White Trail (14 page)

The second body was Doged's.

Gwelw had not seen it yet. As ever her attention was on the task at hand; getting a baby out safely without overly staining the white carpet. Olwen was holding on to the wall; spreading her legs. Lleuwen dropped her mug of tea on the floor.

Cilydd pushed himself back from the windowsill and walked into the driveway. He walked as quickly as he could, out into the deserted street. Behind him, he heard a wail – but by now he was too far away to be able to tell which of the three women had unleashed it, and all too soon a siren had swept it away. Doged was dead. Finally dead. He thought again of Arthur's eyes as that door closed on him and Ysbaddaden. ‘It'll be fine,' he'd said. Had Arthur left him there to die? Realising what it would mean to release him? Or was it the building that decided? Perhaps it was finally Doged's time to fall.

There was no traffic. No movement. Only a slight quiver of wind, dense with the flavour of fire. Exhaustion was bringing him to his knees, making him sink into the hot tarmac. He couldn't move, even when he heard footsteps approaching. Staring into the sky, in the midst of the silvery shower, he saw a face. His son.

‘Culhwch,' he said. ‘My boy.'

His son's face was blackened, his clothes were tattered. But the smile that broke through the ravaged flesh was white and clean.

‘Yes, I'm back,' Culhwch said. ‘And I'm not going anywhere from now on. Neither is anyone else. No one's going to go missing for a very long time.'

‘Where's Arthur?'

‘He's here, isn't he? He told me to meet him here. He left hours ago. He should be here by now. He said he was... returning the birds. Yes, he definitely said something about the birds. Don't tell me he's...'

‘Missing, yes...' Cilydd said, before rolling over and putting his face to the tarmac. In his mind's eye he saw a lonely figure walking away from that burning building, making a decision not to go back, abandoning himself to the wilderness. Walking away from what he had done, Ysbaddaden's blood still fresh on his fingertips. Searching in the midst of all that chaos for that clean, white space – like the one he created in his flat all those years ago. Following his own white trail away from his own life. But he wouldn't be alone, now. Because he had the birds. The birds who were only faithful to one leader. The birds who were drawn to loneliness, to separateness. Who would help him slip away wherever – whenever – he chose.

His son's strong arms were on his shoulders, pulling him back to his feet.

‘We've got to get back to Olwen,' Culhwch said.

‘Come on, please. Take me to Olwen. She is alright, isn't she? Olwen? She's still with you? The baby... we need to make sure the baby's OK.'

Cilydd nodded, before turning on his heels and leading his son back towards the house. And the fug seemed at that moment to give way, illuminating a pathway of clean air for them, right back to the house. The moment he arrived outside, Cilydd knew everything had changed. Gwelw's neat lawn was awash with white flowers. He could not take his eyes off them; tens of tiny pale heads, a gathering of lost souls. He plucked at one, but it would not budge. He plucked at another – still the flower remained, rooted, unwilling to be displaced. And that's when he heard it.

Somewhere behind the door to his old life, a small cry rose up into the air. A cry which grew bolder, hungrier, with every passing moment, enticing Culhwch into the shadowy hallway. Cilydd remained outside on the doorstep, his feet unable to cross the boundary into the rest of his life.

He listened as the cry came at him again and again, bright as birdsong, piercing as grief. And yet it was neither of those things. Just a simple cry, the first attempt at being heard, at being present.

Cilydd felt something inside him buckle as its light, white notes rose up to greet the ashen rain.

Cilydd, son of Celyddon, married Goleuddydd, daughter of Anlawdd Wledig. Goleuddydd became pregnant and from that moment on she went mad. When she was due to give birth her senses returned and she found herself with a swineherd and his pigs. Out of fear of the pigs she gave birth and the swineherd kept the boy until he came to court. He was baptised Culhwch, because he was found in a pig run, but he was of noble descent, a cousin to Arthur, and was placed with foster parents.

After the birth Goleuddydd became ill, but before she died she told Cilydd never to marry again until briars grew on her grave. She told her chaplain to clean the grave but after seven years he neglected this duty and Cilydd searched for a wife. One of his counsellors suggested the wife of King Doged, so they went to get her, killed the king and brought back his wife and her only daughter.

One day his new wife was told about Cilydd's son, Culhwch, and asked to see him. She wanted him to marry her daughter but he said he was not old enough. So she swore he would never get any woman apart from Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Bencawr. Culhwch became full of desire for Olwen, though he knew nothing about her. His father told him to go to King Arthur and ask for Olwen as a gift.

Culhwch rode to King Arthur's court and, recognising his kinsman, Arthur agreed to his request and sent messengers to search for Olwen. After a year no one had found her, so Cai, Bedwyr and other knights set out with Culhwch on the quest. After crossing a great plain they saw a huge fort. As they came close they met a shepherd who told them the fort belonged to Ysbaddaden Bencawr. He told them to go home as no one on their quest ever left alive. But the shepherd's wife told them that Olwen came to her every Saturday to wash her hair. It was said that white clovers sprung up where she walked.

When Olwen arrived, Culhwch asked her to go with him, but she told him to ask her father. Killing his guards, the knights met with Ysbaddaden Bencawr who set Culhwch forty seemingly impossible tasks. One of these was to bring him the birds of Rhiannon, that wake the dead and lull the living to sleep. Another was to dress his stiff beard to be shaved, which could only be done by using the comb of Twrch Trwyth, a magical wild boar. Culhwch promised to fulfil the tasks, win Olwen and kill Ysbaddaden. The hunt for the Twrch Trwyth and other wonders took the knights and Arthur to Ireland and Cornwall and caused many deaths, but eventually the comb was taken from between his ears and Arthur drove him out of Cornwall into the sea.

Culhwch, Gorau son of Custennin and others took the wonders to Ysbaddaden, and Caw, son of Prydyn shaved off his beard, flesh and skin to the bone, and both his ears. Ysbaddaden agreed Culhwch had won, thanks to Arthur, and then Gorau cut off his head. The knights returned home, and that is how Culhwch won Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Bencawr.

Synopsis by Penny Thomas
for the full story see
The Mabinogion, A New Translation
by Sioned Davies (Oxford World's Classics, 2007).

‘It is easy for me to get that, though you may think it's not easy,' are Culhwch's defiant words to Ysbaddaden when he is set forty tasks to win the hand of Olwen. Ysbaddaden, not to be outdone by the young man's bravado retaliates with: ‘Though you may get that, there is something you will not get,' adding complex twists to each and every task which are intended to confound his rival. As things pan out, of course, Culhwch is too clever by half – for not only does he ‘get that' – he gets everything, Olwen's hand, Ysbaddaden's kingdom, and a whole lot more. But Ysbaddaden is keen to point out to his young adversary that he has – in effect – cheated in his quest, for he has employed the help of others. ‘Thank Arthur,' he says, ‘the man who arranged it for you.' And he has a point – it is Arthur's right-hand man, Gorau son of Custennin, who ends up chopping off Ysbaddaden's head and brandishing it around for all to see. Culhwch, at that point, is too busy getting it on with Olwen.

This whole conversation seemed somehow symbolic of my own efforts as I went about adapting Culhwch and Olwen into a fictional novella. As adaptation is a feature of my creative work (as a bilingual author I find myself almost continuously adapting my Welsh language novels and stories into English ‘versions' of their former selves), I had rather imprudently believed that this particular task was going to be easy. Or at least
easier,
by far, than adapting my own work, for I felt there would be less temptation to tamper with a work that was so thematically rich, so distinctive in its construction. I fell in love with the Mabinogion as a child, going on, in adolescence to embark on a love affair with the likes of Gwydion, Gilfaethwy, Pwyll and Lleu as I studied them for my Welsh A Levels. Even having to read it in Middle Welsh didn't put me off – it just added to the esoteric allure – here was something that was uniquely ours, yet had all the flavour of a European epic. When I received the invitation to be part of Seren's series, it felt like an old flame had come knocking – and the notion of freeing the whole thing up, of taking liberties with the text, of scribbling over the original Middle Welsh in modern English, seemed deliciously subversive, an act I'd have never been permitted in the classroom.

But I should have taken heed of Ysbaddaden's words – for there were several things that I could ‘not get' when I went in search of them, and completing my quest was far from easy. The more I delved into the tale, the more I read and reread it the task ahead of me seemed overwhelming. I had forgotten how multifarious, expansive, and complex Culhwch and Olwen was; wild boars running this way and that, hags slaughtered left, right and centre, a hundred warriors or so, a ghastly step-mother, a horrible birth, a violent bloodbath, and several quests. How on earth would I rework these ‘forty tasks' within a fictional framework? How would I incorporate almost a hundred of Arthur's warriors? And furthermore – how on earth was I to communicate what this story was really about – did I even know? Not to mention the vast geographic sprawl of the tale which takes the reader on heady, speedy trips to Ireland, then to Cornwall, and back over to Preseli, without pausing for breath. I found myself exhausted before I had begun; hounded by questions. What were the dark forces that drove Culhwch to chase Olwen, to hunger for her, without having seen her? And why, in this tale, was love a curse?

Then I realised that I was concentrating too dutifully on what was present in the text, rather than searching for what was absent. I should, after all, have been looking for the gaps, the silences, for those things that didn't quite make sense, things dense with meaning, well hidden – waiting to be brought to light. Those still, curious moments, where the action subsided and the characters lay exposed, flawed, human even. And that's when I discovered a direction – not in the bulky body of the tale, but on the cusp of it, right there in the introduction. The long and short of what later became my story was all frozen in the first paragraph, like a still from a fascinating film I'd always meant to watch:

Cilydd son of Celyddon Wledig wanted a wife as well born
as himself. The woman he wanted was Goleuddydd,
daughter of Anlawdd Wledig. After he had slept with her the
country went to prayer to see whether they might have an
heir. And they had a son through the country's prayers. And
from the hour she became pregnant she went mad, and did
not go near any dwelling. When her time came, her senses
returned to her. This happened in a place where a swineherd
was tending a herd of pigs. And out of fear of the pigs the
queen gave birth. And the swineherd took the boy until he
came to court. And the boy was baptised and was named
Culhwch because he was found in a pig run. But the boy
was of noble descent, he was cousin to Arthur. And the boy
was placed with foster parents.

I realised suddenly that my own tale needn't be Culhwch's quest, or Olwen's for that matter. My instincts drove me to look beyond the tale, behind the tale, to scrutinise those characters that had given rise to the whole sorry situation in the first place. And that's when the more potent questions surfaced, whose answers lay in the writing process itself. Did Culhwch embark on his quest, not so much because of his stepmother's curse, but because of the circumstances of his birth and upbringing? How had losing his mother affected him – having been uprooted in such an unceremonious manner – had it made him crave security, demand to have things resolved? And what of Cilydd, the one left behind, mourning the wife he had once loved so dearly? Did he blame himself somehow, for getting her pregnant in the first place? Why did Goleuddydd become mad in pregnancy? Was it a hormonal imbalance, or something more deep-rooted? How on earth did she end up giving birth in a pigsty?

I put the
Mabinogion
aside for the time being, and began writing, relying only on my memory and impression of the tale. Before I knew it, Cilydd had taken on a life – and a quest – of his own. He inhabited commonplace territories like supermarkets and high streets and community halls, and yet somehow still carried the extraordinary landscapes of the Mabinogion deep within him. Whenever I was unsure where to turn, I would take a glance once again at the original tale, whose map seemed to dictate the rest of the scene, whose signposts directed me to fantastical events which seemed almost at odds with the ordinariness of my characters' lives, but which simultaneously made perfect sense. Occasionally, almost coincidentally, both tales ended up bumping into each other at exactly the same place, at a complex fictional cross-roads. And eventually, as my tale forged its own plot, the spirit of the telling, and the dark forces driving the fiction began to resonate with the
Mabinogion
's storytelling ethos – charging on ahead in bold realist strides with surreality trailing at its heels, waiting to bite. How far removed, after all, is a strange disappearance in a supermarket, or the fall of the house of the missing, from a world in which brothers are turned into animals and made to mate, dead men are brought back alive from the eye of a cauldron and a maiden's virtue is challenged by stepping over a magical rod?