James shook his head sadly. ‘That was not the curse that Samuel Wylams placed upon Isabella’s spirit!’
Gloria’s eyes widened in appalled shock. ‘What? What do you mean? Which part isn’t true? How do you know?’
‘I was there when the Seer named Thaumaturgia Anathemas awakened Isabella’s spirit. I was there when Samuel Wylams cast his evil curse upon her.’
‘So what was the curse?’
‘Isabella’s spirit was banished to another realm, to wander through the mists of eternity, never to return to this world.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘There was no mention of her spirit lifting the curse by finding her one true love and consummating that love.’
‘But Isabella herself said that!’ Gloria shook her head in disbelief. ‘Why would she say such a thing, if it’s not true?’
There was sadness in James’s voice. ‘Mayhap she has come to believe it is the manner of her escape? Did she not linger nearly five hundred years from this time afore she found you? All that time wandering alone has put madness in her thoughts. There are, so the Seer says, a great many different realms. She knew not into which Isabella was banished, but the last time you were here, Isabella showed herself to me, claiming to be in the realm of dreams. Dreams are unending.’
‘Then I’ll never be free of her?’
‘She may yet leave your body freely, but her spirit shall continue to wander the dream realm.’
In spite of the fact that she hated the thought of Isabella’s spirit residing within her indefinitely, Gloria nevertheless felt a great sadness for the lost soul. What torment must it be, to live an unending existence, drifting ceaselessly through the dreams of others; unable to live, unable to die, unable to see, unable to feel – except through brief snatches of liberty, stolen from the lives of those whose dreams she encountered?
Like mine!
‘And do you love me still, knowing that our union might not bring about your release from Isabella’s spirit?’
Gloria looked at James compassionately. ‘I won’t lie to you, James Trevayne.’ She smiled as his face crumpled slightly. ‘Yes, I do love you still!’ She brought her lips together with his for one lingering kiss.
‘With all my heart shall I love you, Ria, but you are tired and should rest the night. There is much to discuss on the morrow.’
‘Yes indeed, a good night’s sleep would be most welcome.’
James escorted Gloria up the stairs and lit the fire in Isabella’s bedchamber. ‘The storm is almost spent. You shall be not disturbed this night.’ James kissed Gloria again, bade her goodnight, and then departed the room.
As she lay down on top of the bed, fatigue caught up with Gloria and she drifted off into peaceful sleep, and not even the sudden realisation that the completed manuscript of The Master of the Scrolls was still on the bedside table back in her own time could stem the slide into slumber.
*
Gloria awoke with a frightened cry some time the next morning. She felt that there had been someone in the room with her, bending over the bed; an apparition perhaps, for there was nobody there now. She was quite alone.
‘Get a grip, for Heaven’s sake!’ she muttered to herself irritably. She scrambled from the bed and threw back the drapes. The storm might have passed, but the sky was still overcast and a few spots of rain appeared intermittently on the window. At least her mood was less melancholy than the weather.
Curiously, she found herself in high spirits as she turned her attention back to the room, all thoughts of the apparition banished from her mind as she gradually settled into a frame of mind necessary to live out the remainder of her days in this time, away from her family and friends. There was no point in being sad about it; after all, nothing she could do would change what had happened.
Recalling her previous visit four days earlier, Gloria crossed to the far side of the room, opening one of the hidden door panels to reveal Isabella’s wardrobe. She gasped as she carefully felt the glorious fabrics. The craftsmanship was exquisite, even more remarkable because each was handmade.
Removing her own crumpled clothing, she slipped into the smock, which she knew to be the undergarment of the period, the silk stockings, and then selected a rich purple gown with a low cut bodice and full skirts, embroidered with a delicate gold leaf motif. She then found various other matching accessories, and set about dressing herself.
It took her longer than she anticipated, not only because there were many fiddlesome fastenings; she struggled vainly with lacing up the bodice, and there were more petticoats than she felt were actually necessary, and the whalebone framework of the farthingale petticoat ballooned the skirts to unwieldy proportions.
She chose not to wear the corset; small though she may have been, Isabella had been rather more robust in both waist and chest, and with her own svelte figure, Gloria found she was able to fasten the bodice adequately without the need to squeeze her waist and stomach further. It was only once she went to put on the boots that she realised she should have put them on first.
She chuckled to herself as she struggled to flatten the skirts as she sat on the floor, legs bent to assist her in reaching her feet as she buckled the boots. It was no wonder that the Ladies of this time had maids to help them dress!
Once she had dressed, she stood with a little difficulty, shifting her feet as the slightly too tight boots pinched her feet. Tugging at the skirts, which were a little too short for her, she used her hands to adjust the bodice as the fabric dug into her flesh. Even without the corset, the shaped bodice thrust her small breasts upwards into a remarkable display of cleavage, in the centre of which her grandmother’s locket nestled perfectly, as though it had always belonged both to Gloria and to this time.
‘Stunning, if obscene,’ she chuckled, as she regarded her image in a mirror. Hoisting her skirts slightly with her free hand, she carefully negotiated the tiny stairs, to find James seated at one end of the huge table that dominated the Great Hall.
He rose to his feet when he caught sight of her. ‘You look magnificent!’ he cried.
A little self consciously, Gloria gave a slightly coquettish twirl. ‘Why, thank you, kind Sir!’ She giggled, smoothing down the front of the bodice. ‘I wasn’t sure they would fit me, but Isabella and I seem of reasonably similar size, except in height.’
‘Indeed. Isabella seldom wore a corset. She felt as a woman she was beautiful enough the way our Lord intended, and I agree!’
‘The boots are a little tight though. If I’m to stay here, perhaps we could go shopping?’
James arched an eyebrow. ‘The local blacksmith’s son is an accomplished cobbler, as a secondary talent to his father’s trade. We shall visit with him soon.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Some breakfast?’ James indicated the fruit and bread laid out on the table. ‘I regret that since Isabella’s death I eat rather more simply than I once did.’
Gloria sat with a little difficulty as she struggled to overcome the awkwardness of the dress. ‘Oh don’t worry about that,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘So long as it’s edible and fills a hole, who cares!’
James shook his head slightly. ‘I shall struggle to become accustomed to your unusual manner of speech, Ria. I understand your meaning, I think.’
Gloria giggled as she bit into a hefty chunk of cheese. ‘I’ll try to speak with care while I’m here. And speaking of ‘while I’m here’, what are we going to do about the parchments? They’re not safe here, not with Samuel Wylams on the prowl!’
James agreed emphatically. It would be only a matter of time before Samuel came to claim what was his. He would use force to gain entry to the house; use violence, if necessary, in order to use his powers to manipulate both Gloria and James into succumbing to his whims; coerce the pair into revealing the whereabouts of the parchments, until he obtained what he must not ever under any circumstances get hold of.
‘He shall not find them, have no fear. Not as I still draw breath.’
; ‘He’ll rip this place apart trying to find them. He’ll burn it down if he has to, and you and I both know he won’t rest until he has them!’
‘You forget the legend of Sawyl Gwilym, of which Isabella wrote: he has but a little time remaining him; we have only to keep the parchments from him until his long overdue death, and then all shall be well!’
Gloria shook her head vigorously. ‘That’s very woolly thinking, James. We don’t know how much time he has left. He might have years still remaining to him! Were it but a few short days, perhaps your plan would work, but the truth is, all the time the parchments are here, we are in danger. And I don’t mean you and me – I mean the whole world!’
‘What should we do then?’
Avalon!
Gloria wondered what the word meant as it sprang into her mind. What was Isabella trying to tell her? Why did the woman’s spirit insist upon cryptic clues instead of just telling her what to do?
‘James, what about Avalon?’ she said, testing to see whether the word meant anything to him.
‘Avalon? Such a place does not exist. Why would you utter such a name?’
‘Where is Avalon?’
‘Avalon – the final resting place of King Arthur of the Britons. It is but a myth!’
Recognition flowed through Gloria’s mind. Of course – Arthurian Legend! ‘Well, Merlin existed, we know that. Who’s to say Avalon isn’t also real?’
‘Mayhap you are right, but where is it?’
Gloria smiled. ‘Maybe it’s not a case of where, but when, or in which realm? You said the Seer told you there were many different realms, one being the realm of dreams. Remember in the legend, Sawyl Gwilym bewitched Nimue, and she imprisoned Merlin within an invisible tower!’
‘What you suggest requires great stretch of faith, Ria! You believe Avalon to be this tower; that it resides within a different realm?’
Gloria shrugged. ‘A different realm would explain why the tower was invisible, why Avalon was never discovered, and why, even in my own time, King Arthur’s burial site has never been discovered. He was borne away by magic, returning him to Merlin’s side.’
‘I believe not that such a place can exist,’ said James obstinately.
‘After all that has happened, can you not open your mind to such a possibility?’ Gloria shook her head. ‘So narrow minded! All right, why don’t we read Isabella’s journals and see if we can understand some of what is written on those parchments. It might give some clue as to how we proceed!’
James bent in front of the fireplace, uncovering the secret compartment. ‘You have discovered the manner with which to use the secret?’ he asked as he pulled out the manuscript.
‘I believe so. I think it’s all about desire. I think you have to say where and when you want to go, but have to be passionate about your desire to be there! I won’t know for sure unless I try to return.’
She suddenly remembered the thought that had crept up on her as she drifted off to sleep last night. ‘And I can’t do that, because Isabella’s book with the parchments inside is still in my own time!’
Settling back on his haunches, James turned to look at her, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. ‘Then how came you to return to me?’
Gloria frowned, and then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I did touch the book just before I came back.’
‘That is not enough. You must have about your person both the parchment and something transformed by Alchemy. Was not that what Isabella wrote?’
‘True,’ sighed Gloria, shaking her head in confusion. ‘Then how did I come to be here?’
James straightened and moved to his desk, where he opened a small drawer. He withdrew something and held it out for Gloria to see.
She gasped, and her hand flew to her throat, clasping the locket to ensure it was still around her neck as she saw an identical locket suspended on its chain as it dangled from James’s fingers. ‘I don’t understand.’
James sat down beside her, putting the locket on top of the manuscript he held. He indicated that she should remove her own locket, which she placed next to his. ‘I recognised the locket you wear when you were here the first time. It is an heirloom?’
‘Yes, it’s been in my family for generations. Nobody knows how old it is.’
‘It dates back to this time. It once was Isabella’s, and it once was not gold!’
Gloria’s eyes widened. ‘Oh!’
‘It has a hidden chamber within, which I have now sealed. The chamber is no longer empty!’
‘Ah!’ Suddenly Gloria understood a great many things. ‘You mean it contains the smaller parchment, folded up really small?’
James nodded. ‘It was just the right size, and made sense to me. I am quite certain Samuel knows not of its existence, and he certainly knows not of its significance.’ He passed one of them back to Gloria. As she had been staring into space, lost in thought, she did not know which one he had given her, but reasoned that since they were identical and both contained the parchment, it mattered not.
She replaced it around her neck and waited until James had put the other one back in his desk before they started looking through Isabella’s final journal: since this was the one in which Isabella had written the Legend of Sawyl Gwilym, it seemed logical to start there.
‘This is hopeless,’ sighed Gloria some considerable time later, her eyes tired from trying to decipher Isabella’s writing. ‘I don’t think there’s anything in here to help us. The copy I had in the future was fully translated and completed. I suspect the predictions of my coming here were written by the other woman, Ria Neville.’
‘Odd, do you not think, that she should have your name?’
Gloria had never given that fact much thought, because until finding herself in this time she had not even associated the name Ria with her own: Ria Neville; Ria Snowfield; Gloria Schofield? ‘It’s a coincidence,’ she said, not sounding fully convinced. With everything that had happened, anything was possible.
‘I think,’ said James, ‘that we should have something to eat. We shall worry about the manuscript and the parchment later.’
Gloria smiled. ‘Okay. You grab a takeaway, and I’ll make myself comfortable.’ She laughed at James’s bewilderment. ‘That was a deliberate anachronism on my part! Go and get the food while I take these bloody boots off before they blister my feet!’
‘At least the sun has decided to grace us at last,’ James muttered as he disappeared from the parlour.
Gloria somehow managed to bend from the waist in her skirts, unbuckling the boots. ‘James, I’m going to need some help,’ she said, as once unbuckled, the boots refused to budge.
‘Beg pardon, my Lady?’ James’s voice floated from within the kitchen.
‘The blasted boots are stuck!’
Sitting as she was, bent from the waist, head lowered as she finally released her right foot and started on the left, it was a moment or two before the shadow, cast on the floor by the figure peering in through the window behind her, registered in the periphery of her vision.
She whirled around, but there was no one there. Yanking at the second boot desperately, she finally managed to remove it, then rose to her feet and stumbled to the window, glancing outside. She could see nobody, but some inner voice warned her of imminent danger.
‘What troubles you, my Lady?’ James asked as he came back into the room to see her staring out of the window. He set down the plate of bread and came over to stand beside her. ‘Ria, what is wrong? Do you see something?’
‘He is here!’ Gloria’s voice was barely more than a frightened whisper. ‘I can feel him!’ She did not know why she felt the sense of doom that enveloped her. Perhaps it was something to do with Isabella’s connection to Samuel Wylams; after all, the woman’s spirit did still reside within her.
‘Who? Not… no! He cannot be here, not now, not yet. We are not ready!’
A furious pounding emanated suddenly from the Great Hall, causing the pair to whirl around in alarm. ‘We
have to get out of here,’ gasped Gloria. ‘Is there a back entrance?’
As they moved towards the door, the pounding reached a crescendo, followed by the unmistakable sound of splintering wood.
James restrained Gloria. ‘We cannot go through the Great Hall now. Quick, the window!’
As they turned back towards the window, neither of them had a chance to take a single step, for like a rampaging wild boar, Samuel Wylams charged into the room, animalistic rumblings emanating from his throat as he hurled something in their direction. A flash of light burst from thin air beside James’s head, momentarily blinding him; the loud echoing bang in his ears deafened him as he collapsed in agony.
‘James!’ cried Gloria, falling to her knees beside him. ‘God, James, are you hurt?’
Thick hands grabbed Gloria by the hair, yanked her screaming to her feet and hurled her across the room to fall onto one of the sofas. She rose to her feet, prepared to fight, and as she did, for the first time since the dream she caught sight of the face of Samuel Wylams. She froze in her tracks.
A hideous scar split the left side of his face clear in two, from just above his ear, through the horrendously gaping empty eye socket, to the corner of his mouth; his hair was thin, lank and grey; his mouth twisted into a vicious contemptuous sneer. He pointed one of his thick, crooked fingers at her. ‘Stay where thou art, Witch!’
Even the voice!
‘Allan?’ she gasped, sinking onto the sofa, desperate to put distance between her and this abomination. How was it possible for her Twentieth Century love to look so like this creature of evil?
The disdain in his voice and demeanour was all too apparent. ‘I know not of whom thou dost speak. I be Sawyl Gwilym. I come for that stolen from me; that which be mine by right.’
He turned his attention to James, who was slowly struggling to his feet, rubbing his eyes as he fought to clear his vision. He stopped moving as he felt fingers around his throat.
Master of the Scrolls Page 24