‘If ever they do.’
‘A moment ago you berated me for being glum, now you are the one full of doom.’
‘I seek only to have you listen, in earnest.’
‘Very well, come,’ she patted the sun-warmed rock. ‘Sit beside me and I shall be as a child hanging on her dear grandmother’s every word.’
Mamgi gave a grunt that suggested she doubted the possibility of this, but, nonetheless, she stepped from the river bank and sat her small, frail frame next to Gwen. She seemed about to speak but paused, casting about, searching for something. At last she spied what she wanted. ‘There,’ she said, pointing at a fat cushion of moss that covered a nearby stone. ‘Fetch me that,merch. My boney backside protests at this seat.’
Stifling laughter, Gwen did as she was told, helping the old woman to get more comfortable before settling down once again, determined to be attentive.
When Mamgi began to speak she did not look at her charge, but directed her gaze out across the sparkling water into the shadowy depths of the woodland opposite.
‘Long ago, there lived a people whose names are lost to us. They were a breed like no other. Witches, with magic in their very souls.’
‘Witches, Mamgi? Is this to be a tale of legends and sorcery, then?’
‘Hush! Did you not promise to listen?’ She waited until Gwen’s expression suggested she would not interrupt again, and then continued. ‘These blessed people, though they were few, stood between the darkness and the light and held that scale steady. They watched over us, and when they saw the evil in mankind begin to outweigh the good, they acted to redress that balance. After a time, the world would right itself once more. Their skills were not needed then. They would wait, and watch, and emerge only when again there was a shifting, a tipping towards the darkness. Their magic, though powerful, was not enough to save us from falling into the dark pit. They needed brave warriors to fight for what was good. They needed men and womenof pure spirit to lead those soldiers. And they needed guardians to protect these shining people. Without them, we would have been lost to wickedness generations ago. Without them, you and I would not sit here now.’
She fell silent for a moment. Gwen waited, wanting to question the old woman, but sensing there was more, and that the time to challenge her would be later.
‘There have been times of peace and of plenty, where the good and the pure of heart prevail, but times of darkness are ever on the heels of such eras. Famine, war, pestilence, all combine towards the shifting, the move towards evil. The witches who fought this battle long ago knew they would soon be lost to us, and so they knew they must leave a legacy for our salvation. They placed their magic in but a few. A handful only, some men, some women, who would be born to the magic that must fight against that darkness. This magic they called the White Shadow. Heed my words, granddaughter, this is the only way that the shifting can be resisted. There is no other. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes, Mamgi. I hear you.’ Gwen was indeed listening, though she doubted she understood all of what she was being told. More than that, she began to fear what more there might be to come.
‘Each who is so blessed cannot refuse the call, for all and everyone of us depends upon them.’ She turned then, looking directly at Gwen. Again, as had happened in the croft, the old woman had a glow about her, an subtle aura that seemed to pulse with white light. Her face, though ancient, regained a more youthful vigour and clarity as she spoke, and her voice had lost its reed thinness. ‘You who are known as Lady Gwen, daughter of Llewelyn ap Ioreth, Lord of Cwmdu, you are one of the chosen! You were born with magic in your soul, and the time has come for that magic to be released. The time has come when you shall learn of your true identity and learn the ways of your ancestors, so that you may fulfil your destiny.’
‘What… what do you mean, my true identity? You have just said my name. You know who I am, everyone does.’
‘You were raised as the child of a noble family. They loved you as their own, but you are not of their blood. They fulfilled their part of the bargain.’
‘What bargain? Mamgi, your words make no sense. I have the same black hair and long limbed body as my mother. It has been remarked upon my whole life how much I resemble her.’
‘A happy chance which aided the deceit, no more.’
Gwen struggled to take in what she was being told. The thought that the parents she had loved and lost were not her true kin, and that they had lied to her, was almost more shocking than the idea that she was somehow gifted with magic. She shook her head. ‘No, whatever it is you think you know, there is some confusion. Some… misstep. I have nomagicin me!’
‘You think not?’
‘I am certain of it.’
‘Oh? And when the danger in the carter’s cottage came to you, when you tasted it on the breeze, what was that, if not magic?’
‘How did you…?’
‘And when your actions were swift and sure, your knife wielded with a skill you had not learned, so that you defeated those violent men, was that not magic?’
‘Fortune favoured me. Did Dafydd tell you what took place?’
‘And when you saved Lady Olwen from the falling blade of your slave, was that not magic?’
Gwen opened her mouth to protest but no words came. Mamgicould not have witnessed what happened in the garden that day, and there had not been time for her to have learned of it, unless Rufus, in all that had happened, had recalled the incident. But he would notspeak freely with the wise woman of the village. She waited, needing to hear more.
‘And when you survived in that well, when all others would have perished, was that not magic?’
‘I did what was practical. Everyone knows how to pack a wound. Good sense drove me to raise myself from the water.’
‘And who gave you the strength to hang there for hours? Who came to you to show himself for the first time?’
