FORGOTTEN
PROPHECIES
A short story by Robert
Coleman
In the kingdom of the Franks that is called
Neustria (Northern France), c. 571
“You! Stranger! I want to talk to you! Yes,
I can see you! Come out of there!”
The two fugitives had been discovered. The
rasping voice sounded as if it belonged to an elderly Frankish
woman, but they were unable to see her from behind the bushes where
they had hidden. Exhausted, they crawled out of the ditch,
collected their bags and began to lurch on their way along the
uneven road again.
“Stop! Don’t go! I have something important
to tell you!”
For the last week, they had run, walked and
finally stumbled slowly along the neglected road from Paris towards
the north coast each night. The kind moon had been their only
guide; each day they had slept at any remote spot they could find,
avoiding the risk of having to answer questions. It was night again
now, and they had taken an hour’s rest to draw energy before
carrying on into the next dawn.
They had enjoyed an occasional adventure on
the way to lighten their spirits but – concerned that they might
betray themselves through their carelessness, brought on by their
extreme fatigue – fear had overcome them. And now it was the end:
they had been discovered. They collapsed on to the roadside again
as the old crone approached them. She seemed harmless, but who
could tell?
“Young man, I can see your past. And I can
see your future.”
Eldred was uncertain whether she was
addressing him or his companion Guthlaf. “Yes, you ,” she
pointed to Eldred.
He looked up at her nervously. They had
escaped from Paris but now, drained and ready to surrender to their
fate, they had little care. “I know all about my past, thank you,”
he growled clumsily in his best attempt to reply in her language.
“I know where I am now – roughly – but I can't see much of a future
for me.”
She looked closer into his face, and her
eyes lit up. “Ha! Your accent! You are from the island in the
north? The old Roman Britannia ? Then I have found the right
man, praised be God. I have learned some of the speech of the Cantwara . You can understand me better now?”
The Cantwara people, in the
south-east of the island where he had been born, had a dialect
similar to his own. And she switched to it almost effortlessly so
he could better grasp her wisdom.
“You have a future. And it is not
here. There are things you must know. The angels compel me to tell
you.”
He shrugged. “Go on, then. Tell me. But I
don't have much time.”
“I know. You have had a hard life; your kin
were brutally slain and now you’re running away from a cruel man in
Paris, who bought you in the slave market. And you are trying to
return home.”
“I have no home. But it’s true that I’m
going back to the land I came from.”
“You shall have a home: a good home. But I still need to tell you of your past. There is something
you may not know. But this is private, between you and me. Can you
tell your friend to step away while I tell you?”
He shrugged. “Guthlaf, can you keep watch
for a while?”
His friend got up slowly and wandered to a
position down the road, out of earshot. The old woman continued to
look deep into his face.
“You had a tumble in the hay with a farmer's
daughter last week. She called herself Clothilde. Do you
remember?”
“Yes. You're good! Or were you there? Were
you watching us?”
She ignored his flippancy. "This is serious.
She is no farmer's daughter. And her name is not Clothilde. I know
of her: she is the wayward daughter of a wayward king. And she will
one day become queen when she weds a powerful prince, so you must
be careful if you meet her. She may remember you.”
“But that girl was a slut. Not a pretty
slut, either.”
“She may not be beautiful, but she comes
from the most noble house.”
He laughed for a moment. So he had lain with
an obscure princess. The world was full of petty princes
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