12

Their first argument occurred outside the entrance to the villa.

‘I am not travelling in a litter!'

‘The wives of officers always travel in a litter.'

‘Not this one.' She said it very quietly. ‘This one is a royal princess.' Turning away from the offending litter she scanned the line of horsemen behind them. ‘Where is my horse?'

‘Here, Princess.' Rhys appeared at once, almost as if he had been waiting for the summons, leading the black colt. The king had, it appeared, commanded that his head groom accompany the horse as part of his daughter's household. Emrys was regally apparelled with a scarlet bridle and saddle cloth. Without waiting for any further discussion, Elen walked over to him, took the reins and bent her knee for Rhys to throw her up onto the saddle. It was immediately apparent to those close enough to see that the elegantly embroidered tunic beneath her mantle was divided to allow for comfort in riding astride. Below the fine linen drapery she was wearing trousers.

Hearing the snigger that ran through the front line of his troops Magnus swung round. Immediate silence. Elen sat straight-backed, her face set. It was clear to everyone that all was not well between the newly-weds. The atmosphere between them was sharp with anger.

‘Shall I ride at your side?' she demanded. Her voice was clear and proud and rang around the gravelled area with its lines of carefully positioned urns and clipped trees. The men of the legion stood as still as the stone statues in the entrance portico. ‘Or would you rather I followed behind with my attendants?'

His fury evaporated as quickly as it had surged through his system and he found himself stifling a smile. ‘A royal lady should ride at my side, no less,' he said, keeping his voice curt. ‘You are right. Your groom may walk at the horse's head, and your dog'– he had noticed the small animal trotting nervously behind her, now abandoned on the ground as she sat on the horse– ‘can ride in the litter with your ladies and your boxes.' Her father had impressed on him the fact that his daughter was a scholar and he had seen the trunk full of scrolls being hefted into one of the baggage carts. Something else about her he hadn't known. He pretended not to notice the gleam in her eye as she sweetly bent her head in acknowledgement.

Their first encounter the night before as husband and wife had left him with no illusions. His young inexperienced virgin bride was no shrinking violet. She was fully prepared to follow him wherever he led, throwing herself into the moment with an unexpected enthusiasm that had swiftly followed her initial hesitation. He had been gentle with her at first, testing and teasing. It had been her response to his quiet enquiry as to whether he pleased her that had, after a shocked pause, led them both to another of those sudden paroxysms of mirth. ‘I know what to do. I have watched the horses often enough.'

‘And you compare me to a stallion?' he spluttered.

‘Oh yes, husband,' she had replied coyly. ‘And I see you know your duty well.'

He found himself wondering now, briefly, as he watched her settle herself in the saddle, if the act of bestriding the horse gave her any pleasure. Sternly he turned his thoughts elsewhere. He had an army to lead. Raising his fist he gestured to his officers to take their places at the head of the procession and rode out of the palace gates as the men of the legionary escort fell in, two by two, behind him, managing to keep their faces solemn as they trotted after their commander and his new wife.

Behind the men of the legion came the royal escort, provi-ded by the king from his cohort of tribal warriors, together with the personal household of the princess of Britain, something she hadn't even realised she possessed until the previous day, and securely in the litter with Delyth and Nia, her two senior ladies, was one small dog, her collar decorated with the silk ribbons that had wrapped the golden gift of a husband determined to make things better. At the front of the procession Macsen once again reminded himself that he had bought the allegiance of an entire province for Rome with this marriage.

Her father's parting words echoed in Elen's head as she rode north and west beside her husband towards her new life.

‘Be proud. Be strong. You are royal, never forget it. Your blood is sacred and you hold the treasures of Britain in your hands. Before she left, that witch Branwen spoke to me in the words of a soothsayer. Macsen will one day be the ruler of all Britain and it is your power, as his wife, that he will use to go forth to rule the known world as emperor of Rome.'

Was that all Branwen had said? A prickle of suspicion had run down her spine at her father's words as his gaze had moved away from her face. Had he, as she suspected, sold his daughter for the sake of her bloodline, her descent from the gods? She would never know now. She was in all respects alone with her royal blood and her burden of responsibility for a nation that was not yet a nation, an empire that owed its epicentre to a distant world and her children as yet unborn who would inherit the symbols of sovereignty she didn't herself understand.

They headed east first, stopping briefly overnight at the fortress at Isca with its huge amphitheatre, the scene of so much blood-soaked entertainment for the legions over the long centuries of Roman rule, scarcely pausing to do more than eat and sleep, the army accustomed to overnight stops on long marches. They set off again at first light, heading north again, almost at once -forgingdeep into mountainous -countryside completely unknown to Elen, who had never before ventured so far from home.

The road wound ever northward, day after day of steady riding, with the tramp of marching men and the slow creak of the wagons behind them, following broad winding rivers through wild and lonely hills, traversing deep valleys and gorges, forests and mountain ranges, fording rushing, rocky streams, a route serviced at increasingly irregular intervals by staging posts and outlying forts until they reached the highest mountain range of all, with the summit of Yr Wyddfa, the bur-ial place of ancient gods, towering over the steep narrow pass. In the daytime on the seemingly endless, exhausting route she rode defiantly and stubbornly at her husband's side. There was no sign of him at night and she found herself sleeping with her senior ladies in attendance, cuddling the dog instead of her husband.

The fort of Segontium was built a short distance from a north-facing shore; behind it lay the great mountain range of Eryri, Yr Wyddfa at its centre. Beyond the narrow Strait lay the sacred Isle of M?n. The fort had been built, so Macsen told her as they rode in through one of the arched entrances, some three hundred years before on a site especially chosen to overlook the Druid isle to the north and the main seashore fortress of the Ordovician rebels to the west; it had been constructed by the famous general Agricola to house a thousand men.

A guard of honour had been drawn up to greet them and lined the road across the parade ground which led towards the refurbished and extended commander's house with its stone walls and its newly planted garden courtyard.

‘Welcome.' Macsen leapt from his saddle and came to stand at her horse's head. The long column of men had peeled off towards the legionary barracks while the baggage train and servants and slaves headed round to the back of the house.

This was a large fort, almost as large as Isca, and this house, the praetorium– extended and refurbished especially for the commander's new wife– though by no means a royal palace, was bigger and grander by far than the southern commander's house at Isca. Outside the walls of the fort sprawled the vicus, the township occupied by the families of the men of the fort, the workshops, the storehouses, the baths, bakehouses and smithies. Inside the walls, in contrast, the streets were regularly laid out, ordered and clean.

Macsen smiled. He took her hand and brushed it with his lips. ‘You go and rest and settle in. I will see you later. No doubt a feast has been prepared for us.' Instead of accompanying her inside, he released her hand and turned away. She watched the swirl of his red cloak as he strode towards his men. There was nothing for it, disappointed and exhausted though she was, but to square her shoulders and walk alone into the shadows of her new home.

Cadi phoned Meryn that evening. ‘The story has moved on. She's reached Caernarfon.'

‘So, you were afraid it might stop when she left your -meadow.'

‘It hasn't stopped. She rode the whole way up to the north coast. To Segontium.'

‘Excellent. I shall look forward to the next instalment.'

‘Uncle Meryn...' She went on to tell him about Rachel's visit and the arguments in the meadow. ‘Was it you who contacted the council about our field?'

‘No.' He was outside again. She could hear the lone trilling song of a skylark in the distance as she explained what had happened. ‘Interesting,' he went on. ‘Did you see the outline of the villa on his screen?'

‘Not really. It was hard to make out in the sunshine, and he didn't really want us to look. The developer's agent was there, trying to order us all off.'

‘OK.' Meryn paused thoughtfully. ‘I'm going to email you something. I did some dowsing for you over an Ordnance -Survey map. See what you make of it.'

Five minutes later she found herself staring at her laptop screen in amazement. Superimposed on the much-enlarged OS map of the area to the north of Cadi's cottage was the neatly inked outline of a large building. It had two west-facing wings, a further two extensions to the east and various outbuildings around it. The building extended past the far hedge into the neighbouring countryside and part of it stretched across Cadi's border and under her lawn, almost as far as her cottage.

She stared at it in silence, trying to take in what she was seeing.

Her phone rang again. ‘Important. I think we can all agree?'

‘It's huge.' Cadi sat motionless, her eyes glued to the screen. ‘What is it?'

It's a palace, Cadi. The seat of the king of the Silures, the high king of Britannia.'

‘Eudaf,' she whispered.

‘Indeed. I believe the Romans called him Octavius. At a guess, this was his country pad. I expect he had a townhouse somewhere. In Caerleon, or more likely Caerwent, and probably others further afield if he was high king. He must have had other places more central to the whole province. I've been studying the map and I think when they excavate the meadow they will find more than one mosaic floor. This is a quality building; it's sad you can't tell anyone.'

‘But, Meryn—'

‘Especially not your friend Arwel.'

She hadn't mentioned her neighbour's petty outburst and she gave a rueful smile. ‘This is real though, isn't it. Dowsing is a thing.'

‘Of course it's a thing! It's just not real unless you can find someone prepared to act on it in an orthodox way.'

‘The archaeologist?'

‘I suppose you might be able to link my ground plan to his own radar signals. But be careful, Cadi, my love. You don't want to make yourself a laughing stock.'

‘So you're not confident yourself.' She knew she sounded crestfallen.

‘I'm confident it was there once. But I recognise the fact that we're talking nearly two thousand years ago, give or take. It isn't there anymore. There might be no trace left. The field could have been deep ploughed long since. Ancient meadows were not always protected. During the last war many of them were intensively farmed.' His voice receded suddenly and she heard him talking to someone in the background. ‘I'll leave this with you, Cadi, for now.' He was back. ‘Take care, my love.'

‘You will come again and see what's happening?'

He laughed quietly. ‘Try and keep me away.'

She printed up the plan and stared at it for a long time. He was right. She couldn't go to anyone with what amounted to an imaginary sketch. But on the other hand, what was there to lose?

Chris came over as soon as the mill was closed. He had heard about the altercation between the new landowners and the county archaeologist and confessed he might have been -responsible for the hunt for what looked as though it was a non--existent early survey.

They sat in the garden as the shadows lengthened over the grass, two glasses of wine between them on the garden table.

‘Please, please, please, promise you won't mention this to Arwel.' She laid the plan on the table in front of him. ‘UncleMeryn dowsed the field yesterday.' She didn't tell himhow Meryn had done it from home over a map. That would be pushing even his credulity too far.

There was a long silence as Chris pored over the map, carefully orienting it, looking up at her garden hedges, turning it some more. At last he pushed it away and sat back staring into space.

‘If this is accurate, it would be something of world importance,' he said at last.

She nodded. ‘Some of it seems to be under my cottage.' She leaned towards him. ‘Don't say anything to anyone, Chris. We must keep this under our hats for now. Apart from anything else, people might arrive with metal detectors.'

‘Which might not be a bad idea.' He leaned back in his chair and sighed. ‘What a can of worms, Cadi.'

‘When will we discover what the archaeologist has spotted with his machine?'

He shook his head sadly. ‘I gather the report will go to the planning office and then the landowners– and their reaction to this doesn't convince me it will all go through smoothly. ButIwouldn't have thought they can override the council. If the planning department say there's got to be a rescue dig, or something of the sort, at least we'll know there is something there. All we would need to start with would be a couple of trenches. If it reflects your uncle's plan, we wouldn't even have to try to point them in the right direction.' He glanced back down at Meryn's map. ‘This. This would be mind-blowing.'

He drained his glass and climbed to his feet. ‘So, we have a secret, Cadi, agreed?'

She nodded. ‘Agreed.'

It was only after he had gone that she noticed the tiny circle in the corner of Meryn's map, indicating a spot about fifty metres inside the meadow's gate. It looked like a well. He had marked the stream and sketched in the slopes of the hill fort beyond it, but the circle had a faintly scribbled note beside it, unreadable in the fading light. She carried the plan indoors and, switching on her desk lamp, held it close to the bulb. The area in question was marked ‘paddock/perhaps Roman garden area'. The inscription beside the circle did not say ‘well'.

It said ‘wormhole'.

Meryn laughed when she rang him back. ‘Sorry. I took it for granted you would know what I meant. It is a much-derided term meaning a thin place, a place where a hole or tunnel can open in the time-space continuum, both being favoured terms in science fiction. I'm afraid SF has a lot to answer for in that it detracts from the science part of the subject in favour of the fiction. Lovely to write about and tremendous fun to read, with the option of being hugely scary as a concept, but nonetheless, real.' He paused. ‘There are lots of thin places which are not wormholes, and most wormholes are too small for large things, or people or animals, like a horse to travel through. In sci-fi they are usually depicted as a way of travelling forward in time, but they're far more often a way into the past. Don't go near it, Cadi, please. Seriously. It may be dangerous.'

She had no intention of going near it. She sat very still for a while, thinking. Was it possible Elen had been standing near the wormhole when they had met in her dream? If they met in her dream. If indeed it had been a dream. And was it really possible that was how Gemma had vanished? Had the little dog galloped, carefree, down an open time tunnel into the past? She shook her head. That was a flight into fantasy she had no intention of following up, at least for the time being. She was going to leave that part of the story to Meryn.

Sitting at her desk, her eyes had returned to her pages of rough scribbles. She had last seen Elen standing on the -threshold of her new home in Segontium. Her married life was about to start. That was a part of the story she intended to follow.

Her women had been waiting for her; the hypocaust had already been fired up and the floors were warm; she was greeted with friendly faces, spiced wine and sweetmeats, and there was the little dog, Gemma, cautiously wagging her tail in this strange new place.

Throwing herself down in a chair, she patted her knee and Gemma jumped into her lap as Delyth stepped forward. Somehow she already seemed at home. ‘The general's new house has been remodelled to give you your own suite of rooms here. It's lovely, Princess. It's small compared to your father's palace, but I think we'll be comfortable here. As soon as you've rested I'll show you round your new home.'

There were two reception rooms, just for her, one larger and more formal than the other that looked out onto a private garden with a fountain at its centre, carved from shiny black stone and with a powerful water jet. On the second storey were two bedchambers. ‘I gather the general has his offices and the public reception rooms across the road,' Delyth explained. ‘So you won't be bothered with army procedures and all his business affairs. I've been told he has asked two of the senior ladies of the garrison to wait on you and help introduce you to the way of life here. I believe they're the wives of high-ranking officers,' she added as they returned down the staircase and walked out into the courtyard. They stood looking at the fountain. ‘I understand they are called Valeria Valentina and Julia Cassia.' She kept her eyes carefully fixed on the water jet.

Elen glanced at her. ‘But they're not here to greet me?'

‘I expect they will want to allow you to settle in first. Perhaps they'll be at the feast tonight.' Behind them a succession of servants and slaves were carrying boxes unloaded from the long line of wagons and pack animals drawn up outside the fortress walls, stowing them away in the apartments and storerooms and scurrying away for more.

‘And these two ladies are going to show me how to behave as the wife of a high-ranking officer?' Elen said quietly.

Delyth glanced at her briefly and hastily refocused on the fountain. ‘I believe the general wanted them to be your friends, Princess. He didn't want you to be lonely here, so far from your family. He wants you to feel at home.'

‘Does he indeed.' Elen shrugged her mantle more closely around her shoulders as a gust of wind off the distant Strait pene-trated the high walls of the little garden and whisked through the leaves of the carefully placed potted shrubs before vanishing as swiftly as it had come.

‘It's cold out here,' Delyth said gently. ‘Shall we go indoors?'

For a moment Elen didn't move, then she gave a brisk nod.

The feast turned out to be a small affair in one of the reception rooms in the principia, the administrative block of -offices next to their house. Three of the general's senior officers and their wives were there, including the two ladies who had agreed to attend Elen. They had not, it was immediately apparent, been told that she was a royal princess. On the contrary, they intended to act as equals, perhaps even condescending equals in the company of a young, inexperienced woman who, although the wife of the commander of the fort and general in command of the entire armies of Britannia, was in their eyes little more than a child.

‘You'll soon get used to life up here, my dear,' Julia -Cassia, the wife of the senior officer of the resident garrison, Titus -Octavius, said kindly as they took their places on the dining couches round the table. ‘We're not formal very often. When the menfolk are away, us girls stick together.' She simpered across the table at Valeria Valentina, who greeted the remark with a stony smile. Her husband had been introduced as ‘-Claudius -Valentius, tribune and third in rank'. ‘One thing I must say to start with:wehave you to thank for the updating of the -bathhouse,' Julia went on. ‘The dear general was not so worried about the temperature of the water before you arrived, even though we complained often enough that it felt as though it had come straight off Snow Mountain.' She gave a theatrical shrug and pulled her mantle more closely around her shoulders.

The general ignored her comment. He was too busy talking to the tall younger man next to him, who had been introduced as his brother Marcellinus, someone who until that moment Elen hadn't known existed. Marcellinus broke off the conversation and gave her a conspiratorial grin. ‘We are all pleased about that. I'm sorry, this must feel very strange. You will grow used to us all, I promise, and if my big brother there is too busy to entertain you, just come to me and make a formal complaint.'

Elen grinned back. She liked him instantly and realised quickly that his intervention had at last attracted Macsen's attention. She managed a gracious smile. Feasts in her father's palace with their tasty food, vast quantities of alcohol and music, always music, from bards and harpists, and their own resident master of the crwth, one of her favourite instruments, and from local choirs and balladeers were much more fun than this stil-ted affair. But the food here was good and the wine of excellent quality; it was the atmosphere that was a disappointment and it wasn't all that long before Macsen rose to his feet. He reached for his glass and proposed a toast to his bride. It became obvious at once it was her duty to rise and lead the ladies from the chamber. She wasn't sure where she was supposed to go and it irritated her that Julia took the lead, guiding her out of the building and back next door to her new abode and on through to the smaller of her own reception rooms where a metal basket of scented woods and pine cones had been lit in the hearth in spite of the underfloor heating. It was Julia who demanded drinks from one of Elen's waiting servants.

Delyth carried in the tray. After handing round the steaming goblets she bowed before Elen. ‘Will there be anything else, Princess?' The other women who had been giggling together over some private joke fell silent and Elen saw the -astonishment on their faces. Did her husband think so little of her that he had told no one she was the high king's daughter?

‘That will do for now, Delyth.' She managed to put some authority into her voice. ‘I'm tired after the long journey. My guests will not be staying long. Please tell my maids to attend me in the bedchamber.'

To her relief they took the hint. Was there more respect in their voices as they took their leave? She wasn't sure. Julia seemed friendly but Valeria's tone was definitely frosty. Like the water from the slopes of Snow Mountain , she thought to herself with a shiver of apprehension.

Too exhausted to go on writing, Cadi dropped her pen. She stood up, massaging her cramped fingers. Her hand might be tired, but her mind was still racing, still fired up with the story she was following. Unable to contemplate going to bed even though it was so late, she rummaged in a drawer to find her torch, let herself out of the front door and turned up the silent road towards the field gate. It had been padlocked. The stile was wound round with barbed wire and a notice had been nailed over the fingerpost: Footpath Diversion . An arrow pointed up the lane. She frowned. What about the archaeologist? Had he finished his survey after they left or was he planning to return, in which case he would have to find his way into the meadow through a barrier of wire. She walked on up the lane through the dark of the summer night and found a new sign to the hill fort, pointing directly into the wood.

In the distance she could hear the trickle of water as the brook flowed around its tumbled rocks and lapped at the shingle beach. Otherwise the whole area seemed to be holding its breath. She walked on, following the track in the torchlight as it turned down towards the spot where the old footpath had -forded the stream. Someone had nailed wire across there as well. She frowned, shining the torch upstream. The whole area was blocked now. It was going to be impossible to go back into the paddock.

She directed the beam of her torch out across the grass but it wasn't strong enough to pick out the area she wanted to see, Meryn's wormhole. She didn't plan to go near it, she just wanted to know if it was visible. Was it obvious, like a whirlwind, or vortex, or did it just look like any other part of the field? Presumably it did, or they would all have seen it earlier. Perhaps it came and went like a change in the weather, or a mirage in the sunlight. She shivered. She had seen it, of course, from the top of the hill; she had seen the fluctuations of the light, the hazy vision of horses, horses from long ago. And Charles Ford had seen it too.

She glanced back into the undergrowth. It was hard to follow the track in the dark and suddenly she didn't want to. The silence was intense; no breeze to rustle the leaves, no gentle -calling of sheep to their lambs, no owls hooting across the -deserted wooded hillside high on the ancient fort. She would come back in daylight. Pushing her way back through the -bushes she retraced her steps to the lane and only then did she hear a single sharp bark from a fox in the distance. It was as though a spell had been broken.