The Winter Should Pass by Nigel Patten

Author:Nigel Patten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Strategic Book Group

Slowly the ancient Steen draws closer. The massive stone bastion bears centuries of wars on its broad back. A multitude of yellow-billed herring gulls line the battlements with military precision and fill the air with their loud bugle-like call. The time-weathered stones, streaked white with guano, seem oblivious to the history that created them in the days when armies clashed under the walls. They possess distant memories of Silvius Brabo and the giant Druon Antigon and the mysterious hand that floated out to sea.

I feel the pressure of Julie’s fingers in the crook of my arm.

“And when shall we be married?” she whispers fearfully. I laugh aloud at her hesitant apprehension and press a finger tip to her pretty, pouting lips.

“Spoedig. Soon.”

“Oh, mijn lievleling! My darling!” I draw her to me and she wraps herself in my arms. I notice the looks of admiring envy in the crowd, how many young men’s eyes express desire at her blameless beauty. Perhaps she is beyond beauty. Perhaps she is beyond everything.

“Will you still love me when I’m dead?”

“Julie!”

“The red-breasted kingfisher died in the weeping willow boughs.”

“I’m not a kingfisher.”

* * *

Rachel was awoken in the night by her husband’s cry. Issak woke too and peered into the blackness, trying to see if Rachel had heard him. He raised himself on one elbow and stared at her face. He whispered her name and she pretended not to hear him. Issak sighed with relief and turned over on his side. A moment later he was deep asleep. Beside him Rachel lay awake and listened to the disconsolate wind sweeping off the moor and the hollow hoot of a quartering owl beating up the combe.

A week after the two men visited the mountain, Issak decided to make the long trip into Caernarvon and register his land. The urgency was never really there and day followed day, until nearly a month had passed before he felt ready to leave.

“I think you should be going to register soon, isn’t it?” Rachel urged one morning. It had rained heavily in the night. The persistent downpour had loosened the soil. A torrent of mud and uprooted plants had swept through the yard and littered it with debris. Rachel foresaw that the rest of her day would have to be devoted to cleaning the mess up. Issak grunted and dabbed at his porridge with the end of his spoon.

“Aye, I’ll give it some thought,” he muttered.

“For our sakes, if not your own,” Rachel continued. For the first time in their years together she allowed herself a brief manifestation of reproof and even anger. Her maternal instinct of preservation told her that this claiming of the land was capital to the survival of her children. Issak too knew that it had to be done. He waited for the rain to abate and the first timid rays of the sun to touch the summit ridges of Tryfan. He followed the undulating flight of striped and crested skylarks, so high as to be almost invisible.

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