'Would you please tell our friend that I'm bringing the lady in to see him, at her own request?'
'I'll tell him – Any idea how soon?'
'By this evening, if the going's easy. Tomorrow afternoon at the latest.'
'Right.'
'Be seeing you, then. 'Bye, Brenda.' 'Good luck, Gareth.'
She went straight to Reggie, who was in conference with the Head of Personnel, but admitted her at once on his secretary's announcement – as she knew he would, for she never interrupted him trivially. She greeted the Head of Personnel with a polite apology and handed Reggie the message which she had already typed out. He read it and said, 'Ah… Would you be good enough to arrange accommodation, my dear? And please let me know as soon as they arrive?' 'Of course.'
They arrived in fact just before seven that evening, Gareth phoning her as soon as they were inside Beehive by the secret entrance. She directed him straight to the guest cubicle she had booked for 'the lady' and was at its door to meet them.
She had been prepared, of course, to dislike the Black Mamba. But she was astonished at the depth and intensity of her antipathy from the moment Gareth introduced Karen to her, and she had no doubt whatever that the antipathy was mutual. They purred at each other suitably, of course, and Brenda saw to the guest's needs with meticulous hospitality before they left her to 'freshen up'; she had ascertained Karen's size, and promised to be back in half an hour with an appropriately unobtrusive uniform.
Alone with Gareth in the corridor, Brenda let out an explosive 'My God!'
Gareth said, 'Yes.'
Forgetting discretion, Brenda went on: 'Gareth, that woman's poison. Highly efficient poison, in full control of herself. If I had any say in it, I wouldn't let her within a hundred kilometres of Beehive – let alone Reggie.'
Somebody else passed them and Gareth waited till he was out of earshot before he replied. Then it was to say, obliquely: 'I'm never quite sure of the boundary between woman's instinct and clairvoyance.'
'You don't have to be a woman to pick up her vibes.'
He smiled wrily. 'I can confirm that… Oddly enough, I kind of liked the man, though. He's become evil but the thing that started him off would have made me bitter, too. But she was evil to start with, I'd say – and with her beside him, knowing exactly what she's doing, he'd never have a chance to draw back… I'd like to tell you all about it, next time we're in the TSA room.'
'Should you, Gareth?' Having released her feelings, she found discretion was seeping back.
'No, but I will.' Then with a change of tone: 'When's the Chief receiving us?'
'Eight-thirty. Dinner for four in his quarters. I'm to escort her there, and you're to arrive independently. He's being very rumour-conscious on this. Doesn't even want her identified with Intelligence Section. And I’m to cook and serve dinner.'
'Go easy on the hemlock,' Gareth said.
There was no doubt about it, Brenda told herself with growing alarm as the dinner progressed: the rapport between Karen and Reggie was as immediate as the antipathy between Karen and herself. Reggie was at his most charming and he and Karen monopolized the conversation. Almost all of it was about the practical problems of survival on Surface which they discussed as cheerfully as though Karen had just returned from a camping holiday. The rest was about horses for which they shared an enthusiasm. Reggie was delighted to find that she had learned side-saddle from Janet Macdonald herself, which apparently put her among the elite.
How their talk finally turned to serious business, Brenda could never quite remember. It must have been over coffee, because she clearly recalled the zabaglione and Karen's fulsome praise of it. After that, everything became frighteningly vague. One sentence stood out in her mind; Karen asking Reggie: 'Do you really want to know if it works?' – and then Karen's big eyes moving from her face to Gareth's and back again
It could not be said that she and Gareth woke up in her own quarters, sitting opposite each other with drinks in their hands. They simply became aware, abruptly and simultaneously, that they had been there for some time. Even that this was their second drink.
Brenda nearly screamed. Gareth must have realized it, for he quickly grasped her free hand in his own, holding it tightly till she was in command of herself.
'Hypnotism,' he said at last. 'The bloody woman hypnotized us, right there in front of the Chief's eyes. Christ, that must have impressed him!'
After a pause, Brenda said: 'It was more than just hypnotism, Gareth. She brought us out of it, together, when she was ready, by remote control. An ordinary hypnotist couldn't do that. It calls for telepathy.'
'Not necessarily. She could have ordered a trigger. For example – "You will go back to Brenda's room, sit down and pour yourselves drinks and when you take the first sip of your second drink you will wake up, remembering nothing of what has happened in between." This is our second drink, isn't it? And we've both just tasted it.'
'Yes, it is. But that's all I know. I don't remember getting here or what we've been talking about, except that we have been talking.'
'Me too. But you see? It could be a normal hypnotic technique, without telepathy or anything.'
'Normal!… Gareth, I'm hypnosis-resistant. A doctor tried nnce and I wanted to cooperate but no way could he put me under. But she did it across a dinner-table, just like that. And I'm pretty sure I felt her command to wake up – not any trigger situation that she'd ordered but her command, coming through as she gave it.'
T must say, so did I. But that could be post-hypnotic suggestion. She could have told us we'd believe that when we woke up.'
'All of it could be. But do you know what, Gareth? I'm frightened. Scared out of my bloody wits – for myself, for you, for Reggie, for Beehive… Hell, I'm scared for Britain. Does that sound melodramatic?'
Gareth did not answer for a moment; then he shook his head, slowly.
'Dare we have another drink?' she wondered. 'Or will there be some post-hypnotic suggestion attached to that, too?'
He smiled, for the first time. 'I guess we'll risk it.'
'After all,' Brenda said as she poured, 'she's achieved her purpose. Put us in our places, shown Reggie what she can do and got him to herself… I wish her joy of him,' she added venomously.
'That remarks sounds a little… uncharacteristic'
'Yes, it does, doesn't it?… Cheers.'
'Cheers.'
They sat for a while, wrapped in their separate thoughts. Then Brenda asked: 'Gareth – you love me, don't you?'
He lowered his eyes. 'Yes, Brenda, I do. You know I do. I have… well, since about the second time I met you.'
'Then this'll sound incredibly selfish of me. I don't love anyone, right now. But by God, I need your love. I need to trust you and I need you to trust me or I'll go bloody mad… You're an Intelligence officer. For what we've already said and will say to each other, you could destroy me -and I could destroy you. But we won't. We need each other. Don't we?'
Gareth looked up again, into her eyes. 'Yes, we do. And I think we're going to have to do more than talk. We're going to have to do something about it.' He blushed, suddenly young and vulnerable. 'Oh, I didn't mean…'
'I know you didn't,' she told him gently.
He recovered himself and went on: 'We're going to have to do something about her. About what's going on and what's planned… You said you were scared for Britain. You know what, Brenda? So am I.'
20
'Ye Lords of the Watchtowers of the North; Boreas, thou guardian of the Northern portals; mighty Cernunnos, Lord of the forest; great Cerridwen, Queen of earth and sky; we do thank you for attending our rites and ere ye depart to your pleasant and lovely realms, we bid you hail and farewell!'
Behind her, everyone echoed ‘Hail and farewell!' as Moira drew the Banishing Pentagram in the air above the altar with her athame. She laid the knife on the altar and turned, smiling at them and they all broke into talk and laughter. Some put their clothes back on by the row of hooks a
long the end wall, others, in no hurry to cover their comfortable nakedness, gathering around the big wood-burning stove. Dan began clearing the ritual tools from the table which had been placed against the north wall to serve as an altar; Greg switched on the twelve-volt lighting of which he was justifiably proud, and little Diana exercised her privilege of blowing out the candles one by one.
Eileen, perennially anxious to learn, came over to Moira and asked: 'Why do you only mention Boreas? Why not the winds at the other quarters?''Do you know who they are?' Moira asked back.
'Eurus in the East, Notus in the South and Zephyrus in the West,' Eileen answered promptly. 'And Aeolius who's the master of them all… That's my trouble. I collect facts but I can't always work out reasons.'
'Well, East, South and West are Air, Fire and Water, and to mention winds for all of them might make it harder for people to hold the elements in their minds. But North isn't only Earth, it's the altar as well so it's rather special; you thank the God and Goddess there, so you make it more ceremonious. Besides, Boreas is the doorkeeper of Caer Arianrhod…'
Two or three others had joined them and began asking their own questions. It was the same after every Circle now, for the coven had become something very different from the tight little group in half-forgotten Staines. Tonight, for instance, there were eighteen adults and four children crowding the Central Cabin for the regular Friday Circle: Moira's group of five plus Diana, eight witches who had joined Camp Cerridwen over the past two or three weeks with three of their children, and five interested non-initiates including Eileen and Peter. What with getting the incoming witches attuned to Moira and Dan's particular methods and customs and explaining things to the non-initiates, 'I feel more like a schoolteacher than a High Priestess, sometimes,' Moira had said to old Sally.
'Since when were the two different?' Sally wanted to know. 'Maybe we'd got too cosy, love.'
Even the attunement process required care, for although all the witches realized the importance of harmony in their embattled situation, it was of the nature of Wicca that every coven had its own character and was a law to itself; so unless differences were examined and adjusted, misunderstandings could arise. Most bewildered, sometimes, were
Sam and Elizabeth Warner, who were Traditionals trained in a very different set of rituals from Moira and Dan's Gardnerian/Alexandrian ones, but their determination to work with the majority was fortunately aided by a healthy sense of humour.
'Cheer up,' Dan told them. 'We'll put out an astral call for more Traditionals, then you'll be able to do your own thing in parallel with us.'
'What?' Sam exclaimed in mock horror. 'All this re-education for nothing? Besides, I rather like holding two passports.'
Altogether, Camp Cerridwen now numbered twenty-four adults and six children. Father Byrne even had a congregation, for one couple with a year-old baby were Catholics; they had come in with the husband's brother and sister-in-law, who were witches. 'I'm past being astonished,' Father Byrne had said, smiling, when Dan informed him that a little chapel now had high priority on the building programme, immediately after the minimum sleeping accommodation.
Building was, in fact, going ahead well, for more hands meant more efficient working, and Bruce Peters, the quiet young builder who had arrived with Fred and Jean Thomas, had proved to be knowledgeable and ingenious. The Central Cabin, kitchen and three family cabins were all finished and three more were at framework stage.
Camp Cerridwen was becoming a village.
Liz Warner had proved an asset in another way: she was a schoolteacher and as soon as she arrived she started daily classes for the children – who, leaving out the Catholic couple's baby, ranged from five to thirteen years old. But within a week, she and Geraint Lloyd, the New Dyfnant schoolmaster, had arrived at a better arrangement. A pony-cart was found for Liz and her five pupils and every morning she drove them down to Geraint's little school. Geraint, who had been coping single-handed with seventeen children of various ages, was delighted. He took charge of the older ones and Liz of the younger. 'Now we might actually get some teaching done instead of just keeping the little devils quiet,' he told her happily. The New Dyfnant parents obviously appreciated Liz too, for she rarely returned to camp without gifts of vegetables, eggs or cow's milk, sometimes put anonymously in the pony-cart while she was busy teaching.
Camp Cerridwen's own little farm was making fair progress, all things considered. Much winter sowing had been done, goats and poultry were thriving, some soft fruits had been planted and the bees in their six hives seemed to be hibernating healthily (since they were newly installed, some of the camp's precious and dwindling sugar had been allocated to their autumn settling-in feed). But with winter closing in, first priority had to go to seeing that everyone was housed and warm, so there was a limit to the amount of time that could be devoted to farming. And it would be many months before the planting produced food or the hives honey. The half-hectare of vegetable garden in New Dyfnant which had been earmarked for their use was a considerable help and the cave in the woods still held useful stocks of food; but with the camp's population growing and perhaps more recruits to come, old Sally as ration-organizer kept an anxiously watchful eye on the reserves.
An extra hazard had arisen once the Madness was over. With movement much safer, occasional nomad pilferers appeared. Organized bands, strangely enough, were not the danger. A couple of raids had been tried on New Dyfnant but the villagers, themselves well organized and favourably, sited, had dealt with them firmly and word must have got around for no more attempts were made, although more exposed communities in the neighbourhood (and according to Geraint's ham-radio contacts, in other parts of the country) suffered sporadically. But lone infiltrators were another matter. One had been shot while trying to steal a goose on the outskirts of New Dyfnant, and two hens had disappeared during the night from Camp Cerridwen itself. Peter O'Malley, who still ranged as much of his beloved forest as his share of the camp work allowed, occasionally came across signs of what he called 'fly-by-night bivouacs', never of more than one to three people, and always abandoned by the time he got there. Though once he had shouted after a man running away through the trees a couple of hundred metres from him. The man had gone on running and vanished.
'If the bloody fools are hungry, why don't they come and ask if they can join us?' he grumbled to Dan.
'Natural cowards or natural thieves. Or both. Or maybe they've heard we're witches and they're scared we'll turn 'em into frogs.'
'Only thing that really worries me is the cave,' Peter said. 'If one of them finds that, we could be in trouble.'
Dan agreed and the evening meeting discussed the matter. Reluctantly, they earmarked a newly finished cabin as a store, and next day transferred the contents of the cave to it; even more reluctantly, with so much work to be done, they kept one man at a time, night and day, patrolling the camp as an armed sentry.
One of Peter's dudes fitted in well with his forest-ranging. They were almost out of tinned meat and there was no fresh to be had from livestock, for both camp and village had banned all slaughtering – even of poultry -till the spring brought renewed breeding. So Sally had asked Peter to supplement the rations by regular hunting, helped when possible by such good shots as Angie; only good shots could be allowed to hunt, for their stocks of ammunition, though not yet dangerously low, were still not limitless. Peter had agreed and had supplemented his gun by snares (which he hated). The result had been a fairly steady flow of rabbit, wood-pigeon and the occasional pheasant; and also a renewed withdrawal from Peter by Eileen, who had been beginning to relax in his company.
Angie, exasperatedly observing her young cousin's behaviour had for once thoroughly lost her temper. 'My God, Eileen, I wish we had a damn shrink in the camp – because that's what you need, my girl. You've got the nicest man in the place following you around like a puppy-dog and you bite his head off because he's keeping us fed. What the hell do you think you're up to? A bloody psychiatrist's co
uch is the place for you – if the word "bloody" doesn't trigger off this stupid obsession of yours.' She could see the tears in Eileen's eyes but she couldn't stop. 'For Christ's sake, none of us enjoy killing. I don't. Peter doesn't. And that's another damn stupid thing. When I kill a rabbit, you just look the other way. When he kills anything, you crucify the poor bugger.'
'I don't' Eileen burst out. ‘I only…'
'You only kick him where it hurts, that's all. Because, God help him, he's as much in love with you as you are with him. Which you are.'
Eileen, white-faced and miserable, looked at her in silence for a moment and then walked away, leaving Angie – once she had cooled down – thoroughly ashamed of herself.
Moira and Dan watched the approaching convoy with some surprise. It was usual for one or two of the New Dyfnant villagers to escort newcomers to Camp Cerridwen, to satisfy themselves that they were both harmless and acceptable.
But this group – a farm cart tented with sheet polythene, an odd-looking contraption of a wheel-less motor caravan lashed on to a flat-topped cart, and two horsemen – was headed by Dai Police himself riding with Liz and the children in the returning pony-trap, and two more villagers, mounted and carrying shotguns, brought up the rear.
' 'Afternoon, Dai,' Dan called when the convoy was a few metres away. 'What's all this, then? Wells Fargo?'
Dai signalled the convoy to halt and jumped to the ground. 'Just being careful, Dan bach. They seem all right and there's three young kids with 'em – but it's enough guns they have to be a raiding party.'
'Guns?'
'Three Army rifles, a four-ten, three pistols and a good bit of ammo. We took it all off 'em and stashed it in the pony-trap here. They didn't complain – and that's a good sign. Only reasonable, they agreed it was, seeing that they want to join you.'
'Hey – Moira, Dan – remember me?'
They turned at the call and saw the man who had jumped down from the caravan and was walking towards them.
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