Elain had been almost dozing while his voice had conjured up pictures in her mind. Now it stopped, and the only sound was the wind in the leaves above her. She opened her eyes and shielded them from the sun. “Is that the end?”
“I’m afraid so,” Math said apologetically. “They were sometimes a little short on plot. In the old days, the importance was in the singing and the poetry.”
“I see,” said Elain. “And you want to make up for the deficiency with pictures?”
He smiled, glad to find her so quick. “That’s it,” he said.
“Well, there are quite a few pictures in the story. The river, the fortress, the woman in the golden chair. And the armies. Is it a true story?”
“It’s based on some historical facts. There was a Spaniard named Magnus Maximus who served with the Roman army in Britain in the fourth century. His troops proclaimed him emperor, and he crossed the channel, conquered the Roman armies in Gaul, Spain and Northern Italy, but was then defeated by the Emperor Theodosius and beheaded in 388. It’s not impossible he took up with a high-ranking Welsh woman.”
“It seems funny to have the Romans in the Welsh national epic,” Elain said.
“The Romans ruled here for three centuries. They certainly left their impact,” said Math. “I like this story because I think it suggests that when the Romans conquered Wales, it was a matriarchal society, and that under the influence of the Romans, that largely changed.”
“Really?” Elain had seen none of that. “What do you mean?”
“It’s Elen who is sitting in the golden chair, isn’t it, even though her father and brothers are there? What we might call a throne, perhaps. And although her father is alive, the Romans don’t make the request for Elen’s hand to the father, as is the way in patriarchal societies. They approach Elen direct. And she refuses to go when the Emperor of Rome summons her to be his wife. She demands that he come to her, and she makes that stick.”
Elain blinked in the sunshine as these elements of the story struck her. “That’s right.”
“When she is asked to name a gift, she doesn’t ask a favour, as women in such stories so often do. She demands dominion over the territory that Maxen has conquered. And she builds castles and links them with roads that are afterwards called after her. Like any ruler getting the best for her people out of the skills the conquerors have brought.” Math picked up a bright green apple and polished it absently against his thigh. “Avaon and Kynan, her brothers, can only raise their army in her name, not their own nor their father’s.”
“Yes, I see.”
“And then what happens? Maxen gives power to the brothers to conquer as they wish. Suddenly Kynan and Avaon have direct power, where before it was derived from their sister. That is, they have taken the concept of male superiority from the Romans. And what’s the first thing they do after they take their power?”
“What?”
“They cut out the tongues of women. Women’s voices have been stilled, as must always be the case if the patriarchy is to endure.” He leaned down and touched her cheek. “I think the Romans brought the idea of masculine supremacy to Wales. I’d like you to paint Elen as a Celtic queen of real power, Elain. Real female power.”
Chapter 12
The sun was so warm, and the story had lulled her into a lazy, languorous mood. She fell lightly asleep and dreamed in bright images of blue rivers and glittering towers.
She awoke to find Math asleep on his back beside her, his arms folded under his head. She sat up lazily and looked down at him, drinking her fill of the masculine planes and hollows, lines and curves. It was a new pleasure. Elain had never before allowed herself to look so directly at a man, and now she knew why. Because to look might have been to desire.
He was wearing a faded cotton shirt loose over shorts. As carefully as she could, she lifted the cloth away from his skin and unbuttoned it, laying the two sides apart so that his chest was exposed to her sight. She moved slowly in the heat, feeling no sense of urgency, nothing but the honeyed movement of the senses in her.
Black hair curled over the expanse of his chest and down over his stomach, inviting her touch; but she did not want to awaken him. He was neither fat nor thin, and though he was nicely muscled, there was a cushion of fat between the muscles and his skin, his body’s velvet glove. This was no weightlifter’s body, but that of a man who rode horses and walked for his exercise, and who ate what he liked.
His legs were more obviously muscled, his thighs thick and strong, his calf muscles rounded and curving down to lean, strong ankles and neat, bony feet.
Perhaps she would paint him like this, a god fallen in the forest, asleep after the hunt or some adventure with a daughter of the trees or the river.
But not clothed; she would not paint him clothed. Elain reached out and slipped the waist button on his loose cotton shorts, and then, half-hypnotized, three more buttons. Softly she opened the fabric and folded it back.
With a faintly audible breath, she saw that he was naked underneath, and that he was aroused. She glanced at his face, but he still slept. Perhaps, like Maxen, he was dreaming of a Welsh princess on a golden throne.
The sight of that powerful flesh drew her gaze, drew her body. Yes, this was how she would paint him, a dark god on a bed of grass, naked and aroused. Elain bent closer over him and then, because it followed naturally, she dropped the most delicate of kisses on that compelling flesh.
It stirred under the touch, and she smiled and kissed him there again. Then she remembered the pleasure his mouth had given her, the dampness, the heat, and she opened her lips and softly embraced the tip.
At this touch, his flesh leaped like a live thing in her mouth, stirring her into sudden arousal, and she pressed her lips tight against him, and felt her own heart’s slow thunder in her back and abdomen and thighs.
She moved by instinct then, half trying to remember what he had done that had given her such pleasure, half simply doing what gave her pleasure. It gave her pleasure to move her tongue over his flesh, she discovered, to enclose him deep in her mouth, to kiss him and trail her lips over all the flesh of his thighs and abdomen.
A hand stroked her from the back of her head down to the curve of her bottom as she knelt over him, and she looked to see that Math was watching her, his eyes dark and narrowed with the pleasure she gave him. She smiled lazily at him, and he drew her up and kissed her mouth, at the same time lifting the flower-patterned skirt of her dress.
He drew her leg over him so that she knelt up, her centre pressed against his aroused flesh, and then she felt his hands as he drew the cotton briefs aside and opened her to the thrust of his body. He pushed once, deep into her, and then, holding her there, lay smiling up at her.
Kneeling over him, her full skirt spread out around them like a bed of flowers, she was still; and they looked into each other’s eyes and smiled at the truth that they were one flesh. He felt the enclosing warmth of her body, she the hard pressure of his; and somewhere the ancient gods awoke and smiled their approval at the old rite of worship being performed again under the sacred tree, at the sacred stone.
Then the girl bent forward, her hands resting on the shoulders of her lover, and raised and lowered herself on the tree that was his share of divinity, her long hair falling forward to veil their faces in the small cocoon where they became each other’s world. Her lover’s hands grasped her hips, and he helped the lifting and the downward thrust.
Slowly, slowly, with that rise and fall, they moved towards the central rhythm of creation. Slowly, and then more quickly, until they found it, the heartbeat of the Great Earth Mother and her lover, the Sky. The Sky became aroused, and gathered his blessings together over the worshippers, and the Mother held them cupped against her breast. Then that great rhythm caught them, and moved them, and they were writhing and powerless in its terrible, wonderful hold, crying out their nearness to the deepest mystery of the world. The pulse thundered through them, and the girl’s skin glowed with
the exertion, and her face moved and writhed until she was as beautiful as the Goddess herself, until, as was right, in the mysterious way such things happened, she became the Goddess, taking her pleasure from her earthly lover.
The Sky opened his coffers then, and poured down his anointing on them, and on the grass, and the trees; and the Great Goddess the Earth accepted it, for this was the ritual designed to call up Her fertility, and His favour, and they were pleased to answer.
Then the girl called out loudly, the keening cry of worship, and together the two cried out to Creation their oneness with it, and with each other. And because they were human and could not for long sustain the Oneness, the rhythm broke, and their bodies shuddered with the knowledge of what they had known, and what they lost.
His arms encircled her, in tribute and in memory of the Great Mother, and she, human again, fell down into his embrace and lay unmoving.
The gods were well pleased. They smiled and applauded. They liked the old ways.
* * *
“Is that thunder? My God, it’s absolutely pouring!”
Math’s chest trembled with his laughter. “Is this the first you’ve noticed?”
“No, of course not.” She had turned her face up to the downpour as they made love, drinking in the rain as another contribution to their sensual feast. “But I didn’t realize it was so heavy! We’re drenched.”
“It’s hotting up. If we get under the tree, we’ll have protection from the worst of it.”
So they dragged their knapsack and the blanket under the spreading arms of the oak and finished off the last of the wine as they waited for the storm to abate. There was lightning over the valley, and loud thunder, but at last the heavenly show was over, and the sky cleared and showed a burning sun.
* * *
“Elain, this is Theresa Kouloudos, my agent. Theresa, this is Elain Owen, who’ll be doing the artwork.”
“Nice to meet you.” Elain shook hands with a thin, very smartly dressed blonde who looked as though she would be comfortable feeding with sharks.
“How do you do?” Theresa returned, seating herself. They were in Math’s flat. “You’re what—Canadian? Not Welsh, in spite of the name?”
“Ah—well, sort of. My great-grandfather was born here.”
Theresa nodded, accepting a whisky on the rocks from Math and taking a swallow that would have had Elain seeing double. “Mmm,” she nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that’ll work. Returning to your roots and all that. Anything you can dig up for me on your ancestors?”
Everything seemed to be moving very quickly. “Well, I’ve meant to look him up in the library at Aberystwyth, but I’ve never got round—”
“Right. We can put someone on that, if it looks necessary. Do a tree for you. Meanwhile, will you put your c.v., including all the details you know about your Welsh origins, on paper for me?”
It was a half hour before she asked to see any of Elain’s work, and in that time the project had been discussed from a variety of angles. Theresa was intelligent and it was clear she knew her job, but she was also hard. Elain got more and more nervous as the time passed, increasingly convinced that her work would not suit the commercially minded agent and dreading the look that would tell her the agent was going to be doing this as a favour to Math.
“Right,” Theresa said at last. “Have you got anything you can show me in the style of what you intend to do for the book?”
Nervously Elain opened her portfolio. She had a number of completed pictures now, and she brought them out one by one: the fortress with the population of the valley coming up the hill; Excalibur in the sky over the valley; Arthur’s men and the car in the forest; a few others. From the Mabinogion she also had one completed painting—the beautiful Elen in her golden chair—and two sketches of other stories, as well as the tapestry. At the last moment, to make up the numbers but not without a great deal of doubt, she had included the watcher over the valley. But the fire picture wasn’t finished yet.
Theresa looked at each one closely, then spread them out around her, standing them up against the empty fireplace and various stools and chairs before returning to her seat to gaze at them again.
“Mmm,” she grunted after an agonizing delay. She glanced up at Math. “Yes, I see. Very lush, very detailed.” She nodded at Elain. “Right. Well, I’ll have no trouble placing this, not with this to offer. We’ll go for very high production values, all full-colour illustrations. Cost a bomb to produce, but worth it in the end. I know one or two editors who have got some money to play with. I’ll talk to them this week.”
She looked around at the pictures again. “May I take a few of these with me?” she asked Elain. She still hadn’t smiled. It was as though she was so firmly brain-driven, she had forgotten there was such a function of the facial muscles.
Elain nodded. “Take whatever you like.”
Theresa moved quickly and unerringly to pick up three of the paintings, one after the other, paused over and then chose a fourth. These she set on the sofa beside her. “I’ll bring these back, of course.” She picked up several more and handed them back to Elain, in the end leaving one painting still leaning against the fireplace.
The painting of the watcher, the woman whose world was empty. It was different from the others, fundamentally different, and as Theresa sat staring at it, her chin resting against her fingers, Elain waited nervously to be told not to paint anything like this for the book.
At last Theresa moved. She turned to Elain, and her hand dropped away from her chin in a firm arc to point at the painting. “Would you sell me this one? I’d like to hang it in my flat.”
* * *
“He’s not what?” Elain asked. The line wasn’t very good, and she was having trouble hearing Raymond’s voice.
“Not related to Althorpe,” Raymond repeated. “Sorry, I mean to Spencer.”
“Bill? Bill’s a dog!” Elain said in amazement.
“Wilkes!” Raymond shouted. “Dammit, Elain!”
“Oh, sorry, I couldn’t hear you! Oh, right! Jeremy who’s a cousin of an earl isn’t a cousin after all? Who is he then?”
“A failed actor of lower middle-class origins,” Raymond said brutally.
Elain plugged one ear as a tractor trundled past the phone box. “But Raymond, that’s impossible! Where does he get his money? He has an income he says is from a family trust.”
“He is lying, my dear. His income is simple building society interest on money he inherited.”
“But from whom?”
The tractor moved on up the road. She could hear paper being moved. “From a partner who died of AIDS two years ago. He’s also eroding the principal. At the rate he’s spending, he’ll be without funds in three or four years.”
“Has he been published at all? Does he have an agent?”
“If he has an agent, we haven’t found him. If he’s been published, we haven’t found where.”
“He goes to London to see his agent, he says.”
“Yes, I have the note I made when you told me that before. Let me know next time he leaves for London. I may put a tail on him.”
“Anything on anyone else?”
“Your friend, Vinnie Daniels, is straight up and down, as far as we can see. Hasn’t told you anything not substantially the truth, except that there’s no record she and her fella got married before he died at Arnhem. She took his name when she moved to Wales.”
Elain felt sick suddenly. What right had she to root into Vinnie’s past, discovering things Vinnie didn’t know she knew? When she got out of this job, she’d quit Raymond’s employment for good.
“That Welsh waitress, the same,” Raymond continued over her silence. “Jan. Straight up and down. If there are connections to the firebrand nationalists, she’s covering them very well. There’s nothing on anyone else yet. The psychic sisters are proving difficult. Try and get me a bit more information. What area they come from, where they were born.”
She wished Vinnie h
ad been more difficult, and Davina easier. She wouldn’t mind exposing Davina as a charlatan. “Anyway, they weren’t here when the fire happened,” she said. “But I wish you’d find out something about the author of those books.”
“The books were published twenty years ago and are out of print. The publisher is having a comb through the records, but that’ll take time.”
“You let me know.”
“I’ll do that. Now, what have you got for me?”
Precious little, Elain thought guiltily. “Not very much. Math has decided to start the clean-up without the insurance money. He says they’ll pay it or they won’t, and he’s tired of waiting.”
“Ah,” said Raymond. “Has he had the company’s approval?”
“I don’t know. But their loss assessor was here weeks ago and hasn’t said he’d be returning. Even if there had been evidence overlooked, it’s been raining. I mean, he’s got the place covered with tarps, but there wouldn’t be any evidence left now, would there?”
“I wonder. Keep me posted. All right, what else?”
There was nothing else, and she promised to do better and hung up. She left the phone box with relief, shucking it off like a dead skin. She didn’t like what she was doing for Raymond, so she thought about it as little as possible. Elain was two people now, one who lived her “real” life with her painting and with Math, and the other who came into existence only at odd moments—when she asked people innocent-seeming questions, or as now, when she entered the red phone box.
* * *
Math came out of his study to where Elain was sitting on the sofa, her legs stretched out, surrounded by the preliminary sketches of the Mabinogion. “Lunch?” he asked.
Elain nodded, dropped her pad and sat up, flexing her right hand. “Yes, please.” She held up a sketch. “What’s that?” she demanded. She had no worries about trusting Math with something unfinished.
Math came over, bent to kiss her and took the sketch from her. A rider galloped into a river, sending a wall of water over a group of men sitting on a small islet in the river. One of these had his sword drawn, one wore religious clothing, one wore a great ring. They were surrounded by tents and pavilions.
Dearest Enemy Page 15
