by Jenny Nimmo
She knocked on Gwyn’s door, as she had promised, but receiving no answer, went in. Gwyn’s room was dim and airless. It seemed to be full of a kind of dust; particles of gossamer drifted just beneath the rafters; tiny, broken threads sparkled in the gloomy recesses under the beams. So Gwyn was back at work. She knew how reluctant he was. What had forced his hand at last?
Gwyn was sitting on the bed with his strange silver spider nestling in his hand. ‘I know, it’s milking time,’ he said.
‘Are you all right, then?’ she asked. ‘Did you find it, that horse?’
‘In a way,’ he replied, and then he looked sideways at her and mumbled, ‘I had to use the power though.’
He hadn’t mentioned his power for a long time. He used to call it magic, but considered himself too old for that word now.
‘What did you do?’ she sat beside him.
‘It was Arianwen,’ he said. ‘She showed me where he was and we caught him, she and I, we wrapped him up. Trapped him!’
‘How?’ she asked gently.
‘In the web. I saw him under the chestnut tree. He’d escaped you see, from the horse.’
‘Who escaped? What was it in the horse?’ Nia asked, alarmed by the unnatural glitter in his dark eyes.
‘A demon,’ Gwyn said.
She thought of the cry that had taken her breath away and her prince lying among the broken conker shells. ‘Evan fell under the chestnut tree,’ she said. ‘I thought he had died!’
They regarded each other, trying to relate what she had said to a captured demon. And it seemed to Nia that Gwyn suddenly reached a conclusion he might be afraid to share with her. Then he shook his head and said, ‘Perhaps I’d better remind you of a story.’
Nia might have warned him of his father’s threat then, but Evan would help with the cows, and Emlyn, probably. She had to know this story. ‘Remind me, then,’ she urged.
‘Remember the presents Nain gave me for my ninth birthday,’ Gwyn said, ‘The seaweed that brought a ship from outer space, and the scarf that called my lost sister back for a while.’
Nia nodded. She had been the only one to share Gwyn’s secret and it was not so long ago that the extraordinary ship had returned and nearly taken Emlyn away forever. It was only Gwyn’s power that had saved his cousin. A little sadness always seemed to linger about Gwyn, however, because he had been unable to keep his sister with him. But Nia felt that, in many ways, the lost girl was still there, on the mountain. Mrs Griffiths kept her daughter’s room just as she had left it; with rose-petals in the drawers, dresses hanging in the wardrobe and dolls displayed on the dressing-table, as though any day Bethan might walk through the door with a bouquet of flowers she had wandered off to find. It was Nia who had chosen Bethan’s name for her new baby sister, two years ago.
‘And there was the brooch,’ Gwyn went on, ‘that became Arianwen when I gave it to the wind.’
‘The broken horse was another gift,’ Gwyn said, and then he grunted, ‘Some gift! I wouldn’t be telling you this if I didn’t think you’d understand, Nia. But I believe you’re the only one who can believe in the impossible. Am I right?’
Honoured by this description of herself she eagerly agreed, ‘You are!’
‘The horse was given to my grandmother by her great-great-grandmother, who was a witch,’ he glanced at her, ‘if you can believe that.’
‘I can,’ she said.
‘I must keep it safe, she told me, never let it go. For I was the guardian, the magician who had inherited the power of Gwydion. But even Nain didn’t know what that horse contained.’
‘And did you find out?’ Nia asked.
He avoided a direct answer. ‘I had to search the legends,’ he said, and from beneath his pillow took a book already open at a page that had evidently been more than just slept on, for it was stained with thumb marks and wrinkled with damp breath.
‘They say this story is more than two thousand years old,’ Gwyn went on. ‘For hundreds of years bards and storytellers kept it alive until it was written down, maybe hundreds of years later. Shall I read it?’
‘Yes please,’ Nia said fervently. Gwyn was the best storyteller she knew, describing events with such passionate meaning that heroes and heroines seemed to leap before her, drawing armies and castles behind them, in a dazzling atmosphere that quite excluded all her immediate surroundings.
Gwyn cleared his throat in a rather theatrical way and began, ‘Long, long ago, when Britain was a land of wild forests, Bendigeidfran, the Blessed Bran, son of Llr, was king. He was a mighty man, a giant. Men thought him a god. He had a brother, Manawydan, and a sister, Branwen . . .’
‘The fairest maiden in all Britain,’ Nia said, happy to demonstrate her knowledge.
‘D’you know it all, then?’ Gwyn asked tersely.
‘No, no! That’s all I can remember. Please go on.’ Nia begged.
‘The next part is what matters,’ Gwyn told her. ‘Will you promise to keep quiet?’
She nodded, obediently mute.
‘Bendigeidfran had two half-brothers, sons of his mother, Penarddun. Nisien was a kind and peaceful man, Efnisien, his brother, the very opposite. Wherever there was peace, Efnisien would cause strife!’
‘On a sparkling summer day, Bendigeidfran was sitting with his nobles on a rock at Harlech, when he saw a most wonderful fleet sail into the bay. One ship outstripped the others; bright banners waved, its prow was painted gold and it flew an ensign of brocaded silk. Even from afar it glittered like a wonderful toy, but for all its joyful colour, its promise of good tidings, it brought nothing but future sadness. It carried Matholwch, King of Ireland, who had come to ask for Princess Branwen to be his wife.
‘And it was agreed that Branwen should marry Matholwch. But when Efnisien discovered this he was consumed with rage. “My sister shall not marry Matholwch,” he ranted, “a maiden so excellent as she belongs in Britain and married to a British prince.”’
‘D’you think he loved her then?’ Nia asked, forgetting her promise.
Gwyn frowned severely and continued, ‘And he maimed the Irish king’s horses; he cut off their lips, their ears, their tails and even their eyelids until they screamed and no one could lay a hand on them. And because of this and the shame Bendigeidfran felt on Efnisien’s behalf, he gave to Matholwch Britain’s most precious possession – the great cauldron of rebirth wherein a dead man could be born again. Matholwch took the gift but he was still not appeased, and once in his own country he treated his new wife, Branwen, in a terrible fashion. He banished her to the kitchens where she was beaten every day and although she bore Matholwch a son, still he would not honour her. In her lonely cell Branwen found a starling and trained it to seek out her brothers telling them of her misery. As soon as he received word of her plight King Bendigeidfran and his brothers crossed the Irish sea with their army. The Irish were mortally afraid, for Bendigeidfran strode waist-high across the sea. They did not want to do battle with such a man and they hastily built a mighty house to honour him, for he was of too great a stature for any of their buildings.
‘But the wily Irish did not intend to let the British live. Inside the great house they hung two hundred bags of hide and in every bag hid an Irish soldier, and that night every Briton would have died were it not for Efnisien, who was their greatest warrior in strategy and courage. It was he who first entered the house to ensure King Bendigeidfran’s safety.
‘“What is in those bags?” Efnisien asked the Irish.
‘“Flour,” they answered.
‘Efnisien approached the first bag; he touched it, suspiciously, and knew it to be a soldier. With his great hands he ruthlessly crushed the skull he felt inside the bag. And this he did with every one until he had killed all the soldiers hidden there and the Irish, being too ashamed to admit their treachery, could do nothing to stop him.
‘And that night a feast was held in the house and it was agreed that Gwern, the son of Branwen and Matholwch, should be heir to both th
e kings thus uniting their countries. But, of a sudden, Efnisien rose up, wrathfully, and cast the boy into the fire, and it was done so fast that no one could stop the deed.’
Nia knew now why she had tried to forget the story. She wanted to ask if it was madness or hate or terrible love that had caused Efnisien’s dreadful act, but she realised that in the passing of time and the route from bard to bard, the meaning and the cause had become blurred and then forgotten. ‘Go on,’ she whispered.
Gwyn looked at her over the rim of the book and continued without looking at it. It was obvious that he knew the next part by heart.
‘And then there was a tumult in the house as the Irish and the British took up arms against each other. And when the Irish saw that they might be defeated they began to kindle the cauldron of rebirth, so that their army would be reborn again. Efnisien, seeing that his soldiers had no hope against a ghostly army, cried, “Woe is me that I should cause the death of the men of Britain, and shame on me if I do not seek their deliverance!” And he lay down among the Irish dead, and, believing him to be an Irish corpse, they threw him into the boiling cauldron, a living man. And he stretched himself out in the cauldron and burst it into four pieces, and his heart burst also!’
Gwyn looked into the book again but did not continue the story. He had told Nia all she needed to know. The sadness increased on every further page, for in the end she remembered, Branwen and the king died too.
‘We are Llrs, of course,’ Nia said thoughtfully, ‘through our mother, though I can’t believe we’re related to a legend in any way.’
‘I seem to be,’ Gwyn said wryly.
Should one be consoled for being a magician, Nia wondered, but asked instead, ‘You think it is the spirit of Efnisien then, trapped in that horse?’
‘Yes! I do believe it is!’
‘And when Iolo lost him in the stream, he was free for a while.’
‘For a while, but I caught him, didn’t I?’ he attempted a reassuring grin. ‘Before he could do any harm.’
‘Then where is he now?’
Gwyn shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Nia! I made a spell and it went astray somehow. I don’t know why. Don’t worry, I’ll find the horse. Right now I’d better get downstairs or I’ll be late for milking!’
But the cows were already in the barn and Mr Griffiths, in a better mood now, was chatting to Evan in the yard. Evan seemed reluctant to leave the mountain. ‘You keep the sun so long up here,’ he told the farmer.
When they went home, at last, the sky was a riot of violent colours and a lonely bird, hidden in the chestnut tree, cried out, like an augury.
They soon became used to having a soldier at number six. His was an easy presence; quiet, unobtrusive. He took his breakfast early and was out of the house before the morning scramble; the banging on the bathroom door, shouts for more milk, more toast; the noisy hunt for combs, clean socks, sandwiches and school books. There was seldom a time when all seven children had everything they needed, never a time when one hadn’t had to run to catch up with the rest.
He caused quite a stir in Pendewi, though, did Evan Llr.
‘Related, is he?’ Mrs Bowen, the wool, asked Betty Lloyd, who had taken Nia to choose colours for a new cardigan.
‘My cousin,’ Betty smiled possessively.
‘Dashing, isn’t he?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t . . .’ She was proud of Evan but had never been one to boast. ‘Yes, he is good-looking, isn’t he?’ she coyly conceded.
‘And a major too, I hear!’
‘That’s right. Nia, come closer, cariad. Nia’s good with colours. I never choose without her now.’
‘Been in the army long, has he?’ Mrs Bowen resumed her ferreting.
‘Fifteen years or more.’
‘On leave then, is he?’
‘That’s it. Sick leave!’
‘Wounded, was he?’
‘That’s it! In Belfast!’
‘Whereabouts?’ Mrs Bowen leaned closer, eager for details that might have to be confided in a whisper, because of Nia.
‘Whereabouts? Oh, well . . . I don’t ask.’ Mrs Lloyd stepped away from Mrs Bowen’s prying black eyes.
Nia shuffled inside the door. She hated the way Mrs Bowen probed for every detail. Dissecting her prince like a specimen, caught under glass, going on about his wounds. Why wouldn’t they leave him alone? The twins were as bad. As soon as Evan returned from wherever he fled in his dark car they would start, ‘What happened, Evan? Was it a bomb, Evan?’
‘A bomb was it?’ Mrs Bowen nosed for the scent. ‘Belfast, you said. Bound to have been a bomb!’
‘Well, it’s difficult, Joan.’ Betty was flustered. She didn’t know, that was the truth. No one knew, for sure, what Evan’s trouble had been. Questions often flickered on her tongue but were always left unspoken. She feared they might drive her Evan away. He had never volunteered information.
‘Lucky his face wasn’t scarred or we wouldn’t be so interested, would we?’ Mrs Bowen giggled. ‘Are you with me?’
‘Yes.’ Mrs Lloyd shuffled the bundles of wool. ‘Nia, come here and look at this pink.’
Nia, gazing through the window, had seen a black car gliding smooth and quiet down the High Street. Evan was home early today. Where did he go, she wondered, every day? Out all day and at night restless; moving about in the room beneath hers. She would lie awake holding her breath, taut with curiosity, listening for every small sound: a step, a creak, a cough, a sigh. Her prince was so near and yet so completely mysterious.
‘Nia,’ Mrs Lloyd called impatiently.
The black car pulled up outside number six. Nia rushed to the counter. ‘That one’s too pale, and those are too bright,’ she said, pushing the balls of wool back across the counter. ‘And that one’s really horrible, like plastic flowers.’
‘It’s a very popular colour, is flamingo!’ Mrs Bowen bristled.
‘I’d go for green, Mam,’ Nia said.
‘But, Nia, we agreed on pink, I thought, to go with Bethan’s dress.’ Betty Lloyd rubbed her forehead.
‘I give up then.’ Nia made a dash for the door.
‘Green now, is it?’ Mrs Bowen sighed dramatically and bent under the counter.
Mrs Lloyd, confused, muttered. ‘I’m not sure, Nia . . .?’ she turned to her daughter.
‘I’ve got piles of homework, Mam,’ Nia said. ‘And green will do,’ and she slipped through the door leaving it open so that the shop bell rang continuously at the back of the building, where Mrs Bowen’s mother made baby clothes and never answered the door anyway.
She heard her mother shout as she sped away, but she didn’t try to decipher the message. She was afraid Catrin would be playing hostess. She was right. When she leapt into the house Evan was stepping through the kitchen door and Catrin was already pouring tea for him.
‘You’re early today,’ Nia said boldly. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Nowhere and everywhere,’ Evan replied.
‘Is that a riddle?’
‘It could be but it’s not. I’ve been in the mountains. I climbed, sat and watched clouds, went to sleep!’
‘Were you tired, then?’ Nia thought of the nightly creaks and sighs.
‘Shut up, Nia,’ Catrin snapped. ‘Leave Evan alone.’
It wasn’t like Catrin to be harsh. Stung, Nia decided to tease her sister. ‘Had a bad day, then? Didn’t Michael say “hullo!”?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ The tea that Catrin was pouring would have overflowed the cup, if Evan had not put out a hand to steady her. He gently removed the teapot and set it on the table. Then he held Catrin’s hand in both of his and looking from one sister to the other, said quietly, ‘Let’s not have quarrelling in the kitchen.’
Nia burned with unspoken sentences. The sight of those clasped hands troubled her. Perhaps something of her worry conveyed itself to Evan for he released Catrin and said, ‘You’ve asked me questions, Nia, now tell me about your day.’
She sat
beside him on the bench, not too close, but near enough to notice a tiny fleck of red in his black hair, just behind the ear. ‘I’ve been to school,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing interesting about that, is there?’
Evan laughed and it was such a carefree sound the girls laughed with him, and gradually the tension that had filled the cramped little kitchen was diffused and they even noticed that the evening sun, slanting into the room, was bouncing reflections from silver on the dresser, up to the low ceiling. Evan took a spoon and twisting it through the air made light dance over Catrin’s golden hair, and then on Nia’s dark plaits. So both the girls had to take silver, Nia a teaspoon and Catrin a knife, and turn the lights on Evan, over his face and round his head, like a glittering crown. And Nia noticed yet another streak of red in the black hair, and then another.
‘We’re going swimming!’ The twins were in the doorway, watching the show.
‘D’you want to come?’ Sîon addressed himself to Evan.
‘No, it’s too cold,’ Evan said.
‘It’s not, it’s great, warmer than summer!’ Enthusiasm always made Gareth yell.
‘All the same, I’d rather not.’ The soldier drummed his fingers on the table.
‘We go down by the bridge, it’s not deep, but you can swim a bit,’ Sîon persisted.
‘Evan’s busy,’ Catrin interceded. ‘Go on, twins, we’ll come later.’
Sîon would have gone then, but Gareth was always one to push even when the cause seemed hopeless. ‘Is it your scars, then?’ he asked hopefully. ‘We don’t care. Are there scars where you were wounded? I’d be proud if I had scars!’ He edged closer to the table trying to fathom his unsoldierly cousin, completely unprepared for the onslaught he provoked.
Violence sliced through the air as Evan leapt to his feet and thundered, ‘There are no wounds! No scars! Nothing, understand? Nothing . . . nothing . . . nothing!’ He towered above them, his fine face distorted with fury and Nia felt the room shudder at the outrage that poured into it. A monstrous stranger glowered there, not Evan, and to her horror she saw tears on his face, as though he despaired of the wrath that had shaken through him.
