and further abroad on the ships owned by his wealthy employer, his young and beautiful wife at his side. They travelled to Gaul and Hispania, south into Mauritania and to Leptis Magna, to Egypt and finally north again to Macedonia, and at last to Antioch and Damascus where their first child, Petronilla, was born. The little family were happy and secure and reasonably wealthy. Then they heard that Flavius had managed to obtain a posting back to Caesarea. He was on their trail.
Anxious to avoid him and his never-ending spite they travelled to the edge of the known world, to Britannia, and there they decided to stay. Flavius would never find them in this mist-shrouded isle. The country was mysterious, sacred. It was also the seat of a bustling trading economy and Gaius found himself at once busy and in demand as a negotiator and entrepreneur. At first they settled in Calleva. It was Petra’s illness which had pushed them westwards to Ynys yr Afalon, the Isle of Apples, where the college of druids, in one of the most sacred of the great sanctuaries of the Pretannic Isles, boasted, so it was said, the cleverest healers in the known world, and there their son Romanus was born, named for the city from which they haled and which they both still missed so much. Gaius turned his attention northwards to the ports on the estuary of the great river Sabrina, where the trade in lead and silver was at its most active and lucrative, leaving Lydia at home with the children in a small house in the foothills of the Meyn Dyppa, overlooking the meres and lakes and the island where the buildings of the college clustered around the strange conical hill they called the Tor, which was the centre of its power and sacredness.
The Roman family had been welcomed by their neighbours. They were some distance from the nearest hill fort, the centre of the local branch of the great Dubunni tribe, but the area was safe and free from danger. Their farmstead though not large was comfortable, the main house, round and reed-thatched like those of their neighbours was most of the time warm and dry and well appointed. But it could not keep out the creeping damp of the autumn mists, nor the bone-aching cold of the winter winds. They made friends, they had servants and slaves to work the small patches of ground where they grew beans and peas and in the larger fields barley and oats and to watch over the sheep which grazed on the hills around them. In the summer the countryside was benevolent and beautiful, rich in game and fish and very fertile. The warmth of even this northern sun penetrated Petra’s aching body and gave her some relief, but in the winter the girl grew more and more ill until she was crying with pain. The healers from the settlement helped her. They gave her decoctions made from the local willow trees which brought down her fever and let her rest. They were kind and reassuring. She would grow out of it, they said. This ailment was common amongst young girls in this country. Soon she would improve.
Then they met the beautiful and enigmatic Mora and Petra had made a friend and thirteen-year-old Romanus had fallen in love. Mora had come one day with one of the older, most experienced of druid healers. Mora was, he said, the daughter of Fergus Mor, the college father, the most senior druid on the island and she had a gift such as he had not seen in years. He felt that she would build up a rapport with Petra which would benefit them both. He handed over the case to the young woman, scarcely more than a few years older than Petra herself, and from that day the sick girl improved. Until now. A particularly vicious wind had blown from the north for days now, cutting Lydia to the bone. She could not begin to think how Petra must be hurting for the girl to cry so piteously.
Romanus had not been able to bear to see his sister in such pain. ‘I’ll go and fetch Mora,’ he said at last, and Lydia had let him go. What else could she do? She couldn’t stop him going to find the object of his infatuation now he had an excuse, and Mora was not due to come for at least a month. Besides, it was not far. It would mean running down through the woods and fields, then he would have to take one of the dugout canoes, and thread his way across the low-lying fens, following the deeper channels between the willow and alder and reeds, to the centre on the island where Mora lived. Easy for a boy of thirteen, but even so for reasons she did not quite understand, she had been filled with misgivings. The weather was bad, and Petra had clung to her brother begging him not to go. ‘Wait for Papa to return,’ she wailed. ‘I can hang on. There is enough of the medicine left.’
Lydia had glanced at the small jar on the shelf and shaken her head. There was barely any left at all.
The letter had come only hours after Romanus had set off, a scroll from one of the traders based on the coast, dropped off at the door by a young man on horseback. It was addressed to Gaius.
Lydia’s hands crushed the parchment and she let it fall. She was trembling all over. This could not have happened. For thirteen years they had been free of Flavius. They had thought themselves safe from his malign attentions; thought never to see or hear from him again. How had he tracked them down? Had he gone back to Rome to consult the seer? Why had he come? After all this time surely he did not still harbour the old grudges. She became aware suddenly that Petra was studying her face. ‘Mama, what is it?’
Lydia took a deep breath. ‘A message for your father, child. It seems the messenger missed him at Axiom.’
Why had he missed him? Her heart missed a beat. Gaius had been there for several days now. Had he left for home before Flavius arrived, and if so why had the messenger not overtaken him on the track? Where was he? A gust of wind battered the house, causing the fire to smoke, stirring the floor coverings and making the lamp flames dip and flare and she suppressed a groan of anguish.
There was no sign of Gaius that day or the next, nor of Flavius. And still Romanus had not returned. On the third morning she decided she must go after her son. The daughter of their neighbour had come to see Petra, bringing a gift from her mother of two freshly tanned sheepskins for her bed and the girl agreed to stay until Lydia came back. She stood for a long while outside the house staring down the track towards the north. There was no sign of anyone coming up the long slope from the woods. She must pray to the gods to protect her daughter and go to find Romanus and bring him home.
She took one of the farm ponies, making good speed on the soft muddy ground, heading west down the track towards the levels. It had stopped raining and a fitful sun was peering between the clouds, reflecting in the puddles. Once at the edge of the mere she would have to find someone to take her across to the island. Normally she would have enjoyed such a journey. The wind had backed into the west and was warmer now and more gentle. Her pony was frisky, pleased to be out of its pen. As she gained the more level ground the going was easier and the trackway through the trees firmer beneath the pony’s feet.
She drew up at last at the landing stage and slid from the pony’s back. The place was deserted. There were no boats pulled up on the mud. It was then she heard the swans circling overhead, swans which her Celtic neighbours said carried the souls of dead children to the otherworld.
Ben glanced across at Abi as they walked slowly through the garden towards the church. It was a glorious morning, the sunlight catching the turning leaves and changing them to burnished gold and crimson and tawny. They stopped beside the ruins, staring at the remnants of the walls. ‘They started to excavate in the late thirties, I believe,’ he said after a long silence as they stood looking down at the stones. ‘They found quite a lot of stuff from the Roman villa. Then the war came and they hastily covered most of it up. They never quite got round to it again.’
‘Mat and Cal told you I thought I saw a ghost or two yesterday?’ Abi thought it better to take the bull by the horns.
Ben nodded.
‘Have you ever seen them?’
He shook his head. ‘Cal is the psychic one amongst us. But there have been lots of stories down the centuries.’
‘All my life I’ve seen things, and suspected I was what for a want of a better term is called psychic,’ Abi said thoughtfully,’ but I’ve never really
Ben waited silently. Listening was something he was good at. A long attentive silence, relaxed, not threatening. He would wait until she was ready to go on. When she did she had changed the subject. Whatever it was she had thought of, she was not ready to talk about it yet. ‘Does Kier know where I am?’
Ben shook his head slowly. ‘Not unless you have told him yourself. Bishop David was very clear on that point. He told me that you had requested that neither your father nor Kieran Scott should be told where you were going.’
