Chapter 3
Chapter three
Ormdale
Una did not know what to make of Mr Anderson. His dark round glasses made his gaze opaque. And his expression had a disconcerting habit of sliding about, as if he didn’t want to be pinned down on anything. Worst of all, his teeth unsettled her.
She had been given to believe that Americans had very wide jaws full of very white teeth, because they did not drink tea—not since the stupidest of the King Georges had tried to make them pay extra for it. Their offence at this had run so deep that they had never got on again.
Una knew it was not necessary to apologise for this, since by all accounts they were doing quite well on their own. So well, in fact, that it was now expedient to put on a very good show for them.
Una reprimanded herself for her doubts as she took him round the glasshouse.
This Anderson might have teeth just like anybody else in Yorkshire, but he did indeed have an accent (of some kind—Una had never heard an American before), and he looked about him very keenly, as if committing everything to memory.
It was probably to write up a report for the Smithsonian, which would be significant for them, according to George, who knew far more about such things than Una did.
Her cousin George was somewhat impractical and unworldly, but unquestionably a brilliant naturalist. At only twenty, he had already formed links with the foremost living naturalists.
So, despite her reservations, Una led his friend out of the public glasshouse and into her home, past the placards that insisted these areas were PRIVATE, keeping up a cheerful commentary the whole way to silence her own doubts.
Yet the further she took him up the stairs of the dark and quiet abbey, his stick tapping behind her, the less easy she felt. She thought of the bright and busy crowd outside, and found herself wishing herself amongst them.
“Do watch your step,” she said as she let them out onto the roof. What a relief to be in the sunlight again! The octagonal tower could only be accessed from the roof, and they now crossed the walkway to it.
“Here we are,” she said as she unlocked the arched door and ushered him into the upper room of the octagonal tower.
There were old herbs drying among the rafters and tools for grooming, clipping, or restraining, training, and riding dragons lined up or hanging on pegs, organised by size. They weren’t the things in everyday use in the menagerie, but the historical tools of her family’s duties as dragon-keepers.
Una felt embarrassed by the light film of dust that coated the room.
“I find it much more convenient to use a room with running water to prepare my herbal tinctures and ointments for common dragon ailments, so this room is not in general use. And of course the production of antivenin is in the hands of professional laboratory technicians these days, as you know.”
She noticed that Mr Anderson was glancing about him, just as if he were looking for something.
“Was there something…you were hoping to see?” she prodded.
“I suppose…antiquities. Artefacts. Everything is so old in England. And your family is part of that.”
“Historical artefacts?” she repeated, biting her lip.
There was something very old and precious in this room. But as far as Una knew, it hadn’t ever been shown to anyone except the other Dragon Keeper families.
“But I forgot that the estate was in trouble for years,” he said with a sigh. “You must have sold everything of value. I don’t suppose your family couldn’t afford to be sentimental.”
Una did not like this picture of her family as a desperate relic of a fading aristocracy.
She did not like it because, for much of her life, it had been accurate.
She thought of her father and her brother, both of whom had lost their lives going after a rumoured lost treasure.
If they hadn’t been so desperate to remedy their decaying fortunes, they would never have risked going into the caves as they had.
Una bent down and pulled out a locked strongbox from under the marble table at the centre of the room. She used a key from her belt to open it, and lifted out a wrapped object, which she placed carefully on the table.
In her father’s day, it had been hidden and only brought out when a younger member of the family was inducted into the family’s oath of secrecy. She did not like to remember the terror of the list of curses she had been forced to call down on herself were she ever to break it.
Her heart beat faster. Was it memory, guilt, or worry that prompted it? She glanced at Mr Anderson. Surely there could be no harm in showing him. It was just too old to hand about every day. That was all.
“Perhaps this will interest you,” Una said.
The man leaned his cane against the table and took the book-sized reliquary in both his hands, so reverently that Una thought he must be a Roman Catholic.
Not for the first time, Una felt uncomfortable about living in a deconsecrated abbey stolen from monks.
Cousin Edith would say that all happened in the fifteen hundreds, and they might as well feel guilty about the Norman Conquest, but Una was sure she would feel horribly guilty about the Norman Conquest if an Anglo-Saxon came to tea.
“Is this—?” His voice trailed off.
“Of course, we’ve no way of really knowing… But yes. We think it is. See?”
She showed him the cross on the back. Both arms were of equal length.
“Saint George’s emblem,” he said softly, tracing the arms of the cross with a fingertip.
There were jewels embedded in the cross, but Una sensed that the man’s admiration was for the symbol itself.
She deftly touched the catch, opening it for him. Nestled inside was a fragment of interlinked metal, very finely worked. He took off his glasses.
“An actual piece of his chainmail?” he murmured breathlessly.
“As far as we can tell,” she said.
“This should be at the British Museum,” he said suddenly.
“Not the Smithsonian?” she asked in surprise.
“No,” he said, in a hard voice. Then his eyes met hers for the first time, and she saw that they were a light blue, and one of them had a curious fleck of black, like a piece of driftwood in the pale ocean of his iris.
He quickly replaced the glasses.
“Saint George is the patron saint of England,“ he said crisply.
Una almost laughed at this obvious statement, but she bit her tongue for the sake of those poor, poor monks. Not to mention the Americans, so steadfast in their refusal of the comforts of tea.
“Is he really?” she asked innocently. Then she held out her hand for the reliquary. “May I?”
He handed it back to her reluctantly. What an odd naturalist! Did he expect to carry off the family relic? George would have swapped all the relics in England for a new species of gnat.
Una closed the reliquary, wrapped it again, and replaced it in the box, and locked it.
Meanwhile, she was thinking ahead. It was feeding time now—they would just be finishing feeding the dragons in the outdoor exhibits, and would be moving into the glasshouse. Which meant it was time to continue the tour.
“Shall we move on, Mr Anderson?” she asked, opening the door and moving outside.
He gazed about the room through his smoke-dark glasses, then back at her, and a chill went through her.
At that moment, a shout came from the gwiberary. She leaned out a crenellation to see what was happening.
From here, one could see directly down into the old kitchen gardens, which had been netted to provide an outdoor home for the species of Welsh flying dragons provided by the dragon-keeper family of the mountain community of Gwynedd in Wales.
“Is everything well, Thomas?” she shouted.
“Gwiber tried to nab a camera, is all,” the old servant called up from his bench.
When she turned around, Mr Anderson was standing near, one hand in his pocket. It made her jump.
“Oh, excuse me!” she said. Then, noticing he seemed tense, she added, “They do that sometimes. The Welsh dragons are attracted to shiny things.”
She locked the tower door and recommenced the tour as if nothing had happened. And as far as she could tell, nothing had.