Sleeper’s Castle

  ‘He has to be buried, Edmund,’ she whispered. ‘We can’t leave him here.’

  He stared round the ruins of the room. ‘I will do it. Come outside. I will bury him in the garden.’

  It took him a long time. He found a spade lying outside the barn. The ground mercifully was soft and wet. He would not let her help and he would not let her watch as he dragged the charred, mangled body outside and lowered it into the makeshift grave. Only then did he let her toss some winter flowers in on top of her father’s corpse and murmur prayers for his soul. He shovelled the earth back into the grave, and watched while she transplanted a clump of marigolds into the angry red soil.

  As it began to rain they went to find the horses in the paddock. When they left they had Dafydd’s old cob with them.

  On the way up the track towards the mountain Catrin insisted they stop. She left Edmund holding the three horses as she scrambled down into the cwm and across the brook to say goodbye to Efa.

  The cottage had gone. There was no sign of it ever having been there. There were no burnt scars, no tumbled stones, nothing but wisps of mist which clung over the clumps of wild herbs and came curling and caressing round her skirts. She smiled and raised a hand in farewell then she made her way back to Edmund.

  Once more they stopped, to look for the last time towards the ruins of Sleeper’s Castle below them in the valley, then they urged the horses on and rode forward up into the clouds that cloaked the mountains.

  ‘Wait!’ Andy called. ‘Wait, let me come too.’

  They didn’t hear her.

  Bryn stood up. He had been dozing in the chair in the corner of the room. He stood looking down at her for several seconds then he touched her gently on the cheek. ‘Time to wake up, Andy. It’s over now.’

  He had watched her sleep, watched her murmur and cry out, watched her sob with Catrin as she stood at the edge of her father’s grave and looked down with her at her father’s body as she whispered the Latin words of the Mass.

  The whole time Andy had lain in her bed, barely moving.

  ‘Andy?’ he called again.

  Her eyes opened. ‘I know what we have to do,’ she said almost to herself. She sat up slowly, slid out of the bed and walked towards the door.

  ‘Andy?’ he called again. ‘Are you awake?’

  She didn’t hear him. She pulled open the door and walked slowly, barefoot, down the stairs across the hall and into the kitchen. Halfway across the room she hesitated. Pepper had been sitting on the table. He looked at her and Bryn saw his fur rise on end as he fled out through the cat flap.

  Andy didn’t appear to see him. She reached for the key, turned it and pulled the door open. Stepping outside, still barefoot, she walked over the icy flags towards the lawn. There, almost at the first of the herb beds, she stopped and looked down. ‘Here,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Dafydd is buried here. He will not rest until he is given Christian burial somewhere away from here. He doesn’t want to be here any more.’

  Bryn came and stood beside her. ‘Are you sure?’ She was staring down at the ground. ‘Andy?’ He took her arm. ‘Andy, can you hear me?’ He pulled her against him gently. ‘Andy, your feet are freezing. Come inside. We will deal with the grave later.’

  ‘Where did they go?’ She turned to him and for a moment he thought she was awake. Then he saw the fixed gaze; the dilated pupils were still there.

  ‘We will find out where they went,’ he whispered. ‘I promise.’

  ‘They never returned to Sleeper’s Castle,’ she said. She let him lead her back towards the house. ‘They never returned to the valley. The house fell into ruins. No one would live here. People thought it was haunted.’

  He managed to guide her into the kitchen and he closed the door behind them, turning the key. Perhaps now she would sleep and wake normally. He led her through into the hall. ‘Shall I light the fire?’ he asked. He pushed her onto the sofa and covered her with one of the rugs, tucking it carefully around her cold wet feet.

  ‘That would be nice,’ she answered him. She lay back and closed her eyes.

  He waited patiently, watching her, but she lay still. He piled up kindling and logs and lit the fire in the hearth, the hearth which had stood on that same spot for six hundred years. He watched it spark and crackle, saw the flames lick across the logs. The room filled with the scent of burning oak and apple.

  He threw himself down in the old leather armchair in the corner and set himself to watch her.

  Secrets can be kept by hundreds, perhaps thousands of people and yet not divulged. Edmund was one of those who knew the greatest secret of all: where they needed to go for help.

  He did not take Catrin home; he left her hidden in the woods above his parents’ farm while he collected a few of her belongings, packed by Joan, and the old mule she and Betsi had brought with them with the pony from Sleeper’s Castle. His father’s horses might have been remembered as they passed through the countryside; her father’s old cob and the pony might have been recognised. He said goodbye to his mother, explaining he was going to seek his fortune in London and would one day return home a rich man, bade her tell the same to his father, and then he slipped out into the cold dawn and headed south, leading the mule.

  In the event they were not going far. They travelled on byways and drovers’ roads, keeping to the high hills, off the beaten track, following the line of the Golden Valley southwards, cautiously skirting farmsteads and villages, avoiding all signs of habitation. This was true border country, the hills of Wales to the west and the valley and the verdant fields of Herefordshire to the east. It wasn’t far, their journey, perhaps twenty miles in all, but it took them four days, four days where they met no one.

  They slept at night huddled together in barns and sheepfolds, sharing the space with the mule to help keep them warm. And still Edmund had not told Catrin where they were going.

  She was very quiet, still shocked by everything that had happened to her and by the death of her father. Sometimes she clung to Edmund and sometimes she walked apart, following behind or wandering off at an angle away from the track to sit beside a pool staring into the peaty waters, or under a tree. While she was doing this, slowly recovering her strength, he allowed the mule to drift to a standstill and graze the grasses and herbs along the track while he sat and patiently waited. Sometimes he dozed, sometimes he whittled a piece of wood. Sometimes he would go and sit beside her, and when she didn’t move away he would put his arm round her and let her nestle into his shoulder. He knew that they had to discuss her father’s treachery, so she would understand how Dafydd’s jealousy of her talent had been allowed to fester until it had grown into a bloated, irrational canker inside him. Once she understood why he had done it, once she faced the truth of his terrible betrayal, maybe then she could put her memories to rest.

  Edmund had chosen the man to whom he had paid the bribe well. Many people in Hay had sided with the Lord Owain, many had rejoiced when his cause was in the ascendant all across Wales, but when the prince disappeared into the mountain mists for the last time their support was replaced by pragmatism and many quietly returned to their previous lives. A wise and intelligent king chose to pardon all but a few. He could not wholly defeat a nation, but he could encourage them to follow him. The vicious laws which so damaged the Welsh people were still in place but where the local administrators were sensible and sympathetic they were set aside or forgotten. John Bedell’s men-at-arms in Hay had been hired for their competence and ability to man the castle walls. He had been no happier than they to single out a lonely young woman merely on the word of the bitter old man who was her father. Fathers do not condemn their own daughters to almost certain death.

  The bribe had been accepted, carefully shared out where necessary, and the door to Catrin’s cell opened and closed again. If enquiry was ever made into her whereabouts by the authorities it was greeted by bewildered incomprehension and denial.

  Who it was who murdered Dafydd ap Hywell ap
Gruffydd and burned Sleeper’s Castle was never established and never would be. The house was to lie in ruins for decades, sleeping. Biding its time.

  Edmund told her of her father’s duplicity as they sat by a small fire in a clearing in a forest on a lonely hillside. She listened in silence, hugging her knees as she gazed into the flames.

  ‘I think I had guessed as much,’ she whispered. ‘As I sat in that cell I had plenty of time to think. He came to hate me, I never knew why. I did everything I could to look after him.’

  ‘But the one thing he couldn’t forgive, you couldn’t do anything about,’ Edmund said. ‘Your poetry was better than his, your voice was lovelier than his and your playing of the harp was like the sound of angels.’

  She gave a sad little smile. ‘I did not go out of my way to make it like that.’

  ‘I know.’ He hugged her closer. ‘You couldn’t help it. You were blessed.’

  She didn’t speak for a long time. ‘I miss my harp,’ she said at last.

  He grinned. ‘We have it with us.’

  She pulled free of his arm so she could turn and look at him. ‘Where?’

  ‘What did you think was in that pannier which bumps so uncomfortably beside the others on the mule’s back?’

  She stared at him, speechless, then her face broke into an incredulous smile. ‘I thought it must have been burnt with all my books.’

  He shook his head. ‘Joan rescued much from your coffers and I brought the rest after you were captured. Anything that was left in the house must have been destroyed or looted, but your books and your most precious things are here with us in the packs.’

  She stared into the darkness beyond the fire where the mule’s harness and the bulky panniers were piled in the lee of the crumbling stone wall which was sheltering them from the wind.

  ‘I am not sure what condition everything is in, to be honest, but you will be able to sort it out I am sure.’

  She was smiling for the first time since they had started their journey. Scrambling to her feet, she went over to the packs and felt carefully for the soft leather bag that contained her little harp. She took it out and unwrapped it. Bringing it back to the fire she sat down and set it on her knee, pulling it back against her shoulder. She touched a string and scowled. ‘Poor thing, it is sadly out of tune.’

  Edmund smiled. ‘I should think so, after the adventures it has had.’

  Two strings were broken and the wooden frame was split, but still it was able to sing. After several minutes of tuning and gentling she stroked the instrument into a soft lullaby. Edmund looked round. Were the trees themselves listening? He thought so, and the wind had eased for a while to pluck an accompaniment from the bracken and heather on the hillside above them.

  She played two tunes and then she set the harp aside. ‘There is something I have to tell you,’ she said.

  He frowned at her, sensing her change of mood.

  ‘When I was in the castle my ghost came with me. Andy, the woman from Sleeper’s Castle.’ She hesitated. ‘She guessed before I did.’ She paused nervously. ‘I sometimes wonder if she was left behind, a prisoner in that cell. I hope and pray she wasn’t.’

  ‘Guessed what?’ He leant across and took her hand again. He wasn’t interested in the ghost.

  ‘I am expecting a child, Edmund. Your child.’

  There, she had said it. She held her breath, not daring to look him in the face.

  He couldn’t speak. He didn’t realise how tightly he was holding her hand until she pulled away with a yelp of pain, then he smiled. ‘Cat! My darling. My cariad!’ He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her. ‘We will be a proper family. We will be married as soon as we can.’

  ‘But the law will punish you if you marry a Welsh woman,’ she protested.

  ‘Then the law is a fool.’ He kissed her again.

  ‘Will you tell me now where we are going?’ she asked when she could get her breath back.

  ‘Tomorrow you will see, I promise.’ He smiled. ‘Until then it is a surprise.’

  ‘Bryn?’

  Andy’s voice in his ear startled Bryn into wakefulness. He stared round, trying to get his bearings. He had been dreaming of an open hillside with a small campfire in the lee of a wall, and the music of a harp.

  He cleared his throat and sat up. ‘I’m sorry. I dozed off.’

  She smiled. ‘And so did I, and I didn’t dream at all, or not that I remember. I rang the hospital,’ she went on. ‘They said Roy was stable. We’re to ring again in the morning.’

  ‘And Ella?’

  ‘Her phone went to voicemail.’

  He looked down at his hands, still trying to clear his head. ‘You said you didn’t dream. Maybe that’s because the dream was mine.’

  She came and sat down near him by the hearth. ‘What does that mean?’

  He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I dreamt about Catrin and Edmund. She worried about you, you know. She realised you were left behind in the castle. She said you told her she was pregnant.’

  Andy was staring at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘They escaped together down the Golden Valley and they had a mule with them with panniers on its back and Edmund had brought her harp.’ He hesitated, still trying to remember. ‘She played it on the mountainside in the dark. It was magical. Edmund told her again that it was her father who had betrayed her.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And this time she believed him. He had a grisly end but he deserved it after doing something so despicable. What a jealous old git! His own daughter!’

  Andy was beginning to smile. ‘And that’s the story?’

  ‘That’s the story.’

  ‘Where did they go? What happened to them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Someone woke me up!’

  She looked crestfallen. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Perhaps we will find out one day.’

  They sat for several minutes in silence, staring into the fire as it crackled in the hearth. The air in the room was heavy with the scent of the burning logs. Andy reached out and took his hand. ‘Thank you for staying with me. And for rescuing me from the castle.’

  ‘Meryn did that.’

  She gave a little grimace. ‘You were both there for me. I am so grateful. I’m sorry I was such a grumpy bitch.’ She was silent for a while. ‘Has Dafydd gone now?’

  Bryn sighed. ‘I don’t know. I feel if he is still buried out there in the lawn he should be moved. Maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe that’s what he always wanted.’

  She nodded. ‘Until he’s buried properly he can’t rest. And maybe not until Cat forgives him.’

  ‘How do you know she hasn’t?’

  She gave a wry smile. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘But once he is at rest, then perhaps we can forget about all this. You can get on with the rest of your life.’ Bryn stretched and stood up.

  ‘Once they’ve caught Rhona,’ she murmured.

  ‘Once they’ve caught Rhona,’ he echoed. He glanced up at the window, and was immediately intensely aware of the emptiness of the garden outside. It was so easy to imagine the woman out there watching them. He shuddered. Walking across to the window he pulled the heavy curtains across on their wooden rings.

  Over the sound of the rattle they made neither of them heard the scream of the cat in the dark outside.

  31

  Sian was at home with the dogs when the phone rang. She groped in her pocket for her mobile.

  ‘Sian. It’s Ella!’

  ‘Ella? What’s wrong?’ She could hear the tears in Ella’s voice.

  ‘It’s Roy. He’s been stabbed.’

  Sian stood up. ‘What do you mean, stabbed? Where are you?’

  ‘Abergavenny. They brought him here in the air ambulance. He’s in surgery.’

  ‘Oh, Ella. What happened?’

  ‘The police won’t tell me anything. Just that he was stabbed. He was walking on the hill behind Sleeper’s Castle.’

  ‘It was Rhona, wasn’t it?’ Sian w
as pacing up and down the carpet. The two dogs were watching her anxiously.

  ‘I suppose so. Meryn warned us about her. Oh, Sian!’

  ‘Is there anyone there with you?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry. My sister is on her way.’

  Sian could hear her sniffing. ‘If you need me, Ella, I’ll come.’

  ‘No. I’m OK. Just pray for Roy. Please.’

  Sian had only just put the phone down when it rang again. She picked it up. It was Sue.

  For a moment she couldn’t grasp what Sue was saying. Sue in Australia. Sue who had no clue that the world around her home had just fallen apart.

  Sue was laughing. ‘Listen, Sian, I have some news.’

  Sian walked slowly into her kitchen and sat down at the table, listening. It was impossible to get a word in edgeways even if she wanted to. Her dogs followed her in. One of them came and rested his head on her knee.

  ‘I’m getting married!’ The Australian voice was ringing round the kitchen, full of excitement. ‘Joe came over to find me.’

  ‘Sue!’ Sian found her voice at last. ‘Congratulations! How wonderful.’

  ‘Isn’t it, though?’ Sue was positively bubbling. ‘I’d missed him so much, the old bugger.’ She laughed, then she sobered again. ‘We’re going to live out here, Sian. It’s perfect. I’d forgotten how much I love it here with the family nearby and everything. This is home.’ For the first time she hesitated. ‘So, you can guess why I’m ringing.’

  Sian’s mind had gone blank. ‘You want me to come?’ she hazarded blindly.

  Sue laughed. ‘Of course I want you to come, but there’s something else. Sleeper’s Castle – I’m going to sell it.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Sian? Are you there?’ Sue’s voice echoed down the line. ‘Did you hear what I said?’