by Liz Berry
Clare was glad to escape, despising herself for her eagerness. But as she reached the door it crashed back and a figure stood in the doorway, huge and dark against the lighted corridor.
Clare caught her breath, unable to believe her eyes.“Mark,” she whispered, and couldn’t move.
He stared at her. The rain was running down his leathers, and his long hair was plastered to his head. The firelight gleamed on his cheek bones, throwing his eyes into shadow like a skull. He looked taller. Bigger. Older. A stranger.
She said nervously, trying to hold down her joy.“You came back.”
There was an aura of wildness and desperation about him. He looked all over her.“You’re all right?”
She was confused.“All right?”
“Earlier. What happened to you?”
She stared at him.“What do you mean?”
“You screamed—`Mark? Mark!’ A terrible scream that nearly knocked me off my bike, and then nothing. Blackness.”
Clare remembered then hearing her own voice screaming his name, as she saw Bran’s motor bike smash into the Leper Stone.
He pulled her into his arms and held on to her.“Oh God, Clare. I thought you’d died. I couldn’t hear you anymore.”
“I’m all right. I’m fine.”
His arms tightened until they hurt. She felt him draw in great sobbing breaths. They stood there holding on to each other. Not kissing. Just accepting that they were together and well.
Across the other side of the room there was a hoarse cry, and Mr Aylward was struggling to sit up. Frances hastily propped pillows behind him.
“Mark.”
“You can’t see him now, Mr Aylward. You have to rest. Tomorrow, perhaps, when you feel better.” Frances was worried.
“Fool woman. No time left. Must talk.” His face was flushed and his breathing was getting worse.
Mark let Clare go and strode further into the room. He stood at the end of the four-poster and stared at the old man.“Well, I’m here. You sent for me. What do you want?”
The old man’s head rolled on the pillow, and Clare saw the tears in his eyes.“Wrong,” he said.“Wrong. Regret all ... Forgive me.”
Mark’s eyes flickered. He looked at Clare and back to the figure in the bed. He was shaken. Always he had thought of Mr Aylward as powerful, invincible, dangerous. He hadn’t expected to see his enemy so weak and broken.
“You never acknowledged me or my mother.”
“Forgive. Must forgive. No time left”
Mark hesitated.“I’ve come, haven’t I? What do you want?”
“Tell about Benison. Clare stay. Frances ...”
Mark said to Frances,“Wait outside.”
“No,” Clare protested.“She has to stay. He’s very ill.”
Frances said uncomfortably, almost fearfully,“I don’t want to hear about the Benison. He won’t settle until he gets this business done. Ten minutes, Mark, no more.” She went out and closed the door, and Mr Aylward weakly motioned Clare and Mark to come closer.
“You and Clare … next Guardians. No choice, boy. You’re next or you die.”
Clare felt her throat tighten with fear.
Mark said impatiently,“We know that. Tell us about the Benison.”
“Guard Benison. Must guard Benison. Promise.”
Clare met Mark’s eyes.“Promise.”
“I will guard the Benison,” Mark said evenly, staring into the old man’s eyes.“Clare?”
“I promise to guard the Benison.”
The old man drew in a rattling, harsh breath.“Not enough. Guard the Benison with my life. Promise...”
Clare hesitated. How could she make such a promise, when she had no idea what the Benison was? Was she really prepared to sacrifice her life for some miserable old bowl, even if it was gold? But Mr Aylward was gripping her arm painfully, his eyes begging and frantic.
She said,“All right—with my life, if you think the Benison is worth it.”
“Thirty thousand years.” She felt his hand drop away.
“I’ll guard the Benison with my life,” said Mark, without hesitation.“Tell us what it is and where it is.”
There was another appalling rattling noise as Mr Aylward fought for breath.“Must go quickly. Urgent. Hurry ... hurry ...” His voice fell to a hoarse whisper.
Mark bent over him, holding his hand.“I can’t hear, Grandfather. What…?” He put his head closer to the desperate whispering. Clare, further away, could not make out any of the words. She hoped Mark was having better luck.
Mr Aylward’s face became suffused with dark colour. It sagged and twisted. His tongue hung helpless between his lips unable to form the words.
“What is it?” Mark said, desperately,“Where is it? Come on, Grandfather, you’ve got to tell us! Where is it?” He seized and shook the flaccid shoulder, but it was too late. The exertion had been too much for the old man. Mr Aylward had had a stroke.
Clare and Mark sat at the table in the big kitchen, numbly drinking coffee while the sky lightened outside. The wind and rain died away, leaving the world rainwashed and tousled.
They were waiting for Dr McKinnon and Frances to come down to give them news, too exhausted to make the effort to go to their beds.
“Have you phoned your mother?” said Clare.
He shook his head.“I came straight here.”
“She’s going crazy.”
“I’ll phone later. She sleeps in.”
Clare thought that Vivienne probably hadn’t slept much at all since he’d walked out, but she said nothing. Vivienne would be coming over to see Frances later anyway.
“What happened last night, Clare? When you screamed?”
Clare flushed.“I thought you were dead. I fainted.” Hesitantly, she told him about seeing Brandon’s crash, waiting for him to make some derisive comment, but he was silent.
“You believe me?”
“Why not? The villagers say the Guardians are always psychic.”
Clare stared at him.“You?”
He looked away.“Maybe. Sometimes.”
“You heard me?”
“A terrible scream, then blackness. I nearly went under a
tanker.”
“Where were you?”
“On the motorway.”
“Your grandfather has been calling for you too.”
“I know.”
Clare took a deep, steadying breath.“Telepathy?”
“Or something.” He shrugged.“Strong with you. When
you let me in.”
There was silence. Clare picked at the wood grain.“You came back. Are you staying?”
Their eyes met.
“I’ve stopped running,” Mark said.“I’m back for good. I’ve had time to think. I can’t let Ravensmere die. I can’t let Roger Fletcher take over.”
“He’s gone. Mr Aylward threw him out the day he sent for you.”
Mark grunted with surprised satisfaction.“That’s one job I won’t have to do then.”
They sat silent, remembering. Mark said quietly,“That day—I waited for you to come back, you know. I couldn’t believe you’d really walk away from me.”
Clare flushed painfully.“I’m sorry ... It’s not that I don’t ... I mean, I didn’t understand. I didn’t believe you would leave Ravensmere.”
“I’m sorry too. That day by the Ring Stone, I shouldn’t have tricked you. I wasn’t playing games, Rosie. I just couldn’t bear to lose you. It was my last chance. I had to try everything.”
There was another silence. Clare could feel his tension.“Clare, what about you? What are you going to do?”
She swallowed and looked into his eyes.“I’ll stay too.” They were brilliant green now.“I accept that I’m the female Guardian.” As she said the words she felt the strange mixture of relief, pride and fear.“We promised.”
Mark said, slowly,“I think it’s going to be very hard. There’s something ... wrong. Bad.”
“I know.”
&nb
sp; “To do with the Benison.”
“Yes.”
“Clare, we’ve got to find the Benison and find it quickly. Where is it? What is it?”
“A needle in a haystack. It must be well hidden. Could be anywhere. We don’t know what size it is even.” Clare yawned, widely. Her brain felt like a soggy sponge.“Why is it so urgent anyway?”
“That’s what he said. Urgent. You know this house. Where do we start?”
“I’ve only been here a few weeks,” Clare protested.“I haven’t even been into all the rooms.” She tried to think.“The old Abbey part, maybe. The Cloisters and the Chapter House. It’s all closed off. Rosamond’s Tower. That’s where all the old documents are kept.”
“We’ll start there,” Mark decided. He sounded wide-awake and energetic.
Clare yawned again.“I’ve got to get some sleep. We’ve been up all night.”
Mark grinned at her.“Little cat.” He put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her, and kissed her ear.“Missed me?”
He would never know how much, Clare thought. She leaned on him and rubbed her head against his neck.“You don’t sound tired at all.”
“I’m waking up. It’s my birthday.”
Clare sat up.“You’re joking.”
“Twenty-one today.”
Clare stared at him, feeling her heart turn over. He’d come back—but only just in time. She said, slowly,“Many happy returns.”
Dr McKinnon came in, looking very tired. Clare made tea for her and she drank it gratefully, standing up, holding the cup between her hands. For once she looked her age and Clare saw that there were tears in her eyes.
“He’s still alive. Can’t speak. Can’t move.” She looked at Clare’s tense face.“Go home, Clare. Nothing you can do. Nothing any of us can do. He might die at any time. It might be days or weeks. I’ll get a specialist down from London.”
They prepared a breakfast tray for Frances and Mr Bristow, and Mark carried it up while Clare washed up.
Mrs Anscomb came bustling in from the stable yard, unbuttoning her raincoat.“That were a fair old wind last night. Blew off the new thatch those foreigners paid so much for. Brought down the peach tree by the China Garden too.”
Clare said, blankly,“Peach tree?”
“What’s the matter with you this morning, Clare, m’dear? You’m like a zombie. I said, the peach tree came down. Bashed out all the old bricks from one of the Moon Gates. Mr Aylward will be annoyed. A fair old view there, down to the crossroads. I never understood why he had it bricked up.”
Clare stared at her. The Fourth Moon Gate, was open. She knew now why Mr Aylward had bricked it up. He had bricked up the memory of the smash, and his son’s death.
She said, tired,“Mr Aylward won’t mind. He’s too ill,” and broke the bad news to Mrs Anscomb.
Chapter 26
Clare ran a grubby hand through her heavy hair and looped it behind her ears, staring with frustration at the ever-growing piles of books and ancient documents covering the long library tables. For three days now they had been scouring the Library, trying to find clues to the Benison.
Incredibly Mr Aylward hung on to life, unable to move or speak. Only his green eyes moved, glittering with a desperate question. Clare knew what his question was. Had they found the Benison? But she could only shake her head and watch his despair, as he tried once again to talk.
They had hunted unsuccessfully through the bare stone rooms of the old Abbey, tugging at knobs and carvings, hoping to find secret rooms.
They had climbed to the Muniment Room in Rosamond’s Tower, and stared in horror at the ancient records of the estate. The walls were covered with oak shelving from floor to ceiling and crowded on to the shelves were thousands of rolled parchments with seals, documents, maps, files, boxes, and account books of all shapes and sizes. It seemed that Ravensmere had kept everything, even down to the receipts for wax candles. It all looked orderly, properly arranged, although the dust of many years lay thickly.
“This is no good,” said Mark.“We haven’t got the time to go through all this. We can’t just pull stuff out at random. We might be mucking up the system. We need to know where to look.”
“The Library,” Clare said.“There must be a catalogue somewhere.”
The Library yielded another avalanche of material. Books on Somerset and Wiltshire. More maps. Ancient histories of Raven Abbey, and Ravensmere. Old photo albums, sketch books, watercolour portfolios. Household books full of recipes and household hints. Victorian scrap books. They found the Elizabethan Earl’s Treatise on the Benefits of Clear Water and Clarissa Kenward’s herbal healing book. There were memoirs, diaries, bundles of letters.
“This looks more promising,” Mark had said.“Let’s start with this lot.”
Clare longed to linger over the diaries full of exquisite, copperplate handwriting, but they had decided to look only for references to the Benison or the China Garden or the Maze.
“There’s a connection,” Mark had said.“There must be. All the female Guardians, including the nuns have danced the Maze right back to the Middle Ages. Maybe even before.”
Mark was going to be worse than useless, Clare had decided early on. He kept getting sidetracked in the farming and estate records, fascinated by the numbers of mangelwurzels grown in 1566 or the breeding of a horse called Demophoon which nearly won the Derby in 1786. She sent him a hostile look and went back to Elizabeth Kenward’s household book of 1615.
To cure Pain in the Bone also Gripe in the Belly, take three leaves of Comfrey and steep in Holy Well Water...
To ease women’s monthly courses also childbirth, take raspberry leaves . . .
It was slow work. Some of the handwriting and printing was difficult to read, the old paper fragile, the parchment and vellum stiff. The documents all needed careful handling.
They hadn’t been able to find the records for the year 1539 when the Abbey had been sold and the golden chalice, supposedly the Benison, handed over to Henry VIII’s Com-missioners. And so far, references to the Benison were conspicuously absent.
She pushed the book away, sighing. Three days and all they had was a receipt dated 1204 for ‘Ye re-cutting of Ye Abbey Maze ... ten pence’, and a box of plans and letters about the construction of the China Garden in the eighteenth century.
There was a copy of a letter dated 1766 from James Edward, the Travelling Earl, to his son Edmund, living in London, telling him about building work in progress in the Garden:
We are hard at work without doors. The turf in the China Garden has been recut. I am well pleased with my Dragon Wall and little T’ing or Pavilion. More so with the delightful Rock Pool over the Holy Well...
So that was what the pile of tumbled stones and masonry blocking the Sixth Moon Gate had once been, Clare thought. A rock pool. Another concealment. Why had he needed to hide the famous Holy Well? And who had destroyed it?
My Huayuanzi, (flower garden men), are all now returned to Suchow. They will be glad to see their families after so many months, but I will miss my conversations with Mr Wu Cheng Ming, a most scholarly and erudite Gentleman. The Garden will protect those who, not understanding, would use the Maze for casual games to their injury.
The work on Flitcroft’s Triumph goes on apace. Four Deities of Healing, Light and Nature—Apollo, Artemis, Asclepius, and Pan—now guard the entrance. Within we are out-doing Hannibal and working through rocks more obdurate than the Alps. Sam Kenward and his three sons work as fifty men and have accomplished much, but the last part must fall to me alone, and I ask you to come in all haste to lend me your younger strength. My bones ache and I feel my years. Later, the damming of the Raven to isolate the Island will be your task.
Your loving Father,
James Edward Aylward
Clare rubbed the coldness from her arms. She had been right about the statues on the island. But what did he mean“the last part must fall to me alone”? And why on earth would he need his son to help him when he already
had four strong men? Clare sighed with frustration. Just more and more questions. She put the letter aside. Mai would be interested to read about the Chinese gardeners.
They found other references to the Maze and the China Garden. William Stukely, the antiquarian, had visited the Maze on a day trip from Avebury in 1724. He had done a pen and ink drawing showing the Revellers and the Wedding Ring on their hill above the Maze which the Eighth Earl had promptly purchased for forty guineas, promising at some unspecified date in the future to allow Stukely to investigate the“poor remains”.
There is no doubt in my mind, wrote Stukely, That as Abury doth far exceed Stonehenge, so might Stoke Raven exceed Abury, were proper investigation made.
But he gave no details, and as far as Clare could see the Eighth Earl had never kept his promise to allow antiquarian research.
In fact, Clare realized, turning over papers, there were copies of letters from every period refusing, with a variety of polite and specious excuses, to allow any archaeological digging on the site.
But why should they all be so concerned to stop people digging, or even caving, she thought, finding yet another refusal dated 1863 addressed this time to the Derbyshire Caving and Underground Exploration Society.
“Mark,” she said, slowly,“I think you’d better find a way of stopping that dig over the hill. What we’re looking for could be buried somewhere.”
Mark had been given Power of Attorney by Mr Aylward’s solicitor, and was now virtually in charge of Ravensmere. He glanced at her impatiently.“I already have.” Her mouth dropped open.“James and I have stopped pretty well everything authorized by that greedy slug, Fletcher. You can bet that anything he started would be to line his own pockets.”
“Or to destroy Ravensmere. He always hated it.”
Mark shrugged.“You could be right. The archaeologists have packed up and gone anyway.”
He grinned and stretched, his strong muscles moving silkily over his bones under the cotton shirt he was wearing. Clare looked away, flushing.
“I promised a substantial donation to the Professor’s university. Enough to take his team to Egypt. The Professor is an Egyptologist. Money talks loudly, Clare. Simple. When you have it.”