Time's Legacy (16 page)

‘That doesn’t sound very welcoming!’ Flavius squatted down to retrieve his ale. ‘Don’t you have decent side tables, here, Gaius? Solid wooden chairs? Baths? Beds for your visitors? This place is squalid!’

Lydia bit her lip. She was clinging to Gaius’s tunic.

Gaius refused to rise to the taunt. ‘Then you will be relieved to move on. We have no room for visitors.’

‘But Papa,’ Romanus put in. He was staring at the three adults in turn in some confusion. ‘We have a guest house. With clean beds and beautiful rugs. Mama told Uncle Flavius that.’ He looked bewildered. ‘And we have silver plates and jugs. He doesn’t have to eat off that.’ He glared down at the stoneware plate.

‘Perhaps as a soldier he felt such luxuries would make him soft,’ Gaius said quietly. He reached out to ruffle his son’s hair which was as wet as his own from the rain. ‘You haven’t answered my question, Flavius. Why are you here?’ His voice was suddenly very hard.

‘I told your family, I am looking for someone. It was coincidence that my quest should have brought me to Britannia and your doorstep.’

‘Too great a coincidence for me to believe it,’ Gaius said dryly. ‘So who is it you are following and why should you think he is here?’

‘He is an itinerant student, so I am informed, and he is studying with your druids.’

‘And why should you need to find him?’ Gaius raised an eyebrow.

‘The druids are dangerous.’ Flavius walked across the room and picked up a stool. Carrying it back to the fire he set it down and sat himself down next to Petra as he had the night before. ‘They threaten the peace of the Empire. Tiberius sees them as a major threat in Gaul. Anyone who spends too much time with them is seen as suspect.’

‘Tiberius is not Emperor over these islands,’ Gaius said calmly. ‘What he thinks is not our concern.’

‘You are happy to trade with the Empire.’

Gaius shrugged. ‘The other way round, I think. We have riches they want.’

‘We!’ Flavius looked at him incredulously. ‘So you identify with the barbarians now.’ He chuckled. ‘But of course I can see that. Your barber is obviously one of them. And your cloakmaker. Thank the gods our father cannot see you.’

‘There is nothing wrong with the druids!’ Petra put in suddenly. She looked up defiantly. ‘They are clever and kind.’

Romanus nodded. ‘I’ve thought of studying with them. Mora says even though I am not of a druid family, because my parents are from Rome I can go in as a foreign student.’

‘You, a healer?’ Petra turned her attention to her brother with a crow of derision.

‘Why not?’ He blushed. ‘But they don’t only study healing. I could be one of the
vates,
like Cynan. I want to learn about everything.’

Flavius looked up in mock despair. ‘What a nest of little rebels you nurture here, brother. Can he even read?’

Gaius nodded. ‘They can both read.’

‘And what do they read? Your account books? Your druid friends write nothing down so I’ve heard, to keep their sinister doings secret.’

‘Petra can read and write in Greek and Latin; Romanus is learning,’ Lydia put in. ‘Leave the children alone, Flavius. We do very well here. We can do without your malice.’ She felt braver now her husband was there.

Flavius shrugged. ‘I will stay as long as I need to. When my job is done, then I will decide what to do about my family.’ He smirked at his brother. ‘I seem to remember threatening to kill you last time we met.’

Romanus and Petra gasped.

‘I think the threat was mutual,’ Gaius retorted. ‘Keep away from us.’

Flavius shook his head. ‘Not a chance. This is where I am staying for now under the sacred law of hospitality. Romanus, my boy, show me this glorious guest house of yours. I will move my bags in there. I will bother you as little as possible, Lydia.’ He bowed graciously. ‘Just food and fire is all I need. For now.’

Romanus looked from his mother to his father in confusion. ‘Shall I show him?’

It was Lydia who nodded. ‘Help him with his bags, Romanus.’

They waited in silence until Romanus and Flavius had left the house. Gaius went to the door and watched as they made their way through the heavy rain, across the yard and headed into one of the small buildings on the far side of the granary. It was well thatched and smart and the inside was well appointed. For all his cynical sneering his brother would be very comfortable there.

When he turned back he saw Lydia shaking her head. ‘This can’t be happening. I was so sure he would never find us.’

‘Why do you hate each other so much?’ Petra said anxiously. ‘Mama? Papa? What is this about? Why is Mama so frightened?’ She pulled a rug around her shoulders with a groan, tucking her swollen hands under her armpits for warmth.

Gaius took a deep breath. He sat down on the stool vacated by his brother and reached out to touch her shoulder. ‘We have quarrelled all our lives, Petra. Something I’m not proud of. For some reason Flavius has always resented me. I was born first and he saw me as an obstacle to the sole love of our parents. Then I met your mother and fell in love and he,’ he paused and took a deep breath, trying to keep his rising anger in check, ‘he decided to try and take her off me. He has tried to come between us ever since. We saw no reason to bother you and your brother with this history. We thought we would never see him again.’

‘And was he speaking the truth when he said you had sworn to kill each other?’ Petra’s voice was very faint.

Lydia went over to her. ‘Angry words are often meaningless,’ she said firmly. ‘I am sure he just reminded us of that to make mischief.’

‘I think we should go,’ Gaius said after a moment. ‘We can be packed and gone in less time than it would take for him to go down to the lake village and come back. When he goes down there or over to Ynys yr Afalon and to the villagers on the Glast Mere to enquire after this man he is following I think we should disappear.’

‘No.’ Lydia shook her head. She straightened her shoulders. ‘I am not running any more. I love this place. We have friends here. Our children like it here. And where else is there to go, Gaius? This is where we make a stand. He is only one man, for goodness sake. And he is older now. For all we know he is married himself.’

Gaius bit his lip. ‘You think me a coward, to have run away from him?’

‘No! Of course I don’t. You did what you thought was best. All we wanted was to be together. After all your parents tried to separate you. They understood the problem. They loved you both but they recognised you could not be in the same country. No more though, Gaius. I am not going to move. And he will go back to Caesarea. He is proud of his post there. You heard him. He cannot resist teasing us, but he will go.’

Gazing into the flames she did not see that her husband was shaking his head in despair.

Turning to face the north he imagined he could see the sea, a grey line on the horizon. He could see distant hills, far away, sense their height and their mystery. At their foot the tides roared up and down the estuary with terrifying speed. He pictured the muddy waters, restless, powerful, always watchful, one day gentle beneath a benevolent wind as the grey wavelets drove into the river mouths on the incoming tide to ride the mud flats with their thousands of birds and tease the salt-laden reeds, the next a furious rage of white-topped waves, tearing away greats lumps of mud. On those waves rode the small fishing vessels, the larger traders, the ferries always defying the elements, always brave. He turned away, his face to the wind and raised his hands in prayer for all those souls in peril on the sea.

8

Abi shook herself awake. She had been sitting in the rocking chair in the kitchen where she had gone after Justin left. Making herself a cup of coffee she had sat down for a few minutes, intending to go outside to make a plan of the most urgent gardening jobs which she felt she could put her hand to. His abrupt departure had annoyed her but whatever his problems were with his brother they were none of her business; his rudeness was not personal. She reached for her coffee. It was stone cold. She glanced at her watch. It had happened again. For over an hour she had been lost in dreams about Lydia and Gaius. Levering herself out of the chair she went and switched on the kettle. This was happening too often. And this time she wasn’t even holding the stone, if that was indeed the catalyst that was making all this happen. She shivered. These people from the past seemed to be taking her over. Was this some form of possession? Was Kier right? Had he seen something in her she hadn’t recognised herself? Some paranormal ability which taken to extremes could be dangerous. She ought to discuss it with Ben. But he would take steps to prevent it happening; insist that she reject whatever it was that was inside her which was allowing her to do this.

Should she reject it? Did she have any choice? She hadn’t invited these characters into her head this time. She hadn’t gone outside, seeking a front row seat to watch their performance. She had sat down and closed her eyes and at once they had been there, elbowing their way into her brain, and the story had continued. Pouring scalding water into the top of her mug to warm the cold coffee she sipped it slowly. If only her mother had had the chance to tell her more about the crystal. How it worked. What significance it had in her life. Both their lives. She bit her lip sadly. ‘Mummy, you’ve really dropped me in it this time,’ she murmured.

Five minutes later she had an idea. She would drive over to Glastonbury and find a crystal shop. Surely someone in that Mecca of New Age knowledge, or as someone she once knew had put it, the wackiest town in Britain, would be able to advise her what was happening to her or provide her with a book on the subject of crystals.

She set off, heading towards the ever-visible Tor, down the road which must, she now realised, have once been a causeway. Perhaps it still was technically. In the past, the past she had been watching, it hadn’t been there at all. This was where Romanus had paddled his dugout canoe and cut across the shallow waters of the mere towards the Isle of Avalon. Of course, as Cal had pointed out, in reality Glastonbury had never been a complete island. A neck of land to the south-east had always connected it to the higher ground, but to all intents and purposes it was an island even now, the more so when the mist lay across the levels as a pool of white. A lovely mysterious island steeped in legend and lore.

At first sight it appeared to be the same attractive busy small town she remembered, tucked between its famous landmark hills, the Tor, Wearyall and Chalice Hill. Ignoring the by-pass, she turned into the narrow steeply winding roads which led towards the town centre, making her way down the high street, decorated with its colourful hanging baskets and its intriguing range of shops, most of them glitteringly New Age, although there were, she was glad to see, still some food shops there as well. She drove past St John’s Church and the lovely old Tribunal building and the ancient George and Pilgrims pub, swinging round the market place into Magdalene Street where she turned into the car park behind the ruined abbey and pulled up.

She walked slowly back up the noisy, crowded high street, listening with half an ear to a street musician installed outside St John’s. There were several crystal shops to choose from. She wandered past a couple and then at random selected a third. The fascia was painted a deep rich green and the sign writing in an ornate gold script announced that it was called
Athena’s Attic.
The opening door set off a rippling chime somewhere deep in the shop.

Letting the door close behind her she looked round. The whole place was full of crystals. It seemed to sing with their energy. She made her way in, taking in the cases of exquisite jewellery, the shelves, the tables loaded with dishes of coloured stones, heading towards the counter where a young woman was sitting, reading a novel. She glanced up at Abi then went back to her story. Abi smiled. She obviously didn’t look like your average shoplifter or indeed, perhaps, the average customer either. She walked across and cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt.’

The girl set down the book. ‘That’s OK. Most people just want to look.’ She was wearing long amber earrings which matched her eyes and a green blouse embroidered with sequins. It made her look somehow ethereal, like a dryad from some magical woodland.

‘I want some advice,’ Abi said cautiously. ‘About a crystal I have at home.’

The girl shrugged. ‘I’m not an expert. We’ve got books at the back there. What do you want to know about it?’

Abi was floored. She couldn’t bring herself to say, well, it seems to be projecting memories and I want to learn how to switch it on and off and change channel. ‘I suppose I want to know how you – er, use them,’ she said cautiously. ‘I’ve been left this thing. And it seems very powerful.’ It seemed all right to say that in a shop like this. ‘And I’m not sure what one does…’ Her voice faded away.

‘Have a look at the books.’ The girl waved a hand which Abi saw was laden with amber and silver rings. ‘If they’re no good you could talk to Athena who owns the shop. She will be back later. She knows everything there is to know about crystals.’ She smiled amiably. ‘Go and have a root about. You’ll probably find something to help you.’ She had already picked up her book. Abi glanced at the cover wondering what the title was. It was obviously hard to put down. Following the direction of the wafting hand she made her way down some steps and into a second show room at the back of the shop. There were fewer crystals here –they probably didn’t like it away from the sunshine, she thought with a wry smile but there were all sorts of other interesting artefacts. Abi found herself staring in fascination at the statues, the wands, the rows of little bottles of sacred oils and jars of incense. There were shops like this at home of course – in fact in every town in the country, but this one was somehow special. Was that because this was Glastonbury? She wasn’t sure. She wove her way between the tables towards a wall of books, the shelves neatly labelled and began to search amongst the volumes dedicated to crystals.