CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

‘No!’ Linette cries again as Merlin shudders on the ground. She flings herself down beside him, cradles his head in her lap and the lurcher whimpers, looks up at her with pain-filled eyes. The wound is bad; a horrific fur-matted tear from Merlin’s thigh to just beneath his belly. Blood pools the earth. Henry shrugs off his shirt.

‘Here,’ he says. He bunches the material together in a tight wad, presses it onto the wound. ‘Hold it down, try to stem the bleeding.’

‘It will do little good,’ Miss Carew says from above them. The gold knife drips, beads of blood shining like rubies in the sunlight. ‘He’ll be dead soon, and so will you.’

Linette looks up at her with all the loathing that has built within her chest since the moment she woke in the mine. Nothing can stop it – it is as sure as the sun rising above the cavern wall.

‘If you wanted us dead,’ she cries, ‘then you should have done it the moment we got out of the crypt! You’ve missed your chance.’

Miss Carew’s amber eyes flash with anger. Henry rises, holds out a calming hand.

‘Linette’s right. There’s only one of you and two of us. Do you honestly think we can’t overpower you, now we know what you mean to do?’

Some of the smugness fades from Miss Carew’s face. The knife wobbles between her bloodied fingers.

‘Rowena,’ Henry says, hoarse with emotion. ‘You don’t have to do this. It doesn’t have to be this way.’

‘Yes, Henry. I’m afraid it does.’

Linette watches her in the glow of the morning sun. Miss Carew’s red hair is a halo of fire, her eyes like garnets lit from within. A sunbeam shines on the golden knife, glinting sharply bright along its vicious blade, the grooves of Berith’s symbol, and in that moment she lunges. Linette screams.

Miss Carew is quick, there can be no denying that, but Henry is quicker. The blade just misses his shoulder and he takes her roughly by the wrists, as if warding off a battering ram. They struggle against each other, a tangle of limbs. Miss Carew kicks at Henry’s knees, screeches at him with wild fury, hair flying in a mass of tangled fiery curls – as mad as Gwen Tresilian ever was during one of her terrible fits – and Miss Carew will not relinquish the knife. For such a small woman it is incredible how much strength she has in her.

Desperately Linette looks down at Merlin. Henry’s shirt is nearly soaked through; her own hands are caked with blood. She should let the dog go, let nature take its course, for she knows, knows, there is nothing she can do for him now.

Her tears are hot against her eyelids; a strangled cry rips from her throat.

‘Merlin,’ she whispers. ‘ Mae’n ddrwg gen i ,’ and ignoring the pain wrenching at her heart Linette rushes to stand. She means to pull Miss Carew away from Henry, means to drag her from him with all the strength she can muster but then, then , a gunshot tears through the morning sky.

The sound of it echoes through the cavern, ricochets loudly off the stone walls. A flock of birds burst from the trees with a deafening explosion of wings. It takes Linette a moment to realise what has happened, to realise the struggle above her has stopped.

She turns her head to look.

Henry stands, breathing heavily, a splatter of red spanning the plane of his cheek, staring at the ground. Linette lowers her eyes.

On the woodland floor lies Rowena Carew, red hair fanned about her like water, a bullet lodged into the side of her skull.

‘Stay there!’ a voice shouts from above. A man stands on the edge of the cavern wall, his body caught in sharp relief against the sun. ‘I’m coming down.’

The figure disappears, leaving a patch of blue summer sky.

She hears Henry take a breath. It is a strange, strangled sort of noise and Linette looks to him in alarm. He is staring at Miss Carew where she lies barely three feet from her, eyes round with shock, the ceremonial dagger still clutched in her bloodied hand.

‘Henry,’ Linette manages weakly. ‘Are you all right?’

He swallows hard. His hands clench and unclench. Then, finally, ‘Yes,’ he says faintly. ‘I’m all right.’

Linette does not think he sounds all right at all, but before she can say anything Cadoc Powell appears between the willows, Plas Helyg’s ornate flintlock pistol in his hand.

He rushes toward them across the clearing, past the Cadwalladr crypt. His clothes are rumpled, he wears no wig. The butler looks as though he has spent the night sleeping rough. Linette has never seen him like this her entire life.

‘You’ve had us in a state, Miss Linette,’ he says when he reaches them. ‘Mrs Evans went to wish you goodnight but you weren’t in your bed. We heard the mine collapse, found the tunnel through the fireplace.’ Cadoc looks grave.

‘Did you go through?’

‘ Do , to a point. The tunnel is blocked. The one in the gatehouse, too. I sent the dog on, knew he’d be able to sniff you out …’ He tucks the pistol into his trousers. ‘I followed his tracks, heard the struggle. Got here as soon as I could.’

Cadoc kneels down, strokes the lurcher’s ear.

‘Ah, look what you’ve done to yourself. Couldn’t wait for me, could you, boy?’ With a sigh he looks up at Henry, the blood on his cheek. ‘Is that hers or yours?’

Henry is staring at him with searching eyes.

‘It was you who shot at me in the woods,’ he says quietly.

Cadoc rises with a grimace. ‘I’m afraid so. When Julian told you to keep an eye on Miss Linette … Well, I didn’t know what manner of man you were. I feared you’d agree with him that her mind was unsound like her mother’s.’ He shakes his head. ‘It was a warning shot, that was all. I hoped it would scare you off back to London.’

‘You could have hit me.’

‘I wouldn’t have. I was Hugh Tresilian’s hunting partner back in the day. Best aim in all of Meirionydd. Didn’t work though, did it? Stubborn as your father ever was.’

Emotion twists Henry’s face. He turns away.

The butler clears his throat, looks at Merlin with regret.

‘Let us get back to the house. He’ll not last much longer.’

The lurcher stirs then but it is a feeble movement; his breath is shallow, hardly there at all. Linette strokes his blood-matted fur.

‘Henry …’ she whispers. ‘We need to get him home.’

For a long moment Henry says nothing. He is staring still at Rowena Carew’s corpse as if he might will breath back into her.

‘Henry,’ Linette says again, and this time he comes to himself, looks down at Merlin on the forest floor.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘yes,’ and Henry takes Merlin gently in his arms.