Chapter 3 #2
‘Always with him, to start with. Until the Chif got involved,’ Denny said.
Jenyfer gave him a sharp glance. His smile was rueful.
‘Mother said Lamorna was wallowing in sin with a heathen from Cruithea. She was certain the Chif would throw them both out of Kernou, but that wasn’t what happened at all. ’
‘What did happen?’
‘I never had a conversation with Mordred, but I heard him speak the night he convinced people that the Chif was a liar and a coward and didn’t care for anyone but himself,’ Denny answered.
‘He’d called a meeting, and everyone went.
I don’t know how he did it to be honest. Maybe he put a spell on people? ’
‘No,’ Jenyfer said. ‘I think he simply used their fears against them, the same way Ulrian did every time he opened his mouth.’ She sighed. ‘If I wasn’t so horrified, I’d be impressed.’
Denny shook his head. ‘You weren’t here. You didn’t see what he did to…’ His voice trailed off but he gestured to the beach, to those now-empty stakes. ‘I think, after that, people were afraid of him.’
‘But they still followed him,’ Jenyfer argued.
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘You didn’t,’ she pointed out. When Denny said nothing, she touched his arm gently. ‘Come on.’
They headed down the path and through the silent town.
They didn’t see another person, but Jenyfer could feel their eyes – or maybe it was the eyes of the past looking at her, judging her in the silent way she became so accustomed to.
A curtain twitched as they moved through the empty streets towards Denny’s cottage, but no one confronted them.
She wasn’t entirely certain why she had offered to help Margaret – it was what Tamora would have done.
Her aunt never let her personal feelings for someone stop her from helping them.
Tamora had thought she’d been sly about it, but Jenyfer had always known her aunt was using her skills behind the Konsel’s back, playing a game as dangerous as Jenyfer had been.
She hoped Tamora was happy in Cruithea. Did she know about Lamorna?
Did she know what had gone on here? Jenyfer needed to speak with Lamorna, and soon.
She’d bully her sister into telling her what Mordred’s plans were, but without being able to get to Dinas Emrys, she would have to wait and hope Lamorna found her again.
It didn’t surprise Jenyfer that Lamorna had willingly followed Mordred into all of this, and there was some part of her that was glad her sister had finally seen the truth of the Chif’s lies, but another part of her was terrified Lamorna had fallen from one darkness straight into another without any way of pulling herself out.
Denny didn’t say anything else, but his eyes kept drifting to the dragon, its head and sinuous neck visible over the tops of the cottage roofs.
They rounded a corner, and every muscle in Jenyfer’s body turned to stone.
Bryn’s cottage was at the end of the street.
She swallowed, unable to take her eyes from that tiny house.
Her fingers tightened on the basket until the cane crackled in protest. She could still feel the weight of his body, feel his breath on her neck.
She couldn’t breathe. Jenyfer closed her eyes, willing her mind to that moment in Lyonesse when she had destroyed Andromache’s watery rendering of Bryn and watched him shatter into a thousand droplets.
‘Did he go with Mordred?’ she asked eventually. Her voice wobbled slightly.
Denny nodded. ‘Bryn…’
‘You can say it, whatever it is,’ Jenyfer said quietly.
‘I used to see him and Mordred talking all the time,’ Denny said.
‘Mother didn’t like Mordred, so I… you get the idea.
I had no clue what was going on in this town, only that things were changing.
There were always whispers, but before the Konsel were left for the sea, the whispers changed.
I can’t explain it. There was a… purpose to them, I suppose and whatever that purpose was, Bryn was part of it. ’
Jenyfer had not taken her eyes from Bryn’s cottage.
What had Mordred offered him? The answer came quickly.
The man Bryn had become had liked power, more than Jenyfer ever realised, making him not that much different to any other man in this town.
She hadn’t seen it in him – she hadn’t witnessed the transformation.
If she had, she’d never have lied that night the Chif caught her on the beach with Ordes.
She would never have dragged Bryn into it.
But if she hadn’t, what would her punishment have been?
‘Come on,’ Denny said gently, and she turned away from that cottage and the memory it held and followed Denny.
Jenyfer had never known exactly where Denny and his mother lived, wanting nothing to do with Margaret her whole life.
He led her to an ordinary cottage, no different to the others in town – grey stone walls, a thatched roof, timber door.
Some plants clung to life on either side of the door, hunched against the walls trying to escape the ocean wind.
Before he pushed the door open, Denny closed his hand over Jenyfer’s forearm; at her sharp glance, he pulled it away quickly.
‘She… isn’t right. I don’t know whether it’s the sickness, but she isn’t herself.
’ He paused, then sighed. ‘Don’t pay any attention to whatever she says to you. She’s been raving.’
‘Can’t be any worse than what she’s already said to me,’ Jenyfer mumbled.
Denny barked a harsh laugh. ‘You’d be surprised.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say madness was catching.
I’ve felt a little mad myself,’ he added, then led Jenyfer into the cottage.
She paused for a moment, panic spearing through her.
The inside of Denny’s cottage was much the same as Bryn’s.
It was dark and dusty, with no fire lit in the hearth.
A bed was tucked against the far wall where, bundled beneath some grey blankets, was Margaret.
She was thinner than Jenyfer remembered, her hair running to white, cheeks sunken and pale.
‘Mother, I’ve brought someone to help you,’ Denny said gently.
‘No one can help me,’ Margaret whispered, but she tried to sit up. Denny tenderly propped her emaciated form up against the pillows.
‘How did she get so thin?’ Jenyfer asked.
‘She won’t eat,’ Denny replied.
‘I can hear you.’ Margaret’s eyes, as black as coals in the darkness, shot to Jenyfer’s face. She cackled and clutched at her blanket. ‘You’ve brought me a witch,’ she declared. ‘I always knew what you were, Jenyfer Astolat. I could smell it. You smelt of evil and death and magic.’
‘Mother,’ Denny chided.
Jenyfer ignored the woman, hunting through the herbs she had brought, wrinkling her nose as a sour smell filled the air. Margaret. She smelt worse than the Chif. ‘She needs to wash, Denny,’ Jenyfer said firmly. ‘She—’
‘I know,’ Denny said. ‘But she won’t let me. Threatened to stab me last time I tried. Maybe she’ll let you?’
Jenyfer almost dropped the jar of herbs.
‘I mean, you’re a woman,’ Denny muttered. ‘She…’
‘She isn’t touching me,’ Margaret hissed.
As Denny argued with his mother, Jenyfer went into the kitchen and found the kettle.
The stove was cold but set, so she lit it then stood back and waited for the water to warm.
Margaret glared and muttered at her, and Jenyfer ignored it, hunting around the tiny kitchen for a teapot and mug.
She could feel Margaret watching her every move as she made valerian tea and left it to brew, going into the sorry little bathing room and finding a large basin like the one she’d used for bathing most of her life.
Jenyfer poured the rest of the hot water into the basin and added some lavender flowers, then asked Denny for a washcloth. Margaret’s eyes narrowed as Jenyfer approached her with the steaming basin between her hands. ‘You need to wash, Margaret.’
‘You won’t touch me, witch,’ the old woman said, spitting in Jenyfer’s direction.
That seemed to be the last straw for Denny.
His fists curled when he spoke, his voice louder and firmer than Jenyfer had ever heard it.
‘That’s enough, Mother. You will wash and you will eat, and if you refuse, then I don’t know what else there is I can do for you, except find somewhere to bury you when you die. ’
Jenyfer stared at him. Denny’s cheeks flushed with colour, and he turned and left the cottage.