Circles of Gold

know.”

  “But ye do know, Bryn. Ye know quite well,” said Eryn, smiling at him. “Ye asked God, with all yer fervent might, for a perfect son who was special. I heard ye, many times, asking for such. And I agreed with ye. I wanted that too. We asked God and God delivered our desire.”

  “But I didna’ want summat inhuman,” said Bryn, wiping the back of his hand over his forehead. Tears were forming but he was just not going to acknowledge them with a wipe.

  “Me darling sweet Man of God, do ye not see?” asked Eryn hugging the sweet child asleep in her arms, oblivious of the talking about him. “He is perfect. He is special. We got what we asked of God. Do ye not see? If he is of God, from God, then nothing but good can come of this. Nothing but good.”

  “Nothing but good for a child with a deformity!” said Bryn, leaning forward, his hands clenched. “How can that ever be?”

  “We donna’ know how God makes a golden belly button – we certainly cannot,” said Eryn evenly. “So if we leave the rest, the future, in the hands of God, we canna’ know, right now, how he makes the goodness come of it but we know he can. It not be our job to know how but our job to believe how. Isna’ that what ye tell the villagers in yer sermons?”

  “Hmph! That be the problem with being a priest,” he said. “I might be knowin’ all the scripture and all the wise words known to man and I can tell them to those who canna’ read them. But once they’re out of me mouth, in public, people expect me to live them, to know how to deal with all of life’s challenges. And, quite frankly, Eryn, me wise woman, I feel like I know nothing.”

  “But me darling man,” she said, patting his arm. “Ye’ be honest about yer not knowing and ye be sincerely trying to live as a good Man of God.”

  “Ye have faith in me that’s higher than mine, Eryn!” he said, chuckling and sitting back. “It’s almost that I used to know so much and, as I grow older, I grow dimmer. I talk the words and ye live them – ye should be the priest!”

  “We make a good team, then!” said Eryn, laughing. “Betwixt me wise doing and yer wise sermons we’re the wisest couple that ever was.”

  And so their lives continued for some time, with Bryn trying to come to terms with his son having a golden belly button and with Eryn accepting the perfection and specialness of young Donal, as they called him. They agreed – till they heard differently and clearly from God – to do or say nothing about Donal’s golden belly button and to keep it covered at all times. Living in the public eye and in a public place – a priest’s home was a sanctuary for anyone needing succour, physical or spiritual – they had to be ever vigilant. That wasn’t always easy. The midwife and her three apprentices had seen but their calling swore them to tell nothing of the births they attended. Birth was a sacred and private process and they kept their sworn vows.