'I have not. Is this the pass?'
'It is.' Now it was her turn to be curious. 'How did you know?'
I was not exactly sure, only somehow it had come upon me. 'I was told of it once ... long ago.'
'And so you know it in the dark?' For night had fallen.
'I was told of how it looked in the dark, and how it ... felt.'
She looked at me again, but now we were approaching a high place in the pass, and down the far slope we saw something white against the blackness, and then a dog barked.
'The cottage,' she said. 'We will stop there, I think.'
'As you will. It is better than the damp hills and the rocks.'
'They are Welsh hills,' she said sternly, 'and Welsh rocks.'
Our horses had been growing more and more weary as we moved on, and now as they saw the faint glow of light from a window, they moved forward eagerly. At the door I dismounted while a huge dog barked viciously, his hair on end, teeth bared.
Lila spoke sharply to him in Welsh and he cringed and moved back, but snarled still. We heard the sound of a bar being removed, then a voice spoke from a crack. 'Go away! The place is closed!'
Lila spoke sharply and the door crack widened and a girl thrust her head out.
'Who is it that speaks thus?' she demanded, in English, then added a word in Welsh.
'We have traveled far, and have far yet to go,' I said quietly. 'It is myself and a woman.'
'Are you wed, then?'
'We are not,' I said. 'She is a friend to my betrothed.'
'Hah!' The door opened wider. 'Then the more of a fool is your betrothed to let you out upon the Welsh hills with another woman. De'il would I be so generous!'
Lila had stepped down from the horse and she towered above the girl in the door.
'We would eat and sleep here,' she said, 'and have our horses fed.'
It was spacious enough inside, a wide room with a low ceiling and a stone-flagged floor, washed clean enough to eat from, which was not all that common.
There was good furniture about and a fire on the hearth, and beside the hearth an old man smoking a pipe. A churn stood in a comer near a sideboard with several rows of dishes.
The girl, seen in the light inside, was dark and pretty, with quick black eyes and lovely lips. 'Come,' she said, 'sit and be rested. My brother will see to your horses.'
She looked again at Lila. 'You look Welsh,' she said.
'I am from Angelsey,' Lila replied.
They eyed each other, taking a measure, respectful but wary.
'He speaks of me as a friend,' Lila said. 'I am in service to the one who will be his bride. She is on her way to America. We go to her now.'
The girl looked at me, hands on hips. Then she said, 'We've eaten, but there's a bit of bread and cheese and I'll scrape about and see what else.'
The old man looked at me thoughtfully. 'You are also Welsh?'
'English,' I said.
'Ah? I would have said you were Welsh.'
Lila turned and looked directly at me. 'Who was your mother?'
'I know little of her, only that she was gentle, very beautiful, and that my father rescued her from some pirates in the western isles, and that she had told him she was not frightened because she knew he was coming for her.'
'She knew?' Lila looked at the old man, and the girl, who had come back into the room, had stopped also, listening.
'Aye.' I loved that part of the story. 'Father said she was very calm, and she told one of the men who started to lay hands upon her that he would die before the hour was gone, and he stopped, and they all stopped, frightened.
'One of the others then asked her, sneering, 'And I?' He was a young man, and very bold in his youth and his strength. 'You will live long in evil, but my son shall kill you one day.'
' 'Your son? Where is he? I shall kill him now and be sure what you say is a lie.'
' 'I have no son. Nor have I husband yet, but he is coming now. It is his sword,' she looked at the first man, 'which will draw your blood.'
' 'What are you?' that first man asked. 'A witch?'
' 'I am of the blood of Nial,' she said.
' 'If you be afraid,' the younger man said to the other, 'I will take her. She's a handsome wench, and witch or no witch, I'll have her.'
'And then my father was there, and my father's men. He came into the room sword in hand. The first man died, and the younger escaped with a sword cut, and my mother called after him, 'Do not forget your destiny. You will die by the sword in the flames of a burning town!' '
'It is a fine story,' the old man said, 'a grand story! And you, the son, have killed this man?'
'I am the son, but I have killed no man in the flames of a burning town, nor am I likely to. Soon I shall go where there are no towns, but only forests and meadows and mountains. I fear the prophecy will not be complete.'
'Be not sure,' Lila said. Then to the old man and the girl. 'Did you hear what he said? That his mother was of the blood of Nial?'
'I heard,' the girl said. 'I believe it.'
'It was in his face when he came into the room,' the old man said, 'I know the look of those who have the gift.' He looked at Lila. 'You have it.'
'What is this gift of which you speak?'
'It is the gift of second sight, the gift of looking beyond or back. Nial was a spaeman, one of those who foretell events. The story is ancient, and from Iceland, and the mother of Nial was the daughter of Ar the Silent, master of a great land in Norway. But Nial was a gifted man, a great talker, and a pleader for his people.'
I was tired, and it was late.
'We must to bed,' I said, 'for in the morning we cross the Menai.'
The old man tapped out his pipe. 'Put them in the loft,' he said. 'They'll sleep warm there.'
'I shall stay by the fire,' I said, 'for to sleep too sound would not please me.'
The old man turned his head to look. 'You are followed, then?'
'It may be. If so, we would not wish to have it known that we were seen. We are good folk,' I added.
'Sleep,' he said, 'and rest. We will let no harm come to the blood of Nial.'
I added sticks to the fire when he had gone to his bed, and rolled in my cloak upon the floor near the hearth. It would be a cold night, but the cottage was snug and warm.
I took two pistols under the cloak's edge near me, and my naked blade. Its scabbard lay to one side. I hoped the night would be quiet, but I was not a trusting man, and the hilt of a sword has a good feel.
Oft times a blade across the room beyond the reach of a hand means that death is nearer. I closed my eyes, and heard the rain fall upon the thatch, and against the walls. Drops fell down the chimney and the fire sputtered and spat.
The wind curled around the eaves, moaning with its loneliness, and listening to wind and rain half slept.
Where, O where was Abigail? How far out upon the sea? Did she sleep well this night? Did the ship roll? Was all well aboard?
Outside a stone rattled, and in the darkness my hand tightened upon the sword's hilt.
Chapter 9
We came over the hills to Bangor in the morning, with shadows in the valley and sunlight on the sea. The mist was lifting from the trees, clinging wistfully as if reluctant to leave-like the smoke of ancient Druid fires which once burned in this place.
We came over the hills, and I knew it well from my mother's tales of Taliesin, the great Welsh bard. The village lay upon the hills where once the Druid's upper circle had been, overlooking the Menai Strait that separated
