The Silver Witch

by Paula Brackston

  There is a cry. From the second rider. The swordsman hesitates. He looks away from me, first toward his fellow, then forward. He does not bring down his mighty sword. He does not deliver the fatal blow. Instead he staggers backward, in such haste that he stumbles, dropping his weapon and falling onto the snow, only to scramble as quickly to his feet once more. Both men are shouting now. As my attacker hauls himself onto his whinnying horse and whips it into a gallop, I hear a low rumble behind me. With failing strength, I roll to my side and push myself up onto my elbow, raising my shattered head as best I can. Now I see what has driven terror into their black hearts—the Afanc! She has returned to save me! She rears up, high above the water, lifting her head and letting loose a blast of sound unlike any that exists apart from within her. Her noble face is the last thing I see before I slump into the snow and drift into the comfort of the beckoning darkness.

  * * *

  On my bed of snow, the winter air filling my lungs, the cold masks my pain. I do not suffer. I could slumber here, as I fade to eternal stillness, and not experience any agony of death. It is tempting to do so. To allow myself to be drawn to that place where I may at last take my ease, no longer troubled by the woes of the world, the quarrels of men, the ravages of age, the ache of my own foolish heart. Yes, it is tempting. But what of my prince, then? If he is truly in danger, and now I must believe him to be, who else but I can warn him of the treachery that will see him dead? I must tell him of my vision. I must show him what happens to those who point the finger of suspicion at his nonblood kin. I must speak to him. I must go to him.

  But my senses are numbed, my limbs doubled in weight, my will draining away with my blood into the snow. Such a cumbersome thing, the body of a human. Too much reliance lies in the head. Too much. We have let our frames become frailer down generations, in favor of our seething minds and greedy hearts. Instinct has been dulled by thought. I cannot get to my feet, let alone drag myself back to the crannog. As I am, I am finished. My only hope, then, is to become other than I am.

  I have none of my shaman’s tools to aid me. I am away from my potions and infusions. I do not have the luxury of time to conjure or spellcast. I must act quickly, before the cold that holds me so softly hastens me to my end. I must make that leap, as I have done so many times before, but this time I make it unaided. And I must do so not in a vision, not leaving my womanly body to sit by the fire while my spirit travels where it will. Not this time. This time, my transformation must be complete. I must take my damaged body with me. I must shapeshift to my other self, my stronger, lighter, fleeter self, which will be able to withstand the wound, to carry me on lithe limbs, quickly and silently across the snow to the crannog. To my prince.

  No rituals can help me now. No ancient words or incantations will work. What must effect my change is pure nature. What lies within me. What magic spark I was born with, when I was kissed with the blessing of my visions and given the name Arianaidd. I form no thoughts. I call upon no deities or forces. I merely allow myself to change. Change or die, for the two paths sit side by side, and I could with the greatest of ease slip along the wrong one, never to return. I feel my hands and feet twitching, my muscles tense and jerk. Are these the beginnings of my transformation, or of my death throes? There is a burning in my chest now, as it squeezes in upon itself, robbed of air. Am I shrinking to my other self, or have I drawn my last breath in any earthly form? I feel as if I am falling from a great height, and there is a rushing sound in my ears, as if the waters of the lake were flooding into me, into my body and my soul. The darkness presses down on me. Whatever alterations are taking place, I cannot resist nor influence them, but merely be carried by them.

  And I am changed!

  As I am, I can raise myself from my death-cold snow bed and stand, teetering, on four paws. My head hurts me, but my strong new body is better built to withstand such pain, better made to run than to think. The winter air has cooled my wound so that the blood does not flow from it. I am unsteady. I am still a broken thing. But I can carry myself. I can! My fur is so wonderfully warm, and that warmth revives me. My low stance means the top of the snow is level with my eye, so that I must stand up on my hind legs, using my short tufted tail to help me balance. Now I have a clear view of the land around me. I hop cautiously away from the lake, for I am not a creature of the water. How strange to move across the ground on silky paws, ears flicking to pick up sounds, to warn me of danger, of swooping owls, of hungry foxes. With every tentative step, my courage builds so that soon I am bounding toward the crannog, covering the distance in no time, the speed making my tiny heart beat like a war drum, and my spirits lift. It is a joyous thing to be so nimble. I am so reveling in my newfound strength that I am at the wooden walkway to the crannog before I notice my wound is bleeding again. I can feel the hot blood, sticky on my fur. I must go on. The watchman is pacing along the boards, blowing into his hands to keep them from freezing. He looks this way and that as he is bound to do, but his line of vision is well above even the black tips of my ears. I move swiftly across the construction that links the crannog to the shore and slip behind the smithy’s workshop. I know where my prince lies sleeping, and I take the most direct path to the great hall. Everyone else is in their bed. A lazy cattle-dog in the doorway to a barn raises its head from its paws as I pass, but tonight he has no appetite for a playful chase, and a belly too full to care that a meal is walking past. The door of the hall is closed. I wonder how I will get in, but at this moment it opens. One of the villagers has come out at the urging of his bladder. While he stands facing the wall and lets loose onto the snow-white ground a stream of steaming yellow, I slip inside unnoticed. It is so very hot in the hall, though the fires have burned down to nothing. There remain several torches burning low in sconces fixed to the walls. So many men, women and babes lie packed within, snoring and filling the borrowed air with their stink. How base humans can be! I glide between their slumbering forms, taking particular care not to wake the sleeping hunting dogs by the hearth. At the far end of the hall sits the stately royal bed with its heavy drapery. I wriggle between the closed curtains. Now I see my prince, still dressed, as are most following their lengthy celebrations. He lies atop the coverlets, his princess sleeping beside him. Will he know me? How will he react to find me as I am? Will I succeed in making him understand or will he fear he is in the grip of a nightmare? I have no choice but to try. For his sake, if not my own. He sleeps with one arm flung out so that it dangles from the bed. I reach up my nose and sniff his palm, letting my whiskers tickle his skin. He flinches, the sensation stirring him. I raise my front paws up onto the bed beside him and nudge his arm. He shifts, pulling his hand in from the cold to tuck it beneath his head as he turns on his side. At least now he is facing me. I hop up beside him and for a few seconds watch him sleep. The notion of lying down next to him is an appealing one, but it would be my last act. Droplets of blood from my broken head spill onto the prince as I lean over him, dropping onto his cheek. He murmurs, and his eyes open. He peers at me through the smoky gloom, frowning. I see that he is about to swat me away and go back to sleep. How can I make him see who I am? If I cause a commotion and the hounds awake, that will be the end of me. When he tries to shoo me from the bed I do not shy away, as he might expect, but sit tight. His frown deepens as he raises his head, puzzled by my curious behavior. He puts his hand to the blood on his cheek and then sees the gaping wound between my ears.

  ‘Be gone!’ he whispers, batting me lightly with one hand while pushing himself up with the other. A way off, on the other side of the curtains, I hear one of the dogs stir upon hearing his master’s voice. I must do something to make him understand, to make him see me, but what? A giddiness is swamping me now, my limbs losing their wild strength. Soon I shall succumb to my injury. I open my mouth, but as I am I cannot speak. There is only one path left to me. I pray my actions will not be too slow. I dare not leave the prince’s side, for his dogs would surely find me now. Quickly, I stretch
out beside him. He is too bemused and too sleepy to react roughly, and before he has time to push me from my place I close my gimlet eyes and let myself fall backward, away from this furry form, back to my true self. I am in darkness as my shape shifts once again, so that I am not able to witness the astonishment on my prince’s face as he watches the small woodland animal at his side quiver, fade, and pulsate as it dissolves and then, miraculously, reforms.

  ‘Seren!’ I hear him gasp. And then I feel him take me in his strong arms as the agony returns to my head and I slide back into oblivion.

  * * *

  The first of my senses to return to me as I wake is that of smell. Woodsmoke. Boughs of oak, hot and slightly bitter, with some green hazel, hastily gathered and hissing as it burns. Beyond this I detect male sweat, both sweet and sour at once. And broth of some sort, several days old. And, oddly, lavender. Such a fragrance does not seem to fit. I try to open my eyes, but this causes me such pain, any brightness as my lifted lids allow stinging my eyes and sending a bolt of heat through my head. I remember now my injury, and attempt to raise a hand to examine the wound. My limbs are leaden, my movements clumsy. The effort of such a small activity causes me to cough, spluttering at the dryness in my throat, the fire smoke irritating me further as I gulp air.

  Suddenly there is someone leaning over me, grasping my wrists, preventing me from moving! I hear mumbled words and am unable to discern their meaning. I struggle, but am weak as a newborn lamb. My eyes, painful or not, spring open. A man kneels beside where I lie, holding me fast, determined I should neither raise myself up nor wriggle away from him. He speaks more loudly.

  ‘Be at ease, woman. You are safe. All is well,’ he says.

  The voice is familiar, but in my addled state I cannot place it. And I doubt the truth of his words. I want to respond, to shout at him, but can manage only a croak, whereupon my captor fetches a beaker of water and bids me drink. I discover I have a fierce thirst, and would drain the vessel if he did not stop me.

  ‘Not so fast! Ha,’ he grunts, taking the cup from me. ‘I never saw a person so happy to drink something that wasn’t ale.’

  My breathing is easier now, my throat soothed. My eyes begin to find their sight once more.

  ‘Hywel? Is it you?’

  ‘Aye.’ He climbs stiffly to his feet. ‘For my sins, Prince Brynach insisted he would put you in the care of no one else. Though heaven knows I make a poor nursemaid.’

  I see now that I am in my own little house, and the realization brings me comfort. How I got here I do not know. The last I recall I was in the great hall, shifting from hare to woman, and on the point of death.

  ‘You brought me here?’

  ‘The prince did. I assisted him. He would not leave your side until he could be convinced you would live.’ Hywel frowns down at me, his bushy brows and unkempt beard wriggling as if they have life of their own as his face expresses his displeasure. ‘And well you might not have, the wound you had. I gave you up for dead more than once, but the prince would not have it. Bid me try anything and everything. Even sent for Nesta and her herbs, but Princess Wenna would not let her come. That displeased him greatly, I can tell you. Man was fit to tear his own teeth out when he thought you’d die. Don’t know why you didn’t, truth be told. Still, here you remain.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, dragging myself a little more upright and pulling the woolen blanket around myself. ‘Here I remain.’ For a while I watch Hywel tending the fire, content to allow him to go about his business while I try to order my thoughts. ‘How long?’ I ask at last. ‘How long have I … slept?’

  ‘Five nights, if you count the one we found you. And I’m not likely to forget that this side of a harvest moon! Naked in the prince’s bed! With half the village sleeping two strides away. Ha! How we took you from there without raising merry hell I shall never know. He wrapped you in a blanket and carried you himself, kicking me from my dreams on his way out. Says he knows not how you came to be there, nor who it was inflicted such harm upon you. Whoever it was, there is no doubt they supposed they left you dead. ’Tis a miracle you are not.’

  ‘A miracle or your tender nursing,’ I find I have the strength to tease him, at least.

  ‘In me our prince found the person he could most trust with your safety. And I’ve dressed more wounds on the field of battle than any other living, I’d wager. And that’—he indicates my injury with a wooden spoon—‘well, you did not come by that falling from a tree or stumbling in a rabbit hole. Handle of some sort, most likely a sword hilt. Though how you came to be engaged so closely to one who wanted to kill you that he could not use the blade is another mystery.’ He turns his attention to the stewpot suspended above the fire, stirring the contents with some effort, so thick and uneven are they.

  I force myself to remember the events of that night. The snow. The riders. Their murderous intent. And the Afanc. Tears of gratitude come without warning. I know how she guards the secret of her existence, and yet she risked discovery for me. My sniffing brings an anxious glance from Hywel, so that I wipe my face with my blanket quickly, lest he think me a flimsy child. I become aware that beneath the blanket, save for a grubby tunic, I am naked. Has Hywel really tended me all these days and nights? He is a good man, but to have him be so intimate … But I am being foolish. His skills have saved my life as surely as the Afanc’s appearance saved it earlier. ‘I am in your debt,’ I tell him.

  ‘There is nothing I would not do for the prince. You, of all people, know what that means,’ he replies without looking at me. He hands me a bowl of stew and a spoon.

  ‘Yet it was to my benefit. And I am grateful,’ I say. ‘And thankful that Nesta did not put a hand on me!’

  Hywel regards me closely now. ‘You do not trust her?’

  ‘Her loyalties lie with her mistress.’

  ‘As they should.’

  ‘So long as the princess’s loyalties are also correctly placed.’

  He ponders this statement for some time while I chew the gray meat that swims in the oatmeal broth in my bowl. An attempt has been made to disguise its flavor with the liberal use of garlic. I recall the lavender. ‘Tell me,’ I ask him, ‘do you burn lavender on the fire?’

  ‘Burn it? No. I used an oil infused with the flowers and leaves. To speed the healing of your head wound.’

  ‘I am impressed.’

  ‘A soldier who can keep other soldiers alive is more likely to live to see old age himself,’ he explains. I might have questioned him further on his remedies but the door opens and Prince Brynach steps inside. Hywel scrambles to his feet, but the prince barely notices him the moment he sees that I am awake. Even in the firelight I can see he is tired and troubled, but his face is transformed with a broad smile now.

  ‘You have decided to rejoin the living,’ he says, coming to sit on the floor beside my bed.

  ‘Only for Hywel to try to kill me off with this terrible stew.’

  Brynach laughs, but Hywel bridles. ‘I am expected to be cook as well as nurse and protector! Ha!’ Muttering about, needing some air to breathe and snow to piss in, he goes outside.

  ‘It gladdens my heart to see you well,’ the prince tells me, taking my hand in his. There was a time I would have pulled back, but such closeness with death has, perhaps, made me keener to savor life’s sweeter moments, so I let him hold me, let him softly caress my hand with his fingers.

  ‘I wonder that you do not find yourself … repulsed … having seen me as I was,’ I say, trying but failing to imagine his shock at seeing me shifting before his eyes.

  ‘I have always said you are like no other, have I not? Why, then, should I not accept all the strangeness that comprises you? I care only that you are returned to health. Despite Hywel’s cooking.’ He smiles.

  ‘He is a skilled healer.’

  ‘I have seen him bring back men from the brink of death. And I knew he would let no further harm come to you.’ He hesitates, then goes on, ‘Seren, did you see who it was? Did you s
ee who attacked you?’

  ‘They wore helmets with visors or crosspieces. And they did not speak. Nor did I recognize their horses. But … well, it was not the men who sought to stove my head who wished me dead. That is, not beyond doing the bidding of whoever sent them.’

  ‘But who would wish harm to you? Why?’

  ‘Answer the “why” and you will have the “who.” There are those who see me as an obstacle in their path to greatness. If they remove me, they have an easier route to you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I warned you, there is a traitor among those you name loyal.’

  ‘You cannot believe Wenna had a hand in what was done to you!’