Phil Rickman - The Fabric of Sin

‘Maybe there were other attractions at the Master House?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I was wondering …’ Merrily was gazing up at Owain, the sceptre rising meaningfully from between his legs ‘… if perhaps there was … I don’t know, a Gwilym daughter? Who, when Owain was in hiding and understandably a bit depressed about the way things had turned out, devoted herself to … kind of cheering him up a bit.’

‘You are suggesting that we might be descended directly from Owain Glyndwr.’

Merrily shrugged.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Some of my family have believed that. There was a woman called Elinor Gwilym, born around the turn of the fifteenth century, who became quite a matriarch in my family. Some of my ancestors bore quite a resemblance to …’ He glanced up. ‘It has even been said that I … Anyway, which of my countrymen would not wish to be related to the greatest Welshman in history, the last real Prince of Wales?’

‘Quite.’

Merrily was remembering the way Adam Eastgate had looked at her when she’d reminded him, rather tactlessly, that Edward II was only the first English Prince of Wales.

‘However,’ Gwilym said, ‘I doubt that the great man would have deigned to appear to a bunch of stoned kids.’

‘Of course, Owain wasn’t the only great historical figure to have stayed at the Master House. Would your ancestors have been there while the Templars were in Garway?’

‘It was a Templar farm.’

‘Perhaps hosting Jacques de Molay in 1294?’

‘So it is said.’

‘And whatever he brought with him?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m not sure I do either, but people keep mentioning the possibility of Templar treasure winding up in Garway.’

Sycharth Gwilym laughed.

‘Your family never looked for it? Although, when you think about it, I expect the Gwilyms had already lost the house when all this speculation started about the Templars and their wealth and the secrets they guarded.’

No response.

‘Be a good reason to want the house back,’ Merrily said. ‘Especially if you had all the family records.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Just passing on gossip.’

‘Ridiculous.’

‘Yes. I expect it is. It’s just that a friend of mine – a Welsh friend – was pointing out that Glyndwr’s campaign was fired by the unjust treatment of the Welsh by the English marcher lords. And, more specifically, a personal injustice, when some of his own land in North Wales, near the English border, was seized by his neighbour, the Lord of Rhuthun.’

‘That’s recorded history.’

‘Owain then sought justice from the English parliament and was turned away. Lord Rhuthun kept the land. Another version of the story suggests that Lord Rhuthun was close to the king of England, Henry IV, and blackened Owain’s name at court. Either way, it started a devastating war.’

‘And?’

‘Lord Rhuthun’s name was Reginald Grey. That’s an interesting coincidence, isn’t it?’

Sycharth Gwilym raised an eyebrow.

‘I mean the way the Master House fell, quite recently, by marriage, into the hands of the Grays . Unlikely to be any relation, but I suppose it has a certain … poetic resonance.’

Gwilym shaking his head dismissively, but Merrily wasn’t abandoning the punchline.

‘And then … just when you thought you were going to be able to buy it back, and can well afford to – this house, the house that puts you at the centre of so much crucial history, handed by the Grays to … well, not to the Crown exactly, but, even worse, to—’

Merrily’s phone chimed in her bag. Not now, Lol, please …

She saw Sycharth Gwilym wetting his lips and shut her bag on the phone.

‘… To the latest English Prince of …’

‘I think you had better answer your call,’ he said. ‘Go outside, if you like.’

‘Thank you … I’m sorry.’

When she stood up and was taking the phone to the door, Merrily saw Sycharth Gwilym standing up too, following her out. When she was holding the phone to her ear, he’d closed the office door behind them.

‘Lol,’ she said, ‘look—’

‘Do yourself a favour, lass,’ Huw said. ‘Get over to the cathedral. Now.’

‘Huw, if you can give me just a few minutes, I’ll call you back.’

‘I wouldn’t hang around, I were you.’

‘Most pleasant talking to you, Mrs Watkins,’ Gwilym said as she folded the phone. ‘You are a most intelligent and charming woman. But I’m afraid I have a meeting at three-thirty.’

‘Mr Gwilym …’ Dropping the phone in her bag, feeling a fizzing of panic in her stomach. ‘Before you go … the main reason I came was to ask if you’d be interested in joining me and one of the Grays and a representative of the Duchy of Cornwall at a short Requiem service at the Master House.’

‘I think I shall probably discover a prior appointment on that occasion,’ Gwilym said. ‘As it is not our house any more.’

The two fountains trickled. Merrily felt spray on her face.

‘I was thinking that, as the house no longer belongs to either of you, this might be a good time to draw a line under the years of bad feeling between the two families. For instance, I was hearing only this morning about your great-grandfather. Madog? The way he died?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Outside the pub.’

‘That’s a lot of nonsense. Madog seems to have had a heart condition.’

‘Anyway, I was just thinking we might … heal some history.’

‘The idea,’ Gwilym said, ‘that history can – or should – be healed is, to some of us, anathema.’

Merrily looked over at the woman receptionist who wore a pale dress secured with a brooch at the shoulder, Roman-style. She was on the phone.

‘The people leasing the house – Lord Stourport …’

‘Mrs Watkins, I don’t remember his name, but I’m sure he wasn’t a lord.’

‘And another man who called himself Mat Phobe … do you remember him?’

‘No.’

‘Do you remember a black girl called Mary?’

‘ No . I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me.’

‘Do you know what happened to—?’

She watched him slip away under an archway. The phone rang, and this time it was Lol.

‘Merrily, if Gwilym’s there don’t react, but I’ve just seen Jimmy Hayter going into the main bar.’

WHEN JANE GOT in from school, the Volvo was parked in the vicarage drive, but there was no sign of Mum, just Mrs Morningwood and Roscoe. Mrs Morningwood was unwinding her scarf.

‘I’ve been across to the shop, Jane. He was getting tired of cat food. My God, I felt like the Phantom of the bloody Opera in there, the way people stared.’

‘You should’ve asked me to go,’ Jane said. ‘As I understand it, nobody’s supposed to know you’re here.’

‘Felt liked a caged tiger today, darling, I can tell you.’

‘Where’s Mum?’

‘In Hereford. Talking to Suckarse. Wish I was a bloody fly on that wall.’

‘Mrs Morningwood, while we’re on our own …’ Jane shed her bag and her parka in a pile on the flags, pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. ‘You got beaten up, didn’t you?’

‘What’s wrong with a car crash?’

‘What’s wrong with it is I’m seventeen. As distinct from, like, nine?’

‘Poor Jane.’ Mrs Morningwood sat down. ‘Balancing on the cusp.’

‘What’s that mean?’ Jane looked at the ruins of what she guessed had once been a seriously cool woman. ‘Who did this to you? Why can’t you just spit it out?’

‘I well remember being your age. The fear of making a commitment to the wrong future.’