HISTORICAL FICTION — SPECULATIVE FICTION

It’s Raymond’s Turn To Become Another Guillaume de Longpré

Chapter Twenty — Raymond meets Lugh and Brighid

“Pépère?” Raymond spoke to his grandfather after the evening meal when the two of them were sitting behind the house, smoking their pipes. “I had a strange meeting earlier with a man who called himself Laurent. He said he knew you.”

Léo looked at his grandson with a look of surprise etched on his weathered brow. “Was he a tall man with dark hair, a handsome man?”

Raymond looked at his grandfather with a questioning look. “You know this man? Yes, he was tall and as you just described him.”

“What did he tell you, Raymond?”

“He said to tell you the time is ripe. What does that mean?”

Léo pressed his grandson to tell him more. “What else did he say?”

“He said he needs to meet with you tomorrow evening at the same place where you last met. What’s going on, Pépère? He told me that you would explain everything.”

“I did meet Laurent, not long after our family moved back to the village.”

Raymond interrupted his grandfather before he could say anything more. “But that’s impossible. Our family came back to the village before I was even born.”

“It’s not only possible Raymond, it is the truth. Listen without interrupting and I will tell you what you need to know. As for the meeting, I know the place and you will be going with me to the meeting as requested by Laurent. Now listen without interrupting, I have a story to tell you.”

Léo Picard talked for more than an hour, explaining to Raymond about Laurent’s words, “The time is ripe.” Léo explained that it had to do with it now being time for Raymond to learn a family secret. Léo confessed he couldn’t talk about that family secret. It was Laurent’s responsibility. Léo went on to explain that after the meeting, he would tell his grandson the full story.

Raymond was more puzzled than before the talk with his grandfather. He lay in his bed beside his wife Madelaine unable to sleep as his head swirled with all kinds of scenarios, thoughts which soon became so absurd he began to think that he was going a bit crazy. In the end, a fitful sleep took him into a dream where Laurent turn into someone who was more than human, almost a god. In the dream there also had a beautiful woman who glowed with golden light.

The next evening, Raymond followed his grandfather down a path away from the village. The two of them walked for almost twenty minutes until they reached a small glen not too distant from the river. Laurent was there, waiting for them. Léo approached Laurent, and bowed his head in homage as if greeting a noble. Laurent turned his attention upon Raymond.

“Come here my son,” Laurent spoke with a voice that held a compulsion which demanded obedience.

Raymond approached the tall man who began to glow, a slight golden glow. With Raymond’s eyes filled with both fear and wonder, he exclaimed, “You are just like the man in my dream! Who are you? You’re not really a man. Are you the devil in disguise?” he whimpered in fear of this golden man.

“No Raymond. I am one of the gods of your people. I am Lugh. For the past four hundred years I have been your family’s guardian.”

As Laurent spoke, a second golden light appeared in the small meadow in the forest. Raymond couldn’t believe his eyes as a beautiful woman began to take shape in the light. When she finally materialised as a human, she spoke.

“Raymond, you are my descendant. Long ago, I gave birth to a man called Guillaume, Guillaume de Longpré. Since that time, I have appeared to a small number of his descendants in order to renew our union as family. I am Brighid of the old people. Your church has claimed me as a saint in their faith, Saint Brigitte.”

“My brother and I have come to warn you of a growing danger to you and your family. There is a growing conflict because of a split in the Christian world. You will need to relocate your family as the lands of the Belgae will become the battleground which will only result in too many deaths.”

Raymond stood frozen in place, struck dumb by the scene in front of him, barely able to register the words being spoken. Brighid floated as if on air to stand in front of him, laying her hand on his cheek. Raymond immediately felt the truth of what she had told him with that touch.

Somehow the story of generations of his ancestors played in his mind. He knew this woman and bowed his head in shame for having doubted her words, for having thought she was just another temptation sent by Satan.

“No, Raymond, I am not a devil in disguise. Your people call me a goddess, but I am not really a goddess in that sense. Touch me, I am real.”

Raymond touched her in turn. She was real, having a solidity that no ghost could ever have. She wasn’t a spirit, either good or evil. Yet, he knew she wasn’t an ordinary mortal. Humans didn’t glow like her or Laurent, or Lugh as he claimed to be.

Raymond then remembered the stories his grandfather had told him, stories of the old religion, the immortals who stood between their people and the forces of darkness. He remembered the stories of Lugh, Brighid, Angus, Áine, Belanus, and other gods and goddesses of the Belgae. Looking at his grandfather, then at Lugh and Brighid, he knew he was being told the truth. He found himself ready to listen, really listen.

“It is you, Raymond, one of many who are hearing this same message throughout the lands of the Belgae, who will be charged with taking our people to safety. Unlike the past, we know our people have to hide within the civilized world.”

“The time for hiding in the forest has past. You are to first take those who will follow you to Amiens. From there, after a period of adjusting to city life, you will then take our people to Rouen. You will be known as Guillaume de Longpré, with the papers of your nobility given to you in Amiens.

Previously

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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