Page 131 of The Shadow Key

‘Oh, Enaid,’ she whispers. ‘Can you forgive me for being such a beast?’

The old woman’s wrinkled face breaks. With a cry she comes closer, tenderly kisses Linette on the cheek.

‘My sweet, sweet girl. It is I who must ask your forgiveness. Do I have it?’

‘Of course you do,’ Linette whispers, holding Enaid close. She smells of soapsuds and rosewater, all the things she found such comfort in as a little girl. ‘Of course you do.’

‘And what of me, Linette?’ a voice asks softly behind them. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’

The two women – young and old – release each other, and heart pounding Linette steps into the bedroom. Gwen Tresilian gazes up at her from where she sits at the harp, twisting her thin fingers in the tassels of her shawl.

‘Mamma …’

Her mother offers a watery smile, her swallow visible in the hollow of her throat.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, and the pain Linette hears in her mother’s voice sets her heart beating faster. ‘I’m sorry for all the times I never recognised you, for all the pain you have endured these long years. To have suffered so cruelly … Enaid has told me all.’ Her mother shakes her head sadly, the neat plait of her white hair lying limply on her breast. ‘This is not what I wanted for you, I hope you know that. I never thought it would come to this when we made that terrible choice. I’m so sorry,’ she says again. ‘So very, very sorry.’

It is a relief to hear the words, words that until that moment Linette had not realised she longed to hear. She looks at her mother, the mother she has never truly known and one day might; in the lowlight Lady Gwen does not appear quite so gaunt, so ill – her features are softened, her skin infused with golden light, and in the curve of her sad smile Linette sees the shadow of the lively beautiful creature she once had been. When her mother holds out a shaking hand, Linette takes it without thinking twice.

‘Look at you.’ She is gazing at her daughter with unmistakable pride, squeezes Linette’s fingers tight. ‘I see the ghost of your father in your face,’ Lady Gwen says softly. ‘Your strength, your passion. Everything I loved about him lives, still, in you.’

Her mother’s voice breaks then, and all of a sudden it is too much for Linette to bear. The last of her defences crumple, the lump in her throat dissolves, the tears come hot and fast, and with a sob she sinks to her knees. Linette rests her head on her mother’s lap, craving the closeness she was always, always denied. It is a shock to feel her mother’s hand on her hair, the gentle touch of someone who loves her, and Linette cries and cries until she has no more tears to shed.

Later, Linette sits at her dressing table. She meant to go straight to bed for she was tired in both body and mind, but she simply could not settle. Instead she took her writing implements from her study and brought them back upstairs, where she has been penning her deposition for the last half-hour.

She reads it with a rising sense of dissatisfaction. After much thought Linette decided to commit her entire history to paper before relating the circumstances of the last few days in minute detail, but reading her words back now she realises she sounds like the madwoman Julian always pretended she was. What court of law would believe such wild claims? Blood rites and rituals, sacred circles, demons called Berith, and names written in an alphabet whose language she does not even know? Even the parts describing Julian’s cold treatment of her over the years reads like nothing more than the complaints of a spoilt child who does not know her place.

Linette places the quill back into its inkwell, puts her head in her hands.

She sits like that for several minutes, until, at length, a dark thought begins to invade her mind like malicious wasps.

I could kill him, the wasps say, and Linette presses her fingers hard into her temples. It would be no less than he deserved, a fitting payment for the life he took from her, from her mother, from Henry. From her father. A life for a life. Slowly the shadow of a plan begins to swirl in her mind and Linette lets it take shape, feels a sense of rightness envelope her. Yes, the wasps whisper, it is only right. Cwm Nantcol could hide a body well enough, especially if she were to bury it in the lower reaches of Moelfre where the land is mostly bog. A body could sink very easily if she were to weigh it down.

No one would ever know.

There is a clatter of wheel, the crunch of gravel. Linette lifts her head. Merlin rolls over on the bed where he has been stretched out snoring, ears twitching at the sound, and with a strange sense of inevitability Linette rises from the dressing table. Wrapping her dressing gown about her shoulders she goes to the window, pushes the curtain along its rail, and when she sees who it is her anger rises once again to choke her.

As she thought. It is Julian.

Gripping the curtain Linette watches him steer the dapple grey to the side of Plas Helyg in the direction of the stables. He was not supposed to be back until tomorrow, she thinks, that is what he told them. But then Julian Tresilian is a liar, and always has been.

It comes as naturally to him as breathing.

Linette lets the curtain drop.

I could kill him.

The words are loud in her mind now, and they do not belong to the wasps. They belong wholly to her.

I can kill him.

I will kill him.

Ever so quietly Linette leaves her bedroom, shuts the door softly behind her. She pads barefoot along the threadbare carpet, down the corridor, down the stairs to the landing below. At the grandfather clock she stops, the pendulum clunking loudly in its mighty casement, slow and measured, back and forth, a deep and resonant lullaby.

Waits.

It is some minutes before Julian lets himself in. From the shadow of the stairs Linette watches him cross the vestibule, but instead of disappearing through to the west wing he approaches the ancient fireplace. Her cousin reaches up, places his hand upon the sconce fixed into the stone. Linette grips the balustrade tight, watches with astonishment as Julian pulls the sconce down. In that moment there comes the rumbling of stone; the hearth draws back, slides away to reveal an opening.

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