After Cwen died, they buried her, exactly as she asked, with her dagger and divining rods, inside the ancient mound on her island, wrapped in flax cloth. Just in case, they stationed one of their daughters to sit by the spring; and that was clever, for when the visitors started coming, the girl took payment. She picked up Cwen’s cowries from the beach and sold them; she extracted coins for a sip of Cwen’s waters or one of her apples. At first they came from all over the islands. Then they began coming from Bernicia, Deira, Mercia. By the time they were visiting from England as a whole, and Scotland, and even France, Cwen’s spring had a little chapel built over it and a piece of the true cross embedded in the altar. Cwen’s own flax-cloth shroud was exhibited twice a year, around the solstices.

The true cross was there for show. It was Cwen’s healing powers that grew, year by year, despite her, better than her, such that soon Cwen began to wonder if she had been mistaken. Perhaps it was she – not Anu or Freya or Mary – who was the goddess. That kind of thinking is dangerous, she knows that.

Then, for a long time, everything went silent, and Cwen slept undisturbed.

Once, during this long time alone, she had a dream that the sea tasted different. It uncovered her; it covered her back up; it dragged stones along her thighs; it sucked sand and grit out of her vulva. It submerged her up to her armpits, and left her lying adrift, wet sand beneath her, like a dying whale. It tumbled her through the seaweed; and pushed her down down down to where her island joined the seabed. It was definitely trying to tell her something.

So she was already awake by the time she heard men knocking on the outside of the mound with shovels, pulling away turf and earth and stone, and eventually stepping fully shod, uncleansed, into her sanctum.

She opened first one eye, then the other, as they lifted her out of the mound, bone by bone. She heard the ancient histories shriek as her body was carried off the island.

It made no difference to Cwen. Her body had gone; but she wasn’t going anywhere.

Every visitor who has come to her island since then, she watches. She waits until the right moment – and then she holds her breath, and blows, very carefully, over their faces. Pray to Anu and Freya and Bride and Mary, that this time they will listen.

People used to pay for this.

Nobody reacts. Not one. Cwen swirls her fingers through the water and makes the weather turn.

She hears a human cry. A boat is coming over. Careful, Cwen.

She watches, and holds her breath, as the woman approaches.

The Britons make no distinction of sex in their royal successions.

Tacitus, Agricola (Latin), ad 98