He wandered to the door muttering, but Gwen gazed back to the apple orchard.
You can do anything you wish, Gwen, she heard Tristan whisper.Be anyone.
Her lips curved. She would besomeone.
No more demure pastels, she’d wear bold coloured dresses. And next year, she’d ride camels and gorge on exotic foods. She’d find both adventure and peace on her travels and in her writing.
But before those adventures, she’d enjoy Christmas here in Wales with dear Isabelle, Rhys, and Tristan’s daughter, Mari. There was to be wassailing, dancing, greenery and good cheer.
A Christmas never to forget.
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CHAPTERTWO
“Your vagrant feet desire to tread with measur’d step and anxious care.”
Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey…
Mrs Thrale. 1789.
Ahoariness swathed the sky, heralding dusk, and Tristan paused on the track to gaze up at the ancient and decrepit circular slate tower – theCastell y Ddraig.
He felt some empathy with the ruined fortress.
To his left, an aged flat-topped stone marked the final quarter mile to the mansion of the earls of Llanedwyn and so, with a cane of ash wood to steady his step, he shuffled over, heaved his sack of scant belongings to the grass and sagged upon it as he had done as a child.
The stagecoach from the town of Caernarfon had brought him as far as the Llanedwyn village coaching inn where as a lad, he’d supped his first ale and kissed his first girl, but he’d not recognised the stable boy, nor he him. What had happened to Delwyn, he’d wondered, who’d forever grumbled of his cold feet?
Tristan had slouched his hat and trudged out alone.
The village had been much as he recalled – slate roofs, cobbled streets – and he’d hitched a ride on a vagrant tinker’s cart through gelid pastures and frosty dale till the track had forked for the Llanedwyn estate. He’d ambled the last full mile, accompanied by a swirling mist and recollections of that bitter winter of ’94 when he’d fleetly skated the inland lake, ice furrowing to the glee of youth, a man of snow built upon its short-lived solidity.
The venerable bare horse chestnut which had lost more branches than he recalled still stood tall and rooted in the meadow opposite – a lone sentinel where he, his elder-by-moments twin brother, and their neighbour Gwen had oft played conkers upon a carpet of copper leaves.
His heart juddered within its cage.
Mayhap because those days had been so blithe.
Twisting on the chill marker, he gazed to the inland hills which hid the stone circle ofBedd Ddraighigh upon their crown. They’d ridden there as young cubs with cake and milk pilfered from the kitchens for the resting dragons they’d believed lived within. They’d returned as adults, to wonder at its legends and admire the view over Tremadog Bay.
He ought to stand, make haste for his home.
Yet he remained upon the stone.
The kindly Mr Hughes had offered to accompany him as far as Dublin, procured him passage to Wales and had assured Mr MacNamara there was no rush to complete the repairs to his craft.
So Tristan had packed his meagre possessions, bid his farewells to the folk of Micklow and begun his journey.
Twisting back, he stared once more at the ruins of theCastell y Ddraigtower – or the Castle of the Dragon to the raiding English – and then to the restless sea beyond.
A sea that had stolen so much from him.
That still possessed a part of him.
When Mr Hughes had first recognised him in MacNamara’s boat shop, Tristan had crumpled to the sawdust like a puppet cut loose of its strings, only to rouse to a swarm of memories pressing in like desperate bees to a hive when rain was due. Overwhelming and joyous: his beautiful daughter Mari, his beloved twin Rhys, the all too brief time that heaven had allowed him with his wife Sarah so many years ago…
But not all of his memories had been returned by that sea.
