The Silver Witch(111)

Two carpenters drop nimbly into the grave and hammer on the lid of the casket. Once they are out, a layer of good Welsh soil is spread atop it, packed gently, and covered with small stones from the lake, and yet more earth.

Now the mood of the assembled company changes. They are no longer here to say good-bye to the prince’s most trusted swordsman. They are no longer here to mourn their friend and send him to the Otherworld with their prayers and their blessings. Now they are here to see justice done. A high price will be paid to avenge Hywel, the suffering will be great, but it is no more than the wretch who murdered him—who would have murdered me—deserves.

Brynach raises his hand as a signal. ‘Bring forth the witch!’ he commands.

From the very back of the crowd three burly soldiers emerge, dragging Nesta between them. Her hands are tied behind her back, and her mouth is tightly gagged. She has spent these past days chained in a pig sty, coming out only for the swift trial where no one spoke in her defense. She raged and howled and insisted she was doing only as her mistress bid her, and that as a maid she had no choice but to obey. She might have saved her breath. Prince Brynach called such words treason and vile betrayal. Told her she was wicked to her bones and sought only to further her own cause by killing me. Nesta wept and begged to see the princess, refusing to accept that her mistress had abandoned her to her fate. All the while I had to remain vigilant, offering my own words of prayer and protection, surrounding the traitorous witch with lake water and blessed bones to prevent her using her dark magic. Nesta’s guilt was never in question. Sentence was passed. And now her hour is come.

It is Rhodri who stands and delivers the reasons for the woman’s execution. His voice is stern, clear and forceful. He serves his office well. How does it sit with his conscience, I wonder, knowing that he is as much responsible for Nesta’s end as his sister? If justice were truly to be served, Wenna and Rhodri would also be facing their deaths now, hands tied, fear loosening their bowels. Instead, as the strong hide behind their privilege, yet again it is the weak who must pay the price.

Nesta shakes her head and cries out through her gag. The prince indicates that it should be removed.

‘Say what you must,’ he instructs her.

She turns, weeping, to the mistress she professed to love. I do believe she was sincere in this, at least until the point when the princess chose not to defend her, not in any way to help her, if only to lessen the severity of her punishment.

‘My Princess,’ she trembles as she speaks, ‘have I not been a true and loyal servant to you all these years? Does it count for naught that I have tended to you, comforted you, been your helpmate and your friend through so many travails? Have I not kept your secrets safe and done everything I could for your happiness? Can you not find it in your heart to help me now? Will you not speak for me?’

The princess does not answer, only turns her head away.

Nesta cries out. ‘What manner of woman are you? Have you no pity?’

‘Enough!’ Rhodri seeks to silence her, bidding the guards replace her gag, but Nesta wriggles from their grasp long enough to say more.

‘You!’ She directs her rage at me now. ‘If you had only thought of someone other than yourself Hywel would still be alive. This need never have come to pass! None of it! It is your selfishness, Seren Arianaidd, that has been the cause of this!’

‘Be silent, woman!’ Brynach tells her. ‘Let the execution proceed.’

Nesta snarls, her face contorting. The sky darkens as a flock of rooks rise up from the woods and fly so thick and so many that they block out the sun’s rays. She raises her voice, fueled by hatred and her own fear. ‘A curse upon you! A curse upon all your children, and their children! May they never know peace. May they none of them live to see their own young grown! May they die in terror and screaming, each and every one of them!’

It is a terrible curse. Such a legacy of dread and sorrow! All around people gasp and cry out, some of the children weeping. And all of them look at me, for had she not seconds before named me as the reason for all that we stand witness to?

‘Silence her!’ Brynach shouts.

But I know the truth of it. I saw where she directed her nightmare curse, I saw whose eye she hooked with her wild stare, whose future she blighted. And the words were not meant for me, but for Wenna and her brother, and his son.

The guards, aided by a shaken Rhodri, grapple with Nesta, tying her gag so tight as she struggles that I hear the cracking of her jawbone. They spin her on her heel and push her headlong into the grave. Quickly, they turn and lift the great flat stone that lies upon the grass beside the grave. We can all hear Nesta’s muffled cries as she tries to get to her feet, but before she has time to do so, the stone is dropped into place on top of her. Mothers cover their children’s ears. Some among us cheer, letting go their grief at losing Hywel, finding a way to vent their impotent rage. Others fall silent, lowering their heads, sickened by the suffering man is able to inflict upon his own kind. The priest prays. The soldiers in the ranks behind where the prince stands bang their shields with their swords, drowning out Nesta’s pitiful cries and moans. Noises that are soon enough smothered by the soil and stones shoveled into the grave. In less than two minutes it is done. The opening is closed. The earth has swallowed two more bodies. Hywel will have made his journey a hero. Nesta will stay where she lies. And the rest of us must continue with our lives, bearing our loss and carrying our guilt. And Rhodri must live in hope that our prayers and that brutal stone are sufficient to trap the witch’s magic, else her curse will be visited upon his family, and I would not place a wager on Siōn living to see another summer.