She snorted derisively but was evidently pleased and after a moment held out her hand. ‘To mutual trust?’
He wobbled his palm but then accepted the extended hand—and the offer of a cup of tea that came with it. As she stood by the kettle, leaning on the counter, she watched with some amusement as he began to work his way through her box of biscuits, channelling his inner Benjamin.
‘Food shortages on La Luz?’
‘Light Island and yes. We ran out.’ He hesitated then added carelessly, as if he wasn’t asking for her opinion but merely stating something he’d already decided upon, ‘My caretaker, Harry, has suggested the revival of the supplies boat service that once went between the islands.’
‘Boatman? And theKewer Vas.’ She obviously clocked his nose wrinkle of annoyance and informed him joyfully, ‘It means fine weather. I think old Boats retired twenty years or so ago. Something like that just wasn’t viable anymore.’
‘Yes, another Boatman. But this one on a good salary, and Harry would own the boat—one with a pronounceableRussianname.’
She grinned mischievously as she brought the two mugs of tea to the table. ‘It’s illegal to use foreign words in Cornwall.Enys a’n Lugern—that’s easy to say; it means either Island of the Light, or Russians go home; take your pick. I prefer the latter translation.’ She leaned forward eagerly apparently more excited about something other than the language spat.
‘Books, too! You could run a library bookboatservice rather than a bookbus as on land. Oh! And what about servicing other boatsat sea! Like a mobile café on the motorway, it putters up to boats with hot drinks and snacks. I mean, the location of every single boat is known nowadays, isn’t it? Imagine the tourism we’d encourage… What!’
He curbed his smile. ‘Harry wants to employ a retired fisherman—someone too old for the rigours of that life but who might still need an income, and also a young apprentice. Both local. I thought you might have some suggestions.’
‘You don’t seem especially fond of our local lads.’
‘Not the ones trying to kill me, no.’
They’d come to something of an impasse. She got up to refresh the tea, so he took the opportunity to finish off the biscuits. He was holding one in his hand, thinking about the boy, when he realised he was looking at a chocolate finger and was immediately taken back to the meeting on the Hoe, where Emilia had been meticulously laying them out and making Roman numerals, a different one for each place. Suddenly, another memory flashed into his mind, and he regarded the woman’s back as she leaned on the counter, waiting for the kettle to re-boil. No time like the present.
‘Why were you startled by Emilia’s presence at Mark’s meeting? You had not met her before, I think.’
She kept her back to him as she poured the hot water and stirred around the tea bags. Then she took her time adding milk. Finally, she shook her head, self-deprecatingly. ‘When I saw you had all my books in your bookcase, I assumed you’d actually read them. You’re one of those people who never gets past the cover.’
This was a little harsh but basically true, so he didn’t challenge it. ‘What has that got to do with Emilia?’
She swung around, slammed the mugs on the table and strode out. Aleksey craned around the open doorway, just checking she wasn’t going for a gun. People seemed to have a habit of storming out on him, and in his past life that often meant something very, very bad was about to happen to him. However, Morwenna came back with a book and she shoved it under his nose. ‘There. See for yourself.’
He had to don his glasses to see the page. But he forgot this humiliation when he saw the illustration. It was Emilia—even more startlingly, it appeared to be Emilia in the flower-girl dress Sarah had made for her. Caught in the wind, her waist-length red hair was blowing out behind her as if alive.Sea snakes in a Russian lake.
‘What is this?’
‘Well, thank God, you see it too. It’s not just me.’ She took the book back from him and sat down. He plucked it out of her fingers again, studying the picture as she spoke. ‘If you’d made the effort to actually read it, see—Tuath Dé, Tribe of the Gods?—you’d know that this is a depiction of Gwendolen of the Celts. Goddess? Princess? One of the ancient, technologically advanced folk that Dad believed in? Faerie? I don’t know, but some kind of supernatural power is always associated with her. Obviously, that’s just a relatively modern illustration of her by a Spanish artist, and it’s used for almost all portrayals of red-haired women warriors, but he took his inspiration from the very earliest recorded accounts of this land. Some of the stories of Gwendolen were even written by the early Christians. They often tried to claim she was one of the Nephilim—sons of God and daughters of man, and all that good lusty stuff. But isn’t it an incredible likeness?’
‘Yes.’ In other circumstances, with any other girl, he’d have dismissed this strange similarity as coincidence, but Emilia, being Emilia, gave him pause for thought. She was already his Celtic princess, his one with a destiny he could not yet foresee. And she had just informed him that she also sensed some, as yet, unknowable fate.
‘I mentioned it to Mark—showed him the picture.’ His gaze shot up from the book. ‘He just quoted that famous comedy sketch at me—do you know it?Don’t mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it?’
At his completely blank stare of incomprehension, she twitched her nose, then leaned forward suddenly. ‘Is she in witness protection? Are you her—I don’t know, handler? Bodyguard? I’d feel awful if I—’
‘—I will read the book.’ It effectively cut off the conversation, as he’d intended it to do.
She leaned back in her chair, considering him as they drank their tea. He checked his watch, realising that Ben and the others would be waiting for him. Seeing the gesture, gathering she was about to lose him, she asked, ‘You’re going to pay for this Boatman plan, aren’t you? The boat, the wages…’ He shrugged. ‘You don’t seem the type. I’m sorry, but you just don’t. Mark might have been making a joke about you, but there was an underlying hint of fear I’ve not heard in his voice before. Ben, he’s different—him I can see doing something like this. But you? You don’t…equate. I don’t like things that don’t make sense now. I’ve had enough of it.’
He sniffed and studied his empty mug for a while. ‘I do it because of Ben. He has a strange way of viewing the world. He thinks people are fundamentally good, and I like to humour him in that belief.’
‘Well, they are. Aren’t they?’
Stroking around the rim of the china, he explained flatly, ‘A few years ago, I helped refurbish a school for girls in Afghanistan. A young teacher came to London to ask for my help. I rebuilt it for him because it had been burned down by the Taliban. I restocked it with everything the girls would need: computers, a state-of-the-art science lab. It had over a hundred girls enrolled towards the end, some of whom had applied to study medicine at Imperial College in London, and had been accepted.’ He twitched his nose. ‘Now it is rubble once more. The oldest girls were dragged from their classroom and no one knows what has happened to them, although it is rumoured they were tortured before being raped to death. The younger girls are now confined to their homes and not allowed education of any kind. The young teacher I met was hanged from a crane. So, no, I do not have great faith in the human species. I have seen life from both sides now, and I know what men are capable of. I have stopped trying to change the world, and I restrict my care to my own family—one evil man at a time.’
‘Mr Scar.’
‘Yes. He would be a good example of my new philosophy.’
‘And yet…our new Boatman.’
