As they turn onto the motorway, a huge sign above them points the way unambiguously to The North. Ruth, rather stressed from following Cathbad’s directions (‘I think it’s this way—Oh, look at that bird! Is it a buzzard?’), views it with relief. At least this must mean that they’re going the right way. All the same there is something, to her, slightly chilling about the wording. She remembers Dan’s letter with its reference to the ‘frozen and inhospitable north’. She is going into alien territory, and for a moment she thinks she understands how the Roman legions must have felt, leaving the sunny comfort of Italy and travelling northwards to the barbarous lands of the AngloSaxons.
It is July 29th and, as Ruth had predicted, the good weather has broken and rain is forecast. Ruth, Cathbad and Kate are on their way to Lytham. When they stopped for petrol outside King’s Lynn, Ruth thought how much they must look like a normal, nuclear family. Cathbad, in jeans with his greying hair in a ponytail (no cloak—thank God), could be any hippyish dad, siphoning unleaded into the battered family car. Ruth, coping with a fretful Kate and buying sweets for the journey, was aware that she looked every inch the frazzled mum. This must also have been the vision in Max’s head when he had said, ‘Everyone will think you’re a couple, you and Cathbad.’ It had been an odd thing for Max to say. For one thing, he prides himself on not caring what people think. For another, he knows that Ruth and Cathbad are just friends, he even knows about Judy. And, for another . . . well, he hasn’t any right to comment, has he?
For the last few weeks, Ruth has been thinking a lot about her relationship with Max. In July, after term had finished, Max came down for a week and they hired a boat on the Broads. Having nearly been murdered on a boat once, Ruth is not that keen on sailing as a pastime, but despite being involved in the same incident Max is a keen waterman. And it had been lovely, drifting through the flat Norfolk fields with the sky high and blue above them, Max at the helm, Kate shouting out with pleasure whenever she saw a swan, or a cormorant, or another boat—or anything really. That had been the only problem; Kate had been so excited that Ruth had had to keep hold of her all the time. She had been fitted with her own cute baby life-jacket, but even so Ruth wasn’t taking any chances. By evening, as they moored under willow trees or in shallow backwaters, Ruth was exhausted, far too tired (and conscious of Kate only a few feet away) to make love in the narrow double bed.
On their last evening, as they drifted along the Wherryman’s Way, Max had said, ‘Kate’s had a great time, hasn’t she?’
‘She’s loved it,’ said Ruth. Max had bought Kate a miniature captain’s cap and she was sitting on his lap with her hands firmly on the helm. It would make a great picture, if only Ruth could remember where she’d put her phone or camera.
Max turned to Ruth, who was sitting on the bench seat behind him.
‘Do you worry about her being an only child?’
Ruth had been surprised. She had been so shocked to have a baby at all that she had never considered Kate’s single-child status. Of course, in theory she had two halfsisters, but in reality it was just the two of them—Ruth and Kate. Was there something wrong with that?
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if I have much choice.’
‘But you do,’ Max had said, turning back to Kate. ‘We could have a baby.’
Now, filtering into the motorway with all the other families, hot and fractious at the beginning of the summer holidays, Ruth thinks about Max’s incredible statement. She has honestly never thought about having another baby. Getting pregnant with Kate had seemed like a miracle and, like all miracles, it was a one-off, inconvenient as well as wonderful. She has always thought that Kate was her one chance at motherhood—a chance she once thought she would never have. But she is only forty-two, it’s not impossible that she should have another child (though she ought to get a move on if she’s considering it). She thinks back to her fantasy family on the beach at Blackpool. Is it possible to imagine a baby next to a toddler Kate? A baby with Max’s curly hair? Would Max be in the fantasy too? He didn’t mention marriage or even living together. In fact, after dropping his bombshell, he had never mentioned the subject again, had not even waited for Ruth’s reply (just as well as she had no intention of giving one). They had parted on easy, affectionate terms, Max saying that he would try to come up to Lytham for the second week of Ruth’s holiday. Now she wonders if she had imagined the whole thing. Does Max really want her to have his baby? He doesn’t have children, maybe he is just desperate to be a father. But, if so, why not pick on some fertile twenty-something graduate student? Max is an attractive man, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Why bother with her—overweight, introverted, an expert on old bones?
‘Kate’s asleep,’ says Cathbad, looking over his shoulder.
‘Good,’ says Ruth. Kate had been grizzling quietly for about half an hour. They made an early start but traffic has been bad. It’s now midday and they are only just past Doncaster.
‘I’ll take over driving when we stop for lunch,’ says Cathbad.
Ruth says nothing. She is not sure that she trusts Kate’s life—or her own—to Cathbad’s driving.
She is not sure, even now, why she decided to embark on this long and potentially tedious journey. Partly it was Phil’s breezily dismissive attitude to the Ribchester bones. And she still remembers his crack about ‘original research’. If Dan really had made a momentous discovery, then she could be the one to bring it to light, thus fulfilling her debt to her friend and making her reputation in the process. Phil’s comment had underlined the feeling that her career is going nowhere; she has published nothing in the last few years, not even an article or a review. She really needs something big, and if Dan had found the grave of King Arthur, that could be the biggest archaeological find of the decade.
There is, of course, the mysterious person who wants to stop her coming to Pendle. Ruth had thought hard about the fact that she could be placing herself, and, more importantly, Kate, in danger. But, deep down, she can’t imagine that Dan really was murdered because of his discovery. Things like that just don’t happen to archaeologists. Besides, she’ll never let Kate near the university. Cathbad has said that he’ll look after her while Ruth does her investigations. He can take her to the beach, for rides on donkeys and carousels. It’ll all be perfectly safe.
When they stop at the Welcome Break in Preston, Kate is awake and in tearing spirits. She eats most of a McDonald’s Happy Meal and wants endless goes on a Thomas the Tank Engine ride. Cathbad and Ruth watch her, listening to the maddeningly repetitive theme tune and drinking giant frothy cups of coffee. Ruth looks at her watch. She has told Clayton Henry’s colleague, a woman called Andrea Vickers, that they will be at the cottage some time after three. Even with Cathbad’s eccentric driving, they will be at Lytham before two. What can they do while they wait?
Unsurprisingly, Cathbad has an idea. ‘Why don’t we pop in to see Pendragon? It’s not far from here, just along the A59.’
Ruth quite likes the idea. She could do with some fresh air and doesn’t feel like turning up on Andrea Vickers’ doorstep on the dot of three. If she’s anything like Ruth, she’ll still be changing the sheets.
‘Can we ring him first?’ she asks. ‘I don’t want to turn up out of the blue.’
‘He doesn’t have a phone.’
Of course he doesn’t.
As they turn off the A59 the world changes. They pass through a stunningly pretty village with a stream running down the middle. The pub is called The Swan With Two Necks. Ruth, looking round, sees a goat standing in the middle of the road—there’s not a single other living soul to be seen. The road snakes slowly upwards, past crumbling dry-stone walls and the occasional ruined farm building. In the distance is a vast hill, its summit wreathed in cloud. It’s a curious shape, like a long flat table. Ruth thinks of the Stone Table in the Narnia books. As far as she remembers, something very nasty happened on that table.
‘Is that Pendle Hill?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ says Cathbad. ‘There are lots of legends about it. George Fox had a vision of God’s love on top of Pendle Hill. That’s where Quakerism started.’
Ruth quite likes Quakers—compared to other religions anyway—but the high bare hill doesn’t suggest divine love to her. Quite the opposite. It’s a sinister, lowering presence, black against the sky. The clouds leave shadows on the grass and in the distance Ruth sees a gleam of dark water. The foreground, too, is full of white cloudlike shapes.
‘Sheep!’ shouts Kate. ‘Sheep! Sheep!’
‘Yes, sheep,’ says Ruth. ‘And nothing else. Why’s it called a forest? There aren’t many trees here.’
‘I’m not sure,’ says Cathbad, shifting down through the gears. Ruth’s aged Renault is finding the gradient a challenge. ‘I think in ancient times a forest just meant a place where the king used to hunt.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ says Ruth, ‘but it’s a bit spooky.’
‘There’s old magic here,’ says Cathbad. ‘Have you heard of the Pendle Witches?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘They were a group of women at the beginning of the seventeenth century. There were lots of rumours about them—that they had familiars, that they made clay images and cursed people, made animals die and killed people’s children. Anyway, they were accused of witchcraft and ten of them were executed. They all lived around here, in the hills and in the forest. Pendragon actually lives in a cottage that was owned by one of the witches.’
Ruth can see why this would appeal to a druid but she doesn’t think that the subject matter is very suitable for Kate. Still, with any luck she won’t have understood. Ruth looks round at her daughter, who is humming quietly to herself.
‘OK, Kate?’
‘Sheep,’ says Kate.
There are more and more sheep in their way and Cathbad is constantly stopping to let them pass. The sheep don’t hurry either, gazing at them balefully out of their onyx eyes and meandering slowly in front of the car, woolly nether-regions matted with mud (or worse).
‘Dirty sheeps,’ says Kate.
‘Sheep,’ corrects Ruth.
‘But why?’ says Cathbad maddeningly. ‘Why isn’t it sheeps? I’m going to say sheeps from now on.’
The road has narrowed considerably, and although they are still climbing they’re now surrounded by high grass banks. For Ruth it’s the worst of both worlds: she feels claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time. She wonders why she, who loves the lonely marshes, should feel so threatened by these lowering hills. Perhaps it’s the absence of the sea. When you’ve got used to being able to see as far as you can, it feels strange to be hemmed in on all sides by grassland and trees—and wall-eyed sheep.
They stop at a crossroads while Cathbad consults the map. Ruth reads the place names out loud: ‘Fence, Stump Hall Road, Crow Trees Brow. Weird names.’
‘The magistrate who tried the Pendle Witches came from Fence,’ says Cathbad. ‘It must have been quite an important place once. I think it’s this way.’
He takes the smallest and least prepossessing of the roads. The car crawls between dark hedgerows. The rain, which has been threatening all day, begins to fall. Kate starts to cry.
‘Look, Kate,’ says Ruth desperately. ‘Sheeps!’
But there are suddenly no sheep. When they turn the corner they are in the cleft of a sharply sloping valley and there are no animals of any kind to be seen.
‘Look,’ says Cathbad, pointing.
Halfway up the hill is a small, white house. A flickering light shows in one of the windows.
‘Dame Alice’s Cottage,’ he says.
‘What?’ says Ruth.
‘Dame Alice’s Cottage. That’s what Pendragon’s house is called. Dame Alice must have been one of the witches.’
It isn’t the cosiest house name that Ruth had ever heard, but right now she’d do anything to get out of the car, give Kate a cuddle, go to the loo and have a cup of tea. She looks up at the isolated little cottage.
‘Does the road go that far?’ she says.
‘We can park by the gate. We’ll have to walk across the field.’
Ruth lifts Kate out of her car seat and, as she is still inclined to be whiny, carries her across the uneven grass. The rain is heavier now and Ruth hasn’t unpacked her cagoule. Cathbad strides beside them, looking around with every appearance of pleasure.
‘Wonderful place. Wonderful energies.’
As far as Ruth is concerned, it can keep its energies to itself. She’ll never be horrible about Norfolk again.
‘Cheer up, Kate,’ she says. ‘We’re going to see a nice man and have a cup of tea.’
‘Stop!’ shouts a voice. ‘Or I’ll shoot.’
Ruth looks up and sees a white-bearded figure brandishing a rifle. As they stop and stare at him, a pit-bull terrier runs towards them, barking hysterically.