The charcoal in Catrin’s brazier had gone out. Her eyes heavy with sleep she slid from her bed and, clutching a warm sheepskin round her shoulders, she crept down the stone stairway to the great hall where the fire in the hearth still glowed gently in its bed of ashes. Joan was asleep on her truckle bed close beside it. Without waking her, Catrin put a handful of twigs on the ashes and then a larger log and watched as the glow slowly stirred and one or two sparks flickered into flame. Shivering, she fetched a stool and put it as close as she could to the warmth. Huddled in her sheepskin wrap she began to think about the dream that had woken her.
Owain, Prince of Wales was standing in the great hall of a castle. Swathed in a furred robe, with a sceptre in his hand and a coronet on his head, he raised his great sword to the cheers of his followers. There were hundreds of them packed into the hall and everywhere she could see his new standard: a quartet of lions, red on gold and gold on red. Beside him stood his lady, Margaret, and with them their sons and daughters. The cheers were still ringing in her ears as she stared down into the flames.
‘Catrin?’
She jumped. Joan was sitting up, rubbing her eyes. ‘What is it? Couldn’t you sleep?’
Catrin held out her hands to the fire. ‘No. I’m sorry. I had a dream.’
Joan frowned. ‘Not like your father?’ They both glanced across the hall and into the shadows towards Dafydd’s study. ‘Is he still there?’ Catrin whispered. ‘Didn’t he go to bed?’
Joan pulled her cloak around her shoulders. ‘He was still in there when I went to sleep.’
Catrin stood up wearily. ‘I’ll go and see.’
Quietly she pushed open the door to her father’s study. He wasn’t there. His fire had gone out. His candle had extinguished itself in a pool of wax. She closed the door again and went back to the fire. ‘He must have gone up to bed.’
Her father’s nightmares had continued almost without ceasing since they had returned from their travels. They were upsetting the whole house. He refused to describe them and he refused to explain the effect they were having on him, even to Catrin, but she knew what they were about. He was seeing war. He was seeing bloodshed. He was, like her, aware all too clearly of what would happen when their new prince set out to conquer his land, and yet he had encouraged him. He had told him he would succeed. He had told him as the other bards had told him that he was going to win and win gloriously. And he believed it, as Catrin believed it. How could Owain lose? His success was written in the stars.
Andy lay still, staring up at the ceiling. Her mind was seeking back and forth, frantically searching, but there was nothing there. No memory of a dream, no fleeting sounds, no voices echoing in the dark spaces between the beams. She closed her eyes in disappointment. Had she dreamt? How could she know? She tried to make her mind a blank, allow the details of the night to seep back. She remembered climbing the stairs at last, when she thought she was so tired she couldn’t keep awake another moment. She had pulled the bedcovers round her, and snuggled her head down into the pillows, allowing the silence and the darkness to wrap themselves around her as she drifted deeper and deeper into sleep. But no dream.
She groaned with impatience. What was the point of anything if she couldn’t remember the dream? Had something happened to Catrin in her dream and now she would never know because she couldn’t recall the bloody thing! She sat up and thrust her feet out of bed, groping for her slippers. Outside it was raining she realised as a gust of wind spattered raindrops against the windowpanes. She could hear the thrashing of trees in the wind. No doubt more leaves would be torn off. In Catrin’s world when she had last seen her it had been autumn too.
She doubted if any of the bookshops would be open before ten. That gave her time to shower and dress and eat breakfast. She sat at the kitchen table looking down the list of bookshops she had picked up last time she was down in Hay. What she wanted was a shop that specialised in local history. Not national history. Not Glyndŵr’s history, but the history of the ancient houses scattered around in the hills: the old farmsteads, and fortified houses, even castles, which were hidden in the cwms and bwlchs that led off this part of the Wye Valley in the foothills of the mountains. She smiled. Was the word bwlch? She must also get a Welsh dictionary to find out the meaning of these names. Sleeper’s Castle was uncompromisingly English. Why, when so many of the names far further east than this house, over the English border, had Welsh names? Dafydd had obviously been Welsh; he had been bilingual. She dropped the leaflet she was looking at and stared into space. What language did Dafydd and Catrin speak at home? Joan was English, and so, she assumed, was Edmund. Were they all bilingual? If they were speaking Welsh, how come she could understand them in her dreams? Where, for that matter, was the border? Was it a recorded place? Now there was a road sign on the way to Cusop from Hay saying Welcome to England in one direction. On the other side of the road, a little further up, there was one saying Croeso y Gymru. The border was obviously the brook, which ran under the road at that point and down to the River Wye. In the past, did the border constantly shift? One year a battle moved it, the next an army of men came by and moved it back again. That seemed too simplistic and in a way too arbitrary. Perhaps that was why they called it the March. Perhaps that implied an uncertainty, a blurring of lines which could broaden into several miles. It had been the same in Scotland; the border shifted up and down, and even the uncompromising Roman certainty of Hadrian’s Wall had not fixed it. So perhaps borders were a result of the modern need to categorise and impose order; a political statement, which was absolute. On this side you obeyed English laws, on the other you didn’t. On this side the satnav said you were in England. On the other it didn’t. She frowned slowly. Of course. Wales’s answer to Hadrian’s Wall was Offa’s Dyke. No question, she needed information. She reached for her laptop. The answer, it appeared, was easy. The border was fixed. The term the March was imprecise. She stared at the screen. What she needed was another book.
She felt better once she had a plan. After rinsing her few breakfast dishes she collected her purse and her jacket and headed for the door. The weather had worsened if anything. There was no sign of Bryn’s van as she ran down the steps and dived into the Passat, pausing to listen to the rain hammering on the roof before she reached forward to put the key in the ignition.
She could think of a lot worse ways of spending a wet day. Shop after shop welcomed her into its warmth and she was directed up and down stairs, back between long lines of bookshelves, round corners, into attics and basements. More than once she was given website addresses to follow up later, and several times she found herself engaged in long conversations with local people. It was getting on for lunchtime when she walked into a shop on Church Street and found herself confronting Roy Pascoe.
‘Roy!’ At last she had found his shop.
Roy stood up from behind his desk near the door and kissed her on the cheek. ‘How nice to see you!’
What he found for her was a Victorian map which showed Sleeper’s Castle. Castell Cysgwr. The name was written under a tiny engraving of the house.
‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to buy it.’ He propped the framed engraving against the bookshelves and squatted down next to her so they could both look at it.
‘It is a bit expensive.’ She had noticed the price tag.
‘There’s a good market for these. They’re collectors’ pieces. Rare. Have you got a camera on you? You can take a pic if you like.’
She pulled out her phone and managed to get a fairly clear picture. ‘I was wondering if the original name was in Welsh.’
‘And indeed it was. A lot of places round here have bilingual names. It’s all part of being on the border. There are pure Welsh names quite far into Herefordshire. They spoke Welsh round there well into the nineteenth century, I believe. But don’t forget these castle towns were Norman bases, populated by Norman people who had morphed into English and were assimilated into the local population, which made things eve
n more complicated than they were already.’ He watched while she took another couple of pictures, then swung the frame back into its rack. ‘Are you still enjoying living up there?’
She nodded. ‘It’s a wonderful old house. I’m fascinated by its history.’
‘Ella told me she had run into you. I gather you’ve been having some amazing dreams. She said it sounded terribly exciting.’
Andy gave an uncomfortable smile. ‘Indeed.’ Tucking her phone back into her bag, she looked up at him. ‘I do hope Ella won’t tell anyone about that. It’s the perfect place for me. I’m a solitary soul, by choice. I’m still working so I need time to myself and I value the chance to have a really quiet place to paint. Sue knew the pressure I was under sometimes when she offered the house to me while she was away. It’s a godsend!’
Roy laughed. ‘Point taken. I’ll make sure Ella keeps quiet about anything you tell her.’
Andy blushed, mortified. She had obviously failed to be subtle. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound the way it came out.’
Roy put his arm round her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. I know what a chatterbox Ella can be, bless her. I’ll tip her the wink about keeping quiet, and I will do it tactfully, I promise.’
Andy gave him a grateful smile. ‘Thank you.’
‘Good luck with the research. And with your work.’
Andy’s bag was heavy as she walked back to the car park and she swung it gratefully into the back of her car. As she did so she glanced up and found herself looking at a red sports car in the row in front. It had a black soft top, shabby and slightly torn like Rhona’s. She stared at it hard; she couldn’t remember the number of Rhona’s car. Glancing round, her heart thudding apprehensively, she climbed into the Passat and pulled the door shut. Reversing out she swung left, to drive out on the far side of the car park and then up towards the exit, keeping her eyes skinned for any sign of Rhona. It couldn’t be her car. Could it?
Cold with tension she headed back up the lane home, her eyes constantly drifting to the rear-view mirror to check she hadn’t been followed. Tucking the car into her usual parking place and retrieving her bag of books, her paranoia was so great that part of her almost expected to find the door forced open, but it was locked exactly as she had left it, as was the back door. The house was safe. She let herself in with a sigh of relief, threw the book bag down on the kitchen table and went to look at the phone. No messages.
The sight of what might have been Rhona’s car had jolted her back to Graham and Kew. Had Rhona followed her as she had threatened? She went and pulled down the blind in the kitchen window so no one outside in the garden could see her and switched on the light with a shiver. Whatever the truth of the matter, she felt as though her perfect refuge had been violated.
Why hadn’t she waited to see who owned the car? She could have ducked down in the driver’s seat of her own if necessary. No one would have seen her.
‘Stupid!’ she berated herself. ‘It wasn’t her car. How could it have been?’ She glanced at the chair where Pepper usually sat. There was no sign of him. Sitting down, she realised she was still wearing her waterproof jacket. She pushed her hands deep into the pockets and hunched her shoulders miserably.
Closing her eyes she found herself picturing the house in Kew, filling in every detail of the outside, the Virginia creeper on the front wall, now almost stripped of its glorious red leaves by the cold wind, the rain-soaked drive, empty of cars, the windows dark as the evening drew in, an unwanted flyer sticking out of the letter box, weeds beginning to grow in the front bed which bordered the roadside wall. She pictured herself walking to the front door and up the steps; she pictured herself raising her hand to the doorbell. She hesitated then she pressed her finger against the white enamelled button, hearing the peal of the bell inside the house. She already knew no one would come because that was the way she was picturing it. The hall was dark as it always was when it rained, the doors into the front rooms closed. Someone had left the door into the kitchen at the back open. If she pictured herself inside and walking towards it, she could see the kitchen table empty now of any books or guides or maps. It was scrubbed clean. The cups and mugs, which usually lived on the draining board beside the sink, had been put away. The kitchen was immaculate. And empty, as someone might leave it if they were going away for a few days.
She opened her eyes and sighed. She was no wiser, just more miserable.
Behind her the cat flap opened, making her jump. Pepper appeared and glared at her, wet and obviously cross, leaving a trail of neat paw prints across the floor. He shook himself and went to sit in front of the Aga, raising a paw to dry his face and ears. She smiled with relief. His company was reassuring. If Rhona was poking about in the garden intent on mischief, surely he would not have come in. Pepper was her watchdog and her guardian.
Her sketchbooks were her refuge. Carrying a mug of coffee she made her way through to the area of the living room she was beginning to think of as her studio, switched on the light and set the cup down on the table. The flowers she had been painting had wilted in their glass. Sadly she carried them back into the kitchen. She threw them into her compost bucket, then opened the back door and looked out into the garden. It took only minutes to gather some windblown roses, arrange them in a drinking glass, add a few papery honesty seeds, and carry the arrangement back to the desk. She dipped her brush in her water pot and began to sketch, almost at once lost in the drawing process, her mind concentrated in on itself, blank, receptive, open.
13
Yule came and went, snow engulfed the valley. The first signs of spring came, then more rain and yet more snow and it was after Easter when Catrin saw Edmund again. He had walked down the long road from home, wading through mud and slush and frozen mud, a huge bundle of supplies on his shoulder.
‘You look like a pedlar,’ Joan cried as she pulled him in through the door into the warmth of the kitchen. She hung his wet outer garments in front of the fire, scolded him for wearing his sodden boots indoors and treading mud all over the flagstones, and sat him on a stool to stick his feet out towards the warmth, letting his sopping hose steam gently while she made him a hot drink. Only then did she allow her curiosity about the contents of his bundle full rein.
‘I have gifts for you all,’ he said. ‘I suspected none of you have been able to get to market for a while, the weather has been so bad.’
Their food and supplies and fuel had lasted through the worst of the weather but there was only enough to see them through a couple more weeks. Joan pounced on the cloth-wrapped parcels with glee.
‘No, these are not for you.’ Edmund took a bag out of her hand and pushed another couple aside. ‘This is for Catrin and these two are for her father. And these are for you all, for the pantry.’ He grinned at her, not missing the flash of anger on her face.
‘“Catrin” is it?’ she repeated the name, her voice heavy with innuendo.
He jerked his head back and surveyed her coldly. ‘What else would I call her?’
‘Mistress Catrin might be more respectful.’
He nodded soberly. ‘It might. Where is she?’
‘Probably writing.’ Turning her back on the bag of gifts, Joan shook out her dishclout and chased one of the barn cats away from the fire. ‘She’ll be in the parlour, I dare say.’
He glanced at her in amusement, then stood up and walked towards the door, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him on the flags.
Catrin was huddled beside a brazier, wrapped in her cloak, her hands swathed in mittens as she dipped her pen in the inkpot and bent closer to her page. The room was lit by several candles. There was no sign of her father. She glanced up as Edmund walked in, the draught that accompanied him flaring the candle flames and sending the shadows leaping wildly up the wall.
He gave a little bow. ‘How are you? I thought I would come and make sure you are all safe and well after the snow.’ She was much thinner than when he had
seen her last. It had been a long winter and that and the privations of Lent had left her almost gaunt.
She stared at him her face blank, and he wondered if she even recognised him. Then her expression cleared and she smiled. ‘Edmund, I’m sorry, I was miles away inside my head. There it was autumn and the skies were still blue and the trees were heavy with fruit.’ It had been the strangest daydream. There had been a vase of flowers on the table in the great hall and a woman who wore men’s hose and buskins instead of a long skirt had been painting them with work as delicate and intricate as a master in the scriptorium. To come back to reality and find herself scribbling verses huddled over the smoking fire was a shock. She shivered. ‘Is your family well? Joan must be pleased to see you.’
‘She is.’ He looked away, abashed. His relationship with Catrin over the long months of their travels had been complicated. It had ended with a kiss. To see her again now after such a long enforced separation was unexpectedly uncomfortable.
‘I bought you and your father some gifts.’ Now he was here, it seemed wildly inappropriate to be so forward. ‘I knew you wouldn’t have been able to get to market after the storms and all the snow. I have left a bit of food with Joan, but I thought you might need pens and knives to trim them. Ingredients for your ink. I remembered you make it all yourself but once you told me how hard it was to find gum arabic and copperas.’ He glanced up in time to see her face light up.
‘Thank you, Edmund. I was nearly at my wits’ end knowing I had enough only to make another jug. Joan collected baskets of oak galls while we were away, but the other things I have to buy. My father would have gone mad with fury and impatience without ink.’
‘As would you, I would guess.’ He looked across at the sheet of parchment on her table, weighted down by pretty stones to keep it flat. He hesitated then, bending to the fuel basket, he picked up a few lumps of charcoal, threw them on the fire and squatted in front of the brazier, holding out his hands to the warmth. The movement brought him close beside her. ‘I doubted that you would get to church for the Easter celebrations or to market in all the snow, so I have brought sweetmeats and marchpane to celebrate.’ He smiled as he pushed the little parcels towards her.