She thought he might say something scornful. Outraged articles appeared now and then in the newspapers about women who refused to ride sidesaddle. But Dafydd laughed. “Of course they’re dangerous!” he said. “If all women would refuse them, the whole silly concept would vanish within a year. I never expected, though, that Lord Llewelyn’s daughter would be a rebel! He’s so … so—”
He colored suddenly. Again Morwen shrugged. “I know,” she said. “Papa is extremely conventional.”
“My father is, too,” Dafydd said. He took a step forward, and gingerly put out a hand to touch Ynyr’s silver mane. “I hope you won’t mind that.”
Morwen shot him a curious glance. “Why should I care?”
“Why should you care?” Dafydd, with his hand on Ynyr’s neck, gave her an odd look. “Surely you—I mean—Miss Morgan, you do know why we’re here, don’t you?”
Morwen’s heart missed a beat. Ynyr snorted. He stamped a hind foot and threw up his head, causing Dafydd to jump back. Morwen said, “Ynyr! What’s the matter?”
Ynyr’s reaction meant something. It always did. Suspicion dawned, and grew swiftly. She thought she might understand now why Sir William and his son had come, and why she had been commanded to dress with care.
Jago appeared in the door to the tack room. “Miss Morwen,” he said. “All right, you?”
Tightly she answered, “Yes. Thank you, Jago.”
Dafydd said awkwardly, “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Morgan. I thought you knew.”
“It was my father’s task to warn me.”
“You haven’t consented, then.”
“Consented to marry you?” She glared at him. “I haven’t been asked. This is hardly the way to—”
“Oh no, Miss Morgan!” Dafydd said. His face reddened. “Oh, damn! I’m so sorry. I—Oh, damn and blast. You see, it’s not me.”
“What do you mean?” He looked utterly miserable, and terribly young. A warning chill began in her belly.
Dafydd said, “Miss Morgan. It’s my father who wants a wife. Your father and mine—they came to an agreement.”
The chill spread into Morwen’s chest and threatened to freeze her thoughts. She stammered, “Your father? That—that old man?”
Dafydd looked on the verge of tears. “I wish it weren’t true.”
Morwen’s knees trembled, and she took one stumbling step. Jago said, “Morwen! All right, you?”
Dafydd was closer. He took a quick step forward to put his hand under her arm. She leaned against it and drew a shuddering breath. He said, “I can’t believe no one told you.”
“Nor can I,” she said. She straightened, and freed herself from his hand.
“I don’t know what to say, Miss Morgan. Since my mother died, my father has been looking for someone to marry, and Lord Llewelyn said, as you were about to come out …”
“As if I were a horse for sale. Or a cow!” she said bitterly.
“I know. It’s the way they do things.”
“I won’t agree to it.”
“Obviously, my father’s too old for you. He wanted me to let you know I didn’t mind that you’re so young. Now that I’ve met you, though …”
Morwen’s knees no longer trembled, and the cold feeling had been replaced by an angry fire. “Now that you’ve met me—what?”
“Well,” Dafydd said, looking past her to Ynyr. The Shire stood with his head high, glaring at the boy as if it were all his fault. “Well, now I do mind. That you’re so young, I mean, to be married off to someone so old. It’s not fair.”
“And it’s not going to happen.” Morwen held out a hand to Jago. “Ynyr’s tack, please, Jago. I’m going out.”
Jago disappeared into the tack room and reappeared with Ynyr’s halter. He crossed the aisle and held it up. Ynyr ducked his head and slipped his nose neatly inside the straps.
Dafydd said, “Is that all? No bridle, or bit?”
“We don’t need it,” Morwen told him.
Jago asked, “Change clothes, you?”
Morwen shook her head. “Papa will stop me. There’s someone I need to see.”
Dafydd said, “I’ll come with you, Miss Morgan, if you have a horse I can borrow.”
Jago raised his eyebrows, but Morwen shook her head again. “I thank you, Dafydd. It’s kind of you, but your father would be furious. My father will be furious, when he finds out he can’t—” Her voice grew harsh. “He can’t sell me, as if I were one of his racehorses!”
“Nor can my father buy you,” Dafydd said. “Shall I tell them that?”
Morwen was clipping the rope beneath Ynyr’s chin, but she paused and looked back at her new and unlikely champion. “Do you dare? There’s going to be a frightful scene.”
“Yes, there is.” He grinned, revealing an endearing dimple in one cheek. She noticed how thick his eyelashes were, how clear his blue eyes. “It should make a fine entertainment.”
She tried to smile in answer. “Indeed, Dafydd, you make me wish I could take you with me, but I can’t.” She opened the half gate to the loose box and led Ynyr out. Dafydd’s eyes widened at the full sight of the big horse, but he overcame his awe to come around to Ynyr’s left and make a stirrup of his hands. Morwen put her slippered foot into his palms and jumped up to Ynyr’s back. Her skirts rode up around her knees, exposing her white-stockinged legs. Dafydd, with touching gallantry, averted his gaze.
“Off to the castle, you?” said Jago.
“Yes. Now, don’t fuss, Jago. I might be there for some time.”
“Have a care.”
“I will. Good-bye, Dafydd. I don’t know if I’ll see you again.”
Dafydd bowed to her, and she urged Ynyr out of the stables and down toward the river at a full gallop.
6
By the time Morwen and Ynyr climbed up from the river, shadows stretched down to meet them, elongated echoes of the jagged castle walls. Morwen, in her white tea gown, shivered with the sudden chill of premonition. For the comfort of his presence, she coaxed Ynyr to follow her in through the porch, where his hooves echoed on fragmented stone.
Morwen called, “Ursule? Grand-mère?” There was no answer.
There was little light except for the last glimmers of sunshine on the highest points of the walls. Reluctantly Morwen turned toward the tower. Only Ynyr’s bulk behind her gave her the courage to make her way there, to peek in through the empty doorway, and to call again, “Grand-mère? Are you there?”
The lintel was too low for Ynyr to pass beneath it. Morwen patted him, as much to calm herself as for his sake, then stepped through the doorway into the dimness of the tower.
She hadn’t been inside before, since Ursule had contrived to meet her in the porch. It was too dark to see details, but it was clear her grandmother had been living here for a time. Against the circular wall she made out the shape of a brazier on a tripod, and a little pile of things, a pot, a bowl, what looked as if it might be a coal scuttle. On the opposite side, a bundle slumped against the stone wall. Morwen thought it might be blankets, perhaps a pillow, things for Ursule to sleep on. She crept toward it, fighting an urge to flee back to Ynyr. Her heart hammered beneath her breastbone, and she whispered, “Grand-mère?”
Her eyes, adjusting to the gloom, made out what did indeed look like a pallet of blankets, mounded slightly in the middle. A thin pillow rested at one end, and on it there seemed to be something lying. An animal, perhaps? A white cat, glowing subtly in the darkness? It didn’t move as she drew closer.
She put out her hand to touch it, then snatched it back with a cry.
It was Ursule’s silver hair, spilled in a shining cascade over the dingy cushion.
Morwen fell to her knees beside the blanketed form of her dead grandmother. “Oh no,” she breathed. “Oh, poor, poor Grand-mère, to die here, all alone in the cold. Oh no …”
She had known Ursule Orchiére such a short time, too short a time, but the pain of loss pierced her heart as if she had known her all her life. She
knelt on the icy stones and wept a torrent of tears that burned her cheeks and fell on the white lace of her gown.
When Ynyr nickered a warning, she gulped back her tears and looked up. Evening had closed in around the castle, but it was still darker within than without. She clearly saw the silhouette of her mother in the doorway, outlined by the paler gloom of the sky. Irene, too, still wore her tea gown, but she had a woolen coat over it, and a scarf around her throat. She said, “Morwen! Whatever do you think you’re doing?”
“She’s dead, Maman,” Morwen said, in a voice rusty with weeping. “She died, all alone.” A fresh sob shook her, and she wailed, “All alone!”
Irene was at her side in a moment. She bent and put a hand beneath the ragged blanket that covered her mother’s body. With a sigh she straightened, and stood with her hands clasped before her. “You’re right,” she said. “She’s gone.”
Morwen struggled to her feet, her knees numb from contact with the cold stones. “You left her here to die!” she cried. “You left your mother here, to die in the dark, with no one to comfort her, no one to help her!”
“Don’t be a fool,” Irene said tightly. “She didn’t have to die here. She has a home.”
“Where? Where is her home?”
“The farm where I grew up.”
“But how far is it? How was she to get there?” Morwen was shouting now, leaning toward her mother, so close that her spittle, glistening in the low light, struck Irene’s pale face.
Irene pulled away from her. “How do you think she got here?” she said, but in a distracted way. She was frowning, looking down at the lifeless bundle of blankets. “Have you been in here before? Do you know where her things are?”
Morwen pressed her shaking hands to her face and groaned with impotent fury. “Things!” she grated. “Maman, she didn’t have any things. She had nothing!”
“She has Grand-mère’s book. She wouldn’t leave it behind.”
“Book? What do you mean, a book? She didn’t even have a proper bed!”
“I mean the grimoire, Morwen.” Irene was lifting the ragged blankets around Ursule’s body, feeling beneath them with her hands.
“Grimoire? What is that?”
“I haven’t explained it to you yet.” Irene straightened and crossed to the brazier to scatter Ursule’s few utensils. Over her shoulder she said, “It’s a book of spells. And potions, and other things.”
Morwen dropped her hands from her face and hugged herself against the dank cold of the tower. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Irene put her hands on her hips, gazing at her daughter with irritation. “It’s invaluable. Trust me, she would never have left it behind. We have to find it.”
“I don’t care about a book,” Morwen said. “I’m going to fetch Jago, so we can see that Ursule has a proper burial.”
“Not until we find it.”
“I told you, Maman, I don’t care, and I’m not going to help—”
Irene uttered an exclamation that echoed from the stone walls. “Here it is!” she cried. In her hands she held a thick, misshapen volume with a heavy, old-fashioned cover of cracked leather. She lifted it up to show Morwen. “This is the rest of my birthright,” she said triumphantly. “Now I have it all.”
Morwen felt the curl of her lip, her mother’s customary expression of disdain, but she couldn’t help it. “You didn’t care for her at all, did you?” she said. “The woman who bore you, who raised you, who—”
“Don’t be a fool.” Irene snatched up a bit of cloth and began to fold the old book into it. “What good would it do her now for me to wail and tear my hair? She wouldn’t expect it.”
Bitingly Morwen asked, “What would you do if it were me lying there?”
Her mother paused, the book in her arms, and turned a cold glance on her daughter. “Why speculate?” she said. “It’s not you.”
“Would you just leave her there to—to molder?”
“Molder?” Irene barked a laugh. “Where do you get such words?”
“Would you?” Morwen repeated, ignoring the barb.
“I didn’t ask her to come here,” Irene said, turning toward the door. “You had better go apologize to your father for vanishing without so much as a word of farewell to his guests.”
“His guests?” Morwen followed her mother and stood in the doorway. Irene stepped around Ynyr, who threw up his head and snorted as she passed him. “Do you know what his intention was?”
Irene cast her a brief glance over her shoulder. The stars had come out, and her pale face gleamed in their faint light. “Of course,” she said.
“And you said nothing?”
“What could I say? These are men’s decisions.”
“Sir William is old enough to be my father. My grandfather!”
“What difference does that make?”
“It’s disgusting!”
“You will be Lady Selwyn. The mistress of Sweetbriar.”
“I will not.”
Irene paced on through the courtyard to the entrance of the porch. There she hesitated and turned back. “The choice of your husband is not yours to make, nor is it mine. This is the way for women of our class. You’ll be happier when you accept that.”
“What good is our power, then?”
A chilly smile crossed Irene’s face, and she emitted the ghost of a laugh. “Our power makes it bearable,” she said softly. “We let them think they’re in control, but we take what we want, when they would refuse us.” The smile faded. “You’ll see,” she said, turning away, starting through the porch. “You’ll learn, just as I did.”
Morwen barely heard these last words, uttered when her mother was already in the outer courtyard. Ynyr bumped her with his nose as if to ask why they weren’t also on their way. Morwen encircled his head with her arm. “Ynyr,” she murmured. “I need Jago, but I don’t dare return to Morgan Hall. Will you fetch him for me?”
“Gave me a fright, you,” said Jago. He threw his leg over Ynyr’s withers and slid down to the ground, where Morwen, shivering in earnest now, waited for him. “Here. I brought you one of my coats, and some boots. Knew you left with nothing but your fancy dress, there.” She had drawn one of Ursule’s ancient blankets around her shoulders, but her slippers were too thin to block the chill of the hard ground.
“Th-thank you,” she stammered, through chattering teeth.
“When Ynyr came back without you …” Jago shook his head. “Lucky for me your note didn’t fall off his halter, or I’d have the constable searching for you right now, and His Lordship wouldn’t like that. Now, what’s this about?”
It was easier to lead Jago into the tower and show him than to try to explain. He had an oil lamp with him, and he held it high when they were inside the dank tower room. In an instant he grasped the situation. “This is your reason for riding up here so often.”
“Yes.” Morwen went to crouch beside Ursule’s small, still form. She touched the cascade of silver hair, which shone in the lamplight as if there were still life in it. “She’s my grandmother,” Morwen said brokenly. “I’ve only just found her, and now I’ve lost her again!”
“Miss Morwen—your grandmother?” Jago frowned and held the lamp higher. “Why do you think that?”
“She told me. And Maman said so, too.”
“Was she here? Lady Irene?”
“Yes.”
“But not today! Not since—” Jago nodded toward the pitiful little form on the pallet.
“Yes, today,” Morwen said mournfully.
“She left you here with a corpse?” Jago’s voice dropped ominously, and a note came into it that Morwen had heard only twice. Once was when a stablehand had whipped a colt until it bled. The other was when a careless rider had startled her pony so she was thrown; though she hadn’t been hurt, Jago had threatened to whip the other rider.
In the flickering lamplight, Jago’s face hardened. His dark eyes narrowed to slits. “Your mother left you here
with a dead woman.”
There was no need to answer. The evidence lay, still and sad, at their feet.
In that same harsh voice, Jago said, “What do you want to do, Miss Morwen?”
“I want to take my grand-mère to Father Pugh. He’ll see she’s properly buried.”
“Then that we shall do.”
“You’re so good, Jago,” she said impulsively. “You’re like—like a father to me!”
It was as if she had thrown her arms around him, or kissed his cheek. Despite the uncertainty of the light, she saw his cheeks blaze. His lips parted as if he would answer her, but he shook his head and turned abruptly away. Intuition pierced her breastbone. “Jago?”
He was almost to the doorway. His steps faltered, then steadied. He set the lamp down inside the wall and went out. She heard Ynyr’s hooves on the stones of the porch, and then, with softer thuds, in the grassy inner courtyard. Jago reappeared in the tower. “It won’t seem respectful,” he said. “But it’s best to put—to put the body—to let Ynyr carry her.”
“Jago.” Morwen crossed to him, her hands out. She gripped his arm and didn’t let go until he dropped his gaze to hers. “It’s you, isn’t it?” she whispered. “It’s not Papa. It’s you.”
“Morwen, I can’t—I wouldn’t presume—”
“I would be glad of it.” She squeezed his arm with both hands, willing him to confirm what her gift was telling her. He had never, in her memory, called her by her Christian name alone. It was always “Miss Morwen.”
But now she knew, though she didn’t quite understand how it could be. “Did you love her?” she asked. “Did she love you?”
“I can’t speak of this,” he said. He removed her hands from his arm, but gently, and he patted them before he let them go. “She’ll send me away.”
“I’m leaving anyway,” Morwen said. “I must. They want me to marry that—that old man—Dafydd’s father. I won’t.”
“But she knows where you are. She’ll send them after you.”
The truth of this made Morwen shiver, and she pulled his coat tighter around her. “I can’t leave my grandmother here in the cold,” she said.
A Secret History of Witches Page 27