I left the bathroom, and went down to the kitchen, where I recorded Arianne’s account in as much detail as I could recall. When I’d finished, I put my arms upon the table and buried my face within them. I wept as Arianne had wept. I thought of what I’d seen at the Pwll Siôl Lleuad, of what had happened in the stableyard of Meadow Mynd, of the slaughter of the human Wyverns and those who depended on them. How could Wyva still live there, knowing about these atrocities? I thought now that Medoc had done the right thing in leaving that blighted ground.
I didn’t have the end of the story – exactly how Peredur had died – although it seemed obvious to me his own kin, those who had become har, had killed him as an act of mercy. And now it seemed Peredur lived on in hatred and resentment... or....? The shade I’d seen hadn’t radiated anything like that. There was so much more I needed to know.
I woke up around nine in the morning, still at the kitchen table, roused by the scent of cooking bacon and toasting bread. Groggily, I lifted my head, expecting Rinawne to be there, but no. Arianne was at the stove, as if she was living a normal life, as if she’d come to the tower all those decades ago, not to die but merely to live here, safe. I was astounded. This was no ghost.
‘Good morning, Ysobi,’ she said, turning to me. ‘You see, I remember your name. I didn’t want to wake you. You’ve been up nearly all night, haven’t you?’ She smiled, even though sadness would always be etched into the history of her face.
‘How...?’
‘I don’t know. After you left me, I wanted to sleep. Yes. Real sleep. I think it was in your bed. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘This is... I can’t believe you can leave the bathroom. Arianne... is it possible you are again alive?’
‘How can that be possible?’ She grimaced. ‘It isn’t, but here we are. How do you like your tea?’
‘Strong... very strong. And sweet.’
She placed a full cooked breakfast on the table before me. ‘Eat. You know, I’m going to think of you as a woman, if that’s all right with you. It will make this easier for me.’
‘Of... of course.’ My mind was in such a whirl, I couldn’t decide if I was awake or dreaming. I reached out and grabbed Arianne’s arm. Yes, felt real enough.
‘Come with me,’ I said.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Before breakfast? I haven’t eaten for a hundred years.’
‘Please... just a moment.’
She gave me a quizzical glance, appearing less unnerved by this inexplicable situation than I was. I led her onto the stairs and down to the front door. ‘Open it,’ I said.
She did so, still looking at me.
‘Now go outside. Just onto the step.’
I could see she tried to, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t put a foot outside the tower. Bizarrely, this reassured me. I couldn’t accept a woman coming back from the dead and taking up life as if she’d never left it. Strangely, it seemed I could accept a woman coming back from the dead and being stuck in a building like a regular ghost, if there is such a thing.
Arianne frowned. ‘Perhaps I can only... be here.’
‘I just needed to know,’ I said. ‘Maybe you did too.’
She hugged me briefly, and I realised how much I liked her already. Whitemane woman. Incredible.
We went back upstairs and ate breakfast together. ‘One thing is better now,’ Arianne said. ‘Today I feel like all I told you last night happened to someone else. I’m me, yet not. It’s like I’ve just been away, but have forgotten all about my travels. This is my tower. I always used to come here.’ She looked around herself, smiling, then back at me with an arrow of a glance. ‘So... what are you doing living in it?’
‘There is so much to tell you,’ I said. ‘And I really don’t know where to start. Purely about me...?’ I shrugged. ‘I work for your family, your descendants. This tower came with the job. I’m like a... priest, a doctor and a teacher combined. That’s the work I do.’
‘And everyone is a Wraeththu now?’
‘Just about, yes. Humanity has all but died out, although some hara seek to preserve them.’
She grimaced. ‘How grotesque. Like in a zoo?’
I laughed. ‘No, not like that. Communities. Some humans live among hara in the great cities.’ I took a breath. ‘Arianne, I have to tell you something. One of your sons is still alive. Medoc.’
Her eyes widened, and she flushed, perhaps uncomfortably reminded of all she was trying to forget in these pleasant moments at the breakfast table. She swallowed. ‘How?’
‘Well, hara have much longer lifespans than humans, if that’s what you mean. Other than that, he survived the early days. He doesn’t live here now, but in the next county. He has sons.’
‘You... breed?’
‘Well, yes. We’re androgynes, Arianne. We’re quite capable.’
‘That’s... something,’ she said, clearly not sure whether to be disgusted, amazed, delighted or all three. ‘So I’m the Neanderthal,’ she concluded. ‘All but extinct, and this newer race came to replace me.’
‘That’s about it, yes.’
‘And I’m still a mother.’
‘Won’t you always be that?’
‘You know what I mean, but it’s all so... distant to me now. That has to be a blessing under the circumstances.’ She shook her head. ‘This is like being drunk. How can I feel this good? How can I be at all? It’s as if I’ve come back as I was before everything bad happened.’
‘Well, I hope to find out how all this possible. I think your original family know, or will at least be able to work it out. But they’re not great talkers. They certainly won’t talk to me.’
‘The Mantels?’
‘Whitemanes now. Their phylarch or leader is Mossamber, but I doubt that name means much to you. I imagine he’s Thorne’s son, so you’re his aunt.’
She shook her head. ‘So much to take in. Why the name Whitemane?’
‘Most hara took new names when they were incepted, as your sons were, but it seems they didn’t change their names. The family split in two. Those who live at the Mynd – Kinnard’s descendents – are the Wyvachi. Medoc’s hara are still Wyverns.’
‘Kinnard didn’t survive? Gwyven...?’
I closed my eyes briefly. ‘I’m sorry... I know Kinnard died, but he had sons before that happened. I don’t know what happened to their other brother.’
Arianne simply stared at me. I couldn’t imagine how all this must sound to her, this weird Sleeping Beauty who had just woken up from an enchanted slumber. I took a breath. ‘The Wyvachi and the Whitemanes hate each other. This is because of what happened in the past, and it’s to do with Peredur.’
‘Don’t talk about him!’ she said abruptly, raising her hands. ‘Not now. Not yet.’ Panic had come into her face, and a kind of transparency as if she was on the verge of fading away.
‘All right,’ I said soothingly. I wondered whether hara other than me would be able to see Arianne. Perhaps this was just my weird dream of reality. ‘Much as I don’t want to think about it – and I’m sure you don’t either – we don’t know how long this existence will last.’ I paused. ‘If you want to see Medoc, I can try to arrange that.’ Assuming he wanted to see her, of course. How would he greet this news? How, for that matter, would Wyva feel about it? Even as I was thinking this, I heard Rinawne’s familiar quick step on the stairs. He had let himself in, as usual. Arianne froze, eyes wide.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, standing up. ‘It’s Rinawne. Your... grandson’s... partner.’
‘I’m afraid.’
She could say no more. Rinawne hurled himself into the kitchen, said, ‘Aren’t you ready? We’ve got a long ride.’
I wondered if Arianne would simply vanish, or if Rinawne wouldn’t be able to see her, but then he noticed I had company. That was one question answered at least.
‘Hello,’ he said sweetly, ‘who are you?’
Arianne merely stared at him in a kind of horror, as if the reality of he
r situation had finally hit her.
‘A friend,’ I said.
Rinawne’s eyes narrowed a little, his expression hardened. ‘You look familiar,’ he said. ‘Let me guess... Whitemane?’
‘In a way...’ I said.
‘What’s the matter? Can’t he speak? I don’t think I’ve seen this one before, but the dehara know their domain is overflowing with them. We’ve no idea how many there are.’
‘Rinawne, shut up,’ I said. ‘This is Arianne, Wyva’s... grandmother.’
‘His what?’
‘It’s true,’ Arianne said, standing up in a challenging manner, hands braced on the table top. ‘I am Arianne Wyvern. Believe it or not, as you like, but Dŵr Alarch brought me through time.’
Rinawne looked at me. ‘This is your ghost?’
I couldn’t help feeling smug. ‘Beats your banshee, doesn’t it?’ I said.
Chapter Eighteen
Thoughts in Retrospect:
Medoc har Wyvern had fled Meadow Mynd in the grey light of predawn, allowing his hara only an hour to gather whatever belongings they wished to take with them. They had fled in fear, with the harsh words of Kinnard still ringing in their ears. Medoc told me that when he looked back, he saw his brother struggling in the grip of his chesnari, Yvainte, in the driveway of Meadow Mynd. Yvainte was holding him back. Kinnard’s eyes were wild, almost senseless. He looked violent, but whether because he wished to cause the deserters harm or was furious with himself because he couldn’t go with them, Medoc isn’t sure, even now.
Whatever Kinnard might have believed, he could have left Meadow Mynd then. He could have started a new life beyond the reach of the past’s hungry claws, those dreadful hooks that had sunk not only into his own flesh and that of his hara, but into the very fabric of the house they called home. These claws hid like thorny seeds beneath the soil of the restored gardens, from which the debris of war had been erased. They scratched beneath the fields where the Wyvachi now cultivated crops for any hara in the area who might need them, and the meadows where the placid cattle grazed, ignorant of the old blood that had soaked far beneath their cloven hooves. The claws lingered in the gorse of the ancient mountains that rose in their deceptively gentle slopes towards the clean sky. They clung to the smooth white stones at the bottom of the swift-running river and floated invisibly in the air that hara breathed. Medoc knew these things. He felt the claws scratching him in the night. And on that one night, when the terrible cacophony started up, and Kinnard and Yvainte’s son broke from his pearl, and the curse fell upon them all, Medoc knew he could not stay. He was honest about it: he was terrified. No matter how strong he felt, no matter how contentedly he could reflect upon his glories, and bask in all that he and his hara had achieved since the early days, he was too frightened to fight.
Unlike Wyva, Medoc wasn’t secretive about the past, not in the face of a genuine need for information. But this was because, of course, he’d got away.
***
Rinawne and I rode along the high-hedged lanes that were little more than dirt tracks. The day was glorious, so much so that even the inexplicable and unacceptable held no terror. The sun shone fiercely in a cloudless sky, but the air was a little cooler than of late, fanned by scented breezes coming in off the fields. As we rested the horses at a walk after faster travel, we talked about Arianne. Rinawne felt we couldn’t just blurt the news out to Wyva. ‘It seems too unbelievable,’ he said. ‘I can’t help feeling she’d simply not be there if we fetched witnesses.’
‘Yet you are a witness,’ I said, ‘and you saw her. You spoke with her. You touched her. Did she seem in any way spectral to you?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but... I find this really hard to believe. As hara, we accept the unseen, the world beyond our senses, because for us it is more real than it was for humans. And yet this... it’s beyond anything I’ve experienced or even heard about.’ He stared at me. ‘Ys, maybe you should contact somehar... you know, one of your high-caste friends. Arianne changes everything.’
‘Let’s see if she’s still there when we get back,’ I replied. ‘I’m struggling as you are. It wouldn’t surprise me if the tower was empty on our return.’
Rinawne grimaced. ‘I’m worried that it won’t be. This is huge, Ys.’
‘Huge, yes, but we already know there are forces at work around Meadow Mynd that aren’t part of everyday life. As we said, a storm is brewing. Arianne is part of that. Perhaps it’s necessary for our cause that she’s returned. Perhaps it’s meant.’
As we’d travelled, I’d related to Rinawne everything Arianne had told me. At the end of it, his skin had taken on a yellowish tinge. ‘I don’t ever want to walk through the stableyard again,’ he’d said. ‘How could Wyva and his brothers just live there, cross it every day a dozen times, knowing what happened there? It’s sickening.’
But that was all he said. It was easier for us to talk about Arianne’s reappearance than the horrors of the past, because she appeared healthy, whole and sane. Neither of us wanted to talk, never mind think, about Peredur. I didn’t mention that the stable-har Briar’s death had most likely occurred in the same spot where Peredur had been tortured. Gen had virtually said so. I’d no doubt Rinawne had realised that too.
We passed a sign for Harrow’s End, Medoc’s domain. Our journey was nearly over. ‘Well, we have to decide, Ys,’ Rinawne said. ‘Do we tell Medoc about her or not?’
I drew in a sighing breath. ‘Well, personally I want to talk to him first, see if we can draw him out. I want to gauge whether he’ll accept what we have to say, and guess at his reaction.’
‘I’ve only met him twice, so I have no idea,’ Rinawne said. ‘He might just order us out, think us mad, or lying trouble-makers.’
‘Well, let’s see.’
I wondered whether to tell Rinawne that Myv had also seen Arianne, albeit before she’d manifested properly, but decided against it. At the very least, he’d be annoyed I hadn’t mentioned this when he’d last visited. And yet, withholding that information made it a lie, and lies can be found out, and then there is trouble and upset and recriminations. But not today. For now, we had to focus on Medoc.
Harrow’s End was more like a castle than a house, and had stood for perhaps a thousand years. Its walls were high, its windows narrow and it was built in a quadrangle around a central courtyard. A deep green moat surrounded it, over which a permanent bridge had been built, now mossy with age. Over the centuries, the buildings had spread and these formed the heart of a village surrounding the house. The formal gardens had been carefully restored, but were open to all, rather than only to those who lived in the house. That too, we quickly found out, had no silent or neglected corners. The past had no space to brood at Harrow’s End, for it was a living, thriving community.
Medoc’s security hara had told him two unknown riders approached the estate, and he rode out to meet us alone, no doubt curious as to who we were. The fact he had no escort indicated how safe he felt in his domain. He was surprised to see us, of course, and said, ‘You have business with me, clearly. We will talk about this at home.’ These words sealed the topic of our visit until we had been installed.
On the way back, Medoc told us about the house. We learned that when he and his hara had found it, it had been a virtual ruin. There had been, in fact, other large houses in the area that would have been more suitable for occupation, but Medoc fell in love with the ancient feel of Harrow’s End. ‘There are chambers inside it that haven’t changed since the days of its construction,’ he told us proudly. ‘Naturally, I’ve been restricted concerning how much I could preserve in its original state, since Harrow’s is now a home, a community.’ He gestured at the house ahead and smiled in a somewhat dreamy fashion. ‘History took place within those walls: political conflicts, betrayals, murder. But it also embodies love and continuity, strength and family. Fine old house, who’s hung on despite all odds, while the race who built it fell to dust.’
Approaching it, I could
see Harrow’s End was imposing and solid, an edifice to take on challenges. This made me realise how wounded Meadow Mynd was in comparison; it did not stand tall and proud against the trees and sky, but rather huddled, cringing, close to the ground.
Hara gathered curiously as we rode over the moat bridge and beneath the dark archway into the courtyard.
‘These are kinshara,’ Medoc told them in a ringing voice, ‘from across the county boundary.’
Everyhar would have known then: we were Wyvachi. I saw glances exchanged. Hara would wonder if Wyvachi were to be common visitors now. At midsummer, Wyva had crossed not only the boundary of the county but of the past. I could sense the Wyvachi were regarded as peculiar by the hara here – emanations of this opinion washed over me in an almost physical wave. But of course, as far as the Wyvern hara were concerned, the Wyvachi were cursed. This no doubt made them feel uncomfortable as we walked upon their land, entered their home. We endured a gauntlet of stares as we walked to the main entrance of the hall, and I wished Medoc had qualified his announcement to include the fact Rinawne and I weren’t blood relatives.
Medoc took us to his sitting room, which was a room on the first floor, away from the busy hustle of the ground floor. This chamber overlooked the gardens to the back of the house, where there was an ornamental lake. Looking out, I saw harlings playing there, splashing in the water. Black-headed geese strutted among them, occasionally hissing and raising their wings at any who came too near. Beyond the gardens I could see hara busy in the fields, and carts of produce being driven along the winding lanes. A row of hara fished the river two fields away and between the water and the house were spreading reed beds. All around was a sense of industry and purpose, but also contentment and order. Meadow Mynd should be like this.
Rinawne came to stand beside me at the small-paned window while Medoc saw to refreshments for us. We exchanged a wordless glance. Rinawne sighed deeply. He was wondering what his life – and Myv’s – might have been like if Wyva hadn’t clung on to Meadow Mynd. No resentful Whitemanes, no curse.