The Silver Witch (6 page)

‘And you think Wenna would allow this?'

‘What say has she in the matter?'

‘She is my Princess!'

‘And what is a princess for if not to provide her lord with an heir?'

Silence. He has nothing to say to this. For what can he say? I am right. But being right does not make my words any less poison to his ears. He struggles to hold his temper.

‘My wife has my trust. Her family is allied to mine. I will honor that alliance unless or until I am given a reason to doubt it.'

‘Have I not just given you such a reason? Did not the vision open your eyes to the truth?'

‘Some might say the interpretation is … unreliable.'

‘You would prefer to doubt the word of your shaman than hear harsh truths about you wife?'

‘Who is to say they are true? Some people might say that the interpreter has forgotten her art, her gift, her place, and has shown herself to be nothing more than a jealous woman!'

Now it is my turn to have to master my anger. I speak calmly, though I do not feel calm. ‘And anyone who listens to such people, to such talk, is a fool.'

The prince opens his mouth to respond, but I do not wait to hear his argument. I turn on my heel and stride out, away from my camp, away from the light of my fire, away from him. Unaccustomed to being dismissed, but wary of sending his raised voice after me for fear of giving away his whereabouts, Prince Brynach stomps with furious footsteps in the other direction, back to the crannog. Back to his princess.

 

4

TILDA

Gasping, Tilda steps back from the figure—who is most definitely solid, as her bruised wrist and ribs assure her—and tries to shake the chaos from her head.

‘I'm sorry,' she splutters, focusing on the elderly man she has just collided with. ‘I wasn't looking where I was going.'

The man smiles at her calmly, a steadying hand still on her arm. He is tall and wiry, with bushy white hair that is partially covered by a tweedy hat. He sports an equally abundant beard and a pair of luxuriant eyebrows. His coat has evidently been chosen for reasons of practicality rather than style. He carries a walking stick with a bone handle carved to resemble a swan, and around his neck hang expensive-looking binoculars.

‘This mist can be confusing,' he says, his accent lilting and softly Welsh, taking the hard edges off his words and giving the slightest hiss to each ‘s.' ‘And you were running very quickly.'

‘I run most days,' she tells him.

‘At such a speed? My goodness. How wonderful to be so strong and nimble. My own running days are over, I fear,' he adds, and then, with a broadening grin, ‘unless I was being chased by something, of course. I like to think fear could still lend wings to my heels.'

Tilda tries to read the expression of this stranger.

What did he see? Did he see those … people, too? Does he know I was running away from them?

She cannot decide whether this notion makes her more anxious than the idea that the trio in the boat was the conjuring of her own imagination alone.

‘I…' She hesitates; she cannot discuss what she has seen, what she
thinks
she has seen, with this apparently sensible, normal person. He will think her mad.

Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am losing my mind.

The man's voice cuts through her thoughts.

‘Are you quite all right?' he asks. ‘Forgive my saying so, but you look a little upset.'

Tilda shakes her head and tries to pull herself together. This is her new home, where she will have to live with her neighbors. She does not want them writing her off as the loon on the hill just yet.

‘I'm fine, thank you. I think I overdid it a bit, that's all. Made me a little … light-headed.'

‘Strong, sweet tea. That's what my late wife would have recommended.' He raises his walking stick, pointing into the mist along the path behind him. ‘We are very close to my house; won't you come in for a moment? I'm a poor cook, but I am quite capable of brewing a reasonable pot of Darjeeling.'

‘Oh no, thank you, I couldn't possibly…'

‘Of course you couldn't, what was I thinking? I haven't even introduced myself.' He offers her his hand. ‘Professor Illtyd Williams, local historian and keen bird-watcher, resident of the Old School House these past thirty years. Delighted to meet you.'

Tilda manages a weak smile. ‘Tilda Fordwells, ceramic artist, resident of Ty Gwyn cottage about five weeks.' She takes his hand and shakes it in what she hopes is a firm and sensible way.

‘Well, there we are, then,' says Professor Williams. ‘Now that we are acquainted it seems only good manners that we take tea together.' So saying, he turns and begins to stride out with surprising vigor.

Tilda hesitates, hearing her father muttering about not taking sweets from strangers, but then reasons that this gentleman must be eighty years old at least, and is, after all, a neighbor, not a stranger. And besides, she is still unsteady, shaking a little, and there is something so very comforting in the thought of tea with this real and sensible person. On top of which, the idea of returning to the cottage, of more time alone, does not appeal to her. Not yet. Ordinarily, she welcomes solitude but this morning has not been ordinary. Tea, no doubt out of china cups and accompanied by light conversation, is possibly exactly what she needs.

In less than a minute they have reached the stile and climb over it to step onto the lane that winds up from the lake. The tarmac feels firm beneath Tilda's feet, and with each passing moment she begins to doubt what she saw, to find it easier to believe that the mist and the eerie light were playing tricks with her feckless eyesight and overwrought mind. The narrow road takes them past the church and immediately to the little dwelling next to it. Even as a newcomer to the area, Tilda can see that Old School House is unusual, and not built in the conventional architecture of the region. It is constructed of the same blue-gray stone as the church and is roofed with slates, but there the similarities cease. Every window, up and down, is mullioned and set in deep sills. There are pointy arches above the front door and the door set in the wall to the side. The house is approached via a little iron gate and a short path that leads through the most flower-filled garden Tilda has ever seen. Climbing roses scramble up pergolas and walls, as do wisteria, clematis, and jasmine. Even so late in the year and so early in the damp day, the air is filled with the aroma of flowers. Fine examples of hydrangeas and mock orange bushes vie with all manner of shrubs for space between the low wall that runs along the lane and the front of the house itself. Tilda can see that the garden continues around and behind the cottage, with tall and ancient trees to the rear adding shelter and shade and a sense of an enclosed and secret place. A place of beauty, of peace, and of safety.

‘Come in, come in.' The professor drops his stick into an umbrella stand and drapes his coat over it. Tilda wriggles out of her waterproof running jacket, hands it to him, and then pulls off her muddy sneakers. ‘The sitting room is through there,' he says, waving a hand at a door to their right. ‘You make yourself at home and I'll make tea.' With that he disappears into what Tilda assumes is the kitchen and soon she can hear a kettle humming and china being put on a tray.

The hallway is low-ceilinged and in soft light from the latticed windows, but it is still clear that Professor Williams is a man given to collecting things. Every shelf, every wall, every cupboard is crammed with bits of brass, or pieces of china, or paintings, or bric-a-brac of a wide and dizzying variety. In the center, at the foot of the wooden staircase, stands a very fine grandfather clock, its steady tick-tocking offering a soothingly slow rhythm by which to live one's life. Tilda steps forward to examine it more closely. Its casement is burnished wood, dark red, walnut, she decides, and the clock face decorated with mother-of-pearl and gleaming brass hands. It is about to strike the hour, and she hears the preliminary whirring from deep within its workings as the hammers ready themselves to strike ten.

And then it stops. Completely and suddenly. No chiming. No ticking. Nothing. Tilda feels the hairs prickle at the nape of her neck and she knows, simply
knows
, that it has stopped because of her. She glances toward the kitchen and can still make out her host bustling about. Quickly, she goes through the low door into the living room. The space is clearly organized for the comfort of someone who enjoys reading. There are shelves lining two of the walls, and further cupboards and stacks of hardback volumes about the place. A small sofa is positioned near the fire, with reading lights above, and there is a worn armchair in the window, angled to make the best of the view into the garden and to the lake beyond. As with the hall, much space is devoted to housing all manner of objects and curios. In the moments Tilda spends waiting for the professor and trying to shake off the feeling of unease that has increased again with the stopping of the clock, she spots an ancient record player and beside it a box of vinyl disks; a fearsome wooden mask hanging on the wall; an ornate camel saddle; and on the mantelpiece a large ammonite she cannot resist touching. As she turns to watch the door for the promised tea, her eye takes in the broad desk in the corner of the room. On it, an old map is pinned down at its corners with two glass paperweights—a brass donkey, and a tin that once contained peppermint creams. She is leaning over it when Professor Williams arrives bearing a tray laden with the paraphernalia of teatime.

‘Here we are. Oh, I see you have found my map of the lake. A fine example of early nineteenth-century cartography, I think you'll agree. Now, where shall I put this? Would you be so kind as to clear the coffee table of its debris? Thank you so much.' He sets the tray down, the china giving an alarming rattle as he does so.

Tilda has taken off her beanie, so that now her unusual hair is more noticeable. She is pleased to see that if her host registers anything unsettling about her appearance, he does not show it at all.

‘It is a wonderful map,' she agrees. ‘I can't see that the place has changed much, though the lake does look as if it was bigger then than it is now.'

‘You are right about that.' He takes his spectacles from their resting place on the arm of a chair and leans over the desk. ‘The church itself was nearer the shore, and so was the vicarage … there,' he explains, pointing as he does so. ‘It's a retreat house now, and there's a good stretch of land between it and the lake. There are parish records recording the water sometimes flooding considerably farther out. And there, on the far side, you can see the crannog marked. The man-made island. They are quite common in Ireland, but this is the only one in Wales. Not that much of it was visible when this map was drawn up, but people knew it was there.' He gives a small chuckle, a soft, merry sound. ‘Well, they
should
have known about it—it'd been there long enough.'

‘I read about it, when we came here to look at the cottage.' She pauses, realizing she has given the impression there is still a ‘we.'

Have to get used to being just ‘I.' Have to start.

‘My husband and I, we bought the cottage just before he died,' she explains.

‘Oh, I am terribly sorry to hear that.'

‘It was sudden. A car accident. We were going to start a new life here…' She does not want to be talking about this, not now, not here.

The professor smiles gently. ‘I think you'll find being here helps. Eventually. The lake, this valley, it is a very healing place. At least,' he goes on, ‘I found it so when my wife, Greta, passed away.'

Tilda returns his smile, grateful for his sympathy and his tact. ‘So,' she says as brightly as she can, ‘you were going to tell me about the crannog. Everyone says it's important, historically, but to be honest, it looks pretty small to me. I can't imagine much of a settlement on it.'

‘Ah, well, people in the ninth century had a different idea of scale, you see. The population was so much smaller then, and construction so much more of a challenge. It must have taken a great deal of time and effort to build. Layer upon layer of stone to begin with and then timbers laid on top, bound together. Imagine making a base sufficiently stable to withstand buildings and people and their livestock.'

‘They kept animals on there too?'

‘Indeed.' He snatches up a pencil and a piece of paper and begins to make a sketch of what the settlement would have looked like. ‘There was the long hall, here, like this. A building about the size of a barn, if you can picture that, single story, but quite a high roof, sloped to keep the good Welsh rain off it. They would have used the hall for important gatherings, celebrations, meetings of various visiting princes and so on. Historians have established that the palace was built for Prince Brynach, who was ruler of the region at the time. He and his family and extended family and guards would have lived there. And, of course, if the community were to come under attack the rest of the villagers would leave the shore and hurry onto the crannog to take refuge in the hall. We think there was another building here, probably providing living quarters for more soldiers and their families, with room for some of the more prized beasts to be stabled. Next to that, at an angle'—he squints through his glasses as he makes rough marks on the paper'—like this. That would have been the blacksmith's workshop. Very important.'

‘For horseshoes, I'm guessing.'

‘Partly, though not all the horses would have been shod. What made the smithy so crucial was that this was where weapons were forged. Swords, daggers, shields, helmets and so forth … Those were dangerous times. The prince had to be ready to defend his territory.'

‘You certainly seem to know a lot about it.'

‘Oh—' he shakes his head—‘a historian can never know enough about his pet subject. The lake has always fascinated me, as it did my wife. Greta was an anthropologist.' He waves an arm at the more exotic artifacts in the room. ‘Most of what you see here was collected on her travels. It was she who first fell in love with the lake. She insisted we move here. Said she felt an affinity with the place. And I'm very glad of it. The lake provided us with so much to think about. People have lived here for centuries. Millennia, in fact. It is such an ideal spot for a settlement, d'you see? Fresh water, fish, the shelter of those hills over there, fertile soil; it has it all. Prince Brynach, when he built the crannog for his royal dwelling, well, he knew what he was about. And, of course, there are so many lovely legends and myths attached to the place. It has its own magic, I think it fair to say. One could study it a lifetime and not know everything.' He returns to the tea tray. ‘Now, sugar? Milk? Chocolate biscuit? And perhaps you'll tell me what it is that a ceramic artist does?'