Finding Camlann (20 page)

THERE IS A
particular quality of Welshness in a Radnorshire house, an unmistakable character that merges architecture and setting in such a way that no one would mistake it for an English dwelling. Ty Faenor, a small seventeenth-century manor house located at the eastern end of the Cwmhir valley, draws so strongly on these qualities that a casual passer-by might scarcely remark on this strongly made, compact stone building, so well does it harmonise with its surroundings. This impression of belonging is heightened by a certain fickleness in the colour of its building stone, which was brought in from the quarries at Llanddulas when it could not be pillaged from the ruins of Cwmhir Abbey. Ty Faenor chooses its moods according to the weather, glowing a rich golden-brown in the sunshine, shading dark and sombre when the clouds move in. The old wood-framed windows have lost any sense of symmetry they may once have had, giving the house a lopsided, watchful expression as it looks out across the fields to the gently rising, tree-clad hills rising on either side of Cwm Cyncoed.

Julia has the disturbing impression that this curious inanimate scrutiny is focused entirely on her as she walks up to the main entrance of the house. She has always felt a stranger in this place where the weight of Mortimer history lies a little too heavily on the land. It was here in the twelfth century (as Hugh, speaking in a half-apologetic sort of way, is fond of reminding his visitors) that an earlier Hugh Mortimer, Earl of Hereford, drove out the Cistercian monks from their first monastic establishment in the Cwmhir valley. Ty Faenor is Hugh’s perfect retreat, a place he made entirely his own in the years after his father’s death, returning to it some of the dignity it had lost since his grandfather’s day.

Ordinarily this is a working, bustling farm, though all is strangely quiet now. Julia cannot help noticing something she has not seen before, a creeping dilapidation, repairs not attended to, gates sagging on their hinges, fences in need of a new coat of paint. These small signs of neglect seem to her the symptoms of a gradually spreading sickness, a malaise that is working its way into every human structure on the estate.

Hugh is there now at the front door, dressed in whatever clothes were to hand, scruffy blue jeans and an old cotton shirt, brown leather boots on his feet with the laces untied. Two day of stubble are showing again on his face. He carries it off with his usual air of untidy elegance; the right kind of smile, Julia thinks, the right turn of phrase, and he might become again the charismatic man she once knew, the man she fell hopelessly in love with in the distant Oxford past.

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ Hugh says. His tone is not unfriendly, but ambiguous; it sets her teeth on edge. ‘I was going to drive over to Dyffryn later on.’

‘Can I come in?’ These four simple words are in themselves a confession that any sense of ownership Julia might once have felt here has fallen entirely away.

Hugh kisses her on the cheek, lays a hand on her shoulder as he guides her gently inside. It seems a finely calibrated gesture, as if rehearsed thoroughly on some imaginary wife, one who is newly bereaved and on the verge of estrangement. He leads her through a narrow entrance hall whose dark beams are gently sagging away from the perpendicular, reinforcing the impression that the house is flowing away downh kng ll whosill.

‘Do you mind sitting in here?’ Hugh says, ushering her into the panelled library where an electric heater has been switched on to take the chill out of the air.

‘Of course, this is fine. Where is everyone today?’

‘Ralph took them up to work on the top fields this morning.’ He makes to follow her into the room, then changes his mind. ‘Give me a few minutes, would you?’

Julia casts her eye about the library, the tall, mostly empty shelves where the Ty Faenor collection was housed for several hundred years before Hugh donated the manuscripts to the Bodleian. It was Caradoc Bowen who made the arrangements for the removal of the books after the plans for the Cwmhir dam were announced.

There are several heavy box files marked ‘Mortimer’ lying out on a table, sequentially numbered, full of materials for Hugh’s family history. They are covered with a film of greyish dust. Walking over to a shelf that has been repopulated with books, Julia takes down a volume at random, a collection of early farming photographs published by the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society. The inscription on the flyleaf is written in a graceful old-fashioned script:
To Hugh, on his tenth birthday. From his affectionate grandfather, C.J.M
. Although she never met Sir Charles Mortimer, her strong impression of him from Hugh’s stories is of a kindly but reclusive man who felt a strong and abiding kinship with this house. It was here that Hugh would visit his grandfather in his last years; and it was here that Sir Charles first explained to Hugh, at the impressionable age of fourteen, that his red-blooded Welsh ancestry drawn from the line of Glyn D
ŵ
r was at least as powerful as his Anglo-Norman Mortimer descent.

The creaking of the door alerts Julia to Hugh’s return. He has showered and shaved, nicking himself twice on the chin. ‘I’ve just put those books back on the shelf,’ he says. ‘I had them all boxed up and taken off to storage years ago, the ones that didn’t go to the Bodleian.’

It is a tenuous enough opening, but Julia seizes on it. ‘Because of the dam, do you mean? Could they really have made you abandon the house?’

‘Bowen was quite sure of it.’ Hugh looks at her in his steady, unreadable way. ‘When I first met him, he was standing just where you are now. I came into the room to find him scouring the shelves for some book or other. He had discovered the Siôn Cent manuscript here many years before, and he would come back every so often, at my grandfather’s invitation, to see what else he could find. I was only a small boy, and it was terrifying to run into him unexpectedly like that, the way he turned and stared at me.’

Julia has a feeling that she is being manipulated, set up for some confession or revelation to follow. ‘What made you think of that?’

‘I had a telephone call from Caradoc Bowen this morning, out of the blue. Have you spoken to him recently, by any chance?’

In the long, quiet moment that follows, Julia runs helplessly through the possibilities. It is not hard to see what must have happened. Donald’s conversation with Bowen has somehow raised the ghost of the professor’s long-dead relationship with Hugh. A faint, creeping nausea begins to take hold. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘I’m not quite sure, Julia.’ His voice is calm, measured, as if he is making some commonplace observation. ‘Maybe it’s bec k he is ause you can’t leave the past alone, because you want to strip away the disappointing, middle-aged Hugh Mortimer, the one you don’t like so much, to see if you can get back to the much better Hugh from the old days when everything was so much simpler. Am I close to the mark?’

Julia walks away to the other side of the room. She feels surprisingly self-assured, confident in what she is about say. ‘I haven’t spoken to Bowen since before we were married,’ she says. ‘But since you brought it up, here’s what I think, Hugh. I think you lied to me about what happened in Rhayader that autumn. I think you got yourself caught up in it somehow, despite all your promises to me. On your own, you might have stayed away, but Caradoc Bowen forced you into it. Now I want to know what really happened.’

Hugh takes half a step towards her. Seeing the competing emotions in his face, she wonders whether he means to reach out for her hand, draw her into some desperate embrace. But he stops himself short, steadies himself, as if correcting a momentary loss of balance. ‘There are some things you just can’t ask me, Julia. Can you please try to understand?’ He lingers there, waiting for her answer, but she has nothing more to say to him.

DONALD
’
S WORK ON
the Amesbury report is interrupted by the arrival of Tim Watson, hands thrust awkwardly in his pockets. ‘Sorry, boss, I know you didn’t want to be disturbed, but there’s a rather persistent female visitor waiting for you downstairs. Unwelcome, if I had to guess.’

Tim’s encryption is easy enough to read. ‘Tell her I’ll be down in a few minutes.’

‘Will do. There’s something else, though.’ He hands Donald a yellow slip of paper. ‘Phone message for you. She sounded disappointed you weren’t available. Julia—something Welsh?’

‘Llewellyn.’

‘That’s the one.’ Seeing the expression on Donald’s face, Tim softens his ebullient tone. ‘I hope I did the right thing, taking a message? She left a number, but said it would be better if you didn’t call her, she’ll try you again later.’

Down in the lobby, Lucy Trevelyan is in the process of unwrapping the richly embroidered, cloak-like garment that she has folded around her against the cold. She sweeps up to him and gives him a peck on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not staying. But I do have some news for you, my love.’

He can tell she has been drinking: it is well disguised, but he is perfectly attuned. ‘Did you drive here?’

‘Don’t be silly. I walked along the river.’ Lucy sits down on one of the chairs next to the deserted reception desk, stretches out her long booted legs. ‘Aren’t you even a little bit curious?’

‘I assume it’s good news, if you’ve already been celebrating.’

‘Champagne. I should have saved you some.’ Lucy smiles, pauses for effect. ‘I’ve just come from a meeting with my agent. She told me I’ve got myself a book contract. Aren’t you proud of me? I’ve been asked to write about Devil’s Barrow.’

Donald feels a small wave of dismay rolling over him. ‘To write what, exactly?’ kly?9;sp>

‘I’m going to tell the story of the priestess.
The Priestess and the Chalice
, that’s what I’m going to call it. Or maybe
The Last Prophetess
. Yes, I think that’s better.’

It takes a herculean effort not to let his reaction show in his face. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘Now you’re just trying to be nice,’ she says, smiling. ‘We’ll talk another day, OK? I’m just on my way back to St. Anne’s.’

‘I can give you a lift, if you like.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself, dearest, I’d rather walk. I’ll see myself out.’

Donald looks on with a tormented sort of fascination as Lucy strides out of the building and off towards the centre of town, cutting a swathe through the busy pedestrian traffic. He watches her until she is out of sight, then turns away, pushes the button for the lift.

He has been back at his desk for only a few moments when the telephone rings, a deafening blast. ‘Can we talk?’ The voice is very faint, as if from the other side of the world.

‘Julia?’

‘I need to explain what happened.’

Donald has his pencil in his hand, making cross-hatched geometric shapes on Tim Watson’s yellow message slip. ‘I’m listening.’ He waits for her to say the expected things, that their kiss on the Trevethey bridge was a mistake, that she had drunk too much wine, that they should forget it ever happened.

‘I didn’t mean to run away from you. My father died suddenly, and I had to leave. I’m very sorry.’

Whatever he says now will seem hollow and inadequate. ‘Please let me know what I can do to help.’

‘I’ll be back in Oxford next week. Can I call you?’

‘Yes, of course.’ These are precisely the words he has been hoping to hear; but there is a hint of nervousness, too, as he remembers what he has not yet told her. ‘There’s something else you should know, Julia. I spoke to Caradoc Bowen about the three waterfalls.’

‘And how did he react?’ Her tone seems neutral; or cold, perhaps, it is hard to tell.

‘I found a place on the map that seems to fit the description in the poem. We’re planning to meet in Rhayader on Saturday evening and drive out there together the following morning.’

‘Where will you stay?’

‘At the Black Lion.’

There is a small silence now on the line. ‘Please call me when you get to Rhayader,’ Julia says. ‘I’d like to come with you.’

HE DREAMS OF
a brilliant sunlit sky, of woods and fields rising up to meet the gentle lines of the hills that frame the broad valley floor. The air seems unnaturally quiet, as if the curfew-bell has rung half a day too soon. There is a rutted cart track underfoot, an arched stone bridge across the river. As he sets foot on it, there is a familiar tug of melancholy at the thought of leaving his Welsh homeland behind, of once more assuming the disguise that has kept him safe through all the years of his e kearmelxile. To his surprise, the bridge is empty, though this is a crossing much used by the local people when they travel to the English side.