The Darkness Within

by Alanna Knight

  Rose had paused and was looking back at him. Did she share the same feeling about this place? He must ask her, were they always looking behind the stage setting, as part of their investigative minds?

  As the others talked about the garden, Emily said to Rose, ‘It was Erland’s favourite place. Whenever he was missing at mealtimes, I would look down over the wall and see him on his favourite seat by the mermaid stone. And that is the vision of him I will hold for the rest of my life.’

  She sighed. ‘For the moment it is almost too painful, although Sven tells me that a time will come when it will be a comfort to me to go down and sit there and that I will find Erland again.’

  In answer, Rose took her hand as she added: ‘I wish I could be sure of that. All I feel just now is that my world, my whole life, is suddenly empty. If I didn’t have Magnus …’

  The two children were now clustered round Sven, who was showing them some coins, one of which he had dug up in the garden.

  Magnus came over eagerly to Faro and Rose. ‘Look at this one. This is one Sven dug up in the garden.’

  Sven nodded gravely. ‘That is so.’

  Jack looked at it and handed it back, with a shake of his head, only vaguely interested in ancient coins. He had more than enough problems with the present day fraudulent variety.

  ‘And it goes to prove that the story about the Spanish Armada ship sinking off the coast is true, doesn’t it?’ Magnus continued excitedly.

  ‘May I?’ said Faro and Sven hovered proudly. ‘From El Gran Grifón, undoubtedly,’ the Norwegian said.

  Faro merely nodded as he examined the worn gold piece and handed it back, turning to Rose and Jack who, patiently explaining some problem to do with swimming off the shore to Meg, had observed the matter of the coin from afar.

  He had seen enough on the coin to note one word, ‘Hakonus’, and later that day, he said to Rose, ‘It gave me some food for thought about Sven.’

  ‘It was a Norwegian coin?’

  He nodded. ‘It was not from the Spanish Armada, unless it had been from a captured ship, and it’s definitely not a Spanish coin.’

  Rose thought for a moment. ‘An odd mistake for an archaeologist, is that what you are thinking?’

  Faro nodded. ‘I have to confess that I know little about ancient coins – it’s in the same field as stamp collecting where I’m concerned – however, I would be prepared to identify this as genuine, since Orkney was part of the Kingdom of Norway until 1468.’

  Rose found this extremely exciting for her own reasons as her father went on: ‘It is perhaps a little too far-fetched to link a coin with an old legend, which is probably hearsay.’

  ‘You mean the story about Princess Margaret, the Maid of Norway?’

  ‘And legend had her buried somewhere on the Orkney coast.’ Rose, who was standing by the window, merely nodded and Faro said: ‘Interesting theory but what really fascinates everyone is what happened to the treasure ship that accompanied her, which just vanished into thin air after she died.’

  ‘With her dowry destined for future delivery to her betrothed, the future King Edward of England,’ Rose shrugged. ‘The story has always intrigued these islands, including generations of schoolchildren. You must have heard it in Kirkwall before Grandpa took you to Edinburgh.’

  Faro smiled wryly. ‘And there wasn’t one of us children who didn’t believe that the treasure ship had been wrecked off the shore. It was mainly a question – an argument, rather – off which island it was wrecked, especially to lads whose geography was their best subject.’ He laughed. ‘I wasn’t one of them.’

  Rose said: ‘Thinking about Sven’s coin, though, there are lots of other reasons for coins reappearing, not only from dramatic events like a sinking ship’s cargo but from lots of innocent reasons.’

  ‘Exactly. Such as sinking into the earth and working their way up to the surface to appear centuries later. Dropped by someone out for a walk, and as Orkney belonged to Norway, just an ordinary domestic happening. Only, had it been a foreign coin, such as a Spanish doubloon, that would immediately have brought the Armada legend back to life and set many a crofter’s hopes racing.’

  ‘But this is different,’ said Rose. ‘Why, I wonder, is Sven passing it off as a Spanish one? Surely he knows the difference. Any archaeologist would have a modicum of knowledge about such things.’ She frowned. ‘He wasn’t around at my last visit, and ten years ago was probably still a student.’

  Faro thought for a moment and smiled. ‘You know what Jack will say: there you two go again, making a mystery where there is a perfectly logical explanation.’

  ‘He knows even less about old coins than we do. But I’ll ask him when he gets back from Kirkwall.’

  ‘Any idea how long this fraud case is going to keep him here?’

  Rose shrugged. ‘None at all. Jack never tells me anything about police business.’ She had her suspicions, shared but as yet unspoken with her father, that Jack was being economical with the truth, which both suspected had something to do with the Victoria and Albert III still unmoving in the bay.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  That was the evening when Faro fell asleep and had a nightmare, a rare occurrence indeed. Unused to any dreams that he remembered on waking, this one was particularly vivid and violent, linked to the visit to the garden outside, and when he thought about it afterwards, doubtless related to conversations about treasure ships and the burial place of a royal princess.

  He was in the water, wading in the shallows surrounded by men and women making for the nearby shore. They were not of his time, wearing rich garments from another age, in heavy fur cloaks huddled against the piercing cold wind, for this was no longer summer and a pale autumn moonlight illumined the sea. The group heading to the shore were deeply unhappy, afraid, and the women among them wept and moaned as ahead, stumbling through the water, an elderly man carried aloft a small burden.

  A dead child. A small girl, for one of the women ran forward and, weeping, laid a wreath of wild flowers on her brow, smoothing back her long lint-coloured hair, touched by frail moonlight. Another sound arose above the weeping, the susurrus of the waves, the sound of seabirds crying. Behind the man with his pathetic burden, a younger man stumbled through the waves carrying a wooden box, the hastily made coffin awaiting the girl-child. Ahead of them, as they trudged from the sea towards the shore, the distant shape of a solitary habitation, a crude stone building like a hermit’s cell on the skyline.

  Aware in the dream that this was an island, he followed them, climbing the steep hill with no path, and although this was a place familiar to him, in that cold dawn light there was nothing to break the barren landscape but their destination on the hilltop. They stumbled towards it, over boulders and rocks behind the man carrying the dead child. Momentarily they paused, as someone spoke loudly, but although this was a language he did not understand, the pointing hands indicated that it was a question: where to lay her to rest.

  A man came forward, with the important bearing of a priest, bearing a staff, and indicated the hilltop. As one, the group moved swiftly ahead. Added to the lamentations of the weeping women, another sound, that of a dog barking close at hand. He heard it panting and turning; there was a huge dog at his side. It looked at him, with strange luminous eyes, their brightness heightened by the moonlight and he was afraid, not of the animal but of the warning. It was telling him something.

  Suddenly he was awake. The dream, or the nightmare as it was, had gone. There was no dead child, no dog.

  He sat up in bed. He felt cold, shivering, as if the threads of what he had dreamt wrapped him in a shroud. He got up; beyond the window he was greeted by only the chill of predawn, the hour once called between wolf and dog. He went back to the warm bed, mystified with never a nightmare like this since childhood. Dreams were rarely remembered when he opened his eyes. And if he did remember, there was usually a good solid reason.

  So what had produced this vivid dream? The garden, perhaps, a
ll that talk of Sven’s about what it had been like in the past. That must be it, pure speculation of course, and then there were other elements too, like the popular legend about the Maid of Norway. That accounted for the dead child in his dream. He closed his eyes; he could still see her plainly as if she still existed and moved in the circle of his everyday world here at Yesnaby: the still face, white as the pale tresses of her hair. He would never erase that sad image.

  Then there was the dog. The huge dog. In his early days, he had never liked large dogs, they were every beat policeman’s dislike, rushing out, barking at you. Later, he learnt sympathy for all cruelly treated animals, particularly horses. Edinburgh Zoo made him feel uncomfortable and he had never wished to own a pet, tolerating Mrs Brook’s devotion to a tabby cat in Sheridan Place, to be mildly stroked on occasion.

  How extraordinary, then, that this huge dog should have entered his weird dream, especially one that he vaguely remembered looked like Rose’s wonder dog, Thane – to him just an ordinary dog, but larger than normal. So what possible connection could there be? Perhaps some link with an unseen dog barking when he, Rose and Jack got lost in the peat bog area?

  He was quite upset, priding himself that all his life and experience in a police career had been ruled by logic, to find himself trapped in a fanciful nightmare. No doubt his mother would have blamed all this electric lighting and women driving motor cars, not to mention railway trains hurtling along tracks at speeds that God never meant men to travel.

  Yet Rose and his Imogen belonged to this new breed of women. They would listen patiently with perhaps a few words of consolation or a logical explanation to offer. He sighed. As Imogen was far away, he would tell Rose. Indeed, he had high hopes of Rose, especially as he suspected but never wanted to believe that this daughter was psychic. She saw other things, trawled other worlds, and had done so since childhood days.

  Had she been living in Orkney a century ago, he once told her, she would have burnt as a witch. Although he tried to keep her on the track of logic from her earliest days, she appeared to be instinctively good at observation and deduction. Yes, this dream was certainly something he must discuss with Rose. He was to wait some while for that opportunity.

  There were, however, dramatic events on the immediate horizon, which threw out of the limelight the idea of whether or not Sven was a questionable archaeologist or Rose’s possible interpretation of his weird dream.

  Mentally exhausted, he slept longer than usual. The ancient clock on the stair landing was wheezing out nine o’clock and Emily, placing the bacon and eggs on a plate before him, explained that Rose was concerned about the two children, whose great delight was playing in the sea caves, made by coastal erosion through the centuries. They held enormous fascination, especially for these two who were not lacking in imagination. But there was danger, too, from an incoming tide, a terrifying experience of which Rose had personal knowledge from her earlier visit to Orkney.

  They had awoken early and set off an hour ago. Seizing her shawl, Rose had gone out to look for them. Had she mentioned the reason, then Gran, who was always ready to see disaster looming on the horizon, would have panicked. Mary had failed to convince Rose that Magnus, having had drilled into him as soon as he could wander alone the perils of sea caves, would proceed cautiously and take care of Meg, who tended to be headstrong on occasions.

  Rose had just reached the path through the sand dunes leading down to the shore when she heard voices, and with a sigh of relief saw the two figures heading homeward. They were not alone.

  There was a dog at their heels. Not a mere dog, but the shadow of a large hound. Unmistakeably a deerhound.

  Thane! Rose’s heart missed a beat. No, that was impossible, and then she remembered how Thane had warned her of danger in the past and how Meg now shared that strange telepathy between dog and human.

  But before she had more than a moment to reflect, the terror passed. The children were just yards away, racing towards her and the dog was real. And he certainly was not Thane.

  Its owner had just appeared along the length of the shore, calling a greeting. An elderly gentleman in tweeds waved a stick as the children raced past her up to the house, shouting gleefully, ‘We’ve found a new cave,’ followed by the inevitable, ‘We’re starving.’

  Rose waited politely for the newcomers. The dog reached her first, sat down to wait patiently for its master puffing up the slope. She recognised Theo Garth, the family lawyer whom she had met at Erland’s funeral.

  ‘Took the shortcut, along the shore,’ he panted. ‘Vestra needed the exercise and so do I,’ he added, patting his waistline. ‘She was away after those two peedie bairns like a shot. Wouldn’t harm them, just loves bairns to play with, though some get scared, start screaming when such a big lass rushes up to them,’ he added following Rose towards the house.

  She smiled. ‘I have one like her at home in Edinburgh. A male.’

  ‘Really?’ They were still talking enthusiastically about the merits of the breed and would have gone on for some considerable time had Mary and Emily not appeared in the kitchen, by which time Vestra had made herself at home stretched out in an attitude of complete boredom.

  Garth greeted the two women affectionately, in the manner of an old and trusted friend. ‘Just one or two things to clear up,’ he said to Emily, ‘if this informal visit is convenient,’ he added, and went on about his morning walk with Vestra, who continued to ignore everyone, a disappointment to Rose on closer acquaintance. She was not like Thane; a female, she was smaller. And she certainly lacked his remarkable head, and Rose suspected, his hyper-intelligence.

  However, she glanced anxiously towards Meg, wondering if this meeting would remind her how much she missed him. Seated at Magnus’s side at the kitchen table, she was being scolded by Gran for eating too quickly. Leaving Emily to depart into the sitting room with Garth, Rose sat down beside them.

  ‘Tell me about the sea cave.’

  ‘We decided people had lived there long ago—’

  Mary hovered with more toast as eager hands reached out, and glancing at the sleeping dog, at home on the rug and quite unconcerned by his owner’s departure, Rose regarded Meg nervously. ‘Were you surprised to see Vestra, Mr Garth’s dog?’

  Meg frowned between mouthfuls as Rose swallowed and put into words the question she dreaded: ‘Like Thane, I mean? Didn’t she remind you of him?’

  Glancing briefly at Vestra, she shook her head. ‘Not a bit like Thane, besides, she’s a female.’

  On the way back to the house, she told Rose, Mr Garth had talked to her about Edinburgh and Arthur’s Seat, and although he was interested in Thane, Meg was more interested in whether he often saw dolphins and whales, and what about the sea caves and all those selkie legends?

  Rose was relieved that the encounter with Vestra had not made Meg suddenly long for home again. And, watching her with Magnus, she had reasons for optimism that perhaps when inevitably Thane was no longer part of their lives, Meg would be ready to move on without heartbreak and endless lamentations.

  Completing his business with Emily, Mr Garth declined the offer of being driven home in the motor car. ‘The walk will do us both good and it is downhill all the way,’ he added cheerfully. Watching him leave, Emily looked sad and said to Rose, ‘He is such a good friend. Erland and he were very close. He is going to miss him terribly. He was quite upset. One of the last to see him that … that morning. Brought him a bottle of special liqueur every time. I wonder who will want to drink it now.’

  Reporting their talk, Emily sighed. Yesnaby House was left to her in her lifetime, then to Magnus or his issue, or the nearest descendant of the Yesnabys. ‘There was Sven’s pension to be agreed and the issue of the Yesnaby Jewel, our family heirloom. Was I keeping it safe and making sure it was insured? Apart from all this, alas, it seems there is little in actual money, not nearly as much as I imagined, although Erland kept his business ventures to himself.’ She shrugged. ‘My fault, I’m a
fraid, as I was never particularly interested in how or where our money came from as long as I had enough to deal with the housekeeping. I suppose many wives are like that and don’t realise until it is too late to ask questions about things they should have been more attentive to.’

  Rose could sympathise, for although Jack was not forthcoming on his dealings with the Edinburgh Police, he kept her well informed on their domestic financial matters. She realised how serious this situation was for Emily as she continued bleakly, ‘I am quite shocked by Theo’s revelations that there is not enough for us to survive indefinitely in Yesnaby. Erland’s main bequest was Sven’s pension. Not a great lot, but enough to keep him out of the workhouse, should we have to move. A very generous bequest to Gran, should buy her that cottage in Kirkwall.’

  The contents of the will were a surprise to Rose. ‘I thought Erland was a man of means.’

  ‘So did I, but what he has left will not last long. Yesnaby is costly to run. The estate, what’s left of it, only produces a small yearly income now. I think he always hoped and believed that I would marry again, being so much younger, and I guessed that he had John Randall very much in mind. He was away so often, perhaps there were dangers or rather uncertainties that I knew nothing about, and he always said very earnestly: if anything ever happened to me, I know that John would take care of you and Magnus.’

  A man of mystery, indeed. A much more complex character with many more layers than the gentle brother-in-law Rose had thought she had got to know so well from that first visit to Yesnaby. ‘How did you feel about that?’ she asked.

  Emily sighed. ‘I loved Erland but our life together had changed in recent years, ever since Magnus was born.’ She looked embarrassed. ‘As a sister you will understand what I am getting at. It seemed as if by creating a son, he had done his duty – and God knows it had been a struggle to get him conceived and delivered safely. Perhaps that had taken the gloss off lovemaking, when it became a nightly duty rather than a spontaneous delight.’ She shook her head. ‘It did not worry me, he was so often away abroad and maybe I am not a very physical person, and once I had the baby, Magnus became the focus of my existence; besides, I never expected to meet anyone—’