Named of the Dragon Page 16

  Above our heads, a light came on in Christopher's room, and I knew that he was listening, too. Even James was drawn from his writing-room to join us in the doorway. "What's the racket?"

  "Shh," said Bridget.

  They were finishing the final verse. They ended it unevenly, as children do, some trying to go on before they caught themselves, like train cars piling up behind a suddenly stalled engine. At the centre of the group one little girl lifted both hands to muffle her giggle, and another blew her nose. No longer cherubs, only children.

  As we started to applaud, the oldest boy stepped forwards, shyly, holding out a painted tin. "We're collecting for the church."

  Bridget gave him my two pounds, and stuck an elbow into James. "Cough it up, Scrooge. It's Christmas."

  With a sigh, he dug into his pocket and came out with change, mostly pennies, that clattered importantly into the tin. The boy thanked us, politely, and re-joined his group. I was thinking to myself how very well behaved and organized they were, for such small children, when a figure moved behind them and the reason for their good behaviour stepped into the light.

  "Right then, boys and girls," said Owen's Dilys, looking rather like a military leader in a brass-buttoned coat of dark wool that came down to her knees. It was likely the coat's fault, I thought, that I hadn't noticed her there before. She blended rather well into the shadows at the edges of the garden. I watched her herd her charges. "Time we moved on to the next house. No, Angela dear," she instructed one well-bundled tot who had wobbled a few steps towards the big East House, "not that way. We're going down here, next, to see Mr. Morgan."

  "Elen," said James, "might feel rather left out."

  Dilys sniffed and replied that it couldn't be helped. "We're late as it is, aren't we, children? And the vicar has promised us cocoa and biscuits."

  That galvanized the children into action. They were massing round Dilys in a chattering, excited mob, when suddenly a door slammed and the sound of running footsteps surged towards us.

  "There, you see?" James bent his head to light a cigarette. "I told you that she'd be upset."

  Elen burst into the garden like someone possessed, her hair blowing wild, her face deathly white. She hadn't stopped to dress the baby—he was still in his sleeping-suit,

  wrapped in a quilt, too bewildered to cry. But his mother looked ready to burst into tears.

  "Please," she gasped. "Please help. It's been after Stevie."

  Dilys exhaled, tight-lipped. "Elen, for pity's sake ..." "It's been in his room. Please, I heard it." James sighed, rather heavily. "Not again," he said. From which I gathered this was something of a replay of the crisis he and Christopher had weathered the night before we came. Elen, I recalled, had heard a noise in Stevie's room on that occasion, too. James took a step back from the doorway and glanced down at me. "It's all right, Lyn, she's done this before. I'll just go ring Gareth."

  On his way through the passageway into the kitchen, James tangled with Christopher, coming to investigate. "What's the matter? I thought I heard Elen ..."

  "You did." James pushed past him, and Christopher turned to Bridget. "What is it? What's happened?" "Oh, she thinks someone's been after Stevie." "I see." He frowned. "And has anyone looked yet, to see if she's right?"

  *-*-*-*-*

  The nursery seemed secure enough. A narrow room, high-ceilinged, it had one square window facing front, one door into the corridor, and one door on the built-in cupboard set into the corner nearest me.

  Stevie played quietly on the carpeted floor, surrounded by a scattering of toys, trying to balance a large plastic block on the tip of his teddy bear's nose while Christopher made a great show of examining everything, poking his head in the cupboard and under the cot. "No one here," he announced.

  "But I heard it," said Elen. "I heard it."

  Below us a door slammed, and Gareth's voice mingled with Bridget's down in the hall, and then heavy steps stormed up the stairs to the landing. I looked up as Gareth appeared in the doorway, breathing as though he had run the whole distance from his house to here. "What the hell's going on?" he demanded.

  Distracted from his game, the baby greeted Gareth with an energetic "Da!" and banged his block against the carpet.

  "It was here again," Elen said. "It came like Margaret said it would, and tried to take Stevie away."

  The inscrutable dark eyes flicked sideways to Christopher; moved on to me, taking note of my presence. "I see."

  "It was my fault," said Elen. "I shouldn't have left him alone. Margaret told me today would be dangerous, so I watched him. I tried to be careful, you know? But it got in anyway." Looking down, she brushed one hand across her son's fair curls, breathing out on a shuddering sigh. "I must have frightened it off, when I came to look in on him."

  Christopher looked round the room. ' 'Well, it seems all right now ..." With a smile, he went out.

  "You don't believe me," Elen said, a little sadly. "Do you?" Then, when no one answered her, she pointed to the window, with its clear view of the tower rising black against the moon. "He came through there, you see? I never open Stevie's window. Never."

  There was no denying it was open now, but the sash had only been raised an inch or so to let in air. No person could have scaled the outside wall and squeezed through that, I thought. From the look on Gareth's face I knew he thought the same, but still he played along with Elen's fantasy, and crossed to shut the window. "There," he said. "I can nail the thing closed, if that makes you feel better. Tony's tools are still down in the understairs cupboard, right? Right. I'll be back in a minute."

  Below us, I could hear the clinking sound of crockery that told me Christopher was in the kitchen, making tea. He paused when Gareth went downstairs, and I could hear their voices blend. But Elen took no notice. Her fingers toyed with Stevie's hair, shaping one curl into a perfect circle. Watching her face, I felt suddenly thankful my own mind had managed to stay sound and strong through my grief. It must, I thought, be terrible to slip so close to madness.

  "I shouldn't have left him alone," she told me. "Margaret said today was dangerous, because it's Arthur's Light."

  I felt a chill between my shoulder blades. "Who's Margaret, Elen?"

  "Margaret," she repeated, in a tone that took for granted I would know the woman, too. "She's the one who said you'd come to keep my Stevie safe, remember?"

  "She's a friend of yours?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "I'd like to meet her."

  "Well, I don't know if you could," she said, uncertain. "Margaret only comes to tell me things, you see, when I'm asleep, but I could ask her."

  The curtains at the window caught a tiny draught and fluttered and for an instant I was back in that lonely little tower room at Pembroke Castle, staring at the portrait of the woman who had haunted my own dreams since I'd come down to Angle—Henry Tudor's mother, Margaret Beaufort. Margaret...

  No, I thought, impossible. We couldn't both be dreaming of the same young woman. Dreams were individual, the products of a single mind, not things that could be shared.

  "She has a son," said Elen, still intent on curling Stevie's hair. "Like me. His name is Harry. And the dragon tried to take him, too—because it knew, you see. It knew what Harry was. What Stevie is."

  I swallowed, hard. "And what is that?"

  But Elen shook her head. "I mustn't say. He told me that I mustn't say."

  Terrific, I thought, as I registered the masculine pronoun—here was somebody else to confuse things. "Who told you?"

  "Merlin."

  She said it so naturally, that's what amazed me. She might have been talking of Gareth, or Christopher. ' 'Merlin?" I echoed.

  She nodded. "He comes to me, too. Well, his voice does—I don't really see him, because of the mist. But I hear him. I hear what he says, about Stevie, and why Stevie's here. It's because of the dragon," she told me, her voice dropping low. "The dragon knows Stevie was sent here to kill it, that's why it doesn't want him to grow up to be
a man."

  "Ah," I said. It seemed the only thing to say.

  "You see," Elen said, leaning forward, confiding, "the dragon that lives in the tower is white."

  I heard steps on the stairs and a voice from the landing, and Christopher came through the door of the nursery, a tray in his hands. "Here you are, I've made tea," he informed us both, cheerfully. "Tea always helps."

  A stiff measure of whisky, I thought to myself, would help more.

  XXI

  We are closed in, and the key is turned

  On our uncertainty...

  W. B. Yeats, "The Stare's Nest By My Window"

  Bridget poked her head in through the dining-room door an hour later. "Are you sure you're all right?"

  "Mm. Just knackered." And descending slowly into madness, I added to myself, in silence. After a day like this one, all I wanted was to sit awhile and have a drink and try to sort things through.

  "You're not just staying home so you'll be here if Elen needs somebody?"

  "No."

  "Because she's really all right on her own, you know."

  "I know."

  "And you heard her, she didn't want anyone. Not even Owen."

  "I am not," I said, firmly, "staying home because of Elen. In fact, if I have one more glass of whisky, I very much doubt if I'd hear the girl scream, let alone be of use to her."

  "Well, you know where to find us, if you change your mind."

  "Are you off, then?" I asked, as she bent her head to check the contents of her handbag.

  ' 'Yes, as soon as James remembers where he left the car keys."

  I smiled, and rolled my head against the cushions of the chair back. "It's only a two-minute walk to the pub."

  "I'm in heels," she said, holding out one foot to show me. "And besides, driving's warmer. The wind's bloody cold out there."

  "Mm." I could hear it. Since we'd come back from Elen's, a half-hour ago, the weather had turned. Behind the soft folds of the curtains, the long windows shuddered and rattled with each violent gust, and the chimney had started to moan. I felt snug in my chair, with my feet tucked up into the cushions, and the whisky slowly spreading warmth through all my veins.

  James called from the back door, and Bridget turned happily. "Right then, we shan't be too long."

  "Be as long as you like," I invited.

  I rather liked being alone in the house. After living so long in the flat on my own, it always took a bit of getting used to, having other people round. They disrupted my daily routine. It felt good to be back in control for an evening, to make the sort of meal I usually made—omelette and chips with fruit compote and custard cream biscuits and tea—and to carry it through to the cosy little sitting-room that opened off the kitchen, so I could eat as I usually ate, from a tray, while watching television.

  I flipped through the channels, quite comforted.

  "... never meant to marry me, did you? You ... must be rather careful with your measurements, at this point, or the pudding will.. . return year after year to celebrate the solstice." I stopped; left it there, as the camera zoomed in on a group of young people in white robes, playing Druid. It had snowed where they were, and a talcum-soft dusting had covered the grass and the top of the lone standing stone around which they had gathered. One of the girls had a nose-ring. They looked, I decided, about as convincing as Bridget would look in a nun's habit.

  The deep, solemn voice of an unseen narrator continued to speak. "The ancient Celts apparently took little notice of the sun-based solstices, but modern druids, notwithstanding, choose to celebrate Midwinter's Day as the "Light of—"

  And then, quite unexpectedly, there was no light at all. Surprised, I sat surrounded by the sudden blackness while the wind shrieked past the windows, spitting rain against the glass. The storm had knocked the power out.

  Easing carefully out of my chair so as not to spill my supper tray, I felt round the fireplace hearth for the box of big wooden matches, and used them to search the kitchen. I found a small torch nestled in the drawer that held the tea towels. Its batteries were nearly dead, but it managed to throw out a small thread of light that, at length, touched the edge of a box of plain white kitchen candles, tucked back in a cupboard. I'd known they would be somewhere. Every farmer I had ever known kept candles in the kitchen, to guard against just such emergencies.

  There was even a candlestick stored alongside them— an ornate antique silver piece that held three candles. Relieved, I struck a match.

  The heating had only been off a few minutes, but already the cold was beginning to creep through the walls of the old house, and the candle flames fluttered and dipped in a draught as I turned, casting weird slanting shadows that danced at the edge of the darkness. I found enough coal in the sitting-room scuttle to start a small fire, but it didn't help much. What I needed, I thought, was a blanket or rug that would help keep me warm till the heat came back on.

  I felt like a character in a Hitchcock film as I carefully made my way upstairs, using the candles to show me the way and keeping one hand on the railing. The linen cupboard, I knew, was at the end of the passage—I'd seen James fetching clean sheets from it, yesterday. The handle wouldn't budge at first, but a closer look showed me the old-fashioned key in the lock. Rather odd, I thought, to lock the linen cupboard—but then, every household had its quirks. I gave the key a half-turn and the door swung inwards soundlessly, without the noisy protest I'd expected from its hinges.

  It wasn't the cupboard I'd wanted.

  I stood for a moment, confused, as the candlelight showed me a section of shelving stacked with clothes and cuddly toys. Another door stood partway open just in front of me, and through it I could hear the sound of soft and rapid breathing. I knew now where I was. I had passed into the East House and was standing in the built-in cupboard set into the corner of the nursery, Stevie's nursery, just a few feet from his cot. And if I'd wanted to, I could have snatched him up and run away, without his mother ever knowing.

  *-*-*-*-*

  It bothered me more than I cared to admit, finding that door. Not because I truly thought that anyone had sneaked into the nursery, earlier, but because I knew that someone could have done it. And that knowledge was troubling.

  I had felt an unwelcome intruder myself, standing quiet and still in the shadowy cupboard. Guiltily, I'd closed the door again and locked it firmly, checked it twice, to make quite certain little Stevie was secure. And then I'd stepped a little to the left and found the linen cupboard door— unlocked, as linen cupboards ought to be—and blindly pulled a blanket from the woodsy-scented shelves, trailing it after me back down the stairs to the sitting-room.

  Now, settled in my chair again, I wrapped the blanket snugly round my shoulders and tried to be rational.

  So there was a door leading into the East House. So what? No one here would have had any reason to want to harm Stevie. So stop being foolish, I told myself crossly. Stop worrying.

  I turned my mind to other things. My omelette and chips had congealed on the plate, but the biscuits and fruit remained edible, and I managed to coax a second cup of still-warm tea from the pot. Sitting back, I stared at the black reflecting screen of the television, willing it to come back on and offer a diversion. Even the druids, I thought, would be better than nothing. I'd never know, now, why the devil they had all been dancing around in the snow. Celebrating the solstice, the narrator had said. Some festival—the Light of Something ...

  And then the thought struck me. I put down my fork. "Jesus."

  The dining-room, with its tall windows, was already freezing cold, and the storm seemed determined to come through the glass, howling and beating its fists in a fury. I held up the candles and crossed to the bookcase, my breath making mist in the air. The book was still there, on the second shelf, waiting—The Druid's Year.

  I pulled it out and flipped the pages, scarcely seeing Julia's exquisite illustrations. The months passed in a blur of colour... November... December... my fingers slowed ..
. December the twenty-first.

  "Alban Arthuan," the book informed me. "Believed by modern druids to be the day that King Arthur was born and delivered, as promised, to Merlin. Sometimes called "The Light of Arthur' ..."

  The Light of Arthur, I thought numbly. Arthur's Light.

  But that wasn't the thing that disturbed me the most. The most disturbing thing, to me, was that someone had marked the page.

  XXII

  Scarce had we slept on the Forbidden Ground,

  When the Woods shook...

  John Dryden, Merlin, or The British Enchanter

  I was running, half-stumbling, and dragging the golden-haired child along by one hand. It was night. All around us the mist swirled and rose and formed strange shifting shapes and I couldn't see anything—only the rough trampled path at my feet. I could hear the child's breathing, behind me, and somewhere below us the sound of the sea. Then from out of the mist came another sound, terrible, shaking the ground like a wildcat's scream.

  I scooped up the boy and ran faster, spurred on by the weight of his arms round my neck and the feel of his small, panicked heartbeat. He was crying, without making noise, and the tears trickled warm down the side of my neck. I squeezed him tight. "It's all right, love, we're nearly there."

  But the path appeared endless.

  The creature was gaining. It screamed again, closer, and the shadow of a claw slashed through the mist. Oh, God, I prayed, silently, don't let me lose him. I must keep him safe. I was breathing in sobs, now. The path tilted up and I scrambled up with it, seeking any foothold I could find.

  I passed a shape that looked like James, standing off to one side of the path, calmly smoking a cigarette. "My dear girl," his voice said, "it's hardly the end of the world."

  Further up, someone else—Owen, I think—reached to take the child from me, but I didn't let go. I kept running. The ground underneath me was shuddering now, and I felt the searing heat of my pursuer's breath. And then all of a sudden the path disappeared, and I was falling into nothingness, with the roar of the sea rising swiftly to calm me. I pressed the boy closer, surrounding him, trying to shield him, my own scream as loud as the thing at our backs.