From the perspective of a sky-dwelling god, the south of Britain resembled a shadowy carpet of bracken extending from either side of its great river valleys. On the marshy soil at the apex of one of its fronds, the first sunrise of February was glinting off the dew clad grass on the fringe of an ancient oak forest, where three hooded figures had gathered for an annual ritual. They crowded around the chalk spring from which flowed the River Wen, a shallow and brisk stream that carved out a fertile tract of land amid the poor soil of the high chalk stretching from the rich land of the great vale. It was to this river they owed their lives and livelihoods, and they would not let it go without veneration on a day as holy as this.
One by one, they tore off strips of linen and tied them to a tree overhanging the spring, in equal parts votive offering and act of religious rebellion. An hour’s walk down the valley, their neighbours were gathering for a Candlemas feast in the name of their newfound god as these three druidic holdovers, Senuna, Aeliana, and Pryderi, were beginning their clockwise precession around the spring, each one crossing the infant river thrice on stepping stones, before filling earthenware bottles from the point at which the water welled up from the crushed chalk, and finally parting from the floodplain by clambering up the valley onto a path skirting the right bank of the river. As the sound of water skittering across chalk faded away behind them, Senuna could be heard sobbing faintly.
“You did them proud today,” said Aeliana, in the shaky tone of someone who isn’t sure of their own intent, to which Senuna just shook her head and kept walking.
The group continued along the path, in silence, as it ascended a ridge which brought the great henge of Cromlechwen into view, before descending again into a dry river valley which it traversed on a crude causeway. They picked their way along the split logs and rounded stones, the fruits of the hard labour of turning the valley floor over to cultivation, careful not to stray into the mud. Pryderi ran his hands along the newly sprouting cabbage before the path climbed again back to the forest’s edge, skirting the western border of the communal farmland. The path met the road linking the village with the great Roman route stretching from coast to coast, whereupon they turned left and crossed the river into the village on a narrow plank bridge, next to the ford through which the cattle were driven.
Cromlechwen was neither wealthy nor impressive, perched on the nearest stretch of ground to the river that could be relied upon not to flood in the winter. The ancient henge, whose origin and purpose was long since forgotten, loomed high above the cluster of round houses of wattle, daub, and thatch. Led by Aeliana, who was eager to crack the tension that had built up over the course of the morning, the group entered Cromlechwen’s excuse for a taverna, a dingy and smokey hall lit at either end by open hearths, issuing forth a haze that obscured the far gable as it slowly wound its way to the solitary gap in the thatch that served as a chimney. At least half of Cromlechwen’s residents had already filed in to feast their newfound god. Aeliana strode confidently up to the hatch and ordered three pints of ale, which Iolo, the barman, begrudgingly handed over. His loyalty to coin always took precedence over the sectarian hatred that had gripped him since the inquisition of the previous year.
“Probably best we stay near the door,” said Aeliana as she scanned through the haze for faces unfriendly. “We might need to make a quick departure.”
“That’s fine love,” replied Pryderi. “Come on, Senuna.”
Having been rapt with unhappy memories, Senuna snapped back to the present moment and followed her elders, tankard in hand, to the end of the long trestle table nearest to the door. They made themselves as comfortable as one can be on a hard wooden bench, and resumed their tense silence as they nursed their flagons of dark and cloudy ale.
That was, until a man of sixty-five strode confidently through the door. He had long hair, white at the roots, which was contiguous with an unkempt beard giving him a disheveled appearance that contrasted against his clean and well tailored clothes of fine foreign cloth. His name was Arthur, and his entry caused a lull in the murmur of chatting patrons. Senuna looked up from her pint and the sight of rolling eyes and shaking heads made the preparation for the abuse they’d inevitably receive a little bit more bearable; before deciding she wouldn’t engage in the ensuing row and placing her head down on her arms on the table.
“Oh for Christ’s sake, if Iolo threw every heretic to the gutter, he’d have no trade, but pagans?” bellowed Arthur at no one in particular.
Fortunately, one of Arthur’s heretics engaged him in conversation first, and it was one that neither Arthur, Aeliana, Pryderi, nor Senuna recognised.
“There might be a few pagans, but I’ve been reliably informed that this village’s devotion has been otherwise exemplary,” said the stranger, who was dressed in a long robe with a white band at his neck. His head was partially shaven.
“And who do you think you are?” replied Arthur, sneering.
“You may address me as Father Pedr.”
“I’m a learned man, Pedr, I spent my youth on the Palestinian frontier where our faith was born, and I can say that the Christ worshipped here bears no resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth, and their Father has more in common with the demiurge than any god of mine,” said Arthur, in a tone that sounded in equal parts like a denouncement and a sales pitch.
“Demiurge? Are you a Valentinian?”
“I am a Christian!” he replied, his voice turning nasal in a vain attempt to sound stern.
“Tread carefully, old man, Valentinius has been proscribed, and his works have been declared heretical,” said the priest as gravely as a magistrate sending a convict to the gallows.
Arthur huffed and stormed out, catching his hair awkwardly in the low hanging thatch. He knew full well that he couldn’t hold his tongue for long, and that he had already said far too much. The priest smirked as he watched the old man’s pathetic bout with a bundle of reeds before shifting his gaze to Pryderi.
“Are the heretic’s words true? Doth thou reject Christ’s salvation?” enunciating his words in an accent befitting a sermon in a London basilica.
“What’s there to reject?” Pryderi said in a neutral voice, as though he were responding to a question about the weather rather than his immortal soul.
“Have you not heard the good news?” replied Pedr, perking up and slipping back into a provincial British accent at the prospect of a fresh convert.
Pryderi simply shook his head and drank noisily from his tankard, but Aeliana cut in with: “Oh, we’ve heard plenty of your ‘good news’ and what good has come of it? What Prydi means is what business does the son of a Palestinian god have with the people of Britain?”
“There is one god!”
“Well where’s the sense in that? There’s godhood everywhere if you know where to look. Besides, isn’t the son a god himself as well?”
“God is the father, the son, and the holy ghost.”
“You’re not making any more sense.”
Pedr slammed his tankard on the table and screamed “Iolo, get them out!”, sending an arc of saliva through the air.
“Let’s just go home before they drag us out,” said Senuna, her voice muffled by her sleeves.
They shuffled hastily away, before ducking under the low hanging thatch of Aeliana and Pryderi’s damp little hovel, which for the past year had been Senuna’s home as well. Aeliana revived the embers of the fire which filled the space around the hole at the apex of the roof with smoke while Pryderi went rummaging through the shelves for his daily breakfast of two fried eggs on a slice of bread.
“What would you like, Senuna?” he asked, with inappropriate excitement given the circumstances.
“Don’t worry about me,” she replied as she slumped back into her straw-lined cot.
“What about you, Ali?”
“Ah, just carve me off a few slices, I’m going to warm up the dregs of the stew.”
Pryderi cut off three thick slices before cracking four eggs on the frying pan, haphazardly perched on the edge of the grill beside Aeliana’s simmering stew. He tossed over two of the eggs once the undersides had begun to brown and left them sizzling while he placed the two soft ones on a slice of bread and carried them over to Senuna, who had buried her head under the covers.
“They’re ready when you want them, just the way you like them!” Pryderi exclaimed, receiving a muffled “thanks” in return.
“I can’t square up why Arthur even stays here, he hates half the place and they hate him just as much” he said inquisitively as he scooped his well-done eggs onto a slice of bread.
“He hasn’t really been right since he came back from the army, he wasn’t half as strange when I was a girl. I think he picked up a lot of weird notions in Greece and Palestine.”
“When he came back first, he ranted about Christ to anyone who’d listen, now that all of Cromlechwen apart from us has converted, the man’s still not satisfied.”
“No pleasing some people, I suppose,” replied Aeliana, as she settled down with her bowl of stew and slice of bread.
Senuna awoke from a restless sleep in the early hours of the following morning, well before Aeliana and Pryderi, having slept through the previous day. She decided to go for a walk with her now day-old breakfast in an attempt to close up some of the fresh wounds opened by the previous day’s festivities. She walked briskly along the road leading from the ford to the henge and climbed up the henge’s bank. It was a time of year when there was little to do even if she was in a fit state to offer up her labour, and her boredom was bringing forth unwanted intro and retrospection. She sat on the portion of the bank furthest from the road and stared at the few barrows that had defied the plough in the field below, and contemplated the presumably great, yet long forgotten, heroes whose mortal remains lay within. Once she had managed to spin a yarn in her head that was engaging enough to distract her from thoughts of the destruction of both her family and her faith, she dozed off again against the outer bank of the ancient monument.
Senuna didn’t get much rest, however, as the sound of shovels and picks began to reverberate throughout the henge. She opened her eyes and turned her head to see a team of workmen, most of whom she did not recognise, digging a trench along a marked rectangle at the centre of the henge while others set to work uprooting and toppling the heavy blue stones.
“What do you think you’re doing,” Senuna half mumbled as she stumbled to her feet.
“They’re building my oratory,” said Father Pedr.
“Well why does it have to go here!?”
“The magistrates picked this plot because they thought it might drive off some of the scum like you. It worked out well for us; these stones make for better foundations than the little flints you get around here.”
“Sympathies? My f— th… the druid here had nothing to do with this.”
“Then why do you care?" replied Father Pedr, his patience thinning.
“Well, you said it yourself, these stones aren’t anything like the ones around here. I travelled plenty with my father around this country as a child, but I never saw any stones like these outside of places like this one. We might not know what they’re here for, but people don’t drag stones from faraway lands for nothing,” said Senuna, whose depression was being displaced by righteous anger.
“Whether your ilk had anything to do with this is of no difference to me, the beams are being delivered pre-cut at noon from Vindocladia and I’d rather not have to pull one of the men away from the work to drag you back to the rest of the pagan vermin. I’d suggest you leave of your own accord.”
Senuna tried to think of a response, but Father Pedr found some aspect of the work that he decided needed meddling with, so she cut her losses and returned to the village red-faced and furious. She stormed back into Pryderi and Aeliana’s house, but before she could speak, Pryderi cut in, saying:
“Senuna, I hardly know you with so much energy, that trip to the spring must’ve done it!”
“They’re leveling the rings,” said Senuna, not even parsing what Pryderi had said.
“What’s that to us?”
“Well, why do we hang linen above the spring? Why do we sprinkle her water on the fields?”
“Your father taught me that it was to preserve the spring and bring her blessing down upon our harvest, did he not teach you the same?” said Pryderi, with misplaced but genuine concern for Senuna’s spiritual education.
“Of course he did, what I’m trying to get across is that the people who built those rings had their own reasons for going through the hassle of building it all those years ago, and I’m afraid of what the Christians are letting loose.”
“Well, the way I see it, we can’t know why they built it, so there’s no use in worrying about what happens without it. I’m going down to the river with my rod, and I’m going to sit with my back to that hill, there’s no good in worrying so I’m just not going to.”
Pryderi made good on his promise, and made his way to the river, rod and net in hand, passing Aeliana who was walking up the path carrying a bundle of reeds as big as she was on her back, which she then threw down in front of the house before sighing with relief as she straightened out.
“Are you alright?” asked Aeliana, knowing better than to ask, yet asking nonetheless, to which Senuna just gritted her teeth and looked up the valley slope to the henge.
“Would you give me a hand with this? You’re a lot younger than me and I don’t much feel like climbing a roof,” said Aeliana, changing the subject.
“Don’t we need a ladder for this? I don’t think climbing on it is going to do much good,” replied Senuna.
“I asked the thatcher for a loan of one, but he turned me down. I was lucky to get what I did with what I was offering.”
“Hopefully the moss will hold it together,” said Senuna as she jumped and clawed at the low-hanging eaves before finally gaining purchase at the junction of the thatch and the wattle.
“Get across to the part over my bed if you can, the rain was dripping on me all night,” said Aeliana as Senuna’s fingers dug deeper into the aged and moss ridden thatch and her smooth-soled boots failed to gain any purchase.
“I think I’m in the right place now, throw me up a bundle.”
Aeliana tied a short stretch of cord around some reeds and threw it to Senuna who caught it awkwardly as she tried to stay in place on the roof. She began scraping the moss off the thatch and pulling out the sodden portion above Pryderi and Aeliana’s bed, which had felt more like soil with small splinters than layered reeds, but as she kept stripping, she realised that the there was no intact roof left to strip back to.
“The reeds you’ve got aren’t going to be enough for this, I think if I go any further, we won’t have enough to fill the gap,” said Senuna, in a tone of resignation.
“Ahhh… Just do what you can, I suppose we’ll just have to move the bed,” said Aeliana, whose tone mirrored Senuna’s.
Senuna knotted and stuffed the new reeds into the rotten underthatch in a fashion that mirrored her best recollection of a thatcher at work, but the finished result was far too sparse to offer real protection from the elements. Defeated, she half climbed and half slid her way off the roof, and looked up at the progress upon the hill, where the villagers who weren’t too hungover from the previous night’s feast were working together to raise the completed gable end of the oratory. Aeliana and Senuna went in and dragged the bed to the leeward side of the hovel, positioning it end-to-end with Senuna’s cot.
“When I told you there’d always be a place for you under my roof, I meant it Senuna,” said Aeliana as she leant against the headboard of the bed. “But, truth be told, I think the time is coming where you’d do better on the road than here. I can’t see this place standing up to another winter, not with the harvest shares we’ve been getting anyway. You know the roads as well as anyone else around here, when the summer comes, why don’t you go roaming for a place where the old beliefs still get some respect?”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“Prydi’s too set in his ways for a change as drastic as that, the loneliness doesn’t bother him much, and he’ll be content in a sod hut when the roof finally comes down. As much as I want something better for myself, I won’t desert him for it, and that’s what it would come to if I pressed it. Life on the road without him wouldn’t be worth it.”
“I can’t leave Cromlechwen, I owe it to my parents, I won’t let the Christians break me, or at least not any more than they already have. If you want me to leave, I’ll make my own way in the village,” replied Senuna, secretly angling for sympathy.
“I won’t ever break my promise. As long as there’s a roof on this house, you’ll have a place under it, Senuna. At the end of the day, I can’t be the judge of what’s best for you, that’s for you alone, but whatever happens, we’ll do our best,” said Aeliana as she strode to the other end of the bed and hugged Senuna.
The high chalk hills had the effect of advancing the approach of evening, and the light streaming in through the low door of the house had dimmed sufficiently to lead Aeliana to build up the fire as much for light as for heat. She asked Senuna to fetch Pryderi from the riverbank, and she set out across the village to the floodplain. She found Pryderi a few hundred yards downstream of the village with his line in the slow-flowing water just above a low rubble weir.
“Aeliana’s getting another stew together, told me to bring you back,” said Senuna. “Have you caught much?”
“Just these two roach, they don’t feel much like biting when it’s this cold.”
“I’ll carry them up for you,” said Senuna as Pryderi reeled in his cast and they both started back towards the village.
Silhouetted against the darkening sky, the oratory at the top of the hill was rapidly taking shape, the wooden frame was complete and the roof was well on its way, with the day’s last batches of soil and straw infill arriving by ass and cart from farms near and far. Pryderi grimaced at the sight, but Senuna’s earlier rage had subsided in favour of a familiar numbness, and she just looked at the ground as they made their way back to the house. When they entered, they were met with the comforting smell of the fire and the sound of a pot simmering upon it.
The heads and the bones of the fish were thrown into the pot to add a bit of flavour while the flesh went on the pan alongside it, while Senuna left to throw the guts on the heap beyond the village boundary. Against better judgement, she cast her gaze up at the henge and saw that the day’s work had ceased and there was a lone lamp-holding figure surveying the day’s progress, Senuna tried to put it out of her mind as she enjoyed Aeliana’s stew, and the three turned in for the night soon after finishing, despite some reticence on Pryderi’s part to sleep on the other side of his house.
Senuna, Aeliana, and Pryderi were awoken by the first kick, but it was the second that wrenched the latch loose from the sodden cob wall, which was swiftly followed by two night-watchmen with swords drawn marching into the house with Father Pedr following.
“There’s the one that was skulking around yesterday,” said the priest, gesturing towards Senuna’s cot.
“What did you do, Senuna?” said Pryderi.
“Wh- what?” she replied, half awake.
“Make this easy or we’ll make you regret it,” interjected one of the watchmen, putting a pair of manacles on a squirming Pryderi as his colleague did the same to Senuna.
“We haven’t done a single sacrifice since the trial!” shouted Aeliana. “We just milled around the spring, that’s all!”
Aeliana forced herself to put on a stoic face as the watchman moved on from her husband and put her in shackles too, and they were half led and half dragged out of the house to a waiting wagon. The two watchmen clambered into the bed of the wagon with their prisoners as Father Pedr stepped into the seat beside Iolo who then set the horses in motion. Appearing from behind the house as they moved off, the oratory which the previous day had been so near to completion was now a blackened skeleton.
They huddled together as they rattled through the village, the three being dressed for bed rather than a cold February morning. To their surprise, they found themselves huddled across from Arthur, who was fully dressed and dour looking on the bench across from them. The horses laboured up the valley towards the great imperial road, onto which they turned left at the junction in the direction of the region’s magisterial seat: Vindocladia.
Progress was slow, the horses already tired from having ascended the steep valley slope, and the sun was nearing its zenith by the time the ancient British fortress in which the Romans had built their city appeared on the horizon. It took the form of three concentric rings of earthen banks, each one higher than the last, and the wagon had to clumsily circle around the moat to get to the single gate, which was raised in anticipation of their arrival. Inside, Senuna expected the hive of activity she remembered from her visits as a child, but instead the town was eerily quiet. The great military barracks were almost deserted with only a token compliment of soldiers, and there were as many buildings derelict as inhabited. Upon reaching the house of the magistrates, the shoeless shivering faithful were driven off the wagon like cattle by the prodding of a sword.
“They’ll have our heads for this,” said Pryderi, shuffling along with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry I wouldn’t go with you, Ali… This is my fault.”
“Truth be told, I thought they were happy with the pound of flesh they got… didn’t think it would come to this,” Aeliana replied.
Their numb extremities began to sting as they were ushered onto the heated floor of the building, with the heavy door taller than their own home closing behind as Arthur gave a nod to the two guards on his way past. A small crowd had gathered in anticipation, with many of their faces recognisable to Senuna as workers who were pulling up henge stones the day before. They issued forth jeers of “pagan”, “heathen”, and “barbarian” as they were roughly herded into the atrium, which was presided over by one of the city’s four magistrates seated on a dais.
“Senuna, Pryderi, Aeliana, and Arthur, all of Cromlechwen. You stand accused of committing arson at the oratory of Cromlechwen by Father Pedr Arthurius of Durnovaria. You may each give evidence in aid of your own defence once the prosecution have made their case. You may begin, Father,” said the magistrate, gesturing towards the priest.
“Shortly after my arrival yesterday as I was introducing myself to the faithful as their shepherd, this man, Arthur, passionately professed his faith in the Valentinian heresy in Iolo’s Taverna, and these three pagans not only rejected the salvation of Jesus Christ, they made a mockery of both him and the Father. Then, when the men were preparing the foundation yesterday, I interrupted the younger heathen as she was engaging in some form of unholy communion within their old temple.” said Father Pedr, pointing at Senuna. “As we began to position the stones at the base of what would become the oratory walls, I was accosted by her. Though claiming innocence, she insinuated that demonic forces would come into play if we continued with our work.”
“That’s n—”, said Senuna, before being cut off by the magistrate.
“Wait your turn, the prosecution have the right to have their case heard first,” he said sternly.
“Thank you magistrate,” said Father Pedr. “I continued to oversee the work until nightfall, by which time the sawn beams of the walls and the bulk of the roof were in place. I then saw to getting the men billeted. When I arose the following morning, we found our day’s work had been reduced to a charred frame. I thought these three pagans and that Valentinian heretic might have been in league. And finally, we found this vessel at the site of the fire, the bottom of which was slick with lamp oil. Iolo recognised it as being identical to the ones carried by the three heathens at his Taverna, and… this identical vessel was also recovered from Arthur’s home.”
Father Pedr held up a lidded stoneware vessel, showing the oil slick within, and showed a very similar vessel retrieved from Arthur’s house in turn.
The magistrate nodded in agreement and gestured for Arthur to stand.
“The other accused are well known to me, chairman, Senuna is the product of the unholy pairing of a druid and a soothsayer, both of whom were put to death by this very court. The day before the arson–”
“Alleged,” interjected the magistrate. “I’m not interested in the other three at the moment, this is your deposition. Where were you last night, Arthur?”
“Truth be told, I can’t say without incriminating myself.”
“So you admit to setting the fire?”
“No, magistrate, I was hollowing out a beam in my roof with a chisel.”
“Arthur, where are you going with this?”
“I was hollowing out a beam to hide my Codex Valentinus within, I admit to Father Pedr’s charge of heresy,” he said with feigned sorrow and crocodile tears. Arthur knew from his time in imperial service that the punishment for heresy on a first offence was penance, not death. “I could not have committed the deed, as I was engaging in a different crime.”
“Sit back down old man, I’ll deal with you later,” said the presiding magistrate. “What say you, Senuna.”
“I spent the whole day with Aeliana and Pryderi, I wanted to get as far away from the rings as I could. I only asked what they were doing, I never threatened them,” she said, after standing and moving to the centre of the atrium.
“Why were you at that heathen temple in the first place?” asked the magistrate.
“I went for a walk, sat down, then fell asleep. I woke up with pickaxes swinging and stones falling and I was confused, that’s all.”
“Seems a strange place for a rest, do you deny claiming that demonic forces might be unleashed upon its construction?”
“I just said that whoever built those rings did it for a reason, and I didn’t think it right to destroy it without knowing why it was built, that’s why I said what I said. And what Iolo said was a bald-faced lie, I heard nothing of the plans at the Taverna, I just thought the workmen were travellers seeking refreshment and thought no more of it. There’s one potter in Cromlechwen and he’s not the creative sort, you’ll find those vessels in every house from here to the river’s head. Anyway, if we were carrying lamp oil, why would we have bought it before we knew the oratory would be built?”
Iolo looked sheepish on the sidelines.
“Then what was in those vessels you were carrying?” asked the magistrate.
“Water from the spring at the river’s head.”
“The river’s crystal clear at Cromlechwen, why go through the hassle of walking all the way to the source?”
“To bring her blessing down upon the fields.”
“Whose blessing?”
“The river.”
“Then you have confessed to the crime of idolatry.”
“Idolatory isn’t a crime.”
“Under the most recent edict of the Emperor, it most certainly is.”
“Well I don’t think what we did is idolatry, the River Wen is a goddess in her own right and I don’t need any idols when I’ve got the real thing running past my door.”
“There is only one god, and the earth and its rivers are just aspects of his creation.”
“Then why are new rivers born and why do old ones die?”
“What? That’s absurd, rivers don’t die.”
“There’s a dead river not five miles from here, just by the imperial road. The land is cut in the same way as a river valley. Not a drop flows through it even in the heaviest rain”
“God has created many a dry valley, heathen.”
“If it was created dry, magistrate, why were the stones we picked from it as round as those on the bed of a live river?”
Senuna looked back at Aeliana and Pryderi, who were conferring quietly, as tears ran down their faces. Surprisingly, Arthur was the one paying the closest attention, the colour had drained from his face and he looked like a shell of the man who had taken the stand minutes earlier.
“We are not here to discuss matters of either theology or geography, you’ve made your point, now return to your seat,” said the magistrate, in a manner and tone that betrayed his disbelief in Senuna’s alibi.
Senuna did as she was told, and the magistrate called Pryderi to the stand next.
“Where were you last night, Pryderi of Cromlechwen?” the magistrate asked.
“I caught fish until the sun went down, and then I took them home, where I stayed with Aeli and Senuna until you kicked my door in this morning.”
“Do you have any more to offer in your defence?”
“No.”
“Then you confess to idolatry as Senuna has?”
“Did she confess?” he said with genuine confusion.
“Oh, sit back down, you’re trying my patience.”
As Pryderi shuffled back to the bench, Arthur leaned over to Senuna and spoke in a forceful whisper:
“You’re not the person I took you for.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“You might be a heathen, but you’re further along the path to righteousness than anyone else in this room, myself excluded of course.”
“What do you mean, I’m turning into a Christian?”
“That’s up to you. I was never satisfied by how your great-grandfather explained creation and our place within it, Senuna, and when I joined the service and my legion was posted in Galilee, I took to Christianity because I wanted the answers that I found lacking in your faith. But as I became more and more catechised, I felt the same hollowness creeping in, and I realised that the Christianity of Constantine was as shallow as your ancestors’ druidism.”
“If you’re not a pagan or a Christian, then what are you?”
“Oh, I’m a Christian alright, I just don’t believe that the Christianity put forth by this empire has any hope of delivering salvation. Which is why I burned that pathetic little oratory.”
Senuna’s eyes widened in stunned silence, which gave Arthur pause, but he continued before Senuna had a chance to respond.
“I found what was missing from my faith in the teachings of Valentinus, and in Galilee his adherents took me under their wing. The core tenet of Valentinism is salvation through knowledge, and you see the imperfection in creation Senuna, you’re on the same course as I was, and I won’t let you hang before you finish it.”
“Aeliana, wife of Pryderi, did you set the fire at the oratory of Cromlechwen?” the magistrate asked in a staccato rhythm as Aeliana took the stand.
“I did,” said Aeliana. “Senuna told me about the leveling of the rings, and I couldn’t bear it. She had no part in it and neither did Prydi, it was my choice and mine alone.”
Arthur and Senuna gasped while Pryderi put his head in his hands and sobbed. Senuna stood and declared: “She’s lying, Arthur just confessed!”
Aeliana’s head turned around and she stared into Arthur’s eyes with a look of total disbelief.
“Senuna, enough! Guards, remove her,” the magistrate shouted in response.
A watchman strode over and grabbed Senuna by the collar of her tunic and dragged her from the bench after which she was pulled, stumbling, backwards towards a side room where he shoved her across the threshold with the heel of his palm. Senuna landed awkwardly against the foot of a bed which left her winded in a crumpled heap on the ground. She crawled to the now closed and barred door, and peered underneath. She couldn’t see Aeliana making her statement, but she could see Arthur perched on the bench with his hands clasped tightly as he watched the deposition, along with Pryderi, slumped and sobbing, at the end of the bench.
“For the crimes of paganism, idolatry, and the arson of a consecrated oratory, I find you, Aeliana of Cromlechwen, guilty, and I sentence you to death by hanging. Guard, open that door.”
Senuna slumped awkwardly forward as the guard opened the door suddenly. She looked up at Aeliana who was doing her best to appear stoic and defiant, but was visibly fighting back tears.
“For the crimes of paganism, idolatry, and conspiracy to commit arson, I sentence you, Senuna of Cromlechwen, to death by hanging.”
Aeliana broke into a sob and dropped to her knees as the sentence was pronounced. Arthur, who had turned green with anxiety, lurched up from the bench and shouted:
“Wait! I confess. I set the fire. Aeliana was just covering for Senuna. Please don’t hang them, they might be heathens but they had no hand in this,” said Arthur with a sudden rush of confidence and vigour.
“You’re confessing to heresy and to arson?” the magistrate replied, incredulous.
“I am,” he said confidently.
“Why now?”
“I had a change of heart… I was content to see three pagans hang and a part of the Roman Church turned to a pile of ash, but I’ve realised I won’t be able to live with that on my conscience.”
Father Pedr and Iolo looked bewildered, and the gathered crowd whose mutterings and commentary had already slipped below the attention of the participants instead became conspicuous in their silence, like a sudden lull in a driving wind. The magistrate finally broke it with the delivery of his verdict:
“For the destruction of a consecrated oratory, I hereby sentence you, Arthur of Cromlechwen, to death by hanging.”
Arthur turned pale upon hearing the judgement, despite it coming as no surprise. He looked Senuna in the eyes before turning his gaze to the floor where it remained as he was led away.
“Under the Edict of Thessalonica, I hereby exile you, Senuna, Aeliana, and Pryderi of Cromlechwen for the crime of paganism. You are henceforth outlaws in the province of Brittania Prima and must leave Vindocladia immediately.”
Senuna, Aeliana, and Pryderi looked at one another in stunned silence, before a guard began to prod them in the direction of the door. They were escorted out, along the city’s central thoroughfare until they were through the gate and beyond the boundary ditch; at which point they huddled together on the cold dewy grass and wept. Aeliana and Pryderi wept at the loss of all they held dear, but Senuna wept instead for the plight of her faith, for her parents, and for her river.