Normal Family Read online

  “He’s yours?” I said in surprise. “You normally ride a donkey?”

  “Certainly at night I do. During the day, of course, people expect me to ride on a large white stallion. That’s him over there.” He pointed towards a tall, proud horse that knew he was king of the stable. “But at night, I always trust myself to Pedro.” He tickled the donkey behind its ears making it bray happily.

  “In which case I thank you for your thoughtfulness.” I bowed formally as befitted an apprentice wizard and detective who was addressing an ex-Knight of the Round Table.

  “Then let’s get mounted and go meet our destinies.”

  From anyone else it would have got a chorus of groans, but from Lewis the words seemed exactly right. Outside the stables, Lewis’s men were already on horseback, ready to follow their leader and I was amazed to see that one of them was an army Redcoat captain. I shot a questioning glance at Lewis because Redcoats were after all the enemy of smugglers and Lewis was reputedly one of the best.

  “He’s a good friend of mine,” he explained. “In fact he was Marie’s brother and is therefore Bryn’s uncle, but that won’t stop him arresting me if he thinks he should and I respect him for that. However, his hatred for Schwartz is as strong as mine, which means that tonight we’re on the same side.” The Redcoat gave me a salute, which I returned with a brief wave.

  Lewis stood up in his stirrups and looked at the small mounted army that surrounded him. The cold rain was pouring down and the wind tore at our clothes, but there was no doubt all of us would follow him wherever he chose to lead.

  “After tonight,” he shouted above the noise of the storm, “there will be no more unnecessary deaths… after tonight.” The last words were said with menace and after a pause he added, “Remember, Schwartz is mine.”

  As we rode through the village, curtains twitched aside and most householders gave a wave and some blew kisses. It was after all their men who were riding out. Near the shore we turned to the right and headed up the rough track leading to the headland. The rain made everything slippery and in the dark it would have been easy to have taken the wrong turn and end up on the deadly rocks far below. Pedro was in the lead and the other mounts followed without hesitation.

  At the end of the path the cliff top flattened out, though because we didn’t dare use our lanterns we could see no more than a few feet in any direction. We heard the surf crashing on the rocks far below and in my imagination were the cries of sailors lost in the wind and desperate to avoid the splintering fate that awaited them. The Crabart was still some miles away and if we were to stop Schwartz we needed to hurry because the tide was coming in fast. I spurred Pedro into a trot and he responded with a slow canter while the horses kept up with us at a steady walk.

  When we reached the toppled beacon where we’d first met our old friend from Camelot, Lewis called out a series of orders and four of his men dismounted. They put the beacon upright, filled it with dry wood and coals from their saddle bags before carefully lighting it using their flintlock pistols and tinder. Soon the beacon was a roaring fire in spite of the storm and the men remounted their horses.

  “You’re going to tell me why we’ve done that, aren’t you?” I shouted.

  “It’s a decoy and a savior,” said Lewis, telling two of his men to remain with the beacon and make sure it stayed alight. “Schwartz will see it and think he’s safe because we’re waiting for him in the wrong place, but it’ll confuse his men because they won’t expect another beacon so near their own. Sailors will see it and stay away from shore because one beacon means safety, but two spells trouble.”

  “I knew there had to be a reason.” I clicked my tongue and Pedro obediently moved towards Neets’s piebald pony. “You be careful, my girl,” I shouted into her ear. “Things are looking dangerous so make sure you watch where you’re going and don’t make an ass of yourself. Sorry, Pedro, no offense intended!” I turned and dropped back to the following horses.

  We followed the coastline until we passed the towering cliffs above Mewslade bay, picking our way slowly between the gorse bushes and the sudden outcrops of rock that loomed like giants through the rain. Surefooted Pedro led us down inclines so steep that I screwed my eyes tight shut, which was pretty pointless as I couldn’t see more than a few feet anyway, and to be sure I flung my arms round Pedro’s neck and held on as though my life depended on it, which was indeed the case. After all, I’d stood on top of Nelson’s column chatting to the pigeons, so I knew how to respect heights.

  We reached the lower stretches of Butterslade without mishap and regrouped. Now that we were getting nearer to the Worm’s Head, Lewis took the lead on his white stallion while Neets, Bryn and I followed immediately behind. Lewis’s most trusted lieutenants brought up the rear, because any ambush from the wreckers would take place from behind rather than at the front. I was quite happy to be surrounded by so many capable men and was whistling a tune that nobody could hear above the wind and wouldn’t have recognized if they could.

  At the westernmost corner of the Gower Peninsular the high path stretched round the headland towards the Crabart and Schwartz’s wreckers. The route was dark, steep, treacherous and seemed on occasions to double back on itself. Lewis shouted for absolute silence in case the wreckers had lookouts posted, but he needn’t have worried, the roaring wind was so violent that none of his men heard him anyway. He held up his arm for attention and pointed forwards. His men followed in single file as he led us to the highest point of the cliffs overlooking Worm’s Head, or at least where we knew the Head would be if only we could see it.

  The rain had eased off to a driving drizzle, which at least meant visibility was better than zero and that as we dismounted Neets and I could see other people’s noses and not just our own. We inched forward on our stomachs until we reached the brow of the cliff top and could make out the blurred action going on below. An older stomach crawled up beside us and a voice spoke just loud enough to be heard above the wind.

  “So you were right,” whispered Lewis, “Schwartz is here and it looks to me as though he’s brought most of his men with him.”

  “Is that good?” said Neets, assuming it wasn’t.

  “It’s good in that we can get all his gang in one go,” Lewis said with a cynical laugh, “but it’s bad in that there are rather a lot of the bastards, which might cause us a bit of a problem.” We’d never heard Gawain swear, even in Camelot, and I was quite shocked.

  “So, what’s the game plan, Gawain?” asked Neets, “Sorry, I mean Mr. Lewis.”

  “You mean Dad,” I muttered, very, very quietly.

  Lewis looked at Neets. “I want the two of you to stay here and keep watch,” he said at last. “Schwartz is no fool and he’ll be half expecting us now that he knows Tertia may have betrayed him, purely by her absence. He’ll try to attack us from the side, or maybe even the rear and I need some sharp eyes to watch out for him. The moment you see anything let me know. I’ll leave one of my men to act as your messenger just in case.”

  Before either of us could protest, Lewis shuffled backwards on his stomach until he was sure he was over the brow of the hill and no longer visible to Schwartz’s men. Brushing the dirt off his clothes he got up and walked back to organize the main attack.

  Neets watched him open-mouthed, presumably because future dads shouldn’t behave like that. “And after everything we’ve done for him and all we’ve been through! If he thinks I’m here just to be a darned lookout, he’s got another thing coming.”

  “Darn right. We didn’t travel back in time to be a couple of spectators. After all the things we’ve been through a few pathetic wreckers shouldn’t be too much of a problem for Merl’s Girls.”

  We watched as Lewis and his men walked their horses over the rise, covering their mounts’ noses with their hands to stop them from making any noise.

  “He wouldn’t let me go either.” Neets and I spun round and stared in bewilderment as Marlene walked over from what looked like a
fading ultraviolet archway. She tucked a small remote control in her pocket. “He said it was going to be no place for a woman and especially for a dainty little thing like me.” She put on a sour lemon face. “But I think he may have been joking there. He’s a typical man, wrapped up in his own superiority complex, and totally blind as to how I could help him. I explained who I was and he even remembered me from my Camelot days, but it still cut no ice. He left me with this man for company and I presume he’s also your so-called messenger.” A grim-looking man standing next to her nodded at us. “Personally I’m going to try a little bit of weather magic and see if I can’t get the moon to shed some light on things. Care to give me a hand?”

  “What on earth are you doing here?” Neets was the first to close her mouth and then open it again.

  “What the bloody hell possessed you to come here?” I was the more blunt of the two of us. “We had a feeling you were poking round somewhere, especially after you grabbed my Inspector, but you might have warned us.”

  “Oh, it’s all right, dear. I’m only here for a quick visit. I was watching things through the PortalVision and thought you could all do with a bit of moonlight, which is something our old friend the Black Knight would definitely not like. So I came to conjure some.”

  “But you said never to use magic when traveling in Time,” said Neets.

  “Oh, I know, dear, but I’m not actually traveling at the moment, I’m sort of stationary. Besides, you’ve got to keep your hand in and I rather think a little moonlight might hinder Schwartz, I believe that’s his name here, and help our side. They’ll think it’s just a coincidence, because no one believes in magic anymore and wizards and witches only appear in stories to scare children.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said with feeling. “I’m real, I’m a wizard and I don’t scare kids!”

  “Yeah, just like half the children in your school class,” said Neets. “Call yourself a bonafide teacher, Tersh!” Just for a change she was on the receiving end of the shin kicking.

  “Ahem, when you’ve finished, girls,” Marlene said haughtily. We all stood up, because if Lewis and his men were already way ahead of us and on their way to attack Schwartz there was little point in hugging the ground. “Anyway, I fancied some fresh air and Galahad’s Olé Grill restaurant can get a bit huffy at times. Besides, he’s started behaving strangely. I saw him examining that statue and fingering the eye patch. He was giggling in a most unknightly way too, so if you don’t mind I’ll get cracking with the grownup magic and you can go and amuse yourselves playing in the gorse bushes. I’ll be gone in a few minutes.” She turned away, raised her arms to the heavens with a look of intense concentration apparently trying to remember how the spell started.

  I tried to think of a clever reply but ended up mumbling something incoherent that got lost in the wind. Neets was more for action than witty repartee.

  “Tersh, this is how I see it. If Lewis and Schwartz are at each other’s throats down there and Marlene’s sorting out the weather up here, then there’s two places that’ll be empty. Lewis’s house will be deserted except for Mrs. Jones and her people.” I quickly explained to Neets why they wouldn’t be there either. “The other place is Schwartz’s manor house. Nobody’s been there except us because he keeps it too well guarded and he kept us well in sight, but I bet he’ll have taken most of his men to the Crabart tonight.”

  I punched my cousin playfully on the arm. “And I know just the man to tell us the way. I’ve only been there from Port Eynon or by underground passage.” I tilted my head towards the silent messenger.

  “Mister,” I said sweetly in my best little girl asking for grown-up help voice. “We’ve heard so much about that terrible Schwartz man, but it can’t all be true. I’ve even heard that he’s really a troll and lives in a cave and my friend here - gullible person that she is (shin kick) “Ow!” - was told that he’s an evil sea demon and lives in the deep waters at the end of the Worm’s Head. Is that right?”

  The messenger didn’t appear to be any less glum as he looked at the two of us to see who was the more stupid. He raised a hand and pointed inland towards where the hill of Cefn Bryn separated the north from the south shores of the Gower peninsula. “Schwartz is no devil. He’s a man like anyone else, but he is evil. He lives at the foot of that hill in a stone manor house with a wall right round it.” He pointed into the gloom. “It’s a big monstrosity of a place, guarded night and day and woe betide anyone who tries to get in without an invitation.” He turned back to watch Marlene who was in full magical flow. She was much more fun.

  Neets took the initiative. “He couldn’t care about us, Tersh, and Marlene’s wrapped up in the weather forecast. Let’s get going.”

  “I heard that! You’re old enough to look after yourselves now,” hissed the wizard just loud enough for us to hear. “Go and do what you have to do, but be careful.” She sang the last words without breaking her chant by even one note. “I’m off home in a minute.”

  We didn’t hesitate. I stared into the night and could just make out the dark smudgy line of Cefyn Bryn against the inland horizon. Below it about a half a mile away would be Schwartz’s lair, though right now it was still invisible. We broke into a stumbling trot dodging rocky outcrops and gorse bushes in the dark and trying not to slip on the muddy headland paths. The first two hundred yards were the trickiest, but once we climbed over the dry stone wall that edged the cliffs only the sheep got in the way.

  Behind us I could hear occasional musket fire as Lewis launched his attack against the wreckers, though some of the shots must have come from Schwartz and his thugs. Men would be wounded and some would die on both sides and somehow, having brought them all together, I felt partly to blame. Then I heard voices in front of us and a few feet to our left. We crept over to the stone wall edging our field, pulled ourselves up level with the top and quickly dove down again where we saw a number of men hurrying along a path leading to Rhossili village. Their swearing was terrible, but I was sure Neets wouldn’t understand most of the words, unlike me and the Reverend Lewis who were far more worldly than the young lovebird. It was obvious the men were some of Schwartz’s thugs making themselves scarce now that Lewis and his men were attacking and probably winning. Cowards aren’t always thugs, but thugs will nearly always turn and run if they are losing, in my limited experience anyway.

  “We can’t let them get away with it that easily, Tersh.” Neets was growing very bold all of a sudden.

  “Dead right. Let’s follow them. At least we can find out where they live, maybe even get their names and report them to Lewis.” I climbed the wall, dropped down on the other side onto a stone path and couldn’t help wondering why we’d been wading through a muddy field, only feet away from this nice dry trail. Some guide Lewis’s messenger had been! Without thinking, I helped Neets down and we followed the voices and distant shadows as we got near to the village. I was pretty sure I knew what was going to happen when the men arrived, and wanted to be there to see it, having organized some of the plans.

  We didn’t have to wait long. I counted twenty shadows ahead, which meant that a fairly large group of wreckers must have decided to leave Schwartz to his fate and merge back into the community, whether the community wanted them or not. They probably hadn’t anticipated any trouble from the locals until they came up against Mrs. Jones standing in the middle of the track with her arms crossed looking solid as a rock. She raised one hand.

  “Don’t think you’re passing through here boys, because you aren’t. You’ll either go back the way you came or surrender.” She sounded so calm that she might have been offering a dinner choice of lamb or beef instead of an option of what was in effect life or death.

  The wreckers looked at her in astonishment and those at the front burst out laughing encouraging their followers to do the same, but Mrs. Jones remained steadfast, slowly lowering her hand.

  “You going to stop us, old woman?” called out their leader, suddenly looking very bra
ve. “You and whose army?”

  “My army.” Mr. Lewis’s servants walked out of the shadows and positioned themselves across the road beside Mrs. Jones. They weren’t all that menacing and most of them were on the wrong side of sixty, but they looked as though they meant business and were prepared to show why a cheese grater in the right hands could be a deadly weapon.

  Even outnumbered the wreckers must have felt the odds were in their favor as they slowly moved forward holding their knives and cudgels in front of them. Most were grinning until several clicks on both side of the road made them stop in their tracks. The sound was unmistakably muskets being cocked.

  “Gentlemen, if you would be so kind as to drop your weapons and put your hands above your heads where I can see them.” The redcoat captain stood behind the wreckers, while his men surrounded them with their muskets loaded, aimed and ready to fire. The clatter of weaponry falling to the ground was instantaneous and the fight was over before it had begun. Blodwyn Jones looked at me and sighed, and I knew what she meant, because some of the wreckers looked stupid enough to have mistaken age for an inability to crack a head with a rolling pin.

  “Well done everyone,” she said beaming, “and to you and your men, brother, my special thanks.” The redcoat captain bowed. “What will you do with this sorry lot?”

  “They will answer for their crimes, sister, probably with their lives.”

  Mrs. Jones nodded. “I admit some deserve their fate, but there are others who are no worse than average folk and given a chance may well mend their ways and contribute to our community. Heavens, it isn’t as though we’ve got a surplus of men round here that we can afford to lose so many in one go.”

  The redcoat captain didn’t try to argue with his sister. “Very well, I’ll leave enough of my men to keep a guard while I take the rest down to the Crabart to help wrap up things there. When I return I’ll want to know who will go to Swansea prison with me and who will have a second chance.”