There were people watching us from the slopes of the rising ground to the northeast as we approached the shore in the presunrise light the next morning. They stood in groups of two and three, or stood alone, and I could detect no signs of hostility or fear in them as we drew closer. Nevertheless, I scanned them carefully as our oarsmen brought us in toward the land, and only when I could distinguish them individually did I allow myself to breathe peacefully again. All of them were men—no women in sight anywhere—and that single fact assured me that these were the latest of the line of anchorites that had subsisted here in this barren yet sacred place for hundreds of years.
I had never been able to discover why this lonely, inhospitable place, huddled among its surrounding salt marshes, should be held sacred. Its origins were shrouded in ancient mystery, but tradition held that the Druids in antiquity had inherited the hallowed place from the priests and worshippers among the ancient race who had ruled this land and called it Alba since the beginnings of time, long ages before the founding of the village in Italia that would one day be known as Rome. The Druids themselves had never made a dwelling of the place, to the best of my knowledge, and yet the legend went that Glastonbury had always been a place of worship. The high tor that reared above it was said to be hollow, constructed by the gods themselves to shield a gateway to the Underworld, and wise men shunned it, afraid of being lost forever in the enchanted maze of twisting paths that girdled and encircled the tor’s heights and slopes.
Two of my young companions leaped into the shallows before we grounded on the sand and offered to carry me ashore, but I waved them away and lowered myself carefully until I stood in knee-deep water, and then I waded ashore and waited, eyeing the people who stood there watching us. For a long time no one spoke, on either side, but eventually one frail and bent old man moved forward, leaning heavily on a long staff, and made his way to where I stood, and as he came I noted the plain wooden Cross he wore about his neck, suspended on a leather loop. I waited until he reached me and then bowed my head to him in greeting. He was older than me by far and I recognized him, although I could not recall his name. As his rheumy eyes gazed into mine, I watched for a similar spark of recognition. None came, and I turned to my son Clovis and gave him the signal we had arranged.
Clovis stood slightly behind me, his arms filled with a thick roll of heavy woolen cloth, woven on our broad Gallic looms from the spun wool of the hardy sheep of southern Gaul. At my nod, he stepped forward and knelt to lay the roll of cloth at the feet of the old master, whose eyes softened with pleasure as he looked at it. It was not a great gift, from our viewpoint, having cost us nothing but the time it took our weavers to make it, but it would clothe this entire community in fresh, new garments, perhaps for the first time in many years. The old man looked back at me then, and I addressed him in the language known as the Coastal Tongue, the trading language, an amalgam of a score of languages that had been used along the coasts of Britain and the mainland for hundreds of years, asking him if we could leave our boat in the shelter of his bay for several days. He nodded deeply, maintaining his silence, and I bowed again and turned back to my boat to make my final arrangements with our captain. He and his men would wait for us here, and I assured them we would be gone for mere days: five at the most, and probably less.
Within an hour of stepping ashore, my ten companions and I were on our way inland, striking first to the northeast around the base of the tor and then swinging south and east again, following the fringes of the extensive salt marshes on our right. I was the only one of our party who was mounted, riding the single shaggy garron owned by the community of Glastonbury, and it occurred to me now, looking down on them, that my youthful companions, used to riding everywhere, were completely unaccustomed to walking for any sustained length of time. They would be sore and weary when they laid themselves down that night and the nights that followed, for long miles stretched ahead of us, and every pace would be across rough country unworn by human passage. For the first time, the reality of that troubled me.
None of these men, I knew, had any idea of why we were there or why it was so important to me to make this long and seemingly pointless journey. But they had come, and they were ready for anything I might demand of them, simply because I had invited them to accompany me into this foreign land on a quest of some kind, a quest whose roots lay hidden in bygone times, in what was to them my unfathomable past. Looking at them now, I felt the difference between my age and theirs. They saw themselves embarking upon an adventure, whereas I was more than half convinced that this journey was folly, bound to generate nothing but grief and pain and disillusionment. Knowing nothing of this Britain, they were filled with excitement over what it might hold in store for them, whereas I had known the land too well in former times and knew it could now hold nothing for me that was good. All that was good and wholesome in my youth, Britain had sucked from me long since, condemning me to exile in the place across the seas that had once been my home and had since become my prison. There was nothing I could hope to find here except perhaps the remnants of a dream, the last, tattered shadows of a vision that had once, for a brief time, achieved blinding reality before being destroyed by the malice of ignorant, venal men.
Thinking of that, I called my company to a halt and sat facing them, moving my gaze from face to face as they stood looking up at me, awaiting instructions of some kind. I smiled at them, incapable of resisting the inclination.
“Well, my young friends,” I began. “Here we are, in Britain. Look about you now and take note of what you see, because I doubt you may have really looked since we landed here.” I watched with interest as their eyes began to register their surroundings, their initial, tolerant indifference gradually giving way to a range of emotions, none of which approached happiness or excitement. I broke in on their thoughts just as they began to show signs of starting to talk among themselves.
“Britain,” I said loudly, bringing their eyes back toward me. “It may not seem the fairest land you have ever seen, but I had friends here once who swore that it was. There are no vineyards here, no hillsides rich with grapes, and the summer sun that shines later today might leave you cool and longing for your own warm breezes. It can be hot here, but in fact it seldom is. The winters are brutal, too, cold and long and wet … always damp and dank and chill. And yet this is a land where great ideas and noble ideals took root and flourished for a time, a time you have all heard about … and although it was a tragically short and strife-torn time, yet it was wondrous. It was a time without equal, a time without precedent, and it was my time in the way that today is yours … the time of youth, of dreams and high ideals.”