The village visit to Anthracyda was certainly good for business. The inn had been busy ever since with everyone in the village wanting to talk about their conversation with Anthracyda. It seemed like Anthracyda had managed to tease out each person’s interests and the conversation then revolved around that.

Cait Rede and Sarah Gaynesford came into the inn during a lull in the midafternoon. They sat down at a table and Cait waved me over. Sarah started off the conversation.

“Did you know Anthracyda has a vegetable garden?”

I was stunned. “What? Unless it is feeding animals up there, what would it need with a vegetable garden?”

Sarah said, “Geoffrey and Anthracyda had quite a conversation about crop rotation. When Geoffrey asked how it knew anything about crops, Anthracyda said it had a vegetable garden that it planted different ways to see how the plants grew.”

Cait said, “Where does it get .. oh. It has crows pick up seeds from our fields and uses those.”

“Yes. Like I said, it and Geoffrey talked quite a bit about crop rotation and Geoffrey is going to try some of its ideas. But that’s not why I came in to talk.”

I looked at her. “I am running an inn. Are you buying?”

“Yes, yes.”

She must be really excited. I went back to the bar, drew three ales, then returned.

“Remember when I asked about whether Anthracyda could read minds and determine whether a courting couple would be a good match?”

“Yes.” Cait and I both responded.

“When it is children from the village, we all have watched them grow up and have a good idea ourselves about a match. But often prospects are thin here and a young person goes looking outside the village. We don’t know the outsider.”

Cait said, “I see where you are going. Send them up to Anthracyda and it can tell us. Even better, it can show the villager sparkles or bruises without the outsider even knowing.”

I looked at Cait. This sounded like her comment when she and I were on Anthracyda’s hillside with Mathilda, Lucy and Hume. Cait had admitted knowing about Anthracyda and sending her daughter Fiona and Alastair Cullane to the Stones to get a ’second opinion’. I would have asked Cait privately if she had put the idea into Sarah’s head, but Sarah had already gotten there during the women’s meeting a week ago. She’d clearly been thinking about it since.

“Exactly.” Sarah said. “And whoever acts as escort can verify Anthracyda’s testing. I had a long conversation with it about abusive spouses. I think I shocked it, so it is willing to help.”

I looked thoughtfully at Sarah. “When did you get so interested in young people’s courtships? Your children are not old enough yet.”

“Actually it was last year when Alastair Cullane wanted to court Fiona”, referring to Cait’s daughter, now 16. Remember Cait said she ’didn’t know which one of them would kill the other first.’ And we all know a couple of families in the village where a spouse frequently has bruises and we all look the other way. Then I started thinking about my sons and daughters."

She continued, “Marion, you see it in the inn when someone gets drunk here and their wife wants to drag them home.”

Cait said, “When I get old and feeble and want one of my children to take me in, I don’t want to live in a battlefield.”

I objected. “But wait a minute. In the old days, you didn’t need the couple’s permission to marry them off. Nowadays, if they want to get handfasted, they barely need their parents’ permission. No one has ever needed the village’s permission. ”Are we trying to stop handfasts or just withholding our blessings?"

“I agree it can’t be a question of the village giving permission. More like counseling from the elders or giving our ‘blessing’ if you want to call it that,” said Sarah.

I continued probing. “Are we saying that Anthracyda’s approval is necessary for village blessings? Assuming both are villagers, are we only sending them to Anthracyda if we’re not sure it’s a good match?”

“No,” said Sarah. “There is no one ‘village blessing’, just individual blessing from people the couple may respect. And we would need to convince people that it is in everyone’s interest that Anthracyda be one of the respected people.”

“So they could get blessings from me and Cait disapproves?”

“That could happen, yes,” answered Sarah.

“So who would be on the list of ‘respected elders’?”

“Whoever the couple has respect for. If we want this to be useful, the couple will only listen to approval or disapproval from people they respect. So probably different people for every couple.”

“But we would strongly suggest to either the couple or the parents that they add Anthracyda to that list?”

“Yes.”

“What if we don’t think it’s a good match, but the parents think it is the only way to set the child up?”

“Village elder approvals can’t be a requirement. If the couple want it and the parents want it, we can advise against it, but we can’t say no,” said Cait.

“What if she is pregnant?”

“Then we’re all stuck with the situation. No sense suggesting they go see Anthracyda - or anyone else - in that case,” responded Sarah.

“Do you have any young person in mind right now?” I asked.

“Not immediately. Laetitia Forgell is going to Kendal at the end of the week. The boy she and Sussana Beckworth were fighting over left six months ago. So no, I’m not thinking of anyone in particular right now. But planting seeds needs to be done before harvesting.”

“So we keep our eyes open and talk to the parents if and when we see anything,” said Cait.

“I can agree to that.”

Next - The Wise Woman (September 1643)

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