The Silver Witch(110)

There is no time to even think of an alternative. She breathes deeper, faster, pushing herself into a sprint. All the time she is aware of the creature behind her getting closer and closer. Soon it is so close she can smell its foul breath and feel the heat of its unnatural form. Tilda reaches the door of the boathouse and yanks the rotten handle, scrabbling to pull the door open on its rusted hinges. It drags against the mud, so that she is only able to open it a few inches. She has no choice but to force herself through the gap, scraping her face, her hands, her leg as she flings herself inside.

She turns to try to pull the door shut, but to her amazement the ghost does not attempt to follow her in. Instead, it slams the door behind her. Slams it with such force that the entire building shakes. There follows the sound of stones and mud and wood being thrown against the door. Piled up against it. The door buckles and creaks, some of its planks splintering, but it holds.

And suddenly there is silence. Only the sound of the rain pounding on the old tin roof, and Tilda’s own ragged, near hysterical breathing. She waits, listening. But she knows, just knows that the thing from the grave has gone. Cautiously, she tries the door. It is stuck solid, completely jammed by the weight of all that has been stacked up in front of it.

It doesn’t want me dead. Not yet, at any rate. It wants me trapped. But why? Why?


SEREN

We meet at dawn. And what a violent daybreak greets us, the sky streaked crimson and scarlet, as if the day itself is full of pain and rage. It is close to midsummer, so that the night is confined to the smaller number of hours, and we are up from our beds early this morning to lay Hywel Gruffydd in his final resting place. Every man, woman and child has turned out to pay their respects. The procession makes its sorrowful progress from the crannog and along the shore of the lake, coming to a halt but a few strides from my own house. There was much said and many voices raised in the choosing of the site for Hywel’s grave. He lived his life a Christian, and the priest argued he should be given a place next to the church, so that he might be in God’s keeping, he said, and comforted by the sound of the monks’ prayers.

Brynach wanted a warrior’s burial for him in a grand tomb. I told them Hywel did not require comfort but vengeance. On this point we finally agreed. When the punishment for his killer was decided, there was no question of him being buried with the Christians. Their god has not the stomach for the punishment meted out by the Old Religion. The priest backed down quickly enough when he understood what is to be done. What has to be done.

Hywel had neither wife nor children of his own. He saw his prince as his reason for being on this earth. He and Brynach loved each other as warriors, as brothers, and now the prince is bereft. His heart will ache, and there will forever be a space at his table now. When all are assembled at the appointed place, Hywel’s coffin is lowered into the deep wound in the earth that awaits it. The priest stands close and says his words. Many of the women and children weep. Brynach and his soldiers stand steady and quiet but they cannot hide the pain of loss they are suffering. When the Christian rites have been observed I step forward. I am not wearing my ceremonial headdress this day, for the occasion is too somber, too personal. Instead I have dressed in my red woolen cloak, my hood up to cover my hair. I lead Tanwen by the hand, moving slowly so that she can walk the short distance to the grave. She, too, wears a cape of red wool, given her by her father, to match mine, but her hood is down, so that her bright hair gleams in the sunlight, as does the golden torc at her throat. It is fitting that we should act for Hywel together. He loved her, and he died protecting me. She will one day take my place as shaman. There is much she must learn.

The hole has been dug deep. The lid of the coffin remains drawn back so that we might say our farewells. Hywel lies, arms crossed, his sword in his hand, grave goods placed all around him—silver plates, goblets, weapons, a fine robe—he will not want for anything in the afterlife. He did not fear death. No man who still has the Old Religion in his heart has reason to. He knew he would be welcomed, be revered. The sadness for him was that he did not die a warrior’s death in battle. And that he has left his prince’s side. The bitterness we must live with is that he was so cruelly sent from this world by wickedness. And I, I must endure the knowledge that his life was forfeit for mine. Nothing Brynach says can remove that painful truth from me.

There is silence as I pray for his soul, as I ask for him to be honored in the Otherworld. Tanwen is sensitive to the mood of the gathering and to my own disposition. She, too, stands quietly, peering down at the figure she knows so well, her expression questioning his lack of movement. At last she squeezes my hand a little tighter and whispers, ‘Sleeping!’ Together we kneel on the gritty rim of the grave. Tanwen drops in a single white bloom, lily of the valley, for its purity and its sweet scent. I lean down and carefully put into Hywel’s hand a small stone jar with a wooden stopper. This is no ordinary pot. It contains a potion heavy with magic. I have worked a spell into it, fixed with poison from the deadly nightshade, and drops of juice from the roots of the oak, and water from the very bottom of the sacred lake, and magic words older than any of these things. Magic to keep him safe in his slumbers. For to gain his justice, his vengeance, he must withstand such evil company that he cannot be left unprotected. Tanwen and I return to stand at our place close to the royal party. Wenna does not meet my eye. How could she? She and I both know who sent Nesta with her cursed serpent. Still Brynach does not wish to hear ill of his wife, and chooses to believe that the maid acted on her own, out of ambition, and out of jealousy of me. I have no proof, of course. He is deaf to this particular truth, and I fear this is in part due to the guilt that gnaws at him every time he looks at the barren wife he does not love. Every time he turns from her to me. But I have seen the truth of it now. Rhodri’s success in negotiating a pact with the Queen Aethelfaed was to further his own ends, for he knows his wife’s marriage is no longer sufficient to secure his family’s position of power. Nesta came to me at Wenna’s behest; and Wenna was acting on her brother’s urging. The peace Prince Brynach is so content with is built on ground less firm, less stable than the sucking marshes on the north side of the lake. If Rhodri cannot be rid of me, and rid of Tanwen, the Queen of Mercia will act. I know it. I have seen it. I understand my vision clearly now. This truce has served only to allow time to pass. Time that has no doubt served the Mercian ruler’s own needs as she builds her army. Rhodri has betrayed his brother-in-law, I am certain of it. The man stinks of betrayal.