The Grey King

Although all the characters in this book are fictitious, the places are real. I have however taken certain liberties with the geography of the Dysynni Valley and Tal y Llyn, and there are no real farms where I have made Clwyd, Prichard's and Ty-Bont stand.

The Brenin Llwyd I did not invent.

I am grateful to the Rev. Kenneth Francis, Mr. J. L. Jones and Mrs. Eira Crook for kindly checking my Welsh.

On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,

Must the youngest open the oldest hills

Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.

There fire shall fly from the raven boy,

And the silver eyes that see the wind,

And the Light shall have the harp of gold.

By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,

On Cadfan's Way where the kestrels call;

Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,

Yet singing the golden harp shall guide

To break their sleep and bid them ride.

When light from the lost land shall return,

Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,

And where the midsummer tree grows tall

By Pendragon's sword the Dark shall fall.

Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,

ac y mae'r arglwyddes yn dod.

A
re you awake, Will? Will? Wake up, it's time for your medicine, love. . . .”

The face swung like a pendulum, to and fro; rose high up in a pink blur; dropped again; divided into six pink blurs, all of them spinning madly like wheels. He closed his eyes. He could feel sweat cold on his forehead, panic cold in his mind.
I've lost it. I've forgotten!
Even in darkness the world spun round. There was a great buzzing in his head like rushing water, until for a moment the voice broke through it again.

“Will! Just for a moment, wake up. . . .”

It was his mother's voice. He knew, but could not focus. The darkness whirled and roared.
I've lost something. It's gone. What was it? It was terribly important, I must remember it, I must!
He began to struggle, reaching for consciousness, and a long way off heard himself groan.

“Here we go.” Another voice. The doctor. A firm arm, propping his shoulders; cold metal at his lips, a liquid tipped deftly down his throat. Automatically he swallowed. The world wildly spun. Panic came flooding again. A few faint words flashed through his mind and away like a snatch of music; his memory clutched, grasping—
“On the day of the dead—”

Mrs. Stanton stared down anxiously at the white face, the dark-smudged closed eyes, the damp hair. “What did he say?”

Suddenly Will sat upright, eyes wide and staring.
“On the day of the dead—”
He looked at her, pleading, without recognition. “That's all I can remember! It's gone! There was something I had to remember, a thing I had to do, it mattered more than anything and I've lost it! I've forgotten—” His face crumpled and he dropped back helplessly, tears running down his cheeks. His mother leaned over him, her arms round him, murmuring soothingly as if he were a baby. In a few moments he began to relax, and to breathe more easily. She looked up in distress.

“Is he delirious?”

The doctor shook his head, his round face compassionate. “No, he's past that. Physically, the worst is over. This is more like a bad dream, an hallucination—though he may indeed have lost something from his memory. The mind can be very much bound up with the health of the body, even in children. . . . Don't worry. He'll sleep now. And every day will be better from now on.”

Mrs. Stanton sighed, stroking her youngest son's damp forehead. “I'm very grateful. You've come so often—there aren't many doctors who—”

“Poof, poof,” said little Dr. Armstrong briskly, taking Will's wrist between finger and thumb. “We're all old friends. He was a very, very sick boy for a while. Going to be limp for a long time, too—even youngsters don't bounce back from this kind of thing very fast. I'll be back, Alice. But anyway, bed for at least another week, and no school for a month after that. Can you send him away somewhere? What about that cousin of yours in Wales, who took Mary at Easter?”

“Yes, he could go there. I'm sure he could. It's nice in October, too, and the sea air. . . . I'll write to them.”

Will moved his head on the pillow, muttering, but did not wake.

H
e remembered Mary had said, “They all speak Welsh, most of the time. Even Aunt Jen.”

“Oh, dear,” said Will.

“Don't worry,” his sister said. “Sooner or later they switch to English, if they see you're there. Just remember to be patient. And they'll be extra kind because of your having been ill. At least they were to me, after my mumps.”

So now Will stood patiently alone on the windy grey platform of the small station of Tywyn, in a thin drizzle of October rain, waiting while two men in the navy-blue railway uniform argued earnestly in Welsh. One of them was small and wizened, gnome-like; the other had a soft, squashy look, like a man made of dough.

The gnome caught sight of Will.
“Beth sy'n bod?”
he said.

“Er—excuse me,” Will said. “My uncle said he'd meet me off the train, in the station yard, but there's no one outside. Could you tell me if there's anywhere else he might have meant?”

The gnome shook his head.

“Who's your uncle, then?” enquired the soft-faced man.

“Mr. Evans, from Bryn-Crug. Clwyd Farm,” Will said.

The gnome chuckled gently. “David Evans will be a bit late, boy
bach.
You have a nice dreamer for an uncle. David Evans will be late when the Last Trump sounds. You just wait a while. On holiday, is it?” Bright dark eyes peered inquisitively into his face.

“Sort of. I've had hepatitis. The doctor said I had to come away to convalesce.”

“Ah.” The man nodded his head sagely. “You look a bit peaky, yes. Come to the right place, though. The air on this coast is very relaxing, they say, very relaxing. Even at this time of year.”

A clattering roar came suddenly from beyond the ticket office, and through the barrier Will saw a mud-streaked Land-Rover drive into the yard. But the figure that came bounding out of it was not that of the small neat farmer he vaguely remembered; it was a wiry, gangling young man, jerkily thrusting out his hand.

“Will, is it? Hallo. Da sent me to meet you. I'm Rhys.”

“How do you do.” Will knew he had two grown-up Welsh cousins, old as his oldest brothers, but he had never set eyes on either of them.

Rhys scooped up his suitcase as if it had been a matchbox. “This all you have? Let's be off, then.” He nodded to the railwaymen.
“Sut 'dach chi?”

“Iawn, diolch,”
said the gnome. “Caradog Prichard was asking for you or your father, round about, this morning. Something about dogs.”

“A pity you haven't seen me at all, today,” Rhys said.

The gnome grinned. He took Will's ticket. “Get yourself healthy now, young man.”

“Thank you,” Will said.

Perched up in the front of the Land-Rover, he peered out at the little grey town as the windscreen wipers tried in vain, twitch-creak, twitch-creak, to banish the fine misty rain from the glass. Deserted shops lined the little street, and a few bent figures in raincoats scurried by; he saw a church, a small hotel, more neat houses. Then the road was widening and they were out
between trim hedges, with open fields beyond, and green hills rising against the sky: a grey sky, featureless with mist. Rhys seemed shy; he drove with no attempt at talking—though the engine made so much noise that conversation would have been hard in any case. Past gaggles of silent cottages they drove, the boards that announced
VACANCY
or
BED AND BREAKFAST
swinging forlornly now that most of the holiday visitors were gone.

Rhys turned the car inland, towards the mountains, and almost at once Will had a strange new feeling of enclosure, almost of menace. The little road was narrow here, like a tunnel, with its high grass banks and looming hedges like green walls on either side. Whenever they passed the gap where a hedge opened to a field through a gate, he could see the green-brown bulk of hillsides rearing up at the grey sky. And ahead, as bends in the road showed open sky briefly through the trees, a higher fold of grey hills loomed in the distance, disappearing into ragged cloud. Will felt he was in a part of Britain like none he had ever known before: a secret, enclosed place, with powers hidden in its shrouded centuries at which he could not begin to guess. He shivered.

In the same moment, as Rhys swung round a tight corner towards a narrow bridge, the Land-Rover gave a strange jerking leap and lurched down to one side, towards the hedge. Braking hard, Rhys hauled at the wheel and managed to stop at an angle that seemed to indicate one wheel was in the ditch.

“Damn!” he said with force, opening the door.

Will scrambled after him. “What happened?”

“There is what happened.” Rhys pointed a long finger at the nearside front wheel, its tyre pressed hopelessly flat against a rock jutting from the hedge. “Just look at that. Ripped it right open, and so thick those tyres are, you would never think—” His light, rather husky voice was high with astonishment.

“Was the rock lying in the road?”

Rhys shook his curly head. “Goes under the hedge. Huge, it is, that's just one end. . . . I used to sit on that rock when I was half your size. . . .” Wonder had banished his shyness. “What made the car jump, then? That's the funny
thing, seemed to jump, she did, right on to it, sideways. It wasn't the tyre blowing, that feels quite different. . . .” He straightened, brushing away the rain that spangled his eyebrows. “Well, well. A wheel change, now.”

Will said hopefully, “Can I help?”

Rhys looked down at him: at the shadowed eyes and the pale face beneath the thick, straight brown hair. He grinned suddenly, directly at Will for the first time since they had met; it made his face look quite different, untroubled and young. “Here you come down after being so ill, to be put together again, and I am to have you out in the rain changing an old wheel? Mam would have fifty fits. Back in the warm with you, go on.” He moved round to the rear door of the square little car, and began pulling out tools.

Will clambered obediently up into the front of the Land-Rover again; it seemed a warm, cosy little box, after the chill wind blowing the drizzle into his face out on the road. There was no sound, there among the open fields under the looming hills, but the soft whine of the wind in telephone wires, and an occasional deep
baaa
from a distant sheep. And the rattle of a spanner; Rhys was undoing the bolts that secured the spare wheel to the back door.

Will leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes. His illness had kept him in bed for a long time, in a long blur of ache and distress and fleeting anxious faces, and although he had been back on his feet for more than a week, he still grew tired very easily. It was frightening sometimes to catch himself breathless and exhausted, after something as ordinary as climbing a flight of stairs.

He sat relaxed, letting the soft sounds of the wind and the calling sheep drift through his mind. Then another sound came. Opening his eyes, he saw in the side mirror another car slowing to a stop behind them.

A man climbed out, thickset, chunky, wearing a flat cap, and a raincoat flapping over rubber boots; he was grinning. For no good reason, Will instantly disliked the grin. Rhys opened the back of the Land-Rover again, to reach for the jack, and Will heard the newcomer greet him in Welsh; the words were
unintelligible, but they had an unmistakable jeering tone. All this short conversation, indeed, lay as open in meaning as if Will had understood every word.