by Linda Davies
‘There are thieves abroad. And worse,’ replied the woman in an odd, stilted English. She shook her head. ‘Come, quickly, you would not want the Earl de Courcy and his men to find you disrobed so.’
‘His men?’
The old lady gave her an odd look. ‘Let us not tarry, girl.’ She picked up a basket and with her other hand, grabbed Merry’s arm. ‘Come.’
Merry felt light-headed, disconnected, as though she were stuck in a dream. She let the old lady hurry her along. The wood seemed to go on for ever. Merry gazed around in disbelief. Finally they emerged from the trees beside a tethered pony – black but not Jacintha – and a ragged cart.
Merry gazed around. She couldn’t breathe. There was Sarn Helen, cutting along the high plain, and the standing stone, Maen Llia. But where there should be just the rolling grasses of the plain, there were thick clumps of trees. And no telegraph poles, no tarmac cutting through the valley like a black scar. The scene swirled before her. Merry let out a sob as dizziness closed in.
Swaying motion, clicking hooves, rough blanket covering her. Smelling of herbs and the oily, animal tang of unbleached wool. Almost gagging, Merry came around. Pushed off the blanket. She was lying in a cart, being pulled by the black pony and driven by the old lady.
She sat up, wrapped the blanket around her, scrambled forward, balancing precariously on the swaying cart.
‘Where am I?’ she hissed at the old woman, looking around desperately.
There was the Black Castle, standing in stark isolation. But all the laurel bushes, all James’s mother’s soft landscaping was gone. Her eye swept to the other side of the valley. But where her home should have been, there was another house, a different, smaller, less well-tended house. The extension her father had built was gone. She rubbed her eyes.
‘Where am I? What is this?’ she yelled, confusion making her wild. ‘Take me home! Now! I am Merry Owen! Take me home!’ She felt the need to say who she was, as if saying it would make sense of what was happening.
‘Merry Owen?’ asked the woman. ‘The Owens of Nanteos Farm?’
‘Of course! Caradoc Owen is my father.’
‘Glyndŵr Owen, you mean. And Rhiannon is your mother?’
‘No!’ screamed Merry. ‘Elinor is my mother. Caradoc is my father. Gawain is my brother!’
Was she mad, or was the woman? Was she kidnapping her? Had she drugged her?
They continued on up the hill, to where Seren’s house should be. But this too was different. Seren’s house had roses and lavender and quince trees, not firs. And it was two storeys, not one. And the stone was whitewashed, not plain. Seren’s house had a slate roof, not thatched.
The woman climbed down from the cart, tethered her pony. ‘Come on, girl. Get within before you catch your death.’
‘This is Seren’s house!’ shouted Merry.
The woman scowled at Merry. ‘It is my house, girl, and I am Mair, not Seren.’
Merry looked at the woman in horror. She must be demented or lying.
Piercing the silence, a distant hound gave a blood-curdling call. Merry shivered, pulled the blanket tighter. But driven by curiosity and by the cold, and by a desperate desire to see Seren, Merry got down from the cart and followed the woman inside.
The door shut. A bolt slid home. Then another.
Merry let out a low moan. ‘This is wrong,’ she said. ‘This is Seren’s cottage, Ty Gwyn,’ she repeated. This was where she spent two hours each week, sitting at the kitchen table as Seren taught her botany. Only it wasn’t.
The woman shook her head. She bent over a trunk, pulled out a bundle. ‘Put these on,’ she said, handing Merry a pale linen shirt, a brown wool tunic and a shawl.
Merry looked at them in puzzlement. ‘These look like they belong in a museum.’
The healer gave her a look of sheer incomprehension. ‘They are serviceable and warm and better than nakedness!’
Merry pulled on the clothes. They were rough against her skin, but she immediately began to warm up.
She looked around, her mind rebelling at what she saw. At what she did not see. Where the terracotta-tiled floor should have been was a rough stone floor, with gaps revealing the earth below. Where the oven should have been was a huge open hearth where hunks of wood burnt. A basic-looking oven was built into the side.
Her mind spun. She could not be seeing what was before her. She must be concussed, oxygen-starved, mad in some unknown, terrifying way. Had she died? Another wave of dizziness broke over her. She reached out, grabbed the rough-hewn table, steadied herself. Sucking in deep breaths, desperately trying to get back to herself, to normal, she watched the woman busying herself.
She took a log and fed the fire; then she swung a large, iron kettle, suspended on an iron arm, over the flames. She took a stick, stuck its tip into the fire till it caught; then she lit a thick candle. A horrible stench wafted up.
Merry wrinkled her nose.
The woman, Mair, paused, planted her hands on her hips, eyed Merry with a mocking look. ‘Used to expensive beeswax candles, are you?’ she asked.
Merry shook her head. Nothing made sense. ‘What’s that made from, then?’ she asked, nodding at the candle, desperate to get her bearings, to understand even a bit of what seemed to be going on in this alien but familiar place. ‘Why does it stink of rotting fish?’
‘Tallow. And glycerine,’ said the woman. ‘Not what fine ladies have to put up with,’ she added tartly. She poured a thick broth from a pot on the fire into a cup, and handed it to Merry. ‘Drink.’
‘It might be poison,’ said Merry belligerently.
The old lady narrowed her eyes. ‘It might be. A herbalist must know the killing plants as well as those that cure.’
She bent forward towards Merry, anger in her eyes.
‘You’d be dead already if I wished it. That’s if the earl and his men hadn’t got you first …’
Her voice tailed off as a great bugling of horns sounded in the valley, followed by the pounding of galloping hooves.
Merry put down the cup and crossed to the window. Where there should have been glass there was just a thin sheet of pale linen. It was hard to see through, but she could see enough.
‘What the …’
A troop of men and a sole woman, all of them in costume, were riding with a pack of wolfhounds, pursuing a herd of Welsh Mountain ponies that galloped from them in terror. Merry shuddered. This was how her stallion had died, pursued by the earl’s wolfhounds. This couldn’t be happening.
The ponies got to the stream. The stallion led them across, the mares followed, but two of the foals couldn’t make it. They were small, the water deep and fast. The dogs got them as they struggled in the current. One of the mares stumbled. The men drew back their spears and threw. The mare took a spear in her flank.
The surviving ponies jumped a stone wall and galloped on. A wild-looking man with long fair hair came running out of what should have been her house, had it not been smaller, different. Then a woman and two children rushed out.
The man was shaking his fist, shouting at the hunters, gesticulating at the fleeing ponies. One of the riders reined in, drew back his whip and lashed at the protester. Merry watched as the fair-haired man grabbed the whipcord and pulled his attacker off his horse. Quickly, and brutally, some of the other hunters leapt from their horses and began to beat the man. He fought back ferociously, though he was heavily outnumbered. It took a while for his attackers to drive him to the ground with boots and fists.
Merry wheeled from the window, ran to the door. She hauled back the heavy bolts, rushed out, preparing to scream at them to stop. A rough hand slammed over her mouth.
‘Silence! Fool!’ hissed the old lady. ‘Want to get yourself whipped or worse?’
Mair’s fear was real, and contagious. Merry shook her head and the old lady removed her hand. The escaping ponies galloped by, tails streaming out behind them as they fled up the hill to safety.
Merry turned back to
the huntsmen and their victim on the ground. With a sense of horror, confusion and disbelief, she watched the scene unfold.
‘This is our king, vermin,’ yelled one of the velvet-clad huntsmen, so loudly his clipped tones carried up the hill. ‘You would order him off your land?’
‘What, this peasant is the owner of this land?’ asked another man, incredulous. He looked huge, with an elaborate plumed hat, a fur-and-velvet jacket, a riot of scarlet and ruffles. He had a broad face with small, beady eyes. His horse was huge and black, one of the finest Merry had seen. He was very obviously the leader of this weird pack. He looked vaguely familiar. Were they actors, wondered Merry?
‘Blame the Black Prince, my Liege,’ the first man replied. ‘This man’s forebear saved his life at the Battle of Crécy. In return, he was granted this farmhouse and this land.’
‘Saved the life of his prince, did he?’ asked the big man. ‘Well, a healthy precedent, one might say,’ he added, provoking a chorus of laughter. He eyed the man on the ground and his voice turned harsh. ‘You will remain in the Earl de Courcy’s dungeons while we decide your fate. If it weren’t for your sporting forebear I’d have decreed already.’
‘Your Majesty, you must forgive me,’ said the man, getting to his feet, wiping the blood from his face. ‘I did not know it was you. All I knew was that these ponies were on my land, where they should be safe from the reach of the Black Castle.’
‘Your land?’ boomed the huge man. ‘There is no land in the kingdom that cannot become mine if it is my wish!’
‘But, Your Majesty,’ the man continued, ‘there is a pledge! The Black Prince himself decreed—’
‘Silence!’ screamed the first man. ‘Do not dare to address His Majesty. To the dungeons! And if you break your silence again, your woman and children will join you!’
The fair-haired man said no more. Merry watched him being dragged off, hands bound, the rope tied to one of the mounted horses. Four men on horseback accompanied him, while the other five and the one woman dug their spurs into their mounts and galloped off after the ponies, who now had a sizeable lead.
The farmer’s wife and children, one of whom had a small bow, were weeping, calling out to the tethered man, and pleading with the hunters. Who ignored them.
Mair hurried Merry back into the darkness of her cottage as the hunting party thundered by. Peering through a crack in the door, Merry saw the woman was dressed in lush green velvet, with a lavishly feathered hat, and rode a magnificent black Arab horse.
She turned to the old lady, whose face had gone pale. ‘Who are those men and that woman? Why are they in costume? Why are they hunting ponies on my land and who was the man who tried to stop them? What’s all this talk of king and majesty? Is this some weird movie?’
‘Movie? What in the name of God is a movie? And that land …’ The old lady glowered at her. ‘That’s Longbowman Owen’s land!’
‘Exactly,’ replied Merry.
The old woman shook her head and carried on, her voice low and slow, as if she were conversing with an idiot. ‘As for those hunters, that’s the Earl and Countess de Courcy and their men-at-arms, and as you can see, they’re doing the king’s bidding, with the king himself alongside.’
‘What king? What bidding?’
‘King Henry, of course!’ exclaimed the woman, losing patience. ‘That was the king riding by! They’re following his command. Kill all the wild ponies below fifteen hands high. He thinks it’ll improve his stock of war horses,’ she added bitterly.
‘War horses?’ mouthed Merry.
‘War horses,’ snapped back the woman. ‘These Welsh ponies are deemed too small. So they’re hunted down, speared, fed to those wretched hounds.’
Merry felt her world spinning. She took a step backwards, steadied herself against the door. The huge man on the horse, the square face, the small but imperious eyes … she had seen him before. In the history books …
Now she understood the riddle of her book.
As the lost tale of the Mabinogion had prophesied, she had followed through.
Into sixteenth-century Wales.
Into the brutal kingdom of Henry VIII.
It was her world but not her world. She was five hundred years away from home. The question raging in her head, shouting for an answer, was: How do I get home? Her book said nothing about getting back, just passing through … But for the moment, all she could think of was her ancestor being dragged off to the dungeons.
‘What will happen to Longbowman Owen?’ she asked.
‘He’ll be beaten, thrown into de Courcys’ dungeon on some false charge. Let’s pray it is not insulting his king.’
‘What happens if he is found guilty? If he is said to have insulted his king?’
‘That’s treason,’ Mair said almost in a whisper. ‘And they hang traitors.’
‘You have to stop them!’ cried Merry.
The old woman sat down heavily on a bench by the table. She twisted arthritic fingers together, seemingly debating with herself. ‘I will try,’ she said at last. ‘I shall write to the Bishop of St David’s, seek his help. He can intervene with the king, or with his henchman, Thomas Cromwell. And the de Courcys owe me. I saved the countess’s life once when she cut her arm.’
Merry nodded. No antibiotics in this time. A septic cut would be a death sentence.
‘I’ll seek an audience,’ Mair was saying, ‘but the earl is a cruel man who hates the Owens and covets their land. He’s burning up with ancient wrongs he thinks it’s time to right.’
‘When his land was given to the longbowman at the Battle of Crécy,’ murmured Merry.
The old woman’s eyes flared in surprise. ‘How did you know that?’
Merry just shook her head.
The woman gave her a probing look but continued. ‘The earl will want to seize his chance. He may petition the king to have Longbowman Owen dragged off to the Tower of London. ‘
Merry felt a coldness seep through her. She walked to the window, gazed across the valley and beyond to the Beacons, to the forested slopes where the river ran, where the water pooled, where escape lay. She felt a strange fever of indecision: desperate to go, compelled to stay.
She’d swum the riddle pool, survived when many had died. She had strength and she had knowledge. If her ancestor was hanged, or died in the dungeons, a victim of the de Courcys’ violent henchmen, then perhaps she would never be born … Who knew if the line continued through the two children she’d seen? This was a harsh time. Many children didn’t make it to adulthood. Many women didn’t survive childbirth …
Across the valley lay the Black Castle, more stark and impenetrable than ever.
Only it wasn’t.
Not if you knew a secret way in.
Merry looked out at the gathering night. Darkness would hide her but it would make finding her way back to the cave horribly difficult.
‘I have to go,’ she said, making up her mind.
‘Wait,’ said Mair. She moved to her pantry, took out an earthenware jar, poured a stream of thin gold liquid into a rough mug.
‘Here. Mallow juice and honey. To restore.’ She gave Merry a mocking smile. ‘Not to kill.’
Merry sat down on the bench. The old woman stood watching her, warming her back by the fire. Merry eyed her over the rim of the mug.
‘I believe you. Not because I think you could not kill but because I think you’re telling the truth.’
She sipped. The drink was sweet, with a slight taste of roots.
‘Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. You should be careful who you trust.’
Merry looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I am,’ was all she said.
The woman turned away, bustled in her pantry, returned with a pewter plate.
‘You should eat too,’ she said, offering it to Merry.
‘Thank you.’ Merry felt half starving, half sick with fear, but she ate. She needed to.
The bread was dark and grainy, the cheese rich.
The old lady went into a side room and came back with Merry’s head torch, sheathed knife and thigh strap. She removed the knife from the sheath.
‘Never seen anything so fine,’ she said, turning the handle so the firelight glinted off lethal steel.
‘Good, isn’t it?’
‘I’m wondering why a girl with your aristocratic bearing carries such a blade?’
‘I’m no aristo.’
‘Not used to tallow candles. Only aristocrats and the church have beeswax. Tall and well fed. Like a girl of noble birth.’ Mair paused, put down the knife and took Merry’s hand in hers. She turned it, tracing her fingers over the palm.
‘What, you a palmist?’ asked Merry.
The woman laughed. ‘Don’t need palms to see!’
Merry felt a punch of realization. This woman was Seren’s ancestor. A healer who had the sight, just like all those who had gone before.
‘No, I’m looking at these calluses … wondering how a fine lady got them. If you weren’t female, I’d say you had archer’s hands.’
Merry smiled but said nothing.
‘The hands, the knife, the lost eye …’ The old woman’s gaze went faraway. Then it snapped back to Merry. ‘Are you some kind of warrior?’
Merry reached for her knife, sheathed it and strapped it to her thigh, where the short wool tunic just about covered it. She pulled on her head torch but kept it turned off.
‘Just a traveller,’ she said.
Then she slipped out into the closing night.
The valley was drenched with moonlight. It reflected off the black granite of the castle, shimmered on the stream and silvered the dew-laced grass.
Slipping from copse to copse, keeping low, Merry moved through the night. She kept the weight on the outside of her feet, just as Professor Parks had taught her. A useful skill, for a hunter. She had a sense that in this time, it was a straight choice – that if you weren’t a hunter, you could only be prey.
She scanned left to right in a wide arc.
There was no sign that anyone else was around. No more birds erupted from their roosts. No twigs cracked. No movement except for the trees swaying in the breeze and sheep shifting on the hillside. She guessed that nights in the sixteenth century saw everyone tucked up in cottage or castle. Everyone save the predators, the wild animals, the thieves and vagabonds. And her.