Sleeper’s Castle

  ‘Tad, what is it? What’s wrong?’ She ran towards him, with Edmund carrying her bags behind her.

  ‘Be quiet!’ It was Edmund. He turned on her furiously. ‘Say nothing. We are leaving now.’ He threw her packs over the mule’s rump and tucked the harp gently into one of the panniers, then he boosted her unceremoniously onto her pony’s saddle. Beckoning her to follow, he went to the head of her father’s horse and, taking the lead rein of the mule in his other hand, he led the way out beneath the great portcullis.

  Catrin felt her cheeks stinging with embarrassment at his unceremonious treatment of her, aware of men watching and grinning as she rode across the cobbles. She looked back at the steps up to the tower doorway but there was no sign of Mary there.

  ‘South. We have to go south,’ Dafydd commanded hoarsely. ‘To Sycharth. I need to speak to Lord Glyndŵr.’

  ‘That’s where we planned to go next, anyway,’ Edmund retorted, his voice terse. ‘I have already ascertained the best route. We need to go back towards Llangollen first, then south through Glyn Ceiriog, to the east of the mountains. We should be there before dark.’

  Dafydd turned on him, his eyes wild. ‘You told them where we were going?’

  ‘I wasn’t aware it was a secret, Master Dafydd,’ Edmund was on the defensive.

  ‘Not even when you heard the way the English were talking about Lord Owain last night?’

  ‘Edmund wasn’t with us last night,’ Catrin put in sharply. ‘If you remember he slept in the stables with the horses.’

  Edmund grinned. ‘Not quite as basic as that. I was given a straw mattress and a brychan above the stables with the horse boys. It was warm and we fed well. I was comfortable, at least until I was called in to see to you—’ he broke off as he saw Dafydd’s face.

  ‘What is it, Tad, what is wrong?’ Catrin repeated.

  ‘What is wrong is that this part of the world seems to be on the brink of war,’ Dafydd snapped. ‘And that was my dream!’ He gathered his reins. ‘Or at least part of it.’ He kicked the cob into a trot.

  The other two followed him in silence as they headed south across the treed parkland. It was a while before they spoke again. Catrin kicked her pony alongside the men. ‘So, are you going to tell me what happened? Why did we have to leave? Lady Grey had guests coming today. I was to play for them.’ Trying to swallow her disappointment she reined in her pony. ‘Stop!’ she shouted in frustration. ‘Tell me what has happened!’

  Edmund halted the horses. He looked at Dafydd, who was slumped in the saddle, his face grey with exhaustion. ‘Will you tell her or shall I?’ His tone was bordering on the hostile.

  Dafydd scowled at him. ‘I remember nothing,’ he said hoarsely.

  Catrin slid from her pony’s saddle and pulled the reins over its head, hitching it to a tree. She looked grimly at Edmund. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘He had a dream.’ Edmund glanced at Dafydd.

  Catrin’s heart sank. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was sleeping in the great hall with a couple of dozen other men. At least, I thought I was sleeping,’ Dafydd said at last. ‘I was wrapped in my cloak. It had been a good evening. Sir Reginald never appeared. Nor did most of his household. They said he was away, as was his steward. It didn’t matter. There were others there. At first there was some hostility when they realised I was Welsh, but I sang in English and it went well. They enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. We settled down. I slept. I remember no more.’ He glanced at Edmund again.

  Catrin’s eyes were fixed on his face. ‘That is not true, Father. You always remember your dreams,’ she snapped.

  ‘They told me he was snoring peacefully, but then he grew restless,’ Edmund put in. ‘Then he began to shout in his sleep. He was in great distress. They couldn’t wake him so someone came to fetch me.’ He hesitated. ‘I have never seen anything like it.’ He stopped again as if he were unable to go on. ‘He was screaming. He sat up and threw off his cloak. His eyes were open, staring, but I knew he was seeing nothing. At least …’ he waited as if hoping Dafydd would speak, ‘he was seeing nothing outwardly. And he was yelling and shouting. Luckily he was speaking Welsh so they understood nothing. Lord Grey’s household is English. I doubt there are any Welsh speakers there. I hope not,’ he added fervently. ‘He was seeing something in his dream, something so bad—’ he broke off as Dafydd straightened his shoulders.

  Dafydd looked at Catrin. ‘I was seeing blood,’ he said slowly, dragging the words out of the inner depths of his soul. ‘I was seeing fire. I was seeing death. I was seeing this nation torn apart.’

  Catrin felt a trickle of ice crawling through her body. Blood. Fire. Death. Those were the words he had written and then scratched out again and again on that scrap of parchment back in the spring.

  ‘He woke everyone,’ Edmund went on as Dafydd lapsed back into silence. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘As I said, I doubt if many, or any of them spoke Welsh, but I’m pretty sure they got the gist of it.’ With a sigh he looked round at the thick undergrowth in the distance. Alongside the road the cover had been scythed back, and there were sheep grazing on the shorter grass. Ancient oak trees sheltered the coverts where no doubt the Lord of Ruthin enjoyed good hunting. There was no sign of anyone else on the road.

  Catrin was staring at her father’s face in bewildered concern when abruptly Edmund put his hand on her arm. She jumped. His fingers tightened. ‘Get back on your pony and ride slowly on,’ he whispered. ‘Now. Don’t look round. There are horsemen in the shadow of the trees over there, in the distance. A lot of them. I don’t know who they are, but I don’t intend to find out. Just act casually. You too, Master Dafydd.’ He looked anxiously at him. ‘Follow her. I’ll walk to the tree and relieve myself. It will serve as a reason we have stopped, and it will give me a chance to look round again, then I will follow on. I don’t know if they have seen us, but with luck they won’t do anything about it if they have. Hopefully they will know we were guests in the castle and leave us alone.’

  Catrin obeyed him without argument. Her mouth dry with fear, she untied her pony, scrambled onto the saddle and turned back onto the road. Her father followed. Neither of them looked round. Catrin’s fingers tightened on the pouch in her pocket that Lady Grey had given her. She hadn’t even opened it. If it were stolen now she would never know what was in it.

  She heard the click of hooves behind her. Edmund was following with the mule. Somehow she managed to keep herself calm. If the horses sensed her fear they would start to play up. She kept her eyes on the track ahead to where it curved out of sight between thick stands of trees.

  She almost cried out in fear when she felt a hand on her stirrup. Edmund had caught her up. He pressed the lead rein of the mule into her hand. ‘Ride on slowly. They can’t see us now but they can probably hear the hooves on the stones. I’m going to double back and see what they’re up to.’

  ‘No!’ Catrin reached out to him but he had gone, flitting like a shadow across the broad grassy verge and into the undergrowth.

  ‘Stupid boy,’ Dafydd muttered. ‘He’ll get us all killed.’ He seemed finally to have gathered his wits. His eyes had cleared and he was sitting straight on his horse. He looked at Catrin. ‘We have to go on. I have to speak to Lord Owain. This concerns him.’ He shivered. ‘This concerns him absolutely.’

  There was nothing for it anyway but to ride on as though nothing had happened, first through soft loam under the scattered trees then onto a stony track, then on again, intensely aware that any moment a band of men might erupt out of the undergrowth behind them. There was no sign of Edmund.

  ‘Perhaps he imagined it,’ Catrin broke the silence.

  ‘I don’t think so. That boy is quite acute,’ Dafydd said.

  Catrin could feel her shoulders tense beneath her cloak as though expecting any minute to feel an arrow between her shoulder blades. Her stomach was tight with fear.

  ‘It would be more normal to talk,’ Dafydd said testily.

  Catr
in gave a wan smile. ‘It would indeed. Are we on the right road?’

  Her father nodded. ‘We should be near Llangollen by noon. Edmund says Sycharth is another half-day’s ride south from there.’ He glared round. ‘If we are spared.’

  Catrin leaned forward to pat her pony’s neck. ‘They would have accosted us by now if they were going to.’ She breathed a quiet prayer to the Blessed Virgin that her confident words were right.

  ‘So, where is Edmund then?’ Dafydd grumbled. ‘He is supposed to protect us.’

  ‘He hasn’t done a bad job of it so far.’ Catrin screwed up her nose. ‘Perhaps he went to distract them before they saw us.’ She was not going to admit how exposed she felt without his solid presence beside them. He might irritate her unbearably and drive her to distraction with his plodding gentleness with the horses and with her father, but now he was gone she felt bereft and very vulnerable.

  ‘Keep going. You know what he said,’ her father muttered beside her.

  She did not realise she had allowed the horses to drift to a standstill. Her pony put its head down and tore at a clump of grass. She jerked at the reins. ‘If he doesn’t come soon we’ll stop at the next brook to water the horses and wait for him for a while.’

  Her father was squinting into the distance. ‘We are coming out of the deer park here. The road will be more open soon. If they were going to attack us they would have done it by now,’ he said.

  She looked around nervously. In her heart she knew he was right, but even so she felt uncomfortable. She could feel a strange prickling at the back of her neck. They were being watched, she was sure of it. ‘I wish Edmund would come back.’ She regretted saying it as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

  Her father gave a humourless laugh. ‘So he’s not so bad after all, eh? All your head-tossing and indignation and resentment, but you can’t do without him when you get scared!’

  ‘I’m not scared!’

  ‘Well you should be. There are outlaws in these woods. They were telling me last night.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘In the pay of the Lord Glyndŵr, so they said.’

  ‘And you guided us onto this road.’ Catrin stared at him in horror.

  ‘It is the way to Sycharth,’ he protested. ‘How else are we going to get there?’

  She was speechless. The fact that her father could be so careless of their safety was beyond horrific.

  ‘So, where is Edmund?’ she said again. ‘Surely he should have caught us up by now.’ They both reined in their horses and turned to look back the way they had come. The road was empty but now suddenly Catrin knew with absolute certainty that someone was out there, watching them.

  Andy stretched out and slowly she opened her eyes. She had been afraid of going to bed, of falling asleep and dreaming, but now she was reluctant to let go of the dream. It had been exciting, fascinating. She had been on horseback with Catrin and Catrin’s father, hacking through the wooded hills. She could picture the trees, the sunlight shining down through the branches, smell the fresh scent of leaves and loam and grasses and even more immediate the rich savoury aroma of horse, a smell that took her back to her childhood. She raised her fingers to her nose, almost expecting to smell the horse sweat on them, the warm damp feel of the animal’s neck under the coarse hair of its mane. There was nothing. She could still smell faintly the shower gel on her hands from the night before.

  She pushed back the covers, swung her legs over the side of the bed and was about to stand up when she heard the voice again in her head.

  Blood. Fire. Death.

  She sank back with a shiver. Not all of the dream had been pleasant. She remembered now. Dafydd had had a nightmare, Dafydd the prophet. And that was what the old bards did, didn’t they? They prophesied, be it glory or doom and destruction. Somehow they knew the future. She stood up, raising her hands to push her hair off her face, then groaned unexpectedly. She was aching all over. Her legs were in agony, her shoulders stiff. It was as if – she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge the fact – it was as if she had been on a long ride.

  She stood for a long time under the shower, trying to ease the ache from her shoulders, then she went downstairs. Opening the back door she looked out into a garden wet with rain and smelling of autumn. Behind her Pepper was sitting by his empty bowl looking faintly reproving. Having fed him, she found a few scraps of paper in Sue’s desk. While she made toast for breakfast she started to make notes about her experiences of the night before.

  Dreams could be vivid. Dreams could seem very real. Dreams could leave you exhausted. All those things were well-known facts. Nothing to get excited about; nothing out of the ordinary. But definitely something to think about.

  Another well-known fact: the more one recalled one’s dreams, the more one could recall. It was a matter of practice. And it was important to write it all down at once. If possible, without thinking. Too much thinking and one’s recall began to shift. A dedicated notebook began to look more and more imperative.

  Another well-known fact: bits of paper got lost and out of order.

  Andy ran into Ella Pascoe in the paper shop as she stacked two notebooks and a pack of pens onto the counter and fished for her purse. ‘So, how are things?’ Ella asked as they walked out of the shop together.

  ‘OK.’ Andy grinned at her. ‘I’m being drawn into the history of the house. I would love to know a bit more about it some time when you’ve both got time.’

  ‘I’m not the expert, that’s Roy,’ Ella replied. ‘But if you’ve got a bit of time now, d’you fancy a coffee?’ She had a newspaper under her arm. ‘Roy and I take turns to take an hour off in the morning to read the paper. Coffee and cake is the order of the day, at least for me. A shocking and unhealthy habit, but I enjoy it. I would much rather talk to you and leave the paper until later.’

  Andy led the way round the corner and into Shepherds overlooking the Cheese Market and the castle square. By the time they had collected their drinks and in her case a flapjack and in Ella’s a piece of carrot cake, she had made up her mind to confide in her about her dreams.

  They found themselves a table in the window. Ella rested her elbows on the table and scrutinised her face with interest as she listened.

  ‘Is this delighting you or frightening you?’ she said.

  Andy smiled. ‘Mostly delight. But a few of the dreams are quite violent.’

  Ella looked shocked. ‘Violent as in …?’

  ‘They’re about war and the fear of war.’ Andy leaned forward. Ella said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

  ‘The latest dream was about a journey they’re making on horseback up through the border March. It’s all so real, so detailed; I woke thinking I must check out the facts to see if they are facts.’ She paused, watching Ella cut her slice of cake into quarters. Absent-mindedly she gathered up the crumbs into a little pile, pressed her finger onto the pile, then licked it.

  ‘Do you know what date you’re dreaming about?’

  Andy hesitated. ‘I don’t think they’ve mentioned any specific dates.’ She kept her answer deliberately vague. ‘They set off in the early summer.’

  ‘Which any traveller would if they were planning a long journey on horseback.’ Ella put one of her squares of cake delicately into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. ‘This sounds very intriguing. Do I gather you honestly think you’re dreaming about something which might have actually happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t see how I could be,’ Andy conceded.

  ‘Maybe you’re reliving a novel you’ve read or a TV programme or a film?’

  Andy gave a rueful nod. ‘I suppose that’s one explanation.’

  ‘So, are you dreaming in episodes, like a serial? Does the story pick up where you left off each time you dream?’ Ella went on, obviously intrigued.

  ‘Pretty much. I came into town to buy a couple of notebooks so I could write down everything I could remember.’ Andy pointed at her bag, sitting on the floor beside her chair, her purch
ases sticking out of the top.

  ‘Sensible.’ Ella smiled. She paused, looking out of the window up towards the castle, where its jagged silhouette rose black against the sky. A flock of jackdaws was swirling above it, noisily squabbling over the best perches on the bare branches of the surrounding trees. ‘Have you seen Hay Castle in the dream?’

  She shook her head. ‘They’ve been to a lot of castles on their journey, but not Hay. The last one was called Ruthin.’

  Ella put down her fork and stared at Andy. ‘Ruthin? In the Vale of Clwyd? Are you sure? That’s way up north of here. There’s a hotel there. Perhaps you’ve stayed there? I’m sure one can find photos of it online.’ She nibbled another square of cake. ‘Are these the only dreams you have? About Catrin and her family? You don’t dream about anything else?’

  Andy paused for a fraction of a second. ‘No.’

  Andy saw Ella glance up at her hesitation, but she said nothing and Andy wasn’t going to enlighten her. Her other dreams were her business alone. She wasn’t ready to share information about her visits to Kew. She wasn’t even sure they counted as dreams.

  ‘Another coffee?’ Ella’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  ‘That would be nice.’ Andy was enjoying the other woman’s company. She was lonely, she realised. It was a relief to sit in a warm, crowded little coffee shop with someone to talk to.

  It took Ella several minutes to queue at the counter. When she returned Andy had taken out one of her new notebooks and begun to scribble in it. ‘I’m going to make a note of anything I can remember. I don’t think the dreams come from something I’ve read or watched. I’ve got a good memory, I would know,’ she said firmly. ‘I wonder if I’ve in some way plugged into these people’s lives through the house. It all seems to fit, at least at the beginning it did.’ She ignored the thoughtful expression on Ella’s face. ‘But now I wonder if Catrin or her father are driving the dreams?’ She meant it as a serious question.