Free Rhiannon by Vicki Grove

our abbey garden, you see, as well as for a fish-pond to provide for a meager meal on fasting days.”
    She whirled toward the speaker and saw the brown-haired young priest she’d seen walking upon the beach, now standing framed inside the coffin door! He looked grave and puzzled, and was not smiling in the least at her foolishness.
    He came down the stair, and now stood in the sun. “Your Lord Claredemont’s brother was spared while fighting at King Henry’s side across the sea in Francia last year. In gratitude to God for his brother’s life and for the victory, your lord has become benefactor to a prior and six of us monks, all just this few days past arrived from Glastonbury Abbey. The earl’s given generous support, as well. With God’s grace we’ll expand your church here, taking it from wood to stone and building our priory buildings next to the site with a tithe barn across the road.” He leaned closer and whispered, “But say true, lady, were we mistold that this space was free and clear of other use?”
    Rhiannon could make no answering speech. She just dropped her eyes.
    His voice was troubled when he spoke again. “Our good abbot at Glastonbury saw chance in your lord’s largesse to establish a new cell for our order here in these hinterlands. We would bring to this place sustained prayer and hard work to further God’s kingdom, as set out in Saint Benedict’s Rule. But our brother abbot nor Benedict himself would have had a single man put out from his living.”
    â€œThaddeus! Come straight along, now.”
    The young priest looked quickly at his elders. “I beg you pardon me,” he murmured to Rhiannon. With bent head, he hurried to join his three fellows.
    All agog so she could barely think, Rhiannon walked back to her own group.
    â€œWell done, Rhiannon!” Granna said, clapping her on the back.
    Mam’s reaction would be opposite, Rhia knew. She bent to Daisy and whispered words similar to those Granna oft used. “I lost my wits upon seeing those religious, and figured them liable for Jim’s burnt cot. No need to mention this to my mother, all right?”
    Daisy solemnly nodded, and Rhia moved close to Jim. “Lord Claredemont thought you’d died, Jim,” she said quietly. “He was surely mistold, or he would not have given leave for the vicar to destroy your cot and so besmirch your willowed toft.”
    Still staring at that smoky patch as though in a trance, Jim answered, “No, Rhiannon, it’s just the same by the law as if I had’ve died. I couldn’t give the lord his week-work now, and I have no son to take over. How could I stay tenant? I just wasn’t studying it right, ’tis all. Now I study it right, I wonder why I had other expectation.”
    He got up then, leaning hard upon his stick, and turned to hobble on, toward the morbid task awaiting all of them at the butcher shop table on the green.
    Rhiannon sadly took Daisy’s hand and made to follow close, but Granna clutched at her sleeve, stopping her.
    â€œJim is now a homeless man,” Granna whispered. “He’s without a skill, friendless, near vagabond. The shame of that is not something he’ll want pressed with talk, so better give him a bit of space, Rhia.”
    And so they three just stood and sadly watched his halted progress along the muddy road. When finally they lost sight of him among the throng of townspeople moving toward the green, they moved along toward that place themselves.

Chapter 6
    Beyond the churchyard, the cottages of Woethersly were strewn along all haphazard, each with its narrow strip of croft behind, leading back to a garden spot. Each also with a small toft in front of it, a patch of yard crowded with animal sheds and the like.
    The tofts were alive this day with skittery activity—children playing in the dirt by their stoops and gawking at all the passers, buzzards and