Sleeper’s Castle

by Barbara Erskine

  Joan. Where was Joan? She would know what to do, she would know how to stop the bleeding. Catrin’s bleeding, not hers. Andy sniffed hard and mopped at her eyes, trying to clear her head, trying to get a grip on herself.

  Still unsteady on her feet, she returned to her bedroom and pulled open a drawer, looking for a sweater. Somehow she pulled it on without getting too much blood on it, then she turned to the door. There was a proper first aid box in the kitchen, in the dresser cupboard. She had never opened it, but knowing how efficient Sue was, she probably kept it stocked. Even a herbalist must have decent-sized plasters.

  When she finally managed to stem the bleeding she examined the wound. It needed a couple of stitches, that was obvious. She ransacked Sue’s box and found dressings and tape to hold them in place. Shock was setting in. Her hands were shaking so much she could barely cut the lengths of tape. How had this happened? How was it possible? And now, far too late, she remembered Meryn’s warning: Don’t touch anything. Don’t let anything touch you.

  What should she take for shock? Hot sweet tea, wasn’t that what they usually said? Her eyes travelled across the kitchen. The kettle seemed an insurmountable distance away. Pepper was sitting on the windowsill outside, watching her through the glass. She tried to steady her breathing. His eyes were huge. Frightened. Her gaze travelled to his food bowl. She vaguely remembered feeding him a long time ago, but he had hardly touched the food. His biscuits lay there, most unsampled, with a scatter across the floor leading towards the cat flap as though he had bolted with his mouth full. ‘Pepper?’ she called. It would comfort her to have him near her. He ignored her. He was gazing past her towards the door into the hall and she saw his eyes grow if possible even larger, his fur on end, staring in panic before he stood up and with a yowl of fear leapt into the darkness.

  Andy swallowed. She looked round at the door. Whatever he had seen, it had scared him so badly she wondered if she would ever see him again.

  A figure was standing in the doorway. She heard herself give a little cry of terror as she pushed back her chair and stood up. It wasn’t Catrin. She stood, riveted to the spot as she saw Dafydd take a step into the kitchen. In his hand he was carrying the chisel. The blade was still red with blood, her blood. He was dressed as he had been when he had entered Catrin’s room in his long woollen gown, gathered at the waist with a leather belt from which hung a leather purse. He had shoulder-length grey hair and a short sparse beard. His eyes were the colour of flint and they sought hers. ‘In the name of Jesus Christ and all the saints, begone from this house!’ he cried. He raised his hand and made the sign of the cross. ‘Demon, witch, bwgan!’ He took another step forward.

  Andy didn’t wait. Whirling round she snatched the car keys off the hook by the back door, wrestled it open and fled. Forgetting her ankle, forgetting the injury to her arm, she hurtled down the steps three at a time, desperately pointing the key to unlock it. She dived into her car, slamming the door on the night and with shaking hands tried to fit the key into the ignition. The car stalled and she tried again, increasingly desperate. She backed out and, wheels spinning, turned up the hill, the accelerator flat to the floor, seeing the headlight beams arcing into the sky as she burst out across the cattle grid. She had to find Meryn.

  Instinctively she had pulled the back door shut behind her, but she hadn’t locked it. With a slight click it slowly creaked open in the draught from the wind and light from the kitchen spilt out across the garden. The figure of Dafydd ap Hywell appeared, standing in the doorway, looking out.

  He didn’t cast a shadow.

  26

  Rhona was sitting in her car in the dark. She had locked the doors. What had really happened back there? What had she witnessed from the garden as she looked into the house? She wasn’t sure. The car headlights behind her in the lane and the straining roar of its engine took her by surprise. As Miranda’s car flashed past her she almost didn’t react but as soon as she registered whose car it was she fired the engine and, wheels spinning, lurched out of the gateway and onto the lane to follow her.

  Her car rattled over the cattle grid and out into the short-cropped grass of the lower slopes of the hillside. She could see sheep grazing as the lights illuminated the view, and then two ponies, their heads down chomping steadily. Did these animals never stop eating? Didn’t they sleep? She scanned the road ahead. She could see Miranda’s tail lights in the distance.

  Each steep turn of the tarmacked road seemed identical. Every now and then a gorse bush or a small twisted tree loomed out of the dark and then vanished again as her headlight beams moved on. She reached a double bend and almost lost control, skidding into a patch of rushes. The headlights illuminated the gleam of water, then it was gone; somehow she swung the car back onto the road. Miranda’s lights had disappeared. She swore and pressed the accelerator to the floor. She wasn’t even sure why she was following her; it had been an instinct, obeyed without a second’s thought, but now that instinct was in complete control. She had to find out where it was that Miranda was going in such a hurry.

  There was nowhere she could have turned off the road. And then she saw the car again. She had gained on her. She saw the red tail lights, the twin beams of the undipped headlights, sweeping across the hillside. Miranda was slowing. Rhona stamped on her brakes. The Passat had turned off the road. She could see it now, driving straight up the mountainside, or so it seemed. Cautiously she approached the place where it had turned and she saw a gate, partially hidden by a clump of thorn trees. Miranda was driving up what looked like a farm track. Rhona let her car drift to a stop, turned off her engine and waited in the dark. She could see Miranda’s lights swinging all over the place as she negotiated the steep, bumpy track, then abruptly they stopped and almost immediately went out. Rhona strained her eyes through the windscreen; was that a house up there? She could see it now. White-painted and totally isolated it showed up faintly against the dark of the hillside. Turning on the engine and engaging first gear, she drove carefully through the gate and parked behind the clump of trees.

  Before she climbed out she leaned across and pulled open the glove compartment. In it she kept, amongst other things, her sunglasses, a torch, a pack of tissues and a large clasp knife. She took the torch, and after a moment’s thought, the knife as well, and slipped them into her pockets, then she pushed the car door open, surprised at the strength of the wind up here as it threatened to snatch it out of her grasp. She regained control of the door and closed it softly, pushing it firmly shut and then locking it. It looked as if it would be quite a hike on foot up the steep gradient of the stony track, but she didn’t care. She was fizzing with energy.

  ‘What on earth have you been up to?’ Meryn had pulled open the front door almost before she had knocked. He drew her inside and looked her up and down compassionately. ‘You have been in the wars, you poor thing, and you have what my friends the Pascoes would call bad vibes. You have picked up a few nasty shadowy entities.’ He walked towards his desk. He must have been working, she saw. The lamp was on and there were papers and books scattered around his laptop.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve interrupted you,’ she stammered through chattering teeth.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He stooped and opened a drawer. ‘First things first.’ He brought out a tightly woven bunch of dried herbs and a box of matches. ‘Come and stand here, where I can see you, and let me smudge you. You know what that means, I’m sure.’

  ‘Cleansing my aura.’ She smiled bravely. ‘Very New Age.’

  ‘And effective. We have to start somewhere.’

  He lit the dried herbs and let them flare. As soon as they had caught properly he blew them out gently, leaving a stream of strongly scented blue smoke, which he proceeded to waft around her. ‘The original American peoples use sage for this, but I prefer to use local plants; local remedies for local entities,’ he said softly. ‘So, are you going to tell me what happened?’

  ‘It was Dafydd,’ she whispered.
/>   ‘I am assuming you ignored my warning and touched something?’

  ‘I didn’t have any choice. He was trying to kill Catrin.’

  ‘And he attacked you as well?’ At last he acknowledged the bandages where a smear of blood had soaked through. He walked slowly round her, waving the smouldering herbs, the smoke growing more dense and pungent with each passing moment. Andy started coughing. ‘Stand still,’ he commanded. ‘I’m sorry, but I need to do this. I will look at your arm when I’ve done.’

  He went on slowly circling until the bunch of herbs was reduced to a pile of simmering ash, which he caught in a small bowl. ‘That is purely cleansing. Like washing your hands. Right, the next priority is your arm. Can you slip off your jumper?’

  To her surprise she found she was unembarrassed standing before him in her bra as he cleaned the wound. He was calmly professional. ‘Not joking, but you have no idea where that chisel had been before he stabbed you with it. And however much you like and care for Catrin, you don’t know where she’s been either, so I think we need a bit of prophylactic infection control here. Calendula,’ he explained as he dabbed a piece of cotton wool in a small bowl of warm water.

  He rebandaged the arm and helped Andy put on her sweater again, then he loaned her another to go on top of it. ‘From a local black sheep,’ he said, smiling as he pulled the soft thick wool over her head. He steered her to a chair by the fire. ‘Now you’re ready to tell me everything. From the beginning.’

  When she had finished he eyed her calmly. ‘Well, the good news is that you didn’t bring Dafydd away with you. The bad news is that he’s probably prowling round Sleeper’s Castle looking for you.’

  She blanched. ‘Please, can you get rid of him for me?’ she said pathetically. ‘I’m way out of my league here.’

  He laughed. ‘Not that much out of your league. You know your stuff but you’re untrained and you have made the worst possible mistake in that you have got yourself involved. We have to extricate you from your entanglements before we can sort all this out.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘I suggest you stay the night here. Let the house calm down a bit. Then we can go back in daylight.’

  She hugged the black sweater round her. It was knitted in thick heavy oiled wool and was very warm. ‘I think I might have left the door open,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I mean wide open. I ought to go back.’

  The track swept round behind the house and, leaving the comparative shelter of the hedge, Rhona ran, bent double, towards the outbuildings at the back.

  She walked on the grass, though she doubted her footsteps would be heard above the wind. It had risen steadily, and was whipping the clouds across the sky as the sun set in a fiery blaze behind the mountains. She paused to look at it and thought wistfully of her camera in the bedroom of the pub in Brecon. It didn’t matter. This was much more exciting than photography.

  The garden of the house was surrounded by hedges; there was a gate, but it was standing open. She could see his old four-wheel drive now, parked under the rowan tree outside the front door next to Andy’s car. This was the lair of Andy’s new man.

  She could see there were lights on in the house. It wasn’t a big establishment. It was a typical Welsh stone cottage, white-painted, symmetrical. The place could be a year old or five hundred years old, it was hard to tell. Rhona found herself imagining how exposed and lonely it must feel in the winter, with the snows and gales sweeping across the mountains. She smiled, exhilarated. The wind was stronger now, tearing at her hair, making her eyes water.

  She stopped in the shelter of a wall and paused to get her breath back. It was bitterly cold up here, her light jacket almost comically ineffective against the weather as it closed in. Behind her the sky was black save for that splash of vivid colour on the far horizon which was settling into duller shades of salmon and terracotta. Shoving her hands in her pockets she crept back towards the corner of the building and peered round. It was dark here and hard to see. She looked left and right and ran, stooping, to the wall of the house. Flattening herself against it, she edged towards the window. The curtains were carelessly drawn and one corner at the bottom had caught on something, leaving a small gap through which light streamed into the garden. She approached it cautiously and looked in. It was the kitchen. There was no sign of anyone in there. It was old-fashioned in a style which nowadays would probably be highly desirable and classed as retro. A small oak table, four bentwood chairs, a butler’s sink – probably original – a stove, a dresser. Herbs. There were plates and mugs on the draining board, and papers on the table. An old square Roberts radio sat on the windowsill only inches from her head as she peered in. She craned her neck to see through the open door into the rest of the house, but the corridor outside the door was in darkness.

  Rhona smiled exultantly.

  Her face was almost touching the glass when an arm appeared, pulled the curtain down and her view was cut off abruptly. She jerked back, her heart thumping with fright. Had he seen her? She didn’t think so. Nevertheless she didn’t want to take any chances. She crept back towards the sheltering outbuildings and stood there waiting for her breathing to return to its natural rhythm. The last of the sunset had faded to a single narrow streak across the sky. In minutes it would be completely dark. Somewhere close by an owl hooted.

  Cautiously she began to retrace her steps towards the front of the house. All the downstairs windows were lit now, all the curtains firmly closed. Her glance skimmed across the cars, sitting outside the front door. Her fist tightened on the knife in her pocket and she smiled. Pulling it out, she opened it and stepped towards the Fourtrak. Behind her the owl hooted again.

  Meryn stood up, an anxious look crossing his face. He held up his hand for silence, listening intently. ‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered.

  Andy shook her head. She shivered. And then they heard it again. An owl. Meryn hurried to the door and stood behind it, listening.

  Andy rose to her feet and tiptoed after him. ‘What is it?’ she murmured.

  ‘There’s someone out there.’

  ‘Rhona?’ She mouthed the word.

  ‘Quite possibly.’ He reached for the light switch and unlocked the door. Pulling it open he peered out into the dark. The outside light had come on, illuminating the gravelled parking space with the two cars. It was deserted.

  He stepped outside and looked round. ‘She’s gone,’ he said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He looked up as the shadowy outline of a bird flew silently across the lighted space and disappeared into the dark. ‘I’m sure.’

  She laughed. ‘Another watchdog?’

  ‘Part of the crew.’ She saw the look of anxiety that crossed his face. ‘I hate to say this, but is there any reason to think Rhona might go home via Sleeper’s Castle?’

  Andy shuddered. ‘It’s the sort of thing she would do.’

  ‘I fear you’re right.’ He stood staring down the track into the dark. ‘Would you like me to go there to check on my own? You could lock yourself in here safely and let me deal with it.’

  ‘No. I want to come.’

  He sighed. ‘You do realise you can’t do anything to help Catrin?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ She met his gaze steadily. ‘Catrin and her father can see me. They have both in some way crossed over into the present day now, maybe as ghosts, maybe as dreams, I don’t know, but Dafydd’s chisel was real enough, so why can’t I take bandages and antiseptic, if that’s what is needed.’

  He gave a thoughtful nod. ‘An interesting speculation. All right. Let’s go. Would you like me to drive your car or shall I take mine?’

  The answer was made for them. As Meryn closed the front door and they approached the cars they saw all four tyres of his old Fourtrak down on their rims.

  ‘The vindictive bitch!’ Andy said succinctly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘People seem to be making rather free use of their knives tonight,’ Meryn said dryly. He put his keys in his pocket. ‘Luckily w
e must have scared her off before she got round to your car as well. I could sense she’d gone. She has an extraordinarily powerful forcefield, that woman. Interesting.’

  Andy managed a smile. ‘Will your owls still be on watch here?’

  He smiled. ‘Oh yes. The night shift is on duty until dawn.’

  Rhona pulled up outside Sleeper’s Castle and sat, gazing up the steps towards the house. She felt the prickle of intense excitement as she opened her car door, the visceral power that the place exuded. She took a deep breath and climbed out, her hand closed round the knife again.

  She pushed the front door gently. It was obviously locked. She walked along the front of the house, tiptoeing towards the first ground-floor window. It was hard to get close enough to look through it, it was so framed by twisted stems of wisteria but, careful not to make a sound or agitate the remaining leaves too much, she managed to peer in at last. The room was dark and she could see nothing. She eased herself away from the wall and resumed her circumnavigation of the house. There were no lights round the front at all. It felt abandoned and uncared for even after so short a time. She crept on round the corner. There was a faint light coming from the kitchen. The back door was not just unlocked, it was wide open. She gave a triumphant smile. Tightening her grip on the knife in her pocket she tiptoed towards it, keeping her head down below the level of the windowsill. She straightened as she reached the door and looked in.

  The room was lit by several flickering candles. It looked derelict, unfurnished, save for a large table and a few stools. The ceiling was hung with pans and baskets. She gasped as she looked round. A man was standing in the middle of the floor, looking straight at her. She knew instantly who he was although she had only seen him through the window in the distance before. He was quite elderly, she could see now, with long straggly grey hair, hidden beneath a black coif which seemed to fasten under his chin. He was wearing something which looked a little like a black dressing gown, and in his hand he held a large chisel. The blade was dripping with blood.