The forest had, in fact, already receded from behind the first are of buildings as felling progressed, and a second row was springing up behind the first on the cleared ground. The biggest building of all was no longer the Central
Cabin, which was now used for a variety of small-group purposes such as practice sessions of the Music Club (the village had donated a battered piano and various people owned instruments from guitars to violins, an accordion and a cornet), Geraint Lloyd's surprisingly well-attended Welsh classes and talks by experts (such as the camp's solitary professional farmer) on their specialities which had now become necessary knowledge for everyone. Considerably larger than this, and a building achievement of which they were rather proud, was the Mess Hall. Central catering still had to be the rule, for the most economical use of their slim food resources.
The farm had been growing fast but still not as fast as the population. The six-hectare meadow had been fully ploughed before the winter and in much of it new sowings had replaced the winter vegetables. Every seed was precious, though fortunately several of the newcomers who had had both the time to prepare their flight and the foresight to think of it had brought more; but even those who were experienced gardeners were having to learn the unfamiliar skill of growing for seed as well as for consumption, with the next crop to think of and nowhere to buy new seed.
But the six-hectare field no longer sufficed, with the absolute necessity of keeping as much livestock as could be acquired and managed. So every patch of river meadow between camp and village had been pressed into service and the camp farm had become a necklace of meadows stretching the whole four kilometres to New Dyfnant.
With the onset of winter, the area around the Vyrnwy valley below New Dyfnant had become relatively peaceful. The scattered survivors had almost all drawn together into little communities, clearing and patching up villages, and there were large stretches of country without a soul in sight. Many cattle, sheep, and pigs and a few horses and goats, roamed wild; there had been much hunting and slaughtering of them for food and the wiser communities had been rounding them up for stock as well but with population less than a hundredth of its former size there were still many wandering free. On two or three occasions, New Dyfnant and Camp Cerridwen had organized joint round-up expeditions, with every rideable horse for which there was a rider, and had brought in a gratifying number which were shared out between village and camp in proportion to their populations. These expeditions had been careful to avoid clashes with other communities, conceding any disputed territory without argument, for there were still unclaimed animals to be found and the last thing most people wanted was any local feud springing up.
Also still to be found, fortunately, were a few hayricks and hay-filled barns far enough from communities to be unclaimed and winter feed was badly needed, so slower cart-expeditions were sent out for these. The cart-expeditions took with them one of the bee-keepers (of which there were six in New Dyfnant and two in the camp) on the look-out for hives, which in their winter somnolence could be sealed for the journey and brought home.
As a result, by the spring Camp Cerridwen possessed one bull and eight cows, a boar and two sows, six ewes (but as yet no ram, though they could borrow one from the village) two billy-goats and seven nannies, four geldings and three mares (again, no stallion but the village had several). Two of the mares were in foal, both sows were in farrow, only one cow as yet in calf and two of the nannies had been February twins of one of the adult nannies, while another was in kid. The ewes had not been found till April, so no increase was expected there for a while. They also had eighteen hives, sixteen of them flourishing, the other two colonies having failed to survive the winter, but their beekeeper was confident he could re-stock the two empty ones during the summer.
Four cockerels and sixty-three hens in the hen-runs were mostly of their own rearing from the original handful, for wandering poultry, being easily caught and cooked, had quickly become very scarce. No geese as yet but a drake and two ducks had been recently acquired and were being carefully guarded (especially from the camp's twelve dogs and five cats) for breeding. (Of the cats, incidentally, Ginger Lad was the undisputed king and two were heavily pregnant by him.)
One other thing had come from growing contact with the local small communities; the beginnings of barter and of the planning of output with barter in mind. One village, for instance, had once had a reputation for hand-weaving and two of the surviving older villagers remembered their skill; three looms and five spinning-wheels had been salvageable and the experts had set to at once training other spinners and weavers. In New Dyfnant, Jack Llewellyn had restored his grandfather's forge and remembering what he could (he knew metal in any case, being a proficient welder) was also training two youngsters; and already woven cloth was coming into New Dyfnant in exchange for ironwork and repair jobs. Two tiny villages down the valley, a couple of kilometres apart and manned by no more than half a dozen adults in each, had agreed to specialize, the one on livestock and the other on crops, to keep each other supplied. Other communities were beginning to wonder how they, too, could improve their position in the makeshift economy that was developing.
Inevitably, the internal economy of each 'tribe' became more or less communal, because at such a level of day-today survival nothing else would work. Camp Cerridwen, having started from scratch in survival conditions, was completely communal, both in the organization of work and in the use of products; the facts of life, not political or economic theory, dictated this. New Dyfnant stood at the other extreme, for thanks to Eileen's vinegar-mask warning, its population had survived almost completely, though the quake had done a good deal of physical damage; so the social and economic structure remained with all the impetus of habit, family pride, mutual knowledge and Welsh independence. But even that could not survive entirely; damage was uneven, community effort was needed for rebuilding and the closing of road-fissures and outside services and supplies had vanished. No stocks came into Bronwen's shop, no petrol to Jack's garage, and no liquor to Dai Forest Inn's cellars. No county salary to Dai Police, no church stipend to the Rev. Phillips and no National Health pay to Dr Owen or Ministry of Education pay to Geraint Lloyd. No money existed anyway. Yet all these people's services were still needed (even Bronwen's as barter organizer, Dai Forest Inn's as by now full-time Council chairman and Dai Police's as arbitrator of disputes and occasional enforcer of community decisions) and the village did not resent having to feed them. So gradually an ad hoc mixed economy had evolved with the boundaries between its public and private sectors constantly being adjusted by trial and error.
At the camp, Dan's chairmanship had become as full-time as Dai Forest Inn's in the village. He was still the undisputed leader, though by now he had an active camp committee to help him and was able to delegate a lot of the organizing work. The committee's most important function was the deciding of priorities and the division of labour, for between building and farming there was more than enough to be done. There was always, too, a balance to be drawn between the effective use of available experts and the need to give individuals a variety of work – for their own encouragement and morale, for the development as far as possible of a community of all-rounders and for the fair sharing of popular and unpopular tasks.
Moira, also, retained her unchallenged spiritual and Craft leadership – though the situation had changed somewhat. There were over a hundred adult witches at Camp Cerridwen now, so the time had passed, early in the winter, when they could still be a single coven. In fact, there were now fourteen of them, none of which exceeded the traditional maximum of thirteen members. Three of the fourteen had hived off from Moira and Dan's original one, so she now wore four proud buckles on the Witch Queen garter Dan had made for her as soon as three covens had entitled her to that status. Five of the other covens had arrived independently, four had hived off from them and the remaining one had been built around a High Priestess and High Priest who had turned up covenless. It had been a wrench when Rosemary and Greg had hived off from Moira and Dan but they all knew it had to be done. Eileen and Peter, initiated at Samhain and intensively trained, had set up their own coven in March and another first-degree couple, arriving in November, had been similarly accelerated and were doing well, though Moira still nursed their young group from the sidelines. The coven maintained the Wiccan tradition of independence and autonomy, but the leaders met regularly as a Council of Elders to discuss progress and any differences that arose or to agree on transfers in the few cases of personal friction.