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“It’s almost dark. We had better get back.” I opened my eyes in confusion. Cad did not seem to have noticed my plight. Day retreated like the gates of heaven slamming closed as we walked back to the house in silence. In the courtyard of Athal House, the lamplights wore shawls of evening fog and lecherous, leering shadows beckoned. When we mounted the steps of the house, I noticed a splash of blood-bright red staining Cad’s grey trousers. It gleamed wet in the welcoming candlelight. Cat’s whiskers of fear brushed the surface of my skin. Could it have been Cad who had destroyed the portraits? It was an act that resonated with hatred and violence. Beneath his desire for me did there lurk a darker emotion?
* * *
Because Lucy and I had become friends, I felt that despite her outward reserve, I could ask her the questions that troubled me. She regarded me steadily. I was grateful that, if she wondered why her second son should interest me more than her first—particularly when I was supposedly engaged to marry the latter—she did not voice that curiosity.
“When they were growing up, Cad was always the wilder of the two boys. Eddie, in contrast, was shy and sensitive.”
“Why do they hate each other so much?”
“I have often pondered that question, but I’ve never really found an answer. I believe it was the same with Tynan’s father, Ruan, and his younger brother, who was, of course, none other than Uther.” The distant yearning look that crossed her features whenever she spoke of Uther dawned then. I knew how much she loved Tynan, but it was clear that Uther exerted some hold over her that he had not taken to his grave. “They, too, had a younger sister in Demelza so, unwittingly, Tynan and I recreated their family structure. It didn’t matter what we did when they were children, Eddie and Cad just never got on. And it was somehow worse when Eleanor came along. Eddie was content to play her gentler games, but Cad wanted adventure and excitement so the tension between them was heightened.” She hesitated for a moment. “But you wanted to know about Cad and Uther? Yes, Tynan and I would be startled sometimes at how very like Uther Cad was, even from an early age. But you have to remember how close we were then to the horrors of what had befallen us at Uther’s hands. He was still very much in our minds. And Tenebris itself has the power to make even the most practical mind believe that the past is still at work on the present. But I had hoped we never allowed Cad to see those fears.” She sighed. “As he grew up, of course, and his likeness to Uther grew even more striking, the neighbourhood began to remark on it. People said he was Uther reincarnated. I’m sure he must have heard those rumours. But, knowing Cad, he either laughed them off or played the part even more just to scandalise the busybodies.”
“On the contrary, I think it hurt him very much,” I said quietly.
She gazed at me thoughtfully. I felt that she wanted to say more and waited patiently. In the end, she said simply, “At first all I wanted was for my children to be untainted by the Jago legacy, Dita. But for a long time, my only hope has been that at least one of them will remain free of it.”
Neither of us had heard Tynan come into the room, so we both started slightly when he spoke. “You know that one of them is not tainted, Lucy-love.” She held out her hand to him gratefully and I slipped quietly away, leaving them alone together. Tynan’s cryptic statement bothered me. If only one of his children was free of the Jago legacy, what did that mean for the other two? And who was the one?
* * *
For several days a silent, unrelenting rain had bent the grassy stalks double and tinted the sky with ghost-grey desolation. When at last the rainfall stopped, purple crested clouds hinted at forthcoming snow. Regardless of this ominous sign, I was heartily glad to escape the confines of a house whose secrets were etched in blood. As I walked toward Port Isaac, sleepy waves half-heartedly stroked the shore. My mind was on Cad, as it so often was these days. I could not seem to shift my thoughts away from the briefly tasted, never-forgotten delirium we had shared. No matter what the future held, I could not bring myself to feel regret.
My dreams now and then took me once more on that wild night ride on a black stallion with the rider I now knew was Uther Jago. I had not seen Demelza or Arwen again, and the house had, thankfully, made no further attempts to revert to its medieval splendour. I had finally convinced myself that it really was influenza and not the supernatural that was responsible for my strange experiences. If I kept telling myself that, I might even come to believe it.
