by Sandra Heath
She gazed down at the yellowed sheets again, and suddenly saw a name that banished all else from her mind, for it was her own—Ursula. A cold finger ran down her spine. She had a counterpart in the past as well? She didn’t remember her mother mentioning it when she told the story.
She straightened in the chair. This other Ursula wasn’t mentioned until further on in the story than had been translated so far. It was tempting to leap ahead to investigate right away, but that wouldn’t do. To skip the intervening lines might lead to missing a point that was relevant to present-day events.
Taking a deep breath to regain what little composure she still had, she picked up the page she had been working on before and continued the painstaking translation.
“Macsen could not stop thinking of the maiden of his dream, and was so anxious to discover where she was that he set out from Rome the very next day. He journeyed over mountains, plains, and seas until he came to the island of Britain. There, beyond the north wind, he found the castle of C—” Again Ursula could not read the name, except the first letter. “The castle was just as he had dreamed, rising out of the misty sea ... ” Or it might be “sea of mist,” Ursula thought in passing as she read on “ ... as if to beckon him onward. As he and his retinue approached, the High-King Eudaf Hen sent out two of his daughter’s ladies-in-waiting on fine white horses to greet him. The first wore an embroidered velvet gown that was the color of a sandy shore beneath the sun, and her hair was as brown as the finest walnuts. Her name was the Princess Severa, and she was the wife of Elen of the Ways’ younger cousin, Prince Cadfan Meriadoc.” Ursula stared Vera Pedlar and Bellamy Taynton? Was the innkeeper Cadfan, the rebellious, resentful prince who would not accept Macsen Wledig as his ruler? If Conan was Prince Kynan returned, no wonder he thought Taynton seemed familiar! Of course, because they had been brothers in the past.
After a moment she collected herself sufficiently to read on. “The second lady wore a jeweled silk gown that was the color of the pale wild violets that grew by the wayside, and her hair was as silver as the moon. Her name was the Princess Ursula, and she the wife of Elen of the Ways’ elder cousin, Prince Kynan. She was of the Christian faith, but honored Prince Kynan’s faith too, so they had taken their vows twice, once under the yew before the Black Druid and once in the little chapel that stood near the yew. The two betrothed ladies rode at Macsen’s side into the castle.”
It was too much for Ursula. The sheet of manuscript slipped from her fingers as she rose hastily from the chair and went to the window. Her namesake in the past had been married to Prince Kynan Meriadoc, who was Sir Conan Merrydown here in the present. She gazed down toward the woods, so mysterious and beckoning in the moonlight. Now she knew why she felt the way she did toward Conan now.
She glanced back at the scattered sheets of manuscript. She had to be objective about this. Something very important was going on, something almost too fantastic to believe, but why was it going on in Elcester? There was no island here, and even at the time of the Romans the sea came little farther up the Severn valley than it did now.
She remembered an old map that had also been among the manuscripts. It was even more fragile than they, and so she had left it carefully at the bottom of the wardrobe, where it was dark and safe. Maybe it would give her an idea, she thought, the dinner party now completely forgotten as she hurried to the wardrobe. But as she opened the doors and knelt to reach carefully for the map, she noticed the old cloak she had worn the night before. It had slipped her mind completely and was too old and scruffy a thing to leave with her good clothes, especially after its experiences in the badger set! Frowning, she lifted it out and placed it carefully aside, where she would remember it come the morning. As she did so, however, something small and heavy rolled out, closely followed by another. Puzzled, she picked both up. One appeared to be made of blue glass, the other of cream pottery. What on earth were they?
She put them down and lifted the cloak to shake it a little. Half a dozen more of the strange little objects tumbled from a torn part of the hem, where they must have been scooped up during her fall in the set. She laid them all in a row on the carpet and studied them. In a flash she realized what they were—tesserae from a mosaic floor or wall! Her lips parted as the importance of the discovery struck her in full. Roman remains, maybe of the villa of the Roman emperor and the Dux Britannarium, were here in the valley! Had she, quite literally, stumbled upon something her father had long been yearning to find?
Excited, she scrambled to her feet to go to him, but almost immediately changed her mind. How could she possibly tell him? She would have to say where the tesserae had been, and that would mean admitting she had once again disobeyed his wishes about the woods. She was in a quandary, but then calmed down a little. First she had to be sure the set was indeed where the pieces of mosaic had come from, and then—
Someone tapped at the window, and she spun around with a startled gasp, for her room was on the second floor with no balcony! A young woman gazed in with eyes that were the same astonishing green as a squirrel’s. Her cascading red curls floated in a cloud, and her white muslin gown wafted like thick fronds of weed in a gentle stream. Ursula’s eyes widened. She knew it could only be Eleanor Rhodes, or Elen of the Ways, because Conan had given her Theo’s description of the young woman in the stables.
She went to open the casement, and the apparition—for what else could one call something through which one could see quite clearly?—beckoned to her. “Help me to be properly free so that I may be with my beloved Emperor Macsen.”
Ursula’s lips moved, but she couldn’t speak.
Eleanor smiled. “We are all here now, and must see that Prince Cadfan does not triumph. You must help me, Princess Ursula, for you have always been my dearest friend.”
Ursula found her tongue at last. “I-I have?”
“In our past. Your Prince Kynan and my sweet Macsen were as close as brothers. Never once did your lord look upon my marriage in anger, unlike Lord Cadfan.”
“Is ... is Bellamy Taynton really Cadfan?” Ursula ventured.
“Yes.”
“What must we do, and how long do we have?”
Before Eleanor could answer, the maid knocked at the bedroom door. “Miss Ursula, the gentleman guests have arrived, and Mr. Elcester wishes you to go down.”
Ursula tore her eyes away from the window. “Yes, I will be down directly.”
The maid’s footsteps hurried away, but when Ursula looked at the window again, there was no one there. She ran to look out, and saw Eleanor gliding down through the garden, with Bran at her side and the squirrel escort following.
“Eleanor!” Ursula cried, but the apparition did not look back.
Making a superhuman effort to collect her wits, which were now as scattered as the sheets of manuscript on the floor, Ursula closed the casement and steeled herself to go downstairs. This wasn’t the time to think of myths, mosaics, or mysterious maidens.
She inhaled deeply and gathered the lacy shawl she had draped over the end of the bed. Strangely, she suddenly felt more able to face the hours ahead, although she could not really have said why. Her head was positively spinning with incredible new information, and she had so much to tell Conan that she hardly knew where to begin. She paused. Tell Conan? Yes, of course she would. He was the only one she could confide in, and it no longer mattered that things had gone so horribly and mortifyingly wrong between them at Hatty Pedlar’s Tump. These other things took precedence. Bruised pride and depleted dignity had to be set aside in favor of whatever destiny decreed.
It was at the foot of the great oak staircase that she and Theo at last came face-to-face. She was satisfied that she acquitted herself well, all things considered, but she wished Theo could make the same effort. She knew he was captivated by Eleanor Rhodes, but thought he should be as capable as she herself of putting on a brave face.
Her hardest moment came when she was introduced to Conan. He had taken her hand and pressed i
t to his lips, a gesture more warm than was strictly required, and when he had squeezed her fingers briefly as well, a rich but forbidden feeling of stolen happiness washed through her, closely followed by guilt that they should secretly share such an exchange right in front of her father and future husband. It was wrong, so wrong, and yet she could not help herself, and when she looked into Conan’s eyes, she knew his emotions were exactly the same. She wished they could be alone, not only for the sake of being together, but so she could to tell him what she had discovered in her translation. And in the hem of the cloak.
Theo would not have noticed any undercurrents even had he been in danger of being washed away by them. He was still distracted by the incident on the way to the manor, and although he was aware of how poorly he was behaving now, he couldn’t pull himself together sufficiently to behave graciously. As a consequence his manner appeared offhand, which dismayed Mr. Elcester considerably. Ursula’s father privately paid Theo no compliment by judging him a Greatorex by name, but a true Carmartin by nature.
More than anyone, Conan understood Theo. Being in love with the wrong woman wasn’t easy, nor was hiding the truth about that unwise love, so even though he himself would have given the world to be in Theo’s shoes as Ursula’s husband-to-be, he did his utmost to smooth over any awkwardness. And when Sir Conan Merrydown set out to be charming and entertaining company, he always succeeded. Dinner therefore went unexpectedly well, even allowing for Theo’s paltry contribution to the conversation.
The Severn salmon was as exquisite as only Severn salmon can be, and so was the guinea-fowl, while the roast lamb was declared to be the perfect choice for the time of year. By the time the meal had progressed to the peaches in champagne with cream, Theo had recovered his aplomb a little, and felt ashamed of his earlier conduct. He had to concede that Ursula wasn’t at all as bad as he had feared, indeed she was really rather pleasing, so at last he made himself agreeable. He too was well able to be charming, so Ursula reluctantly warmed to him a little.
It was while the conversation turned upon politics, a subject from which Ursula usually refrained because it could so easily become heated, that another coincidence of names occurred to her. The gentlemen were discussing the Whigs’ latest stratagem, but she was thinking about The Dream of Macsen Wledig, and quite out of the blue she remembered that the latinized version of Eudaf Hen’s name was Octavius. From that it was a very small step indeed to recalling that Lord Carmartin’s second name was Octavius.
Mr. Elcester addressed her. “Ursula, m’dear, would you look after Sir Conan while Mr. Greatorex and I discuss, er, the minutiae of the contract?”
“Mm?” Her mind was still racing.
“Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
She colored a little. “You know how I abhor political debate. Tempers are apt to become frayed.”
“Not on this occasion, and besides, we have finished that particular topic, and the cloth has been removed in readiness for coffee and liqueurs.”
She looked blankly at the table. She had been so lost in thought that she hadn’t even noticed!
Her father continued. “Sir Conan has been tactful enough to suggest that you and he adjourn to the drawing room so that Mr. Greatorex and I can discuss matters in private.”
Ursula was embarrassed to have been caught so obviously daydreaming. “Forgive me, I’m afraid I allowed my attention to wander.” She quickly folded her napkin, and Conan attended to her chair.
Chapter 26
Ursula and Conan left the dining room and crossed the hall, where the Tudor wheel-rim chandelier cast a wavering pool of light on the stone-flagged floor. Neither of them spoke as they entered the dimly lit drawing room, where the maid had forgotten to place extra candles. Ursula was about to call for more when Conan closed the door and caught her hand. “No, don’t call anyone, for we may never have another moment to be alone like this.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“It has to be faced, for it is the truth. While you and I are here, your bridal agreement is on the table just across the hall. I do not doubt that you are finding this evening as much of a torment as I am, or that you wish to embrace me as much as I wish to embrace you.”
Her eyes were tear-bright. “Oh, Conan ... ”
She stretched out a hand, and in a trice his fingers had linked with hers. Then she was in his arms, their lips coming together in a passionate kiss. Their hearts beat together, their bodies cleaved close, and for a wonderful, weightless, timeless moment they were absolutely alone. Neither of them wished to be the first to pull away, but at last she drew slowly back to look up into his eyes.
“I have loved you for a long, long, very long time, Conan,” she said softly.
He put his hand to her cheek and caressed her skin with his thumb. “And I have loved you, Ursula,” he replied, drawing her fingers tenderly to his lips.
“I wish we could be together.”
His fingers tightened over hers. “I do too.”
She moved away, to the tall window to look out at the night. Her face gazed back at her, fractured into diamonds by the leaded panes.
He was next to Mr. Elcester’s display cabinet and the gold solidus she had mentioned lay there at the front. He wondered what was on the other side of it, and gave a start as the coin flipped over, revealing little to be made out on the reverse. He tried to tell himself he had imagined it, but knew he hadn’t. Other odd occurrences flashed through his mind. The inn gate closing of its own accord, the squirrel biting Taynton’s finger to order ... . Could they all be coincidences? He closed his eyes for a moment, for what did it matter whether they were or not?
Their eyes met across the room, and he looked away first. “Perhaps we ... should talk of something else,” he said, “for our hearts twist with pain enough.”
She nodded. “There is another subject we need to turn to.”
“Macsen and his myth?”
“Yes. Conan, I’ve discovered a great deal that you should know.” She told him everything that had been revealed to her that evening, including her further association of names.
Conan listened intently, and then told her about the incident with Eleanor Rhodes on the way to the manor, and the strange little ‘coincidences’ he’d experienced. “Ursula,” he finished, “I feel certain Macsen Wledig’s dream is based on real events. It’s not a myth or legend, but fact. And for some reason what’s happening now is a sort of reenactment of the past.”
“A reenactment?” she repeated.
“Yes. Remember that Vera told you Taynton hasn’t touched her, and has made no move to marry her, yet we now know they were man and wife at the time of Macsen Wledig. I wonder if Taynton’s present abstinence signifies a wish to change, perhaps undo entirely, what happened in the past?” Conan’s thoughts ran on. “Maybe Taynton’s whole purpose is to prevent his, Cadfan’s, disinheritance. Break the sequence, and everything will become as he thinks it should have been all along. Is that over-simplification? I was his brother, so I have some insight into his way of thinking? He believes the wealth and status of Eudaf Hen should have come to him, not to a Roman emperor, and he probably despises me as the elder brother who meekly permitted the usurping of a birthright that he so desperately wanted for himself. Remember what he said by the pool. How did it go now? ‘Loo-nass-ah, Sow-inn, Im-olk, something, may the secret be known to my might. Loo-nass-ah, Sow-inn, Im-olk, something, By the turn of the last may it be mine by right.’”
From nowhere Ursula suddenly understood words that hitherto had seemed just gibberish. “Of course, why didn’t I realize it before!” she gasped.
“Realize what?”
“Loo-nass-ah is how the Celtic season of Ludnasadh is pronounced. Ludnasadh is August the first. Sow-inn is Samhain, which is November the first, and Im-olk is Im- bolc, which is February the first. The one you can’t remember must be the fourth main season, Beltane, the festival of which takes place tomorrow night, when time moves from May Eve to May
Day. I think you’re right, he’s trying to regain what he sees as his ‘by right’, and he has to do it at the midnight commencement of the Beltane festival, or call it the stroke of May Day, whatever we wish. I believe it’s known as Walpurgis Night in German countries, but I don’t think we need fear an army of airborne witches as well.”
“I pray not,” Conan murmured, before looking at her again. “So we only have until midnight tomorrow night? Eleanor will presumably never be finally free of Taynton’s spell unless he’s defeated. Isn’t that what usually happens with spells and such like.”
“I think so, it is in fairytales, but that sounds so silly in these circumstances. And Conan, something else comes to me now. Samhain was when my father first heard of Samuel Haine. And if we consider the name Cadfan has given himself now, Bellamy Taynton, we have Beltane.”
He smiled. “How very quick-witted you are, my darling. You leave me well behind. Alright, we have decided Taynton is probably attempting to reverse what happened fifteen hundred years ago, but to what end? What can possibly be his heritage now? He can’t suddenly become Eudaf Hen and rule Gloucestershire as it was ruled then. It has to be tangible ... and extremely rewarding.”We know he wants his heritage, but what is it?
“Eudaf Hen’s treasure? Right at the beginning of the myth, when Macsen dreams of Elen of the Ways, she tells him that he will not only have her, but all her father’s treasure, which is kept at his summer house nearby.”
“Meaning here at Elcester?”
Ursula spread her hands. “It must be, for why else is he here? Why are we all here? But I don’t understand where Eudaf Hen’s castle and summer house can have been. All I know is that the castle’s name began with C.”
