The Winter Witch (36 page)

Next time! I cannot imagine what would induce me to risk ever consulting the
Grimoire
again. It is too dangerous. Too powerful. Whatever Mrs. Jones thinks, I am not convinced the Witches of the Well have accepted me, and their strength is so great, the potential for destruction so real, how could I ever place myself or anyone else in such jeopardy again?

*   *   *

Barely three weeks have passed since Cai and Morgana returned from the drove, and October is only half done, but the weather is already bearing all signs of winter. Trees shed their leaves with indecent haste. Green grass quickly fades and turns to shriveled yellow. Northerly winds bearing icy rain assail farmer and stock alike, driving beneath collars, saturating coats, and chilling bones. Cai has watched the new stock he purchased with funds from the drove lose condition with each passing week. The three brood mares obtained at Llanybydder Horse Fair were quick to grow their dense winter hair, and two have had to be treated for rain scald. He has already been forced to abandon the grazing in the higher pastures in favor of the more sheltered home meadows. The dozen young heifers he bought to replenish his herd of cattle seem shocked to find themselves inhabiting such hostile land, and have lost any spare weight they arrived with. Even the hardy Welsh ewes, bred for centuries to withstand the extreme cold and bitter gales the country of their birth has to offer, are noticeably thinner than when Watson delivered them a month earlier. Cai had reasoned that, with fewer cattle and without the ponies, he could turn a modest profit on a small flock of sheep without too much outlay. He had forgotten, however, that his fences had not been called upon to contain such small and willful livestock, and has spent many hours retrieving the sheep from neighboring farms or lanes. Bracken has taken a strong dislike to the silly creatures and is ineffectual at herding them.

So it is that for the third time in as many days Cai finds himself, short axe in hand, hedging mitt gripping the thorny branches of the hedge, stooped against the relentless wind, as he works to repair yet another gap in the boundary which the restless ewes have widened in their efforts to take themselves somewhere warmer. Ordinarily, Cai would find such inconveniences irritating but inconsequential. But these are not ordinary times. Aside from the freakish weather, there is something else he must contend with. Something so unfamiliar to him that he is at times at a loss as to how best to proceed. For Cai is unwell. He is not sick in any way he has experienced before. He does not have a chill, nor suffer fevers. Nor is he compelled to vomit. This illness is curiously unspecific, and worryingly debilitating. A lethargy began to overtake him soon after arriving home from England. At first he thought it merely fatigue, but no amount of rest would refresh him. Next the malaise manifested itself in a heaviness in his limbs, and was soon accompanied by dull aches in his joints. Mrs. Jones proffered remedies first for rheumatism, and then for arthritis. None gave him any relief from his symptoms. Soon after he started to be troubled by a painful tightness beneath his skull, as if his brain were in the grip of some medieval instrument of torture. Mercifully these bouts of increasingly severe pain visit him only occasionally. Not wanting to alarm Morgana, he has done his best to keep his suffering from her. He has tried to discern a pattern to their onset but can find none. Gradually, as time goes on, he has adjusted to these afflictions, accepting them as responses to a hard life and the onset of a harsh winter. Even so, they weary him, so that the hill behind the house feels steeper than it has ever done, the trek to the far boundary longer, and the weight of a feed of hay for the stock heavier. By the end of each day he sinks gratefully into the chair by the range in the kitchen, tired to his bones.

Now, as he chops at the slim hazel sticks made brittle by the intense cold, he has time to wonder if the decline in his vigor will ever halt. It is perplexing to find himself so debilitated; it is deeply troubling to consider the possibility that the downward slide of his health might not be checked. Could a person die of such a thing? Of nothing, and yet everything, being wrong with him? It is as if each day a little more of his youth, of his strength, of him, indeed, seeps out, leaving him minutely but unmistakably diminished. He feels it with each rise and fall of the blade as he chops the branches. He feels it every time he puts his effort to pulling or bending the thicker boughs in the hedge. He feels it with each step as he trudges homeward, face into the stinging wind, hat pulled low on his head, eyes struggling to focus on the ground a pace ahead in the failing light of the day. By the time he reaches the farmyard he is not walking but staggering. He is slogging his way toward the back door when a disturbing sound stops him. It is coming from the stables where the mares are housed.

Cai feels a chill not brought about by the low temperature flood his body. He has spent his life with horses, and he knows too well the sound of one in extremis. He is not surprised, therefore, to find Wenna flat on her side, her flanks heaving, her breath ragged and labored. The old mare’s coat that used to gleam in the sun like polished bronze is dulled with sweat. Cai drops to his knees beside her and puts a hand on her dainty head. Her eyes move minutely, her ears flicker in response to his presence, but he can tell she is barely alive. The severe cold has beaten her. She has seen her last mountain winter. As if she had been waiting for him, she starts to breath more softly until, very soon, all movement has ceased and she has gone. Cai feels her passing as if she were a family member taken from him. He remembers her as a foal, nimble and flighty, as one of the most beautiful ponies his father had ever bred, and as the best brood mare of the herd, producing quality colts and fillies, protecting them as the perfect mother should. He knows she has had a good, long life, but to lose her now, when all seems so bleak and so hopeless, is a body blow.

Clambering stiffly to his feet he trudges to the house and pushes open the back door, all but falling through it onto the cold flags. Hearing him, Morgana and Mrs. Jones fly out of the kitchen.

“Oh! Lord save us, Mr. Jenkins!” cries Mrs. Jones.

Morgana kneels beside him, putting his arm around her shoulders, and helps him to his feet.

“Morgana,” he gasps, “Wenna…”

She searches his face, trying to understand what it is he wants to tell her.

“Never mind about the ponies now,
bachgen
.” Mrs. Jones helps haul him to his feet. “Bring him to the fire,
merched
. Quickly now. We must get those wet clothes off him. What were you thinking,
bach,
staying out so long in this cruel weather when you are not well?” She bustles through the door, flapping her tea towel at Bracken who has already put himself as close to the hearth as he can. “Shoo, silly dog. Here, sit down now.
Duw,
what are we to do with you?”

Cai fights to regain his voice. “Wenna is dead,” he blurts out, regretting he did not speak more gently when he sees Morgana’s shock. “She was old,
cariad
. This cruel weather was too much for her.”

For a moment Mrs. Jones stops her bustling.

“Dead, you do say? Well,
Duw,
there’s a shame,” she concedes, seeming to ponder on the information. Cai is surprised, as the woman has never shown interest in the individual ponies, and is as pragmatic about livestock as only the daughter of a farmer can be. Seconds later she is back to the business of bustling about him.

He shakes his head as she stokes up the fire and puts water on to boil. “Don’t fuss so, Mrs. Jones. I am only in need of a little rest.”

“You are ill, Mr. Jenkins. ’Tis no good carrying on as if you are not, see?”

Morgana helps him off with his coat and hat, sending icy water hissing into the fire as she shakes them, and drapes them over the high back of the settle. It pains him to see the concern on her face. He knows she is worried about him. Knows, too, that she does not believe his casual dismissal of his ailments. At times, somehow, it seems to him she knows more of what it is that afflicts him than he does. He unwinds the wet muffler from his neck. The pitiless rain has even found its way through to his jacket, and this he discards, too. Mrs. Jones snatches it from him, shaking her head.

“I shall fetch a mustard bath for your feet,” she says.

Morgana kneels in front of him and sets to unlacing his boots. He watches her as her deft fingers tug at the wet leather. He feels he is failing her, by being ill. There is a hard winter coming. It will take all their best efforts to tend the stock and endure the long dark days ahead. He needs his health. At last he allows himself to form the question in his mind: What will happen to Morgana if he dies?

As if sensing his distress she looks up at him, frowning. He musters what he hopes is a reassuring grin.

“Don’t fret,
cariad
,” he tells her. “’Twas only the cold caught me unawares. I feel better already. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve got the two best nurses in the valley, see?”

She grips his left boot, tipping back the toe and pulling behind the heel until it slides off his foot. She works quickly, efficiently, her expression still grave. She takes off his other boot and then his woolen stockings. His feet are cold slabs, the toes tinged blue. Cai gasps as she begins to rub them firmly, coaxing blood back to his chilled extremities. Mrs. Jones arrives with a bowl which she sets in front of the fire, pouring steaming water from the kettle onto the ground mustard seeds she has placed inside.

“Now then, in with your feet, if you please,” she says.

Cai does as he is told.

“
Duw,
woman! Are you trying to boil me alive?”

“Well, there’s a baby you are. No, don’t take them out! The Lord knows, Mrs. Jenkins, men do make poor patients.”

Morgana nods thoughtfully, picking up his boots and holding them close. Cai sees, with some astonishment, that she is near to crying.

He offers her his hand and she takes it. He pulls her onto his lap, taking the boots from her and dropping them onto the floor.

“All will be well,
cariad
. They breed us tough up here in these hills, see? A few days’ rest, some of Mrs. Jones’s best steak and kidney pudding. I’ll soon be right again.
Paid poeni
.”

But she will not be consoled. She lays her head against his shoulder and he feels hot tears dropping onto his chest through his unbuttoned shirt. That she is so concerned shakes him. For all her apparent frailty, he has come to think of her as dauntless, fearless, a fighter who would die sooner than admit defeat. Yet that is, at this moment, precisely how she seems to him. Defeated. It is so at odds with her nature he cannot understand it. He holds her close, allowing her warmth to thaw his numb body. Drawing strength from the vitality he feels within her. Wishing she did not doubt him, for it makes him doubt himself.

*   *   *

The loss of his favorite mare has drained my poor husband of what little strength he had, it seems. The cold has reached deep to his marrow, so that it takes Mrs. Jones and I some hours to completely restore color to his feet and hands, and to stop his body shivering and his teeth chattering. At last we consider we have him warm enough to risk sleep. Before I take him upstairs, Mrs. Jones presses a mug of something hot and aromatic into his hands.

“Now then, Mr. Jenkins. Drink this, if you please.”

“What is it?” Cai sniffs suspiciously, wrinkling his nose at the unfamiliar smell, even though it is pleasant enough.

“A remedy for your cold. And a draft that will help you sleep, for there is no cure I do know of can be effective without hours spent peacefully in your bed. Drink, now,
bach
.”

Reluctantly, he does as she bids him. It must surely be strong medicine, for barely have I helped him into bed than his eyes close. He fights sleep for a moment, murmuring at me, his words too slurred to make sense. I stroke his brow and plant soft kisses on his face until he lies quiet, his rhythmic breathing indicating sound slumber.

Upon returning to the kitchen I am surprised to find Mrs. Jones wearing her outdoor clothes and lighting two lamps.

“Hurry,
cariad,
there is much to be done,” says she, handing me my duster coat and drover’s hat. I am at a loss to know why she should want us to go outside, and my surprise turns to alarm when I see her furnish herself with the carving knife. Seeing my shock she pauses to explain.

“
Cariad,
you are a Welsh woman. You well know the custom in ancient times of burying the head of a horse beneath the hearth.” Seeing me gasp she holds up her hand. “’Tis no time to be squeamish,
merched
. Our forbears understood that the spirit of a horse is a thing possessed of great strength. Protective strength. You do know the legend, don’t you? You will have heard tell of what it is we are about, though none will admit to doing it themselves. ’Tis always the friend of a neighbor, or a cousin’s husband … But there is powerful magic to be had here.”

I shake my head, horrified, as understanding dawns. She wants me to cut off Wenna’s head, bring it in here, and inter it beneath the hearthstone! I cannot! I shake my head, backing away from her, my eyes drawn to the lamplight that flashes on the blade in her hand.

“But you must, Morgana. Listen to me.” She steps forward and grips my shoulder, just as my mother used to do when trying to make me see reason. Her reason. But this feels like madness. “Listen!” Mrs. Jones insists. “There are dark forces working against us. Winter has come unnatural early and fierce. Cai is ailing. We do know who is behind these terrible things. There is nothing she will not do to get what she wants. She do threaten your husband, your home, your own life,
cariad.
We must use whatever we can to defend what we do hold dear. Fortune has brought us a great gift with the death of this old mare. She served Cai well when she was living, would be a nonsense to let her passing go to waste. You do know the legend, don’t you?”