Named of the Dragon (17 page)

"Mm. Mind you, I'm not sure Tudor blood is something one would want. Henry VIII with his wives, you know, and Bloody Mary ... not the most lovable characters, were they?"

The breeze blew again, very cold, and I moved to get clear of it, colliding with the door frame and losing my grip on the guidebook. It fell to the floor in a scramble of pages. And as I bent to pick it up I saw that it had opened to the portrait of a woman, set beneath some famous former Earl of Pembroke.

The portrait—an old painting—had been photographed in black and white; I couldn't tell the colour of her gown. And the woman was no longer young. But there couldn't be any mistaking that long, solemn face, nor the rings on her fingers. This was, without question, the woman in blue of my dreams.

And now, of course, now that I knew who she was, I knew just where my subconscious mind had acquired her. Only last year I had handled a book about women who had figured in the life of King Henry VIII, and her portrait had been in that book.

I didn't think it strange that she had turned up in my dreams—at least, no stranger than the other things I'd dreamed of. But I thought it rather weird that I had found her portrait here, while I was standing in this room.

Because the woman in the portrait was the Lady Margaret Beaufort, who, as a frightened girl of fourteen, with her husband dead and strangers all around her, had in this tower brought a baby boy into the world, named Henry Tudor.

XX

And when the dragon saw that he was cast

unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which

brought forth the man child.

Revelation, 12:13

I'm not angry," said Bridget, arranging the overstuffed freezer to make space for one more container of ice cream. She straightened, looked round to be sure there was nothing left over, then gathered the crinkling carrier bags in a wad that she thrust in the bin. Bridget never saved anything. "I just wish that I'd known he was there."

"Well, short of running a flag up the Barbican tower, I really can't see how I could have alerted you." Cradling my mug of hot coffee, I followed her through to the warmth of the dining-room, taking a chair by the glittering tree. "At any rate, I doubt that even you'd have found his company absorbing. He was in a mood."

"He's always in a mood," she said. "He broods, you know. Like Heathcliffe."

"Heathcliffe," I told her, "was never my type."

"No? He's certainly mine."

It was a catch-all category, I thought—Bridget's type. So long as a man didn't come when she called him, she found him attractive. "You'll have to shop faster, next time.

You just missed him by minutes. James did try to persuade him to stop and have tea in the Main Street, but—"

"James
did?"

I nodded.

"How very peculiar. He doesn't like Gareth."

"Well, you'd never have known it this afternoon. Mind you," I said, "James would probably have been friendly to anyone who'd taken me off his hands. I don't think he was quite so keen to see the castle, really."

"No?" She was only half-listening now, abstracted.

I smiled and changed the subject. "So tell me, what happened with Christopher?"

I felt safe enough asking—he'd gone off upstairs for a nap before dinner, exhausted from two hours of shopping with Bridget. And James was securely holed up in his writing-room, well out of earshot. We might have been alone in the house.

Bridget settled herself rather grumpily. "Not much. He went all discreet on me, damn him. Although," she said, losing her frown for a moment, "he did tell me one thing of interest."

"Oh, yes?"

"Gareth gives Elen money. A cheque every month. Don't you think that's suggestive?"

I shrugged, and sipped my coffee. "What I want to know is why you seem so eager to prove Gareth fathered the baby. I'd have thought you'd be jealous."

"Of Elen? Be serious. No, it's the intrigue I like, Lyn. The mystery. Aren't you even the slightest bit curious?"

"No," I replied, very firmly. However much I might admire Gareth's talent, I didn't want to know his private business.

"Oh, well," Bridget said. "At least my day wasn't a wash-out. I did get my shopping done."

"So we're all set for Christmas lunch?"

"Mm." She considered the tree with a critical eye. "Everything but the veg. I can buy those fresh, here, from the shop in the village. And I wondered, you know, if you wouldn't mind doing that thing that you do with smoked salmon ... ?"

"With the cream cheese and horseradish? Certainly."

She sighed. "I shall have to start slimming."

"Nobody slims over Christmas," I said. "That's why I packed all my expandable clothes." The thought of food made my stomach grumble, and I tried to judge time by the darkness outside the long windows. I gave up. "What time is it?"

"Only five-thirty."

"Oh. What are we doing for supper?"

"That's supposed to be my line," she said with a smile. "I don't know what we're doing. The pub, I'd imagine. You think you can hold out till seven o'clock?"

"I'll try." Something light-coloured flashed at the edge of the garden, the briefest impression of movement.' 'Is that Owen, outside?"

She twisted in her chair. "I don't see anyone."

The flash came again, by the viburnum. "There, going round the back way, towards Elen's." But when Bridget's gaze found the right place, there was nothing to see—just the ragged black plume of an evergreen branch blowing back and forth, back and forth, raking the gravel. Losing interest, she looked back at me. "I suppose it might be Owen, though I didn't think he worked this late. More likely it's one of the cats, or—"

"Shh," I said, and cocked my head, to listen.

Bridget hated being shushed. I saw her frown, and shift position, drawing breath for some retort, but then she paused, and I knew she had heard it, too.

It came faintly, at first—shuffled footsteps and murmuring voices that faded in places because of the wind. Then the murmuring stopped and from out of the darkness a sweet sound began, not quite steady, and started to swell. It was singing. The voices of children, a little off-key, but so simple and pure as they sang that most lovely of all children's carols,
Away in a Manger.

Bridget's face shone, beautiful. "Oh, Lyn, listen ... carol singers! Quick, where's your wallet?"

It was typical, I thought, that she would want
my
wallet at a time like this, but she looked such a child herself that I indulged her, sorting the coins as I followed her into the shadowed back passage. "Here, is two pounds enough?"

"Thanks." She opened the door.

There were five of them, ringed round the long slab of warm light that spilled from the wide kitchen window. Red-cheeked from the cold, they bent over their songsheets, their breaths making soft puffs of mist in the air. The oldest could not have been more than eleven. When they saw we were looking, they elbowed each other and straightened their shoulders and sang louder still. "... but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes ..."

I looked at their small, earnest faces, and blinked back the dampness that started to well round my eyelashes. It wasn't sadness, really—just the beauty of the night, and those five voices raised together, bright with innocence.

For all I sometimes wondered at the blunders of the human race, we had, I thought, created some remarkable traditions. And carolling from door to door—what people in a more poetic time had called "the waits"—was one of those rare things that made me feel distinctly warm towards my fellow man.

Above our heads, a light came on in Christopher's room, and I knew that he was listening, too. Even James was drawn from his writing-room to join us in the doorway. "What's the racket?"

"Shh," said Bridget.

They were finishing the final verse. They ended it unevenly, as children do, some trying to go on before they caught themselves, like train cars piling up behind a suddenly stalled engine. At the centre of the group one little girl lifted both hands to muffle her giggle, and another blew her nose. No longer cherubs, only children.

As we started to applaud, the oldest boy stepped forwards, shyly, holding out a painted tin. "We're collecting for the church."

Bridget gave him my two pounds, and stuck an elbow into James. "Cough it up, Scrooge. It's Christmas."

With a sigh, he dug into his pocket and came out with change, mostly pennies, that clattered importantly into the tin. The boy thanked us, politely, and re-joined his group. I was thinking to myself how very well behaved and organized they were, for such small children, when a figure moved behind them and the reason for their good behaviour stepped into the light.

"Right then, boys and girls," said Owen's Dilys, looking rather like a military leader in a brass-buttoned coat of dark wool that came down to her knees. It was likely the coat's fault, I thought, that I hadn't noticed her there before. She blended rather well into the shadows at the edges of the garden. I watched her herd her charges. "Time we moved on to the next house. No, Angela dear," she instructed one well-bundled tot who had wobbled a few steps towards the big East House, "not that way. We're going down here, next, to see Mr. Morgan."

"Elen," said James, "might feel rather left out."

Dilys sniffed and replied that it couldn't be helped. "We're late as it is, aren't we, children? And the vicar has promised us cocoa and biscuits."

That
galvanized the children into action. They were massing round Dilys in a chattering, excited mob, when suddenly a door slammed and the sound of running footsteps surged towards us.

"There, you see?" James bent his head to light a cigarette. "I told you that she'd be upset."

Elen burst into the garden like someone possessed, her hair blowing wild, her face deathly white. She hadn't stopped to dress the baby—he was still in his sleeping-suit,

wrapped in a quilt, too bewildered to cry. But his mother looked ready to burst into tears.

"Please," she gasped. "Please help. It's been after Stevie."

Dilys exhaled, tight-lipped. "Elen, for pity's sake ..." "It's been in his room. Please, I heard it." James sighed, rather heavily. "Not again," he said. From which I gathered this was something of a replay of the crisis he and Christopher had weathered the night before we came. Elen, I recalled, had heard a noise in Stevie's room on that occasion, too. James took a step back from the doorway and glanced down at me. "It's all right, Lyn, she's done this before. I'll just go ring Gareth."

On his way through the passageway into the kitchen, James tangled with Christopher, coming to investigate. "What's the matter? I thought I heard Elen ..."

"You did." James pushed past him, and Christopher turned to Bridget. "What is it? What's happened?" "Oh, she thinks someone's been after Stevie." "I see." He frowned. "And has anyone looked yet, to see if she's right?"

*-*-*-*-*

The nursery seemed secure enough. A narrow room, high-ceilinged, it had one square window facing front, one door into the corridor, and one door on the built-in cupboard set into the corner nearest me.

Stevie played quietly on the carpeted floor, surrounded by a scattering of toys, trying to balance a large plastic block on the tip of his teddy bear's nose while Christopher made a great show of examining everything, poking his head in the cupboard and under the cot. "No one here," he announced.

"But I heard it," said Elen. "I heard it."

Below us a door slammed, and Gareth's voice mingled with Bridget's down in the hall, and then heavy steps stormed up the stairs to the landing. I looked up as Gareth appeared in the doorway, breathing as though he had run the whole distance from his house to here. "What the hell's going on?" he demanded.

Distracted from his game, the baby greeted Gareth with an energetic "Da!" and banged his block against the carpet.

"It was here again," Elen said. "It came like Margaret said it would, and tried to take Stevie away."

The inscrutable dark eyes flicked sideways to Christopher; moved on to me, taking note of my presence. "I see."

"It was my fault," said Elen. "I shouldn't have left him alone. Margaret told me today would be dangerous, so I watched him. I tried to be careful, you know? But it got in anyway." Looking down, she brushed one hand across her son's fair curls, breathing out on a shuddering sigh. "I must have frightened it off, when I came to look in on him."

Christopher looked round the room. ' 'Well, it seems all right now ..." With a smile, he went out.

"You don't believe me," Elen said, a little sadly. "Do you?" Then, when no one answered her, she pointed to the window, with its clear view of the tower rising black against the moon. "He came through there, you see? I never open Stevie's window. Never."

There was no denying it was open now, but the sash had only been raised an inch or so to let in air. No person could have scaled the outside wall and squeezed through that, I thought. From the look on Gareth's face I knew he thought the same, but still he played along with Elen's fantasy, and crossed to shut the window. "There," he said. "I can nail the thing closed, if that makes you feel better. Tony's tools are still down in the understairs cupboard, right? Right. I'll be back in a minute."

Below us, I could hear the clinking sound of crockery that told me Christopher was in the kitchen, making tea. He paused when Gareth went downstairs, and I could hear their voices blend. But Elen took no notice. Her fingers toyed with Stevie's hair, shaping one curl into a perfect circle. Watching her face, I felt suddenly thankful my own mind had managed to stay sound and strong through my grief. It must, I thought, be terrible to slip so close to madness.

"I shouldn't have left him alone," she told me. "Margaret said today was dangerous, because it's Arthur's Light."

I felt a chill between my shoulder blades. "Who's Margaret, Elen?"

"Margaret," she repeated, in a tone that took for granted I would know the woman, too. "She's the one who said you'd come to keep my Stevie safe, remember?"

"She's a friend of yours?"

"Oh, yes."

"I'd like to meet her."

"Well, I don't know if you could," she said, uncertain. "Margaret only comes to tell me things, you see, when I'm asleep, but I could ask her."

The curtains at the window caught a tiny draught and fluttered and for an instant I was back in that lonely little tower room at Pembroke Castle, staring at the portrait of the woman who had haunted my own dreams since I'd come down to Angle—Henry Tudor's mother, Margaret Beaufort. Margaret...