Several floors below the flat where Tudor did his best to be tolerant of a petulant teenager, Deri Williams had just sat down with his family to enjoy a late supper. The flat was on the ground floor, at the back of the building. It had its own private rear entrance (through a small, enclosed garden), as well as a door connecting it to a corridor that led to the foyer. Deri had taken over as concierge and caretaker of the Aurora more thanthirty years earlier, but his connection to the building went back further. He had been born and raised there, his father having been the custodian before him. In those three decades he had seen dozens of residents come and go. He had also, eventually, married and raised a family. A fact that was a constant source of surprise and pride to him. He lifted the bowl of pasta and passed it towards his elder son, Matthew.
‘Eat up,bach,’he said. ‘Can’t let good food go to waste.’
Matthew laughed. ‘And Ma has cooked enough to feed a village.’
‘As usual,’ put in his twin. David was younger by ten minutes but made up for it by being a good inch taller than his brother and being blessed with his mother’s red hair. Both shared their Welsh father’s ready smile. It was a winning combination. Deri beamed at the boys, wondering anew at his own good fortune. Recent events had reminded him to count his blessings every day.
From beneath the table came a rumbling growl.
‘Hush now!’ Deri pretended to admonish the dog whilst casually dropping a piece of garlic bread on the floor. The whole table wobbled as the great hound reached for the treat. Louisa knew her husband too well.
‘Don’t encourage him!’ she said.
He held up his hands, laughing. ‘Whatever do you mean,cariad?I did nothing.’
She frowned at him, rapping his knuckles with the salad servers. ‘You spoil that dog same as you spoil the boys. I married a pushover. Here, Matthew, finish the salad, for pity’s sake, don’t make me put it back in the fridge.’
Deri dropped his hand to ruffle the grey-brown fur. ‘You need your food, don’t you Taran? Big lad like you.’ As he returned to watching his family eat and listened to them tease one another, he could not help thinking of the Richards boy. He recalled he had just celebrated his fifteenth birthday. He remembered parcels arriving, balloons being delivered, friends taking him out, his parents joking about how only five minutes before he had been a chatterbox toddler and now he was nearly a man. And now he was dead. By his own hand! The thought was dreadful and caused his stomach to knot so that he feared for once he might not be able to enjoy Louisa’s wonderful food. He searched his memory for signs that the boy had been depressed, or upset by something, or in any way not his usual, cheerful self. He could think of nothing. One day the Richards’ family life was normal and safe and content and full of hope for the future. The next, they were allgone. It would have been a tragedy for any family, anywhere, but here, in the Aurora, it was more than that, and Deri knew the truth of this. It was a sign, just as the terrible deaths of the Salingers had been. It was a sign he had been guarding against for thirty years, and one he had hoped never to see. Not during his tenure. Or his sons’, he had prayed. He felt the weight of such knowledge, of the significance of what had happened, settle heavily about him, like a yoke dropped onto his shoulders. He had always known such a day might come, but that did not make it any less dreadful. Any less sorrowful. As he looked at his beautiful boys his heart constricted. The future he had hoped to spare them was coming to pass. Their carefree lives were about to change forever, and his soul wept for them. It wept for them all.
The Black Mountains, Wales 1085
Autumn turned to winter and the community settled in for the cold months to come. There was little that could be done by way of farming, as such, so that many of the younger villagers became restless. It was Tudor who offered to help with improving the swordsmanship of the men and the bow craft of the children and women. Any initial resistance to having an outsider instruct them soon dwindled to nothing when people saw how adept he was not only at fighting, but at teaching the arts of fighting. Even Bryn ap Blaen, with his habitually surly disposition, was won over when shown how to throw his axe. Tudor showed the smaller children how to make slingshots from strips of hide, so that no-one was left out. Rhiannon watched him with growing interest. She was gladdened to see him accepted into the community, and pleased that he had healed well. Whatever he may have said about the debt being repaid, she still felt she owed him. After all, he was now an outcast, like them. Whatever future he had envisaged for himself had surely been sacrificed when hehad come to her aid that day. She became aware that he was watching her. Not overtly, but often, so that when she would glance up from some daily task she would invariably find his eyes upon her. She was shocked at the way her body reacted to this. A fire seemed to run through her hot as any that burned in the stone hearth of the croft or the centre of the barn at night. And that heat brought with it other sensations, feelings and thoughts that she had not experienced before. It was as if his gaze awakened something within her that had lain dormant. She was unaccustomed to being so governed by her body, rather than her mind. True, she had always enjoyed running with her father’s hounds at her heel, or scrambling over the heather clad hills, or climbing trees with the village children, but that was when she was a girl. Now that she was a woman even practical tasks had to be considered, thought about, planned. Indeed, so many things occupied her mind that more often than not her activities were done whilst pondering some question about her heritage, or problem regarding the future of the village, or quandary as to how close she could allow her friendship with the outsider to become. So it was shocking to her to find sensations and emotions ruling her now. There were even times when Mamgi was instructing her in the ways of her mother’s magic and she could still notbring her mind to bear on what she was doing, so taken up was she with images of Tudor before her mind’s eye.
This preoccupation had not gone unnoticed by Mamgi. One wind-blown night they sat together in the croft, the fire burning low. The three, tiny, orphan children who shared it with them were asleep, dreaming snugly beneath heavy sheepskins. Taran snored as close to the fire as his fur would allow him to safely lie. Mamgi was attempting to impart wisdom regarding reading cast bones. Again, Rhiannon’s mind wandered, and she had to ask the old woman to repeat an instruction.
Mamgi chuckled. ‘Well, well,cariad,must I fetch him here so your thoughts do not stray across the yard to the barn?’
‘Fetch who?’ Rhiannon’s attempt at puzzlement was unconvincing even to her own ears. She glanced at her mentor, surprised to see her smiling. She feared the old woman would disapprove of her developing an affection for an outsider. And yet, she had no mother to speak to. No sister to confide in. No friend to help her make sense of what was happening to her, other than this bird-like grandmother. Cautiously she asked, ‘Do you think him a man of good sense?’
‘Good sense? Oh yes, certainly.’
‘And mild temper.’
‘So it seems.’
‘And, he has proved himself to be… useful?’
At this Mamgi gave a shriek of laughter so sudden and so sharp Rhiannon wondered it did not wake the slumbering children. Taran raised his head briefly. ’It must be a great passion indeed if a man’s most notable quality is his usefulness,’ she laughed, slapping her bony thigh.
Rhiannon squirmed beneath the teasing. ‘What would you have me say?’
‘That your heart burns for him, your mind is filled with him, and you long to feel his warm hands upon your bare flesh.’
‘Mamgi!’
The old woman laughed some more for a moment and then, seeing Rhiannon’s mortified expression, restrained her glee to talk calmly. ‘You love him, then?’
‘What know I of love?’
‘Do you not love those babes?’ she asked, nodding at the children.
‘Oh, that is different. Might as well ask if I love Taran. Or you,’ she added, letting herself smile now. She plucked at the snowy fleece on her lap. ‘But to love a man…. I know nothing of these things.’
‘No more does many a bride on her wedding night, yet behold! Babies are born.’
Rhiannon found herself blushing. ‘Now you are teasing me again, to speak of weddings and babies. Why, he has not so much as held my hand.’
‘And if he were to do so? What would your response be?’
