“Have those foolish women sent you after me, husband? When I was their age, I’m sure it was the old ones were full of fear and foolish beliefs, reckoning every stone cursed and each stray cat an evil spirit. But now I’m grown old myself, what do I find but it’s the young are riddled with beliefs like they never heard the Lord’s promise to walk beside us at all times. Look at that poor stranger, see her yourself, exhausted and solitary, and she’s wandered the forest and fields for four days, village after village commanding her to travel on. And it’s Christian country she’s walked across, but taken for a demon or maybe a leper though her skin bears no mark of it. Now, husband, I hope you’re not here to tell me I’m not to give this poor woman comfort and what sorry food I have with me.”
“I wouldn’t tell you any such thing, princess, for I see for myself what you’re saying is true. I was thinking before I even came here how it’s a shameful thing we can’t receive a stranger with kindness any more.”
“Then go on with your business, husband, for I’m sure they’ll be complaining again how slow you are at your work, and before you know they’ll have the children chanting at us again.”
“No one’s ever said I’m slow in my work, princess. Where did you hear such a thing? I’ve never heard a word of such complaint and I’m able to take the same burden as any man twenty years younger.”
“I’m only teasing, husband. Right enough, there’s no one complaining about your work.”
“If there’s children calling us names, it’s not to do with my work being fast or slow but parents too foolish or more likely drunk to teach them manners or respect.”
“Calm yourself, husband. I told you I was just teasing and I won’t do so again. The stranger was telling me something that greatly interests me and may some time interest you too. But she needs to finish the telling of it, so let me ask you again to hurry on with whatever task you have to do and leave me to listen to her and give what comfort I can.”
“I’m sorry, princess, if I spoke harshly to you just then.”
But Beatrice had already turned and was climbing the path back to the thorn tree and the figure in the flapping cloak.
A little later, having completed his errand, Axl was returning to the fields, and at the risk of testing the patience of his colleagues, deviated from his route to go past the old thorn again. For the truth was that while he had fully shared his wife’s scorn for the suspicious instincts of the women, he had not been able to free himself from the thought that the stranger did pose some sort of threat, and he had been uneasy since leaving Beatrice with her. He was relieved then to see his wife’s figure, alone on the promontory in front of the rock, looking out at the sky. She seemed lost in thought, and failed to notice him until he called up to her. As he watched her descending the path, more slowly than before, it occurred to him not for the first time that there was something different lately in her gait. She was not limping exactly, but it was as though she were nursing some secret pain somewhere. When he asked her, as she approached, what had become of her odd companion, Beatrice said simply: “She went on her way.”
“She would have been grateful for your kindness, princess. Did you speak long with her?”
“I did and she had a deal to say.”
“I can see she said something to trouble you, princess. Perhaps those women were right and she was one best avoided.”
“She’s not upset me, Axl. She has me thinking though.”
“You’re in a strange mood. Are you sure she hasn’t put some spell on you before vanishing into the air?”
“Walk up there to the thorn, husband, and you’ll see her on the path and only recently departed. She’s hoping for better charity from those around the hill.”
“Well then I’ll leave you, princess, since I see you’ve come to no harm. God will be pleased for the kindness you’ve shown as is always your way.”
But this time his wife seemed reluctant to let him go. She grasped his arm, as though momentarily to steady herself, then let her head rest on his chest. As though by its own instinct, his hand rose to caress her hair, grown tangled in the wind, and when he glanced down at her he was surprised to see her eyes still wide open.
“You’re in a strange mood, right enough,” he said. “What did that stranger say to you?”
She kept her head on his chest for a moment longer. Then she straightened and let go of him. “Now I think of it, Axl, there may be something in what you’re always saying. It’s queer the way the world’s forgetting people and things from only yesterday and the day before that. Like a sickness come over us all.”
“Just what I was saying, princess. Take that red-haired woman …”
“Never mind the red-haired woman, Axl. It’s what else we’re not remembering.” She had said this while looking away into the mist-layered distance, but now she looked straight at him and he could see her eyes were filled with sadness and yearning. And it was then — he was sure — that she said to him: “You’ve long set your heart against it, Axl, I know. But it’s time now to think on it anew. There’s a journey we must go on, and no more delay.”
“A journey, princess? What sort of journey?”
“A journey to our son’s village. It’s not far, husband, we know that. Even with our slow steps, it’s a few days’ walk at most, a little way east beyond the Great Plain. And the spring will soon be upon us.”
“We might go on such a trip, certainly, princess. Was there something that stranger said just now got you thinking of it?”
“It’s been a thing in my thoughts a long time, Axl, though it’s what that poor woman said just now makes me wish to delay no further. Our son awaits us in his village. How much longer must we keep him waiting?”
“When the spring’s here, princess, we’ll certainly think about just such a journey. But why do you say it’s my wishes always stood in the way of it?”
“I don’t remember now all that’s passed between us on it, Axl. Only that you always set your heart against it, even as I longed for it.”
“Well, princess, let’s talk about it more when there’s no work waiting and neighbours ready to call us slow. Let me go on my way just now. We’ll talk more on it soon.”
But in the days that followed, even if they alluded to the idea of this journey, they never talked properly about it. For they found they became oddly uncomfortable whenever the topic was broached, and before long an understanding had grown between them, in the silent way understandings do between a husband and wife of many years, to avoid the subject as much as possible. I say “as much as possible,” for there appeared at times to be a need — a compulsion, you might say — to which one or the other would have to yield. But whatever discussions they had in such circumstances inevitably ended quickly in evasiveness or bad temper. And on the one occasion Axl had asked his wife straight out what the strange woman had said to her that day up at the old thorn, Beatrice’s expression had clouded, and she had seemed for a moment on the verge of tears. After this, Axl had taken care to avoid any reference to the stranger.
After a while Axl could no longer remember how talk of this journey had started, or what it had ever meant to them. But then this morning, sitting outside in the cold hour before dawn, his memory seemed partially at least to clear, and many things had come back to him: the red-haired woman; Marta; the stranger in dark rags; other memories with which we need not concern ourselves here. And he had remembered, quite vividly, what had happened only a few Sundays ago, when they had taken Beatrice’s candle from her.