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He noticed the portraits on the table, and came over to us. His expression was unfathomable as he studied Uther’s face thoughtfully. The likeness was so precise that, apart from the scar, he could have been looking in a mirror.
“He was a handsome bastard, wasn’t he?” he joked, but there was no humour in his tone. “Begging your pardon, Mama, of course,” he added in response to his mother’s prim-lipped disapproval of his language. “Have you been regaling Dita with stories of dark deeds and past lives?”
I didn’t turn round, so he came to stand next to me, studying my profile as I gazed out the window. I heard the door click quietly and glanced around in surprise to see that Lucy had left us alone. “Look at me, Dita.” Cad’s voice was low, and I turned my head to gaze into the eyes that belonged to his evil ancestors. “Tell me what you are thinking.”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said shakily. “It is all too fantastic for words.”
His laugh was devoid of mirth. “That was not the answer I hoped for. All my life I have waited to hear someone say they believe in me. To tell me that they know I am not Uther Jago come back from whatever hell he occupies. Just once I wanted someone to see our likeness and still say those words. Foolishly, I thought you might be the person to finally utter them.” Turning sharply on his heel, he walked out of the room.
* * *
In my dream, I returned that night to look at the portraits once more. My eyes were drawn to Uther’s proud, perfect features. The room was empty and black, but as I lifted my eyes guiltily from the painting, one of the shadows moved. I half expected Lucy or perhaps Tynan to march forward and demand an explanation for my nocturnal prying, but instead a dark, indistinct shape drifted toward me. I froze. Abruptly, the shape turned, staring down at me, the face with its all too familiar fiery eyes beginning to take form. He bent, his lips preparing to brush mine in a caress older than time. But this was different. This was not the Uther Jago of my other dreams or his likeness of my waking reality. This spectre’s heart was forged from midnight, and its breath came straight from the crypt. I took one step back, and he vanished back into the night from whence he came.
My dread was not lessened by his disappearance, however, since a glance around me confirmed my fear that I was no longer in the comfortable surroundings of Athal House. Across the hall the weak bluish flame of a single candle illuminated the sweep of a wide staircase. The choice before me was stark. Ascend and follow that dismal gleam, or remain and risk the apparition’s return. Telling myself that it mattered not, it was a dream from which I would soon awake, I advanced slowly to the foot of the stairs. I knew, of course, that I was in the old castle of once-grand Tenebris. Its name alone could strike terror into the hardened hearts of powerful warriors. The flickering flame showed me a gallery of handsome portraits, and I paused before the largest of them all. Arwen Jago, beautiful in his arrogant masculinity, looked down at me in mocking hauteur.
Defiantly, I locked my gaze on his. “I am not afraid of you,” I told him firmly, lifting my chin to emphasise the words. And, because this was a dream and dreams allow for such things, his eyes flashed a fiery promise of retribution back at me.
I looked up to where the stairs divided into two galleries. A woman with a black veil covering her face stood in the darkness, looking down at me. She raised a white hand in a beckoning gesture, and I was inexplicably drawn to her. It was as if she drew my will from me. I had taken several steps before she put back her veil, and I saw too late that it was Demelza Jago. The knife at her side gleamed cold and ready. A look back over my shoulder showed Uther standing next to Arwen’s portrait, leaning his broad shoulders against the panelled wall. The laughter on their lips told of ghastly sin and ancient gore and plans for me that chilled my blood.
When I woke, sweat plastered my hair to my forehead and my every muscle ached with the strain of holding back the screams that rose to my lips.
* * *
Summer’s flesh had long gone. The trees mourned their lost leaves and forlornly revealed the skeleton of the land. Winter sunshine melted on the fields like butter on warm bread. A flock of geese, wintering in Cornwall from even harsher climes, cried a sorrowful lament. Their V-shaped silhouette was stark against the shredded lace of cloud. It led my gaze away from Tenebris.
