11

When her phone rang Cadi was so sure it was Meryn, picking up on her doubts, she almost greeted him by name, only at the last moment noting the caller's name on the screen. ‘Hi, Rachel.'

‘You sound tired.' Her cousin's voice was as usual almost drowned out by the sound of the sea. She was obviously standing in her favourite place on the veranda in front of her cottage, overlooking the wild beauty of Cardigan Bay. ‘Can I come over so we can talk?'

When Rachel arrived the following day she gave Cadi a resigned smile. ‘So, let me get this straight. You originally thought we should leave out "The Dream of Macsen", as it had too much history and not enough magic and, if I remember right, you said it was too short to make a book of it. Then you rang and told me you wanted to do it but with infills of real history to make it long enough for a book? And now you've started work on it, whether I agree or not.'

Cadi nodded guiltily. She should have discussed this more thoroughly with Rachel weeks ago. ‘That's about it. I've become interested in local Roman history and Macsen's Dream seems to fit with what's happening round here. As with the others, we can say "loosely based on the story".' She glanced hopefully at Rachel, who was staring down at the pile of notes Cadi had pushed towards her. ‘You can make it magical with your illustrations. What I want to do with this one is improvise, expand it a little. I've researched what happened in real life. More or less. And it makes a fantastic story.'

‘Really?' Rachel looked her in the eye.

Cadi held her gaze. ‘The first four books we've done are called the four branches of the Mabinogion. Now we have come to the histories. I've been looking it all up. We have "The Dream of Macsen Wledig" there in the original, which stops when his dream is realised and it has a happy ending, but what I want to do is carry on to the end of the story. Where Macsen's dream turns into a nightmare.'

‘OK.' Rachel was still sounding cautious. ‘So, we need to discuss this a bit more. I read the original story again yesterday; that's why I called you. And I agree, as it's only about five pages it's too short for a book. It's extremely sketchy. "And on the way he conquered France"– that's a bit minimalist, to put it mildly.'

‘That's my point. Let me show you the rest of my notes so far.' Cadi walked over to her desk.

‘So, assuming we go with your new idea, have you thought about the background?' Rachel was immediately practical. ‘For instance, if it was written in medieval times, would you want the settings, the costumes, to be medieval or Roman? The poem talks about castles. The Romans didn't have fairy-tale castles with pointy turrets, like our other stories, did they? Tricky if we're turning it from myth to real history.' She sat down with the pile of Cadi's notes and began to leaf through them.

The silence was broken ten minutes later when Cadi's phone rang. She picked it up, glancing at the screen. ‘Sally?'

‘Come outside. Now. They're in the field. I think they're doing X-rays.'

* * *

There were three cars parked in the lane, their nearside wheels up on the bank below the hedge and a little further up there was a four-wheel drive towing a low loader. Its ramp was down. The gate was wide open.

‘Oh hell! It's really going to happen. I thought we'd have longer.' Sally glanced at Cadi. Introductions had been made and Rachel was standing a little way behind them. As they walked towards the gate she had fished in her backpack for a camera and it was now slung prominently around her neck. ‘I may as well look professional,' she had said with a grin as Sally raised an eyebrow. ‘I am an illustrator, after all. Although I don't officially approve of photos I quite often use them for reference and from what Cadi has told me about all this, that might be useful.'

Cadi was staring at the group of people ahead of them. Two were gesticulating wildly. ‘It looks as though some of them are as unhappy as we are,' she murmured. The strangers were standing in front of another man who was holding a square frame on a low, four-wheeled trolley.

‘I hope you're not going to get involved as well.' Arwel had walked up the lane behind them without them noticing. He came to a halt in the gateway and stood, arms folded, his eyes narrowed against the sun.

‘I don't think a few people shouting are going to stop them now,' Cadi said sadly. ‘But at least they seem to be taking X-rays of the ground.'

‘Ground-penetrating radar!' Arwel muttered. ‘Pointless. I've told them there was nothing there.'

‘You told them?' Sally glanced at him. ‘I thought the developers said they had done a survey.'

‘It appears the village doesn't believe it.' Arwel couldn't hide his scorn. ‘Chris at the mill has taken it upon himself to say there was no survey, though how he knows I can't -imagine. Presumably he's brought this lot in. Well good luck to him. There's nothing here.' He turned towards Cadi. ‘If your wizarding uncle has an ounce of honesty, he would have to back me on that one. What did he think? Or did he pretend he had seen something? If so, I presume he put a curse on the meadow to keep the nasty outsiders away?' The sneer was loud in his voice.

‘He was very interested.' Cadi refused to be goaded.

‘Well, tell him to keep out of my way,' Arwel snarled. ‘Everyone knows the man's a New Age charlatan. He writes woo-woo. His books are total rubbish.'

Cadi opened her mouth to retort but Sally jumped in ahead of her. ‘Whatever you think of Professor Jones, there is no call to be rude,' she said firmly. ‘Ignore him, Cadi.'

Cadi took a deep breath. ‘I am.' She managed a smile.

Behind them a shout echoed across the field and they saw the group in the distance gathering around the machine.

‘They've found something.' Rachel had been quietly snapping the scene. Arwel was already hurrying towards the group and she quickly took a picture of his retreating figure and winked at Cadi before setting off in pursuit. There were quite a few people in the field now, they realised. As word had gone round the village, more and more figures had appeared in the lane.

‘I think it's the line of a wall, and I've already seen signs of post holes.' The man with the machine was responding to questions from some of the onlookers clustered around him.

‘I forbid you to go on with this.' One of the men who had been waving his arms about stepped forward and put his hand on the frame. ‘This is private property. You have no permission to be here.'

Arwel pushed the man aside. ‘Let me see that tracing.' He leaned over towards the screen. ‘Who are you, anyway?'

‘I'm from the county archaeology department.' The man in charge of the machine let go of the handles and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

‘And we represent the owners of the field.' The gesticulator stepped closer, followed by his companion. His face was florid but whether from heat or fury it was difficult to tell. He was wearing an open-necked shirt and carried a plastic portfolio under his arm. ‘I must ask you all to leave. Now. This public footpath is subject to a temporary closure order. The field is private. No permission has been given to dig here.' He threw a malevolent glance towards the man with the machine.

‘I think you're wrong there, my friend,' the archaeologist said firmly. ‘Your owners applied to the council for planning permission to build on this field and nothing can proceed without an official survey. That's me.'

‘Yes!' The single triumphant word from someone in the crowd seemed to echo in the silence that followed.

Both men looked up. ‘I suggest you contact your owners.' The archaeologist's weary tone gave the impression he had been in this situation before. ‘Tell them I'm carrying out the survey on their behalf as requested by the council. I gather mention of a previous survey had been made but nothing had been produced, so my department felt I should do a preliminary scan of the area. Just to be sure.' He glanced at the man with the portfolio. ‘When I've finished I'll submit my findings to the planning office and they will take it from there.' He paused. ‘It often takes quite a while for the department to process this type of request. There's a colossal backlog.' Was that a note of suppressed amusement as he turned back to his machine? ‘Now, if you will excuse me, sir...' Arwel had once more been bending over the display.

‘There seems to be a lot showing up.' Arwel stepped back, obviously puzzled.

‘There is indeed. Very interesting site, this one.' But the archaeologist would say no more.

One by one the crowd dispersed. The owners' agents walkedoff across the field, one of them with a phone clamped to hisear.

Sally, Rachel and Cadi drifted away with the last few -onlookers.

‘She's the one you said had lost her little dog?' Rachel asked as they parted in the lane and Sally went on towards her gate.

Cadi nodded. This was not the moment to mention her sighting of Gemma in the field.

* * *

‘So.' They were sitting in the garden, aware of the archaeologist in the meadow on the far side of the hedge still plodding up and down with his machine. ‘From your notes, which I have to say are pretty random, I gather you're having some problems actually getting a sequence on this story?' Rachel reached for the coffee Cadi had produced. They had looked at her photos of the field and the group of people around the surveyor. Cadi had hoped she might see a little dog amongst the legs of the onlookers, but there was nothing there. Rachel had retrieved a folder of sketches from her car. She laid it on the table. ‘Take a look. See if anything here helps with your decisions on how to move forward.'

Cadi spread them carefully out in front of her and smiled. ‘These are so good.'

‘But are they right?'

Cadi didn't immediately respond. Then at last, she slid one from the pile. ‘This one. This is Macsen.'

Rachel considered it. ‘He's not in the uniform of a Roman legionary, of course.' It showed a tall, grizzled man, his head bare, his black hair dishevelled, wearing a loose primitive shirt, open almost to the waist, his only identifying feature his raised right hand, clutching a broadsword. On his forefinger was a heavy ruby ring.

‘I like him.' Cadi smiled. ‘And so would Elen.'

Rachel raised an eyebrow. ‘Good. OK. We'll use him. Now, Elen?'

Cadi shuffled through some more sketches. ‘We need to keep her clothes ambiguous too. Informal. Nothing too -medi-eval. No headdress. She's a princess but she's a Celt through and through.'

‘But no red hair?' Rachel pushed forward a sketch of a robust young woman with tumbling wild auburn locks.

Cadi shook her head. ‘No. No. She's darker haired. Not black like him. He's swarthy. Spanish. She's dark blond, I suppose you would call it.'

‘In other words, mousey?' Rachel grinned.

‘Far from it. She was quite a character. I think she should be tall, elegant if anything. Hazel eyes. Straight nose. Not someone to mess with. She has to be able to stand up to him. He respects her. I wonder if he's a little afraid of her. She is regal. She carries the royal blood he so craves.'

‘Quite like you, in fact!'

Cadi let out a snort. ‘Apart from the fact that my hair is grey, and I'm far from regal without a drop of royal blood, yes, I suppose so!'

Rachel laughed. ‘And she's about seventeen, right?'

‘At the start of their marriage, I think so yes.'

‘So, very young. And the actual story we're working from only covers the start of their marriage.'

Cadi pushed back her chair and stood up. She wandered away across the lawn and stood staring up into an apple tree that stood in the hedge between her garden and the meadow.

‘Cadi?' Rachel had followed her.

‘You're right. The poem only really covers their meeting and the wedding.' She gave a rueful smile. ‘But it does mention more history. Briefly. A few paragraphs. And those are wrong. It talks about him besieging Rome with her brothers. I don't think that happened. Although he wanted to. Time passes. She has children. We need to include that, surely. Wait. I'll fetch my notebook. You can see how the poem is progressing.'

She made them some lunch while Rachel sat outside with a glass of wine and worked her way through more of the pages of notes. The meadow was silent now. The archaeologist had finally packed up and left. When Cadi carried the tray out into the garden she found her cousin sitting in front of the folder, sipping thoughtfully from her glass.

‘Weird, isn't it.'

Rachel nodded. ‘You've been in touch with Uncle Meryn.'

‘Yes.'

Rachel's mother was sister to Meryn and to Cadi's father.

‘He's been over to see the field. Not that it's going to feature in our story. Once Elen is married she moves away to -Caernarfon, which is where the legend is centred. The trouble is that my story actually seems to start here. It's only after they're married they go up to North Wales.'

‘And even then, it's not Caernarfon as we know it.'

‘No, and it's not North Wales either– Wales as such didn't exist. But one intriguing thing I've read somewhere is that the English king, Edward I, had heard the legend back then when he lived, in the thirteenth century, and he built the castle to fit his vision of the story, which is why it's sad that we can't use it, unless...' she paused, ‘in a reference to the dream– which is after all what the poem is. You could then paint it as Macsen dreams it, with all its turrets and towers. Up to you!'

‘And how does Meryn see it?'

‘He doesn't. At least, we were concerned with the palace here. I haven't asked him about Caernarfon.'

‘Your neighbour Arwel doesn't rate him, does he.' Rachel reached for the bottle and topped up their glasses.

‘No. He obviously hates him. I think there must be some kind of personal thing going on there. Perhaps it's no more than jealousy– the fact that I gather Meryn's last book sold rather well.'

‘It did. The one he wrote before that was slated by the serious history critics and I expect Arwel thinks of himself as a serious historian. People who talk about ghosts and energies and all that stuff are expected to keep their noses out of real history. Meryn's readers loved it. His last book was a magical herbal, lavishly illustrated with watercolour sketches by someone called Miranda Dysart, whose work I really admire and the next, due to be published next winter, will be a treatise on Welsh myth and legend. I checked on Amazon. Serious history or not, he writes bestsellers.' Rachel grinned. ‘Arwel didn't sound as though he was your greatest admirer either.' She glanced across at her.

Cadi smiled. ‘No. I'm afraid poets are almost as dodgy as mystics.'

‘Especially bestselling poets? Do I assume Arwel is a writer too?'

‘Not as far as I know. Just the local self-styled expert who needs to have his expertise validated by the facts. No one has ever called his views into question before. He wrote a guide to the village. They sell it in the post office. It doesn't mention the villa. I checked. Just the church and the mill. And some of the farms.'

‘And now circumstances are putting him on the spot.'

Cadi sat down. ‘I want to follow this story, Rach. See where it leads. It's hard to explain, even to myself, but there is a lot going on round here which seems to have linked me viscerally into the poem. And besides... I know it sounds silly, but sometimes I feel Elen knows I'm there. I feel as though we've met, somewhere out there in the past. I feel it's as if she talks to me and it's as if she knows I'm listening.'

Once she had started telling Rachel what had happened she couldn't seem to stop. Rachel listened intently, her eyes fixed on Cadi's face. She pulled a single sheet from the file. ‘I especially like this one:

‘The dog sat on Elen's knee

Shivering with fear.

But the reassuring hug

And the ribbon on her collar

Told her she was safe.

She did not recognise the house.

But the field was hers.

The grass smelt the same,

The cry of the circling birds

Was steady and unchanged.'

There was a moment of silence.

‘So,' Rachel said at last. ‘What kind of dog was Gemma?'

‘A bit of this and a bit of that. Small, white, quite fluffy but feisty. Energetic. And very loyal.'

‘Ears pointy or floppy?'

Cadi grinned. Rachel was hooked. She had always loved painting the animals in the stories. ‘Floppy, but pointy as well. I can show you photos.'

‘So, we have the basis of several illustrations already. I can visualise them from your notes. You've put in a lot of detail. I will admit, the real history is fascinating.'

‘I want to go on researching it. I want to write more.'

To her relief, Rachel nodded. ‘I can see why. Can't you do both? The body of your poem is almost there. I can work with that. It's much as we imagined in our first talk about this tale. And we're working for a series, don't forget. We're produ-cing the stories from the Mabinogion. It's part of a set and it's a successful brand, but that doesn't mean you have to restrict yourself to it. Go for it. Write the poem, of course write the poem in extended form to cover the way it pans out. In your head. Then you could write the rest of her story as a different, much more detailed project. A historical novel, perhaps. Or a poetic study. Or an academic enquiry into who Elen really was. You have to follow your interest in this, Cadi. That's obvious. All I ask is that you finish the poem, our poem, first.' She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. ‘But then again, I have several commissions in the pipeline, so we don't have to hurry too much. As long as the publisher knows it's coming.' She waved a wasp away from the tray of food. ‘And that gives us a template for the illustrations. They would be in the same style roughly as the first four stories. Hints of a medieval dream, in this case a Roman story. More legend than fairy tale, but set in a real place. Perhaps the castle can be there,' she glanced at the pile of notes, ‘but as no more than a shadow on the horizon. So, I can go away and paint mountains and cloudscapes and dreamy ladies and handsome heroes?'

‘You certainly can.'

‘Excellent. And you go on with your research.' Rachel took a sip from her glass. ‘How was Uncle Meryn, by the way?'

‘Same as always. Ageless. Mysterious. But down to earth as well. I gather he's had enough of California and academia. I think he's dying to get back to some hands-on hocus pocus.'

‘Great. I'll tell Mum he's back in Wales. She misses him when he goes away.'

‘Unlike my dad.' Cadi gave a grimace.

Rachel nodded. ‘Uncle Owen was always the odd one out of the three. How is France?'

‘He's still enjoying it.'

‘Good. So, I'll go home and wait for you to email me some more of your early draft.' She glanced towards the hedge as she stood up. ‘That sounds to me like a tractor.'

Cadi nodded. ‘Dai had a few more hay bales to collect before he's kicked off the field forever.'

The house was very silent after Rachel left. Restlessly Cadi wandered round, then, almost without realising it, she sat down at her desk and reached for her notebook. Follow the flow of your pen. The channel is open . She thought back to Meryn's parting words, words she couldn't get out of her head.

‘So, Elen,' she whispered. ‘Talk to me. I'm listening.'