Chapter One #2
It didn’t? That’s the thing about my family.
Yes, we’re historians. But the very nature of historical documents means that we have to be lexicographers as well, to some extent—looking for meaning in word choice.
Tracking the origins of words. And sure, I could crack open my etymology app and find out where ‘ending’ came from, but often these strange place names were due to a dimly remembered story or representation of another word.
The only way to find that out was to listen for echoes of folk memory in the tales people told.
Sadly for my purposes, Glenys was far more interested in telling me about her daughter’s upcoming wedding and the problems they’d had with the groom’s family not liking the idea of a ruined castle as the venue for the reception.
“Honestly, I don’t know what their problem is.
Wanted something more modern, they did. ‘You’ve got a castle.
Why would you want a hotel?’ I said. I can’t think of anywhere more romantic myself. ”
I couldn’t get a word in edgeways to ask her anything more. So I sat and drank my tea in a large but gloomy kitchen that smelled of warm bread, waiting for five o’clock and my first meeting with Rhodri Bedwyr.
In the middle of Glenys’s description of the ribbon on the bridesmaids’ dresses, a bell rang.
I looked up to follow the sound and saw a series of small, brass bells with strings leading to them.
The kind that used to summon servants back when people had servants.
I hadn’t expected to see them in the twenty-first century. Certainly not being used.
Glenys immediately put her tea to one side and rose to her feet. “Right then, I’ll take you to him. You can leave your bag there,” she said. “Toby’ll take it up. Saves you carrying it all over the house.”
She led me back down the dark, narrow passageway, which I guessed had once been a servant rat-run.
I wished I was better informed about architecture.
This place would undoubtedly be fascinating to someone who understood what they were looking at.
All I really knew about it was that it was enormous, dark, and caused me to feel slightly uneasy.
Or maybe it wasn’t the building that made me feel that way. Glenys knocked on one of the closed doors leading from the hall, and waited to be bidden before showing me in. The dragon sitting behind the imposing desk in the corner of the room didn’t look exactly welcoming.
His hair was dark, and his face reminded me of the dragon I’d met outside. But it was his eyes that made me stand very carefully still. They burned with something. Power, perhaps. Or temper? Either way, this was not a dragon I’d ever want to upset.
I ducked my head respectfully, then met his gaze again. “Ben Berstow, sir. Thank you for having me here.”
He stood, and as I studied him, I realised he was younger than I’d assumed. Probably in his early fifties.
“Why exactly do you think you’re here?”
“To read your family records and find out if they contain information that we’re missing in our history of dragons,” I said. “The one my family is collating for all dragons.”
He eyed me for a long time, but I had no ulterior motive here, no reason to hide anything. I stood there and wondered why he’d allowed me access if he was this suspicious.
Evelyn, my head of family, had been spending a lot of time recently with Abimelech Mortimer, who was the unofficial head of all the dragon families in the UK.
It was becoming clear that some kind of pressure had been applied to allow me to look through records that, until now, had been the sole province of the Bedwyr family.
“Well,” he said at last. “I expect you to keep me apprised of anything you find that ventures beyond the basics of our family tree.”
“Of course,” I agreed.
His eyes were unwavering on my face, and I could tell he didn’t like me.
Or maybe it wasn’t so much me as my presence here, disturbing his family.
Threatening his privacy. Because the way this room was furnished suggested to me someone who built barriers against the world.
Bookshelves lined every wall, filled with old leather-bound volumes that I was itching to look at, and the solid mahogany desk barricaded an entire corner of the room.
A silver photo frame stood on the right-hand corner of the desk, and I could just see the image of a young, blonde woman with a stunningly beautiful smile.
I couldn’t be sure, but I wondered if it was Rhodri’s wife, Mari.
Evelyn had warned me about her, priming me not to put my foot in it by blundering onto sensitive topics.
According to Evelyn, Mari had met with disapproval from Rhodri’s family, to the point where he’d threatened to leave and join her family.
As heir to the headship, this caused consternation—to put it mildly—and his family had finally backed down and allowed the marriage. Not ten years later, she’d died.
I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to lose someone I loved that much.
Then again, I couldn’t imagine loving someone enough to go against my family for them.
I’d had three proper relationships, the last one serious enough for us to live together.
They’d all been… nice. Good sex. Company.
Someone to text randomly, to share the weekly shop with, and to wake up next to on a lazy Sunday morning.
I missed that sometimes. But being prepared to uproot my entire existence for someone?
That wasn’t anything I could ever imagine doing.
“Glenys will show you to your room. Supper is at seven.”
“Thank you,” I said. “With your permission, I’d like to start on my work now.”
His lips flattened, and I wondered what had displeased him in what I’d just said.
“You will start tomorrow,” he said, then turned away.
With a nod of respect, I turned away and swiftly left the room. It was only as I stepped out into the massive hall again that I realised just how cramped, how restricted that room had felt. Not the room, I thought, so much as Rhodri Bedwyr’s presence.
Glenys was waiting for me. “Okay?” she asked. “The room we were going to give you has had mice, and I didn’t think you’d thank me for putting you in there, so you’re in Mr Dominic’s old nursery.”
“Dominic?” I asked, as I followed her up the long staircase.
“Mr Bedwyr’s son. He’ll inherit the headship one day,” she said. “You’ll meet him at supper.”
Unless, as I suspected, I’d already met him.
“How old is the house?” I asked as we walked along a landing with creaking floorboards and a series of landscape paintings on the wall that managed to make the Welsh countryside look dark and depressing.
“I don’t really know. It’s always been here,” Glenys said rather blankly. “A hundred years. Two?”
If she was typical of the Bedwyr family, I was going to have to rely on paperwork to discover the past.
I checked my phone. No signal, which was unsurprising, surrounded by hills as we were in the back of beyond. But there was still an hour to go before supper, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do if I wasn’t allowed to start work yet.
“Here we are,” Glenys said at last, and opened the heavy wooden door at the end of a corridor.
Something about the house had left me expecting a nursery from the nineteenth century, frozen in time with a crib in the corner and faded wooden toys scattered over the floor.
Instead, I found myself in a perfectly normal room with a big bed, massive fitted wardrobes along one side, and no sign this had once belonged to a little boy.
My bag was already here, sitting in the middle of the rather threadbare carpet.
I glanced out of the window, and my jaw dropped.
That was one hell of a view, looking out over a deep valley that I hadn’t known was there, with a river winding through steep-sided hills.
I remembered how much I’d loved Wales when I’d gone to uni at Bangor.
I’d returned home afterwards, settled into life back in England, and had forgotten how at home my dragon felt here.
“The bathroom’s just back down the landing, and you’ll share it with Rae, John, and Teddy,” Glenys said.
“John’s in and out of the shower in five minutes, but you’ll be waiting for Rae, so mind you get in first. Bed’s made up, towels in the cupboard there”—she pointed at the right-hand door of the built-in wardrobes—“and if you need anything, come down to the kitchen. I’m usually there. ”
I wasn’t sure how to ask what I wanted to know without risking offence. Luckily, she supplied the information herself. “I’m the cook as well as everything else, see?”
“Sounds like a lot of work,” I said, as it was obviously expected.
“House this size, someone’s got to keep it going,” she said, sighing deeply, though from what I’d seen, I rather suspected she enjoyed being indispensable.
With that, she was gone, leaving me to sink down onto the bed and think about everything I’d learned so far.
The fact Glenys was a dragon meant she was family, even though she’d addressed Rhodri as Mr Bedwyr.
It made sense to have members of the family fill those positions rather than have stray humans in the house—no one would have to watch what they said.
And if this part of Wales was anything like the rural area of Shropshire where I grew up, there wouldn’t be much paid work available.
This way, Rhodri could provide for some of his family.
Although, from what I’d seen of him so far, I wasn’t sure Rhodri would be that benevolent. If the dragon outside the house had been Dominic, his heir, then it seemed as if kindness wasn’t exactly a family trait. Arrogance, on the other hand…
I sighed, bent down to unzip my bag, and started to unpack. At least I’d survived my first encounter with Rhodri Bedwyr. Now I’d met him, that odd “my condolences” outside was making a lot more sense.
I was getting the distinct impression this wasn’t going to be the peaceful research trip I’d signed up for.