Cal stood up and went back to her pan. She ground some pepper over it, then put down the grinder and came back to the fire. ‘The little girl was limping, you say?’
Abi nodded. ‘She looked very ill.’ She was beginning to feel guilty. She seemed to have destroyed some pet theory. ‘Have you never seen them in the house?’ she asked after a moment’s thought.
Cal shook her head.
‘And have there never been any reports of other people seeing them? Usually places get a reputation for being haunted, don’t they? A reputation which goes back for years.’
Mat sighed. ‘There have been lots of stories. But then, as you say, all old houses accrue these legends. There is one particular mention in an old book we’ve got – where is it Cal, can you remember? – I think that was where we got the idea that they were Roman.’
‘It’s in the study.’ Cal turned back to her pan yet again. ‘We’ll look for it later. Come on, folks. Let’s eat, then we’ll see what it says while we have our coffee.’
The book was printed in 1798.
‘Well, that takes the legend way back,’ Cal said as she turned the pages, looking for the entry. ‘Here we are. “The ruins are haunted by the ghosts of generations of Roman men and women who made our country their own. From time to time on moonlit nights they may be espied drifting through the remains of this once great house and their cries may be heard in the mists as melancholy as the call of the owls who haunt, no, hunt, the fields. Who knows, perhaps the great King Arthur himself stayed here on the way back to Avalon.”‘ She looked up and smiled. ‘I take it your guy didn’t look like King Arthur?’
Abi shook her head. She was leaning back in the chair, cradling a cup of coffee on her knee feeling extremely happy. The dogs were asleep at their feet in front of the fire. ‘No, he looked like a harassed family man. Not a knight or a round table in sight.’
‘The fact that they talk about generations of Romans, and then King Arthur means they don’t actually have a clue who the ghosts are,’ Mat put in. He had inserted himself into a high-backed settle against the wall. He held out his hand for the book. Flipping back to the flyleaf he squinted at it. ‘There are all sorts of inscriptions here, most of them smudged. The first owner of the book seems to have been an Edward Cavendish, then a Benjamin. Then a Maria.’ He smiled. ‘A bit like a family Bible. They all stake their claim in turn. I wonder how many of them saw them.’ He passed the book over to Abi. She held it for a moment uncomfortably. The leather cover was unexpectedly cold and damp and it smelled musty. Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of unhappiness Abi hastily put it down, resisting the urge to wipe her hands on her jeans as she stared down at it, puzzled.
Cal had been watching her face. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I’m not sure. It’s just – I felt strange for a moment. I’m tired. I’m sorry. I suppose the long drive and everything that has been happening are catching up with me a bit. Would you think me very rude if I went up?’
‘Of course not,’ Cal said sympathetically. ‘You must do whatever you like here, Abi. Our home is your home. We’ll see you in the morning.’
They waited until she had closed the door behind her, then Mat and Cal exchanged glances. Cal leaned forward and picked up the book. She held it for a few moments thoughtfully. ‘What was it she felt?’ she said quietly.
Mat shrugged. ‘Something pretty horrible. Does it feel strange to you?’
Cal shook her head. She was holding the book in both hands, turning it around. ‘She’s very psychic, isn’t she. Ben did say the bishop was worried.’ With a shrug she put the book down. ‘Do you think we ought to tell Ben when he comes over tomorrow?’
‘It might be good to let it come up in the conversation naturally with her there.’ Mat stood up and stretched. Immediately the two dogs rose to their feet, tails wagging. ‘I’ll take them for a walk up the drive before bed. You go on up.’ He reached for the fireguard and hauled it into place in front of the dying embers. ‘It looks as though our guest is going to prove quite interesting.’ He winked at her as he made his way to the door. ‘Perhaps she will be the one finally to unravel the story of those poor, cold souls out there in the garden.’
6
‘What is wrong, Mama?’ Petra looked up from the fire where she was sitting huddled in a cocoon of sheepskins and woven rugs. It had been a wet summer and now it was a wet autumn, the fens still lakes, the fields puddled. The colours of the dogwoods and maples on the slopes of the hills were already brilliant against the clouds when the sun appeared, but tonight as on so many nights, everything was awash. The summer country had not dried out this year.
Lydia was standing staring down into the hissing logs, her own cloak pulled tightly round her shoulders, her lips set in a hard line as they listened to the rain beating down on the reed thatch above their heads.
‘Your father and your brother should be home by now.’
I thought Papa said he would be gone for several days.’ Petra was trying to keep her teeth from chattering.
‘And several days have passed.’
Lydia squatted down and held her hands out to the flames. ‘And Romanus. He promised me he would be back by nightfall.’
‘Perhaps Mora wasn’t there. He wouldn’t come back without her.’ The girl forced a smile. ‘He will wait at the college until she returns, you know how much he likes her.’
The scene had been played out so many times before. Romanus, Lydia’s son, Petra’s young brother, had gone across to the island to fetch the healer, Mora. When she came she brought herbs and amulets, incantations and magic, gentle, confident smiles and warm comforting hands to make his sister more comfortable in the mysterious illness which was reducing her more and more quickly to a small shrunken figure overwhelmed with pain. And while they waited, Lydia’s husband, the children’s father, would have made his way to the coast to meet the trading vessels, to broker deals between the merchants who came from across the world to the port of Axiom, bringing wine and luxury goods from across the Empire and buying in exchange local lead and tin and copper, slaves and hunting dogs. Above all he went to meet the trading vessels which had come from the Roman provinces of Gaul and Hispania and from the Tyrrhenian Sea itself. He was frustrated in his self-appointed exile, lonely and homesick. It never seemed to occur to him that his wife might be as well. That she too might need to be out of the little primitive house to which he had brought them all, the house in the cold damp country which had crippled his daughter with its icy winds and creeping mists and was turning his British-born son into a rebellious thug.
At the time it had seemed they had no choice. Gaius Atilius Geminus had been born, the elder by several hours, one of a pair of twins. Miraculously both children and their mother had survived, though the younger child, Flavius, had for a long time been sickly and was shorter and markedly less handsome than his brother. The difference had set them apart and in spite of their parents’ insistence that both children be treated alike in every way, the younger twin grew up perceiving nuances of favouritism towards his brother at every turn. Childish rivalry grew into teenage jealousy and then into adult resentment. Flavius used his not inconsiderable charm and strength of personality to steal effortlessly and maliciously everything his increasingly reclusive elder brother held dear. Especially his girlfriends. When at last Gaius found the woman he wanted to marry, Flavius set his cap for her at once. She rejected him. Flavius grew angry. He went to a sibyl practising her trade near the Temple of the Vestals and bought charms to win her over. When they didn’t work he went back demanding a refund and, when the woman told him spitefully that she had seen in her scrying bowl his doom in a woman’s eyes, he thought better of it and produced his purse and bought curses instead. His jealousy of his brother turned to hatred. The young men’s parents, well aware of what was happening and blaming themselves, though not knowing what they could have done differently, settled on the idea of buying Flavius a commission in the army to take him away from Rome. He was posted to the Pro
vince of Judea, but then, as effortlessly as he accomplished most things Flavius turned the plan around, manoeuvring himself into the exclusive Imperial bodyguard. It would be Gaius who would have to leave. Uncomplaining, he apprenticed himself to a merchant trader and proved himself extremely able, travelling further and further abroad on the ships owned by his wealthy employer, his young and beautiful wife at his side. They travelled to Gaul and Hispania, south into Mauritania and to Leptis Magna, to Egypt and finally north again to Macedonia, and at last to Antioch and Damascus where their first child, Petronilla, was born. The little family were happy and secure and reasonably wealthy. Then they heard that Flavius had managed to obtain a posting back to Caesarea. He was on their trail.
Anxious to avoid him and his never-ending spite they travelled to the edge of the known world, to Britannia, and there they decided to stay. Flavius would never find them in this mist-shrouded isle. The country was mysterious, sacred. It was also the seat of a bustling trading economy and Gaius found himself at once busy and in demand as a negotiator and entrepreneur. At first they settled in Calleva. It was Petra’s illness which had pushed them westwards to Ynys yr Afalon, the Isle of Apples, where the college of druids, in one of the most sacred of the great sanctuaries of the Pretannic Isles, boasted, so it was said, the cleverest healers in the known world, and there their son Romanus was born, named for the city from which they haled and which they both still missed so much. Gaius turned his attention northwards to the ports on the estuary of the great river Sabrina, where the trade in lead and silver was at its most active and lucrative, leaving Lydia at home with the children in a small house in the foothills of the Meyn Dyppa, overlooking the meres and lakes and the island where the buildings of the college clustered around the strange conical hill they called the Tor, which was the centre of its power and sacredness.
The Roman family had been welcomed by their neighbours. They were some distance from the nearest hill fort, the centre of the local branch of the great Dubunni tribe, but the area was safe and free from danger. Their farmstead though not large was comfortable, the main house, round and reed-thatched like those of their neighbours was most of the time warm and dry and well appointed. But it could not keep out the creeping damp of the autumn mists, nor the bone-aching cold of the winter winds. They made friends, they had servants and slaves to work the small patches of ground where they grew beans and peas and in the larger fields barley and oats and to watch over the sheep which grazed on the hills around them. In the summer the countryside was benevolent and beautiful, rich in game and fish and very fertile. The warmth of even this northern sun penetrated Petra’s aching body and gave her some relief, but in the winter the girl grew more and more ill until she was crying with pain. The healers from the settlement helped her. They gave her decoctions made from the local willow trees which brought down her fever and let her rest. They were kind and reassuring. She would grow out of it, they said. This ailment was common amongst young girls in this country. Soon she would improve.
Then they met the beautiful and enigmatic Mora and Petra had made a friend and thirteen-year-old Romanus had fallen in love. Mora had come one day with one of the older, most experienced of druid healers. Mora was, he said, the daughter of Fergus Mor, the college father, the most senior druid on the island and she had a gift such as he had not seen in years. He felt that she would build up a rapport with Petra which would benefit them both. He handed over the case to the young woman, scarcely more than a few years older than Petra herself, and from that day the sick girl improved. Until now. A particularly vicious wind had blown from the north for days now, cutting Lydia to the bone. She could not begin to think how Petra must be hurting for the girl to cry so piteously.
Romanus had not been able to bear to see his sister in such pain. ‘I’ll go and fetch Mora,’ he said at last, and Lydia had let him go. What else could she do? She couldn’t stop him going to find the object of his infatuation now he had an excuse, and Mora was not due to come for at least a month. Besides, it was not far. It would mean running down through the woods and fields, then he would have to take one of the dugout canoes, and thread his way across the low-lying fens, following the deeper channels between the willow and alder and reeds, to the centre on the island where Mora lived. Easy for a boy of thirteen, but even so for reasons she did not quite understand, she had been filled with misgivings. The weather was bad, and Petra had clung to her brother begging him not to go. ‘Wait for Papa to return,’ she wailed. ‘I can hang on. There is enough of the medicine left.’
Lydia had glanced at the small jar on the shelf and shaken her head. There was barely any left at all.
The letter had come only hours after Romanus had set off, a scroll from one of the traders based on the coast, dropped off at the door by a young man on horseback. It was addressed to Gaius.
I thought you should be aware that there is a man here claiming to be your brother, and he is indeed very like you. He has been asking where you are and several of the traders have told him how to find you. I thought it strange that he did not know where his own brother lived, and I did not like his demeanour. Forgive me if I have misjudged the situation, but I send this missive with good intentions.
Lydia’s hands crushed the parchment and she let it fall. She was trembling all over. This could not have happened. For thirteen years they had been free of Flavius. They had thought themselves safe from his malign attentions; thought never to see or hear from him again. How had he tracked them down? Had he gone back to Rome to consult the seer? Why had he come? After all this time surely he did not still harbour the old grudges. She became aware suddenly that Petra was studying her face. ‘Mama, what is it?’
Lydia took a deep breath. ‘A message for your father, child. It seems the messenger missed him at Axiom.’
Why had he missed him? Her heart missed a beat. Gaius had been there for several days now. Had he left for home before Flavius arrived, and if so why had the messenger not overtaken him on the track? Where was he? A gust of wind battered the house, causing the fire to smoke, stirring the floor coverings and making the lamp flames dip and flare and she suppressed a groan of anguish.
There was no sign of Gaius that day or the next, nor of Flavius. And still Romanus had not returned. On the third morning she decided she must go after her son. The daughter of their neighbour had come to see Petra, bringing a gift from her mother of two freshly tanned sheepskins for her bed and the girl agreed to stay until Lydia came back. She stood for a long while outside the house staring down the track towards the north. There was no sign of anyone coming up the long slope from the woods. She must pray to the gods to protect her daughter and go to find Romanus and bring him home.
She took one of the farm ponies, making good speed on the soft muddy ground, heading west down the track towards the levels. It had stopped raining and a fitful sun was peering between the clouds, reflecting in the puddles. Once at the edge of the mere she would have to find someone to take her across to the island. Normally she would have enjoyed such a journey. The wind had backed into the west and was warmer now and more gentle. Her pony was frisky, pleased to be out of its pen. As she gained the more level ground the going was easier and the trackway through the trees firmer beneath the pony’s feet.
She drew up at last at the landing stage and slid from the pony’s back. The place was deserted. There were no boats pulled up on the mud. It was then she heard the swans circling overhead, swans which her Celtic neighbours said carried the souls of dead children to the otherworld.
Ben glanced across at Abi as they walked slowly through the garden towards the church. It was a glorious morning, the sunlight catching the turning leaves and changing them to burnished gold and crimson and tawny. They stopped beside the ruins, staring at the remnants of the walls. ‘They started to excavate in the late thirties, I believe,’ he said after a long silence as they stood looking down at the stones. ‘They found quite a lot of stuff from the Roman villa. Then the war came and t
hey hastily covered most of it up. They never quite got round to it again.’
‘Mat and Cal told you I thought I saw a ghost or two yesterday?’ Abi thought it better to take the bull by the horns.
Ben nodded.
‘Have you ever seen them?’
He shook his head. ‘Cal is the psychic one amongst us. But there have been lots of stories down the centuries.’
‘All my life I’ve seen things, and suspected I was what for a want of a better term is called psychic,’ Abi said thoughtfully,’ but I’ve never really seen ghosts in my life before. Then a few weeks ago in Cambridge I saw a whole lot of them. And other strange things. And then there was no doubt in my mind at all as to what they were. It’s as though something has switched on this ability –’ She stopped in mid-sentence.
Ben waited silently. Listening was something he was good at. A long attentive silence, relaxed, not threatening. He would wait until she was ready to go on. When she did she had changed the subject. Whatever it was she had thought of, she was not ready to talk about it yet. ‘Does Kier know where I am?’
Ben shook his head slowly. ‘Not unless you have told him yourself. Bishop David was very clear on that point. He told me that you had requested that neither your father nor Kieran Scott should be told where you were going.’
‘Kier frightened me. There was something in his eyes. A fanaticism which I have never seen in anyone before.’ She shook her head miserably. ‘He kept saying God had planned for me to move in to look after him, then in the next breath he said such terrible things about me. He accused me of being a witch!’ It was a cry of anguish. ‘And who knows, maybe he is right. That’s why I can’t go on being a priest.’
Ben sighed. It was not for him to question the decision of a bishop, not even David Paxman, but as far as he knew Kieran had been allowed to stay in his parish. Ben could not imagine why if the man was becoming unhinged. ‘Shall we walk on a little way? You will have the chance to do a lot of thinking while you are here, Abi, and if you need to, you will be able to pray, too. You must not let this man give you cause to doubt yourself. I suggest you take things slowly. Make no irrevocable decisions at this stage. We can discuss the future when you have had a chance to recover. You have had a lot to deal with over the past few weeks. There is no hurry.’
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