The tray fell with a crash.
Vera’s face changed, and she hurried away calling for a search to be made. Conan, cool, calm, and collected, strolled out into the yard to get Snowy. The grooms and ostlers had emerged from the coach house again and were hurrying hither and thither to look for the squirrel. As Vera’s cries of alarm continued to echo from the inn, Conan needed no further proof of the squirrel’s importance to Taynton’s plans. “We’re almost away now, Eleanor,” he murmured, casually untethering his mount and mounting, and the squirrel cowered so close inside his coat that he could feel its little heart beating.
Suddenly, Bran erupted from the stables, barking ferociously. He had spotted a man who’d given him a savage kick by the pool and wanted revenge. The man concerned, a wiry little ostler, began to run away in alarm, but Bran bowled him over like a skittle, and then pinned him face down in a steaming deposit left by a kindly horse. Taynton’s head groom ran across to grab the wolfhound’s collar and try to pull him off. Bran gave his victim a sharp nip on the backside, then jerked around to try to get free of the head groom. His collar broke in the brief struggle, and he was able to run away beneath the archway.
Conan hid a grin as he followed.
Conan had to laugh as he urged Snowy away from the Green Man, for Bran loped ahead of him, tail wagging, ears pricked, well pleased with the summary justice he’d dealt at least one of the disagreeable robed figures from the woods. The squirrel ventured to peep out of Conan’s coat, its big green eyes wide and nervous.
“You’re free now, Eleanor,” Conan said gently. He did not hesitate to use the name, because he was so certain he was right. The Eleanor Rhodes Theo had spoken to in the stables last night, was also this squirrel in his coat. It no longer occurred to him to even question the sanity of this conclusion, because his Welsh birthright told him the Otherworld really existed. He must do what destiny demanded of him, and he felt now that it demanded he confide everything to Ursula. Well, perhaps not quite everything, for he suspected the desire he felt for her had as much to do with his own sensuality as with fate.
Elcester disappeared in the dip as he rode up onto the escarpment ridge. The only other travelers on the road were a small band of jugglers and acrobats on their way to join the May Day fair. They shouted greetings to him as he passed by, and he replied in kind. To his right lay the leafy depths of the hidden valley, and to the left was spread the magnificent view of the vale, with Carmartin Park so prominent on its outlier. This must be one of the finest panoramas in the whole of England, he decided.
The fair performers were well behind him when the squirrel suddenly leapt from his coat, darted beneath a field gate, then bounded down the cowslip-sprinkled slope into the hidden valley.
Taken completely by surprise, Conan reined in to watch the little creature vanish into the woods. That Eleanor Rhodes would want to flee from him as well simply had not crossed his mind. “Oh, well, no doubt we will meet again,” he murmured philosophically, and moved his horse on again.
He found Hatty Pedlar’s Tump easily enough, and Ursula was waiting for him as promised. Her hem was damp as she paced anxiously among the primroses behind the barrow. His heart seemed to tighten within him as he looked upon her again. Maybe fate did have a hand in his feelings for her, because those feelings surged so potently it was as if he’d been waiting throughout the ages to meet her again. As she smiled at him, he knew she loved him too. Theirs was an old, old love, shared again now.
Bran dashed up to cover her hand with licks, and she fussed with the wolfhound as Conan dismounted. “Did you free the squirrel?” was the first thing she asked him.
“Yes, but not five minutes since she chose to escape from me as well, and ran down into the woods,” he replied, tethering Snowy beside Miss Muffet and then removing his top hat. “Still, this time she really is free, and therefore cannot be of further use to Taynton and his crew.” He glanced at the two white horses, and at Bran. “White animals appear to be an important feature of this situation, do they not?” he observed.
“Yes, but I’ve always preferred them. I like white flowers too. Snowdrops are my favorite.”
“White flowers appeal to me as well, but white horses have always been a passion.”
Their eyes met, and she looked quickly down to pat Bran again. She wanted to run to this man, put her arms around him and kiss her desire against his lips. Not just any kiss, but a declaration of the incredible passions he had aroused. Mortified, color stained her cheeks. She had never been this shameless before ... .
Conan watched her. “Well, our partiality for white steeds gives us an affinity.” He smiled a little. “Did you know that white animals are supposed to belong to the fairies?”
She straightened. “Oh, yes. They’re said to be from the Otherworld.”
“Ah, the Otherworld. There doesn’t seem to be much of the fey about Bran the Blessed, Son of Llyr.”
Interest sparked in her lilac eyes. “Is that his full name?”
Conan nodded. “And a mouthful it is, too.”
“Bran the Blessed, son of Llyr, is a famous mythical character.”
“He is indeed. You are not alone in being well acquainted with Welsh myths, Miss Elcester, for I too was raised upon such tales. My family home is on the Welsh border, and my Welsh nurse used to tell me stories every night before I went to sleep. I had nightmares after some of them, I can tell you.”
“I imagine you would.” Each word he said drew her to him more and more. He spoke of a shared affinity, but to her it was far more than that. They were kindred spirits, and the thought of him walking out of her life was quite unbearable. She wanted her marriage less and less with each moment she spent in this man’s company. To marry Theo would be wrong, so very wrong.
Conan hung his top hat on the bush to which the horses were tethered, then unstrapped his rolled-up cloak from his saddle and spread it on the damp bank of the barrow. “We have much to discuss, and may as well be do it in comfort,” he said.
Seated together, they were silent for a few moments. He spoke first. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Miss Elcester, in that I have omitted to mention certain things, and as I said at the inn, I believe you have been doing the same.”
She nodded.
“Well, one doesn’t like to admit to strangers that one has been seeing things, does one?”
She smiled ruefully. “One certain doesn’t.”
“But we aren’t strangers now, are we, Miss Elcester?” he said quietly.
Warmth touched her cheeks again. “No.”
“I’ll tell you what has been happening to me.” He explained about the vision he’d had of her in St. James’s Square, and the way her ribbon really had been tied to the railings. He related the strange appearance and disappearance of a hooded, antlered man in the road in front of his carriage, and the squirrels that seemed to be everywhere. Then he spoke of the dream he had had before leaving London. “I dreamed of the bluebell woods here in the Gloucestershire countryside, Miss Elcester, yet I had never been here before. I recognized them last night. What I dreamed was that someone came up secretly behind you, and I couldn’t shout out a warning.”
Ursula had been listening in growing amazement to all he said, but at this she gasped aloud. “I really was in the woods at that time, and thought I saw you coming toward me, holding out your hand. You held the ribbon, but I didn’t have time to take it because you disappeared and Taynton put his hand on my shoulder.”
Tipper-ipper-apper—on your shoulder, I am your master ...
The words came unbidden into her head.
“It would be good to have at least some inkling of what he’s up to, but I haven’t the slightest clue.” He smiled a little wryly. “At least, there are suggestions aplenty, but right now they seem unsolvable. Why, for instance, does he require pieces of bark and a church chalice?”
“Except that it isn’t a church chalice at all, but a very pagan thing.”
“Ah.”
“You couldn’t see in the stables, indeed most people couldn’t even see when it was on the altar, but in fact the design upon it is very ... shocking.”
“Really? How very interesting. But what of the pieces of bark?”
“Yew bark is just yew bark, as far as I know. Oh, it’s a tree that has always been planted in churchyards, and that particular example is reckoned to be over two thousand years old, but more than that I cannot say.” She thought of the damage to the barrow as well. “And why, if Taynton is the culprit, would he wish to break into a prehistoric burial chamber like this? Did you see that the door is only hanging on its hinges now?”
“Yes, I’ve noticed.” He thought for a moment. “You say you’ve tried to speak to Vera about it all?”
“Yes, and she probably knows a little, but I doubt if Taynton has confided all that much. To be truthful, she seems more interested in him personally than in what he’s planning.”
Conan plucked at the grass. “I find friend Taynton of personal interest too, although not in the same way, I hasten to add. He seems familiar to me. I’m sure I know him from somewhere, but I cannot recall where. I'll remember sooner or later.” He glanced at Ursula. “Miss Elcester, there is more I have to tell you. It concerns Theo.”
“Mr. Greatorex?”
“I do not know if I am doing the right thing by mentioning this, but I must if we are to be completely frank about this whole business.” He explained about Theo’s “voices” and the meeting with Eleanor Rhodes in the stable, as well as his own conviction that Eleanor and the caged squirrel were one and the same. “Theo is ... entranced by Eleanor Rhodes, Miss Elcester. Doomed as such an attraction has to be,” he added at the end.
Ursula thought that she too was entranced, by Sir Conan Merrydown. An equally doomed attraction. She summoned a smile from somewhere deep within. “I cannot lay claim to his heart, Sir Conan, for I do not doubt that he is as reluctant to have me as his wife as I am to have him as my husband.” She looked away. “Our personal preferences have little to do with it, Sir Conan. The match will proceed anyway.”
“Yes.” He had to look away as well, for fear his eyes would display his secret inner truths.
After a moment she spoke again. “You say that Taynton was most reluctant to have you stay at the Green Man?”
“My name seemed to upset him, and no one at the inn liked poor old Bran. His whiteness definitely counted against him, as did the matched white of my carriage horses.” He smiled. “One way or another we’ve been causing quite a stir at the Green Man, eh? I’ve deliberately chosen my white animals, but Theo didn’t choose Bran, rather did Bran choose him, by simply turning up one day and making it plain he intended to stay. Theo had just returned from Naples when—you do know he lived in Naples?”
“Yes, my father explained his history to me.”
“Well, Theo had barely spent two nights in London when Bran arrived on his doorstep.”
The words she had translated from
The Dream of Macsen Wledig
came to her.
One evening a long, long time ago, after a day’s hunting near Rome with his favorite white wolfhound, Macsen the emperor, dreamed of a Welsh princess called Elen, who lived beyond the north wind ...
“What is it, Miss Elcester?” Conan asked, observing the hints of emotion on her face.
“I ... Nothing. At least, I don’t think it’s anything. No, it can’t be anything ... ”
“Why? Please don’t say it’s because whatever it's too ridiculous, for after the conversation we’ve had up to this point, I fail to see how anything in creation can be deemed too ridiculous,” he remarked wryly. “So please enlighten me with whatever is on your mind.”
She exhaled slowly. “I’m translating a Welsh myth at the moment, and I suddenly recalled how it begins.” She repeated the opening sentence.
Conan didn’t respond at first. “So what is your conclusion, Miss Elcester?” he said then.
“Conclusion? Oh, I don’t know that I would say it’s that exactly, just that there are one or two, er, coincidences, wouldn’t you say? For white wolfhound, read Bran. For Elen, who incidentally was known as Elen of the Ways, read Eleanor Rhodes. R-o-a-d-s? Ways? Then for the Emperor Macsen, read Theodore Maximilian Greatorex, who like the emperor happens to have Spanish ancestry.” Then something else occurred to her. “Elen of the Ways had two male cousins, the brothers Kynan and Cadfan. Is it too great a leap to link Kynan with Conan?”
The more she thought of it, the more certain she seemed.
The Dream of Macsen Wledig
was somehow connected with present-day events here in Elcester!
Conan ran a hand through his hair. “Slow down a little. I’m
having a little trouble grasping all this. Tell me again.”
Ursula repeated everything she’d said, but he pulled a doubting face. “Well, given the outlandish happenings so far, I suppose it’s more than feasible. Except that I don’t have a brother at all, let alone one with a name that might sound like Cadfan.”
“I don’t know the rest of the story—well, not in detail anyway—so I can’t say if there are other coincidences.”
“And let us be honest, Miss Elcester. What possible connection could there be between Macsen’s tale and the apparently druidic nonsense in the woods?”
“I don’t know that either,” she admitted. “Maybe if I translate the whole myth, there will be an answer.”
“And maybe there won’t.”
She glanced at him. “Taynton is very interested indeed in the Roman period, and hopes to help my father search for a villa they both think was once in the woods. My father recently found a Roman coin there, a gold solidus of the Emperor Magnus Maximus.”
“Your Macsen, I suppose?”
“Yes. Macsen is Welsh for Maximus, and he is definitely supposed to be the Emperor Magnus Maximus”
Hooves clattered slowly along the road behind them as a string of packhorses made its way to the village, laden with yarn from Mr. Elcester’s mills. Ursula sighed, and for a moment her thoughts moved away from myths and puzzles. “I fear packhorses carrying yarn up here may soon be a thing of the past, for my father may have to start weaving at the mills.”