HISTORICAL FICTION — SPECULATIVE FICTION

Guillaume Learns a Troubling Secret About His Father

Chapter Four — Memories from the past come to haunt Guillaume

“I see that you’re surprised to not only see me again, but to see that I haven’t aged a day since our first meeting when you were a young knight returning from war. Aren’t you curious as to why I haven’t changed?”

“I have my suspicions,” Guillaume offered. “But, I am not so sure that we should speak of them. The walls have ears, and those ears are not so kind to those who are, shall we say, differet?” Leaning closer so as to speak so softly that others couldn’t possibly hear, Guillaume added, “Perhaps you’re not really Laurent. Who are you, really?”

“Remember where we met and what you saw at that meeting, Guillaume. Think. Perhaps it will dawn on you just who I truly am.”

Guillaume didn’t respond right away. His mind took him back into the past. He had crossed back into France when William of Normandy had secured the throne of England. He hadn’t been in a rush to get back home for in spite of the fact that he was the Lord of Fontaine, Long, and Longpré, and that he had a beautiful wife in his Chateau.

Life at home with his wife had been unpleasant. It had been a marriage for political and economic reasons. He had married the only child of the Lord of Arras, a marriage that had increased his land holdings. With no real expectations for love, he had done his duty and bedded her frequently, in an attempt to sire an heir.

For five years their efforts had proven fruitless. She had become angry with him, blaming him for not having good seed for her womb.

One day, five years after his marriage, he had ridden towards his estates along the Somme River with his small company of soldiers, he felt a compulsion to make a detour into the forest on the north side of the river.

Guillaume instructed all in his company, excepting his squire, to continue patrolling the edges of the seigneury. Then, he turned to follow the faintest of trails heading to the north. As he rode along, he was certain he was being watched, though he never saw or heard anything that confirmed his suspicions.

After more than two hours, the trail all but disappeared. Yet, somehow, he continued to go forward as though following an invisible thread. The appearance of an opening in the forest didn’t surprise him. He had been here before with his father when he was fourteen.

There was a village of sorts in the opening. However, the dwellings appeared to be temporary. They were constructed of thin trees, thatched with grasses for roofs, and willow branches for walls.

At the centre of what appeared to be a circle of stones. Guillaume recognised the pattern as being identical to the ancient stones he had seen in England. He knew it was a holy place for the old religion and the remnants of those following that faith.

His grandparents and his father had spoken to him about the old religion being practiced in the dark forests, away from the Christians who wanted to destroy to the last person, the old pagan religion.

Then with a shock of disbelief, Guillaume protested, “You aren’t a Celtic god, are you?”

“Ah, you have it right. You have made the connections needed. The old religion knows me as Lugh. I’m not really a god though. I just have this small problem of being an immortal.”

“An immortal?” Guillaume spoke a bit too loudly, before Lugh, or was it Laurent, shushed him.

“Yes.”

“Then, the mother of my son? Was she also an immortal, a goddess?” The thought that he had bedded a goddess during the year he had lived in that forest village, was too much to believe. Goddesses don’t mate with humans. Or did they?

“Yes, the mother of your son is an immortal like me. In the old religion she was called Brighid,” Lugh affirmed. “Neither of us are really gods though. Our people, the Belgae, Guillaume, are your people. Of course, you already knew that because of your grandfather and father. That was why you were able to find the sacred village among the old oaks. But, unlike Birghid and myself, your son is not an immortal.

“Why did the goddess chose me?” Guillaume whispered in shock. “Why me?”

“She’s not a goddess, Guillaume. Remember that. It wasn’t about you, Guillaume. It was about your son. He is necessary to the future of not only of your family, but also to the survival of the old religion and our people. He isn’t the only one. Your wife couldn’t bare you a son. You needed an heir. We needed the pact between your family and our people to continue.

Your son has been to the sacred village and knows and accepts who he is. This was kept from you for both his safety and your safety. There are others, both men and women, who unconsciously will be doing what is needed to prevent the old ways, the old beliefs, in us gods and goddesses from fading. People need gods and goddesses, even if they aren’t real.”

“Laurent, or should I say Lugh, why are you here? What do you need from me? You’re the immortal here. I’m just a mere mortal.”

“Not so loud, old friend. And here you need to call me Laurent, not Lugh,” he instructed as Guillaume’s voice and tone had begun to gather the attention of a few who were seated nearest their table. “You have a critical role to play, one that will advance the future of your family and of our people.”

For the next half-hour, Laurent gave Guillaume instructions. He was to wait in Amiens until Robert Kurthose, King William of England’s son, arrived with other princes and lords. He was to become part of their army charged with recovering the city of Jerusalem in this first crusade. Laurent also spoke the names of people he would meet on the road to the Holy Lands, people he would need to include in his small circle of knights.

Only after that meeting with these knights from Spain would Guillaume then travel on to Rome to join the crusade forces. With the instructions given, Laurent sent Guillaume back to his group before disappearing, unnoticed by anyone in the inn, into the shadows.

In the night, while Geoffroi and Roland slept soundly, Guillaume tossed fitfully. His thoughts refused to be silenced. Each time he closed his eyes, scenes from twenty-eight years earlier would re-appear.

Again, he found himself entering into the sacred circle of stones on All Hallows’ Eve in 1072. He was still young despite being married five years. There in the circle of stones, Lugh and Brighid were waiting for him. Encircling the inner boundaries of the stones, men and women stood looking toward the centre where a small shelter had been hastily built safely out of the reach of a large bonfire.

As he sat outside the small shelter, Brighid gave him a wooden goblet filled with red wine which he then drank. It didn’t take long before he realised the wine must have held a potion as he slipped into a trance-like state.

Guillaume didn’t protest as three nude women emerged from the small shelter and began to prepare him for what he could only assume would be a sacrifice. Only his eyes betrayed his terror. His clothing was removed and carefully laid upon the ground.

Then, two of the women applied a green dye over his body while the third secured a headpiece with the antlers of a magnificent stag, using a web of fine leather strands. Guillaume felt the weight of the antlers, and saw his body turn green.

No part of his anatomy was spared. He knew, from the stories of his grandfather, that he had been selected as the Green Man for a fertility ritual. Rather than celebrate, he only remembered that once he had fulfilled his duty of impregnating, he would be sacrificed.

The potion in the wine contained an aphrodisiac that had caused his member to swell, visible to all who could see him from the edges of the circle. All in the circle, men and women alike, were now as naked as he was. Turning to face Lugh and Brighid, he saw them glowing with a golden aura.

Both were unclothed revealing their perfect bodies, the most beautiful bodies that Guillaume had ever seen. The three women who had attended Guillaume faded into the outer circle leaving only Guillaume, Lugh and Brighid. Brighid then led Guillaume into the small shelter. And then, the images stopped.

When Guillaume regained his senses, he found himself in the shelter he had been given upon his arrival. He stayed in that Celtic village for almost a year, taking part in the rituals of the old religion as the seasons passed him by. In August of 1073, Lugh led a woman carrying a newborn child to Guillaume’s hut.

“This is your son, Guillaume. He was conceived on All Hallows’ Eve. This is to be your son who will be your only heir as your wife will only give birth to girls, three girls. She will adopt the boy as hers. Evelyn, here, will be the boy’s nursemaid. And no, before you ask, she is not the mother of your son. Her child died during childbirth two weeks ago.”

“Then who is the mother?” Guillaume asked wanting to know and yet fearing the answer.

“The name of the woman is not for you knowledge. You are the boy’s father, but I am his spiritual father as Brighid is his spiritual mother. He is our child as much as he is yours. We have named him Guillaume and gifted him and his male descendants with long lives and the potency to ensure your family’s descendants will survive for more than a thousand years.”

Unable to sleep with all those memories flooding him, Guillaume remembered taking the boy child back to his Chateau beside the Loire River, and as predicted by Lugh, his wife, Lady d’Arras beamed with joy at the opportunity to be a mother. The baby had hazel eyes just like his father, and a face that left no doubt that this was Guillaume’s son. She didn’t ask who the mother was as Evelyn placed the baby in her arms. From that instant, the baby boy was her son.

In the years that followed, three girls were born to Guillaume and his wife.

Previously

Thanks to my readers of this story for acknowledging my story with claps, comments, and/or highlighting.

Carrie, Author, D. Denise Dianaty, Brian Lageose, Mariana Busarova, Rena Aliston, Julia A. Keirns, Michael Cappelli, Daniel Shaw, and Luis Ruiz, Robert, Arzuman Mamishov, Adda Maria, Love, and Mariana Busarova