The Snow Spider Trilogy

by Jenny Nimmo

  ‘No!’

  He knew she lied.

  ‘That day Iolo lost the horse, and I believed I had trapped his spirit, even though we never found it. And Evan fell under the chestnut tree, and you thought he cried out, silently . . .’

  ‘He’s a poor wounded soldier,’ she said reproachfully.

  ‘Listen,’ Gwyn cried. ‘That mad, black spirit was free for a while, but I caught it, Nia, in Arianwen’s web. Only Evan got in the way, somehow, and now he is possessed.’ He peered into her averted face and made her look at him. ‘The dark soul of Efnisien is there, Nia, in your great prince.’ He almost enjoyed the way her rebellious expression began to crumple. At last she must believe him.

  Defiant to the end, she muttered, ‘No! He’s a hero. And I’ll tell you why. When he was in Northern Ireland he ran into a burning warehouse to save his men; he shouldn’t have done it, they said. He broke the rules. It was hopeless, you see. And they all burned to death except for him. And he had no wounds at all. It was a mystery. They never gave Evan’s name to the papers because it was, unnatural, I suppose. Impossible. I was outside the door when Mam told the Davises, T Coch. I don’t think we’re supposed to know. But you see, he’s a hero, not a demon.’

  She didn’t realise that instead of contradicting Gwyn she’d given him all the proof he needed. Reasons and events whirled in his head, sorting themselves into a dreadful pattern. It was terrifying and yet exhilarating, discovering the ability to fit the pieces of a story together.

  ‘I can see now that Efnisien has been calling to Evan for a long time,’ he said, ‘so that he could enjoy life again in the form of someone like himself. Evan’s life is almost an echo of his own – a soldier, a Llr who is not a Llr, a man who is the opposite of his own brother. Nia, he even tried to sacrifice himself in a fire, but at the moment when Evan’s hate matched his own, Efnisien was able to reach the soldier and save him for himself. The rest was inevitable. Hatred is a dreadful force; it makes things happen.’

  ‘But what about me?’ Nia’s voice called plaintively into his excited speculations. ‘Was I meant to find the horse again?’

  Gwyn stopped pacing and thought about that. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was an accident. You went into that room because you are . . . silly about Evan.’

  She bristled. ‘Not so silly. I knew he was a prince!’

  ‘Prince!’ Gwyn exclaimed, exasperated. ‘This isn’t a fairy tale, Nia. We’re sliding into a real tragedy, a parallel story if you like, that might not have a happy ending. And I have to stop it, somehow. I’m the only one.’

  ‘All the same,’ she quietly persisted, ‘Efnisien was a prince.’

  ‘Huh!’ was all Gwyn said. But he couldn’t deny it. ‘Evan found the horse in the stream and would have given it to me, but I prevented that, idiot that I am. Always an idiot with my spells. Once the demon was there, safe within his soul, he hid the horse so that I could never again use it to trap him. Don’t you see, Nia? It’s so clear. Glory was afraid of Evan the moment he saw him. His memory inherited from the horses Efnisien maimed. Fear of that prince had become an instinct. And the unicorn, Iolo’s toy horses, they were a repetition Evan couldn’t help.’

  ‘Evan didn’t do those things,’ Nia broke in.

  ‘Of course he did,’ Gwyn said roughly. ‘Efnisien is beginning to relive his story.’

  ‘And Catrin is Branwen,’ Nia said flatly.

  Did Nia wish it could have been her role, Gwyn wondered?

  ‘I believe so,’ he said.

  ‘What shall we do?’ she asked helplessly.

  Gwyn was forming an answer when the door handle rattled and Iolo’s face appeared. ‘I’m going to help your dad with the ewes in the top field,’ he told Gwyn proudly.

  ‘We’re going to see my Nain, sure you don’t want to come?’ Gwyn asked, sure that Iolo would not.

  ‘Heck no!’ Iolo disappeared.

  ‘Your Nain!’ Nia had brightened immediately Gwyn mentioned his grandmother, as though their problems were half solved already.

  Nain Griffiths welcomed them as a glorious excuse for a party. She wanted them to try her new seed cake, her fresh apple juice and hazelnut cookies. Spreading all this tempting food over a lace cloth on her lawn, she bundled cushions out of the house and pushed the children on to them while she hummed and twirled to show off her new three-tiered skirt. Gwyn couldn’t break through her persistent cheerfulness. At last he almost shouted, ‘Look, Nain, we’ve got a problem!’ and her bird-bright glance told him that she had known it all along but needed her tea party to celebrate this longed-for visit.

  ‘Well?’ she said, perching, in a temporary way, on the remains of a cane chair that had obviously housed many generations of mice.

  But they didn’t know where to begin and Nain was about to fly off for another plate when Gwyn brought the broken horse from his pocket and put it on the white cloth where it couldn’t fail to catch her eye.

  Arrested in mid-flight, she glared at the animal and said hoarsely, ‘Why have you brought that here, Gwydion Gwyn?’

  So Gwyn told his story from the beginning, when they had walked up the mountain to admire the red kite, and Iolo had found the horse and let it fall into the stream. He left nothing out but neither he nor his grandmother had the whole picture until Nia added her part.

  When she described her visit to Harlech there were moments of terror for him, but his grandmother remained calm. He could not understand this when she must have known why Evan had glared across the Irish sea, must have remembered that Efnisien had sailed across, perhaps from that very spot, to fight and die for his sister Branwen. And Nia was pitching herself back into those hours with Evan as though they were the only true and wonderful moments of her life. Women, Gwyn thought, were unfathomable.

  ‘You’re not afraid,’ Gwyn accused his grandmother. ‘Once, you could hardly bear to look at that horse. You wouldn’t forgive me for setting it free four years ago. What’s so different now?’

  ‘For one thing, it isn’t free!’ Nain grinned in an irritating way. ‘This time, I know I’m not at risk!’

  ‘You’re very smug, I must say,’ Gwyn exploded. He leapt up, jerking the cloth, and the broken horse gave a little jump against a cup that tinkled like a tiny warning, or so it seemed to him. The others, however, appeared to be enchanted with the incident and laughed delightedly.

  ‘Heck, you two,’ Gwyn stormed. ‘Grow up! We’re all at risk. There’s a madman on the loose, lusting for glory, and murder too, most probably.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Gwyn!’ Nain said, suddenly grave. ‘Our chestnut soldier will fight the violence he’s been saddled with.’

  ‘And if he loses?’

  ‘Then he will need your help, won’t he?’ she retorted. ‘It’s your fault, boy. You’ve bewitched that poor soldier as surely as your ancestors ensnared each other into the lives of animals. And you said that you were tired of magic!’

  Gwyn ignored her last remark.

  ‘You admit then,’ he said, ‘that we could be in for trouble. That there’s danger about.’

  ‘Duw, duw!’ His grandmother set out on a little dancing journey through her orchard, flinging tuneful messages over the fields. ‘You think you’ve pinned him down, don’t you?’ she sang. ‘Foisted that poor soldier with some convenient mythical personality to suit a coincidence of horses. But do you really know, Gwydion Gwyn? Stories take a tortuous route through time. Perhaps this one isn’t quite true? Yes, I began it all. I gave you the horse. I knew it was a dreadful thing. But it was you who decided it held the tortured soul of that poor prince. Did he really commit the murders ascribed to him? If he did, then he atoned for them. He was flung into the boiling cauldron, a living man, stretched himself until it broke into four parts, and his heart broke also.’

  Gwyn was determined not to be impressed. ‘Something of him was left,’ he muttered darkly. ‘The diabolical part. I had it safe and now it’s on the rampage.’

  ‘Oh, la, la, la, la, la!
’ his grandmother trilled mockingly.

  ‘You’ve been led astray,’ Gwyn furiously accused her. ‘Why have you allowed it?’

  ‘Because I am a woman,’ she replied.

  ‘A mad one,’ he said grimly. She’s lost, he thought, hoodwinked by a blue-eyed Llr. She can’t help herself. And then he told her of the recent Irish fire and Evan’s part in it, how he had tried to throw his life away to save his men, and failed.

  And Gwyn knew his grandmother believed at last, but although she looked anxious, it was not in the way he had hoped for. ‘Poor man,’ she murmured.

  Overhead white mare’s tails were racing through the blue sky and a little wind burrowed beneath the cloth. Nia caught the broken horse as it rolled on to the grass. ‘What shall I do with this?’ she asked. ‘He’ll know I’ve found it.’

  ‘Let him know,’ Nain said. ‘Gwyn, you must soon show him who you are, that you’ll help him.’

  ‘Perhaps he is enjoying his new soul. He seemed lonely without one,’ Gwyn muttered. He was thinking that after all, he had not been entirely responsible for the change in Evan. It had begun far away, in an Irish fire.

  They gathered up the cloth and the empty cups and plates and took them into the kitchen. But before Nia and Gwyn left Nain took them into her forest of a room, where plants held sway over everything, even the furniture. Nia was commanded to relax while Gwyn cleared the table of books. Then his grandmother produced a large deck of cards wrapped in black silk. She laid the cards on the table, face down, in a fan shape.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Intrigued, Nia began to count the cards.

  Nain tapped her hand. ‘Let them be,’ she said. ‘There are seventy-eight. You must choose one. This is not the normal route to the truth, but it will serve my purpose. I may not be a wizard,’ she glanced at Gwyn, ‘but I have my ways. Have you heard of Tarot cards, Nia?’

  Nia shook her head. ‘Is it like fortune-telling?’

  ‘No! It is a way of seeking the truth, and thereby a solution.’

  Gwyn sighed. He knew the cards. They told stories, relayed lives, caused thought when action was needed.

  ‘No need for that,’ Nain chided him. ‘If I am not wrong, Nia is close to the heart of this matter. If she chooses the right card then it is she who will take our story to its happy conclusion. Now, Nia, take your time. Empty your mind and choose a card.’

  Gratified, but anxious not to jeopardise the proceedings Nia made a show of closing her eyes, flexing her fingers and biting her lip.

  ‘That will do,’ Nain said sharply. ‘It is in your heart, Nia, not your fingers.’

  Nia relaxed and Gwyn found himself regarding the cards with reluctant fascination. The smooth sweep of black and gold hid pictures he’d once longed to play with. Nain would never let him. The Tarot cards must be respected, she had told him; left in peace so that they could tell their stories, do their work unhindered. Whatever work should that be? He had been too impatient, then, to find out. He watched Nia stretch her hand towards the left of the fan. She was thoughtful now. Carefully she withdrew a card and handed it to his grandmother.

  ‘I knew it,’ Nain lay the card face upwards on the table and clasped her hands. ‘The chariot!’

  Gwyn beheld a blue-eyed man with copper-coloured curls beneath a bronze helmet. He wore a bronze breastplate over a blood-red tunic and stood in a bronze war chariot. In his left hand he held the reins of a white horse, in his right hand, the reins of a black horse. The animals appeared to differ in their preferred route. The black horse veered to the right, the white horse to the left. Behind the chariot a red desert stretched beneath a dark and stormy sky.

  Gwyn observed Nia’s face as it registered puzzlement and then pleasure. ‘Who is he?’ she asked.

  ‘You have chosen Ares the war god,’ Nain told her. ‘He embodies conflict and bloodshed. His driving force is aggression.’

  ‘That’s not very pleasant for a hero,’ Nia remarked. ‘I bet he came to grief!’

  ‘He didn’t,’ Nain said. ‘The goddess Aphrodite fell in love with Ares. She loved him for his strength and vitality. A strange match, you might argue. The war god and the goddess of love. And yet what came of it?’ She waited, her head on one side.

  ‘What?’ Nia asked, suddenly realising an answer was expected.

  ‘Harmony!’ Nain told her joyfully. ‘They had a daughter, and her name was Harmony. Don’t you see?’ She lifted her hands and her silver bracelets caught the sunlight and shimmered wonderfully. She opened her fingers and sparks flew from her jewelled rings. ‘Harmony!’ she chanted. ‘Now do you understand?’

  ‘Harmony,’ Nia repeated, beginning to enjoy the word. At last it dawned on her that she might have an equal share with Gwyn in determining the outcome of the story. If he must defeat demons, she could happily supply love.

  There was a fizz of excitement in the air. Gwyn was uneasy. He had learnt nothing from the strange experiment. His grandmother folded her cards into a neat pack and laid them gently in their black cloth. ‘That was very satisfactory,’ she said.

  ‘We’d better go,’ Gwyn told her. ‘Iolo’s back at home. I ought to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘You’ll come again, won’t you?’ His grandmother looked suddenly anxious.

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  They left the house by way of the fallow field, where Nia remarked on the number of birds that flew complaining out of the thistles.

  ‘Can I come tomorrow?’ she called to the tall woman, all in green, who looked like a sapling in her golden copse.

  ‘Someone will be here,’ came the enigmatic reply.

  ‘You know,’ said Gwyn as they strolled through the fields, ‘I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough, Nia.’

  ‘I am,’ she replied earnestly. ‘I was really frightened when I found that horse. But Evan is wonderfully strong, your Nain has helped me to see that. I can’t believe he’d do anything really wicked.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Gwyn said grimly. ‘Once I was almost persuaded that legends are not true. But I know better now. The names and places may be different, but there were princes and battles, there was jealousy and murder and terrible love, and there were magicians.’ He looked at his hands and added, ‘And they’re all still here. Perhaps it’s because our land is so ancient. Ghosts feel at home; they find it easy to slip into our lives like long lost relations.’

  ‘I don’t seem to fit any story,’ Nia said. ‘I’ve just wandered in by accident!’

  And now you’re part of it, Gwyn thought. ‘Nain seems to believe you’re as close to finding a solution as any of us!’ he said.

  They found Iolo sitting on the yard gate. He was bursting with pride. ‘I helped your da sort out the ewes,’ he told Gwyn. ‘We’ve brought a hundred down from the mountain for dipping. Fly was brilliant. She kept them all together with a bit of help from me and Cymro.’

  Fly had been the Lloyds’ dog once, when they had lived at T Llr. But they had parted with her when they went to live in Pendewi. She had lasted one miserable, whining day in the town and then come to join Cymro, the Griffiths’ sheepdog.

  Gwyn, Nia and Iolo spent the rest of the day on the mountain together, searching for the red kite. The weather was hardly cooler than on that burning September day when Iolo had lost the broken horse. Now it was found. Too late. The kite did not appear for them and Gwyn couldn’t enjoy the walk. Nia, however, seemed happy, knowing that his grandmother felt so confident about her chestnut soldier.

  That night Iolo refused Gwyn’s offer of a bed. It was more fun, he said, to sleep on the floor. He was happy with his mattress and sleeping bag. When Gwyn came to bed, however, the younger boy was still wide awake.

  As Gwyn climbed into bed he was beginning to frame a question which, he knew, had risks attached to it. He turned off the bedside light and, in the darkness, asked, ‘Iolo, how d’you like your cousin, Evan?’

  What answer did he expect? Perhaps the one he received.

&n
bsp; ‘I don’t!’ Iolo said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was nice to me once; now he never has time. It’s like I don’t exist.’

  Gwyn was surprised by the anger. He sought to turn it to his advantage. ‘Will you do something for me?’

  ‘What?’ Iolo asked cautiously.

  Gwyn judged that he was keen. ‘Will you follow your cousin for me? Watch him, but always secretly. Find out what he does and where he goes. Never let him know what you are doing, though. It could be dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous?’

  ‘I believe Evan broke your horses, Iolo, and my uncle’s unicorn.’ He plunged on, aware of the effect his words had already had, ‘I think he was responsible for Glory’s death.’ He had no need to fuel Iolo’s dislike, but couldn’t help himself.

  The little boy was sitting bolt upright, staring at the pale moonlit curtains. ‘How could he?’ he exclaimed. ‘He was my friend. What’s happened to him?’

  ‘I can’t tell you yet,’ Gwyn said. ‘If you watch him, we’ll find out. Will you do it? I’m not sure if I can trust anyone else.’

  Iolo was flattered. ‘Yes,’ he said, and Gwyn knew he had an ally.

  ‘Are you allowed to use the phone?’

  ‘If I ask,’ Iolo replied.

  ‘When you’ve something to tell, ring me after six. Say you want to see me, nothing more. I’ll make the arrangements.’ Gwyn said this, aware of the perils of such an operation, but never dreaming how much he would regret it.

  On Sunday morning Emlyn and Geraint came up to the farm. They loved to lend a hand. The ewes and the weaned lambs had to be sorted, ready for dipping on Monday. The older animals were already suspicious. They remembered the smell, the stinging in their eyes and ears, the terrible taste. Idris Llewelyn would have to come and help. It needed strong hands to subdue the big mule rams and at six foot three and fifteen stone, Idris was one of the strongest men in the district.

  After their work the children began to walk down to T Llr. They rounded the bend from where Nain’s cottage could be seen, just as a dark figure emerged from her garden. For some reason they all stood quite still as the man stepped into the road. He was tall and wore a black jacket round his shoulders. He did not see them and began to walk in the opposite direction, then suddenly he turned and looked back. He didn’t wave. The sun was in Gwyn’s eyes and he couldn’t see the man’s features. Nia cried, ‘It’s Evan.’