Candlenight

The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds

Were strangely clamourous to the frightened field.

These signs have mark 'd me extraordinary;

And all the courses of my life do show

I am not in the roll of common men.

There had been claims, Guto wrote, that Glyndwr had been trained in Druidic magic and could alter the weather — a couple of his victories were put down to this ability. All crap, Guto said: the English view of the Welsh as wildmen from the mountains who, having no military sophistication, needed to put their faith in magic.

None the less, Guto conceded, all this stuff added to Glyndwr's charisma, put him alongside King Arthur as the great Celtic hero who never really died and one day would return to free his people from oppression.

Prophecies. Signs and portents and prophecies.

Bethan came out of the bathroom, a big towel around her. She looked wonderful, black hair all tangled, skin aglow in the warm light of the Tudor lamp.

'Feel better?' He tossed the book on the bed, rose and filled the electric kettle sitting there with tea and coffee and biscuits and soft drinks. One worthwhile extra that inns had picked up from the motel trade.

Bethan sat down on the edge of the bed, towelling her hair.

'What happened to him? Glyndwr.'

'He retired, defeated,' Bethan said through the towel.

'Checked in at a retirement home for aged rebels, huh?'

'By the early 1400s, he was losing ground.' Bethan said patiently. 'It all fell apart and Owain just disappeared. He had a daughter near Hereford and one story suggests he went to live with her.'

'In England?'

'I am afraid so. But at least he could still see the Welsh hills.'

'Sad.'

'All Welsh history is sad.'

'Jesus, how would the Welsh survive without self-pity?'

'Unfair,' Bethan said. 'But tonight, I am prepared to excuse you.'

'Bethan…' He hesitated. 'Is this the first time since…?'

'Robin. Yes.'

'How do you feel about that?'

She put the towel down. Faced him across the bed. Her eyes were brown and luminous in the lamplight. 'Glad,' she said. 'I have tried to feel bad but I don't. I wish we could stay here for a very long time.'

Pouring boiling water on four teabags — it wasn't a very big pot — he thought. I don't have a job to go to, neither does she.

'We can stay here a while,' he said. 'Buy a change of clothes.' He ran a hand across his chin. 'Razor. Toothpaste.'

'No,' she said. 'We can't. You know we can't'

'Maybe we're both chasing shadows.'

Bethan said, 'You wanted to know about the bird of death.'

'Right now I can do without the bird of death.'

She said in a rush, 'The bird of death is supposed to come at night and tap on your window. It's an omen, like the cannwyll gorff and the toili, the phantom funeral. Sometimes it flutters its wings. At night, this — unnatural. Sometimes…'Bethan clutched the towel around her breasts. 'Sometimes it has no wings at all.'

'Why couldn't Claire's mom have simply been disturbed by an owl?'

'Oh, Berry.' Bethan said in exasperation. 'I am not saying she actually saw anything. It's what she believes she saw or heard or whatever. Yes. You're right, it's all nonsense. These things don't even exist — except, somehow, in the minds of people living in Y Groes '

'I didn't say that. I never said it was nonsense.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning I'm prepared to believe there's something essentially weird about the place.' He poured tea, passed her a cup. Gave the pot a stir and then poured a murkier brew for himself. 'We're talking about this now?'

'Yes.'

'OK, let's lay it all on the table and push it around. Robin died suddenly. Giles too. Suddenly, but natural causes. Who else?'

'Dilwyn Dafis, who runs the local garage. He had an English wife, a young secretary. He met her on holiday. Within a year or so of coming to Y Groes. she was dead. Breast cancer, I think, and it spread very rapidly.'

'That's three.'

'A couple of years ago, the Church in Wales sent a young Englishman as curate to ap Siencyn. I don't know much about this, but he had some sort of fall in the church. Broke his neck.'

'Four. Three natural causes, one accident.'

'And a suicide.' She told him about a child leading her to a body hanging from a tree by the riverbank. '

'You found him?'

She nodded, lowered her heavy eyelids. With one small breast exposed, she looked like a creation of one of those Italian painters Berry didn't know enough about. Botticelli, maybe. No, too slim for Botticelli, hair too dark. Aura too sad.

'You had a bad time,' he said. Understatement.

'And then there was another one, about the same time as the suicide.'

She reached down for the red notebook. 'This is his, I'm sure. He was a historian of some sort. He came to the school once. He was writing a book about relations between Wales and England in the late medieval period, had some theory involving Y Groes. He wouldn't tell me about it, a little Welsh schoolteacher. He was a very pompous man. Nobody really liked him and yet they humoured him, let him stay at the Tafarn.'

'Could they stop him?'

'The Tafarn does not provide overnight accommodation. They have a dining room for local functions, but no bed and breakfast.'

'What about Claire's mom and dad? They stayed there.'

'Only, presumably, because Claire requested it. And yet Aled gave this man — that's Aled the landlord there — he gave this man Ingley a room. An unpleasant, prying English academic. That is curious, don't you think?'

'And he died, this guy?'

'A heart attack, they said. Found dead in bed.'

'Police called in?'

'No need.' Bethan riffled the pages of the red notebook. 'The local GP, Dr. Wyn, examined him, said he knew of his heart condition and signed a death certificate.'

'Why'd this guy conceal his notebook under the floorboards?'

Bethan shook her head.

'How do you know it was his?'

She opened the notebook. 'Little maps of the village, rough plans of the church. Very detailed notes on a late-medieval tomb. Pages of references to different textbooks. Addresses. And look at it.' She passed him the book. 'It's quite new. The pages are a little dusty but not in the least yellow. It obviously had not been under the floor very long.'

Berry sighed. 'Problem about all this — you got half a dozen deaths. OK, all premature. But all of them explained. No mystery here. Nothing you could tell the cops.'

He dropped the red notebook on the top of the Glyndwr paperback. 'Paranoia, Bethan. That's what they'd say. And what about Claire? She's English; nothing happened to her.'

'You heard what her mother said. She was taken to see her grandfather as a small child. He disappeared with her. We don't know what happened then. All I know is that while Giles was desperately struggling with basic Welsh. Claire was mastering the grammar and pronunciation at a speed I could not believe. And there are other