They went on looking at each other and gradually the bewilderment in her eyes faded away and she began to smile, a smile of love and longing. Quite how it all happened they could never remember afterwards, but all their clothes were away, and they were clasping and entwining and searching and discovering and adoring, naked and lovely to each other on the forest floor, a stone's throw from the forgotten dead enemy, and then, merged and triumphant, they were swept into that nodal point of joy where the meaning of the universe is clear and never quite forgotten.
She lay afterwards cradled in his arms, gazing up through the branches at the shifting glimpses of sky, still too transfigured to ask herself if she was cold.
'This is a new and different Earth,' she told him, wonderingly.
Peter shook his head, holding her close, caressing her. 'No, it's not. It's the same Earth as ever. But we've been blind to her and to ourselves for too long. Now she's bringing us back to our senses – the ones that are left.'
She mocked him tenderly: 'How like a man, to put it into words and draw a moral.'
'Sorry – did I sound pompous?'
'No, my love, my darling. Besides, you're right. But for me… We're alive and we're part of Her. That's enough.'
PART TWO
21
'Only four this week, is it?' Dr Owen said, leaning back in his chair and swinging his stethoscope. 'You are all too damn healthy up here and that's a fact. I don't know why I come.'
Eileen grinned at him. 'You know very well why you come. For a morning out from the village and a lunch of grilled trout.' She patted her five-month belly. 'And to see how Junior's doing. Anyone'd think you were its grandfather, you fuss so much.'-
'Junior is doing fine without any help from me. I will concede your point about the trout, though… And to be honest, Eileen fach,' he continued more seriously, 'I worry about young Brian. A crying shame it is, a promising lad like that, only two years at Guy's and no way of ending his training. I feel I should be teaching him more.'
'Don't be silly, Doctor. He's learning a hell of a lot from you, working in the village with you two days a week, borrowing all your books, helping me in the clinic here – and I'm teaching him all I can, too. He'll end up as real a doctor as if he'd finished his time at Guy's '
They strolled out together into the May sunshine, still discussing Brian Sennett, the medical student who had reached Camp Cerridwen with his sister Olive in January. His arrival had been very welcome to Eileen, who in spite of Dr Owen's weekly visit to the little clinic that had been built on the end of Peter and Eileen's cabin, and his availability in a crisis, had begun to feel a little worried about her responsibility as the rapidly growing camp's resident 'medical officer'. She had, after all, only qualified as a nurse herself a couple of years before the quake. Peter, too, had been relieved. They had only just become reasonably certain that Eileen was pregnant and he was more anxious than she was about her overworking, so even a partially trained colleague for her eased his mind a good deal.
Camp Cerridwen was barely recognizable after a winter of work which had only been halted by one week's snow and (according to the village experts) slightly less than average rain. The camp now numbered 173 people, about three-quarters of them witches or children of witches and although some cabins were still overcrowded, everybody slept indoors, either in a cabin or in a lagged caravan. Building was now in full swing and within a month or six weeks was expected to catch up at least with the existing population, to an acceptable standard. They had stuck to the original C-shaped plan, with the buildings spread in an arc along the edge of the forest and facing towards the centre of the little plateau whose heart was the camp-fire. Cabins had their own rock-built fireplaces but it had become a social habit to light the central fire each evening, small or large according to the weather, and to gather around it.
The forest had, in fact, already receded from behind the first are of buildings as felling progressed, and a second row was springing up behind the first on the cleared ground. The biggest building of all was no longer the Central
Cabin, which was now used for a variety of small-group purposes such as practice sessions of the Music Club (the village had donated a battered piano and various people owned instruments from guitars to violins, an accordion and a cornet), Geraint Lloyd's surprisingly well-attended Welsh classes and talks by experts (such as the camp's solitary professional farmer) on their specialities which had now become necessary knowledge for everyone. Considerably larger than this, and a building achievement of which they were rather proud, was the Mess Hall. Central catering still had to be the rule, for the most economical use of their slim food resources.
The farm had been growing fast but still not as fast as the population. The six-hectare meadow had been fully ploughed before the winter and in much of it new sowings had replaced the winter vegetables. Every seed was precious, though fortunately several of the newcomers who had had both the time to prepare their flight and the foresight to think of it had brought more; but even those who were experienced gardeners were having to learn the unfamiliar skill of growing for seed as well as for consumption, with the next crop to think of and nowhere to buy new seed.
But the six-hectare field no longer sufficed, with the absolute necessity of keeping as much livestock as could be acquired and managed. So every patch of river meadow between camp and village had been pressed into service and the camp farm had become a necklace of meadows stretching the whole four kilometres to New Dyfnant.
With the onset of winter, the area around the Vyrnwy valley below New Dyfnant had become relatively peaceful. The scattered survivors had almost all drawn together into little communities, clearing and patching up villages, and there were large stretches of country without a soul in sight. Many cattle, sheep, and pigs and a few horses and goats, roamed wild; there had been much hunting and slaughtering of them for food and the wiser communities had been rounding them up for stock as well but with population less than a hundredth of its former size there were still many wandering free. On two or three occasions, New Dyfnant and Camp Cerridwen had organized joint round-up expeditions, with every rideable horse for which there was a rider, and had brought in a gratifying number which were shared out between village and camp in proportion to their populations. These expeditions had been careful to avoid clashes with other communities, conceding any disputed territory without argument, for there were still unclaimed animals to be found and the last thing most people wanted was any local feud springing up.
Also still to be found, fortunately, were a few hayricks and hay-filled barns far enough from communities to be unclaimed and winter feed was badly needed, so slower cart-expeditions were sent out for these. The cart-expeditions took with them one of the bee-keepers (of which there were six in New Dyfnant and two in the camp) on the look-out for hives, which in their winter somnolence could be sealed for the journey and brought home.
As a result, by the spring Camp Cerridwen possessed one bull and eight cows, a boar and two sows, six ewes (but as yet no ram, though they could borrow one from the village) two billy-goats and seven nannies, four geldings and three mares (again, no stallion but the village had several). Two of the mares were in foal, both sows were in farrow, only one cow as yet in calf and two of the nannies had been February twins of one of the adult nannies, while another was in kid. The ewes had not been found till April, so no increase was expected there for a while. They also had eighteen hives, sixteen of them flourishing, the other two colonies having failed to survive the winter, but their beekeeper was confident he could re-stock the two empty ones during the summer.
Four cockerels and sixty-three hens in the hen-runs were mostly of their own rearing from the original handful, for wandering poultry, being easily caught and cooked, had quickly become very scarce. No geese as yet but a drake and two ducks had been recently acquired and were being carefully guarded (especially from the camp's twelve dogs and five cats) for breeding. (Of the cats, incidentally, Ginger Lad was
the undisputed king and two were heavily pregnant by him.)
One other thing had come from growing contact with the local small communities; the beginnings of barter and of the planning of output with barter in mind. One village, for instance, had once had a reputation for hand-weaving and two of the surviving older villagers remembered their skill; three looms and five spinning-wheels had been salvageable and the experts had set to at once training other spinners and weavers. In New Dyfnant, Jack Llewellyn had restored his grandfather's forge and remembering what he could (he knew metal in any case, being a proficient welder) was also training two youngsters; and already woven cloth was coming into New Dyfnant in exchange for ironwork and repair jobs. Two tiny villages down the valley, a couple of kilometres apart and manned by no more than half a dozen adults in each, had agreed to specialize, the one on livestock and the other on crops, to keep each other supplied. Other communities were beginning to wonder how they, too, could improve their position in the makeshift economy that was developing.
Inevitably, the internal economy of each 'tribe' became more or less communal, because at such a level of day-today survival nothing else would work. Camp Cerridwen, having started from scratch in survival conditions, was completely communal, both in the organization of work and in the use of products; the facts of life, not political or economic theory, dictated this. New Dyfnant stood at the other extreme, for thanks to Eileen's vinegar-mask warning, its population had survived almost completely, though the quake had done a good deal of physical damage; so the social and economic structure remained with all the impetus of habit, family pride, mutual knowledge and Welsh independence. But even that could not survive entirely; damage was uneven, community effort was needed for rebuilding and the closing of road-fissures and outside services and supplies had vanished. No stocks came into Bronwen's shop, no petrol to Jack's garage, and no liquor to Dai Forest Inn's cellars. No county salary to Dai Police, no church stipend to the Rev. Phillips and no National Health pay to Dr Owen or Ministry of Education pay to Geraint Lloyd. No money existed anyway. Yet all these people's services were still needed (even Bronwen's as barter organizer, Dai Forest Inn's as by now full-time Council chairman and Dai Police's as arbitrator of disputes and occasional enforcer of community decisions) and the village did not resent having to feed them. So gradually an ad hoc mixed economy had evolved with the boundaries between its public and private sectors constantly being adjusted by trial and error.
At the camp, Dan's chairmanship had become as full-time as Dai Forest Inn's in the village. He was still the undisputed leader, though by now he had an active camp committee to help him and was able to delegate a lot of the organizing work. The committee's most important function was the deciding of priorities and the division of labour, for between building and farming there was more than enough to be done. There was always, too, a balance to be drawn between the effective use of available experts and the need to give individuals a variety of work – for their own encouragement and morale, for the development as far as possible of a community of all-rounders and for the fair sharing of popular and unpopular tasks.
Moira, also, retained her unchallenged spiritual and Craft leadership – though the situation had changed somewhat. There were over a hundred adult witches at Camp Cerridwen now, so the time had passed, early in the winter, when they could still be a single coven. In fact, there were now fourteen of them, none of which exceeded the traditional maximum of thirteen members. Three of the fourteen had hived off from Moira and Dan's original one, so she now wore four proud buckles on the Witch Queen garter Dan had made for her as soon as three covens had entitled her to that status. Five of the other covens had arrived independently, four had hived off from them and the remaining one had been built around a High Priestess and High Priest who had turned up covenless. It had been a wrench when Rosemary and Greg had hived off from Moira and Dan but they all knew it had to be done. Eileen and Peter, initiated at Samhain and intensively trained, had set up their own coven in March and another first-degree couple, arriving in November, had been similarly accelerated and were doing well, though Moira still nursed their young group from the sidelines. The coven maintained the Wiccan tradition of independence and autonomy, but the leaders met regularly as a Council of Elders to discuss progress and any differences that arose or to agree on transfers in the few cases of personal friction.
'I still can't get used to it,' Dan told Moira. 'Remember the old law that covensteads must be at least a league apart? And the years people used to wait sometimes for second and third degree?'
'The league law belonged to the Burning Time,' Moira said. 'It couldn't work once the Craft went public. And as for waiting years – well, it's like an army – in peacetime it takes years to train an officer but in wartime you do it in months. You've got to or no army… And this is war, darling. We've felt the Angels of Lucifer probing often enough this winter, haven't we? Half our work's been psychic defence, just blank-walling them. But there will be a showdown, so our army's got to be ready.'
'I know… Anyway, with a hundred and twelve witches in one camp, and two or three dozen more asking to be initiated – what else can we do?'
'One thing about having fourteen covens,' Moira smiled, 'it fits very neatly into the calendar. Though the way things are growing, that won't last long.'
The calendar-fitting concerned the Temple which had been completed in time for the Spring Equinox and stood at one end of the are of buildings. It had not had to be large, as it was never used by more than one coven at a time, on a fortnightly rota of formal Circles. Larger-scale rituals, such as Festival get-togethers, were held in the Mess Hall. Covens also met informally in between as they felt the need or for training purposes mostly in family cabins.
The promise to Father Byrne had been kept, though it had surprised some of the newcomers and even provoked some grumbling; his little Catholic chapel was built at the same time as the Temple, facing it from the other tip of the arc. His congregation was now four adults and one baby, for two other newcomers – unknown to each other before they arrived – were Catholics, a forty-year-old carpenter and a nineteen-year-old girl art student. Shy but not hostile with the witches (both of them had arrived with witch neighbours who had picked them up as lone survivors of their families), these two had gravitated together and two months later had taken everyone by surprise by asking Father Byrne to marry them. The wedding had been an extraordinary affair; Greg and Geraint between them had rigged a public address system for the Chapel, and the Catholics and half a dozen Protestant non-witches had gone inside, while the rest of the camp had listened to the service from outside. A nearly completed cabin had been rushed ahead in time for the bride and groom to move in and they had been escorted to it in procession after a memorable wedding-breakfast – to which Dai Forest Inn, one of the village guests, had contributed one of his three remaining bottles of champagne for the 'top table' and a cask of home-brewed cider for everyone else. The newly-weds had remained shy but were clearly happy.
Spiritual leader Moira might be, but she – and in due course even those who had grumbled at the priority given to the Chapel – had come to appreciate the elderly Father's contribution deeply. From his doctrinal stance he never wavered; his own faith was total and he would always say, if asked, that the witches' religion was mistaken. But his humanity was total, also, as was his respect – practical as well as theoretical – for other people's sincerity. More than once he helped Moira to counsel people in distress, on a basis of simple human wisdom and innate spiritual strength without trespassing in Moira's beliefs or betraying his own.
'How do you manage it, father?' Moira asked wonderingly after they had, quite fortuitously, dealt together with a woman who did not know whether her son in Bradford was-alive or dead and had been suffering bouts of acute depression as a result. Moira and the old priest, strolling together and discussing the cultivation of lettuces, had come across her moping on the river's edge. Twenty minutes later, after a kind of
spiritual pincer-movement of consolation, she had gone away almost smiling.
'Manage what, my dear?'
'To work so well with us when you don't agree with us.' 'But you manage it with me. I could ask you the same question.' Yes,but…'
'Moira, we have many differences but we have certain things in common. A concern for human beings and a belief in the reality of psychic power. And neither of us believes that the duty of converting the other is more important than the harmony of this camp. So we work together on the things we believe in and keep our own counsel on the things we disagree about.'
'Is it really as simple as that?'
'Did that poor woman go away a little happier – after you and I had talked to her together?' 'Yes, she did. I'm sure of it.' 'Then it is as simple as that.'
They walked along the river-bank for a while in silence and then he said: 'You and Dan and many of the others -you are good people.'
Moira flung an arm impetuously round his shoulders and gave him a quick squeeze. 'And you, my friend, are the nearest thing I've met to a saint… I suppose it's disrespectful to hug saints, though.'
'An interesting point of protocol,' he said with mock gravity, 'but since I am most certainly nothing of the kind, God help me, the point is academic… Let me see, what were we talking about? Lettuces, wasn't it?'
Camp Cerridwcn's quota of schoolchildren had risen to twenty-three, so the daily 'school bus' down to Geraint Lloyd's school was now a convoy of pony-trap and farm cart. One of the passengers, for the past month, had been Geraint himself.
The first indication of his intention of moving into the camp had been his request, in February, to the camp committee for permission to build a radio cabin in his own time at weekends.
'With this news network of ours building up,' he had explained, 'it'll be much easier if Tonia and I are in the same place. So I'd like to shift my equipment up here, if that's all right by you and sleep beside it. I can come and go to school with Liz and the children every day. And Tonia could do her camp duties more easily if she wasn't always commuting to take radio watches in the village. Besides, I have to charge my batteries up here already.'
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