The View From the Cart Read Online Free

tired, I realised that the sun was low on the sky, and Edd should be back with the children. The church was a good distance away, but I had expected them home before this. The priest would have arranged a small meal to celebrate the new Christian, there would have been dancing and a song or two - it would all take time, I supposed, and there would be no haste to return to the ratty bent thing that I had become.
    Finally, they appeared down the tussocky path, weary and quiet. Edd’s arm remained locked for a few moments when he set the baby down, and I realised what a weight he’d carried so far. Wynn was pale, red juice on her face from the fruit she’d eaten. She was the first to notice my little straw house. Her face came alive and her hands reached out to it. ‘Oh!’ she cried, in real delight.
    Edd turned to look. I saw surprise, admiration and then fear cross his face. ‘It’s a faery house!’ he hissed. ‘Destroy it! What would the priest think?’
    My laugh was a little forced. ‘Nonsense!’ I said. ‘Just my little amusement during a long day. I’ll smash it, if you want me to.’
    I raised my fist over the toy, but then lowered it again. Wynn had whimpered in protest, and the baby also seemed very taken with it. I found myself fiercely reluctant to break it.
    â€˜I’ll put it outside,’ I said. ‘It’ll blow apart in a few days.’ Edd made no protest and I clumsily took it up and shuffled out and around to the back of the hut with it. There was a small place under a thorn bush which seemed the natural spot to place it. I set it lightly on the ground, and tried to straighten my back before going into the hut again.
    Two things happened. For the first time in over seven months I stood unbent without pain. And something rushed past my head, with a whirring of wings like a little bird. Bewildered I turned my head from side to side and raised my arms to the sky. Then I lifted my feet one by one, disbelieving, my heart stopped from shock. I was cured.
    With a loud cry of triumph, which echoed over the moors like the call of a seabird, I flew back to the hut to show myself.
    Edd stared at me as I rushed in. ‘I am cured!’ I sang, a madwoman with my hair outflung.
    Wynn ran to me, throwing her arms about my thighs. ‘I prayed for it!’ she boasted. ‘Just as Father Brendan said we should.’
    â€˜Then I thank you,’ I laughed. ‘With all my soul.’
    â€˜But the faery house
really
did it,’ she added, suddenly solemn. I lowered myself to be level with her face, the stiff muscles only mildly complaining.
    â€˜We must not place our faith in faeries,’ I said, gently. ‘But perhaps they have given our Lord a little help?’
    She nodded wisely, and I hugged her to me. She and I were restored to each other thanks to the end of my crippledom and I rejoiced in it. We all slept soundly that night, after a day we would not quickly forget.

Chapter Three
    Edd attributed the cure of my crippled back to Cuthman’s baptism. It seemed plain to him that the washing clean of the child’s soul had drawn God’s favour down on us. The priest had said something in his blessing about the purity of a newly christened child being a great force for good. He had said, too, that he sensed an unusual innocence in our child, hinting that Cuthman might be special in time to come. ‘He has a glow to him, like an angel,’ he had murmured to Edd, blushing a little, my husband noted, at his fancy. ‘And I think it too,’ Edd maintained, a trifle defiantly.
    â€˜I never saw it,’ I spoke shortly, mindful that where the priest had seen an angel, I had glimpsed a demon. ‘But perhaps now he has been blessed, I shall find him as you do.’
    â€˜It is plain to see,’ Edd persisted. ‘And your mended back is the evidence of it. Can you doubt it?’
    At the time it seemed to me