Again Morwen had no chance to answer. The crone laughed, a sound like the cawing of a crow. “She stole it? This slip of a girl stole the crystal from you, Irène?”
Morwen faltered, “I didn’t steal—I didn’t mean to take—” but neither woman paid the slightest attention to her.
They were facing each other now, the hunched silver-haired woman and the dark erect one. The anger between them was as palpable as a lightning bolt, and Morwen thought their furious energy must burn her.
The old woman shifted into French. “Ah, Irène, my daughter. Such irony. You stole the stone from me. Now your daughter has stolen it from you. Are you anything without it?”
“Of course I am, Maman.” Morwen gasped at Irene’s use of the word, but still neither Irene nor the old woman took notice of her. Irene said, “You seem to know so much! You know I’m called Lady Irene, that I live in a proper house, with a maid and servants and a noble husband.”
The crone tossed her head, and her white mane rippled. “Does he love you, Irène, that lord of yours? Does your power extend that far?”
“He married me, and gave me my title. That was all I needed.”
“Ah.” The old woman grinned again, white teeth gleaming through the gathering dusk. “And there is the matter of your daughter. He gave you your daughter, I assume.”
At this, Lady Irene was silent. The crone cackled, and shook her shock of hair so it coruscated in the fading light. “Who, then, Irène?” the old woman crowed. “Who gave you this fine girl?”
“Maman,” Morwen said, so sharply both women turned, remembering her presence at last. “What does she mean? Who is she?”
Irene met Morwen’s gaze with an icy one. “This is your grandmother, Morwen. Your grand-mère Ursule.” She added, with a curl of her lip, “The farmer.”
Morwen looked past her to the old woman. “Is it true?” she breathed. “Are you my grand-mère, truly?”
The crone made an effort to straighten her spine, to meet Morwen’s eyes directly. Her lined face softened, and her voice gentled. “Oui. Bien sûr, ma petite fille.”
Morwen eyed Irene without sympathy. “You stole the crystal from your own mother.” It was an accusation, and her voice was as laced with contempt as her mother’s had been.
Irene’s eyes kindled. “Who are you to judge me, Morwen? You’ve had the best of everything! You have no idea—”
“The best of everything?” Morwen said, her voice rising. “Why couldn’t I know my own grandmother? She might have actually liked me!” Her last phrase came out as a shriek, and caused Ynyr to stamp anxiously.
Ursule said, “Such a wonderful horse.”
“Yes.” Morwen pressed a hand to her chest to calm her pounding heart.
The old woman, whom Morwen could no longer think of as a crone, or as anything other than her grandmother, murmured, “Let us go and calm him, Morwen.” Morwen followed her and noticed that although she still smelled as if she needed bathing, the smell was no longer offensive, but intimate. It felt familiar, like the smells of the stables, scents Morwen loved.
It was dark now, with the first stars pricking the velvet black of the sky. Ynyr glowed silver in the gloom, and his ears twitched forward and back.
They approached him, and, as before, he dropped his head so Ursule could stroke his cheeks and whisper in his ear. Morwen, shaken by her mother’s revelation, pressed herself against his shoulder, her eyes closed. She felt the brush of his whiskery chin across her hair, and opened her eyes to see that Ursule had stepped back, and was watching the two of them with something like respect.
“The gift is strong in you,” Ursule said. “I’m glad. It doesn’t always happen this way.”
Morwen put her back to Ynyr, still leaning into his warmth. “I don’t know what to say to you.”
“No, of course you don’t, my dear.” Ursule folded her hands into the voluminous sleeves of her cloak. “I’m sure you never speak with farmers.”
“That’s not it. I speak to Jago all the time.”
Ursule’s white eyebrows rose. “Jago? Who is this?”
“Jago is my favorite person in the world,” Morwen said. “Our horsemaster. I suppose he’s not a farmer, not properly, but he lets me clean the byre, and brush Ynyr myself, and—” She shrugged a little.
“Ah.” Ursule was smiling again. “You have something of me in you, then.”
Irene stood with her fists on her hips and her eyes narrowed. “Don’t listen to her, Morwen.”
Ursule answered without looking at her. “I haven’t said anything you could object to, Irène. Only the truth.”
“You know, Maman, I can’t help the way I am.”
“Can you not?”
“You said once that I was born selfish because I was conceived selfishly.”
“Ah. C’est vrais. I had no idea how deep such selfishness could run.”
Irene’s lips twisted. “Come, Morwen. We need to be home. It’s already dark.”
“We can’t leave Grand-mère here, Maman! She should come to Morgan Hall. We have plenty of room.”
Irene’s control shivered apart at that. “Morgan Hall—no! It’s not possible!” she shrilled.
“Why not?”
“Just think, Morwen! Your father … the servants …”
Ursule spoke directly to Morwen. “My dear, I would wager my life that my lord Llewelyn doesn’t fully understand who he married. His ignorance was essential to Irène’s plan.”
“What plan?” Morwen was asking Ursule, though her mother stood so close.
“Her plan to escape from me, and my life of work. To use her pretty face to advantage, make a fine marriage, live in a great house. To be a lady, not a farmwife.”
“But Papa—” Tears of confusion and shock flooded Morwen’s eyes, and she turned to press her forehead against Ynyr’s silken hide. When she felt a hand on her back, a warm, hard hand, she knew it was not her mother’s. It was Ursule’s. Her grandmother’s. It was a touch of reassurance.
Ursule, living rough in an abandoned tower, was offering comfort. While Irene—
“Come, Morwen,” Irene said, in a voice like two rocks scraped together. “We’ll be late.”
Morwen twisted her head to glare at her mother. “I’m not coming,” she said.
“You are. And now.”
“No! I’m staying with—with my grandmother!”
Irene’s lips curled in a mirthless smile. “Oh yes? Do you want to sleep on straw? Eat pottage for breakfast and lunch and dinner? Wear the same dress day in and day out?”
“I don’t care about those things!”
“You would, in a very short time.”
“Morwen,” Ursule said. “Go home with your mother. She’s right about that, at least. This is no place for you.”
“I won’t leave you here!” Morwen cried, astonished at her sudden feeling of connection with an old woman she had met but twice.
“Thank you, my dear, but I wouldn’t know how to behave in your grand house,” Ursule said. “I’m happier with the beasts.”
“But I want to talk to you!” Morwen wailed. Her mind seethed with questions, and she felt bruised by her mother’s cruelty.
“Come back tomorrow,” Ursule said soothingly. She stroked Morwen’s arm with her dirty claw, a touch more affectionate than any Irene had ever offered her daughter. “I will be here. I’ll wait for you.”
“She won’t be coming,” Irene said, and with her back ramrod straight stalked out of the porch and down the path.
Morwen led Ynyr to a broken wall and used it to hop on to his back. She held the rope in her hand, reining him in for a moment. “I will come, Grand-mère. I swear it.”
“She will try to stop you.” Ursule sighed, and her spine bent again, as if she had spent the last of her energy.
“She can’t.”
Ursule gave her a weary smile, and lifted one hand in farewell. Morwen returned the gesture as Ynyr stepped forward.
“I wish I
could stay,” Morwen said.
Ursule shook her head. “There is no bed for you here. Go home, and have a good sleep. It’s what I wish for you.”
Ynyr started toward the river, where the starlit sparkle of the water silhouetted Irene’s slender form. Morwen turned in her seat for a last look at Ursule, but the old woman had already faded into the shadows.
It didn’t matter. She would be back the next morning no matter what her mother said.
Ursule was right, of course. Irene had no intention of allowing Morwen to return to the ruined castle. After a painful dinner, during which the only sounds were the clink of flatware and the clatter of china, Irene paused in the hall as they left Lord Llewelyn to his pipe and his port.
“Morwen, come to my boudoir. Now, before you change.”
Morwen was tempted to refuse, but thought better of it. Perhaps, if she was tactful, she could persuade her mother to help Ursule. A cottage, perhaps, or a place in one of the tenants’ households. She nodded and turned to follow Irene up the wide staircase.
Irene didn’t speak until they were inside her boudoir, and the door shut behind them. Without preamble, she snapped, “Where is it?”
Morwen didn’t need to ask what she meant. “I’ll bring it back,” she said. “But I had to find it, Maman.”
“What do you mean, you had to?”
“I mean,” Morwen said, “that it called to me.”
“How could it call to you?”
Morwen shrugged. “I don’t know, but it did. That’s how I knew Ursule wanted me.” With emphasis she added, “My grandmother.”
“She has always been strong,” Irene admitted. “I used to think she could force anyone to do anything.”
“Including you?”
“Not once I came into my own power.”
“She taught you, then. The way you’re teaching me.”
Her mother turned away without responding, and sank onto her settee with an irritated sigh. Morwen took the upholstered chair and folded her hands in her lap.
Irene glanced up at her, then away, to the dark night beyond the window. “In our line,” she said, “we have no choice about that. We have to instruct our daughters. It’s a compulsion, irresistible as breathing. It’s one of the prices we pay for being what we are.” She let her head drop back against the brocade, and her eyes closed. “I don’t want you to see her again, Morwen.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s nothing to be gained from it.”
“I want to know her.”
“I forbid it,” Irene said.
“You can’t stop me, Maman.”
“Of course I can.”
There were things Irene could do. She could lock Morwen in her room, or drag her off to Cardiff. She could order Jago not to allow Ynyr out of the stables.
But Morwen had a weapon of her own now. “If you try to stop me,” she said, “you will never see the crystal again.”
Irene’s eyes opened wide, and she shot upright. “What! How dare you?” Her voice rose and thinned. Morwen thought she sounded like a squalling cat. “You will bring it back this very moment!”
“I will bring it back, certainly,” Morwen said. She rose and smoothed her dinner dress. “But tomorrow. After I’ve seen Grand-mère Ursule.”
Her mother rose, too, but her shoulders shook with fury. “You thankless chit!” she hissed. “I’ve given you everything, and now this?”
Morwen paused, her hand on the doorknob. “It is strange, isn’t it?” she said, in the most pleasant tone she could manage. “I wonder if that’s how Grand-mère felt.”
Irene’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again, but it seemed she could find no words.
“Stop that, Maman. You look like a fish.” Morwen turned the knob, opened the door, and left without glancing back.
Once she was in the corridor, and a few steps along the way to her own room, her bravado failed her. She stopped and leaned against the wall, her heart thudding.
Nothing would ever be the same between her mother and her. It had never been a loving connection, but now it would be openly antagonistic. Papa would side with his wife, of course, as would Mademoiselle. Perhaps even Jago. Everyone in this house owed their living to Lord Llewelyn and Lady Irene. Morwen had no one.
Except her grandmother.
5
Morwen woke well before the sun rose over the autumnal fields, eager to get out of the house before her mother was awake. She dressed in her oldest riding skirt and remembered to take a jacket against the chill that had begun to crisp the grass. She was hungry. Dinner had been so unpleasant the night before that she had eaten almost nothing. She didn’t want to ring, in case she woke Mademoiselle, nor to wait for breakfast to be set out in the morning room. Instead she crept down the servants’ staircase, which she wasn’t supposed to use, and found one of the maids trudging up the stairs with a coal scuttle. She begged her to fetch a slice of bread and butter, and the maid, with a sigh, set down her burden and turned back down the stairs to the kitchen.
Bread in hand, Morwen slipped out the side door into the garden and hurried toward the stables. The sun was peeping over the hills to the east, and the rows of beans and peas, stripped now of their bounty, gleamed as if brushed with gold. A lamp was alight in the tack room, and as she drew close she heard Ynyr’s greeting. She paused to pull up a carrot from the soil, and scrubbed the dirt from it as she moved on.
In a way, she hated knowing that there was a name for her relationship to the Shire. To think that he was filling some preordained role in her life as a witch seemed to diminish his affection, as if his being designated a spirit familiar meant Ynyr’s devotion was less than voluntary.
He whickered again, and Jago appeared in the window, his dark head silhouetted by lamplight. Morwen hurried her steps, eager to go into that safe, warm space, to be in the presence of two beings who loved her, who had always loved her.
“Up early, you,” Jago said when she stepped into the straw-strewn aisle. He had come to the door of the tack room, and was wiping his hands on a rag that smelled strongly of saddle soap. He smiled, his sleepy eyelids curving upward. “Tea?”
“Yes, please, Jago.” She returned his smile with a generous one of her own. “I’ll just say hello to Ynyr.”
“He’s waiting.”
She went down the aisle to Ynyr’s box and fed him the carrot, feathery top and all. He munched while she combed his forelock with her fingers, murmuring endearments. When the treat was finished, she planted a kiss on his wide forehead. “I’ll be back soon.”
The tea was ready in the tack room, prepared on the little coal-burning stove, and a cup laid ready for her on the workbench. She wriggled her way onto one of the high stools and picked up the cup. “Thanks for this, Jago.”
“Always welcome,” he said.
She didn’t feel the least bit put off by his laconic manner. She never had. Though they didn’t touch—that would have been shocking, the young lady and the horsemaster—the bond between them was nearly as strong as the one she had with Ynyr. As Jago went on with the task she had interrupted, she watched his lean face, dark eyes intent on his work, a lock of black hair falling over his forehead.
She said, “You’re so handsome, Jago. Why have you never married?”
He looked up at her. “Odd question.”
“No, it’s not. Everyone seems to get married, eventually.”
“Never met anyone I cared to marry.”
She thought about this as she sipped her tea. After a time she said, “I don’t care to marry, either.”
“May not have a choice, you.”
This made her sigh. “So I’m told. Papa wants me to meet someone at my birthday ball. Mama says I have to do it.”
“Hard being a young lady.”
“Sometimes.” An easy silence stretched between them, filled only by the sound of Jago’s punch as he made holes in the leather strap before him. Morwen finished her tea and slid from the stool. “I�
��m going to take Ynyr out now. The sun’s up.”
“Any place in particular?”
“Yes. Old Beaupre Castle.”
Jago laid down his leather punch. A small frown drew his eyebrows together. “Gone twice already, you.”
She stopped in the doorway, staring back at him. “How did you know that, Jago?”
For answer he pointed above his head, to where the hayloft stretched the length of the stables. She knew that loft. As a little girl she’d loved to play there, and Jago had pretended he didn’t know. One end was open so hay could be forked out into a waiting wagon, and from there a person could see for miles downriver and across the fields.
“You watched me.”
“Always, Miss Morwen.”
“And you told my mother?”
His face tightened, and a muscle rippled down his long jaw. “No,” he said in a toneless voice. “Not for me to tell the Lady Irene nought. Nor would I.”
Morwen had the horrible feeling she had just hurt his feelings. She said hastily, “Oh, Jago, of course not! I’m sorry. I spoke without thinking.”
His face relaxed, but he kept his eyes averted. “It’s all right, miss.”
She took a step back into the tack room and spread her hands. “It’s just that she asked me about it, the first time, and the next time she followed me, as if she knew.”
The muscle flexed again, like a fish wriggling upstream. “She’s like that,” Jago said. “She knows things.”
“The maids say she has eyes in the back of her head.”
“Close enough.”
He still wouldn’t look at her, but she saw a flush creep up his neck, and an uneasy feeling stole over her. She said, her voice catching, “Jago?”
He blew out a breath. “Never mind, you. I don’t say things about your mama.”
Morwen knew better than to press him about something he didn’t want to discuss. Still feeling uneasy, she went out into the stables to release Ynyr from his box.
The big horse was unusually restive. She had trouble persuading him to hold still so she could clip the rope onto his halter. He stood beside the mounting block for her, but he shifted his feet and flicked his tail with impatience. She had barely found her seat before he was off, breaking into his swinging trot as he started toward the path along the river.
A Secret History of Witches Page 25