Named of the Dragon (21 page)

"Gareth didn't think much of him," Bridget said. "I believe the term he used was 'sodding little—' ."

"How did you get on to Martin?"

"Do you know, I can't remember. We must have been talking about you, mustn't we? But I really can't recall the conversation. Like I said, it was hard enough staying awake. Such a pity. He
looks
like a brooder—those dark eyes, and everything—but behind it all there's not a shred of passion. Hopeless," she pronounced him, with a sigh.

I couldn't help but wonder if she'd met the same man I had. I could think of many qualities that Gareth lacked, but passion, I suspected, wasn't one of them. "So that's that, then?"

"Mm. Mind you, there is still Christopher."

"And James."

She stiffened her jaw, holding back a yawn. "So did he take you to St. Govan's, or did you all get stuck in a pub somewhere?"

James, coming through the doorway, answered smoothly, "No, the pubs were closed, my dear. We stopped by Aunt Effie's instead. I couldn't find your aspirins, but I found these in the bathroom. Will they do?"

She took the bottle from him and shook two tablets on to her palm without reading the label. "At this point, I'll try anything." Ever the convincing actress, she drooped wearily on to the cushions, as though the simple act of swallowing had left her depleted. "What shall we do about supper tonight?"

James refilled his brandy glass and came to sit with us beside the tree. "Well, you can't be too ill, if you've still got your appetite."

"I always have my appetite."

I'd had one myself, half an hour ago, when we'd stopped in the street outside Dilys's. It was the chicken that had done it—the smell of roasting chicken always gave me that deliciously hollow Sunday morning feeling, making me want nothing more than to sit down and eat for the rest of the day. But that had been half an hour ago. I wasn't hungry now.

Some nagging emotion had intruded, blunting my senses. For one awful minute, I'd thought it might be jealousy of Bridget, only that was absurd. There was nothing
of Bridget's I wanted. And then something twisted inside, like a knot, and I named the emotion with certainty: guilt. I felt guilty for not being here when the social workers had come to question Elen.

Not that I'd ever
promised
her I'd be her son's protector, but part of me was beginning to think he might actually need one. Because dragons, I knew, came in all shapes and sizes.

XXV

Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare

Rides upon sleep ...

W. B. Yeats, "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen"

I was wet through and shivering, chilled to the bone, but the child asleep on my shoulder felt warm, his face pressed to my neck and his breath coming evenly, trusting. The mist swirled and parted and showed me a flickering fire through the reeds at the water's black edge. I took a deep breath, pulling strength from the night, and pushed on, hearing only my rustling steps and the blood in my ears.

Through the long night of running I'd wished and I'd prayed for the screaming to stop, and now it had stopped and I found the dead silence more frightening. I no longer knew where the creature was—out in the mist somewhere, following, hunting us. Or maybe in front of us, stealthily waiting. Maybe it had set the fire itself, to draw us in.

The thought slowed my pace for a moment. I looked and saw nothing.

And then the flames leaped higher as a shadow passed before them and a woman's voice began to speak. A voice I knew.

"You have done well," she said, "but there is further yet to go."

She held out her hand and the firelight chased down the billowing skirt of her blue velvet gown.

I shook my head. "Please, I can't. I need to rest. Surely you could take the boy from here?"

Pale as porcelain, very proud, she faced me. "He has chosen you to help him. And the night is not yet over."

I took another dragging step towards her, struggling to lift my leaden arm, to reach her outstretched hand, but the wind rose wailing through the reeds and suddenly the fire, the woman, everything was gone, and in its place was only darkness and the cold and clinging mist. And as I pushed the wet hair from my eyes the ground began to tremble and a shriek of rage, inhuman, drowned the wind.

The child woke, crying. I gathered him closer and started to run.

*-*-*-*-*

I hoisted one foot on the stile and stood for a moment, quite still. Then I heard it again, the faint snap of a twig in the bracken behind me that told me I wasn't alone on the path.

It hadn't been too brilliant, I suppose, to choose to walk along the coast path in the first place, but I'd wanted the sea and the solitude, and this section of path that I hadn't yet walked had looked clearer and safer, at first, than the part that I'd been on before. Now though, I wished I had listened to Gareth's advice. He'd been right—this was probably not the best place for a woman alone. My heart gave a nervous leap into my throat and I swallowed it down, deliberately. Swinging my leg up and over the stile I hopped to the leaf-littered path and walked on, a little faster now, holding my chin at a brave angle. I tried humming, too, to show I wasn't worried, but it came out tense and unconvincing so I stopped. Besides which, I needed the breath.

The air here was heavy and thick with the smell of decay, like a greenhouse fallen into neglect, and I longed to be clear of the trees and the brambles, the ferns with their slapping wet leaves and the gorse prickles spearing the legs of my jeans. Another branch behind me snapped, and then another, and I broke into a half-run, bursting from the thicket with a backwards look as though I expected the horrible snout of the beast of my dreams to appear in pursuit, breathing fire.

So it was something of an anti-climax when, after a pause and a rustle, the undergrowth parted and out came a little white dog, with his stump of a tail wagging happily.

"Chance!" I couldn't control the relief in my voice as I bent to scratch his tufted ears. "What are you doing up here, hm? What are you doing?"

He snorted an answer and grovelled a moment, bellying into the mud. I looked up and waited for Gareth, but no one came out of the trees. "On your own, are you?" Standing, I smiled and turned, inviting the dog to follow. ' 'Well, you might as well stick with me, then, for protection."

I had rather more need of his protection than he had of mine. Although he was only a small dog, I knew he'd do damage to anyone trying to hurt me, and it helped my confidence tremendously to see him bouncing ahead of me, his stout legs a blur as he dug at the hillocks and trotted from side to side of the wandering path. We were close to the edge of the reddish-black cliff—uncomfortably close, in some places—with a view of the Haven that would have been stunning in sunshine. This morning a fog hovered over the flatly grey water and clung to the opposite shore, though I still could see partway across to a jagged rock island topped by a stern-looking building. A prison, perhaps, or a fortress.

"What is that, Chance?" I asked aloud. "What is it, do you know?"

"Thorn Island."

The voice spoke from under my feet, and I jumped. "God, don't
do
that! I might have gone over."

Perilously near the edge, I balanced myself and peered over as Gareth, fearlessly perched on a ledge just below me, his back to the cliff, answered without looking up. "I told you that walking the coast path alone wasn't safe."

"I'm not alone. I have Chance."

"He'd be no help at all. He's a right little coward."

"And I suppose what you're doing is safe, is it?"

"Perfectly." He did look up at that, a hint of challenge in his eyes. "I thought you weren't bothered by heights."

"I'm not."

"Well, then." He shifted over, holding up a vacuum flask. "There's plenty of room. And I even have coffee."

My pride, as always, triumphed over prudence. Not wanting to appear a coward, I lowered myself rather gingerly over the edge and sat beside him on the folded groundsheet he'd set on the coarse grass to keep out the damp.

"It's a communal cup," he said, rilling the lid of the flask with hot coffee and passing it over, "but I can promise you I'm not contagious."

That, too, was a challenge. I took the makeshift mug and drank. "So," I said, fitting my back to the cold of the cliff face, "what exactly is Thorn Island?"

"Used to be a defensive fort, in the last century. Since then it's been a hotel, and a private home."

"That?"
I looked again at the imposing building, all angles and solid grey stone. "Someone actually lived in it?"

' 'One of the most famous bits of our local history happened out there," he informed me. "The wreck of the
Loch Shiel,
a Scottish ship bound for Australia. 1894, I think it was, in January—nasty night. The ship broke apart on the Thorn Island rocks, and the Angle lifeboatmen managed to get all her crew and passengers ashore. Hell of a rescue, from all accounts." He drew up one knee and propped a booted foot against the rock. "I've been with the Angle lifeboat myself for three years, and I've seen some hard rescues, but nothing like that. Still, they had compensation. The
Loch Shiel
was carrying cases of whisky. They washed into shore the next morning, and everyone scrambled to get them before the customs men arrived."

"Just like
Whisky Galore."

"Exactly. The bottles that didn't get drunk right away wound up buried, or bricked into walls. They still turn up from time to time, when people dig their gardens out or do a spot of renovating." He shrugged. "I haven't found any myself, though, for all the walls I've torn out of the cottage."

I wondered what he'd do with one, if he did find it. A recovering alcoholic must be tempted enough without having whisky bottles dropping from the rafters. But then, I didn't know. Perhaps the need for drinking passed, in time.

I looked away, before he caught me watching him. "So," I asked him, lightly, "do you come here often?"

He shook his head. "First time."

"Ah. And you're sure this ledge is sturdy?"

"Don't worry," he said. "If we get into trouble, the lifeboat's just round the corner."

Watching the waves swirling white round the rocks at the base of the cliff, I doubted that the lifeboat could do anything to help us, if we fell. Chance seemed to share my misgivings. Putting his head over the edge, he gave us a reproachful look before settling with a sigh and a thump on the path, so that only his nose showed.

"So," I asked Gareth, "is this recreation or research?"

"Might be research," he told me. "Henry VII was landed just over the way there, at Dale, when he came back from exile in France. And his followers might well have sat in this very spot, waiting for the sight of Breton sails on the horizon. Only you can't see the horizon this morning, or Dale. Too damned foggy. And that's not why I came up here." He turned. "If you must know the truth, I was waiting for you."

"For me? Why?"

"You stole my dog."

"I never did!"

"Well, he saw you come out earlier and take off up the coast path, and traitor that he is, he took off after you."

I glanced up at the terrier's black eyes and panting grin. "He did?"

"Like a rocket. So I thought, the hell with chasing after
him,
I'll just come here and intercept you both."

"There really was no need, you know." I stretched one hand to scratch the satin underside of Chance's jaw. "I'm sure he would have found his own way home."

"He might have done. But anything can happen on the coast path." And his tone plainly told me that it hadn't been the dog at all that worried him. He had waited here to see that I came through the path all right.

Such acts of chivalry were usually wasted on me—implying, as they did, a certain lack of ability and reason on my part, as though I were incapable of taking care of myself. Ordinarily, I would have felt resentful. But I didn't. Instead, I felt an oddly small and spreading warmth, a pleasant sort of feeling.

Encouraged by my silence, he went on, "In fact, there's no place where a woman can walk safe alone, these days. You only have to read the papers."

I challenged him, on that one. "That's a rather chauvinistic thing to say."

"No, it's not. I'll admit that in a perfect world you women should be able to go anywhere you like, but this is not a perfect world," he said. "There are too many nutcases roaming around."

"Even in Angle?"

"Everywhere," he said, with firmness. "And you'll find them in all shapes and sizes."

"Like dragons," I mused. Glancing up in the silence that followed, I found myself facing his curious stare. "Sorry, I know that sounds foolish. It's only that I dreamed of dragons, last night." And that made me think of Elen, so I asked him how she was.

He shrugged, and slid his gaze away again. "She's been rather more level about this whole thing than I thought she'd be, really. She thought the social workers were very kind to want to visit Stevie. Kind," he spat the word out, in contempt. Taking the empty flask lid from my hand he pitched the dregs over the edge and refilled it for himself. "Bloody interfering bastards. Can't leave well enough alone."

"They probably had good intentions ..."

"Oh, they're always well-intentioned, social workers. But it wasn't them I meant. I meant whoever called and set them on to Elen."

I hadn't thought of that, myself. But of course someone must have reported Elen to the social services—they didn't go round making random home visits, as far as I knew. I frowned. "Who would do such a thing?"

"I don't know." He brought his head round again, met my eyes darkly. "But I'll lay odds it's one of your lot."

My frown deepened and I looked down, poking fiercely at a clump of roughened grass.

"You're not surprised," he said.

"Not really, no."

He watched me a long moment, thinking, then finished his coffee and rose to his feet. "Time to see to the horse," he said, screwing the lid tightly down on the flask. ' 'If you don't mind the smell of the stables you're welcome to come."

Damned infuriating man, I thought. Always shutting his feelings down, changing the subject. But I took his hand anyway, letting him pull me back up to the path.

It was the first time we had touched. I felt the strength and power of the man, immovable as stone, and something else ... a tiny jolt of pure sensation that coursed through me like a shock and made me draw my hand away, confused. And then I met his eyes and found my voice.

"I don't mind the smell of a stable," I said.