CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY

At that very moment Linette stands in front of her mother’s door, listening to the strains of harp music wend its way beneath. No discordant notes, no strange mixture of minors and majors. This is a melody she knows, and knows well. ‘ Hiraeth am Feirion ’. Enaid sang it to her as a girl, the pretty ballad of a homesick sailor, and the memory of it has Linette rooted to the spot. She has been standing here these past five minutes, unable to rouse the courage to knock for she knows Enaid will answer, and Linette is ashamed of herself for having treated her so cruelly.

I had just cause, she thinks, curling her hand into a fist. The hurt she felt at Enaid’s betrayal ran sharp and deep, a physical pain that tore at her lungs and has buried itself there these past days, burrowing further and further like a worm. But the clarity of enlightenment has instilled in her an all-encompassing guilt; Linette thinks of how Enaid cared for her as a child, when she read to her the old Welsh legends at bedtime, mended her wounds whenever she fell and scuffed her knees, the times she patiently teased the knots from her wild and tangled hair. In her heart Linette should have known the old woman would not have lied to her unless she had cause, but instead of trying to understand she had punished Enaid in the only way she knew how: with silence, shunning her at every turn. Linette had treated Enaid just as badly as Julian had treated her, and worse too for she knew that Enaid truly loved her, and now a hate courses through Linette’s veins like liquid fire; she was not lying earlier when she said she could kill Julian. Indeed, she can think of nothing that would give her greater pleasure.

Linette shuts her eyes, tries to calm herself, raps hard on the door before her courage deserts her completely. When Enaid opens it the old woman’s eyes fill with tears, and Linette’s guilt surges to the fore once more. The harp music stops.

‘May I come in?’

‘Of course,’ Enaid whispers, holding the door open wider. ‘Of course.’

Nervously, Linette steps over the threshold. The canopy of yellow gorse has wilted now, the petals shrinking into brown. As she passes, Linette raises her hand to touch a branch nestled in a vase. Protection, that is what Enaid used the plant for, she had never lied about that; no wonder she kept the plant so close, trying to press the flowers onto Linette at every opportunity.

She feels a lump form in her throat. That is all Enaid has ever tried to do. Protect her, protect her mother, and Linette turns in the threshold of the bedroom, the last of her reserve dissolving like ice in hot water. There is so much she meant to say, so much she feels needs to be said, but in that moment Linette realises there is only one thing she can say that actually really matters.

‘Oh, Enaid,’ she whispers. ‘Can you forgive me for being such a beast?’

The old woman’s wrinkled face breaks. With a cry she comes closer, tenderly kisses Linette on the cheek.

‘My sweet, sweet girl. It is I who must ask your forgiveness. Do I have it?’

‘Of course you do,’ Linette whispers, holding Enaid close. She smells of soapsuds and rosewater, all the things she found such comfort in as a little girl. ‘Of course you do.’

‘And what of me, Linette?’ a voice asks softly behind them. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’

The two women – young and old – release each other, and heart pounding Linette steps into the bedroom. Gwen Tresilian gazes up at her from where she sits at the harp, twisting her thin fingers in the tassels of her shawl.

‘Mamma …’

Her mother offers a watery smile, her swallow visible in the hollow of her throat.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, and the pain Linette hears in her mother’s voice sets her heart beating faster. ‘I’m sorry for all the times I never recognised you, for all the pain you have endured these long years. To have suffered so cruelly … Enaid has told me all.’ Her mother shakes her head sadly, the neat plait of her white hair lying limply on her breast. ‘This is not what I wanted for you, I hope you know that. I never thought it would come to this when we made that terrible choice. I’m so sorry,’ she says again. ‘So very, very sorry.’

It is a relief to hear the words, words that until that moment Linette had not realised she longed to hear. She looks at her mother, the mother she has never truly known and one day might; in the lowlight Lady Gwen does not appear quite so gaunt, so ill – her features are softened, her skin infused with golden light, and in the curve of her sad smile Linette sees the shadow of the lively beautiful creature she once had been. When her mother holds out a shaking hand, Linette takes it without thinking twice.

‘Look at you.’ She is gazing at her daughter with unmistakable pride, squeezes Linette’s fingers tight. ‘I see the ghost of your father in your face,’ Lady Gwen says softly. ‘Your strength, your passion. Everything I loved about him lives, still, in you.’

Her mother’s voice breaks then, and all of a sudden it is too much for Linette to bear. The last of her defences crumple, the lump in her throat dissolves, the tears come hot and fast, and with a sob she sinks to her knees. Linette rests her head on her mother’s lap, craving the closeness she was always, always denied. It is a shock to feel her mother’s hand on her hair, the gentle touch of someone who loves her, and Linette cries and cries until she has no more tears to shed.

Later, Linette sits at her dressing table. She meant to go straight to bed for she was tired in both body and mind, but she simply could not settle. Instead she took her writing implements from her study and brought them back upstairs, where she has been penning her deposition for the last half-hour.

She reads it with a rising sense of dissatisfaction. After much thought Linette decided to commit her entire history to paper before relating the circumstances of the last few days in minute detail, but reading her words back now she realises she sounds like the madwoman Julian always pretended she was. What court of law would believe such wild claims? Blood rites and rituals, sacred circles, demons called Berith, and names written in an alphabet whose language she does not even know? Even the parts describing Julian’s cold treatment of her over the years reads like nothing more than the complaints of a spoilt child who does not know her place.

Linette places the quill back into its inkwell, puts her head in her hands.

She sits like that for several minutes, until, at length, a dark thought begins to invade her mind like malicious wasps.

I could kill him, the wasps say, and Linette presses her fingers hard into her temples. It would be no less than he deserved, a fitting payment for the life he took from her, from her mother, from Henry. From her father. A life for a life . Slowly the shadow of a plan begins to swirl in her mind and Linette lets it take shape, feels a sense of rightness envelope her. Yes, the wasps whisper, it is only right. Cwm Nantcol could hide a body well enough, especially if she were to bury it in the lower reaches of Moelfre where the land is mostly bog. A body could sink very easily if she were to weigh it down.

No one would ever know.

There is a clatter of wheel, the crunch of gravel. Linette lifts her head. Merlin rolls over on the bed where he has been stretched out snoring, ears twitching at the sound, and with a strange sense of inevitability Linette rises from the dressing table. Wrapping her dressing gown about her shoulders she goes to the window, pushes the curtain along its rail, and when she sees who it is her anger rises once again to choke her.

As she thought. It is Julian.

Gripping the curtain Linette watches him steer the dapple grey to the side of Plas Helyg in the direction of the stables. He was not supposed to be back until tomorrow, she thinks, that is what he told them. But then Julian Tresilian is a liar, and always has been.

It comes as naturally to him as breathing.

Linette lets the curtain drop.

I could kill him .

The words are loud in her mind now, and they do not belong to the wasps. They belong wholly to her.

I can kill him .

I will kill him.

Ever so quietly Linette leaves her bedroom, shuts the door softly behind her. She pads barefoot along the threadbare carpet, down the corridor, down the stairs to the landing below. At the grandfather clock she stops, the pendulum clunking loudly in its mighty casement, slow and measured, back and forth, a deep and resonant lullaby.

Waits.

It is some minutes before Julian lets himself in. From the shadow of the stairs Linette watches him cross the vestibule, but instead of disappearing through to the west wing he approaches the ancient fireplace. Her cousin reaches up, places his hand upon the sconce fixed into the stone. Linette grips the balustrade tight, watches with astonishment as Julian pulls the sconce down. In that moment there comes the rumbling of stone; the hearth draws back, slides away to reveal an opening.

But.

Julian does not go through the doorway the sconce has revealed. Instead he turns, crosses the vestibule again to the west wing, disappears through the door, and Linette is left frozen with a dawning realisation.

There are tunnels under this house .

And he has just opened one of them.

She hovers with indecision. Confront him now? Or follow him through the tunnel when he returns and see where he goes? Heart in her mouth she moves out from her hiding place, descends the stairs. At the bottom – resolve hardening like iron – she follows her cousin into the west wing.

Candlelight slithers beneath his study door. She can hear movement, rustling, a creak. Without making a sound, Linette pushes the door open.

Julian stands behind his desk, the grimoire in his hands. He looks up; their eyes meet. He does not appear surprised to see her. Indeed, he simply laughs.

‘Cousin,’ he says. His voice is hoarse. He looks even sicker than he did the other night – his face pale and drawn, dark crescent moons beneath his eyes.

‘Julian.’

Her cousin places the book back down on his desk, almost tenderly strokes the curve of Berith’s circle.

‘I saw the light in your window. I knew you’d come down.’ Julian tilts his head. ‘The Devil is in you,’ he remarks. ‘I can see him in your face.’

There is no point in drawing it out, no point wasting her breath with lies. Better to be honest, to say precisely what it is she intends to do.

‘I know everything.’

He stares at her across the desk. Then he smiles, cold and hard and taunting.

‘I know you do.’

She blinks, not expecting that, for how can he know? But, no matter. It changes nothing.

‘You won’t get away with it,’ Linette tells him, stepping into the room. ‘I’m not afraid. All of you – Lord Pennant, Sir John – you will pay for what you’ve done, but I shall see to it that you pay first.’

He laughs, a cold laugh that sends frosty needles down her spine. ‘And how do you propose to do that, Linette?’

She steps closer. All she needs is the ceremonial dagger. All she needs is to bury the blade in his heart and watch him bleed onto the rug …

‘No one will believe you,’ Julian says now, smooth as silk. ‘No one will take your claims seriously.’

The amusement leaves his face, as if someone has flicked a lever. His dark eyes narrow as Linette takes another step forward. He coughs into his hand, and when he lowers it she sees the glint of blood on his palm.

‘They’ll put you away. As mad as poor Gwen Tresilian, they’ll say.’

Linette nods. ‘They can say it, but it won’t be true. However, I had no intention of telling anyone.’

Julian watches her. He opens a drawer in the desk – not the one Linette wants open but another – and brings from it a familiar glass vial. Almost tenderly he places it on the table.

‘You don’t plan on doing anything stupid do you, Linette?’

‘What I plan,’ she says quietly, ‘is one of the most intelligent things I think I shall ever do.’

Her cousin lifts one side of his mouth, dips his hand into the inner pocket of his coat and brings out a handkerchief. Slowly, he wipes the blood from his hand.

‘Your arrogance has always amazed me,’ Julian says. ‘You know so little of the world and yet you think you know better than anyone how to live in it.’ Casually he removes the gold stopper from the vial, tips a few drops from it onto the bloodied handkerchief. ‘Of course, you do not know better. You never have.’

Linette looks at that handkerchief, resting now in his cupped hand. She needs to reach the desk, needs to get hold of that knife, but Julian does not move, stands so quietly, so still, and for the first time since leaving her bedroom Linette feels the smallest flicker of doubt.

‘What do you mean to do?’ she asks.

‘If you know everything, you need not ask.’

‘Not that,’ Linette says. She nods to the handkerchief. ‘That.’

Julian’s smile is the most genuine one she has ever seen him give her. It is sinister, wicked, and Linette realises then that she has been too hasty, should have found another way, and in the split-second she decides to run he moves from the desk so fast that she does not even get a chance; within seconds he has her in his grasp. Linette struggles against him but despite the anger that propelled her – despite the fear that has replaced it – Julian is stronger, is pressing the handkerchief to her nose and mouth.

The last thing she sees is the grimoire, the raised symbol of Berith on its cover, before her vision turns black.