Now Gwen was struck dumb. There was no earthly way the old woman could have known about her vision of the ancient, brown-skinned man. She felt her scalp begin to prickle.
‘And your beloved honeysuckle,’ the old woman went on, ‘how thought you that it thrived beyond reason in your mother’s garden, through drought and frost, year on year?’
‘My honeysuckle? Why, that is easily explained! ’Tis a strong, wild plant, that will make the most of any soil and suffers sun and shade with equal temerity. Yes, it grew better than other flowers, perhaps, but my… my mother had a liking for tender plants. There is no more to the matter than this.’
‘You truly believe so?’ the old woman asked. She lifted her walking stick and slowly leaned towards thesmall tree on the bank. Raising the end of the staff, she poked it into the low branches until she rooted out a slender honeysuckle plant that was growing there. Gwen gasped, surprised that she had not noticed its pale yellow blooms tangled among the leaves of the little tree. As Mamgi pulled down a sprig of the plant and passed it to her she could smell its sweet scent. The perfume was so familiar to her and so dear, it transported her at once to that garden. To home. To her parents. A deep sense of loss swamped her. Not only were her mother and father gone from her present and her future, if what she was being told was true, it felt as if they were being taken from her past also. She lifted the flower to her cheek, letting it touch her skin, closing her eyes as she breathed in its scent. As she did so, she allowed herself to weep at last. She wept for her lost childhood, for all who had fallen on that terrible day, for the future that they would never share. As she sobbed silently her tears watered the little plant. Mamgi reached out and placed her crooked hand upon Gwen’s arm.
‘Open your eyes,cariad,’she said softly. ‘See for yourself what your magic looks like.’
Gwen felt something move in her hand and quickly opened her eyes. Looking down she saw that the tiny sprig of honeysuckle had grown to twice its size. Morethan that, it continued to grow. As she watched, eyes widening, its tendrils wrapped around her hand and travelled up her arm. She leapt to her feet, staggering backwards as the plant grew with astonishing speed, spreading from her in all directions, covering the rock on which she stood, circling around the old woman and racing along the river bank, scrambling up the trunks of blackthorn and hazel and willow alike, smothering the trees and the woodland floor, rambling over rocks and patches of bare earth. Suddenly, it stopped its progress, blooms opening along its many shoots and spurs, the air filling with its fragrance. Gwen stood, stunned, not daring to move, afraid she might somehow set off some other impossible occurrence.
Mamgi looked up from where she sat, her face questioning. ‘Well,merch, do you yet doubt my words?’
Gwen was too astounded to form a reply. She looked at the beauty of the scene all around her; the beauty that had, somehow, inexplicably but unmistakably, come from herself. Her smile grew wider and she started to laugh. As her sadness turned to joy, her disbelief to awe, she laughed more loudly. And grandmother Williams joined in, her wheezing chuckle adding to Gwen’s tuneful glee, so that soon the enchanted river vale was filled with their sound of their laughter.
For Gwen, what followed were months of wonders. While she and the rest of the villagers continued to improve their settlement, to find ways to keep everyone fed and sheltered, to heal broken bodies and hearts, she also put herself under the tutelage of Mamgi.Little had she suspected, all the years she had known her, that the grandmother of the village was her secret guardian. After her own initial resistance to what she had learned that day by the stream, Gwen had surprised herself at how easy it was to accept the truth. She pestered Mamgi for more details; who was her real mother and why had she given her away? Why did her parents not tell her they had taken her in? Who else knew of her heritage? Why did she have this spark of magic inside her? The old woman was maddeningly slow with her answers. She struck a deal with her charge that she would reveal a piece of her past in return for each step of advancement the girl made in her training as a new witch. At first this had infuriated Gwen further. Surely she had a right to know these answers? But Mamgihad stuck to her bargain and would not be shaken from it. Gwen was surprised, and even a little disappointed, to find that she was not to be trained in strange andfantastic magic as she had imagined. Instead, the old woman bid her practice her skills with knife and bow. She made her walk and then run the mountains until she was stronger and faster than she had ever been. She had one of her father’s soldiers train her with a light sword. She taught her remedies and herbal treatments until her head was full of them. Gradually, as Gwen began to take on the identity that was truly hers and to grow in magic, she started to ask different questions. What would be asked of her? How would she fulfil her destiny? What if she fell short of what was expected of her? The wise woman remained tight-lipped on these matters too, promising only that all would be shown to her in the right order and at the right time, and that such things could be neither forced nor rushed.
As summer fell into autumn, so a rhythm to life at the Blaencwm settlement was established. Once the injured were restored to good health, the main priority was to prepare for winter in their hideout. With great caution, they made two trips to the village to retrieve what they could. De Chapelle’s men had raided the houses for anything of value, but had been impatient in their work. The villagers were able to find hens, clothes, some of Owain’s smithy tools, cooking pots and even six precious bags of corn. They could not descend to the valley to fell larger trees with which tobuild more homes, however, as this would take too long and be too noticeable. Those in the high river vale were too small to be used. This meant they had to turn to simpler methods to construct dwellings that would keep out the fierce cold of the mountains in the months to come. They collected bracken from the hill, drying it and cutting it to mix with mud gathered from the river banks. They combined this with dung from the small collection of livestock they had. This they applied to frames of sticks to form huts. Whilst humble, the little houses were quick to build and weather proof, once thatched with reeds taken from the moorland atop the hills. Everything they needed had to be gathered with great care, with two lookouts always on guard. It was fortunate indeed that the twist in the high valley meant it was highly unlikely anyone in the lowlands would be able to see the smoke from their vital fires.
Every day, tasks were allocated, each person playing their part. Their number totalled eighteen, the majority of which were children who had scattered to the hills when the doors of Lord Llewelyn’s home were finally breached. There were two crofters and their families who had not been in the village at the time of the attack, and who had brought their small flocks of Welsh mountain sheep with them. Dafydd had fought his way forwards, and was still swinging his wood axe when deChapelle had called his men away. Owain and Rufus had also survived the fray, along with the two soldiers who had returned wounded from the failed attempt to stop the raiding party earlier in the day. Providing food for so many people was a challenge that could not be shirked by any member of the group, however young or frail. Small children were set to foraging for berries and edible flowers. The older women searched for mushrooms or dug up roots. The more skilled among the group hunted rabbits or birds, the boys in particular quickly improving their talents with bows, earning the right to hunt only when they had spent many hours making arrows. Snares were set. The precious sheep were guarded day and night, as was the single cow with her calf, and Dilly, the only horse that remained.
Those who were able collected firewood which was rationed and stacked high behind the barn. Being the largest of the buildings, the barn was also used for meetings when group decisions were made for the good of the settlement. It was a new experience for all of them to be a collection of equals, all with a say in how their lives should be lived and their futures secured. It was not Gwen who railed against this, though some expected her to. It was Mamgiwho resisted it, on Gwen’s behalf. She explained her reasons one lateautumn night as they sat outside together watching a harvest moon rise above the distant hilltop.
‘You were born to greatness,merch. They must come to see that. To accept it.’
‘But, Mamgi, you have explained to me that I am not of noble birth. Lord Llewelyn was not my father. I am no more a noble than any man or woman of the village.’
She tutted impatiently. ‘I do not speak of Lords or Kings or any such earthbound rulers. I speak of your heritage as a witch of the White Shadow.’
‘Are you going to tell everyone about… about my secret? Please, grandmother, I beg you, do not. They are all of them Christians. They feel the loss of our priest and our church. They will not accept a witch!
‘They need to know. They will be the community that will support you and your trials for generations to come. They must follow you willingly and knowing what it is they do. And besides,’ she paused to pluck a blade of grass and chew it as she spoke. ‘There are those among them who knew your secret before you did.’
‘What? Who? Grandmother, you have to tell me. What a fool I must look to them, acting as if I had no knowledge of the truth… or they will think me deceitful. Tell me, who is it who knows my story?’
‘The carter.’
‘Dafydd? But he did not understand my going to his house the night he was assaulted. He questioned me about why I had really gone there, how I had known he was in trouble.’
‘He questioned you to discover ifyouknew why you had gone. Well? Do you?’
‘I…I knew they were in danger, both of them. I… sensed it.’
She nodded. ‘You were beginning to awaken to your gifts, though you did not see them as such. You will always be able to detect danger before it reaches you. There will be many who will owe their lives to that talent.’
Gwen thought about what she was being told. She remembered, then, how she had sensed the messenger approaching the house long before she or anyone else had heard him. The messenger bringing news of great danger indeed.
‘Who else knows?’ she asked again.
‘Bryn,’ she said, jerking her head in the direction of the shepherd’s house. ‘A crofter takes some persuading to give up his home.’
‘You told him and he believed you?’
‘You don’t get to my great age without having a few tricks up your sleeve.’
‘Magic tricks?’
‘You are not alone in being able to upend the way of things, you know that.’
