A String in the Harp (43 page)

It was an ultimatum, and there were no arguments.

Instead of despairing, Peter was all of a sudden overcome with relief. He had the answer! He understood, it was there, whole, in his mind and he wanted to shout with joy. Dr. Owen didn’t matter any more.

“But what are you going to do?” demanded Becky. They heard the study door shut firmly behind David. “How can you go see Dr. Owen if you have the Key? Can you hide it?”

“I won’t have to,” said Peter. “I won’t have it.”

“But—” said Becky.

“It’ll be gone.” He laughed at her astonishment. “Don’t you see? I’ve got the answer—I know what to do with it!”

Jen said carefully, “I don’t think I want to know.”

“I do,” said Becky promptly.

“Jen’s right,” Peter told her. “It’s safer if you don’t know right now. Later I’ll tell you, when it’s over.”

“Promise?”

“Mmm.”

“Peter, where are you going?” asked Jen.

“Next door. I have to see Gwilym a minute. I won’t be gone long.” He had his macintosh on and his hand on the doorknob.

The hard part would be convincing Gwilym. Where on earth did he begin, Peter wondered a little frantically. There wasn’t time enough to explain the whole story, but he was going to have to explain enough to make Gwilym agree. The strongest bit was the
cannwyl corph,
because Gwilym had seen it, too. And, come to think of it now, he’d seen the Irish boats and the coracle, the men on the track up Foel Goch, the wolf. Lots of the pieces. Peter made up his mind.

Gwilym was alone in the kitchen when Peter knocked; his homework was spread out across the table. He looked slightly guilty, and Peter noticed the book in front of him was open to color plates of salt water ducks. Gwilym hastily buried it under a stack of papers.

“Hullo,” he said. “What’ve you come for?”

“I need help.” Peter couldn’t afford to waste time, and Gwilym looked a bit startled. So Peter began, trying to tie together for the older boy all the pieces he knew Gwilym had, making a whole story for him. Gwilym listened to the story of Taliesin without interrupting, and Peter struggled to keep the anxiety out of his voice. When he’d finished, Gwilym sat silent for a few minutes, then said, “But what has it got to do with me?”

“Everything!” exclaimed Peter. “I need to borrow your motorbike.”

“What?” said Gwilym. “When?”

“Tonight.”

“Now?” Gwilym looked at Peter as if he thought him mad.

“Later. About midnight.”

“But you can’t ride it; you’ve no license and you don’t know how, do you?”

“I’d manage. I wouldn’t get caught.”

Gwilym shook his head slowly. “It seems a strange thing to want to do,” he said.

“I know.” Peter was desperate. “But I
have
to. I have to get up into the hills somehow tonight, and it’s the only way that’s fast enough. I can’t walk, it’d take me all night, and a regular bicycle’s no good, even if I had one. It’s all I can think of. Please? I’ll be awfully careful, I promise.”

Gwilym frowned. “Why?”

Without answering, Peter took out the Key. It gleamed dully in the kitchen glare; it looked terribly old, alien in his hand. “I found it on the beach months ago. I can’t keep it any longer, I have to give it back to its owner. I have to do it tonight, now. If I don’t, it’ll be lost forever.” He put the Key in Gwilym’s hand, his eyes met and held Gwilym’s. “Please,” he said again. “Trust me.”

Gwilym’s gaze dropped to the Key. He stared at it a long
time, he held it carefully. “It’s old,” he said at last. Peter nodded. “Very.”

“Odd. It feels—”

“Here,” exclaimed Mrs. Davies, coming into the kitchen. “Here! What are you doing out at this hour, Peter Morgan? Your father knows where you are, does he?”

Instantly the Key disappeared between Gwilym’s clasped hands.

“I just came for a minute,” said Peter desperately, “to ask Gwilym a question. I was just going home.”

“I should think. Gwilym should be studying and I’ve a pot of tea to make. No sense at all, you haven’t. And you’ve got the floor all over water with your shoes as well.”

“It’ll dry, Mum,” said Gwilym. “I’ve almost finished my work anyway. I’ll see you to the door, Peter.”

On the narrow back porch Gwilym peered out at the rain. “Nasty. What I don’t see is why it has to be tonight with the rain and all. Can’t it wait?”

“No,” said Peter. “I’ll have to get there somehow. Thanks all the same.”

Gwilym handed him the Key, scowling, deep in thought. “I can’t just let you take the motorbike, Peter, not with the weather bad and you not knowing how it works.”

“It’s all right,” said Peter, glumly, “I can understand.”

“But what I could do”—Gwilym hesitated—“is take you myself. I’ll catch hell if Mum ever finds out.” He grinned. “Half eleven late enough?”

Peter’s heart gave a wild lurch. “You—you’ll
go
?”

Gwilym shrugged. “I’ve a mind to.”

“Oh, Gwilym—!”

“Here’s Mum now. Go on before she sees you again or she’ll know something’s up. It’s odd enough you being here at all. Half eleven in the shed.”

H
ALF ELEVEN
in the shed. Peter went through the motions of getting ready for bed mechanically, his mind already far ahead. When he got back from Ty Gwyn, Jen gave him a long hard look but didn’t ask what had happened. Instead she said, “Dad was given his contract today. He’s got to give the University an answer in the next two days, that’s why he’s so grim. He’s worrying about a lot right now.” It wasn’t an excuse, it was an explanation. Jen wanted Peter to understand.

And he did, but he too had a lot on his mind. He hoped the worrying wouldn’t keep David up late tonight. David was tired, however, and pushed them all toward bed earlier than usual.

Becky passed Peter on the stairs as she was going up to brush her teeth. Her eyes asked him a wordless question and he nodded. “Good luck then,” she whispered.

There was no chance of going to sleep, of course. Peter lay on his bed fully dressed with the light off, waiting. He heard his father take a bath overhead, then the creak of floorboards as David went into his bedroom, the sound of the door closing, and silence. Jen, or was it Becky, coughed
twice from very far away, and that was all. The clock by Peter’s bed had a luminous face and the hands stood at 10:30. An hour to go.

Out of the darkness came light and warmth, creeping in like a rising tide, washing over Peter in gentle waves as he lay there remembering all that the Key had shown him. Piece by piece it wove the story of Taliesin before his eyes. But tonight the Key was silent, as it had been ever since Peter had seen it lost in the stormy sea. A week—how many hundred years ago? Fourteen?

The Island in the Lake, and the tall, long-haired woman who had reached out her hand to a boy and given him the Key to his life, the bright silver tuning key for a harp. The miles of road among wild mountains and strange rough men, across green hills where cattle grazed, through wooded valleys cut into farm holdings. Firelight in great halls, men’s faces red with warmth and food, the music of harps and the sound of singing. And Aneirin.

Then the flood. That was part of it, too. The battle on Cors Fochno in the night. The tiny coracle tossing about on the ocean. Fear and violence and bravery, all bound up in one small metal object that ought not to have survived the battering sea, that might never have been found. Except that a boy on a beach did find it and keep it for a time.

The story had been entrusted to Peter. He carried it as Taliesin himself had once carried stories. It seemed unimportant that few people would ever believe him. He knew that some did, he knew he could trust them. He felt as if he’d come a long way.

It was twenty minutes past eleven. He turned off his thoughts abruptly and listened. Silence. Taking a deep breath, he got up quietly, felt for his flashlight, pulled on his wellingtons, and went into the kitchen. Still no sound. He’d be early, but he couldn’t risk having Gwilym get to the shed first and think he wasn’t coming.

Outside the rain had stopped. The sky was clearing and the wind was up; rags of gray cloud blew across a nearly full moon. Peter was relieved that they wouldn’t have to ride the motorbike in the rain. It was a good omen. He touched the Key once—for luck, or just to be certain it was still there?

From the back, Bryn Celyn was dark. So was Ty Gwyn next door. Hugh-the-Bus had to be up early for the first route, and Mrs. Davies was always up to make his breakfast. In the dark, by the shed where the motorbike was kept, Peter was suddenly afraid Gwilym might not come.

A tall dark shape appeared silently beside him. “I think you’re mad,” said Gwilym conversationally. “Let’s get on with it—if you still want to go, that is.”

“Yes.”

“Right, then. Help me with the door. Move it slow so it won’t squeak. Mum would know that squeak.”

Together they got the door open and the bike out. It was lovingly polished and greased in spite of its advanced age, and the white L plate on its rear fender stood out in the darkness.

“We’ll wheel it down the hill,” Gwilym decided. “Don’t want to be waking anyone up here.”

The engine started a little reluctantly, but Gwilym fiddled with a few knobs by the handlebars, and it settled down at once to a steady putter.

“Haven’t had it out in a while. Right. Just you climb on behind me and hold on. It won’t go fast, but we’ll have that on.” He switched on the headlamp. “Set?”

“Yes,” said Peter. He closed his fingers tight on Gwilym’s windbreaker, out of excitement more than fear of falling off. He was doing it!
They
were doing it! And they were away. It was going on midnight and the roads were deserted, the houses along them dark.

Although Gwilym was right about the bike not going fast, it felt as if they were speeding. There was nothing to
protect them from the wind, and the putt of the motor sounded deafening to Peter.

Gwilym took the lane off to the left through Dolybont and over the hill to Talybont, rather than following the main road. In Talybont he swung right, then stopped by the Red Goat. The moon was out and flooded the little green with cold, silver light.

“Well?” asked Gwilym. “You really did mean you wanted to go right the way up to Nant-y-moch? There’s nothing back that way, of course. Just miles and miles, empty.”

“That’s where I have to go.”

“Mmm.” Gwilym grunted softly. “It’s a bit of a lark this far—the middle of the night and us out on the bike like this. Not so bad where there are people, even when they’re asleep. But up there it’s different.” He nodded toward the black hills.

“That’s where I have to go,” said Peter again.

“I’m not so sure,” Gwilym said. “It didn’t sound so bad when you were telling me back home, but out here—And what would your dad say if he knew you were out on a motorbike right now? Probably skin you, same as my mum.”

“I have to find the place we saw the light Sunday.”

Gwilym settled himself back on the seat. “I almost wish I’d never seen that light, myself. I’d not have come at all if I hadn’t—I’d be back in bed. Not messing about with something I don’t understand.”

“We’re not messing, we’re setting something right.” Peter’s voice was calm. They’d got this far, he wouldn’t let Gwilym turn back.

Gwilym sighed. “Funny, I must believe you. Are you set?”

They pushed off and began the climb back up the narrow road that led into the hills, toward Nant-y-moch. If the country looked wild and lonely by daylight, it looked infinitely more so under the moon. Gwilym and Peter entered it unprotected, defenseless. They were trespassing—humans didn’t
belong back here. Peter thought, we could be swallowed by the hills without a trace, simply disappear, and no one would ever know what had become of us. It wasn’t comforting, but he remembered what he had come to do and felt confident. He didn’t know how he would accomplish it yet, but he didn’t worry.

About two-thirds of the way to the reservoir, the road took a sharp bend to the right, and at the corner Gwilym turned off for a moment, looking out over the valley toward the place they had killed the wolf. The road came in along the eastern edge of the reservoir, dropping down toward it. Not a light showed anywhere, there were no signs of men. The moon disappeared for a minute, the cloud across it was edged in silver, and when the moon passed out of it, the view ahead caused Gwilym to swerve the bike dangerously. He gave a sharp, startled exclamation.

There was no reservoir.

Where the moon should have been reflected on a long sheet of water, it shone instead on a deep, wooded valley that twisted between the hills.

“God!” said Gwilym softly.

But that was how it had to be. Peter’s heart lifted joyfully. “It’s all right. Just follow the road.”

Instead of skirting the edge of Nant-y-moch, the road ran down into the valley through the trees. It was hard-packed earth and old, very old. One of the ancient, sacred Ways. The funeral procession had come along it, following the
cannwyl corph,
lamenting the death of someone infinitely revered and precious. Someone who had been buried with ceremony among the hills in which he’d lived and found peace.

Gwilym steered the motorbike along the road in silence. Peter could feel him tense and tight, rigid with fear and bewilderment, and wished he could communicate to Gwilym the rightness of what they were doing. He recognized the effort it took for Gwilym to keep going.

They came along the bottom of the valley and ahead of them they saw a bare, rounded hill which, by its shape, identified itself as a place of men: a fortification or a burial mound. Gwilym rode to the bottom of the hill and stopped.

The silence was complete when he switched off the motor; then somewhere off to the left a tawny owl called—a long tremulous, “oo-oo-oo-oo.”

Without a word, Peter climbed off the bike and took the Key in his hands. Again it was icy, it felt charged with electricity, once more alive to his fingers. He unfastened the chain and slipped it off and walked up the hill. He was breathing hard, but not from exertion. A second owl called.