High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) by David Kearns Read Free Book Online Page B

destination. Soon we will be there. Come, my lady.”

    She set off. I had heard what she said, even though I pretended I had not. ‘One day you will have to take it.’ What did she mean by saying that? Why would I have to go to this ‘Deva Caster’? A little unnerved, I followed her.

    The road passed through the middle of what had been a small village, now completely ruined. It seemed odd to me that people should wish to live in such a remote place. I supposed it was what Eluned called ‘the old people’ who had built it, but why here? Once again, it reminded me of the ruined village near the lake beside Plas Maen Heledd. Eluned had told me she once lived there when it was a thriving place. Hundreds of years ago. So she claimed.

    “Who lived here?” I asked as we passed through the village.

    “The old people, my lady.”

    “I know that. Which old people? What sort of people? Why would they want to live here? It seems to be in the middle of nowhere.”

    “The old people lived in small places like this. They feared living in large communities. The old Romans had moved them into cities, much like your casters. But when the old Roman soldiers left, the people abandoned the cities and moved into small places such as this. At first they made their dwellings with wood, as their ancestors had done, before the Romans came. As time passed, they made them from stone. A stone dwelling provides greater protection against the seasons as they change.”

    “But what did they do? How did they live?”

    “The fields we have passed through, my lady. Each one of the old people would have one or two of those fields, perhaps with a beast, mostly with vegetables and a little wheat to make bread.”

    “Did they have children in those times?”

    Eluned laughed out loud. “Children, my lady? Of course they had children. There are always children.”

    “Did they go to school?”

    She laughed again. “No. No school. Why learn to read when you have no books? Why learn to number when there is never more than the fingers on your hands?”

    “No school? No books? Not even the Bible?”

    “There was a time when the people would have a Bible, my lady, but not when the old people were living. There were books but they belonged to the kings and the holy men, who lived in the houses of kings and holy men.”

    “So what did the children do?”

    “Do, my lady? They worked in the fields with their mothers and fathers. What else would they do?”

    “Is that what you did? When you were a child?”

    “That. And helped my mother make the flour. To make bread. In the winter I was given the task of watching the broth, making sure the wind did not blow out the fire. And we learned the songs and stories of the old people. I liked that. With the wind howling outside, my little sisters would huddle against me to keep warm while we slowly drank a bowl of broth. My father would tell us the stories, and my mother would sing the songs. That is how I learned them, my lady.”

    I looked up. We had continued walking while we talked and had now passed through what remained of the village. I turned to take one last look, imagining the small families sitting around their fires, listening to poems and stories. Now they were gone. Soon their houses would also be gone.

    “Soon we will be there, my lady. Look.”

    I turned back to the way we were travelling. The road ran straight and level ahead of us. Just visible on the horizon was what looked like a wall, which had at least one huge hole in it, possibly two.

    “That’s it?” I said. “That broken wall is where we are going?”

    “The wall is the biggest part left of the city the old Romans made here. In their time there were many people here. There were many houses. Large halls. A place where the people gathered to wash themselves. Many markets.”

    “Now there is nothing left but a broken wall.”

    “That is what your people think. It is best that they think that. The truth is