To Map The World [3]

The dark, dark warmth was glorious. There wasn't a sound. The covers were thick and I wandered not through a single dream.1

I felt the sleep wear off easily. I remembered waking perhaps thirty minutes earlier and having all the thankful thoughts about the warm covers pass through my head. Earlier than that, I remembered so faintly, I'd been awakened, while the daylight had placed all the windows in the room. What had taken all those hours? I knew nothing, and worried - and the subject matter was myself. It was an odd feeling. What was the current status of my own wellbeing - and what on earth had taken place?2

It was good to stand again - so good, that I smiled and the worry departed. As I walked through the door of my room, I felt very new. I knew not how the day would end at all, but I was determined to retain a pleasant perception.3

My mother was at the bottom of the stair and ran to meet me as I came down. The sky was grey outside the main room window, I saw as we descended. My father looked pleased and stood; I smiled abashedly. I looked back at the bar. It was empty, and to my right I saw the ceorle. He returned politely the smile that had remained on my lips.4

All the sleep had done me a lot of good. My mother frequently inquired as to how I felt, or asked to look 'just once more' at the hue of my cheek. In truth I felt a selfish pleasure in knowing myself so celebrated. I could choose to excuse this behavior by saying that my family's concern was the diversion for which I had so longed. At any rate, I had slept and been showered with kindness and was eager to walk around on my own feet.5

I was relieved - again my emotion seemed come from unworthy angels - to note that the ceorle was gone by the time I looked around with the strength to thank him. I, in truth, was unsure of the expectations for my conduct in such a manner. Had it been a gentleman that caught me I would have been exact in my grace, I dare claim. Also, this particular young man disturbed me. 6

He was, as Thérose, said, gaunt, somewhat pale, and he faced the world from the disheveled scrapes around his eyes. Little else about him was remarkable - and yet everything was. In attempting to set down the facts of this mystery, I'm sure I would be pages and pages. Thus I will say only something alluding to the way the man fevered my brain - and that I sought sleep only for my physical good, as my interest followed the fever - and then later, reader, you will see, or not see. (As for myself, I can't claim to have done either to the fullest extent.)7

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The next day, after we'd spent our third night in the little Welsh town I asked a maid of the inn to teach me the runes that were used as decorative letters all about the place. She was a delightful girl, with a small pink nose and a distressed bun of hair, from which strands fell to cover her brow. She pronounced to me that the inn was called Noethpinc*. When I asked what that meant, she hesitated and then said that it was meant The Little Country Inn Covered With Snow. I didn't believe her, but neither did I ask again. 9

She taught me so much that I remember only the smallest fraction. Piwscadraon, she said, meant Purple Crest. She was well-versed in the history of the south region. The histories of places as many as a hundred miles from Piwscadraon she could relate, including that of Lord Welltdyrnau, the original Lord of Welldyr. The manse to which we traveled, she guessed, had been a stronghold in one of his many wars.10

I asked her finally if she knew of the pale-haired man who seemed always to come in and go out. 'Yes,' she said, with an uninterpretable look. 'Simon, the writer.' And was that a dread, or a leap of heart I knew inside - and what business had that emotion with myself, Maria Ideroesse Barriled?11

The girl, named Tamsen, showed me to a smaller bar situated in the far wing of the inn. I thanked her, and she left, saying that he would be either inside or in the room directly off of it.12

I looked quite thoroughly around that bar, walking through the tables a little and feeling very out-of-place, and seeing there no one that I knew. The adjacent room was barely lit at all, and I did not go in. From the doorway I observed that there was perhaps a man or two inside, and I recognized no one, again.13

'Tamsen, ' I called, when back in the main room. She came directly. 'I was unable to locate the - ah, Simon,' I said. How novel it was, to have a name for the face. 14

'He was in there before supper, and he has not gone out,' pointed out the maid. 15

'Will you please show me to him, then,' I requested. She nodded, rubbed her hands on her apron habitually, and set for the far wing with a light step.16

We passed by the bar - Tamsen seemed to confirm my assumption that he was away with a quick cast of her eyes. She opened the door to the room, and walked through it with me, finding it harder to form any opinion here for the lack of light. I prayed, as we passed two men, then three (all asleep), that the room would prove to be empty as far as was of interest to me.17

Then with a nod toward a dark shape in a chair she turned to leave. I reached suddenly, discreetly, to hold tight her sleeve, and she understood. She cleared her throat. 'My Lady, this man is Simon. Simon, meet the lady Maria Barriled.' This said with careful pronunciation, she left us alone.18

The writer's legs were kicked into the chair alongside his body; his bent knees jutted over the arm of that chair. His head was covered in a black hood, and I wouldn't have known him by height, or set of shoulder. He set a glass of wine on the table that held the lamp, and stood.19

'Bon-jour, Madame,' he said politely.20

'Bon-jour, Simon,' I said. The fearful pout of my lips finally loosened.