The Hill-King's Bride: an Allegory for the Modern Church

Closure

Maple was thoroughly confused. "Why?"

"Because I'm the only one left alive that knows to look behind that stone," Rowen said flatly, "and Rhys knew it. Why else would he have put that there?"

Maple touched the weighty necklace. It seemed so familiar! She closed her eyes and pictured her mother wearing it. They weren't in the valley, but in a tent. There was shouting . . . "We were attacked. That's how the bow got broken. When she ran out of arrows, she used it like a club. Papa just laid there. There was a cloth on his head and one around his shoulder . . ."

"Maple?" Rowen's concerned voice cut into the memory.

"Mama must have found Papa after you were attacked. I remember him with bandages on, in a tent. They must have found her but she fought them off. I'll show you when we get home."

"Are you girls ready?" Cade's jovial voice called from outside. "Rhys deserves a funeral pyre, at the very least."

Rowen led Maple outside. "And Lily," she reminded her husband. "From what Maple says, Lily saved Rhys' life after the attack. We should remember both of them."

Bowen handed Maple a burning brand of wood, which he'd obviously lit from the still-burning remains of the wall. Maple nodded her thanks and touched the brand to the wall, leaving it resting against the dry-rotted wood until it should catch fire. "No one else deserves this cabin, nor anything within. Once it's gone, we should pull down the chimney," she said.

"No, leave it," protested Cade. "Anyone who uses it can remember how it came to be."

Maple only shook her head. "Let them build their own. They gave us no aid when we came, why should I leave it to aid them, now?"

Both Cade and Rowen's expressions turned hard. "We'll tear it down then," Rowen promised. Together, the four of them watched the cabin burn. "Where is my brother buried?" asked Rowen after the roof had caved in.

The topography of the area had so changed in her absence that Maple had to think about it. She paced off from the cabin and pointed to a cabin some distance away, near the wall. "Just to the left of that cabin. Mama is under the wall and my brothers and sisters are under that cabin and here, in the street. They were all in one line, with Mama at one end and Papa at the other."

"Did they know that when they built all this?" asked Bowen in astonishment. "I mean, who builds on a graveyard, except by accident?"

Maple sighed a little. "I kept the graves tended and each had a stone, though nothing was engraved on them. Surely they had to have known." She fell silent for a long moment, thinking about it. "I was not here when they built all this, so it's hard to say what anyone knew. After all, it's not as if they paid much attention to us either way, until the due was collected."

Without a word, Cade marched away, his back stiff and his countenance drawn in a tight mask of anger. Bowen watched him go, but didn't follow, even though he clearly wanted to. Instead, he used a long pole to push the walls of the cabin inward to prevent the fire from burning other structures. Finally, when the cabin was nothing more than a pile of blazing wood, he used the pole to push at the chimney, trying to collapse it onto the fire.

Maple and Rowen joined him at the pole and eventually succeeded just enough to level it with the fire. Maple was pleased with the result. There would be just enough left to mark where the cabin once stood, not enough to be reused.

"Leave the rest," she suggested. "Let them deal with it. Thank you, Bowen. Truly, this is a perfect monument to my family's life here."

Bowen turned and placed both hands on Maple's shoulders. "Maple, you're family. Nobody kidnaps my sister and gets away with it."

Maple wanted to cry. "I love you, too. Thanks for watching out for me while I was here."

He let her go and winked. "I couldn't stay away. What's the name of that cute girl with the dark hair?"

"Comfrey?"

"Yeah, she always smiles when I wave at her."

"Bowen!" Maple was teasing and he knew it, but he blushed a little anyway. She gave his shoulder a light shove and he dropped his arm around her shoulders for a quick squeeze before pushing her back.

"Come on, let's get out of here." Bowen looked at his mother. "Ma, I want to go find some help in carrying Maple's things."

Rowen shook her head. "If I know your father, help is on the way." She was kneeling on the ground between two cabins, beside where her brother was buried.

Maple knelt beside her and hugged her. "Ma, are you okay?" she asked.

Rowen shook her head. "I don't want to leave him here," she confessed. "It just doesn't seem right that the man I knew should end up here, in an unmarked grave under a street. He was supposed to be the Broderick elder, a warrior; not some forgotten peasant."

She paused, swallowed hard and continued. "And your mother; she was a princess. Princesses shouldn't end up that way either. My brother chose well. She should have had a life of honor, teaching you to fight, instead of breaking her back over a hoe for the rest of her life."

"Her people wanted us dead and I'm sure he thought his people were all dead," Maple reminded her. "This was the life they chose."

"No it wasn't! It was the life they ended up with instead. I'm just grateful you didn't end up joining them, My Lamb."

"Well, now they're joining us." Cade had returned, followed by a small mob of Broderick clansmen. "We're taking Rhys and his family home." Maple scrambled to her feet and helped Rowen up as well. "Show us where they are, Little Lamb."

"Okay, Da."

Maple started to point downward but was distracted by a small commotion. "These kind elders are more than willing to assist," the king called out from behind the group. "They feel it's the least they could do after dishonoring the graves to begin with."

The knot of people behind Cade milled about. Maple realized that they were pushing the hapless elders forward. The first to stumble in front of Rowen and Maple was the high elder, beaten black and blue and looking as if he were ready to fall at any moment. None of the rest of the elders looked any better. The king had answered their attack, blow for blow, and exacted his revenge.

It seemed he wasn't done with those who'd ordered the invasion of the hills, though. He strolled behind them and shoved at the back of the last man. "Dig," he ordered. Soon, the bones of Maple's birth parents and four siblings had been unearthed and wrapped in cloths, prepared to be re-buried on the hill belonging to the Broderick clan. It took until nearly sundown to accomplish the task.

The hill-folk camped around the smoking remnant of the village walls, cooked their dinners over the embers and celebrated their victory. Injuries had been minor and there were only the exhumed bodies to return to the hills. It was clearly the easiest victory the tribe had ever accomplished.

Inside the village, the bodies of the dead had been laid in the square; those who'd fallen during the brief battle and those who'd been slain in retribution for Maple's abduction. Come dawn, when the first light of morning lit the sky, the hill-folk quietly packed up and headed into the hills, intending to be gone before the valley-dwellers would be awake.

Maple walked beside Rowen, ahead of those bearing the litters of the dead and just behind the king. She was Maple of the Highest Hill and as soon as they reached the fortress and buried her dead, she would be Bryn Ma'ar's bride.