Dearest Enemy

by Alexandra Sellers

  She wasn’t sure why she looked at Math just then. Perhaps because she felt him looking at her. There was a smile of understanding in his eyes, and he leaned towards her over Vinnie. “You can always paint her portrait,” he murmured.

  The relief was like lightning through her, entirely unexpected. She went off in a gale of uncontrollable and very infectious laughter.

  It caught the table’s attention, although Davina had been saying something about the supernatural being misnamed—it wasn’t “super”natural at all, just something within the as-yet-undiscovered laws of perfectly sound science.

  “What is it? What’s the joke?” demanded Rosemary. Clearly she disapproved of talking in class.

  Elain bit her lip and shook her head, choking back giggles. Math said calmly, “I was suggesting that Elain might paint you.”

  Rosemary tried to pretend not to be flattered by this. “Really? Paint me? I can’t think why!”

  “Because she is an artist of colour and shape, and not of words. That puts her at a disadvantage when she is insulted over the dinner table.”

  Elain and Rosemary gasped together. Rosemary’s chest was suddenly beet red under the scoop-neck collar of her dress, and Elain watched transfixed as the blush crept slowly up her neck and into her cheeks and then to the roots of her coiffed blond hair. For a moment, the older woman sat staring at nothing. Then her gaze fell onto her plate, flicked back up to Math, and then to Elain. She touched her neck lightly, as though she wore pearls.

  “I certainly didn’t mean any insult, my dear. I hope you’ll forgive me. It is a habit of ours, I’m afraid, to chafe Canadians and Australians a little as ‘colonials,’ but I hope you can accept that it is entirely good-natured.”

  Elain was now more embarrassed than ever. “Yes, yes, you didn’t...I just...” She subsided into silence as Jan came around the screen with the dessert trolley.

  In the silence that fell as she passed around servings of something made with fresh peaches and clotted cream, Jan asked brightly, “Did you tell them about looking for your family?” Clearly she was no ordinary employee. Elain was going to have to cast her in the movie, too. “Elain’s got people she’ll be looking up while she’s here, did she tell you?”

  Everyone ohhed at this.

  “Really?”

  “Where are they?”

  “You mean, you’re Welsh?”

  When she could get a word in, Elain said, “My great-grandfather was born in Wales in 1879. His name was Arthur John Owen. That’s all I know. I thought of looking him up, if I could.”

  “Elaine isn’t a Welsh name, of course,” said Vinnie. “But there is a Welsh name, spelled without an e. Then it’s—”

  “My name is spelled without the e on my birth certificate,” Elain interrupted excitedly. “I’ve always wondered why.”

  “Is it? Then it should properly be pronounced El-line, shouldn’t it, Math?” Vinnie said.

  “That’s right—E’lain,” he said, subtly emphasizing the first syllable so that the name rhymed with Pennine. “It means ‘hind’ or ‘fawn.’ But it’s rare as a name.”

  “St. Catherine’s House is the place to look up births,” said Rosemary. “You should go to London.”

  Elain’s face fell. “Really? I could have done it when I was there! I didn’t know!”

  “You were in London?”

  “Yes! I should—” She broke off. What had she told them? Hadn’t she said she’d come here straight from Canada? She couldn’t remember. Nervously she glanced across Vinnie to Math. It was stupid to think, as she had, that he already knew, but he looked very intelligent. She would have to be careful. “Yes, I was in London for awhile. But I didn’t realize I could look up Welsh birth records there.”

  “You can look them up here, too,” said Math. “The population records back to 1837 are in the National Library in Aberystwyth.”

  “How far away is that?”

  “Not far. A couple of hours’ drive.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that, then.”

  “So you’re Welsh, Elain. I suppose we might have guessed.” That was Davina. Elain had had about enough of Davina’s sixth sense for the moment, but she grinned cheerfully.

  “Really?”

  “That red hair, of course. It’s a Celtic trait.”

  Elain laughed and stroked it forward over her ear. “Yes, I’ve been told that. But my great-grandfather is very dark in his pictures. A black Celt, I’ve been told.”

  “Like Math, then.”

  She looked at him. His Welsh lineage was unmistakably drawn in the heavy black eyebrows and eyes, the cheekbones, the nose, the full mouth, but it was not his Welshness that made her so nervous. She didn’t know what it was. “Are you descended from the lord of the fortress up there, who supported Owen Glendower?” she asked, trying to make it light. “Or perhaps from the man himself?”

  He was watching her as though something about her made him curious, interested him. “No. From down in the valley. Farmers and miners in my blood. What was your great-grandfather?”

  “A builder,” she said. The conversation seemed to be about something else, not least because no one else was speaking. They were all listening to this exchange. “He built houses. And his father before him.”

  “He emigrated to Canada?”

  “That’s right. And there he became a minister of the church, and then was elected to Parliament.”

  “I suppose he was a very fine speaker,” said Vinnie Daniels. “The Welsh are.”

  “He died when my mother was fifteen or sixteen. I never heard him, of course, but my grandmother said he was a magnetic presence in the pulpit.” She looked at Math. She could imagine him in a pulpit, hypnotizing his listeners with that deep, dark voice.

  A voice she would be hearing a lot of, if she stayed and did the job. A voice she would be getting down on tape. Elain blinked. As if drawn by her gaze, he was watching her now. She shivered a little.

  * * *

  In the morning a wasp was sunning itself on her window-ledge. She watched as it cleaned its proboscis and head and then wiped its hands. Like a cat, she thought. The wasp flew away on a breeze, leading her eyes down over the valley.

  It was a beautiful morning. The sun hadn’t reached the valley yet—it was still climbing up behind the hills—but it was shining full on the White Lady. She had left her curtains open, and so had been awakened early by its slanting light. She had washed quickly and dressed.

  In the night, she had decided to stay and do the job, decided she’d been tired from the long drive and foolishly overwhelmed by the place and the man. There were so many good reasons why she should not leave: the chance to paint, Raymond’s certain fury, the money, reluctance to look like a fool...and that other, inexplicable thing that both repelled and drew her at once....

  Elain checked her recording equipment and put it on, and still breakfast wouldn’t be for an hour yet. She decided to go exploring. She wanted to see the ruined fortress.

  Someone was up and about, she could hear the clanking of pails or dishes somewhere, and the front door was open. She was out of the shadow of the house in a minute, and then the sun was very bright, and promising a hot, cloudless day.

  It took about five minutes to reach the fortress ruins, and it was uphill all the way. Elain thought again about the farmers in the valley. It must have taken them at least a half hour of steady climbing to reach the fortress—more if you were laden with children and food and precious items like the family Bible. And wouldn’t they have been burdened additionally by panic? When the English came fighting Owen Glendower, Prince of Wales, and his lords and knights, had they burnt and pillaged his villages, too?

  It wasn’t a large fort, as the castles of Wales went, and most of it was in very poor condition. Elain thought Math had been right last night—many of the stones had been taken away to build the house, and perhaps some had even been pillaged for fences and the houses in the valley. There was now only a small line of stones i
n one short section of what once must have been a considerable perimeter wall. The shell of the central keep was still mostly standing, along with one outer building that was part of the short strip of remaining wall.

  Elain climbed an ancient but solid stone staircase inside the central fortress. It was cool inside, and shadowed, although at midday the sun must pour in overhead. She stood at the top of the stairs looking out one of the tall arrow-slit windows. She could almost imagine the castle as it had once been, dark and damp around her.... She felt the presence of a woman who had stood here long ago, looking out, watching and waiting...for what? For the return of her warrior husband from battle? Yes, a man she loved deeply, a strong, rugged man who had gone off with his prince and—had she heard that the battle had gone against them? And then stood waiting, waiting, for the thunder of hooves that meant he was alive and coming back to her...or that a messenger had come to tell her he was slain. How the sound of those hooves would have reverberated through the stone, so that she felt them through her bones, into her spine, and in her heart, and she would wait for the sound of his voice...his or another’s—

  “Elain? Are you in here?”

  She leaped as if she had been scalded, and nearly fell off the stone platform as she whirled. A horse snorted and blew, and she looked down over the edge of the stone stairs to see Math on a big black horse in the shadows below, looking enquiringly up.

  “Hello,” she said lamely. He was grinning with the pleasure of the exercise, and the enormous vitality of horse and man seemed to reach out and touch her.

  “I thought I saw you come in here.” He swung out of the saddle and let the reins drop. The horse immediately dropped its head and began munching the green grass that carpeted the castle floor. Math came to the foot of the staircase and stood looking up at her.

  She felt a curious impulse inside, completely at odds with her own feelings for Math, as though the spirit of that other woman still infected her, and this was her knight. Deliberately she slowed her pace as she descended the stairs, because otherwise she might have run. And she didn’t think she could explain to Math that it wasn’t her running to him, but another woman to another man long ago, a man who had never arrived till now, and that woman thought she recognized in Math...

  There was a moment of silence as she reached the ground and they stood looking at each other, as though something else ought to be happening.

  Then he said, “Care for the guided tour?”

  It was her job to say yes. She had decided that the irrational fear she had experienced last night had been just that—irrational, but still she wished she could walk away from him now. With Math, something was before her, like a chasm she couldn’t see. Even in the bright light of morning, it frightened her, though she had been sure it would not.

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

  The horse’s rich black coat was sweaty from his gallop, but she couldn’t resist patting the glowing neck. His head bounced abruptly up and he pressed his nose against her chest, almost pushing her over. Laughing, Elain stepped back to get her balance.

  “My, he’s a friendly beast,” she said.

  “Sometimes,” said Math.

  The horse was still pushing at her. “Does he think I’ve got some sugar for him?”

  “He may think you are sugar. Watch out.”

  He was smiling and it meant nothing; it was the kind of harmless, flirtatious remark any man might say to any woman in such circumstances. She had long ago learned to cope with such remarks. Yet she felt some kind of internal shock at Math’s words. The huge physicality of the horse, the smell and feel of sweat on his thick pelt, were abruptly overwhelming. And it was his evident desire to press his nose against her breast.

  She gasped and stepped back, the heat rising in her cheeks, knowing she was looking foolish. To hide her reaction, she bent her head and began to poke at the wire between the Walkman fixed to her belt and the headset around her neck, as if she thought the horse’s actions might have pulled the connection loose.

  As she did so, she surreptitiously pushed a button, and that little movement seemed to put her back in control. She looked up with a smile and pushed her hair out of her face. “All okay. What’s his name?”

  He was looking at her so steadily that she almost turned the machine off again, guiltily convinced he knew what she had done. But that really would have looked guilty. She bit her lip and smiled.

  “Balch,” he said.

  She frowned. “After the city?”

  “It’s Welsh for proud. Spelled with ch, as in the Scottish word ‘loch.’ Balch.”

  “He’s very handsome.” The horse was eating grass again, and she risked putting out a hand to pat his neck again. This time he lifted his head and snorted softly in her ear. Elain laughed over the very physical tide of panic rising up in her. “Right! Let’s go! I know when I’m not wanted!”

  Math raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure about that?”

  She pretended not to hear, looking up through the open roof of the fortress and asking about the age of the building and who had built it. There wasn’t much left of it, but they went into the various “rooms,” although no doors closed them off anymore. Math described what each space might have been. As he spoke, she had the sense of seeing the inhabitants in the bustle of their lives. It was true what they said about the Welsh—his voice, as much as the place, seemed to lay an enchantment on her.

  “And who lived here?” she asked, as they came out and began walking towards the other, smaller structure.

  “The builder would have been a small lord who paid allegiance to Llewelyn in the thirteenth century. The valley probably belonged to the castle.”

  She looked around, smiling. The sun had lifted over the brow of the mountains, and the valley was bathed in the golden light of sunrise. She felt a sense of oneness with all those who had stood on this spot over such a long time. “There has been a steady line of people watching that sunrise from this spot for seven centuries,” she said, half to herself, half to Math.

  “Much longer than that,” he said softly. “There has probably been continuous occupation here well back into prehistory. There was a fort before this one, perhaps from the time of Arthur. Before that, the Romans were here—we turn up Roman arrowheads every now and then. And before the Roman period, the Celts were here.”

  Her ancestors, as well as his. Perhaps that explained the strange push-pull she felt. “What did they build?”

  He pointed. “There’s a mound just over there, beyond the keep walls, with traces of bank-and-ditch fortifications. It was probably an early hill-fort from the first or second century B.C. or A.D.”

  She looked at him. “Are you a historian?”

  He hesitated. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “What made you buy a hotel?” The tape was whirring away at her belt, and she felt a cheat. She had such negative feelings towards Math, whenever she came out of the daze his voice induced in her. Normally she wouldn’t be talking to someone she disliked so much, pretending an interest in his life. Like Stephen, her tutor at art college. She had insisted on changing tutors, though they had talked and talked about how good he was for her, what good work she produced working with him. She’d never pretended an interest in Stephen. She’d hated talking to him.

  “I was looking for somewhere in the country, and Vinnie happened to be selling up. My family comes from close enough to this spot that they probably paid allegiance to the lord of this castle.” He smiled. “I found that difficult to resist.”

  “What does a historian do?”

  “Some teach. I write, mostly.” He didn’t seem to want to talk about it any more than she did.

  “What do you write?”

  “Articles, books.”

  “About Wales?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “May I read something sometime?” she asked, not even knowing why she wanted to. Something to do with coming up against her own distant past, perhaps, and wanting
to understand it. Nothing to do with wanting to know him.

  He was silent, looking down at her.

  “Oh, well, if you’d rather I didn’t, it doesn’t matter,” Elain said, alive to any rebuff.

  “On the contrary, I’m flattered by your interest.”

  But she didn’t believe him. “What would it have looked like, the hill-fort of the ancient Celts?” she asked, staring towards the mound. It didn’t look like anything to her. Just a small hump of land covered with scrub and heather. “What would their life have been like?”

  “They generally built in dry stone with timber framing. There are artists’ reconstructions in some books I have, if you’d like to look at those,” said Math as if he understood why she was asking. “They grew barley and wheat and flax. As they built strong fortifications, with sophisticated defences around the entrances, life was probably interrupted regularly by tribal war.”

  “Did the farmers come up from the valley for protection?” she asked slowly.

  “I suppose people came up from the valley for protection in times of war regularly for two thousand years.”

  She might paint it as a panorama through time—the Celtic hill-fort, the Roman garrison, a castle of one of Arthur’s nobles, then the fortress, with Llewelyn’s, and later Owen Glendower’s supporters, going off to battle....

  She said dreamily, “There was a woman up there in the fortress, looking out.”

  “Yes?” said Math softly.

  “Not a ghost, just...” She paused. “She was waiting for a man who never came back.”

  “Didn’t he?”

  She didn’t tell him that she, too, had once waited for a man who never came back, and that perhaps that was why she had felt the woman’s presence. “How high would they have built in Arthur’s day? Would they have got up there, to the second storey? It might have been the battlements in an earlier fortress, mightn’t it?”