title: Promise on a Parchment
author: Criomtainn, M.I.
description: Following on from Tale on a Parchment (Book I of the trilogy) Promise on a Parchment finds archaeologsts Tara and Alex delving further into the story of Macha, the remarkable seventh century Irish “old-soul” young woman. With the life of Macha told through the writings of her tutor-monk Suibhne, Alex, finds outside evidence that Suibhne’s account is not an invented story and that Macha was very real indeed. Alex’s wife Tara continues to be pushed and pulled by the ancestors or ancestral memory, and the enigmatic recluse Christopher Woodbean only complicates matters more. We also witness Macha’s new life in the small Welsh kingdom of Brycheiniog, as wife and partner to Dewi, the youngest son of King Rhiwallon. When a tragedy compels Dewi to visit the Holy Land, Macha must learn to cope without him as she waits for his return. Dewi is not to return soon, however, as he has been badly injured, losing much of his memory and now taken in by a Muslim bedouin tribe. What transpires while he is away, how he ends up returning home and Macha’s role in it all makes for a carefully crafted account of an unshakable, abiding love, tenacious courage, an unquestioning belief in things unseen…and a little bit of help from the ancestors. The story of Macha and Dewi is woven into historical accounts of real people, places and events in mid-seventh century Wales and beyond. The experiences she shares with other people and other places, and even Tara in the twenty-first century, underscores a common thread that runs through us all…something the ancestors won’t let us forget.