The Winter Witch (29 page)

It is an hour later when he makes his way back to the barn and flops grumpily onto his blanket. Beside him, Dai lies, eyes closed, hands behind his head. He speaks without opening his eyes or troubling himself to sit up.

“Enjoying married life then?” he asks.

Cai hears friendly mockery in his tone, but is in no mood to joke about the matter.

“Is it a thing to be enjoyed? I had not noticed.”

At this Dai laughs heartily. “
Duw, bachgen,
you’ve a deal to learn about women yet.”

“And you are an expert on the subject, no doubt.”

“Doesn’t take a wise man to recognize love when he sees it. Takes a fool to pretend it isn’t there, mind.”

Cai busies himself rearranging his bedding, not trusting himself to give a civil reply. Dai raises himself up onto one elbow and frowns at him.

“You’ve a fine young woman there, Mr. Jenkins. A woman with love in her heart for you, if you’d only let her show it.”

Cai pauses in his fidgeting. He wants to believe that Dai is right, that the idea of Morgana favoring Edwyn is ridiculous, that her strangeness will not prevent them from ever living a contented, normal life together. He dearly wants to.

“You think she … loves me, then?”

“Course she does, m’n! Plain for everyone to see. Everyone except you, mind.”

Cai shrugs and shakes his head slowly. “I do care for her…”

“
Duw,
spit it out. It won’t kill you. You love the girl. Nothing to be ashamed of. She is your wife, m’n.”

Cai finds himself blushing. And smiling. Such faith in the obviousness, in the simplicity of his situation, is reassuring. Of course he was wrong to doubt her. He knows that, in his heart. It all seemed clear enough when they were at home. It is only the pressure of managing the drove, the tragedy of finding Mair had died, worrying about Morgana’s grief … She needs him to be strong and he has responded with muddle-headed thinking. He nods decisively.

“Aye,” he says. “So she is. My wife.”

Dai lies back down, chuckling to himself. “Well,” he mutters, “there’s a thing. A man in love with his own wife, and her in love with him.
Duw, Duw.
Who’d have thought it? Who’d have thought?”

The next morning is damp again with the promise of yet more rain. Cai feels better after the few words he shared with Dai. He must pull himself together and be the husband Morgana needs him to be, as well as head drover.

“Right you are,
porthmon.
” Dai is his usual hearty self, despite the greyness of the day. “Let’s take a look at these beasts of yours, shall we?”

Cai nods, looking over his shoulder for Morgana. She was up early checking the mares’ feet, so he has hardly glimpsed her. Edwyn has been fully engaged in preparing the forge with Dai and assembling nails and tools. He has not, Cai is certain, had the opportunity to be alone with Morgana again. If he ever had, he reminds himself. He is certain now that nothing happened, save for what his own tired imagination dreamed up. He tells Dai, “We’ll put the cattle in the small meadow. Bring the ponies in here to check first.” Morgana arrives leading Prince. She gives him a spontaneous smile, and he is touched that the sight of him can, however fleetingly, lighten her grief.

He smiles back. “Fetch the others into the yard,” he says.

Morgana opens the broad wooden gate. Prince whinnies to his mares and the herd trots meekly through, milling about the narrow cobbled yard. There is barely space for all of them. One side is bordered by a high stone wall. The far end comprises a lower wall and the gate out to the lane. The far length is the front of the barn, its heavy doors shut. The meadow end, aside from the gate, is formed by a short run of pigsties. Morgana shuts the gate behind the last yearling, looping the rope over the top to secure it. At once Meredith moves the cattle into the meadow, Bracken nipping at their heels to urge them into the small space, and soon they are pushing and jostling, annoyed at having been ushered into an inadequate area. He cusses them, telling them to behave and wait their turn.

“They don’t like being cramped in like this,” he tells Cai.

“They’ll have to put up with it for now. The ponies won’t take long,” he says.

“I’m just saying”—Meredith shakes his head—“they’ll not settle in here.”

“Just watch them, m’n. They’ll stay where they’re put.” Cai does not need anyone finding fault or making problems where there are none.

Dai wastes no time but begins the backbreaking work of bending low to inspect the ponies’ hooves. Edwyn’s skills are not required yet, so he steps aside, leaning against the wall in an effort not to have his feet trodden on by the wandering little horses. Morgana holds Prince so that Dai may fit new front shoes. From the meadow comes lowing and snorting. Meredith is right, the cattle resent being so confined. They have grown accustomed to moving off each morning and dislike the change in their routine. Added to which, the ponies have cropped the meadow, so that there is no grazing left to distract them. Twice already Meredith has had to take a bullwhip to some of the more boisterous bullocks to stop them stirring up trouble in the herd. For all his efforts, they will not be quietened. Cai wends his way between the ponies toward the enclosure. If the cattle are not calmed the rising tempers among them could easily spark panic, and the fence on the far side, leading to the river field, is flimsy in places.

“Meredith!” he calls. “Don’t let them get the better of you. Keep them still.”

Rather than find a sharp retort the cowman keeps his attention on the stock, for he, too, is aware that they are becoming worryingly agitated. One young bull, in particular, is behaving in a way that is alarming the others, pawing at the ground, shaking his head, emitting low bellows. Some of the smaller beasts try to run from him, seeking safety. Finding none they push against the others, shoving them against the wall and the fence. Cai knows something must be done before they lose control of them completely. He puts a hand on the wooden gate and springs over it.

“Let them back into the other field!” he shouts to Meredith. But there is such a noise and commotion his words are lost. “Meredith! The gate back to the other field, m’n. Open it now!” He signals frantically at the stockman who at last understands, but his path is blocked by the pressing youngsters who will not move for him. Cai fights through the melee. The cattle bump and jostle him with increasing force. At one point he stumbles, righting himself only by clutching hold of an elderly cow who tolerates his using her to regain his footing. To fall beneath the herd when they are so disturbed would be dangerous indeed. He presses on. The cattle have become a moving mass of sweaty hair, lean muscle, and sharp horns. Being in their midst requires nerves of iron.

“Ho!
Duw,
steady now,” Cai tells them, but he knows they are not listening. The far gate must be opened quickly, so that the pressure in the enclosure can be released through it into the empty field beyond. The herd are looking for a way out and will take the first opening they find; one of their own making if necessary. It is as Cai is twisting and shoving his way through the animals that he glances back toward the yard. Morgana is still holding Prince, who, sensing the drama close by, is refusing to stand. Dai has straightened up and pushes his cap back on his head, regarding the maddened herd with a deep frown. Edwyn is nowhere to be seen. One more thing snags Cai’s notice. The gate into the yard is untied. One push from the cattle and they will pour through into the bottleneck of the yard, into the ponies, crushing anyone in their way. Cai opens his mouth to shout, to scream at Morgana, to warn her. As he does so a frightened bullock barrels into him, knocking the wind out of him, and with it his voice. Gasping, he waves his hat in the air, signaling to any who might see. Somewhere in the silence of that instant Cai glimpses what it must be like to be Morgana. What it might be to have no utterance with which to communicate, neither to man nor beast. He is taken back, in a flash, to that terrible moment on the mountain when the lightning robbed him of his herd. Now he is powerless again, and calamity is unfolding before him. He grabs hold of the nearest set of horns and hangs on, knowing that to be knocked to the ground now could prove fatal.

“Morgana!” he gasps.

As if everything has slowed to the speed of a nightmare, two bullocks lean into the yard gate and bump it open against the nervous ponies on the other side. Morgana now sees what is happening. So does Dai. He screams at her to open the gate onto the lane. She lets go of Prince and runs to do so, but the latch is broken and the gate has been tied with frayed rope. She darts over to Dai’s tools for his paring knife. In the few seconds that stretch to an eternity it is clear to Cai, as it must be to Dai, that Morgana will not have time to get back to the gate and cut the rope before the stampede of terrified ponies and unstoppable cattle is upon her. The beasts will trample their way out, over fallen ponies, over the gate, and over Morgana. Cai watches helplessly as Dai turns to face the cattle, feet firmly planted, fists raised, and lets out a roar that is as loud and as terrifying as anything Cai has ever heard. As anything the cattle have ever heard. The ponies swerve around Dai. The cattle hesitate. The alarm the front ones feel at the sight and sound of this giant madman halts them in their tracks for just a few seconds before the momentum of the stampede, the weight of the bulk of the herd, pushes them on once more. In those few seconds, Morgana has cut the rope, and the path to freedom is open. She springs through, throwing herself behind the far side of the wall. The cattle reach Dai.

Back in the small meadow the rest of the herd thunder after the front-runners. Cai finds himself barged to the side, a horn piercing his arm, goring it from shoulder to elbow as it passes. He screams, but does not fall. He watches in horror as Dai is lifted off his feet, his arms still raised, fists beating the air, roaring as the beasts carry him on with them. For an instant he is borne aloft on a thundering mass of blackness, his cap still fixed to the back of his head. But even his immense bulk is no match for the irresistible force of the herd.

“Dai! Dai!” Cai screams, pain making his words rasp in his throat, shaking his head in despair at the sight of his friend being carried away by the frenzied horned beasts.

And at once, Dai is gone, disappeared beneath the charging cattle, vanished into the darkness of the bellowing stampede, swallowed up by their terrible crushing weight.

14.

I pick myself up, my mouth full of dirt, my body bruised from the sudden impact as I threw myself to the ground to escape the galloping cattle. I knew the ponies would not tread on me; that they would swerve or jump to avoid setting a single hoof upon me. But cattle are different. They do not possess such athletic abilities, and would simply plow forward, running over a person as if he or she were nothing more than a mound of earth or pile of stones to be scrambled over. Spitting grit I squint through the still swirling dust the stampede has left in its wake. Slowly shapes come into focus. Cai, clutching his arm, blood seeping out between his fingers, running across the empty yard. Cerys hurrying through the gate, her hands clasped to her face, the twins close behind her. Edwyn standing staring at the ground. There is something odd about him, as if he has a shadow standing next to him. I rub dust from my eyes and look again and am shocked to see that Isolda stands beside him. No, not beside, almost overlapping somehow, as if her insubstantial form is shifting through him. As she moves away she pauses to whisper in his ear and I see his face clearly stricken, though he does not appear to be aware of her presence. What hand has she had to play in all this?

Now I see Dai, inert, lying heavily on the hard cobbles, horribly still. I limp over to them, my left ankle complaining as I put weight on it. It is terrible to see such a strong man, a man so full of vigor and life, reduced to a crumpled, bloodied wreck. His legs are at awkward, unnatural angles to his body, clearly broken and useless. His arms are bloodied and do not move. His face is a mess of gore, his nose smashed, teeth missing, his jaw misshapen. Even so badly broken he manages to stir, opening his mercifully undamaged eyes. He tries to turn his head, searching for his loved ones.

“My boys?” he gasps. “Where are my boys?”

Cerys is on her knees beside him. She touches his cheek tenderly. “They are here. Right here, see?”

The twins fall to the ground beside their father, their faces already wet with tears, looking suddenly so very young, nearer children than grown men. Dai struggles to lift his head.

“Shh now,” says Cai, “don’t trouble yourself to move, m’n. Save your strength.”

“For what?” Dai wants to know. There is a silence filled with regret and sadness, filled with the knowledge that there will be no more time for Dai, that he will have need of his great strength no longer.
“Bechgyn,”
says he, his voice strained and weak, “look after your mam, see? Iuean, you must be man of the house now. Work the forge. Iowydd, support your brother … you are good lads … good lads…” His words fade and his eyes glaze. From Cerys there is a small cry, such as a bird might make when startled, nothing more. Then all is quiet, and Dai lies dead.

We stare at his body in disbelief. How can such a force, such a presence, be snuffed out in an instant, rendered nothing more than memory and a body soon to be laid waste by corruption? Must life ever prove so fragile that even the strongest among us cannot withstand a fateful collection of circumstances? At last the silence is broken by the pitiful whimpering of Bracken, who has come to stand beside me.

Cai puts his hand on Cerys’s shoulder. “Come away,
cariad,
” says he. “We will take him into the house.”

She stands on unsteady feet, her boys supporting her, as now they must do in all things.

Edwyn’s voice strikes a harsh note in the shocked stillness of the moment.

“It was Morgana,” says he. “It was Morgana left the gate untied. ’Tis her fault the cattle got through. This is her doing!”