Candlenight

in a black tracksuit. The air was temporarily still, a break between snow salvos.

The body of the big woman still lay on the bank, headless. Partially covered in snow, in various shades of pink and a kind of crimson which was close to black.

Sali looked down at the body, then up at the church tower, then down at the body again, and finally up at the bridge, to her left, where her nain, Mrs. Bronwen Dafis, had appeared.

Old Mrs. Dafis leaned over the bridge parapet and watched Sali silently.

Sali crouched beside the body in the snow. She began to brush away some of the soft, white snow, and then the hard pink snow. Finally the ice-blood around Buddug's neck.

She glanced up again at the bridge, and Mrs. Bronwen Dafis nodded.

So did the woman now standing next to her, the younger one. Whose face, the girl could tell, even from this distance was equal in its severity.

Sali plunged her small, white hand into the gore.

Rheithordy.

The gate was open.

But no light shone from the house, not a candle-glimmer.

He knew where the rectory was, though, could sense its bulk, although there was no feeling of a building about it

Sometimes it was a building, and sometimes it was just part of the woods, the oak trees crowding the lawn, almost shouldering the rectory itself, as if feeding sap to their brothers in its frame.

Aled walked to the front door of the rectory and the snow went with him, flurrying around his body. He felt a sudden power — he was bringing the snow. He was the bad-weather man.

The door was unlocked. He turned the knob and it opened and the smell came out at him, mouldy, brackish, the smell of the oak woods in decay, only ten times as strong as it would have been in the wood itself.

'Rector!' Aled's voice was harder and colder than the snow that came with him.

What did he know of ap Siencyn? Who was the man? This latest in an ancient line which sometimes has been interrupted but never for long because the wrong men would not last in this parish — if they were Welsh they would move away, if English…

'Rector!'

Poking the gun before him. Aled entered the hall, scattering snow.

He kicked open the doors, one by one, saw still rooms tinged with snowlight through steep, multi-paned windows

No firelight, no candles.

He knew, then.

Abruptly he turned and stalked out of the rectory into the night, where they were assembled around the entrance.

Snarling, breathing in spurts, Aled crouched and blasted both barrels into the night and into the company of ancient oaks gathered before him on the rectory lawn.

There were four shots; he had obviously reloaded.

Groups of people stood in the snow outside the Tafarn. Nobody spoke.

Bethan watched the faces of the people and saw a complexity of human emotions, from shock and bewilderment, through tired acceptance, to a kind of relief.

Among the people conspicuous by their absence were the mechanic Dilwyn Dafis; his mother Mrs. Bronwyn Dafis, the seer; skeletal Glyn Harri, the village historian. And bluff, bearded Morgan Morgan, farmer, and husband of the late Buddug.

Bethan wondered for whom the cannwyll gorff shone now.

'Over?' Berry wondered.

The police helicopter was almost overhead. The villagers began to drift away, many into the Tafarn.

Bethan said, 'You won't tell Guto, will you?'

'Huh?'

She said, 'That there was a ram in the tomb.'

'I don't understand. And where the hell is Guto?'

'Probably in the bar with Miranda celebrating his victory in the by-election.'

'Jesus, how long was I in that church?'

Bethan would have smiled but her facial muscles weren't up to it. 'He believes he had a vision in the Nearly Mountains. There is a folk-tale about the Abbot of Valle Crucis in North Wales. How one morning on the Berwyn Mountain the abbot is approached by a figure out of the mist which turns out to be Owain Glyndwr. And Owain says, Good Morrow, Abbot, you are out early, something like this. And the Abbot says, No, you are out a hundred years too early. And Owain vanishes, never to be seen again.'

'Until he runs into Guto on the Nearly Mountains?'

'Guto is not laughing about this. He claims there was a miracle, which he won't talk about… Glyndwr, you see, was probably closer to Guto's kind of democratic nationalism than to the… the evil conjured in Y Groes. Whichever part of Glyndwr they thought they had here, it was brought against its will. I'm sure of it. I have to be sure. Or else… or else we're all of us evil, aren't we? But… well. Guto is convinced he will now win the by-election.'

'Who knows?' Berry said. 'Maybe we did let something else outta the tomb. The whole point — the whole secret of this — is not what actually happened but what you believe happened. Hey, am I getting mystical, or becoming Welsh, or what?'

Bethan pulled him into the shelter of the Tafarn porch. Through the door they could see a lot of people quietly drinking, helping themselves; no landlord any more. The atmosphere was like an overcrowded hospital in wartime, full of assorted casualties, people looking around wondering what happened and who was left alive.

Wind-blown snow hit the porch in a cloud. Berry stared at it, expressionless. Bethan said. 'What are you thinking?'

'Trying to figure out what happens now,' Berry said. 'Apart from getting my arm fixed. Sitting around waiting till I can drive again. Watching the bruises heal on your face.'

'And then you'll go back. To London?' Keeping her expression as neutral as she could, given the condition of her face.

He shook his head.

'To America?'

'No way. I got no roots left anyplace. Maybe I should stick around awhile until something suggests itself.' He tried to hold her eyes. 'Maybe I should learn Welsh.'

Bethan flung an arm around his neck and kissed him, which hurt them both quite a lot. 'Start with this… Fi'n caru ti.'

'Tea? Hold on, I got it. You're saying 'I'd like a black tea, no sugar…''

They smiled stupidly at each other. 'Yuk, how utterly nauseating,' Miranda said, coming out of the bar, sipping a vodka and lime. 'How is it that other people in love are so unbearable?'

She stood with them on the porch, red hair a little awry, but otherwise as elegant and unruffled as ever. 'That bastard Guto,' she said.

'What'd he do now?'

'He's dismissed me,' Miranda said petulantly. 'Until after the election. He thinks I won't be good for his image. How ungrateful can you get? Besides, he's awfully funny in bed. I mean, what am I going to do until after the election?'

Miranda took a big, sulky sip from her vodka and lime. It seemed to Berry that Guto had a point here.

'Well,' he said thoughtfully, watching Bethan out of the corner of an eye, his spirits suddenly up higher than the helicopter. 'I can get you a ten-inch lovespoon, but you got to buy your own batteries.'

'This the last time, guv?'

'One final look. No hang on, listen, you hear that? Can you cut the engine a second?'

'It's a bleeding helicopter, guv, not an Austin Metro.'