The
Legendary Of Anoria
Part I of III
A mini-book herein - worth reading
Authors e-mail on Part III
She will tell you who she is - I reserve the right to protect her privacy
Little more than eleven and a half centuries into the new era our saga begins.
It was some time after the defiantly refined Norman customs began to be assimilated
into the fierce Teutonic and Nordic ways which had prevailed in Britain. Those
ways in their turn had replaced those of the tribal Celts and creatively vicious
Romans. It was a time of cycles and alterations, of adjustments and evolution.
In truth the roots of the story reach back much further on many sides,
but this will unravel as does the tale.
The old house on the edge of the northern moors had long
been the subject of local folklore and speculation. Built of an unlikely combination
of stones, it appeared almost gypsyish, probably at odds with its surroundings
before time mellowed its patchwork of color and substance. Brownstone, fieldstone,
and still other rock in mottled greys and blues were mortared together randomly
to construct a smallish round-walled turret with a small square structure
behind. The square portion, almost concealed under a roof slope which nearly
touched the ground, appeared more primitively built and more weathered than
the tower. It appeared to fly away at a kind of angle from the tower's slightly
more carefully constructed, solid walls.
A little pie-wedge of a courtyard formed by the odd angle of the building sections was one of the house’s most charming elements. Darkly hued grasses and heather had reasserted themselves between the cracks, but the neat patterns of terracotta and brownstone were evident on the courtyard floor. A low brownstone wall divided the space from the open moors, two squat grey stone pillars indicating the entrance through a rough iron gate. A crude carving in bluish stone, slightly off to one side, depicted an interpretation of the Saxon horse god. A later inhabitant or passerby had retaliated by carving Nordic runes of Odin into the side of it; still later, it seemed, ancestral outrage had led someone to pay homage to the island's older heritage. The result of this were very rough attempts at geometric Celtic patterns. Interestingly, with the hodgepodge of heritages and materials here, there seemed to be no trace of the era of Roman rule. Except if one pushed open the ancient carved oak door in the side of the tower and looked carefully very long and very carefully at the stones below its lone narrow window.
Faded and almost completely concealed in the stonework was a little line of what appeared to be black and violet mosaic tiles. They spelled out, in surprisingly refined script, a single name: Anoria.... "I come to seek my ancestral home," the strange woman told the villagers.
It was less odd to see a woman travelling alone in this part of the north country than it would have been closer to the seaport cities of the south, targets for invaders, usurpers and the like. Women from the borderlands were rough and capable. The fact that she carried some sort of crude stringed musical instrument was not as unusual as later writers would have one believe. But her clothing had not been made by any local seamstress out of rough linen and carded northern wool. And her speech was a shade too cultivated, although she had strong traces of the Northumbrian dialect when she spoke certain words. As if wishing to avoid being the subject of speculation more than need be, she spoke very little.
"How do you know your people come from around these parts?" the innkeeper woman spoke for all of the curious who strained to listen over their flagons. The strange woman let back her lined hood, shaking her dark hair free. She moved over to the fireplace, the light picking up metallic giants in her clothing that made their richness more evident. Her listeners stopped pretending undue absorption in their drinking vessels. "The old house is still standing, is it not?" she asked pointedly. "Old house. You mean that squatty old tower with the shabby old hall behind it?" snarled the inn mistress, whose obviously favored adjective would not ill describe her. "It was a Viking stronghold, wasn't it?" asked a youngish farmer, more seeking an excuse to draw his chair close to the stranger than interested in discussing architecture. "Older, said the strange woman. "The first stones were part of a little Celtic farmhouse and it was built onto later on. I believe that some sort of trades artisan once sold crafted goods out of the older part."
"The tower was the stronghold," explained the
man thought to be the village's oldest resident, a once redheaded landholder
of combined Celtic and Nordic blood. "Has anyone been inside in the last
few years?" asked the stranger, accepting a flagon from the younger man-
"No one living has ever been, to my recall," said the old landholder
- "No one knows for sure what's inside, although we've heard this story
and that story," said the innkeeper. "Who are you, lady?" whispered
the owner of the flagon, waving it back to her as she offered to return it.
"Anoria," said the woman.
A few remained late into the night to talk about her, long
after she had gone to the inn's attic room, a serving girl following with
the lodging's best blankets. A gold piece had quieted the innkeeper woman's
suspicions and inspired an offer of the inn's largest room in the north gable-not
terribly sumptuous, but the best that could be had at the establishment. Anoria
as she claimed to be called, had turned it down in favor of the smaller, more
secluded attic room.
"My things will be arriving tomorrow" she had
said. "I shall need three or four servants to help me move them inside.
"What could she be bringing to require all that?" asked the innkeeper,
rolling the gold piece thoughtfully around in her hand. "Only someone
from around these parts would know the name of Anoria. Even we local folk
have never actually seen the name written. Then why have we never seen this
woman before, or anyone who resembles her?" The speaker was a weaver
whose ancestors, like most of those present, had never remembered living anywhere
other than the tiny unnamed village.
"Perhaps she met someone in her travels who told her about the writing that's supposed to be up there," suggested a woman vaguely, gesturing up in the general direction of the tower. She and her brothers were travelling north to Scotland, having become discontented with the newfangled ways taking hold further south. They had seemed eager to get to their rooms for the night but were drawn in to the excitement of the occasion.
"Who from up here ever goes anywhere?" snorted a dairyman. "She would have had to hear it from someone who had passed through, and what would they care about the old legends?' "Is there a legend?" asked the traveling woman. "Oh, you hear this, you hear that. The children talk about it," said a widowed seamstress who, like a number of these country women, had no compunction about staying late at the local tavern like the men. "The name sounds Roman, so people say she was at least partially one of them. Some say a Roman woman was walled up in the tower, to avenge the murder of Boudicca and her daughters." "Some of the children say she was a dark sorceress, or a murderess, and still haunts the place. But of course children talk like that," added the innkeeper.
"I've heard she was a sorceress of light, and her spirit watches over the village, said the dairyman, who was rather religious and not altogether devoid of the old ways. "That's what people used to say when I was a boy. You must admit, with all the invasions and what have you, we have had surprisingly little trouble here." "Considering we have fairly good land to offer," said the farmer who had given Anoria his flagon earlier.
"You do at any rate," said another and the little
group laughed. "Everyone in town will be up here tomorrow to see her,"
someone pointed out. "She is wonderful for my little inn. I wonder if
I can persuade her to take up residence here," mused the innkeeper. "I
wonder if she'll give some of us good wages to make that old tower house livable,"
said an enterprising young man who worked the dairy farm from time to time.
"She'll want to live there eventually. And I believe she will find a
way to do that Anoria," said the seamstress, rolling the unusual name
off her tongue.
The wagon which drew up to the door the following afternoon drew everyone from their homes and fields to watch. The chests and crates were numerous, far too numerous to fit into the inn. Anoria paid the innkeeper for the services of three of her servants, who were really more or less thralls although no one would have truly stopped them if they had thought to venture out of the village.
"You cannot fit them into that attic room said the woman dubiously. "Is there anything that would get ruined in the cellar?' "Oh, I am not moving them here. I am moving them into my house, said Anoria simply. "Your house! But really!" began the innkeeper,half shocked at the woman's audacity and half horrified at losing such a profitable lodger.
"But of course. These are my landholdings. No one else has ownership of them. If you chose to trace my ancestry back, you could find all the documents. But I doubt if anyone wants that old place enough to challenge me on it." As she spoke the word she very idly played with a blade which her listeners only just realized she had been wearing at her side all along. The Celtic pewter work was interesting rather than overly elaborate, and there were jewels set in the quillons that looked too refined to be ancient. The metalwork had too blended in with the light embroidery of her skirts. Her handling did not seem like that of someone who was unfamiliar with daggers, or wore them merely as ornament.
"Well, it's all the same to me," said the landowner who had been at the inn the previous night, "if it's all the same to everyone else of any import." Since the village was remote and unnamed, belonging to no county or shire, it had no council or burghers to speak of. This made everyday procedures more difficult, and others more expedient.
Anoria looked up. No one spoke. She gestured at her borrowed
workers and said softly, "I would like my things moved now." Her
voice boded no argument, but she did not waste her energy summoning a commanding
demeanor for servants. "It may be locked up somehow," suggested
a craftsman whose skill was not unknown in metal workings. "If
I need your services, I will send for you and pay you for your trouble,"
promised the stranger graciously.
As it turned out, the building was quite accessible, too
accessible in fact, so the craftsman was hired by Anoria to create locks for
the doors. The interior was not overly mystifying except by virtue of the
fact that it had not been touched in centuries, several sets of servants were
called in to clear the dust, many succumbing to coughing and sneezing as a
result. The floors were earthen in the older part, wooden in the tower; the
windows were simply openings with close iron grillwork and shutters; the hearth
was large and primitive, of dark stone; and there were a couple of bronze
mirrors and farming tools which Anoria said were quite functional with a bit
of care. Her fingers lingered a bit on the mosaic. Of course none of the villagers
could read, and the curious few she had allowed to follow her inside could
only trust her reaction of obvious satisfaction at the characters. She pulled
away her little candlestick and read in a soft, awed voice, "Anoria.
Anoria...."
By the next morning the entire village had kept at least one vigil through the night, watching the silent stone structure for any sign of motion or change. There was none. A single candle guttered in the window of the old tower on the lower floor, growing fainter and fainter as the eastern horizon became indigo, then deep grey, then lavender, and at last pale grey. That tone remained throughout the next day, and the next, and the next. The air was heavy as though rain would fall, but although the mist and the dew were heavy on the moors anthe clouds were pendulous, nothing fell from the sky.
Anoria never left the little building in all those three days. Occasionally the faint peal of an ancient, rusted bell sounded through the door of the tower. Obviously prompted beforehand, the youths who had helped her move her belongings would take turns going to the door. Each time the one who went to her would go down to the village, throw a coin down at the marketplace, and go back with food or wine. Although the other villagers questioned them, the servants could only shake their heads.
"It's just an old house," they would insist, adding that they were not allowed past the door. There was nothing else to see. The windows were opaque and narrow, not requiring curtains. Anoria did not appear to be decorating. She appeared at the door in the same magnificent, though increasingly dusty dress.
"She was polishing a fine lady's cup last time," was the most they could get out of one very young thrall on the third evening. "Silver. Carved things on it. People with wings. Like that." He pointed at the little brown stone church that stood at the end of the village, where the inhabitants often went to pray or spend time alone although there was no real congregation.
"Angels, you mean," said the innkeeper woman, looking duly impressed. "Or faeries," said the blacksmith, who held a dim opinion of gewgaws on good solid metals and feared otherworldy beings of any variety. "Or faeries," agreed the innkeeper, but in a very different voice.
At dawn on the fourth day...by which time everyone had drifted back into their everyday lives... Anoria emerged soundlessly. She was wearing simpler dress of simpler fabric, but by no means coarse. Her skirt cleared the ground and was obviously meant for work or walking; her laced bodice was plain; her soft top had the look of a well-to-do free farm woman. She had chosen twilight tones, which combined with her careful quiet walk, gave the strong impression of wanting to remain undetected still.
This was not to be.
Another figure never before seen in the tiny unnamed village was headed toward the cluster of shops and houses which the woman was plainly trying to avoid; she had headed toward the highroad which skirted the town and saw the form only through her peripheral vision. She clearly looked away.
There was a greyish hooded cloak, and grey overland boots, and long sandy hair. A hasty glance could make as much out, even in the thick northern mists of morning.
Three dairymaids, heading across the pasture with bucket yokes across their back and village gossip on their lips, stopped dead in their tracks. The streets of the town were between them and Anoria. It was a fairly narrow space, where the lanes lined with little stone, wood and thatchroof buildings tapered to a thin, peninsular space cut into the enormous stretches of heathered moorland. Nevertheless it protected them from immediate detection, and the eldest among them ceased the chatter with a jab of her elbow into the ribs of one companion and a sharp "Hsst!" into the other. All three stopped dead first to look only at Anoria, her bearing and her rich dark hair identifying her in the pale morning, and then to watch the transaction that was obviously about to take place.
"Should I say greetings, lady, or should I wait for you to invite me to your gracious home?" said a male voice softly. The girls could not quite make out every intonation, but with their earthy country intuition, they caught better the syllables that were unspoken. "You are welcome to MY home at any time," the woman said clearly, and this the young women caught sharply.
"Many centuries have elapsed since your ancestors were there, lady," the man said even more softly, for now he had taken a step closer to her. "Draw closer; we will never be able to hear now," said the youngest of the dairymaids "Quiet! Not all of us. Watch these," said the eldest, kneeling swiftly to ease her filled buckets down and the yoke off her shoulders. Thus unburdened, she slipped closer to the two figures. She was just in time to hear the conclusion of his statement..."and the name could be a coincidence."
"But not the writing, and you know it," Anoria responded. Her hand had gone quickly up to conceal something, and the dairymaid noticed a braided leather strand around the woman's throat. Whatever amulet was on the end was not clearly visible, but through the light gray of her spun shirt there was a dark outline. It was iron or some other dark, coarse ore, not in keeping with Anoria's obvious fine taste. The girl was able to quickly deduce, of course, that the lettering not only bore her name but bore it in the same lettering which was rumored to be etched somewhere in the house. For several of the thralls and villagers clustered outside had watched her examine the walls and sills, candle in hand, and heard her whisper her own name with evident satisfaction.
"Come home. Your people need you. These are not your people. You have not even been out among them, except for the first night you came." "You have been watching me yet," Anoria's face was distressed.
"It is easy to watch from the briar patches up past the tower. I have only seen whether you have come through the door. Had you been home, you would not have sequestered yourself so." "I need time," Anoria whispered. "You have been here, you have seen. Now come home. Please."
"I cannot!" Anoria turned sharply, too sharply, and caught sight of the girl's full sleeve against the slim evergreen tree she leaned soundlessly against. Not in terror but in mortification, the girl slipped in between two houses, the little earthen alleyway taking her not further from Anoria and her companion but closer.
"Quickly! Go get someone," the elder of the two remaining dairymaids ordered the youngest of her cohorts who obeyed. She was light on her feet and quick, but not quick enough for the hooded figure who swept down on her. The other girl, now genuinely frightened, found herself face to face with the angry new chatelaine of the little near-castle.
"Don't," she whispered. The youngest had begun to cry out shrilly, neither a scream nor a shout, simply a conveyance of distress which was understood and answered by all her fellow townspeople. Farmhouses, cottages adjacent to tiny shops, the inn, the smithy all opened their doors. Before anyone could sweep down on him, the man dropped the girl, who he had started to lift into the air. She fell softly, but cried out again in dismay as she struck the dewy, soft earth.
"Go back to your dairy, and stop listening to what is not your affair," said the man clearly. His words stopped the physical motion of the advancing farm folk, who had naturally misread his intent and were advancing upon him with various cruelly sharp farmyard and household tools.
Nevertheless he had touched one of their own, and they replaced their brandished makeshift weapons with angry words. "Go! Leave this place. Do not be seen in our village again." The girl stood, her pallor replaced by rising color in her cheeks. She had a moment of melodrama, the most attention anyone local had received since Anoria had swept down upon them. Anoria. Where was Anoria? Where were the girl's friends?
"Come home, Bridget," said the dairyman gently. He was a grandfatherly man, the girl had no living family, since the last bout of illness in the village six years ago, and she stayed with her employer's family; she would receive no more than a gentle verbal reproof for her part in the misdemeanor. The other two were sisters and they were in the care yet a third sister and her hot-tempered brother. He would probably lock them out of doors tonight once he learned of their part in the spectacle. The middle girl walked slowly into the crowd.
"You too, Gvynidd," the dairyman whispered to her, and she walked toward them. She would not go back home. She wanted to slip through the shadows and walk unencumbered, like Anoria. She was fascinated as only a young girl can be with another female. She had felt this restlessness since Anoria came.
Where was Anoria?
"Your sister?" the dairyman asked Gvynidd.
"Prudwen was caught," the girl was barely able to speak. She looked at little Bridget's wide eyes. "By her." "By Anoria," Bridget said in the same choked voice.
But the crowd had followed around the houses and walked forward with the two. They found them still facing one another at a distance. Prudwen they escorted by the elbows, two of the farm boys obviously relishing the task; Prudwen, as her name implied, was extremely pretty. Anoria no one dared touch, but they returned her even gaze and she followed them with dignity. There was no anger in her face. The people were protecting their own.
"What shall we do with her, lady?" one of the boys leered softly. Prudwen flushed, and rolled her eyes, although she looked not altogether displeased. "Keep her indoors more until she learns to behave," said Anoria evenly. The boys laughed in the same tone. "At least get me my bucket back!" Prudwen exclaimed.
"We'll do that," one of the boys said with unexpected grimness. Prudwen tossed her hair back and looked at the dairyman. Her look did not plea for help. He did not offer it.
"Well, the least you could do after creating all that trouble is to get me something warm in the tavern," Anoria told the hooded man...actually, his hood had been thrown back long ago. He was a traveller, a country man. One like the villagers. He was easier to comprehend than Anoria.
"Indeed. I made as many inquiries to find you as you did to find this village," he said lightly. The innkeeper woman, standing in her doorway in her nightdress, pulled herself out of her trance. She snapped a finger at a serving girl, flung her door open wide, and gestured to those assembled to come inside. Anoria was still good for business.
"It was difficult with an unnamed village," Anoria said. They followed the serving girl into the tavern, and so did several of the others. "Perhaps we ought to call the village Anoria as well," the blacksmith said, settling near the fire. His tone was nettled. The strangers had upset the comfortable rhythm of his world.
"Undoubtedly it was so named, since it is so clearly carved in the house," said the man. "You've never been in the house, Keliwyr, don't talk of things you know nothing of," snapped Anoria. She put her cloak on a chair near the fire. It had been damp outside. Without waiting for a serving girl she took up the poker and stirred the fire herself.
"The others heard you reading, looking at the walls. You found what your were looking for, didn't you?" asked the man. "Didn't you?"
"I did," said Anoria.
"Can't you come home to your people then?" he asked. The serving girl was bringing spiced wine. Anoria looked up, sharply aware that her conversation was still being monitored. Her fellow customers looked down quickly, began murmuring snatches of common conversation, farmer's talk.
"It appears these are my people," Anoria smiled in amusement, but it was not contemptuous at all.
There was silence for a little while, silence as warm bread and cheese and apples were served, silence as one of the thralls poked the fire, rewarded with a smile by Anoria whom he had waited upon at the castle. He flushed.
The door flung open sometime later. Prudwen, dragged in by quite a fair number of the local boys, half walked, half tripped through the door. One of them flung her slightly from him. The serving girl moved hesitantly toward the group.
"No need for you today, dear. Prudwen will serve us," said one of them with a faintly dangerous smile. "No offense meant to you, darling," he added, giving the serving girl a quick kiss on the cheek. Prudwen, her color still high, nodded to the serving girl who handed her the tray. Anoria watched, amused.
"You haven't changed," Keliwyr said, watching her amusement.
"Not terribly," agreed Anoria. "Sit down, dear," she said to the serving maid. "You have no need to serve, so enjoy the fire." "But I'll find myself listening to you, and then I'll wind up like Prudy," objected the girl, watching the dairymaid obey the snapping fingers of the youths.
"The dairymaid? She doesn't look terribly unhappy to me," said Anoria. "What is it you so want to know?" "Oh just-just everything," blurted the serving maid. "How you knew to come here. How you found us in spite of everything. About the old tower...why our town has no name. You know, I can tell," she concluded quickly, flushing.
"Do you think so? It isn't all that mysterious. I have the amulet, the lettering matches that in the castle. I don't know of more complicated property laws in these parts."
"But how you found us," insisted the girl, with newfound courage now she was relieved of her server's duties. Anoria looked at Keliwyr. "You're determined to live among them, you're going to have to tell eventually," he said. "Or you'll never have a moment's peace."
Anoria looked steadily at him for a moment. "Dairymaid, bring some more wine over here," she commanded and as the girl obeyed, "I will tell you the story of Anoria."
"You mean your story?" asked the serving girl, seated at her feet.
"It is to become my story. But that is not how it starts out," said Anoria. "Now will you stop interrupting, and listen?" "Yes," and the serving girl's voice was echoed by several spectators. "Very well," said the woman, drinking deeply of her warm wine. "Here is the story of Anoria."
ANORIA'S LEGENDARY SAGA - PART II
Medieval Clothing/Costumes - Historic & Fantasy Costume Replica's & Tailor/Costume/Craft Supplies
Lady Anoria Designs & Creates Custom Quality - Individually Crafted - Made To Order & Ready To Wear Clothes
Specializes In LEATHER-SUEDE And Provides The Largest Selection Of Male Clothing/Costumes Found Anywhere
Now providing costume & craft supplies for all your professional or self costuming/craft needs
Medieval - Elizabethan Doublets - Medieval Knight Tunics & Surcoats - Renaissance
Vests/Jerkins
Historic Captain's - Pirate Coats & Frocks - Timeless Capes - Warrior Gambeson's
Pirate/ Peasant Pants & Breeches - LOTR & POTC Costume Study & Replica
Costume & Craft Supplies: Fabric, Leather, Buttons, Clasps, Trim & Historic & Fantasy Costume Patterns