The birds are already awake, sweetening the air with their song. Nighttime animals scuttle to their burrows and lairs, making way for the heavier tread of those who go abroad in daylight hours. My progress is slow, as I must halt frequently to allow my body to cramp or surge. I am wearing a loose linen kirtle and carry a soft woolen blanket and my knife. I need nothing more. Placing my palm over my heaving belly I whisper, ‘Be patient, little one.’ I continue through the copse to the secluded spot on the shore of the lake I have chosen. Here the ground slopes gently into the water, and the earth is sandy with few stones and no reeds or rushes, so that after some effort I am able to lie down comfortably enough. The second I immerse my body in the silky waters of Llyn Syfaddan, I feel my pains ease. The child continues to move inside me as it should, but my suffering is greatly reduced by the magical properties of the sacred lake. I have foreseen this moment. I have nothing to fear. And whatever my prince might secretly wish for, I know that my babe is a girl. I have chosen not to share this knowledge with him. Let him hold his infant in his arms, let him gaze into her eyes, let him feel her tiny heart beat strong and brave in her breast—he will have no room in his soul for disappointment then.
As I work to bring my child into this world, I can feel vibrations through the water and I know the Afanc is near. She has come to witness the birth of a new witch. Knowing that she is with me gives me strength. I do not want to cry out, for to do so might give me away. There have been no further attempts on my life, but I have scarce been on my own, and here and now I am certainly at my most vulnerable. I close my eyes and quiet my clamoring thoughts. I bring my will and my strength to bear and with neither fuss nor ceremony my daughter slips from me into the life-giving lake water. I quickly lift her up. Oh! She is a most miraculous thing! So small and yet so fierce. She is the mirror of myself. I see the light in her soul shining from her. Like me, she has been kissed with magic. Like me, she will be a child of the moonlight. Like me, she will be under the protection of grandmother-Afanc.
‘Welcome, my little one,’ I kiss her brow. She does not cry, but looks about her, tiny fists clenched, calm but aware even now of where she is. Of what she is. And my joy manifests itself in a glowing light, tinged blue, that surrounds myself and my babe.
The surface of the lake bubbles. I hold my breath. Will she come closer? Will she show herself, even as the day brightens and she could so easily be seen? I take my knife and swiftly cut the snaking rope that has nourished my infant these long months. I wrap the child in the woolen blanket and hold her to me as I stand. Together we watch and wait. There is a stillness in the air, as if the very woods were also stopped from breathing. The birds hush. Ripples spin out across the lake. And now, silently, with such grace as to move the hardest of hearts to weeping, the Afanc rises up from the deep. She is even more beautiful revealed in the early sunshine! I lift up my newborn, holding her high. She neither wails nor whimpers. She is not afraid. The mother-of-the-lake lowers her noble head to inspect this tiny new prophet.
‘She will keep your secret as I have done,’ I promise.
The Afanc sighs, looking deep into my eyes a moment longer, and then moves back, causing gentle waves to lap at me. Without a single splash she slips beneath the surface and is gone.
I kiss my child, holding her close to me again. ‘You are fortunate indeed, my young witch, for the blessing of the Afanc is the greatest protection of all.’
16
TILDA
Tilda glances in the direction of the setting sun. As it drops behind the snow-covered mountains beyond the lake, it bleeds its color into the winter sky. Such a spectacle would, ordinarily, have halted her in her work, causing her to gaze in wonder. But today it serves only to remind her that the day is nearly over, and time is slipping through her fingers. It is now only two days until Christmas, and she has promised to celebrate with Dylan and his uncle, so she has only a few hours left before she will have to tidy herself up and tear herself away from the cottage. More important, she will have to put away the bracelet. Or at least, resist wearing it. The thought brings an anticipatory pang of longing. She marvels at how quickly she has moved from being afraid of what it brings her to being ecstatic about it. After the firing, Dylan had suggested a celebratory meal in the Red Lion. She had felt his disappointment when she had invited Lucas, and his relief when Lucas had declined the offer, saying he had more things to take care of at the dig site. In truth, she would rather have stayed at home. The success of the firing and the bewildering vision had ignited all her creative impulses to bursting point. She wanted to lock herself in the studio and draw what she had seen. Wanted to capture the image of the incredible creature that had appeared to her. Wanted to record all the minute details of what had danced and leapt before her eyes. Wanted to compare again the intricate design on the bracelet with her now-finished, glazed and fired artwork.
And she wanted to wear the bracelet again.
But not with Dylan there. Not with anyone there. So, she had gone to the pub with him, eaten a late lunch she scarcely tasted, drunk beer she hardly noticed, done her best to behave like a normal, reasonable, sensible person. Except that she didn’t feel normal anymore. At the end of the evening she had gently but firmly sent Dylan away, flinching at the wounded expression he had worn as he left. She had tried to explain that she needed to work. Just these few days, she had assured him. They would see each other again on Christmas Day.
‘I’ve lost you to a lump of clay,’ he told her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘It’s just that…’ she left the sentence unfinished.
‘Look, I’m pleased you’re happy. Glad to see you thinking about your work instead of … well, other stuff.’
Tilda could only nod. She allowed him to believe that the success of the firing had turned her attention away from all the strange and frightening things that had been going on. Even though he had witnessed what happened the first time she’d worn the bracelet, she still felt a reluctance to talk about it with him. She hadn’t even told him about the second time, when she had had the vision of the Afanc. She knew him well enough to be sure that he would not make light of it. That he would listen. That he would believe her. And yet, while she was able to be intimate with him, and even to have him share in her work, the way she felt when she wore the bracelet, when she connected with whatever it was she had found, it was just too personal to share. It was something she needed to explore on her own.
Now, at last, she is alone again, save for Thistle, who has become even more her shadow than usual. Tilda turns her back on the sunset and goes into her studio. The shelves on the right are now filled with the gleaming new pieces, fresh from the kiln. She runs her fingers lovingly over the surface of the nearest one. She could never have hoped that the glazes would work so perfectly, the colors fusing and melding, making the Celtic animals on each pot stand out, and yet at the same time blend into their backgrounds. The technique of applying salt to the glaze and packing it with reeds from the lake has produced stunning results. The salt has expanded and melted, creating warm, coppery splotches and splatters in random patches around the pots, with a swirling smokiness produced when the reeds burned away. The animals themselves Tilda had picked out and highlighted by hand painting them with a copper wash before firing, so that now they gleam and glitter. Looking at them calms her. Touching them makes a tingle spread lightly through her body.
I know you. I know you all. And the Afanc? She came to me. She sought me out in that vision. Where does she fit into all this, I wonder? If hares and hounds used to represent witches, what did she stand for?
She hurries back to the sitting room and takes the bracelet from the high bookshelf where she had put it for safekeeping. She does not put it on—making a silent promise to herself that she will do so very soon—but tucks it into the pocket of the oversize tartan shirt she often wears to work in. Next she fetches the books loaned to her by the professor and returns to the studio to sit at her workbench, wrapping
a woolen blanket around her shoulders. The stove in the studio is lit and burning quite well, but the single-glazed glass doors of the studio let out far more heat than they keep in. She puts a match to the wick of an oil lamp beside her and turns through the pages of the first volume, uncertain of what she is searching for, simply trusting that she will know it when she finds it. Thistle lies down on the rag rug at her feet, curling up tightly, her nose beneath her wiry-haired tail, the better to keep warm.
‘Let’s see, girl, what have we here?’ A section in the book of Welsh legends and folklore comments on the collection of famous and ancient tales known as the Mabinogion. A detail regarding shapeshifting into different animals catches Tilda’s eye. ‘According to this,’ she tells the dog, ‘changing into other creatures went on quite a lot back in the day. Listen: “The Story of Taliesin”—it tells about this boy who accidentally tastes a magical potion in a cauldron. He gets chased by the woman who made it, called … here it is—Ceridwen. The boy is known as Gwion. She is seriously angry with him, so he runs away … “But Ceridwen was fleet of foot and so furious that she quickly caught up with the child, so Gwion changed himself to a hare; and she, seeing this, became a black greyhound. On they ran. Gwion fled to the river, and at the water’s edge he did become a fish, but Ceridwen pursued him as an otter, so that still he was in danger. In fear for his life he leapt from the river, taking to the air as a bird. Ceridwen would not give up and turned herself to a hawk to hunt him down. Gwion was terrified, and saw a pile of wheat. Swiftly he dropped into the heap, becoming one of thousands of grains. But Ceridwen saw what he had done. She, too, changed again, this time into a recrested hen, which swallowed the grain. It went into her womb. Ceridwen became a woman again, and nine months later she gave birth to a child so beautiful she could not bring herself to kill him. Instead she placed him in a leather bag in a coracle and set him adrift on the lake.” Good grief.’ Tilda lets her eyes scan the following pages, but the shape-shifting has stopped in this story, and there is no mention of the Afanc. She finds again the legend of the water-horse, and reads how it was tempted from the lake by the song of a brave girl from the village. ‘Always a girl that has to do these things. Leave it to the women to sort out, eh Thistle?’ But the dog has fallen asleep and snores softly. There is an illustration of the Afanc, showing it as a fearsome creature, all scales and teeth and jagged edges. ‘But she wasn’t like that at all,’ Tilda murmurs. ‘She was beautiful.’
Excitement tightens her belly as she pushes the books to one side and grabs a block of drawing paper and a stick of charcoal. She works quickly, narrowing her eyes, making bold, fast strokes of smudgy black on the page as she strives to capture what it was she saw in the vision. The graceful arc of its neck. The proud bearing of its head. The deep-set, luminous eyes. The muscular limbs that powered it silently through the water. After half an hour of sketching she stares at her work, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully.
Yes. Or at least, almost. Won’t know until I go further. Too soon to tell.
Jumping from her stool, she hurries over to the bin of clay and takes out a large lump of the gritty brown earth. This binful has already been wedged and pummeled so that no air remains inside, so that it should not pop during firing and explode the piece. After a few moments of kneading and turning, the material is sufficiently malleable to be used. Tilda pauses, brushing her hair from her face with her arm, her hands already sticky with clay. The uneven light from the oil lamp glints off the inch of bracelet that peeps out of her shirt pocket. She nods.
‘Okay,’ she says to herself, to the slumbering dog and to any other souls who might be listening, ‘let’s begin.’
SEREN
They are not expecting me. As I walk toward the crannog amid the softening light of dusk I allow myself a small smile at the thought of their surprise. It would not do to become such a creature of habit that all my actions might be anticipated by others. Though, in truth, they should expect me, had they sufficient wits. The prince has, of course, met his infant daughter. He was so attentive throughout the months the babe grew within me, so happy at the prospect of at last having a child of his own, it was only natural that he should want to take her in his arms at the first opportunity. He bestowed such a look of love upon her that day that I am certain, in my heart, he will never turn from her. She cannot ever claim a place as princess, but short of this he will give her every honor, every protection, every care. It is not the prince I come to exchange words with this evening. I know there are whisperings, there is gossip, there are tongues wagging at every hearth hereabouts, concerning my child. Our child. I care nothing for the idle musings of people of no influence or importance. Tanwen, as time passes, will win over the people she will one day serve, I have no doubt of that. What concerns me now is the plotting and scheming of those who place themselves close to the prince. They continue to do their utmost to come between us. In this, they will not succeed. Nor will they ever convince him to denounce his daughter. The matter for me to address is this: When they come to see that he will not turn from us, and they recognize that more power lies with this babe—and therefore with me—than with all of them put together, when that moment arrives, Tanwen is in grave danger.
Although the late summer day has been warm I wear my red cloak, so that I am able to conceal my child snug and safe beneath it. She is not some entertainment for the villagers to gawk at. Let them wait. The guard on the causeway permits me to pass without questioning my right to do so, averting his own eyes from my steady gaze, then quickly looking again when he thinks I will not notice. I was once asked if being feared leads me to loneliness. My reply was that I have known no other way of being. Now, with the warm, smiling, bright-eyed result of my prince’s love held close to my heart, I would say that the fear of many serves only to heighten the experience of not being feared. So that the love I share with Prince Brynach, and the love I feel for my babe, is the deepest, the strongest, the most blissful love possible.
On the little island, people are going about their everyday business. With night approaching, mothers call in their children. Men who have livestock return from the fields: the shepherds leaving their sheep to sleep in the grassy meadows next the lake, the cattleman bringing the best of his beasts into the safety of the byre. Women walk briskly, their arms filled with firewood, or trudge beneath the weight of yoked pails of milk. The blacksmith tamps down his forge, taking care no stray ember or spark escapes to kindle a blaze among the dry wood of the palisades or the thick thatch of the roofs. A herding dog slinks around my heels, nervous of my confident stride but drawn to the snuffling sounds from beneath my cloak. I drop my hand to my side, low and still, and he sniffs it, wagging his tale in acceptance of the gesture of friendship. Smoke is already rising from the hole in the roof of the great hall. I can picture well the assembled company, gathered for their evening of talking, and eating, and drinking. It is in these close moments that syrupy words are poured warm and winning into my prince’s ear. It is the oldest, simplest magic: Give a man a bright fire to stare at, a tankard of fresh ale to drink, a place of comfort to take his ease and a bellyful of good meat, and he will listen to the rankest rubbish and think it sweet.
I am, nonetheless, shocked to find no guard at the entrance to my prince’s dwelling. I am able to pass over the threshold without the slightest hindrance. Inside, all is so exactly as I had known it would be it is as if I had experienced a vision of it. A table runs along the far wall, on the other side of the fire, and at it sit Prince Brynach, Princess Wenna, Nesta, Rhodri, Hywel and Siōn. A page pours ale, and fetches meat from the fire. Two soldiers feed logs onto the base of crimson embers. Other warriors and members of the royal household sit and eat in quiet corners, each lost in his or her own world of worries and wishes, with scarcely a glance at their prince, and not one of them noticing an unannounced visitor come standing among them. Until I speak.
‘Must I stand here so long my feet take root before I am acknowledged?’
&
nbsp; At the sound of my voice several of Brynach’s men jump startled to their feet, or hurriedly drop their beakers of ale, attempting to make themselves appear worthy of the name guard. One draws his sword in a futile show of strength.
‘Save your blade for another day,’ I tell him. I sweep the room with an angry glare. ‘Had I been minded to harm the prince your actions would have come too late to stop me.’
Brynach stands, holding up his hand in a gesture that aims to both steady his men and calm me. ‘Peace, Seren Arianaidd. All is well. My men were rightly at their ease, for there is no danger near.’
‘There is ever danger near.’
At this, Rhodri rolls his eyes. ‘Alas, I fear our venerable Seer, for all her gifts, has not the art of relaxation, my prince.’
Wenna smiles. ‘But brother, it is her role, to warn us of the darkening skies that herald the thunder, of the departing geese that foretell famine, of the sickening mouse that speaks surely of broad disaster.’ She keeps her words gentle, but the mockery is plain for all to hear. That I failed to help her conceive a child of her own is not a matter she will forgive. That I have since provided her husband with a daughter is more than sufficient cause for her to loathe me forever.
Nesta laughs loudly, even though her mouth is stuffed with bread. Siōn joins in, his boyish sniggering and red cheeks making him appear younger and sillier than ever.
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