one

More years have passed than I can remember it seems, as I was born over six hundred years ago. And yet, here I be, facing the change of time, the advent of technology and my own immortal roots while the twenty-first century beats its chest like a posturing ape defending its territory. I sit here, in the light of a goose-neck lamp picking letters out on a laptop computer instead of scratching away with quill on hempen paper in the light of a tallow candle, as is my natural inclination from over six centuries of practice.

Please forgive me for not explaining all the nuances from the era of when I was born. The details, so numerous, could easily be a book of their own. You have undoubtedly seen enough movies to glean what a village looks like, if for the most part. I tell you now, it's a superficial appearance if anything. In the time I was born, it was quieter, dirtier, much more pious and much less populated. If religion was the bread of life, then superstition was the water to wash it down. Outsiders were feared and resented unless they brought news or items for barter. Life was harsh. And this is just life in a village. Let us not forget the wars that plagued Europe since time immemorial. Blood was the fertilizer that kept Europe green.

I will try not to pander to the obvious; instead, I shall reveal the things that immortals keep hidden from the uninitiated.

Not always have I been immortal. For like all of my kind, I was born to mortal parents. Like some, my roots were humble. Like few, I was deemed doomed from the beginning.

I was born February 29, in the year of our lord 1360. This marked me as an unlucky child, a leap year child. The village in Devon, England where I was born did not outright shun me, but neither was I particularly welcome. Mothers warned their children away from me with threats of beatings or bed without supper. They called me a fairy child, cursed child, for no normal person should be born upon the leap year. I disagreed, but in the end they were right... not that their opinion mattered in the scheme of things. My parents salved my hurt by telling me that I need not play with others to have fun, that adventure was around every turn. It helped a little, but nothing completely removes the sting of rejection.

"The rain must fall for there to be a rainbow," were my mother's favorite words of comfort, followed by, "Rain is what makes us appreciate the flowers in our life." Rain, of course, being my childish tears of upset.

Buckfast village was no different than any other in England. A road cut through the center of the community, to the next beyond. In the middle of the town, were the three things needed by all villagers; the well, the church and the blacksmith. On the edge of Buckfast, along the river Dart, the mill. Buckfast Abbey was a stones throw across the river from the village.

My father was the blacksmith. As his daughter, I could not inherit the forge through apprenticeship, but I could still learn the anvil's power. Watching slag sparks fly past his sweating soot-streaked face and strike his leather apron while he pounded steel into submission is my earliest memory of him. He would bounce me upon his knee, and I'd cling on for all I was worth lest the knee-horse buck me off. As I grew older, any time not spent with my mother, was spent in his forge, watching him sculpt iron and steel to his will. I loved t my father, a giant mountain of a man- a moral, good humored man, he was. My mother was a healer, and from her I learned the apothecary's art, as she had learned from her own mother. My duty to the family was to teach my own daughter, should I bear one, the arts. Yet another stigma tolerated for its usefulness, although the monks of Buckfast Abbey helped to cement our position in the village without whispers of witchcraft.

The Abbey's infirmarian died, and they had none to replace him. Mother and I tended the good brothers' ailments, which assured our place in their good graces. One also cannot discount the benefit of being related to the village smithy and midwife, either.

From my mother that I received bright teal-colored eyes, pointy chin and dark brown hair that still can't decide whether it wishes to be curly or straight. From my father I gleaned my height and lust for life. I had three half-sisters, all bred on different mothers. My mother tolerated my father's indiscretions, as his love was reserved for her alone. Two of my half-sisters I knew, the youngest died at birth, her mother shortly after from blood loss.

Ailys was two moons younger than I and Gwennyth was six moons younger than Ailys. Although I knew them, played with them a few times when I was young, it was never forgotten by them that Father preferred my mother over theirs, and nothing I did would alleviate them of that memory, though I tried. It did not help that although they were bastardborn, they were preferred by the village folk over myself and the curse of my natal day. Their mothers were forgiven, being that they were considered a trio of wild Welsh girls, and such carnality could be expected of them.

It was also from my father that I received my name, Lisbet. Named after his mother, the village midwife whom taught me all she knew, which included reading, writing and simple arithmetic. She learned these skills at the Abbey, where her mother worked in exchange for the lessons. After my father died in the early spring of my fourteenth year, she moved in with my mother and I, trying to fill the gap left in our hearts. None but Father himself could accomplish that feat. But still she tried.

Father was a cautious man, but something went awry that morning as he worked bright yellow steel into a plow. The only other person working at the forge was his apprentice, Crispin, who claimed that he was at the well, filling buckets for his yoke when he heard father's screams. Goodwife Ellisa made the well her personal domain during daylight hours so that she was fully aware of all the comings and goings, with the exception of on the Sabbath, when she kept the village's gossip to herself and the Lord. On that particular day, she said she never saw Crispin at the well. Grandmother Bet always thought that Crispin had something to do with Father's horrific death.

You see, Father caught on fire somehow. An oil lamp was found broken, no more than ten paces from the forge-fire, but it was unlikely to have been lit or broken by Father. To perfect the metal, one needs to see the color of it in almost dark conditions to coax out the shape from charcoal and iron. When Father needed light, he'd simply pull aside the giant leather curtain that shut the front of the shop off from the outside world. But somehow the oil from the lamp and fire engulfed my Father. To quell the flames, he flung himself into the quenching trough. Burns covered his back, legs, chest and neck.

My mother nursed him with all her devotion for a sennight. She sang to him, whispered her dreams to him, tried to bring him back to life with her herbs, voice, passion. He never responded to her. I bore witness to my mother's lamentations as my father slowly withered away from the oozing sores that seemed no better for her special poultices.

When he died, half of Mother died too.

The sun shone bright, birds sang out from the newly leafed trees the day we put my father in the ground.

It was the summer of my father's death that the peddler first came through the village square. A team of spirited black horses kicked up dust as a brightly painted wagon lumbered behind them, holding all the peddler's trade goods, as he sat on the bench with reins in his left hand. He waved, sang and whistled, and soon all in Buckfast knew a stranger had arrived. The sun glinted upon auburn hair and his intense green eyes were as uncommon a shade as my own. Upon his face was a beard that fringed his square jawline. He was handsome, which aided in his dealings with goodwives, for they were like sun-warmed butter when he spoke. The menfolk liked him well-enough, for he never dallied with their women and would attend mass each morning he spent in our village.

After mass, he began conducting his business in the shade of a large elm tree, dressed in the same manner of a tunic over woolen leggings, always in sober colors. He would then present his wagon's secret nooks, crannies opened and uncovered to display all his goods. Bolts of gaily colored fabrics and thread, pots and pans, spices, herbs and salt, jewelry, exotic perfumes and ribbons, knives for the table or belt, toys lovingly carved from wood and hides all fought for attention from their wooden shelves and nooks.

Folk gathered all about him, each waiting their turn to barter. I traded a small stone pot containing salve of comfrey for a pack of fine metal sewing needles I intended to use for stitching wounds, and he smiled down upon me. That was the first time I felt the self-conscious flush and clumsy hands of flaming youth. After that incident, I let Grandmother Bet do the bargaining whenever he came through town.

For three summers thereafter, Rowan D'Morsang arrived a fortnight past the Midsummer festivities to sell his wares.

If it had not been for Rowan touching my life as he did, I would not be writing this for you. One could equally curse him and extol his virtues in the same breath, as I myself have done a great many times, starting on the night he changed my life.