Longbow Girl (10 page)

J
ames de Courcy stood in his room, looking out across the valley to Nanteos Farm. Black clouds gathered on the horizon. It would snow again soon, he reckoned.

He would not go to Bali. He would leave home, return to Manchester, find the cheapest bedsit he could. He'd saved up some birthday and Christmas money. He called it his slush fund. It wasn't much, but it would see him through for a few weeks and that had to be enough. He would then turn sixteen, and if Man U signed him, and please, please God he prayed they would, then he could pay his own way.

His parents would rage against him. Might even disinherit him. But it was now or never. He could only be a footballer when he was young. This was not the path his parents wanted him to take, but it was
his
path,
his
life.

He took out his phone, rang Merry. Now he'd made up his mind, he had to tell her immediately, as if telling her had started it all. The phone rang and rang but Merry did not answer. The call went through to voicemail. James hung up, mystified and annoyed. He rang again ten minutes later, but again the phone just rang and rang and then went straight to voicemail.

James chucked the phone on his bed, frustrated. Merry had promised she would keep her phone on her.

Don't worry about me
, she'd said. But he had then. And he did now. Even more so.

He strode to his window, looked out again. Great black clouds covered the sky, stealing the daylight. Ice stones pummelled down; he could see them far below ricocheting off the grass.

He rang Mary's house line. Her mother answered.

‘Hi, Mrs Owen,' he said, trying to keep his voice casual. ‘It's James here. Could I speak to Merry, please?'

‘Sorry, James,' replied Elinor. ‘She went out riding a few hours ago.'

‘In this?' asked James, his fears suddenly growing.

‘Well, I don't know where she went, or if she checked the forecast. She was in a bit of a mood, I must say,' observed Elinor. ‘Blowing off steam, I think.'

‘Thanks, Mrs Owen,' said James. He hung up. He had a sudden feeling he knew where Merry might have gone: legions marching, an emperor and queen . . . In a blast of shock, he knew.
The Roman road
.

There was no good reason why Merry wouldn't answer her phone. Unless she was hurt, or injured. All his instincts told him something was very wrong.

He ran down the stairs to the boot room at the back of the castle where all the keys were kept and grabbed the keys to the Land Rover. He ran out, jumped in, started up the car and accelerated along the road across the de Courcy parkland.

The hail drummed on to the windscreen, cutting visibility. The tyres lost their bite on the tarmac. James felt as if he were coasting on a layer of ice. Crashing wouldn't help Merry. Cursing, he eased off the accelerator. The headlights picked out the hedgerows enclosing the narrow road. Stunted trees bent in the wind. James swept his eyes back and forth, seeking, as he drove on, muscling the Land Rover over the rough ground as he left the tarmac and headed along the old Roman road. Looming through the darkness and the hail, he soon saw the standing stone gleaming in the wash of his headlights. Hailstones bounced off it. Something was moving through the darkness beyond it.

It was Merry. She was slumped over her pony, her soaked hair hanging down.

‘Merry!' shouted James.

He screeched to a halt, leapt from the Land Rover, walked towards her and her pony. He wanted to run, but that would alarm Jacintha. He swallowed the sound in his throat, a half-cry.

‘Hey Merry, hey, Jac, I've come to take you home. Easy there, easy now,' he crooned, taking Jacintha's reins, leading
her to the Land Rover. He let go of the pony and pulled Merry off.

She mumbled something in protest. ‘It's OK, Merry. I'm going to get you inside the car, get you warm,' he said. With one hand, he opened the rear passenger door, then clambered inside with Merry in his arms. He reached forwards, turned on the engine and the heated seats, ramped the heating up as high as it would go; then he just held Merry, rubbing her back, giving her the heat from his own body, willing her warm, fighting the hypothermia he knew could kill.

‘It's all right, Merry,' he said. ‘You're safe now. I've got you.'

She tried to say something but could hardly move her lips. James gazed round frantically. He knew he should drive, should get her home, but he felt that if her let go of her he could lose her.

‘C'mon, Merry,' he said, rubbing her back harder. ‘Stay awake, hang on in there.'

He grabbed his phone, rang her home.

Caradoc Owen answered.

‘Get your Land Rover!' James said, trying not to shout. ‘Hitch the horse trailer. Merry's in trouble. We're near Maen Llia.'

‘I'm on my way,' said Caradoc. He didn't ask how James knew, or any other time-wasting questions. The fear in James's voice told him all he needed to know.

T
wenty minutes later, James saw a wash of headlights sweep over the car.

‘Your father's here now,' he said to Merry.

He watched Caradoc Owen pull up, leap from his car and sprint across to them. He threw open the door, glanced briefly at James.

‘Thank you,' he said, then grabbed Merry. ‘I'll take her now,' he said. ‘Load Jacintha for me, will you.'

Her father's voice was calm, but James could see the fear in his eyes. Her father was battle-trained, medically skilled, he was the best person to take Merry, but James still didn't want to let her go.

‘You can come in the car with us,' said Caradoc, rethinking. ‘You can hold her, keep her warm. Just turn off your engine,
load Jacintha and get in,' he said, then he hauled Merry out and ran with her through the hail to his own Land Rover.

James jumped out and caught hold of the pony, who'd stood outside the whole time, as if keeping vigil on her mistress.

‘C'mon, Jac,' he said. He loaded her quickly, secured the trailer door, turned off the engine of his own car, ran back to the Owens's Land Rover and jumped in the back seat beside Merry as Caradoc accelerated into the night.

They arrived at Nanteos Farm after a terrifying drive. James knew that much faster, or much slower, might have been equally lethal.

Caradoc ran into the farmhouse, Merry in his arms. James followed behind.

‘Upstairs,' said Elinor, her face pinched and white. Seren Morgan was with her. James was glad. The healer was considered as good as most doctors for just about everything, save surgery. Caradoc took the stairs two at a time.

James, desperate for something to do, went back out into the hail, released Jacintha from her trailer and led her to the stables. He made sure she had food and water, then went back to the farmhouse.

He stood in the silent kitchen, glancing up at the ceiling as if he might see through the bricks and the mortar. He desperately wanted to go up but knew he'd be in the way, and might not even be welcome. He stayed where he was, suddenly shivering as if from a remnant of Merry's chill.

At last he heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and Caradoc
Owen appeared in the kitchen.

‘Between Seren and Elinor, Merry's in good hands,' he said. ‘They're warming her up. She's conscious still.'

James nodded, swallowed the lump in his throat.

Caradoc blew out a breath, ran his hands over his face in a rare display of emotion, then he studied James, his face hard and unreadable.

‘First of all,' he said, moving closer to James, ‘I want to thank you.' He put a hand on James's arm, left it there. ‘Second of all, I'm going to make us some sweet tea, and you're going to tell me what happened.'

James nodded. Suddenly exhausted, he sat down at the kitchen table. He took just one sip of tea before his own phone rang.

His mother. He took the call.

‘James!' she yelled in his ear. ‘What the hell is going on? Dinner was served ten minutes ago. No sign of you. We asked Mrs B if she'd seen you and she finally let on that she'd seen you go tearing off in the Land Rover well over an hour ago. Where the hell are you? Please tell me you haven't been driving on the public roads . . .'

‘Actually, Ma, I have. Merry was in trouble. I had to go and—'

His mother cut him off. ‘That wretched girl again! You'd risk a criminal prosecution, a criminal record, to go off on some wild goose chase to rescue her? Are you mad?' she screamed.

James couldn't listen to any more. He hung up, glanced at Caradoc, who'd clearly heard every word. He could see the
muscles tense in the man's jaw.

James got to his feet. ‘I'd better go.'

Caradoc nodded. ‘Let me check on Merry again, then I'll drive you home.'

‘I need to get the Land Rover back.'

‘OK. I'll drive you there instead. You can tell me on the way.'

F
ourteen hours later, Merry awoke in her bed, the electric blanket hot beneath her, another electric blanket hot on top of her and what felt like a mountain of duvets pressing down on her. Sun streamed through her primrose-sprigged curtains. There was a stink of garlic. It seemed to be coming from her. With the smell came the memories: water, cold, Jacintha, James. She felt pretty certain he'd saved her life. She felt a swell of emotion wash over her. Gratitude, something else she couldn't name, but also pure, ice-cold terror.

Despite the electric blankets and the duvets swaddling her, she felt like she'd never erase that memory of cold, of drowning, of being trapped underneath the mountain in that small, dark cave, water below and water above, in her nostrils, in her mouth, that awful current fighting her, then, at last,
maybe saving her.

She pushed it from her mind. She couldn't think about it, wouldn't think about it. Would seek refuge in denial for as long as she could.

Seeking distraction, she turned on her phone.

Multiple texts from James, all on the same theme:

How are you? Text me as soon as you wake up.

She texted him back. She remembered Bali, wondered if he had gone.

I'm up. How am I ever going to thank you?

A text came straight back. So he couldn't be on the plane to Bali. She smiled.

You'll never need to.

She smiled again.

Maybe a lifetime's supply of footballs?

Deal! Anything u need? Head-to-toe thermals? Padded cell? I can order online . . .

Ha v funny. So no Bali?

No Bali.

Merry hit
call
.

James picked up.

There was laughter in his voice, a kind of relieved delight. ‘Thought that might get you.'

‘James,' said Merry, letting out a huge breath. ‘Joking aside, what can I say? Without you . . .'

There was a silence on the phone for a long, awkward moment.

‘Let's not talk about it now,' James finally said. ‘You're OK, I
take it? That's all that matters.'

‘I'm fine. I've felt better, but I'm fine. So what I want to know is, what about Bali? Did they all go? Are you home alone?'

‘Pretty much. Pa and I are hardly speaking. Ma's sticking rigidly to his side. They went apoplectic at my driving on public roads. It was the last straw for them.'

They'd gone apoplectic too because he'd done it for Merry. They were blaming her for everything, though James had no intention of laying that on her.

‘They've got it all mapped out for me,' he continued. ‘They want me to go back to school, forget football, go to university, train to be a lawyer like my father so that I can run the estate when I inherit one day. I reckon I can do all that at any age. But I can only play football now, when I'm young. I've told them that a million times but it doesn't make any difference. It's not fitting, it's not what they expect of me. It's not what they'll allow.'

Merry said nothing, just listened to James, to the sadness that still seeped through the words he was obviously trying to speak so emotionlessly. Like a newsreader.

‘So what's the point of going to Bali with them and having this discussion over and over. It's going nowhere. I'm not going to change my mind. They're not going to shift. I know the next step will be to throw me out, disinherit me. So I decided I might as well leave now.'

‘Oh, James.' Merry knew how he loved his home, how, despite everything, he loved his parents and sister. Knew what
this was costing him.

‘So where are you going to go?

‘To a bedsit in Manchester. I've already found one online, booked myself in. And yes, before you say anything, it's a bit of a comedown, but that's not the point. When I'm sixteen, if I'm good enough, Man U will sign me and I'll have enough money to rent a decent flat, to be independent. If Man U don't sign me, I'll find a club lower down the divisions who will. I'm not giving up.'

Merry could hear a new, cold determination in his voice, admired him the more for it.

‘When will you find out if they'll sign you?'

‘Not long. A week or so, I reckon.'

‘How's it looking?'

‘Put it this way: I've got one shot. I'm giving it everything.'

Merry felt a surge of emotion. James was risking everything. Had the courage to do it. ‘You'll get there, James. I know you will.'

At the other end of the line, she could almost sense James smiling.

‘So, Merry Owen, are you going to tell me what the heck happened out there in the mountains? Your father gave me the third degree but I couldn't really tell him much.'

Risking everything too, she thought. Strange how their lives seemed to be running in parallel now, despite the massive gulf between them when they were born.

She had one shot too. ‘I tried something stupid, I—'

She glanced up, saw her parents standing at the door,
Gawain in her father's arms. They were smiling at her like they'd never smiled before, looks of joy, relief, tenderness and a kind of profound sorrow mixed in.

‘James,' she said softly, ‘hang on in there. Do what you have to do. Ring me later. I've got to go now, my parents are here.'

‘Be careful, will you?' said James. ‘It'd be kind of lonely if something happened to you.'

Another silence, full of things left unsaid, hovered between them.

‘I will,' said Merry, hanging up.