A Tap At The Window
Not long after Hyacinth gets home, a raven appears at her kitchen window and taps on the glass with its great beak. In the sheen of its feathers, held only in the iridescence and not part of its colouring at all, are swirls and lines she recognises from the stones of Abersky and the Cigfrain who kept watch over the hunters as they fled the Sluagh and the Cù Sìth.
Hyacinth opens the window and the raven presents her with a vellum envelope.
“Corvids bring the most interesting letters,” Hyacinth says, as she takes the envelope. The bird bows, utters a soft croak, then launches itself into the air and flies away.
Hyacinth makes herself a cup of tea and sits at the kitchen table to read the letter. It is from the witch Dolmech, who lives on the lochside not far from Abersky.
Bran Croft
Loch Briste
Sutherland
Annwyl Hyacinth,
The folk of the village told me of how you helped Old Morgan understand what was happening, so she could tell Queen Drusicc. It was a bad business. A very bad business. I was on my way over when that twmffat English boy ripped Aberscasbethau from its moorings and sent it spinning like a drunken buzzard over to the Ancestors. As you may have gathered by now, that did nobody any good at all. Aberscasbethau should only meet with her ancestral village at the Cyfodiadau y Twyll. That’s when those bastard guiodel are blinded, although there are few places where it works at all. It happens at the time of what you would call the Great Conjunction, and a long line of women going back into the ages have made sure that this window never sticks. Quietly, with no fuss. I am just the latest, and you have my gratitude for your part in ensuring I will not be the last. For even if the guiodel try to stop us, we will continue to bring the light of the descendants to our imprisoned ancestors. If it’s war they want, then war they shall have, and we have a forge and iron aplenty.
I hope they will not attempt to put a stop to our family gatherings. It is bad enough that they tried to replace the spirit of Coed ar y Ffin with one of their own, and now our dear Cerddinen must pretend allegiance to the enemy when they come to make sure our kin are still imprisoned. Ah well. Needs must when the devil comes calling.
If you are ever back by ours, drop in. I shall know you are around. Mewn pob daioni y mae gwobr.
Diolch yn fawr
Domelch y Pritani
Hyacinth folds the letter carefully and puts it back in its envelope. She has no intention of going out of her way to share its contents. It’s not a secret, but it is a personal letter, after all. Neither Keira nor Karl would be especially interested, she thinks, and she most certainly will not show it to Elres, who is not to be trusted. Still, if Robin pops round for lunch, she might tell him about it.
Thoughtfully, she puts the envelope away somewhere safe. She would like to meet this witch Dolmech. Perhaps there are other witches out there, too.