Breaking the Rules (21 page)

Eleanor remained silent, so he spoke to her again, still in the same soft tone. “Elen of the Ways, have you no greeting for your cousin Cadfan?”

She gazed at him, her red hair tumbling over the shoulders of her filmy white gown. Even in the moonlight she was insubstantial, almost like gossamer. All around her on the grass there were squirrels, their eyes upon him.

He gave a persuasive smile, hoping there might yet be a chance to recapture her. “Come now, Coz, I’m sure you have something you wish to say to me,” he said amiably, and took a step toward her.

At that there was a ferocious warning growl from behind him, and with a dismayed gasp he again turned sharply toward the coppiced hazels. Bran was there now, creeping belly low toward him, his teeth bared savagely.

Eleanor spoke. “Bran!”

The wolfhound stopped growling and sat up in obvious disgust. The hated innkeeper was within easy reach. A single leap, a hefty shove with the front paws, and over he’d go into the water again. It was so easy even a puppy could do it. Bran gave an audible sigh of annoyance, but obeyed Eleanor’s command.

Taynton breathed out with relief, but when he glanced toward the path again, Eleanor had gone, taking her army of tiny escorts with her. Bran got up again and started to follow her, but as he passed Taynton temptation got the better of him and he darted at the innkeeper. Taynton stepped instinctively away, slipped on the soft earth at the edge of the water, and cried out as he lost his balance and pitched backward into the pool with a tremendous splash. The water was icy, and he was forced to flounder about again until he managed to catch hold of the bank and drag himself out. By then the glade was deserted.

Shortly afterward, dripping and cold for the second time in as many nights and sure in the knowledge that his chill could now only get worse, Taynton made his way back out of the valley toward the inn. He sneezed all the way and felt very sorry for himself. This wasn’t fair at all. Fate was being very knavish treating a great Celtic prince in such a way! Those of the Otherworld shouldn’t suffer such undignified Thisworldly things as chills and drenchings! When he got back inside, he would positively
insist
that Vera prepare him more of the gruel. And he would expect to be fussed over as well.

The innkeeper reached the refuge of the Green Man just as Conan’s carriage drove toward Elcester Manor, its lamps cutting through the darkness. It was conveying Conan and Theo to the all-important dinner and both were sunk deep in thought. As far as they were concerned, Bran had escaped again, but they knew by now that he would return when he was ready. Theo was convinced that the wolfhound probably knew every bitch on heat in the county.

Conan wore an indigo velvet coat and white trousers, with a lace-trimmed shirt and white silk waistcoat. A large sapphire was pinned on the knot of his neckcloth, and a tricorn hat and white gloves lay on the seat beside him. All he could think of was Ursula. From the moment she left him at the long barrow, she had occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else, and he was miserably aware that he had not expressed himself very well after ending the kiss. With hindsight he could not believe he had been so clumsy. A man of his experience should have known better on every count, but where she was concerned he felt like a fumbling boy in the first throes of manhood. Being with her was so like breathing the air of the gods, something he accepted as naturally as if it were a sweetly compelling echo that came from he knew not where.

Opposite him, wearing a black coat, frilled shirt, and white pantaloons, and still unaware of Conan’s various encounters with Ursula, Theo’s thoughts were much the same, except that they centered upon Eleanor Rhodes. He knew that he wasn’t meant to marry Ursula Elcester, and yet here he was, driving to dine at the manor with the express purpose of formalizing the contract! What could he do? It was all so lunatic that he couldn’t deal sensibly with any of it.

He needed to assemble his facts, consider them carefully, and then do the right thing. But what was the right thing? Satisfying his uncle’s hunger for more land by marrying Ursula Elcester, and suffering in silence? Or proclaiming his fantasy love for the magical Eleanor? The first would see him in misery, the second in an asylum!

“Eleanor.”

Both men heard the whispered name and sat forward with a start. Conan thought it came from the direction of the hidden valley and quickly lowered the carriage glass to lean out. The moon shone over the countryside, and they were just passing the field gate beneath which the squirrel had slipped earlier in the day.

“Eleanor.”
Conan’s gaze swung toward the darkness of the woods. That was where it had come from! He called to Gardner, “Stop the carriage immediately!”

“Sir.” The coachman reined in, and the arc of light from the lamps lurched.

Conan and Theo jumped quickly down and went to the gate to gaze down through the moonlight. There at the very edge of the wood, with squirrels in the grass at her feet, they saw Eleanor Rhodes. She wore a white muslin gown, and her long red hair fell loose about her shoulders. She seemed to be looking up directly at the gate.

It was too much for Theo. “I have to go to her!” he cried, and climbed over the gate to run down the field of cowslips. Conan didn’t hesitate to follow, but as they drew near to her, she and her little attendants drew back into the woods. “Stay please, Eleanor!” Theo shouted as he flung himself after her, but he had only gone a few yards when he realized she had vanished. The dark trees and bluebell glades stretched away before him, and the only sound was the whispering of the night breeze and the pounding of his own heart.

He turned back disconsolately to where Conan waited at the foot of the field. “She’s gone,” he declared, shoving his hair back from his forehead.

“So it would seem.”

“But you did hear and see her, didn’t you?” Theo still needed reassurance that he wasn’t imagining it all.

“Yes, I saw and heard,” Conan confirmed.

Theo exhaled slowly. “What shall I do, Conan? I will never feel for Ursula Elcester what I feel for Eleanor Rhodes.”

Conan looked away. “I cannot advise you, Theo.” Indeed, he thought, I am the last man on earth to do so ... .

Theo looked up toward the carriage, its lamps shining in the moonlight. “Well, I suppose we had better get this wretched dinner over and done with, although how I am going to agree to marriage details I really don’t know.”

Conan didn’t reply, and as they began the climb up to the road, they heard the bugle notes of the evening by-mail in the distance to the east.

When Conan’s carriage drove on again, Bran emerged stealthily from the undergrowth by the hedgerow. He listened, ears pricked, and detected a voice he knew he must obey, so he loped steadily to where he knew Eleanor Rhodes to be.

Ursula was as ready as she ever would be for the awful moment of meeting the Honorable Theodore Maximilian Greatorex, whom she now knew desired her as little as she did him. He wanted Eleanor Rhodes, whereas she, Ursula, still wanted Conan. Still loved him, and always would. But she was in dread of facing him again. Saying she would be civil and agreeable was one thing, managing to do it was another. Dread filled her at the prospect of facing Conan again. She had said she’d be civil, but it wouldn’t be easy. She felt so sick with nerves that she didn’t think she’d be able to eat so much as a morsel of food.

Now, after attending to all her duties regarding the preparation and readiness of the meal, she was dressed and sitting in her candlelit room with her mother’s manuscripts spread around on the floor. For such an important occasion as tonight she had chosen to wear her very best gown, pale gray satin with a silver tissue overlay. It was a stylish garment, scooped low at the neckline, with little petal sleeves and a silver belt with a diamond buckle beneath her breasts. Her hair was swept up into a loose knot on her head, with a silver satin bow with trailing ends that floated when she moved her head. She was waiting for the maid to knock at the door to say the guests had arrived, and it was like anticipating the knell of doom, she thought as she gazed down at the ancient, often barely decipherable texts.

The window was slightly open, and the fire had been allowed to burn very low because the temperature had risen so much since the much cooler morning. There wouldn’t be many more fires now. She could hear an owl in the woods, and from time to time the screech of a vixen. Across the valley the lights of the Green Man twinkled through the moonlight, and the bugle call of the nightly by-mail approaching the village sounded along the Nailsworth road.

She gazed down at the yellowed sheets again, and suddenly saw a name that banished all else from her mind, for it was her own—Ursula. A cold finger ran down her spine. She had a counterpart in the past as well? She didn’t remember her mother mentioning it when she told the story.

She straightened in the chair. This other Ursula wasn’t mentioned until further on in the story than had been translated so far. It was tempting to leap ahead to investigate right away, but that wouldn’t do. To skip the intervening lines might lead to missing a point that was relevant to present-day events.

Taking a deep breath to regain what little composure she still had, she picked up the page she had been working on before and continued the painstaking translation.

“Macsen could not stop thinking of the maiden of his dream, and was so anxious to discover where she was that he set out from Rome the very next day. He journeyed over mountains, plains, and seas until he came to the island of Britain. There, beyond the north wind, he found the castle of C—”
Again Ursula could not read the name, except the first letter.
“The castle was just as he had dreamed, rising out of the misty sea  ... ”
Or it might be “sea of mist,” Ursula thought in passing as she read on
“ ...  as if to beckon him onward. As he and his retinue approached, the High-King Eudaf Hen sent out two of his daughter’s ladies-in-waiting on fine white horses to greet him. The first wore an embroidered velvet gown that was the color of a sandy shore beneath the sun, and her hair was as brown as the finest walnuts. Her name was the Princess Severa, and she was the wife of Elen of the Ways’ younger cousin, Prince Cadfan Meriadoc.”
Ursula stared Vera Pedlar and Bellamy Taynton? Was the innkeeper Cadfan, the rebellious, resentful prince who would not accept Macsen Wledig as his ruler? If Conan was Prince Kynan returned, no
wonder
he thought Taynton seemed familiar! Of course, because they had been brothers in the past.

After a moment she collected herself sufficiently to read on.
“The second lady wore a jeweled silk gown that was the color of the pale wild violets that grew by the wayside, and her hair was as silver as the moon. Her name was the Princess Ursula, and she the wife of Elen of the Ways’ elder cousin, Prince Kynan. She was of the Christian faith, but honored Prince Kynan’s faith too, so they had taken their vows twice, once under the yew before the Black Druid and once in the little chapel that stood near the yew. The two betrothed ladies rode at Macsen’s side into the castle.”

It was too much for Ursula. The sheet of manuscript slipped from her fingers as she rose hastily from the chair and went to the window. Her namesake in the past had been married to Prince Kynan Meriadoc, who was Sir Conan Merrydown here in the present. She gazed down toward the woods, so mysterious and beckoning in the moonlight. Now she knew why she felt the way she did toward Conan now.

She glanced back at the scattered sheets of manuscript. She had to be objective about this. Something very important was going on, something almost too fantastic to believe, but why was it going on in Elcester? There was no island here, and even at the time of the Romans the sea came little farther up the Severn valley than it did now.

She remembered an old map that had also been among the manuscripts. It was even more fragile than they, and so she had left it carefully at the bottom of the wardrobe, where it was dark and safe. Maybe it would give her an idea, she thought, the dinner party now completely forgotten as she hurried to the wardrobe. But as she opened the doors and knelt to reach carefully for the map, she noticed the old cloak she had worn the night before. It had slipped her mind completely and was too old and scruffy a thing to leave with her good clothes, especially after its experiences in the badger set! Frowning, she lifted it out and placed it carefully aside, where she would remember it come the morning. As she did so, however, something small and heavy rolled out, closely followed by another. Puzzled, she picked both up. One appeared to be made of blue glass, the other of cream pottery. What on earth were they?

She put them down and lifted the cloak to shake it a little. Half a dozen more of the strange little objects tumbled from a torn part of the hem, where they must have been scooped up during her fall in the set. She laid them all in a row on the carpet and studied them. In a flash she realized what they were—tesserae from a mosaic floor or wall! Her lips parted as the importance of the discovery struck her in full. Roman remains, maybe of the villa of the Roman emperor and the
Dux Britannarium,
were
here in the valley! Had she, quite literally, stumbled upon something her father had long been yearning to find?

Excited, she scrambled to her feet to go to him, but almost immediately changed her mind. How could she possibly tell him? She would have to say where the tesserae had been, and that would mean admitting she had once again disobeyed his wishes about the woods. She was in a quandary, but then calmed down a little. First she had to be sure the set was indeed where the pieces of mosaic had come from, and then—

Someone tapped at the window, and she spun around with a startled gasp, for her room was on the second floor with no balcony! A young woman gazed in with eyes that were the same astonishing green as a squirrel’s. Her cascading red curls floated in a cloud, and her white muslin gown wafted like thick fronds of weed in a gentle stream. Ursula’s eyes widened. She knew it could only be Eleanor Rhodes, or Elen of the Ways, because Conan had given her Theo’s description of the young woman in the stables.