The Winter Witch

by Paula Brackston

  “Oh, ’tis not my tale. The legend of the blue well is very old. Older than the farm. Some do say ’tis as old as memory.” She gives a shrug. “Leastways it is most definitely older than me.”

  “Imagine!” says Cai.

  Morgana shoots him a look that says be quiet. She takes up Mrs. Jones’s hand and squeezes it, urging her to continue.

  “They do say there are some sources of water as have special properties. Special. Anyone who drinks the water will know good health. In the right hands, it can effect all manner of cures and give relief from many, many varieties of suffering.”

  “Ha!” says Cai. “Magic water, indeed.”

  “Now then, did I say magic?”

  “You had that look on your face.”

  “Tease me all you like, Mr. Jenkins. The power in that well is known far and wide, and all your mocking won’t change the facts, see?”

  “Oh, facts now, is it?”

  “Pay him no heed,” Mrs. Jones addresses Morgana. “There will always be those who don’t want to see. But the truth is what it is, cariad, even if it do trouble some.”

  Cai opens his mouth to respond to this but thinks better of it. Mrs. Jones, satisfied he has finished with his futile interruptions, goes on.

  “Years ago, centuries, mind, the story has it that a holy man passed this way on a pilgrimage. He was not young, and had not lived an altogether holy life, so his health was poor. He was finding the journey a struggle. Well, night was falling as he reached this place, and he decided to set up camp. He went with his servant to fill their goatskin water bottles and came across an old crone sitting by the side of the spring.”

  “Witch,” says Cai. “In the story I heard she was a witch, not a crone.”

  Mrs. Jones frowns. “I thought you were going to stay quiet, Mr. Jenkins.”

  “So long as you are dealing with facts, thought you might like to get the details right, see?”

  Mrs. Jones ignores him.

  “This … crone … was down on her luck. She greeted the holy man kindly enough and asked him to spare her some food. Just a crust of bread or a handful of porridge oats, see? So she wouldn’t starve. But the holy man said he had none to spare. Well, Duw, this made the old woman angry, but she saw the holy man was limping and thought to bargain with him. She offered to cure his affliction, if he’d then give her something to eat. He agreed, and she took some of the spring water and poured it over his swollen leg, and muttered an incantation. And at once the pain eased! The holy man was pleased and fair skipped about, but when it came time to pay what was due he was mean, and handed over only a moldy crust and maggoty cheese. The crone felt cheated. He offered her a blessing to help her on her way. But she shouted at him.

  “‘What care I for the blessing of a man such as you?’ she screamed. ‘Call yourself holy, when you’ve no charity in your heart for an old woman? A curse upon you!’ And so saying she scooped up water from the well and flung it over him. ‘Water will be poison to you from this day onward. May you never know good health more!’ The servant made to beat her, but the crone ran away into the night, her aged legs moving swifter than any could match. Well, the holy man left the next day, but he was dead before he reached the coast. They do say he could drink a dew pond dry but never quench the terrible thirst he endured, and that he wasted to nothing.” Mrs. Jones sits back heavily in her chair, nodding in a knowing fashion. “Ever since, the spring at Ffynnon Las has been known as a cursing well.”

  Cai yawns and stretches. “A fine bedtime story, Mrs. Jones.”

  “It’s as well you have no interest in such things, Mr. Jenkins, else people would be knocking at your door offering money for curses and cures. The owner of the well do wield its full power. Others might seek to use it, but without permission there will be a limit to what they can bring about. The master of Ffynnon Las is the master of the well. Or the mistress, mind.”

  Cai laughs. “Duw, I’d best put up a sign. We could do with the extra income.”

  Mrs. Jones huffs and lets her eyes close. “Mock all you like. Facts is facts. Facts is facts.” So saying she falls silent, her breathing slowing almost at once, so that she is quickly asleep.

  On Tuesday morning Cai stands outside the open front door of the house and calls.

  “Morgana!” He cups his hands the better to send his voice up the hill, where he is fairly certain she will be hiding, and tries again. “Mor-gan-a!” Nothing. Not the slightest movement or sign of either of the dogs, who are also absent.

  Mrs. Jones is already sitting in the trap, basket in her lap. Prince shakes his head to rid himself of bothersome flies. It is barely eight o’clock and yet the sun beats down from a cloudless sky, unhelpfully hot.

  “Did you not tell her we were going to market this morning, Mr. Jenkins?” asks Mrs. Jones.

  “Aye, I told her.” He feels irritation getting the better of him. If she hadn’t wanted to come she could have said so, he thinks. He catches himself in the impossibility of this but knows that even without words she could have made her feelings plain instead of running off like a child. He steps up into the little cart crossly, causing Prince to stagger for a moment, adjusting himself to the sudden weight. With a flick of the reins they are off, joined in the trap by a tense silence in place of Morgana. Not for the first time Cai realizes how eloquent his wife’s wordlessness is, for the silence that would accompany her would be of a very different quality to that provided by her absence. Particularly when her absence feels like a deliberate slight, somehow.

  The road to Tregaron is twisting and narrow, but smooth enough in the dry season, if a little dusty. There is a heaviness in the air today. Beneath his waistcoat Cai’s shirt is already damp, clinging unpleasantly to his back. Mrs. Jones attempts to engage him in light conversation, but he has no heart for it. His humor is not improved by the realization that it matters to him more than a little that Morgana has chosen to stay at home. While he understands her reasons he wishes, just this once, she had considered him before shunning his offer of a trip to market. He wanted her beside him as he arrived in town. He wanted the people of Tregaron to see his new bride, recovered from the unfortunate events of Sunday, sitting prettily in the trap with him, or strolling on his arm. He wanted to watch her browsing through the market stalls, selecting items for the store cupboard and perhaps a treat or two—a ribbon for her hair, or a piece of lace. He wanted to see other men watching her. He could admit it at least to himself now; he was proud of her. He wanted to show her off and now he cannot, and he doesn’t know whether to feel selfish and guilty about that, or hurt and hard done-by. Either way, by the time they pass Isolda’s imposing town house on the square and Prince swings into the paddock behind the Talbot Hotel his mood is blacker than the best bowler hat he is wearing as he always does when there is business to be done.

  Mrs. Jones is happy to be released to go about her shopping and Cai pushes the brass-plated front door of the inn. Tregaron has long been known as the main droving town of west Wales, and the Talbot Hotel is its very center. The generous lounge bar sports a fine fireplace with polished settles and tables placed carefully to allow the privacy required if important deals are to be made. Cai greets the barman and asks for a tankard of ale. He watches the foaming beer filling the pewter mug and licks his lips, heat, humidity, and a sour temper sharpening his thirst. There is already a fair collection of farmers halfway down their first pints. Some lean against the bar, others sit in huddles, heads bowed in conversations of the utmost secrecy. Here bargains will be struck and livestock bought and sold without the assistance of the auctioneer. Promises of labor or loans of farming implements will be secured. Here men can talk business, their thoughts flowing freely after a little ale and without the encumbrance of their womenfolk, who will be engaged in their own important matters out in the square. Cai nods to an elderly neighbor before taking a greedy gulp of the strong, dark ale. He wipes froth from his top lip with the back of his hand, lets out a deep sigh of satisfaction,
blesses, after all, the absence of female company, and belches tunefully.

  “Duw, Duw! Sounds like you were in sore need of that, Jenkins Ffynnon Las!” The cheerful voice behind him can belong to none other than Dai the Forge. Cai turns, smiling despite himself, putting down his tankard to shake the enormous hand of the blacksmith. Dai the Forge, as he is known to all, as was his father before him, is a mountain of a man. Standing nearer seven feet tall than six, his shoulders so broad he must step sideways through most doorways, he is perfectly suited for the job he has inherited. For Dai is a drover’s blacksmith. Not for him the delicate business of shoeing a lady’s favorite hack, or trimming the slender hooves of Lord Cardigan’s racehorses. His is a sturdier group of customers, consisting in the main of thousands of pounds of good Welsh beef. However hardy the cattle, they cannot make the three-week journey of the drove without first being shod, every last flighty, horned, muscly one of them.

  “Now then, Dai, let me buy you a pint. First of the season.” Cai signals to the barman.

  “Well, there’s Christian of you,” says Dai, slapping Cai playfully on the back, momentarily rendering him unable to draw breath. “How’s that herd of yours looking, then, m’n? Ready for the off, is it?”

  Cai answers hoarsely, “Aye, they’re right enough. I’ll fetch them down from the hill next week.”

  “What date are we off?”

  “The last Tuesday of the month. I’ll give you and Edwyn Nails a shout when we’re ready for you.”

  “Right you are.” He pauses to receive his beer from the barman, wink his thanks at Cai, and tip most of the contents of the tankard down his throat in a couple of loud swallows. “You’ll be here on business today, then,” he says. He indicates a wiry figure sitting by the far window. “I see your friend’s in.”

  Cai frowns. Llewellyn Pen-yr-Rheol is no friend of his, and well Dai knows it. Once occupying the position of head drover, the man is a salutary lesson in what can befall someone who loses the trust of those on whom he depends for his livelihood. Llewellyn becomes aware he is being observed and raises his ale in salute, his smile a thin, bitter thing. Cai inclines his head half an inch but can bring himself to do no more. This was the man who took over the drove from Cai’s father, when the position should have, would have, come to him, had not Catrin died. For no man, not even a widower, can hold the license of head drover without a wife. The porthmon must be a married householder of the district, the reasoning behind the rules being that such a man has reason to return. A rootless person, one with nothing to draw him back to the area, might be tested beyond endurance by the heavy purse of money he will receive from the London buyers at the end of the drove. Some of that money will be his, but a sizable proportion of it will belong to other farmers and townsfolk who have entrusted him with their business. A wife and a home stand as insurance against such temptation.

  Llewellyn had been quick—a little too quick, in the opinion of many—to step into the position and take on the responsibility. He was not well-liked in the community, and there were those who voiced their doubts about his suitability for the task. But time was short, and many were dependent on a successful drove to survive the coming winter. Llewellyn Pen-yr-Rheol had been out to impress, to make a name for himself, from the start. He had borrowed heavily from the Tregaron bank in order to buy huge herds, resulting in the biggest drove anyone could remember seeing. Caught up in the atmosphere of opportunity and prosperity lots of farmers came forward to request their own cattle be taken to London as well, risking everything on the drove, entrusting their families’ security to a man who, up to this point, few had found a good word for. Cai well remembered that drove setting off, and how plainly Llewellyn had enjoyed his newfound status. The man had even made a point of saying how, on his return, with his pockets full, he would make Cai an offer for Ffynnon Las. The idea of selling his beloved farm, his father’s farm, to such a snake of a man provoked fury in Cai, but so beaten down with grief was he that he feared it might, after all, be the only sensible course of action left to him.

  Llewellyn’s drove had made good time, and reached the fattening fields with few losses. Fair prices had been reached for all the stock, and celebrations were already under way in the town when news reached the revelers of disaster. On his return journey, Llewellyn had been robbed of all the money he had made—his own, and everyone else’s. He had been set upon by bandits crossing the Epynt, left with a cracked head in a shallow ditch, not a penny remaining. After the shock and rage had died down, and after fruitless efforts had been made to find the perpetrators, the townsfolk had, in their despair, turned on Llewellyn. As head drover, it was his responsibility, and his alone, to see that everyone’s money was delivered to them. Why had he seen fit to ride home unaccompanied? Why had he not traveled by stage? Why had he not hired men to protect him and the funds? Rumors began to circulate of gambling and debts, and the possibility that he might never have been robbed at all, but somehow squirreled the money away for himself.

  For all his loathing of the man, Cai doubts this. If he is sitting on a fortune he hides it exceptionally well. When he looks at him he sees someone who aimed high and fell low. His body is so thin, so insubstantial, it is as if he is being eaten away from inside by his own failure. Despite no longer owning so much as a herd, much less a farm, he continues to wear the garb of the drover, with long, ground-sweeping coat, and broad-brimmed hat. Whereas on Cai this looks workmanlike and tough, Llewellyn gives the appearance of a ghost of a man with barely sufficient strength to support his own weight. And he is not a man capable of hating himself, so that he has turned his hatred outward, first to his poor wife, who regularly sported a black eye, then his teenage son, who left home vowing never to return, and ultimately to his successor, Cai. He makes no secret of the fact that he doubts Cai has the ability to head a successful drove. He tells anyone who wants to hear it, and plenty who do not, that he is too young, too inexperienced, and will lead them all into ruin.

  A small part of Cai fears he may be right. Fears that what he sees before him is his future. The town cannot stand a second failed drove. All the risks—bad weather, disease, cattle rustlers, stampedes, unscrupulous merchants, injuries, and loss—all must be planned for and overcome. He must not fail. He knows he let the farm slip when Catrin died. It has taken time for him to rebuild his own herd, and to rebuild himself, to make both ready for the coming challenge. Two seasons he neglected the farm, and financially he has not yet recovered. He needs this drove to be successful as much as anyone, to secure the future of Ffynnon Las. A future for himself and Morgana.

  “Duw, I think he wants to talk to you, Jenkins,” says Dai the Forge.

  Llewellyn gets unsteadily to his feet and crosses the sloping flagstone floor. Cai straightens, putting down his tankard. The older man comes to stand uncomfortably close. When he speaks his voice is as reedy and thin as his physique.

  “Well, there we are then, our honorable new head drover. What a fine porthmon. A man to be trusted, see?” He turns to address the room. “Wouldn’t you all trust such a fellow, with his fine hat, and his gold watch at his pocket, and his new wife, bought in special for the purpose.”

  “Hold your tongue, Pen-yr-Rheol,” says Cai. He knows he must not rise to the bait, but already his grip on his temper is slipping.

  Llewellyn waves an arm expansively. “Did it for the good of all, see? Found himself a wife just so as he can head the drove and keep all your lovely money safe. Well, there’s thoughtful, isn’t it?”

  “You’re drunk. Get yourself home.”

  “Drunk, am I? And what’s that in your tankard, then? Tea? You set yourself up very high and mighty, Cai Jenkins. Just watch you don’t fall. ’Tis a long way down.”

  “You should know.”

  “Aye, I do know it well enough. Oh, don’t look at me that way! I only speak out because I care about you. Your father took me on my very first drove, did you know that? A fine man, he was.” He pauses, swaying, a nasty grin
rearranging his features. “Good job he’s not around to see how you’ve let Ffynnon Las go, mind.”

  This is too close to a nerve for Cai, who draws back a fist but finds its trajectory blocked by the bulk of Dai the Forge.

  “Now then, Llewellyn, m’n. No need for that sort of talk,” he says, gently but firmly turning the teetering man around and pushing him toward the door. “Go and find yourself a shady spot. Sleep off some of that ale.”

  Llewellyn allows himself to be guided away from Cai, but calls back over his shoulder as he leaves, “We’ll all be watching you, Cai Jenkins. The whole town’ll be watching you. You think you can be the man your father was? You want to be head drover, then? Well good luck and welcome to you, bachgen, you’ll need every bit of it!”

  * * *

  Early this morning, from my lofty hiding place I watched Cai and Mrs. Jones down in front of the house, trap ready, dressed in their market day best. I heard my name called, but the word was snatched away by the mountain breeze. Moments later the clip-clop of Prince’s hooves echoed up the valley as he conveyed his grumpy passengers toward town. Let them go without me. I have no wish to be paraded in town as I was at chapel. Who knows what further humiliation might await me? If there is the slightest chance I might have to endure another moment in the company of the Reverend Cadwaladr I would sooner not risk it. The day is too bright, too golden, to sully with the company of strangers. I would so much prefer to be here, listening to the heartbeat of the hill.

  Up here, in the high pasture, I have found a perfect spot. A shallow dip in the ground worn by years of sheltering sheep. To one side are three boulders, smoothed by the weather, and leaning over the top is a sturdy blackthorn, its low, twisted branches and tough leaves providing shade. If I crawl forward and peer over the rim of this grassy bowl I can observe all that goes on at the farmhouse below without fear of being seen myself. Today the corgis have joined me. Bracken fidgets, and I stroke the little dog’s dense copper fur, soothing him, and he relaxes once more, stretching out to rest his nose on his white paws. Behind him Meg yawns lazily. I smile at them.