31

Cadi glanced up as Meryn slowly descended the stairs, bringingwith him a faint scent of burning herbs, mugwort and vervain and sandalwood. ‘So, did you manage to contact -Branwen?'

He walked across the room and threw himself down onto the sofa by the back window. ‘Yes and no.'

Cadi smiled. ‘Always the enigma.'

‘Indeed. I saw her, in a small shadowy room, lit by oil lamps. She was sitting on a narrow bed with a pack of some kind beside her. I think she heard me, but she made a sign against the evil eye and the air around her shimmered and dissolved and the sighting faded away.'

‘She had your number.'

‘It appears so. I will try again. Next time you write about her, can you write into your record that I'm a good guy and only want to help.'

‘You really think that's worth a try?'

‘Why not?'

Cadi hadn't expected Rachel to call in again later that morning. ‘Are you here to solve the crime of the Roman in the grave with a bullet in his head like Sherlock Holmes, Uncle Meryn?' Rachel did her best to grin.

‘I wish I was.' Meryn greeted her with a hug.

‘How did the trip to Cardiff go?' Cadi closed the door behind her.

‘Good and bad. That's why I wanted to call in on my way home. To discuss it with you, Cadi.' Rachel dived into her bucket--sized shoulder bag and produced a bottle of champagne. ‘Can we stick this in your freezer for a few minutes. It's got a bit warm in the car.'

‘Champagne usually means good.' Cadi glanced at her. ‘Why don't we have lunch outside on the terrace? I'll lay everything out while the bottle chills.'

‘You may not want to drink to anything but my perdition when I tell you what my news is,' Rachel put in as they opened the doors into the garden and made their way outside. Last night's rain had dried up and the air smelt of grass and roses and jasmine.

‘I think you'd better tell us instead of dropping dark hints,' Cadi said when at last they were sitting in front of the food. She had brought ham and paté and some salmon and asparagus quiche and miniature pasties from the deli, together with Chris's sourdough bread and local cheese. ‘So, what happened?'

Rachel took a deep breath. ‘I had a meeting with the potential buyer's agent. His boss has seen my work online and at some local gallery. He likes my work so much he wants to give me a one-woman exhibition in Cardiff.'

‘But that's wonderful!' Cadi exclaimed.

‘Except I haven't enough work for a single-hander and he wants me to give up all my other commitments for the next few months to concentrate on producing enough larger paintings.' She gave Cadi an anguished look. ‘It's like a dream come true.'

There was a moment of intense silence, then Cadi shook her head. ‘You have to go for it. Of course you must. Macsen will wait.'

‘But our contract?'

‘I'm sure the publisher will understand. After all, a big -exhibition will make you even more famous and desirable as an illustrator.' Cadi smiled.

Rachel looked even more unhappy. ‘Apparently he doesn't think our little books of poems are quite the right look. He said I might have to stop doing that.'

‘Oh, surely he can't do that. How can he dictate what you do?' Cadi was incredulous. ‘There's no hurry. We can wait for the poems, but to forbid you from working with me—' She broke off. ‘Who is this person?'

Rachel shook her head. ‘An American.'

‘Are you sure?

‘Why?'

Cadi shook her head. ‘Just a paranoid suspicion. Don't worry. You must do what you think best. But I don't see how he can hold you to a contract like that. He's buying your pictures, not you, for goodness' sake.'

‘He's not buying me, but he said he's prepared to buy my cottage to give me somewhere secure to work.'

Cadi stared at her.

‘The guy said he loves my seascapes, my Welsh countryside scenes, all the things I love painting. My home would be safe, Cadi. I wouldn't have to move.'

Silently Meryn stood up. He made his way indoors, reappear-ing a few moments later with the champagne bottleand three glasses. ‘I think we should drink to Rachel's success,' he said softly. The others were watching as he wrestled the cork out of the bottle. Cadi held out a glass.

‘Cadi, you can still write your poetry, and this will give you the chance to work on your story about Elen and her Macsen as historical characters. Discuss it with your publisher,' Meryn went on thoughtfully as he filled their glasses. ‘All I suggest is that you don't sign anything, Rachel, until you have had a solici-tor look at the contract.'

There followed a moment of electric silence.

‘You've already signed it, haven't you?' Cadi said at last. Her voice was flat.

Rachel nodded miserably. ‘I had to. They said otherwise he would look for someone else to sponsor.'

* * *

‘You thought it might be Ifan, didn't you,' Meryn said when Rachel had at last gone home.

Cadi nodded. ‘It's the kind of thing he might do. He hated Rachel. He was intensely jealous of anyone close to me and she was very much in the firing line for a time. Literally. He threatened to burn down her house and he despised our "little books", as he called them. The phrase jumped out at me when she mentioned it.'

They had both looked at Rachel's copy of the contract and it was drawn up for someone with an address in New York. None of them had recognised his name but when they checked online he appeared to have sponsored several one-man exhibitions in the past, two in Scotland, two in northern England and one in London.

‘I think you have to accept that he's genuine,' Meryn said. ‘Your Ifan could not be that devious. Or if he is, he didn't think of this one. It would have taken a lot of organising. Darling girl, I think you've got to try and look on the bright side. This lets you off the hook. You can follow up our story here, as far as it goes, and you can still write your poems so they're ready for Rachel when she's fulfilled her side of the contract. And the bonus is, she keeps her home.'

‘For now.' Cadi was still determined to be worried. ‘What happens when she's finished this man's paintings? Is he still going to keep the cottage for her? After all, he'll own it.'

‘We'll have to wait and see. I'm sure she thought of that when she signed the contract.'

‘And if all her paintings belong to him, she's not going to make any money out of the sales, is she.'

‘She shares a percentage with him.' Meryn leaned forward and put his hand over hers. ‘You didn't read it properly, Cadi. That contract was OK.'

She laughed. ‘So, you're not only working with Charles for MI5. You're a solicitor now.'

He tapped his nose. ‘As good as. No. It's just that I read it more carefully than you did. So, let's forget Rachel for now and concentrate on your story. I will try and link up with Branwen again, but in the meantime you seem able to do it effortlessly. So, let's see what she does next?'

‘You want me to do it now?'

He glanced at her. ‘No. You're exhausted. I don't want you to do anything until you want to or it happens spontaneously. What we need to do is have a quiet evening.'

Once again he went up to his room early, saying he was tired, but when she went up herself a couple of hours later she could still see the line of light under his door and hear the soft strains of a Chopin nocturne drifting across the landing. She let herself into her own bedroom and closed the door softly behind her, then made her way across to the window without turning on the light. Looking out she saw a figure standing in the moon shadows on the far side of the narrow street.

Tiptoeing downstairs she eased the front door open and peered out. There was no one there. She walked soundlessly to the gate and pulled it open. Was that a figure in the distance, walking up the road away from the village towards the -meadow? She ran a few steps after it.

‘Cadi!' The voice came from close behind her.

She let out a little scream of fright. ‘Charles! What on earth are you doing?'

‘Sssh!' He put his finger to his lips. ‘The same as you, presumably. Trying to see where he's going.'

‘Where's who going?'

‘It's John Davies. I followed him all the way from his digs. He's been spying on you for about half an hour, and seemed quite pissed off he couldn't see through your blinds. He was up close, trying to peer through the corner of the kitchen window. He went to your side gate and spent some time staring over it, then he came back to the front window. He gave up in the end and he's headed on up the road. I thought I would see where he's going at this time of night.'

‘You mustn't, Charles. Supposing he saw you.'

‘If he saw me I would ask him what he thought he was doing.' Charles stopped and stood facing her. ‘I'm sorry, Cadi– I don't want to interfere, but I'm scared for you. That man is stalking you. There's no question about it and you walked out of the house alone in the dark! Did you know he was there?'

‘I thought I saw someone—'

‘And you came out to see?' He sounded utterly incredulous.

‘Uncle Meryn is here.'

‘Standing guard over you with a gun?'

‘Well, no. He's upstairs listening to Chopin.'

For a moment they stood looking at each other in the half-light of the moon then both burst into smothered laughter. ‘Come back indoors,' she said quietly, ‘and have a drink and then you can tell me how you got on in Cardiff. Let Ifan walk on in the dark, if that's what he wants to do. Good riddance.'

In his guest bedroom Meryn heard the quiet laughter from downstairs and nodded. Almost reluctantly he turned down his music. Time for him to leave. Metaphorically speaking, of course. He was pretty sure that Branwen was home. From his window which faced across the back garden, he could see the tall -silhouette of the hillside beyond the meadow, topped by theoppidum of the Silures tribe. There were cooking fires upthere tonight, and the glow from the burning logs -silhouetted the cone-shaped roofs of the houses. If he opened his window a crack he could smell the roasting venison and hear the sound of music carried on the wind, some kind of pipe and now and then the gentle more melodious sound of a harp or perhaps a crwth drifting in and out over the trees. They were happy up there and secure, while below, the cold ashes of what was once a magnificent Roman-style villa sank into the mud. He frowned, trying to see the ruins more closely. There were crumbling walls there, hard to see in the dark, and the remnants of pillars. A coloured floor caught a stray flash of moonlight and he glimpsed the outline of a broken column, half hidden in the tangled grasses.

And then he saw her; Branwen. She was standing up there on the earthen ramparts of the hill fort looking down across the trees towards the ruins, just as he was. Her eyes were narrowed as she sensed him watching and she crossed her fingers in the sign against the evil eye.

‘I am your friend. Elen's friend,' he whispered. ‘I am Cadi's teacher.'

He saw the confusion in her face and felt a cold wall between himself and the woman coalesce and thicken. She did not want to communicate with him. She wasn't afraid, though. She had her own protections against the liminal worlds. Even as he watched she was fading and the hillside was disappearing into the drifting mist.

He smudged the room with the fragrant smoke of incense, whispered a blessing on the souls of the men and women from the past, even now still wandering the field in lonely, lost -confusion and opened his window wide before climbing at last into bed. From downstairs he could hear the murmur of -conversation and the occasional subdued laughter. He considered Charles for a moment, surprised by his own almost -paternal feelings about Cadi. She was such an independent soul, but he thought, at heart, lonely. He hoped Charles would be good for her.