The flittering lights in the crystal stilled and coalesced. Ynyr, her beautiful silver stallion, stood with his head high, his mane lifting in a breeze, and his ears cocked toward her as if he knew she was there. Behind him rose the arched windows of St. Hilary Church, where she and Jago had left Ursule with Father Pugh.
And beside him, eyes narrowing as he tried to see what Ynyr sensed, was Jago himself.
She should have known. Irene had rid herself of both of them with a single stroke. She had been certain she could control Morwen if Ynyr was gone, and sending Jago off with the horse solved both her problems.
Morwen’s fatigue lifted from her like a mist dissipating in the morning sun. She cried to the image in the crystal, “I see you, Ynyr! I’m coming! Jago, wait for me!”
Jago still peered forward, unaware of her, but Ynyr—marvelous, magical Ynyr—nodded his head, and though she couldn’t hear his snort, she could see his feet stamping, and his long tail switching back and forth. Jago pulled on his rope, trying to make him move, but Ynyr tossed his head in refusal. Jago tugged again, scowling. Though she could hear nothing, Morwen thought she saw his lips move in a curse, or perhaps a plea.
Swiftly she caressed the stone and murmured her thanks. She covered it again and gathered it into her arms as she stood up. It was a long walk back to St. Hilary, and she must hurry. Ynyr understood her call, but Jago did not. She had to reach them before he forced Ynyr to move even farther away from her.
The sun was high by the time Morwen spotted the gray stone spire of St. Hilary Church rising against the cloud-flecked sky. Sweat rolled down her ribs beneath her heavy jacket, but her weary brain couldn’t think how to remove it without laying down the crystal, and she dared not do that. Her legs cried out for respite, and her sleepless eyes were dry and scratchy, but she pressed on, squinting from beneath the brim of her hat, searching for a glimpse of a dapple-gray horse or Jago’s slim dark figure. Another twenty minutes passed, the tension growing in her back and shoulders. At last she reached the little graveyard with its array of ancient headstones, and circled the stone wall to the back of the church.
Relief weakened her knees.
She could see Jago had been trying, and failing, to persuade the Shire to walk on. He had gotten Ynyr as far as the shade offered by a stand of gnarled elms at the edge of the village square. There, it seemed, Ynyr had planted his feet and refused to move. Jago slumped on the ground, his back braced against a trunk and his head bent in an attitude of exhaustion. Ynyr’s head, too, sagged toward the ground, and his ears drooped in dispirited fashion.
Morwen tried to call out to them, but her voice cracked in her dry throat. She staggered forward, nearly at the end of her strength.
Ynyr sensed her approach. His head flew up, and his nostrils fluttered as he drew a deep breath to whinny.
“No, Ynyr,” Morwen cried. Her voice was thin, almost inaudible, but Ynyr understood. He made no sound, but jerked the rope from Jago’s limp hand and trotted toward her, the halter rope trailing between his forelegs. He stopped when he reached her, dropping his muzzle to her shoulder. With a sob she pressed close to him, holding the crystal in one arm and encircling his neck with the other. For a moment they stood that way, Ynyr trembling as much as Morwen.
“Miss Morwen,” Jago said. His voice, too, broke with fatigue.
Morwen twisted so she could see him without leaving the comfort of Ynyr’s bulk. “Oh, Jago,” she said miserably. “We have to get away, and soon! My mother—”
“She ordered me to take Ynyr to the horse market at Cardiff. I wanted to refuse, but she has her ways. I couldn’t do it. You’re meant to stay here.”
“I’m going to London. I’m never going back to Morgan Hall.”
“She’ll come after you, lass,” Jago said tiredly. “No one can stand up to her.”
“I can,” Morwen said. She took Ynyr’s rope and looped it over her shoulder.
“I fear not, Miss Morwen. It’s something I know better than most.”
“But why, Jago?” Morwen heard the quaver in her voice, but she was half-crazed with tiredness, and she couldn’t help it. “Did you not—I mean—if it’s you who fathered me, in truth—did you not care for her?”
Jago, too, was too weary to be careful in his words. He spit upon the ground beneath the elm trees, and said with deep bitterness, “Care for her? No, lass. I’m sorry to say it, but I have hated her from the day she came to Morgan Hall.”
“Then why, Jago? Why did you—you and she—”
He looked away from her, out beyond the slanting gravestones and the lichened stones of the church wall. “They’re coming,” he said.
Morwen whirled and saw a cloud of dust on the road, a cloud only the motorcar could raise. “Hurry!” she cried. “Ynyr will carry us.”
“He’s that tired, Morwen. I don’t know—”
“We all are, but we have to get away!” She led Ynyr to a jagged stump in the center of the little grove, and gestured to Jago to follow. “Hurry, hurry!”
Even then Jago hesitated, as the growing sound of the tonneau reached their ears. At last he stepped up on the stump, but his expression was as bleak as if he were stepping up onto a gallows. Morwen swung herself up onto Ynyr’s broad back and reached down to help Jago do the same. When they were both settled, and she had the crystal cradled neatly between her belly and Ynyr’s withers, she said, “Now, Ynyr! Swiftly!”
The horse sprang forward into his strong, swinging trot. Jago gasped and seized Morwen’s waist. She had clamped her long legs firmly around Ynyr’s barrel, and her right hand held a fist of his mane. Her left balanced the stone and held the end of the rope, which swung in a loose loop below his neck. As he always did, Ynyr knew the direction she wanted. He struck out smoothly toward the track that led from St. Hilary to the point where the river curved to the southeast. The track was too narrow and rough for the motorcar.
“Just till we’re out of their reach,” she told Jago over her shoulder. “Then we’ll rest.”
“If they catch us, they’ll hang me,” he said.
“And burn me,” she answered.
When he made no response, she suspected he knew what she was, and knew what her mother was. She snugged the crystal close against her body, and felt the assurance of Ursule from beyond the grave. “They won’t find us, Jago.”
“Sure of that, you?”
“Yes.” She felt the tingle of energy from the stone, vibrating through its linen wrappings, and she closed her eyes in a rush of gratitude toward her ancestress. “Yes. I’m quite, quite sure.”
8
When Morwen and Ynyr and Jago reached London, and found their first grimy flat above a fish shop, Morwen took care to hide the crystal where no one could find it. In those first tumultuous weeks, while Jago scrambled to find work and Morwen struggled to look after Ynyr in the noisy and noisome streets of the city, the two of them were constantly looking over their shoulders, fearful of being discovered. It was a time of uncertainty and revelation, of despair over finding enough to eat, and the hope of being free of Lady Irene’s power.
Morwen knew, now, how her mother had used Jago. She had brewed a potion, a concoction of coltsfoot and lovage roots, lady’s mantle and mullein and mistletoe, innocent enough in themselves, dangerously potent when combined by a witch in full command of her powers. Jago had a prodigious memory for words, and he recalled Lady Irene triumphantly reciting it to him.
“Couldn’t resist it,” he confessed. “She put it in my cider, and I drank it before I understood. After that, it was like—like being hungrier than you’ve ever been in your life, starving. And the food is right there, tempting you, even forced upon you. I hated myself afterward, but it was too late. It was done.”
Morwen reached out to touch his arm, and felt the responding quiver of his muscles that told her he still wasn’t easy with her treating him as an equal. As a father.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He turned his dark eyes on he
r, and she saw pride and sadness and fear in them. “I’m not,” he said. “She forced me to give her the babe she wanted, that’s true. But I could never be sorry you’re in this world, Morwen.”
She had, at least, persuaded him to stop calling her Miss Morwen, mostly in order to avoid drawing attention. When asked, they said they were father and daughter, come from Wales in search of work. They explained Ynyr as the last of their farm stock, and they had to dodge several offers to buy him.
That first flat, reeking of fish from the shop below, they paid for with the meager cash Jago had carried away in his pockets. The landlord, who was stout and rather stupid, but painfully honest, allowed Morwen to stable Ynyr in the yard. She paid for this privilege by driving to the Docklands each morning with an empty cart, returning with it full of fish. Jago objected at first to Morwen’s rising before dawn to drive out among a throng of rowdy fishmongers, but she tossed her head, dismissing his fears. “I can handle them.”
“Not the daughter of the manor anymore, you,” was Jago’s response.
“I have Ynyr to protect me.”
Jago scowled, but there was little he could say. They had few choices. In the actual event, Morwen found the Docklands fascinating, with fishermen and fishwives hawking the day’s catch. She worried about Ynyr slipping on the slimy cobblestones, but the sheer size of him meant her cart was treated with respect. When Jago found a job driving a Humber taxicab, and they moved to a better part of town, leaving the fish cart behind, Morwen missed her trips along the Thames, though she could not be sorry to leave the stench of fish.
Life was far easier in Islington, with its sturdy houses and wider streets, than it had been in the East End. They found a roomy flat above the Chapel Market, with windows on three sides, and a small parlor between the kitchen and the two bedrooms. Ynyr was stabled at the end of the road, with several carriage horses and a few mounts kept for ladies and gentlemen to ride. Jago and another taxicab driver considered starting their own firm, with a little fleet of vehicles, employing out-of-work horsemen. Morwen consulted the crystal over this, and it showed her an image of a thriving business, with a garage and a staff of drivers and mechanics.
The crystal’s prophecy came true swiftly, and Morwen settled in over the next months to learn to cook, to clean, and to manage a house on her own, all things she had never learned under Mademoiselle’s tutelage. It was a different life from anything she had ever expected, but it was not unpleasant. She mourned Ursule, so briefly known, but she was occupied morning and night with housewifery, and in the afternoons with riding Ynyr in Regent’s Park among the palfreys and high-steppers. Many months passed, and she left the crystal in its hiding place, untouched, living as any other young woman of modest station might live.
She often sat with Jago in their parlor in the evenings. As Jago drowsed, his hands across his lean belly, Morwen read the Evening News. One night, when she happened across a piece about Welsh politics, she was startled to realize that a year had passed since her escape from Morgan Hall, a startlingly brief time for her life to have been so thoroughly transformed. Lord Llewelyn’s name appeared in the article, though it gave no personal information. Morwen let the paper fall into her lap and stared into the flames of the coal fire, thinking about him, and about her mother.
Lady Irene, she had decided, for all her beauty and power, was a woman without love. She cared for no one except herself. She had not loved her own mother, nor had she loved her husband. She had, in her odd way, tried to do her duty by her daughter, explaining the mystery of her birthright, but that, too, had been done without affection. It must be a lonely life.
As the coal in the grate turned to ash and disintegrated, Morwen pondered, and wondered if she could have managed things better. Her father—or the man who thought he was her father—must have been hurt, or at least humiliated, by her disappearance. Irene had lost the thing most precious to her in the world, the Orchiére crystal. There was, Morwen thought, a great deal of pain in the world. She wished she hadn’t had to inflict more of it.
She was still thinking of this the next day. She and Ynyr indulged in a longer ride than usual, enjoying an unusually warm October day. A brief rain the night before had cleared the coal dust from the air, and they were both exhilarated by the clouds of golden leaves and the sparkle of sunshine on the canal. When the angle of the sunlight told Morwen it was time to turn back toward Islington, she stopped at the fountain to let Ynyr dip his muzzle into the water.
She dismounted, ignoring the curious glances, and wondering if the city people would ever get used to the sight of a girl riding a draft horse instead of being properly mounted, and bareback instead of in a ladylike sidesaddle. At first the stares of Londoners had made her cheeks burn and her neck prickle. She was tempted, often, to snap at them, to point out that her much-mended riding habit should make it clear she wasn’t a lady. She wanted to tell them to mind their own business, but she held her tongue. The last thing she and Jago needed was to draw attention to themselves.
While Ynyr drank she leaned her forehead against his neck and murmured her thoughts, still upon her mother.
“She couldn’t change the way she was, could she, Ynyr? I could forgive her not loving me, even forgive her for what she did to Jago. But she tried to send you away—when she knows what it is to lose your spirit familiar—and that I will never forgive.”
Ynyr, muzzle dripping, lifted his head and blew, spattering drops of water across her skirt. Laughing, she patted him and brushed at the spots. “So you agree,” she said. “In that case, I’ll stop worrying about it!”
Again he blew, and bent his neck deeply so he could butt her gently with his broad head. She seized his forelock and tugged it. “I would have done anything,” she whispered, fiercely now. “Anything! Rather than lose you.”
The big horse held very still as she embraced his neck, and she felt the beating of his great heart near her own as if the two of them inhabited one body.
“Still riding that giant, I see!” came a laughing voice behind her.
Tension closed Morwen’s throat. In all these long months, she had encountered no one in London who could recognize her. But now …
Slowly, warily, she turned toward the speaker, narrowing her eyes and preparing to deny the acquaintance. When she realized who it was, she caught a breath. “Dafydd Selwyn! However did you come to be here?”
Dafydd said cheerily, “I might ask you the same, Miss Morgan. Such a turnup you left behind! Both our fathers were furious, and not a soul had a clue where you went. Everyone went on about it for months.”
She remembered, as she watched his laughing face, how much she had liked him at their brief meeting. He had grown taller, and his chest and shoulders had filled out. His legs showed ridges of muscle beneath his jodhpurs. He lifted his charmingly battered trilby, grinning as he slid down from his chestnut gelding.
Ynyr turned his head to regard Dafydd with calm eyes. He blew once through his nostrils and nodded, jingling the buckle on his halter. Morwen said gravely, “It appears the giant likes you, Master Selwyn.”
“I count myself fortunate, then.” Dafydd patted Ynyr’s shoulder and loosened the rein so his own horse could drink. “We have stories to tell each other, I think, Miss Morgan.”
“You won’t betray me to my father?”
“Not if you won’t betray me to mine.” Dafydd’s gay expression sobered. “We have fallen out, I fear, although not as dramatically as you and your parents did.”
“If you were close, then I’m sorry.”
Dafydd sighed and ran a hand through his thick brown hair. He wore it shorter than she remembered, and he sported a slender mustache. “We were not close,” he said, “but I am his heir, and it’s awkward to be estranged.”
“Did he remarry?”
“He did. An amiable widow, twice your age. Far more suitable.”
“You like her, then.”
“She’s tolerable. More so than Sir William has ever been!�
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“You came to London to live? By yourself?”
“Well, with my staff. I inherited a house from my mother.”
Morwen, averting her eyes, stroked the chestnut’s neck. After a moment’s hesitation she asked, “Do you have news of my parents?”
“No good news, I’m afraid. Do you want to hear it?”
She hesitated again before she said, “Yes. I—I think I should.”
“We should talk over a cup of tea or something. Not out here in Regent’s Park, with the whole world watching.”
She took a startled look around. “Is there someone who could see us? Who would carry the tale all the way back to Wales?”
“Oh no, I don’t think so. It’s just that—well. I don’t want to upset you.”
Morwen emitted a bitter laugh. “Upset me! Dafydd, after the year I’ve had, I’m not sure you can say anything that will upset me!”
“It’s your mother.”
At this, Morwen’s laugh died away. “What is it?” she whispered.
Dafydd spoke with reluctance. “The rumor is that Lord Llewelyn accused his wife of something. Some people say it was infidelity. Others say it was something worse. Something evil. But it’s all rumor, Miss Morgan. Servants’ gossip.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Well.” He tapped his thigh with his quirt. “It was months after you disappeared, I believe. It seems—that is, what they say is—there was a terrible row, and after it the Lady Irene disappeared. Vanished. The servants say she departed Morgan Hall in the middle of the night, alone, leaving all her belongings behind.”
“But where? And how?”
“If anyone knows, they haven’t said. Lord Llewelyn forbade anyone to look for her. There’s a rumor that he—” He paused and cleared his throat.
“What?” Morwen whispered.
“It’s just a wild rumor. Some say Lord Llewelyn killed his wife, but I won’t believe that. I know him, and he wouldn’t …”
Words, spoken long ago in Irene’s hard voice, sounded from Morwen’s memory: For a witch to be exposed means risking death. But surely Papa couldn’t have—he wouldn’t …
A Secret History of Witches Page 29