The Silver Witch (37 page)

‘Don't get up, girl,' Tilda tells her. ‘It's silly o'clock. I'm going to make tea.' But the dog won't be left behind and pads down the stairs after her. In the kitchen, Tilda puts the kettle on the heat and takes a poker to the Rayburn to ginger it up. The smoldering logs give out more smoke and then splutter into hungry tongues of flame. Staring at the play of orange against gray, Tilda contemplates her next step. She had left the museum disturbed, saddened, and yet encouraged. There
was
a child. That much is clear. What is equally obvious is that she will get no further tracing the little girl by digging around in the museum archives. She reached the end of that particular trail.

But where else do I search? I've tried the records and writing about the Mercian court, but the captives are never mentioned again. There's a heap of stuff about the queen and what she does, but not a word about the people from the crannog.

A spitting log causes a spark to jump out of the open door. Tilda searches for it on the floor and is surprised not to be able to find it. It was a large, glowing lump of wood, and she is certain it landed by her feet, but it is nowhere to be seen. Following the smell of burning dog hair, she goes to Thistle's cushion, and is surprised to discover the spark quietly setting fire to the fabric. She picks up the cushion and flicks the little ember back into the fire, musing at how far from the Rayburn it traveled. She rubs at the cloth with her thumb. There is a small hole and a scorch mark but no real damage. Suddenly, something in Tilda's mind shifts.

Of course! I'm looking in the wrong place! The prisoners aren't written about by people who documented the life of Queen Aethelflaed because they weren't
with
Queen Aethelflaed.

She peers across the gloom of the kitchen. Her laptop is still sitting on the worktop where it has been for weeks.

Could I get that thing to work? I haven't tried for a while. Could I keep it working? Of course I could. Just an hour or so. Piece of cake.

Before she has a chance to change her mind, Tilda snatches up the laptop, sets it down on the table, opens it and presses the
ON
button. There is a pause, then a hopeful whirring, and the computer begins to fire up. She backs away, making the tea quietly, as if the slightest sudden sound or movement on her part might shut the laptop down again. By the time she has stirred milk into her drink, the screen is cheerfully displaying her chosen wallpaper; a photograph of the sun setting over the frozen lake.

And now I need Wi-Fi. Which means I have to get the electricity running again.

She goes into the hallway and stands under the fuse box. She has grown accustomed to living in the house without power, and the main switch is still in the off position where she left it weeks ago. She bites her lip, willing herself to stay calm. Stay focused. Holding her breath, she takes hold of the lever and pulls it down. The lights come on. The long-forgotten fridge hums. Next to the telephone socket on the hall table, the Internet router blinks into life. And then there is a sharp snap, and everything goes dark once more.

Dammit!

She stands there in the darkness, quelling the urge to scream.

How can I be so useless? Why can't I control this thing? The power stayed on at the professor's house. And I stopped that floodlight falling. This should be easy.

The realization comes to her. She is not wearing the torc. She hurries into the kitchen and fetches it from her bedside table.

‘Right, Thistle,' she says as she passes the dog on her way back to the hall, ‘hold on to yourself.' With a determined step, she goes straight to the fuse box, clutching the torc tightly in one hand, and throws the switch a second time. The power is restored. She nods.

Good. That's good. Okay.

Back at her computer she is uncertain as to how best to hold the piece of jewelry and type at the same time. She is reluctant to put it down, feeling the need for direct contact with it, but at the same time she doesn't want to put it on again. She can't imagine trying to search the Internet in the midst of the magic released by the torc. She settles for resting the thing in her lap as she works. Within minutes, she has found a plethora of historical Web sites dealing with early ninth-century Britain.

So much information! Getting through this lot could take forever.

With a sigh, she ploughs on, scrolling through document after document, frustrated by wrong turns and details that seem to duplicate themselves. She reads on, her eyes watering a little at the unfamiliar brightness of the screen. Half an hour passes. An hour. She makes a second cup of tea and works on, encouraged by the fact that the power has remained stable, but daunted by the size of the task she has undertaken. She returns to her seat and continues. She learns more and more about the people who lived around the lake in the early years of the tenth century. About how hard their lives were. About how they lived, and what dangers they faced from warring armies, harsh winters, and disease. She reads about how they dressed, what manner of music they made, and their beliefs. She has just reached a file containing information regarding the final attack on the prince's dwelling on the little island when the lights flicker ominously.

No, not now! Not yet.

She reads on. She finds the extract from
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
that the professor had marked for her, telling of the prisoners taken from the crannog.

‘Thirty-four, plus the princess,' she reads out to a slumbering Thistle. ‘Yes, I know, I know, but who were those prisoners? Were any of them children?' She reads on, but can find nothing. The same dead end she came up against at the museum. Nothing more. She leans back in her chair, the hard wood beginning to make her back ache. Setting her mind to the problem, she pictures the small group of villagers as they were taken away from their homes. She knows they would have been a pathetic collection of people. People who had just lost everything. Many would have seen their loved ones slaughtered. Some might have been injured. Their lives were in chaos. They were being dragged away. But how long did they spend at the court of the Mercian queen?

Basically, they were slaves, and slaves get sold. So where did they go next? Who was trading with Aethelflaed? Where would she have got a good price for them? I just need to look in the right place.

She tries a different search, using the words
slave, Cymru, Aethelflaed
and
trading
. Reams more of irrelevant data unscrolls in front of her. A page detailing the queen's origins catches her eye. Aethelflaed was the daughter of Alfred the Great, and originated in the south of England. She lived there until she entered her arranged marriage into the Mercian dynasty.

Which means she would have had strong connections with the area. Probably relations still living down there too.

She shifts the region of her search to Wessex, the ancient collection of counties that included the city of Winchester, where Alfred came from. An essay on the family of the famous English king shed some light—there were certainly several cousins from the same generation as Aethelflaed, and they lived on in Wessex. A small, slightly clunky Web site run by a group of Alfred enthusiasts and reenactors snags her attention. There is an account of a household near the city, known to have royal connections, giving an insight into the everyday lives of the highborn of the time. Tucked away in all the data regarding births, marriages, wars and burials, there is a seemingly insignificant account of a party of visitors arriving from Mercia.

Bingo!

A small file, summarizing a change of ownership attached to four slaves, sent as a gift from the queen to her cousin in Wessex. In 918 AD, less than two years after the attack on the lake settlement, she sent a present of a handful of young slaves to Egberta of Wessex, who had a home midway between Winchester and London. Tilda squints at the screen, her eyes smarting now, blurring her vision slightly.

‘Here it is! “One young man, with red beard; one boy not yet fifteen, but strong…”'

There is a fizzing sound and the screen goes blank.

‘No!!' She looks up. The power is still on, but the lights flicker and stutter. ‘Not now!' She takes a deep breath, knowing she must not get upset, must stay steady and calm, but it is so hard to do so.

I need to know who else was on that list! For God's sake, just a few more moments!

Thistle gets up from her bed, coming to nudge Tilda's leg.

‘I can't keep it working! I can't keep the fucking thing working!' She stands up, gritting her teeth. ‘Okay. If that's what I have to do…' She picks up the torc and quickly pushes the heavy loop of gold onto her wrist. She waits. Nothing happens. Everything is quiet.

Too quiet.

It is the in-breath before the scream.

The room is filled with the roaring of a fierce wind, a sound from nowhere, a cacophonous noise that makes Tilda throw her hands over her ears. Thistle dives beneath the table. Tilda can feel the force of a gale against her face, but sees that this time nothing in the kitchen is being disturbed. Everything remains still. No cups crash to the ground, no books fly from the shelves, even the undrawn curtains do not so much as flutter. And yet she is painfully aware of a brutal force pushing against her, a pressing down, a buffeting and pounding. But it is only she who feels it. Only she who finds herself pulled this way and that, the breath all but knocked from her, the shrill sound growing inside her head. And then come the faces. Two, three, ten, dozens of faces, flashing before her, some old, some laughing, others crying, all with eyes staring intently at her, into her, questioning, probing. And their voices, mangled words and utterances in many languages, all gabbling and spitting at her, demanding of her, though she cannot understand what it is they are saying, what it is they want. She fears she will go mad, will finally lose her mind. She lurches forward, the whole room spinning, or is it she who spins? Nausea threatens to swamp her. A dizziness begins to take hold. In desperation she grasps the torc, ready to pull it from her arm. But then she sees another face among the many. A face she knows. Pale, and beautiful, and steady, returning her own gaze, unfaltering, knowing, strong.

Tilda chokes down panic and forces herself to let go of the torc. She pushes against the table, making herself stand upright, straight, using the power of her strong body to hold herself steady.

‘Enough!' she shouts into the maelstrom. ‘I've had enough!'

It is as if all the air has been sucked from the room. There is a dazzling flash of whiteness. And then nothing. Silence. Everything as it was. Except that the laptop beeps gently back to life.

Tilda slumps onto the kitchen chair and frantically clicks points on the screen, searching for the document she was reading, dreading that it will somehow be lost.

‘No! Here it is, here! “… a boy not yet fifteen but strong and with green eyes; a woman past thirty but with good teeth; and a girl child, no more than three years, very pale, with hair clear as glass and eyes to match…”' Tilda leans back in her seat, a tearful smile tugging at her mouth. ‘Found you,' she says quietly. ‘I've found you.'

 

20

TILDA

Pulling on her running thermals and outer layers, Tilda deftly secures her hair in a single plait. Dylan has stayed the night again and is still sleeping deeply. It gives her such comfort, such joy to see him lying there, familiar, strong, peaceful.

And mine? Is he mine? Have we really come so far so soon? I should be panicking, surely. I should be, but I'm not. And that's bloody amazing.

The previous night he had arrived with the dusk, the old Landrover skidding up the lane over the dwindling snow. He had brought beer and a takeaway curry, which they had shared in front of the fire in the sitting room. Tilda had wanted to tell him so much about what had happened to her since she last saw him—about the way the torc brought about such changes in her and the incredible things she was able to do when she wore it. But sitting there, devouring the delicious, spicy food, relaxed by the warmth of the fire and the strong bitter ale, she could not bring herself to ruin the peace of the moment. Could not embark on the difficult task of explaining the inexplicable.

Instead, she had told him about her discovery regarding Seren's child.

‘So you really could be her descendent?'

‘It is possible.'

He grinned. ‘So you really could be a witch?'

Tilda tried to find something flippant to say, something that would mask how much this question disturbed her. Nothing helpful offered itself, and Dylan was quick to pick up on her silence.

‘Tilda?' He shifted his position next to her on the sofa, drawing back a little so that he could study her expression. ‘You have seriously been thinking about that, haven't you?'

She shakes her head and takes another swig of beer. ‘It's ridiculous. Impossible.'

‘Yeah, right. Just as impossible as whatever it was that flung me against that wall. Or set fire to this room. Or made those lights fall on me.'

She turned to face him quickly. ‘The lights fell because of whatever … whoever it is in the grave.'

‘A witch, we think, don't we?'

‘So you're saying I could be like that? Do stuff to hurt people? Terrify people the way that ghost does?'

‘Whoa! No, of course not.'

‘Because sometimes it does feel as if when people are around me … bad things happen.' She had said it without thinking. Without realizing that she was talking about Mat as well as Dylan. And that he didn't see that. How could he?

‘That's rubbish,' he said.

‘You don't understand. It's not just you. My husband, Mat … the way he died, in an accident…'