The Water Thief

by Jane Kindred

  Macsen shrugged, hands in his pockets, and continued walking. “It wasn’t.”

  August was eyeing him with mistrust as she followed. “How many times had you been here before?”

  “Don’t interrogate him,” I snapped. “He’s not a criminal.”

  “It’s important.” August caught up with Macsen and slowed him with a hand on his arm. “The fact that you’ve been here without my being aware of it means Emrys can do the same. How many times?”

  “Twice.” Macsen glanced down at her hand, and she removed it from his sleeve. “But he comes here a great deal more often. If you can’t sense him, perhaps he has some means of masking it.”

  “But why would he?” I put in. “He thought August was dead until I showed up at Llys Mawr, and after I arrived, he surely didn’t think I would sense it. As far as he knew, I wasn’t even aware of my power.”

  “You weren’t,” said Macsen.

  “If he’s masking it…” August’s focus was off in the distance. “He understands the magic much better than I thought. Which means he has plans for it. And he’s dangerous.”

  I studied her face. “What else could he be doing with it?”

  “Do you remember where he keeps himself in Cardiff, Macsen?” She was single-minded, paying me no attention. “Could you find it again if we went there?”

  “I can do better than that.” Macsen took a leather sleeve from his back pocket, removed a small paper rectangle, only slightly damp, and handed it to her. “I got a business card from his secretary. I pretended to be an investor.”

  “Emrys Pryce, CG Enterprises,” August read aloud. “I had no idea his operations here were so organized.” She pocketed the card and said nothing further about it.

  We had arrived at a busy area along the promenade as we neared the fanciful pier, and August glanced at the odd little glass-and-steel device she called her “phone” that seemed to hold endless methods of divination in its swirling colored box, though she swore it wasn’t magic.

  “We have reservations for Sunday lunch at the Brasserie,” she said. “Right on time.” The little red pavilion on the pier had the look of a gypsy fair, and it seemed our “Brasserie” was inside. The interior was much less jarring, paneled in neutral rustic wood from floor to ceiling, its broad windows overlooking the bay providing a welcoming glow.

  I was surprised to see we were among a sizeable group of early Sunday diners, though I supposed it wasn’t practical to keep a kitchen staff in such small houses, so it made a kind of sense to share with one’s neighbors a “staff” who could serve them all at once. August had to order for us, as it was difficult to understand the dialect spoken here, and even worse to try to make ourselves understood. August, however, spoke it like a native.

  While we waited for our food to arrive, August regarded the two of us, obviously looking awkward in unfamiliar environs. “You should consider wearing your hair short,” she commented.

  Both Macsen and I said, “No, don’t,” rather forcefully, and laughed. It was nice to see him smile.

  “I like your hair long,” I said.

  “As do I yours.” His smile was reserved, as though keenly aware that we might be observed and judged if we seemed too intimate, but there was a welcome warmth in it.

  August shrugged, pouring cream into her beverage—“coffee” she called it. It smelled horrendous. Macsen and I had ordered tea. “You’d blend in better if it was short, but I suppose there are plenty of men with longer hair.”

  “You don’t think it will mark us as…” Macsen paused. “Unusual?” I knew he meant sexually deviant, and August evidently knew as well.

  “Not especially. You’re more likely to give people the impression you’re foreigners. Or at least art students.”

  Macsen laughed, as if this meant something to him, but I felt acutely uncomfortable, having no frame of reference for it. My education had ceased at the age of thirteen, and I had never gone to university—Macsen would have done that in my stead. Had August? She’d told me nothing of what her life had been like since arriving here, speaking only briefly of the couple who’d taken her in.

  Our lunch came, and I forgot my discomfort for the moment as I enjoyed the fish pie while Macsen had a sort of patty of finely ground meat between slices of thick bread, and a side of chips. Chips, apparently, were universal. But when we continued our walk along the promenade afterward, there was no avoiding it, as the grand structure looming at the end of it was the very art school August had apparently been speaking of. It had the same look of age and wisdom in its sweeping vaults and arches as the University of Cantre’r Gwaelod.

  “Did you graduate?” I asked Macsen quietly.

  He turned away from studying a mosaic high up on the tower with a quizzical smile. “I’m sorry?”

  “You went to university as Sebastian Swift, I assume. I wanted to know what degree you took in my name while I was being caned for refusing to deny that it belonged to me.”

  The smile died on his lips. “Sebastian, I—” He swallowed whatever protest he was going to make. “Bachelor of Arts in law.”

  “Law. Well, I suppose that’s fitting. You were the law of Cantre’r Gwaelod.”

  “Emrys is the law of Cantre’r Gwaelod.”

  I folded my arms against the chill of the spring wind. “I’m not blaming you.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “I—” The wind blew my hair into my face, and I tucked it out of the way behind my ear. “I’m mourning, I suppose. The life I was denied. It’s hard to think of you going about your business, doing all the things I took for granted when I was a boy that I would do one day. I hadn’t really thought too deeply about it before. In this foreign environment—suddenly, I’m acutely aware of the fact that I haven’t had a life, and you have.”

  Macsen looked down at his shoes, hands once more in his pockets. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Never mind.” I touched his arm lightly. “Forget it.”

  August was waiting for us at the end of the walk where the towers of an old ruin graced the hill. I hurried to catch up, not waiting to see if Macsen was behind me, and followed her up the stone steps.

  The ruins reminded me instantly of the one on the promontory from where we’d jumped into the sea: cold and desolate, and whispering of centuries-old regret by the ghosts of those who’d left it.

  Macsen seemed to feel the same as he stepped up beside me. “Makes you wonder who lived here once. And why they abandoned it.”

  “Maybe it was taken from them,” I said, and immediately regretted my choice of words. I didn’t mean for every syllable out of my mouth to be a condemnation of Macsen. “Marauders,” I tried to clarify. “Maybe they were conquered.”

  “It was slighted,” said August behind us. I turned at her voice. “By the victors of the English Civil War. So no one could use it for defense again. This land has belonged to all sorts over the centuries. It’s one of the reasons our home must be protected. If anyone knew of its existence and its bounty, wars would be fought to possess it.” She glanced at Macsen. “To possess us.”

  Macsen shrugged. “I’ve no doubt.”

  “Which is why we have to put a stop to whatever Emrys is doing here.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?”

  August gave him a thin, dark smile. “How would you boys like to take a little trip to Cardiff this afternoon?”

  Macsen’s facial muscles tensed. “I don’t fancy it.” I didn’t either, if Cardiff was really so full of people, but it seemed August had made up her mind.

  * * * * *

  The drive to Cardiff was made more fantastic than the last ride in August’s car. Apparently, the top of the vehicle could be removed, and we sped down the highway with the wind streaming against us. August gave us both elastic bands to tie our hair back from
our faces; otherwise, we’d each have looked a fool by the time we arrived in the busy metropolis.

  I began to forget the speed as we headed out into a lovely stretch of verdant countryside, traveling through the greenest fields, and copses of trees that made Cantre’r Gwaelod pale in comparison. We were nearly three hours on this route, and I kept from being dizzy by thinking of it as a lovely full-speed gallop through the hills while I marveled at the views. Heather dotted the countryside in places, and vast plots of farmland and fields of crops surrounded us as we wound through it, following the path of a river as we neared the city.

  Several times I thought we must be there already, but August laughed and said these were just small towns, and I became increasingly nervous. I had to stop looking as we got close, with so many cars blazing past on the road around us, and mad crossroads meeting at dizzying speeds that made me certain each time that we would simply careen off the road into oblivion.

  August touched my arm as the car slowed, and I opened my eyes, realizing I’d been squeezing them tightly shut for several minutes. “We’re here, Seb. You all right?”

  I nodded, feeling a bit green. The height of the buildings and the volume of traffic were beyond my imagining. I turned to Macsen in the backseat. “You managed to come here by yourself? How the Fates did you do it?”

  “I took a train,” said Macsen, looking as green as I felt. “It took quite a bit longer.”

  “The address is on Churchill,” said August. “Helmont House.”

  Macsen nodded as she turned up one of the streets and slowed, scanning the buildings. “The tall building, there. What do you plan to do?”

  “Fortunately for us, it’s Sunday.” This held no significance for either of us. “The office should be empty, but there’s bound to be a few poor souls in the building who have to work the weekend. I’ll pretend to be one of them and tell the building security I’ve lost my entry card.”

  I glanced at her. “Entry card?”

  “They use them instead of keys. Stiff little cards that open doors like magic.” She pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. “Wait here. I just want to have a look around first.”

  Macsen shifted uncomfortably behind me as she hopped from the car and headed up the steps to the great glass edifice framed with steel. “I don’t think this is a good idea. What does she hope to gain?”

  “What did you gain by following Emrys here?”

  “I wanted to see where he was going. What he was up to.”

  “I suppose that’s what she wants.”

  “Well, she’s not going to find anything. Emrys is no fool. It’s not as if he’d leave his entire plan laid out on his desk.”

  “And there wasn’t any sign of what his business was when you were here?”

  “Just that he was seeking investors. I couldn’t determine for what.” Macsen glanced away from my gaze, giving me the sinking suspicion he wasn’t telling me the truth about all this. No one was telling me the truth. Nothing in my life had changed.

  “Macsen—”

  “Listen, about yesterday—”

  We’d both spoken at the same time.

  “Go ahead,” he said, but I shook my head. Yesterday was far more interesting than what Emrys Pryce might be up to, though the lead-in had made my stomach knot. “I don’t know if I can… I don’t know how to say this. What I did yesterday…” His voice trailed off, and he gave me a helpless look as if hoping I might simply divine what was in his head.

  “Which thing yesterday? It was a long day.”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled for an instant in a nervous smile. “Sorry. Of course it was. Yesterday in my room at August’s flat, I…performed an act upon you that I—” His voice had gone dry and rough, and he cleared his throat, but there was no longer any doubt what he was trying to say.

  “You don’t have to do it again.” I tried for a light tone, tried to keep my mouth from drooping, though my face felt heavy. “It’s all right if you didn’t enjoy it. It’s not for everyone.”

  “No.” Macsen cleared his throat again. “No, that’s not it. Fates, I fucking enjoyed it.” His face went a fiery red. “But I shouldn’t have. That’s not—dammit, Sebastian, I can’t say this.”

  “It’s not what a man does,” I finished for him, swallowing the hurt. Though the words seemed to wound him just as much as they did me. “It’s all right. I’m a lesser man. I know that.”

  “No.” Macsen shook his head emphatically and leaned forward on the seat. He held out his hand, and I reached over the seat back and took it, an immense relief filling me at the touch of his skin despite the false denial. “Not to me.”

  “But to others,” I agreed. “And that’s what you fear. That other men will know somehow.” Macsen didn’t answer, which was answer enough. August appeared at the door of the building, her mouth set in a determined line as she exited and headed toward us. “What about a woman?” I asked him. “Is she less than a man?” But I’d given him no time to reply. August was at the car door. Macsen withdrew his hand and sat back.

  She crossed her arms against the frame of the open window and leaned in. “Bank holiday tomorrow. I forgot.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nobody’s around for the weekend, and the little sob story I gave the security guard about getting in trouble with my boss if I didn’t have a report ready for him tomorrow morning didn’t fly.” August sighed. “There’s someone I need to see while I’m here, so the trip’s not wasted.” She glanced across the road. “There are a couple of pubs the next block over on Charles Street I think you two might like. Would you mind spending the evening there without me?”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Without you? Doing what?”

  August took her billfold from her pocket and removed a handful of bills in the currency of the realm. “Eating. Drinking. Dancing.”

  “Dancing?” Macsen sounded as alarmed at the prospect as I felt.

  “It’s not the sort you’re used to. The music isn’t the sort you’re used to. Kind of like what we’ve been listening to in the car. But I think if you watch, you’ll get the hang of it.”

  I stared down at the bills as she placed them in my hand. “I don’t even know how to lead,” I said, embarrassed. “Sven taught me the woman’s part, but I couldn’t possibly…” I glanced at Macsen. “You dance very well. I’m sure any woman would be happy to be your partner.”

  “We’re not dressed for a dance,” Macsen protested.

  “You are,” said August. “Trust me. It’s not at all like what you’re used to from home. Just go and see. You don’t have to dance if you don’t want to. Go have a pint and some chips at the Eagle and relax a bit, then go next door to Club X and just look. There’s a door charge at both, but I think it may be waived before nine. Anyway, this should be enough for both of you to have a good time.”

  I didn’t see how it was possible to have a good time in such an environment when we could barely communicate with anyone. “Where will you be?”

  “I told you. There’s someone I need to see. I’ll find you at one club or the other.” August got in and started the engine. “They’re open late,” she said as she rounded the block to drop us off at the pub. “I’ll get us a couple of rooms at a hotel—an inn—for the night so we can drive back in the morning. But don’t worry if I’m later than you’re expecting. My guess is you won’t even notice how much time is passing once you’re there.” She pulled up in front of a nondescript building that might just as easily have been a row of flats. “It’s downstairs, there. The blue awning.”

  “That doesn’t say Eagle,” Macsen commented.

  “It does in English. Everyone speaks it here, but a lot of them also speak Welsh. I don’t think you’ll really need to do much talking, though. Don’t forget to use the identification cards I made for you.” She smiled at me. “
And don’t look so terrified, Sebastian. Go on. Have fun.”

  Fun? I laughed, my stomach churning. Macsen had gotten out and opened the door for me.

  “Just order a pint,” said August. “Relax.”

  Chapter Twenty: Macsen

  Ordering a pint, thought Macsen, would be easier said than done. He waved Sebastian before him down the steps, only to realize he’d left him to try to navigate the entrance on his own. It did not, however, seem to require payment to enter after all, though a muscular man with bare arms appeared to be watching every coming and going, and Macsen caught him sharing a derisive look with the bartender as he observed Sebastian. He made a mental note to keep an eye on the fellow to make sure there was no trouble.

  They sat in the glow of blue lights at the bar, which was virtually empty. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t get much more crowded than this. They could sit and drink and enjoy each other’s company.

  The bartender eyed them and mumbled something Macsen couldn’t make out, but he ordered anyway. “Dau beint.”

  The bartender raised an eyebrow and asked him something else he couldn’t understand, and when Macsen shook his head with a quizzical look, the man sighed and shook his head at them both before speaking very slowly. “Two pints of what, mate?”

  “Ale,” said Macsen, as if the man were a fool.

  “What ale?”

  Macsen shrugged, and the bartender began to name the unfamiliar makers, but as soon as he saw that Macsen wasn’t following, he turned and poured two pints of something and set them before him a bit roughly, naming a price.

  Sebastian laid a bill down on the bar, and the bartender took it without giving them change, heading off to the other end of the bar to converse with a few men who’d arrived before them. Macsen could hear them speaking in the unfamiliar language that must be English, glancing their way amid laughter.

  He turned his back to them and picked up his drink. “How much did he ask for?” he asked Sebastian.

  “Damned if I know. I guess it was enough.”