Page 35 of The Shadow Key

There is no arguing, it seems. Still, she attempts one final plea.

‘What of the shot? Are you not afraid someone will try again?’

Henry’s gaze darkens, and again Linette is struck with an odd sense of familiarity.

‘Somehow,’ he murmurs, before the idea of it can take hold, ‘I don’t think they will. Besides, what use am I if I hide here day by day? No,’ Henry says, firm. ‘I will not be frightened off.’

CHAPTER TEN

It takes the stable boy some minutes to saddle the cob from yesterday. It snorts impatiently, keen to be moving, and the sound makes the black hens milling around the horse’s feet disperse in a flurry of feathers. The boy – Rhys, was it? – passes Henry the reins.

‘He’ll be glad for the exercise,’ he says in broken English. ‘Gwydion’s an old soul, used to belong to Lord Hugh as a colt. You need help getting on again?’

There is a hint of mocking amusement in the lad’s voice, and Henry eyes the black beast now pawing the ground in front of him. Horses can be lethal creatures, even when handled correctly – he has treated his fair share of accidents. Fractured shoulders, broken legs, once a hand crushed by the weight of a hoof that later had to be amputated … The thought makes him shudder and so, begrudging, he accepts Rhys’ assistance. Curtly Henry nods his thanks, guides the horse slowly down Plas Helyg’s gravel drive, out through the twisting iron gates.

The cob (Gwydion, he remembers to call him) seems to understand where Henry wishes to go; down the woodland path again, past the fork to the gatehouse, out onto the road at the bottom where he takes the narrow path between the miners’ holdings, follows the track that Linette had taken him on yesterday: past the cluster of buildings in the square, the small rickety tavern, thence down the lane leading to the sea.

His journey is not ignored. Hawk-eyed, the villagers watch him as he guides Gwydion through, their scornful gaze stripping him bare, all the while whispering fiercely to each other thick as thieves, and Henry feels exactly as he did yesterday – resented and exposed.

What has Linette not told him?

Above, a gull trills sharply; Henry watches the bird soar across the sky and disappear behind the canopy of trees above. Gwydion snorts. Henry pats the beast’s solid neck. When he emerges onto the salt marshes the strong sea air – no longer held back by the trees of the lane – buffets the collar of his coat. Keeping one hand on the horse’s reins Henry leans his arm against the cumbersome satchel, raises his other hand to his hat to stop it from flying from his head; and as he concentrates on keeping his balance he realises this will simply not do. He must find an easier way of carrying his implements, must visit Dr Beddoe for supplies, ask advice on how best to manage the logistics of a travelling physician as soon as possible.

And he must ask about Dr Evans.

Again, he could be wrong – Linette did say the doctor was very old. But heart failure tends to be sudden, and typically there is no reason for the face to be contorted in death. Such a thing might happen if the person were to die in anger, in the midst of an argument … or if they were afraid. Henry thinks of the glass vial.

Perhaps Dr Beddoe might know what it contains.

And then, he thinks, steering Gwydion wide to avoid a waterlogged dint, there is the matter of Gwen Tresilian. What, pray, does Dr Beddoe think of her?

The breeze dies down. Henry lowers his hand.

Her case is an interesting one. In his role at Guy’s Hospital maladies of the mind were not something he typically dealt with, but there were times Henry had been called to Bedlam to treat the poor wretches who inflicted injuries upon themselves and others. He has seen earlobes ripped from the hairline, torn fingernails pulled from their fleshy beds. He has seen deep bite marks in arms, broken jaws, words carved into bare chests with implements either stolen or fashioned in secret. One patient – one of his Bow Street charges – bit off her tongue just so she could not be taken to account. Henry only saw the quieter patients as he passed their cells, but even they could be marked as mad by the way they spoke to their manacles, the way they pushed their foreheads against the walls of their cells. There can be no denying Lady Gwen’s unprovoked screams last night, the way she clawed at her neck …

Henry thinks of the strange words she uttered before those screams took her in their thrall: Hoath, Redar, Ganabel, Berith. Linette said they were not Welsh, but before he went to bed that night he took up the Welsh dictionary anyway, flipped through its thin pages. They were not listed, but there was another word, a word Lady Gwen repeated enough times for Henry to remember it clearly, and he looked through the C’s until he found something that might match it, frowned deeply into the dictionary’s worn page.

Cythraul. The Welsh word for demon.

The coastal cottages – six in total – are visible now, framed by golden sand dunes, the blue-green bank of water. In the distance, Henry sees the fence of shells outside the Morgans’ cottage swinging wildly from their strings in the wind. Gwydion picks up pace. He will check in on Tomas first, Henry decides, then try his luck with the neighbouring houses.

The door to the Morgans’ is partially open. Henry raps on the whitewashed door, peers through the gap.

The tiny sitting room is empty. The fire is unlit, a spinning wheel stands beside it, its spindles laden with strung wool. On the stone hearth stands a dish containing what looks to be milk. Hesitant, Henry steps inside. There is a wooden bowl by the door filled with seashells of all different shapes and sizes and colours – brown limpets, pale cowries, cream fans that could be scallops or cockles, tiny whelks the shade of sand. On the trail of woodsmoke there is the salt-scent of seaweed, and Henry glances up to find bunches of bladderwrack hanging like dark ribbons of dried-out blisters from the low eaves.

‘Good morning,’ he calls. Then, hesitating over the pronunciation, ‘Bore da?’

There is a cough, the sound of movement. Mrs Morgan appears from one of the bedrooms, wiping her hands on a worn-out apron.

‘O, helo. Mi ddaethoch chi unwaith eto …’

He does not know what that means, but the words are said with some surprise and none of the reserve he sensed the day before, and with a shy smile she beckons him inside.

Between mother, patient and dictionary, Henry manages to ascertain that the fruit and milk were well received, the removal of blankets and the open window have improved Tomas’ temperature, he has bathed with cold water (from the sea, if his translation of o’r môr is correct) twice yesterday, once already this morning, and from these small changes Henry feels there is already an improvement.

At the front door Henry thumbs the dictionary once more.

‘I’ll come again next week.’ He squints at the word, tests the sound of it on his tongue. ‘Wythnos?’ Again, Mrs Morgan nods her head. She stares at him, a look of consideration in her sharp eyes. Then she turns to the bowl of shells, selects one of the sandy-coloured whelks and presses it into Henry’s hand. He runs a thumb over it, likes its spirals pitted with grooves, its grounding rough contours.

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