The String Diaries Part 24

'Aye, they are. You should see this place on a clear night, with the moon on the water and the stars filling the sky.'

'You've come up here at night?' Leah asked, her eyes wide.

'Many times.'

'Why?'

Gabriel looked sideways at her. 'Searching for the Cn Annwn, of course.'

'What's that?'

'The Cn Annwn? The spectral hounds of Welsh folklore. Huge black dogs with burning red eyes. Fangs as long as my forearm, dripping with saliva. They only hunt on certain nights of the year, between Christmas Day and Twelfth Night, on the slopes of Cadair Idris. Right where we sit. And they bring death to anyone who hears their howl.'

Leah frowned. 'Why would you want to hear them, then?'

Gabriel scrunched up his face into a leer. 'Why, to find out if it's true, of course.'

The girl laughed.

Hannah shook her head, unable to prevent herself from smiling. 'Stop it, you'll frighten her.'

'No he won't. It's silly. There are no such things.'

Gabriel shrugged in defeat. 'Foiled again. By a nine year old.'

After their lunch, with the temperature dropping and the summit obscured by cloud, they packed up their picnic and folded the blankets. Gabriel took a sack of crushed barley from a pannier and showed Leah how to feed the horses.

Hannah watched them working together, noticing how happy and relaxed her daughter seemed. She was grateful for it. The coming days would be a strain on the girl. Soon they would be moving on from Llyn Gwyr, relocating to another new environment where everything would be unfamiliar.

They mounted up, and Gabriel led the way back down the slope. When they pa.s.sed through a ravine and saw a waterfall spilling down the rocks, its roaring waters white with foam, Hannah realised he was taking a different route. Emerging from the ravine, they descended further, down gra.s.sy slopes spotted with heather. The land dipped beneath them in a series of diminis.h.i.+ng stacks. They skirted a rocky hillock to their right; beyond this, the lip of the next ridge plunged over a vertical cliff face. As they drew closer, and the land beneath came into view, she saw that the drop before them was at least a few hundred feet. Gabriel approached the precipice and turned to follow its line south.

As Hannah's horse neared the edge, she spotted a cottage nestled in the valley below. It was small, stone-built, with woodsmoke curling from its chimney. Two cars were parked out front. The first was a white Audi Q7, mud streaking its sides. The second was a battered blue Land Rover Defender.

With a jolt, she realised that the Defender was Sebastien's. As she watched, three men came into view around the side of the building. Sebastien's tall frame and fuzz of white hair were unmistakable. Hannah did not recognise the other two men. One wore a red mountaineering jacket and was powerfully built, his face covered by a dark thatch of beard. The second man, shorter and considerably older than the first, and dressed in a grey suit, seemed to be talking while the other two listened.

A feeling of dread began to creep over her. She sensed Gabriel ride up beside her, and she glanced across at him.

He peered down into the valley. 'Your closest neighbour,' he said, nodding towards the cottage.

Hannah watched as the three men walked towards the Audi.

Had Gabriel purposely brought her along this route to show her this? She dismissed the thought as ridiculous.

Who the h.e.l.l is Sebastien talking to down there?

In front of the cottage, the two strangers shook hands with Sebastien and climbed into the Audi. The car turned in a wide circle, kicking up mud, and headed along the track to the main road. Behind it, Sebastien raised his arm in farewell.

'Do you know him?' Gabriel asked.

She shook her head.

'Really?'

'Nope.'

'That might be for the best,' Gabriel said. When she turned back to him, all trace of his usual humour had vanished.

Ice crawled up her spine. 'Why do you say that?'

CHAPTER 15.

Oxford 1997.

Charles walked along the gravel path of the university botanic garden, searching its benches for Beckett.

The physic garden had always been one of his favourite places. He enjoyed its scents and its spectacle, its tranquillity and its history, its unique expression of the seasons. Usually a walk through its grounds was a tonic for his worries. But not today.

He had been feeling unsettled for weeks. Since the publication of his Legacy of the Germanic Peoples, with its jacket photograph of himself and Nicole, guilt had washed over him and the tide would not recede.

He recalled Nicole opening the book for the first time, the smile sliding off her face as she saw her image staring back at her. At first it had shocked her into paralysis. And then the anger exploded out of her. She ripped the book in two, flung away the torn halves, and launched herself at him with a scream.

How had he ever justified such a spectacularly selfish decision? The terrible irony was that he loved Nicole even more now than on the day of their wedding, yet with that one act he had blithely broken every promise he had made to her, had reduced the beliefs that framed her into a child's fantasy, a stale bogeyman ripe for euthanasia.

I know best, the photograph announced. I've indulged your paranoia for eighteen years and now it's time we buried it.

He knew why he had done it: pride. Even eighteen years after meeting her, he still thought Nicole was the most fascinating, most desirable, woman he had ever met. After all their years of secrecy, he had wanted to broadcast their relations.h.i.+p to the world, to announce that he, Charles Meredith, had had the good fortune to have snared a woman as incredible as Nicole Dubois. The thought that something as worthless as his own vanity could become the knife that severed them was so appalling it left him wretched.

At first Nicole talked, in a detached and emotionless voice, of leaving him, of packing a bag and disappearing. Later, after hours of tears from both of them, she suggested that they leave together: leave Oxford, leave the notoriety of his name, her new and unwanted publicity.

Yet after all the talk, they had not, finally, done anything. They loved each other too much to be apart, and the foundations of their lives had been sunk in Oxford soil for too many years to consider a relocation.

Although they remained together, their relations.h.i.+p had irrevocably changed. There was a carefulness now between them that had not existed before, a hesitancy before speaking, before acting. He mourned their old comfortable ways even as he castigated himself for their loss. They had not shared a physical closeness since that first fight. Nicole had not refused him. The truth was, he simply felt unworthy of her. It was what unsettled him most of all. That, and the fact he had not gathered the courage to admit his second act of betrayal the piece he had written for the Mottram-Gardner Journal of European Folklore and Mythology.

It was that article, published a month ago, that drew him to the botanic garden, walking its paths and searching for the bird-like creature that was Patrick Beckett.

Charles found him on one of the benches that circled the water fountain. Beckett was wrapped in a woollen overcoat and hat. The man stared at the water lilies floating on the fountain's surface, tapping out a complicated rhythm on his knees. A briefcase rested beside him.

Beckett looked up as Charles approached. Age had not softened the academic's mannerisms. He twitched with recognition and jumped to his feet. 'Here he is! Professor Meredith, slayer of the almighty hosszu eletek!'

Charles shook his head. 'Patrick.' He was in no mood for Beckett's theatrics.

The man jerked back in surprise, then clapped a hand on Charles's shoulder. 'Why so glum, my friend? I expected triumph, jubilation, perhaps a hint of false modesty although only the merest crumb. Certainly not this troubled visage that presents itself. Come, sit! The bench is damp but you may share my blanket.' He gestured at a strip of tartan fabric lying on the wooden struts.

Charles sat down. 'You said you had something to discuss?'

'Straight to the point as always. No taste for small talk.' Beckett delved into a pocket and removed a silver hip flask. 'Before that, though, I must insist on a toast.' He unscrewed the cap of the flask, took a sip, clenched his teeth and swallowed. 'To the success of your Germanic Peoples. And, even more exciting, your quite startling emergence as a folklorist. Birth and Death was a revelation, Charles.' He proffered the flask.

'You read it, then?'

Beckett's eyes glittered. 'I devoured it.'

Charles took the flask and swigged from the neck. The syrupy liquid lit a fire in his throat. He coughed, blinking tears. 'G.o.ds alive, Patrick, what have you got in here?'

Beckett grinned. 'You've not tasted Palinka? A plum brandy, from Szatmar. It seemed a fitting tipple for our salute.'

Charles handed back the flask and wiped his mouth. 'I thought you didn't like spirits.'

'Tastes evolve, Charles, as one grows old. I had no idea you were so interested in the hosszu eletek.'

'It must be nearly twenty years since I first approached you about them. I suppose you got me hooked.'

Beckett inclined his head. 'How extraordinary. And here you are after all that time, an authority.'

'I'd hardly say that.'

'Now you're being obtuse.'

'It was hardly a shattering thesis, Patrick.'

'Some of the material you referenced . . . I don't know how you could have discovered it.'

'The sources are all quoted.'

Beckett raised his eyebrows. 'Yet in most cases I haven't been able to follow your trail.'

'You've checked?'

'Dear Charles, please don't think I doubted their authenticity. You know I'm an addict for this stuff. I just like to read the texts first-hand where possible.'

'Well, I'm flattered by your interest.' He paused, uncomfortable. 'You said on the telephone-'

'Aha! I did, didn't I? I said I had something to show you, something I thought would tickle you, and I do. I've been sitting on it for years. Your paper mentioned something that drew me back to it. The great cull of the hosszu eletek a genocide of sorts at some point in the late nineteenth century. Abysmal episode.'

Charles frowned. He disliked the way Beckett talked about folklore as if it were historical fact. 'They're stories, Patrick. Many individual renditions of the same basic premise. Those references to a cull appear in versions that originate around the turn of the century. You know my view on it. As society grew less superst.i.tious as supposed eletek sightings dwindled as a result it was a way perhaps of keeping the myth relevant. An explanation for the eletek's absence.' Charles shrugged. 'Who knows? It's just a theory.'

Beckett leaned forwards. 'You didn't discover any motive behind the cull?'

'No.'

'Interesting.'

'So what did you want to show me?'

Beckett twitched again, rubbing his hands. He bent to his briefcase, snapped open the clasps and took out a cardboard tube. It was stoppered with a plastic cap, which he removed. From inside, he withdrew a scroll, its thick paper brittle and stained with age.

Charles watched as Beckett unrolled the parchment. The handwritten text was Hungarian, and lavishly calligraphed. He spotted several mentions of hosszu eletek. Three signatures lay at the bottom of the page, above a maroon wax seal faded to brown. The doc.u.ment was dated 3rd March 1880.

'What is it?'

'See those signatures? That one is Emperor Franz Joseph's, the reigning monarch. The second belongs to Kalman Tisza de Borosjeno. He was Hungarian Prime Minister from 1875 to 1890. The third I haven't been able to trace.'

'What does the text say?'

Beckett looked up from the paper, his eyes studying Charles hungrily. 'It's a Royal Decree. Quite a nasty one.'

'Yes?'

'It grants authorisation for the immediate extermination of the Budapest hosszu eletek. Not just the ruling cla.s.ses. Every last poor sod of them. "Their stain to be forever cleansed from our society."'

'Where did you get this?'

Beckett smirked. 'Want to trade sources?'

'Have you authenticated it?'

'Oh, it's real, Charles. I can promise you that. What do you make of it?'

'I don't know. What do you make of it?'

'Buried in all these tales, perhaps there's a thread of truth.'

'Like what?'

'Imagine something happened back then. Something that upset the balance. We know from the usual sources that there was an uneasy alliance between the hosszu eletek and Budapest's n.o.bility. They weren't exactly cosy bedfellows. Perhaps a particular incident sparked the unrest that led to this Decree.'

'And this is just your speculation?'

'Of course.'

'You sound as if you believe all this.'

'Don't you?'

Charles glanced up at the academic, his unease growing. Beckett's grin seemed to mock him. His eyes stared with intensity.

'And here's something else interesting,' Beckett continued. 'In all your research, did you ever come across mention of the Eleni?'

'I don't believe so.'

'The Eleni was the organisation tasked with carrying out the cull.'