Lamp Black, Wolf Grey (31 page)

“And Merlin? What of him?” The bread had turned to sawdust in her mouth.

“It is only known that he was wounded by Llewelyn, who himself lost a hand to a monstrous wolf that fought alongside Idris’s men. Merlin fled, but I heard Llewelyn assure my father that he … he could not have lived. I’m so sorry, Megan,” said Huw through heavy sobs.

“Hush, hush now.” Megan clutched instinctively at her stomach, as if to protect all that she had left of Merlin. Huw had confirmed what her dream had told her. What neither of them knew was the extent of Merlin’s wounds. Megan reasoned that the vision had been sent to her, and that must surely mean he lived. The old woman must have taken pity on him and staunched the flow of his blood. Llewelyn had failed to bring home a corpse, so he would naturally seek to convince Lord Geraint of the success of his mission. Megan believed the truth was very different, and she clung to that belief with all her fading might.

*   *   *

L
AURA WOKE WITH
a jolt. Her dreams had been vivid and disturbing, with images of Angus bleeding onto the rocks, of Rhys naked, and of the boys lost in a fog somewhere, with Steph shouting out their names over and over. At the end of it all Laura had heard another voice. Merlin’s voice. He had been calling her name.

She looked over at Dan. He was sleeping soundly, though she knew he, too, was tortured by what had happened on the mountain that day. She slipped from the bed, shivering despite the heavy white cotton nightshirt she had taken to wearing. Bright moonbeams fell through the gap in the curtains. She went to the window and looked outside. The landscape was illuminated by a fat full moon. There was not a breath of wind, and a sharp frost was crystallizing on the grass. Again, even though she was now fully awake, Laura was sure she heard Merlin calling her. She pulled on a long, warm skirt, quickly fastening its belt, slipped her feet into the nearest pair of sandals, and crept downstairs. Now that the wood-burning stove had gone out even the sitting room was cold. She took a Welsh tweed rug off the sofa and wrapped it around her shoulders before heading out the front door.

The luminous moon was so bright she had no need of a torch. She had never before seen such perfect moon shadows. Her own followed her now as she crossed the yard and walked through the meadows in the direction of the woods. Bats swooped low past her head as she walked. She was aware of small animals ahead of her scuttling away, startled by the unexpected human presence. Soon she had left the lights of the house behind her and entered the shady woods. From the roots of a lightning-scarred oak came the snortling grunts of a badger, his temper ruined by this unwelcome disturbance. The coolness of the air removed almost all of the forest scents, save for a pungent patch of fungus on a rotting beech trunk. Laura felt strangely unable to process the information her eyes were sending to her already unsettled mind. The light was so unusual, so opposite to what she ordinarily sought out for her work, that she had few points of reference with which to connect. What was normally burnt umber autumn fern was changed to a much paler yellow ocher. The moss beneath her feet was no longer Hooker’s dark green, but a soft sap green. The sky was dark beyond knowing, yet the stars were so brilliant it made her squint to look at them. The artist part of her brain, forever shouting to be heard, demanded she commit this ethereal scene to canvas at the earliest opportunity.

She walked on, not knowing where to, but certain she was following the sound of Merlin’s voice. She wanted to find him now. She needed to see him again. Alone and away from anyone who might remind her of the insanity of what she was doing. She passed the sloping oak and stepped out into the small glade beyond it. She stopped, waiting, completely sure he would appear. After a moment she could not resist speaking.

“Merlin?” It felt strange hearing her own voice, little more than a whisper, calling out his name. “I’m here,” she said.

“I knew you would come.”

Laura started. She had been searching the trees for the slightest movement, yet she had not noticed Merlin enter the clearing.

He reached forward and touched her hair. Then he stroked her cheek. Blood suffused her skin at that strangely familiar touch. They stood wordlessly regarding one another. She looked closely at Merlin, trying to read him, to know him. Nearby, an owl screeched and took flight.

“What is it you expect of me?” she asked him. ’You say our destinies are linked … but you don’t say how. I still don’t understand.”

“You will. In time, everything will become clear.” He was silent for a moment, his expression distant. When he spoke again his voice faltered, and Laura noticed with astonishment that he was trembling. “There was a time, here, in this place, when my fate was entwined with that of another. Our future together was uncertain, but we were full of the hope that love brings. Alas, such obstacles were strewn in our path, such wickedness pitched against us.… But now, with you, Laura, destiny has offered another chance. A chance for what was meant to be.”

“But, we can’t be together, you and I,” she said.

“No. Though I confess I wish that it were possible.” He smiled and then asked, “Tell me, do you believe in magic?”

She gave a nervous laugh. “I’m here talking to you, how could I not believe?”

Merlin took her hand and placed it on his own heart. Then he gently set his palm against her stomach. “Close your eyes,” he told her. “Close your eyes and make a wish. A single wish, for what it is you long for most in the world.”

The second her lids fell shut Laura felt a dizziness take hold of her. She staggered a little to keep her balance, but Merlin held her. She had the sensation she was falling, tipping backward and drifting down, down, down. Her head filled with the sound of distant thunder, starting low and then building to a tremendous wave of sound. She gasped, a little afraid. And then, suddenly, it all stopped. She felt Merlin’s gentle touch against her cheek once more, and then … nothing. When she opened her eyes she was standing alone in the glade. Alone save for the owls and the badgers, and the myriad tiny eyes watching her from their hiding places. Brushing tears away, she turned and hurried back toward the house.

13

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Laura found it hard to focus on the demands of everyday life. Dan had taken another day off work, and he and Steph were flying a kite with the boys in the high meadows. As Laura watched them from her studio window, she wondered that no one had apparently noticed anything strange about her. She felt herself irrevocably changed by the events of the night before. Her mind was still reeling, still marveling at what had happened. It was as though she no longer inhabited only the real world, but had stepped over into another alternative version that was constantly swirling about them. At the moment she stood astride the invisible divide, a foot in each reality, but how long could that last? Merlin’s hold over her, the bond she felt with him, her need for him, was making it impossible to stay grounded in her own life, with her husband, her home, the boys, and her art.

And then there was Rhys. She rubbed her temples, unwilling to even think about him now, yet knowing she had no choice. He was expecting her to go to the croft that night, and she was afraid of what he might do if she did not show up. She watched Steph in the field, laughing as Dan steadied her arm to help control the kite. They looked close and, for that moment at least, happy. Surely there couldn’t be any truth in Rhys’s suggestion? Steph and Dan—it was unthinkable. Just another convolution of Rhys’s bizarrely twisted mind. Another attempt to turn her away from Dan, and toward himself. How could he have known that there was someone else who held her in his thrall? Laura was beginning to question her own sanity. She only knew that the presence that had somehow drawn her to Penlan in the first place was Merlin’s. That the connection she felt with him was something real and unique and far beyond any passing lustful crush she had had on Rhys. But Merlin had said their time together was limited. That although their destinies were linked, they would not, could not, ultimately be together. It was a cruel fact to have to face. But face it she must. And when Merlin did finally move out of her reach, there would be Dan, waiting for her. Laura shook her head, certain, at that moment, that she did not deserve him. Watching Dan now she felt a stab of deep, deep sadness. This had been their new beginning. Somehow she had lost sight of that. Something strange and wonderful had happened to her. Something no one else could possibly understand. Something that had changed her forever. How could she ever go back to the way things were, to who she was before?

At least she was able to think clearly enough to know that she still loved Dan. And of course she loved Steph and Angus and the boys. It was for them that she would have to deal, once and for all, with Rhys. If she did not face him and tell him herself that it was over between them he would never believe her, she was sure of that. And it just might be that she was the only person who could deliver such news without him reacting with violence. However warped his sense of right and wrong, he loved her. He was besotted with her. She had to trust his obsession to keep her safe. She had thought long and hard about going to the police with what she knew, but how could she possibly make them believe her? Rhys had no feasible motive for hurting him. On top of which, she could not prove Rhys had pushed him or that he had deliberately removed the survival blanket. She could hardly back up her theories with the tangled rantings of an old woman and the word of someone who had, at least to everyone else, been dead for several hundred years. And if she voiced her thoughts to Dan and Steph, what then? Where would she start? She could never fully explain. She had brought the situation about, and it was up to her to stop things before anyone else got hurt. And if that meant squaring up to Rhys, then so be it. And maybe, just maybe, she could find some sort of proof for her theories. Something more than her own conjecture, so that she could go to the police. Perhaps then they could be rid of his dangerous presence once and for all.

*   *   *

M
EGAN DRIFTED IN
and out of a feverish sleep. The cold and the damp had assaulted her body, which now trembled and sweated and shivered, at once hot and chilled. She knew that such an illness could well be sufficient to kill her. She was already weak, and Huw’s visits over the past endless stretch of time had grown further apart and less frequent. On the last occasion he had failed to bring food and given her wine to drink. It had temporarily eased her suffering, but left her more in need of water than before. She feared for the tiny life inside her. How much more of such brutal privations could it survive? Would she herself hold out long enough for Merlin to find her? He had been badly wounded, of that she was certain. The small hole in the interior wall allowed not so much light in, as an impression of a less dense darkness. It was just enough to indicate morn from night. Because of this she was aware that many slow days had passed since her dream, days that could be added to form weeks. She had not heard his voice in all that time. Had the old woman failed to save him? Megan stroked the now grimy fabric of the dress over her belly and spoke to her child.

“There, my precious little one. Rest gently. We will wait for him together.” So saying she curled herself up like a cat on the rough floor, closed her eyes against the grimness, and rode the swell of her fever into sleep once more. Sometime later she heard unfamiliar noises. At first she thought she might be dreaming again, but no, these were sounds from the waking world. She sat up, staring at the inner wall, listening to the rhythmic thudding and scraping coming from the other side. Someone was digging.

“Megan?” Huw’s little voice squeezed through the gap they had made together.

“Huw? What is happening?”

“All is well, Megan. Fear no more. He is come to save you!”

“He?”

“I am here, Megan, my love. I am here.”

At the sound of the words—the voice—she had waited so long for, Megan was almost overcome.

“Merlin!” she sobbed. “Is it really you?”

“Stand back from the wall,” he told her. “I must use a heavy hammer.”

She did as he instructed, raising one arm to protect her eyes from the dust and dislodged masonry, while the other cradled her belly. The hammer blows sent shudders through both the wall and her entire body. She wondered no one in the castle heard them, or indeed felt them. Merlin worked on. She felt rather than saw the great stones begin to move. At last, handfuls of lime and stone began to fly free, and in a few more moments dust-filled light entered the space. Megan held her sleeve over her mouth now as the unbreathable air threatened to choke her. Yet more hammering, and a man-sized lump fell into the room, leaving a void behind it. Through the swirling dust stepped Merlin. Megan thought she might faint away from a mixture of delirium, exhaustion, and happiness. He reached in and pulled her gently from her tomb, steadying her as even the dim light of the dungeon hurt her eyes.

“There.” He supported her while he held a flask of water to her cracked lips. “Drink. You are safe now.”

She coughed as the water washed more grit from her mouth, then drank deeply. When finally she let him take the water from her, she smiled through her unsteady vision and said, “I have never tasted anything so sweet, nor seen any sight so welcome.”

“I would never have had this happen to you. And for such a time. I should have come to your aid much sooner, my love. Forgive me.”

“There is nothing at all to forgive. You are here now. All is well.” She looked over at Huw. “And besides, I have had my brave, brave little soldier to care for me.”

Huw beamed and blushed and rushed forward to embrace Megan. He looked so much less a little boy than when she had last seen him, even though it had only been a matter of a few weeks. It was as though his experiences had robbed him of his innocence and his childhood, and at such a tender age. She kissed his cheeks.

“Thank you, Huw. I am forever in your debt, my tiny hero.”