Before she has decided what the remedy will be, she hears noise from the island opposite. Her women are gathering. They are crossing over in two boats. Her gang of women is coming. Cwen can hear the excited pitch of their voices, as they approach. Something is happening.

And Cwen knows, without looking, that they are bringing the one they want to punish. They will make her cry as they enact her initiation.

The old woman has heard them, too. Together, they stand by the cairn, looking down at the group of women on the beach.

The women pull their boats up beyond the high-tide mark and light a fire – gorse branches, pine, sage. It crackles in the wind. White smoke drifts up towards the cairn.

Cwen doesn’t like it. She raises her arms and is about to punish them in their turn, with rain and snow, or a plague of wasps, when the old woman steps forward. She begins to walk slowly down the hill. The full glory of the setting sun is in her face, and Cwen knows she is magnificent. The sun is her crown, as it was for the goddess Anu. The land is her body.

With Sun in both their faces, Cwen sees what she must do.

The group on the beach look up, startled, across the firesmoke. The woman they are initiating, face smeared in ochre, runs from them, over the bracken, straight up the hill, through the gorse, scratches on her legs, blood streaks on her arms, but she doesn’t care, on up the hill and into the arms of their Anu. They soothe each other in a long embrace.

And now the granddaugther comes up the hill towards them, relief in her smile and every part of her. When she reaches her grandmother’s side, she kisses her on the cheek. You are here, she says.

They love each other so much, Cwen can see that.

But Cwen knows now what she requires from this new Anu. She requires a sacrifice which the girl will not want her to make.

She watches them, awaiting her moment.

The Scene is opened, and there is presented a Rock as in the Sea, whereupon sits the Princess and the Lady Happy ... L. Happy. I feed the Sun, which gives them light, And makes them shine in darkest night, Moist vapour from my brest I give, Which he sucks forth, and makes him live, Or else his Fire would soon go out, Grow dark, or burn the World throughout.

Margaret Cavendish, The Convent of Pleasure, London, 1668