Candlenight (57 page)

   
He didn't even seem to have
noticed Berry Morelli standing behind her.

   
"You don't know why I've
come yet," Bethan said.

   
"Oh, I know, girl. I know
all right. And I'll tell you, you didn't realise when you were lucky. Take your
friend with you and get back to Pont. If you can still make it."

   
"Still make it?"

   
"With the snow. That is
all I mean."

   
"No, it isn't all you
mean," Bethan said firmly. "Let us in, Aled."

   
"We open at seven."

   
"Good. That leaves us
plenty of time to talk."

   
"Bethan, you don't want to
do this. Too many people---"

   
"I'm allowed to do it. I'm
Welsh."

   
"But
he
isn't." Aled didn't look at Berry.

   
"I'm not English
either," Berry said. "And I'm not polite, so----"

   
"No." Bethan put a
hand on his arm.

   
But Aled sighed and stepped
back then and held open the door from the inside. Bethan walked in and Berry
followed, and Aled closed the door and bolted it, top and bottom. "No
lights," he said. "Snow brought down the power lines. Go through to
the dining room where we can't be seen from the street."

   
Through the dining room window,
they could see a small yard and the church hill rising sheer beyond it, palely
visible because of its light dusting of snow. Aled make them sit around a
square dining table, one of only five in the room. Then he lit a candle in a
glass holder on the table---the only source of light or heat; just dead ash and
the husk of a log in the grate.

   
"For a
schoolteacher," Aled said, "you don't learn anything, do you
girl?"

The convoy assembled at six on the castle car park. A Range Rover, a
Daihatsu and a little Fiat Panda which was all Dai Death had been able to
borrow from the garage at short notice.

   
Guto was furious when he saw
who was piling into the six-seater Daihatsu.

   
"You said supporters,"
he snarled at Alun, the General Secretary.

   
"It'll be fine," Alun
whispered back. "A little adventure for them."

   
"I hope there's a bloody
pub there," Charlie Firth was saying, getting into the back between
ski-jacketed Shirley Gillies with her Uher tape-recorder on her knee, and
"Bill"
Sykes in an ancient overcoat with a vicuna collar. Ray Wheeler was in the front
with young Gary, Giles Freeman's replacement, and a farmer called Emlyn, who
was driving.

   
It was still snowing, and there
must have been four or five inches of it on the ground.

   
"Flaming cold," Firth
said.

   
"We'll just have to bunch
together," said Shirley. She was on her own tonight, TV news having been
affected by a ludicrously timed cameramen's dispute about overtime payments.

   
Idwal Roberts, tweed trousers
stuffed into his wellingtons, looked at the Fiat Panda and then looked at Dai.
"You're sure this thing is four-wheel-drive?" Dai pointed to the
appropriate lettering on the little car's rear door. Idwal looked unconvinced.

   
"I'm sorry. I've forgotten—which
paper are you with?" Alun asked Miranda, who was looking startling in a
huge lemon-coloured designer parka with lots of fake fur.

   
"
Gardening News,
" Guto told him.

   
Alun, seeming somehow less efficient
in a leather flat-cap and without his tinted glasses, gazed up at the dark and rumbling
sky. "It was supposed to stop tonight."

   
"You dickhead," said
Guto.

"Yes, yes," Aled said, anguished. "But there is no way anyone
can ever prove it. And what good would it do anyway?"

   
Bethan began to feel sorry for
him. He was worn and tired, his wife had left him . . .

   
"She will come back,"
Aled said. "When she is well again. When the winter is over."

   
"A lot of it left to
come," Berry said.

   
"Yes." Aled stared
into the dead fireplace. "I don't know, something has changed, gone wrong,
isn't it?"

   
"Maybe it was always
wrong," Berry said.

   
"No. It was
not
wrong." Aled's face was ragged
in the candlelight. "How could it be wrong? We were preserving that which
was ours. A shrine, it was. Is."

   
"Not '
is
'." Bethan said. "You don't believe that now."

   
"I don't know. Why are you
asking me these things? There is nothing you can do, except to save yourselves.
Perhaps."

   
Berry said, "How can it
not be wrong if people are dying?"

   
Aled put his face into his
hands, peered slowly over his fingertips. "Ones and twos," he said.
"That was all it ever was. It was so strong, see. They could not withstand
the exposure to it. Some of them simply went away. Fine. But over the years,
some . . . Ones and twos, that was all."

   
Bethan's pity evaporated.
"'Ones and twos'. What does that mean, Aled? Minor casualties?" Hands
curled into fists, pressing hard into the tabletop. "Expendable English
people, like Martin Coulson and— and—"

   
"Yes, yes—I was so sorry.
He was a good man, Robin. A fine man. And I did try to talk you out of it, the
cottage, once. Do you remember that day? But they see this place and there is
no stopping them. Seduced, they are. You know that." Eyes wide, full of
futile pleading.

   
Bethan said quietly. "The
Gorsedd Ddu
"

   
"No. I will not talk about
that."

   
"Ap Siencyn then."

   
"If you know, why do you
ask me?"

   
Bethan hadn't known. Not for
certain. "And the others?"

   
"Judge Rhys?" Berry
leaned into the candlelight.

   
"Yes, Judge Rhys, and
now—"

   
"Morgan?" Bethan
demanded. "Buddug? Dilwyn? Glyn Harri?"

   
"Yes, yes, yes! And the
rest are scattered all over Wales. I don't know how many, I only run a pub. Oh,
God. what have I done?"

   
"Ap Siencyn." Bethan
said. "Tell us about him."

   
"What is there to tell
that you do not know? The minister, he is, and the
dyn hysbys
."
   
"What's that?" Berry said.

   
"The wise man,"
Bethan said. "The conjuror. The wizard. Most villages used to have one.
Someone who knew about curing illnesses and helping sick animals and---"

   
"Like a shaman?"

   
"I suppose."

   
"He cure people?"

   
"Some people," Aled
said.

   
"And what about the
others?"

   
"We do not ask," Aled
said. "It has been a good place to live."

   
"Where does the
Gorsedd
meet?" Berry demanded.
   
Aled screamed out, "What are you
trying to do to me?"
   
And the candle went out, as if someone
had blown on it.

Chapter LXV

The first vehicle in the Plaid Cymru convoy drew up to find the village
school in darkness.

   
"What the hell—?"
Alun jumped down from the Land Rover and strode to the school door.

   
"What did I tell
you?" Guto roared after him.

   
Miranda stepped down into half
an inch of snow. "So this is Y Groes." She paced about, kicking at
the thin white dust with the tip of her boot. "It's almost warm here,
isn't that odd?"

   
"I can't understand it,"
Alun was saying, walking round the building, looking into windows. "I was
talking to the FUW not two hours ago. They said it was definitely on. I
said, "Look, if there is any change, get back to me." I gave them the
mobile phone number, everything."

   
"Oh, gave them the mobile
phone number, did you?" Guto leaned against the bonnet of the Land-Rover
and started to laugh.

   
"What's wrong?" Alun
was affronted.

   
Headlights hit them, the Daihatsu
crunched to a stop, and presently Bill Sykes wandered over, his long overcoat flapping.
"Are we here, old boy?"

   
"We seem to have a problem,
Bill," Alun said.

   
"The problem is
Alun." Guto told him. "He is a city boy. Alun, do you have your mobile
phone on you?"

   
"It's in the
Land-Rover."

   
"Well, if you go and get
it, I think you will find the words "No Service" emblazoned across
its little screen."

   
"No way. That phone functions
everywhere around here. It's the best there is."

   
"Dickhead." said Guto.
"They haven't even got television in Y Groes."

   
"You're kidding."

   
Guto stepped back and held open
the door of the Land Rover for his colleague. When Alun emerged, the five reporters
were clustered around the Plaid candidate in the beam of the Land-Rover's
headlights. They turned to face the General Secretary, all looking quite
amused.

   
"Right." Alun said
briskly. "I don't know why it's been called off, but it obviously has.
Well ... As you can see, it's stopped snowing, so I don't think we'll have any
problems getting back. I think the least I can do is buy you boys a couple of
drinks. The pub is just over the bridge."

   
There was a small cheer.

   
"You're a gentleman."
said Ray Wheeler, of the
Mirror
. A
nationalist and a gentleman."

   
Dai and Idwal arrived in the
Fiat Panda, and Guto explained the problem. "I'm not having a drink,"
Dai said. "Bad enough getting here as it is."

   
"Well, have an orange
juice," said Guto, as Miranda appeared at his shoulder, frowning.

   
"I've just had a peep
round the back," she said. "Morelli's car is there, parked very discreetly
under some trees. And another car, a Peugeot, I think."

   
"Bethan's car?" said
Dai sharply. "They came to see me earlier, wanted to know about—" He
looked across the village to the church hill. "Oh, bloody hell."

They knew Aled was shaking because the table was shaking.

   
"Go," he said.
"All right? Go from here."
   
Berry found his lighter, relit the
candle.
   
"Draught," he said.

   
"Remember what you said
when we got here?" Bethan asked him.

   
"OK. Not draught."

   
The candle flared and Aled's
white face flared behind it. Can you not feel it. man?"

   
Berry didn't know what he was
supposed to be feeling, so he looked around the room and out the window. It was
still not snowing. There were still no lights.

   
"The snow will melt before
morning," Aled said.
   
"No chance. You shoulda seen it
on the mountains."
   
"The village is generating its
own heat," Bethan said. "Is that what you're saying?"

   
"Bethan, I once told you,
see, this village makes demands."

   
"I remember."

   
"Demands, you
know—sacrifices."

   
"You did not say anything
about sacrifice."

   
"The old Druids,
see." Aled said. "They did not sacrifice each other, their—you know,
virgins, kids. None of that nonsense."

   
History lessons. Berry thought.
Wales is all about history lessons.

   
"But I've heard it said
they used to sacrifice their enemies," Aled said. "Their prisoners. A
life's a life, see, isn't it? Blood is blood."