“Hmm. Lady Gwen returns to Penffordd Manor each week to transcribe her father’s notes.”
His heart restarted. “Yes, of course.”
“She’ll be back on the morrow, she will.”
“Good. That’s…good.”
“The Earl of Penffordd is searching for that lost stone circle of Brynfach, you know.” She pursed her lips. “Not that he’ll ever find it as the dragons dragged it deep underground, they did. Out of men’s sight as it was sacred to them.”
“Brynfach…” he mumbled almost to himself. “Where do I know that name from?”
“Well, I couldn’t rightly say.” She tidied up the scattered holly leaves. “Perhaps from the earl’s book. He wrote about all the stone circles of Wales. It’s in the library.” She peered askance. “You could take a look.”
“I will, Mrs Pugh. Thank you.” He crossed the hall but felt…watched. So he turned. “You seem to know a lot about the stone circle of Brynfach?”
“I know many a matter, I do, Lord Tristan.” She tapped her nose before bustling off in the direction of the kitchens.
Their housekeeper could be rather cryptic on occasion.
Tristan shrugged, propped his stick at the open library door, and began to browse the shelves – prose by Rousseau, verse by Wordsworth and ancient odes by Dafydd ap Gwilym. He shuffled past to the bookcase of Welsh history and tilted his head to inspect the spines before a title in gold flowing script on black leather caught his eye:The Stone Circles of Wales – Fact and Legendby the Earl of Penffordd.
He popped the book out from amongst its peers and opened it to the frontispiece – a fine drawing of the stone circle ofBedd Ddraig,and then flipped through pages of miniscule type for which he’d require his spectacles to read, more drawings, a bookmark of dried sea thrift, another ink print of two dragons in a circ–
With a groan, he slammed his eyes shut as pain surged, the book fell and he stumbled back to the hall.
“Tris?”
Fire-breathing beasts warred within his head.
A memory drifted.
And then it was gone.
“Tris? Are you well?”
He turned to his twin. “I just… I need some fresh air. I might visit the boat shed again.”
“I’ll come with you.”
He shook his head. “No, I…”
But a hand gripped his shoulder and his brother deployed that damn ducal arc of brow.
Tristan cast a smile. “I’d be grateful for the company.”
The stablemaster,a certain Mr Pugh, led out two tacked geldings – one the stalwart Flint, who he handed the reins of to Tristan, and the other a sleeker but still hefty horse of mixed Welsh descent.
“I thought to ride Oberon,” stated Rhys with a frown. “Fleeter of hoof, no?”
Mr Pugh sucked air through his teeth and then… “Snow,” he said.
A man of few words.
Both Tristan and Rhys stared to the sky – clouded but with no hint of flake nor flurry. “If it does, no more than a scatter this close to the coast, surely?”
“’94.”
A man of few numbers also.
