Page 110 of The Shadow Key

Their exchanges are achieved in stilted Welsh – disjointed on his part, his dictionary has been well thumbed this day – but the Joneses understand him tolerably well and he them.

‘I shall come again in a day or two, unless you have need of me sooner? You’ll find me at the gatehouse as of tomorrow.’

‘We will send word up, I can assure you,’ Mrs Jones says. ‘Cai can go, can’t you, Cai?’

They all look to him. The lad sits silently in the corner of the tightly cramped bedroom he shares with his parents, watching Henry’s treatment of his father with curious eyes. But at his mother’s words Cai blushes furiously and scarpers from the room like a scared rabbit. Mrs Jones shakes her head.

‘I’m sorry, doctor. He’s been so anxious since his pa …’

‘There’s no need to apologise,’ Henry says, swinging the knapsack onto his back.

Before, the boy was so hateful; now the conflict he feels is writ clearly upon his face. Only last week Cai despised him, Henry is quite convinced. But now? To be so sure of something, only to have all one’s beliefs scattered to the wind like dust, is a feeling Henry well understands.

Henry tips his hat in farewell, backs out into the narrow landing. At the bottom of the rickety stairs he reaches for the door, but then a shuffling behind him makes Henry pause.

‘Doctor?’

Henry turns.

Cai stands at the threshold of a tiny room to the right, leaning his full weight on his good leg. He looks awkward, shamefaced.

‘Thank you.’

The words are said in English, and Henry can see how much effort they cost him. Cai flushes into his collar, will not quite meet Henry’s eye. Then, taking Henry completely by surprise, the lad holds out his hand.

It is small and dirty, the nails bitten to the quick, but it is steady and determined, and very slowly Henry clasps it in his.

‘A truce, then,’ Henry murmurs.

Cai screws his eyes in confusion, and Henry dismisses his last words with a shake of his head.

‘Croeso siwˆr.’

A look of relief crosses Cai’s face. Then he pulls himself up the stairs back to his parents, and Henry leaves the cottage, smiling.

His good mood, however, does not last long. Visiting his patients has been a distraction, but soon Henry’s niggling worries invade his thoughts like burrowing worms. He crosses the road, starts the incline through the woods.

He was mistaken in Enaid Evans, that much is clear. But her confession – that Julian Tresilian ordered her to drug Lady Gwen – places him firmly as a suspect for Wynn Evans’ murder. But why? And how? Julian would certainly have no access to deadly nightshade, which means Elis Beddoe must still play a part in the scheme. Henry frowns, steps over the protruding root of a gnarly oak. It is the rings that link the two men. Are the Pennants and Selwyns also involved? And what of the land agent, Lambeth? Again and again, Henry pictures the curling symbol on the signets, the portrait … the book.

Before, Linette doubted its connection. Now, there is no denying it.

A sigil, Julian called it. A sigil that we connect to.

The answer, Henry is quite convinced of it, lies inside the book.

Midway up the woodland path he passes the departing carts of the workmen. Henry tips his hat, calls to them his thanks, and as they call back their replies he feels a sense of nostalgic melancholy sweep over him at the familiar sound of cockney.

Will he ever see London again? Does he even want to? Henry stops in his tracks a moment when he realises he does not know the answer. Above him the leaves rustle on their branches, and Henry looks up into their artery-like spindles. Not even in the lush green parks of London could he have seen an array of trees like this. Somewhere a sheep bleats. He sighs, continues on.

Plas Helyg is quiet on his return. The vestibule is empty, dark in the absence of a fire, and Henry frowns.

‘Hello?’ he calls.

Nothing. No one. Not the servants, not Julian or his guests. He wonders where Rowena is. Where Linette is.

How she is.

He has always taken Linette as a woman of strength, but after hearing the truth about her mother, the part which both the housekeeper and her cousin played in Lady Gwen’s illness … how strong can one be, after a revelation such as that?

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