Chapter One :

The winds blew four ways that night, as the riders crested the slag heaps that oppressed the village from the North. Glints and flashes argent under black hooves, the surefooted Welsh Mountain Ponies had made this journey over the coal waste once before.

The little village had sprung up around the tin and lead and coal mines. Houses hugged both sides of the river Rhmney, erupting almost overnight in lockstep with the industrialisation of Wales. The village had spread like mould since the riders’ last visit, some 23 years ago, but their reason for visiting was the same. The girl, Eira.

That first visit, Eira was a young babe. Born to Heledd and Carwyn Dywell, soon after Carwyn had found immense fortune with the construction of his new instruments that had located some of the richest seams of coal and minerals up and down the hills that cradled the Rhymney. Heledd had worked in the red-stoned folly as a washing-up girl.

Carwyn detoured miles in his daily trudge up and down the valley so that he might catch Heledds sweet singing on a gentle breeze, or spy her soft, unblemished face through the high, narrow window as she worked.

That was some years ago, however, and this night was far from the Summer days of their youth.

Whimpering cries pressed against the rough stone walls of the cottage when the Butcher’s son flew into the night to send for the riders that first fateful eve…

Dirty bare feet slapping against rain soaked cobbles, the boy was breathless half from running, half from the wickedness of what he saw in the flickering candlelight atop his father’s blood-black butchers table. The boy had burst through the quiet of the church and panted a half mad plea for help. The fathers, as was their duty, flew out the heavy oak doors and into the night to save the girl- or, if that was beyond their small power, her soul.

Heledd had been felting a small doll with white and brown wool on the river bank. The Sunday had started fair, and Heledd, seven months pregnant, spent the afternoon in the meadow at the edge of the village, near the site of a new prospecting opportunity that Carwyn was diligently overseeing. Great mounds of Earth were heaped to one side and the other, while rough-cut piles of Scots Pine, Oak, Ash, and Sycamore littered the once quiet pastures.

Shadows lengthened, while the men dug, and cut, and scraped, and chiselled. Lamps replaced sunlight, and the work continued as clouds gathered and the air became heavy with impending rain. Heledd, cold, tired, and with her shawl wrapped tightly, ventured past the loosely staked boundary of the site and addressed Carwyn directly. It was time to go home.

A reluctant Carwyn acquiesced, and arm in arm they began the three mile walk back to their cottage. In the dark, rain began to fall.

A black fist of stone, hidden without moonlight and under torrent, took Heledd’s feet from under her and they both fell crying out and tense with fear, into the uncaring Earth.

Contractions came soon after.

The house, at least 50 minutes away on foot, would not do, and the two stumbling figures made broken progress towards the dim, orange glow of the windows of the butcher’s house some hundred yards down the road. The rich aroma of simmering cawl made Carwyn think of food, despite his panic, as he had not eaten much and had worked hard with the men at the new site.

Eira’s only thoughts were of her baby. Too early, she thought, again and again. Each looping thought and painful step felt like descent into a pit. She thought of the hole in the ground that Carwyn and his men had dug, of the shafts that receded into nothing. She felt like she was falling down that hole, a hole without sides, a hole deep, deep as hell. 

Carwyn raised his hand, combed the lank hair out of his eyes and rapped the door.

The butcher came quickly, his thick brows knitted and his stern walnut eyes peering through a crack in the door. Orange lamp and firelight leaked about him, while the steady bubbling of hearty stew could be heard. 

“What do you want?” He asked

“The baby is coming and we’re too far from home, can we come out of the rain and call for a doctor?”

The butcher didn’t speak, only stepped back from the threshold and turned back to his roiling pot. He had always been a queer man, in his squat house on the edge of the village. Some butchers enjoy their labour because they take pride in feeding their friends and neighbours. Others seem to take pleasure in chopping and hacking and sawing. Their butcher was such a man.

TBC