquired Renaldo, "is he alright?"

"Not a scratch," said Mother. "But tell me--having told you so much already, why don't you tell me your name? I am Gwen."

"My thanks to you for your generous hospitality, Gwen," he replied. "I am Renaldo." He pronounced it slowly, as he had earlier for Juliana.

"Oh!" Gwen responded with surprise as she draped the fish around the spit. "Such a Norman name for a Welshman?"

"I am told my father was a Norman," said Renaldo in part truth. "My mother, Angharrett of Rhayader, would have called me James."

"He must have courted her well, that she would allow 'Renaldo.' But then, it's the blood in our veins that makes us Welsh, not our names."

Renaldo flinched at this as though he suddenly felt his blood divide.