Sleeper’s Castle

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Amen,’ Catrin said softly.

  Later she went up to her bedroom. When she opened her coffer, the poems had all gone.

  She found the remains of the pages of parchment smouldering on a bonfire at the bottom of the vegetable garden. Sadly she raked out the surviving scraps. Most of the poems were safe inside her head, but it broke her heart to think her father would do such a thing.

  ‘Oh, Tad,’ she cried as she looked down at the dirty mess at her feet. ‘Why?’

  Joan had followed her. She looked down at the remains of Catrin’s poems. ‘Because he is jealous of you, that’s why. I have heard him recite and I have heard you. You are better than him by far. Had you not realised?’ She turned and stamped back towards the kitchen, leaving Catrin to collect the remnants of parchment into her apron.

  The King of England came to Hay in September. He had marched with his army from Hereford, executing suspected traitors and giving their lands to his supporters wherever he went. From Hay he marched on to Talgarth and then to Brecon, where he offered peace to the people of Breconshire. At Sleeper’s Castle they waited and prayed the king’s soldiers would pass them by. Catrin and Joan did not go down to Hay. They worked in the garden harvesting vegetables and herbs, they sewed and they brewed cider and ale. Joan spun and knitted with her bone needle, and Catrin wrote down her poems.

  God answered their prayers. The king’s soldiers did not ride up the lane towards the scattered mountain parishes. At the end of September the king returned to England. Tempers cooled and Joan rode again down to Hay on market day. Catrin stayed at home. There had been no word from Edmund all summer. Both women prayed for him, separately, quietly, and both secretly wondered if, should anything happen to him, they would ever get to hear of it.

  Andy stood back and allowed her father to enter the cave alone. She turned her back, feeling the warmth of the sunshine on her shoulders as she listened to his footsteps. He took several paces and stopped. Then there was silence.

  ‘Hi, Andy. How’s the foot?’ Bryn walked up behind her. ‘I met your bête noire last night. Rhona followed me to the pub.’

  Andy stared at him in horror. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Mainly to ask how you were. I suspect she wanted to know if she had managed to finish you off. I told her you were fine. I assume that was what you would have wanted me to do?’

  Her mouth had gone dry. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, Andy. Go to the police. She’s dangerous.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I am not going to do that.’ She turned away from him.

  He watched her walk away. ‘I see you’ve brought in a cave expert,’ he called after her.

  She stopped and looked back. ‘The man in the cave? He’s my father.’

  ‘Really? He looked like an expert, the way he walked in.’

  ‘He’s an expert on ghosts not caves.’ She met Bryn’s eye almost defiantly.

  ‘He should be at home round here then,’ he replied. He followed her. ‘Has he reached a verdict yet?’

  Andy gave a wry smile. ‘Too soon. So, which ghosts have you seen?’ Somehow out here in this context, in the sunlight, it was all right to ask. She kept her voice light-hearted.

  He gave the question some thought. ‘I see figures in the distance sometimes; in the garden.’

  She waited for him to be more specific, but he said no more. He turned away again and strolled off back to his flowerbed. She did not pursue him.

  She walked slowly down to the brook and sat down on her favourite outcrop of rock, staring into the water. The sunshine had managed to find its way through the overhanging trees and sparkled on the surface as it gurgled and splashed over the steep incline towards the road. She watched it, half mesmerised, for several minutes.

  ‘What you need is an on–off switch!’ her father had said. Something to control that strangely fuzzy feeling, that concertinaing of time and space; that feeling she was experiencing now, as she stared down at the water.

  She could see the garden in Kew, see the house, the blinds drawn at the back to keep the sun out of the lower rooms. ‘No!’ she said it out loud. The picture faded. If the blinds were drawn, Rhona was still away. Still here. Still planning to pay her back for whatever she imagined Andy had done to wreck her marriage.

  A shadow fell across the path. She looked up. ‘Have you seen all you want to see?’

  But it wasn’t her father.

  It was a tall man wearing doublet and hose, a hat with a rolled brim, a short cloak, his face tanned and weather-beaten, his shoes dusty and worn although they had once been smart. He was carrying a battered leather bag, a kind of briefcase, she realised. Their eyes locked for a brief second, then he was gone.

  She leapt to her feet, her heart thudding uncomfortably. It was the man from the market; the man who had spoken so quietly and confidentially to Catrin, the man who had warned her to be careful. What did he want? What was he doing here, at Sleeper’s Castle? Did Catrin know he was here?

  She realised how stupid that thought was as soon as she had stepped forward out of the shade into the patch of sunlight where, just for a moment, the man had stood looking at her. Was he spying or had he come to warn Catrin again?

  ‘Andy?’ She heard the voice but was too stunned to react. ‘Andy?’

  Rufus had made his way out of the cave, walked along the path and come to a halt beside her. He followed her gaze, peering at the paving stones a few feet in front of her. ‘What is it? What happened?’

  ‘I saw a ghost,’ she murmured. ‘I saw a real, definite ghost.’ She looked up at him. To her surprise she wasn’t afraid. ‘I recognised him and I know he saw me. He was someone Catrin knew. The man who warned her off when she went to the market.’

  ‘Go indoors now and write it down while it’s fresh in your mind.’ Her father gave her a little push. ‘I’ll be in in a minute.’

  He stared after her as she walked back towards the house, concerned. As soon as she had disappeared inside he turned away and headed to the flowerbed where Bryn was standing watching them, leaning on his spade. Rufus put out his hand. ‘Rufus Dysart, I’m Andy’s father.’

  ‘She told me.’ Bryn shook his hand with seeming reluctance then stood back and waited.

  Rufus said nothing, scanning Bryn’s face, then finally he smiled. ‘Sorry. I have to know if I can trust you.’

  ‘And can you?’ Bryn raised his chin slightly, holding the other man’s gaze.

  ‘I think so. Andy has bitten off more than she can chew here, I fear. She needs allies. I hope you’re one of them.’

  Bryn held his gaze. A faint trace of humour showed behind his eyes. ‘She doesn’t always welcome help.’

  ‘I think she will now. I hate to think of her here alone. This place is quite isolated isn’t it.’ Rufus paused. He saw the other man give the briefest of nods and echoed the movement. ‘My daughter is a brave woman and she’s intrigued by all this and she thinks I can tell her how to cope.’ He paused. ‘I blame myself for inspiring her interest in ghosts when she was a child. I moved away and left her and her mother and I haven’t been there for her since, not properly and she has this vision of me arriving like some guardian angel.’ He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘Graham put her off ghosts, but now she is fascinated again and just when she needs my help, I can’t be here for her. I have to leave in a day or so; please, tell me what you think goes on here.’

  ‘As I understand it, this house has been called Sleeper’s Castle for centuries, perhaps millennia,’ Bryn said gravely. ‘People have always known its power, but Andy seems to have woken things up somewhat.’

  ‘Is there danger?’ Rufus tossed back the question sharply.

  Bryn considered the question. ‘Usually people leave.’

  ‘We both know that Andy isn’t going to do that.’

  Bryn pursed his lips. ‘She will if it gets bad enough.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Just that. Things can escalate. The history of
this place is still very much with us. This house. Wales. And the March. Whoever said that the past is a foreign country was wrong.’ He paused.

  Rufus acknowledged the remark with a nod. ‘And now we have this lunatic woman running amok round here as well. Andy mustn’t get hurt. She doesn’t seem to take it seriously. She refuses to call the police.’

  ‘I will try and persuade her. Unfortunately, they came up here when Rhona called them, and I think Andy’s right. They won’t follow this up without anything more concrete to go on. She refuses to confirm that the woman attacked her. Perhaps she genuinely doesn’t know,’ Bryn said grimly. ‘But I will try and keep an eye on things. I can make no promises. As for the ghosts …’ He gave a small shrug. ‘Has Andy introduced you to Meryn? He is the man to sort that out.’

  ‘She mentioned his name. Can he be trusted?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I gather he’s away at the moment.’

  Bryn sighed. ‘I wish sometimes he would stay put for a while. He’s always rushing off to sort out other people’s problems. This is a place of enormous strength. I think the whole mountain is, to be honest. His cottage which is up on the mountain is another source of power. Meryn uses it to charge his batteries. Other people do too round here, often without realising it, but that can be too much for them; it can burn one out. It can stir one up. It can destroy people.’

  ‘Should I make Andy come away with me?’

  ‘With all due respect, I think you would find that hard.’

  ‘You seem to know her very well.’

  ‘In fact she and I have barely talked.’

  Rufus stared at him in astonishment. ‘Then perhaps you should.’

  Bryn nodded slowly, then seemingly deciding that the conversation was over, he turned and walked thoughtfully back to his flowerbed.

  Rufus joined Andy in the kitchen. ‘I was speaking to your gardener. He said you and he had hardly ever talked.’

  She looked up, pen in hand, and to his astonishment she blushed a little. ‘I find him a bit intimidating. I think he resents me being here instead of Sue. But we get along all right when we have to. He’s there for me.’

  Rufus studied her face and grinned. ‘I think you should make a friend of him, Andy. He knows a lot about this place and its potential.’

  ‘And he spoke to Rhona.’

  He stared at her. ‘He didn’t mention that. What did he think?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He was wary. He seems to be quite shrewd about people. He knows she’s dangerous.’

  ‘She’s that all right.’ He sounded impatient. ‘You have enough to cope with here without a mad harridan chasing after you.’

  ‘Dad, you’ve never met her!’

  ‘Oh, but I have. Don’t you remember? You and Graham gave a party when you moved in with him. Somehow Rhona found out about it and gatecrashed. She was hell-bent on spoiling it for you. It was me that gave her a lift back to central London. I had plenty of opportunity to get to know Mrs Wilson on that drive, and my views have not changed. She is a loose cannon and to be avoided. The thought that she’s up here somewhere does not fill me with reassurance.’

  ‘I wish you could stay longer, Daddy.’ She said it very quietly.

  ‘So do I. And I will come back, as soon as I can.’ He stood up. ‘Now, forget everything else for a few minutes while you finish bringing your notes up to date, then you and I are going to have a cup of tea. I wish you would come away with me, girl.’ He reached out across the table and squeezed her hand as it lay there on her notebook, pen clutched between her fingers.

  By the time Dafydd returned, Catrin had copied out all her poems again. She had found another coffer, this one with a lock and key, and she had rearranged her bedchamber. There was no sign now that this was the study of a woman who wrote; her writing table had been pushed back against the wall and merely held her combs and boxes of trinkets. Her books were on a high shelf and looked as if they were seldom touched. She had found a workman in Hay, one of the men who had helped to rebuild the town, who agreed to come up to Sleeper’s Castle and put the long-promised glass in her window, and she had bought a new tapestry for her wall. She had a feeling her father would raise no objections after what he had done and she was right. He went into her room almost as soon as he returned.

  She followed him up the stairs and waited at the turn of the step on the landing, watching as he paused by her door, pushed it and entered, standing on the threshold for several heartbeats as he studied the room. She heard him give a grunt, but whether of satisfaction or of disgust she couldn’t tell, then he turned away and went back to his own chamber. Neither of them mentioned the burning of her papers. She did not speak about her poetry to him again, nor ask him about his trip. The bond between them had been broken. She knew he must have been at Machynlleth when Owain was crowned Prince of Wales, and at Harlech where the now-named Prince Owain IV, flush with successes all across Wales, had set up his court. She longed to ask about her friends, Catherine and Alys, and their mother, Margaret, so kind and so warm to her when she had last seen them four years before, but she kept her counsel.

  She visited her father’s study less than she had before; she allowed Joan to wait on him more. If he missed her constant attendance on him he gave no sign. She guessed that he knew their relationship had been ruptured beyond repair and sadly she acknowledged to herself that perhaps he didn’t care. When she was working on a poem in her head she made sure he would never guess what she was thinking about; if she scribbled on her wax note-tablets, she hid them up on the cross-beams of her room where he would never see them at first glance. She wrote at night, by the light of her candle, a stool pushed against the door so she would have warning of anyone creeping down the landing to come in and catch her in the act. Quietly she burned with resentment and looked forward to the day he left again.

  Joan accosted her one day as they were picking the last of the sloes from the blackthorn hedges. A cold wind had blown through the garden tearing leaves off the trees. ‘You can’t go on like this, you know. You will have to speak to him in the end.’

  ‘I do speak to him.’ Catrin didn’t have to ask who she was talking about.

  ‘He is very unhappy about you.’

  ‘The feeling is mutual.’

  ‘He knows he did something terrible.’

  Catrin stared at her. She put her hands on her hips. ‘He told you so?’

  ‘No. Of course he didn’t. He would never admit it.’

  ‘And I will never forgive him. So we will not talk about it again.’

  ‘He saw Edmund when he was with the Lord Owain.’ Joan glanced at her slyly.

  ‘Did he? He never mentioned that.’ Catrin could feel the colour rising in her cheeks.

  ‘He feels that Prince Owain,’ Joan could not resist a slight sarcastic emphasis on the title, ‘trusts my brother. He told me. He keeps him near his side. He is more than a mere archer in the army.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Catrin asked.

  ‘I thought you would like to know. He is not out skirmishing with his fellow archers, he is there in the castle, playing at kings and queens with the family; with the Lord Owain’s wife and his sons while they plan sedition and revolt.’ She glanced sideways at Catrin, who sighed deeply. ‘Don’t bother, Joan. It doesn’t interest me. Edmund doesn’t interest me. The Lord Owain doesn’t interest me. I am not permitted to accompany my father wherever he goes; I am a lonely stupid woman, left to rot in the country. I am not permitted to marry and have my own home. I am not permitted to travel beyond the local market, and my destiny is to wait upon my father hand and foot.’ She let out an angry cry as a blackthorn caught her hand.

  Joan shook her head. ‘My, we are in a state! That is not like you. Why don’t you tell him how you feel?’

  ‘He knows how I feel.’ Catrin put her bowl down on the grass and sucked her bleeding finger. ‘Here, you finish picking these.’ She turned away and stumbled over the herb be
ds towards the brook, where she stood for a while, feeling the spray on her face, breathing in the cold wet smells of autumn. The recent storms had turned it into a torrent of swirling leaves and thundering brown water. She couldn’t hear herself think over the roar as it poured down over the rocks towards the track below, and that was the way she liked it.

  Behind her, Joan watched her for a while before going back to her berry picking.

  At an upstairs window Dafydd was looking out. He could see her clearly down there by the brook and he scowled.

  Andy watched, her attention focused on him as he turned away from the window. He was in Catrin’s bedroom. He walked slowly back across the floor and stood looking down at the coffer in the corner, the coffer where she kept her manuscripts. He already knew it was locked, he had rattled the lid earlier. He glanced round the room sourly then he turned and headed towards the door.

  ‘Catrin!’ Andy leaned forward towards her. ‘Be careful. He is eaten up with malice.’ She could see it so clearly. And so could Joan.

  ‘Andy!’ Rufus squeezed Andy’s hand gently. ‘Andy, come back!’

  She sat up with a start. She had been leaning forward across the kitchen table, her head in her arms. Rufus slid into the chair opposite her and looked at her, noting her confused expression. Her eyes were unfocused and for a few seconds she stared at him without recognition. He held onto her hand. ‘Come back, girl. Look at me.’

  She withdrew her hand and sat back in the chair, pushing her hair away from her face. ‘I’m sorry. Did I fall asleep?’

  ‘You did.’ He waited.

  ‘I was dreaming, wasn’t I?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Did I talk in my sleep?’

  He shook his head. ‘Tell me what you were dreaming about.’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You can. Think back. Don’t try and force it.’

  They sat in silence, facing each other and wearily she closed her eyes. ‘Dafydd was in Cat’s bedroom,’ she said at last. ‘He was spying on her. He was so angry that she had had expensive glass put in her window. He went and examined it. It was set in a lead frame. A workman from Hay had done it for her in the summer while her father was away.’ Her eyes were open but she was staring into the distance. ‘I don’t think she realises even now how jealous Dafydd is of her.’