The Silver Witch

Tilda is doing her best to listen, and to appear attentive, but in truth she cannot take her eyes off the main exhibit, which currently stands along the right-hand wall of the basement room.

‘Ah, I see you like our canoe.’ There is unmistakable pride in Mr. Reynolds’ voice. ‘So marvelously preserved. Hardened and brought to such a shine by its centuries in the water.’

‘It’s incredible. Is it really over a thousand years old?’

‘Carbon dating says so, and science is rarely wrong in these matters. I think we can safely say that Mair here might have gone fishing on the lake in something very similar.’ He glances at his watch before holding the clipboard out in front of Tilda. ‘If you wouldn’t mind just signing this. We try to keep paperwork to a minimum, but still we need forms and signatures, no getting around it. Here, and here, thank you. Just to say you are who you are, and at the address you gave me over the phone. Then if the canoe goes missing we’ll know where to come, won’t we?’ He laughs merrily at his own joke and then hastens away, eager to unlock the door again in case another visitor should appear. ‘Come up when you’re ready,’ he calls over his shoulder, closing the heavy basement fire-door behind him.

Once he has gone, Tilda slips off her duffle coat, draping it over a nearby chair, and steps closer to the slender dugout boat. Its centuries in the water have darkened the wood to a rich, treacly brown, with what she sees more as a gleam than a shine. The grain of the wood is still detectable, the narrow-spaced lines forming flowing patterns along the length of the canoe. She knows at once that this is identical to the boat she saw on the lake. The boat in which she first saw Seren. It is about ten feet long and just wide enough to sit in. The information note beside it says it could carry three people, and that it would have sat very low in the water. Already she can hear the now-familiar distant ringing noise. She has the torc in her pocket, but does not dare take it out for fear of damaging any of the exhibits. Tentatively, she reaches out and lays her fingertips on the smooth edge of the boat. It feels warm, and hard as stone. There is a vibration running through it, as if someone has struck a tuning fork. Even this feels somehow distant, not in space, but in time, as if the thrumming of the wood is an echo of ancient days when the canoe was paddled across the lake. She can almost hear the sound of the silky water lapping and rippling as the boat cut through it. She begins to feel light-headed and quickly steps back, turning away from the dugout.

Stay focused, girl. You’re here for a reason.

Tempting as it is to spend her allotted time connecting with the wonderful relics and finds in the archive, she has only a few short hours, and a glance at the rows of books and files on the shelves tells her she has her work cut out for her. She begins scanning the titles, searching for data specific to the sacking of the crannog, and the prisoners being taken by Queen Aethelflaed’s men.

Who survived? Did Seren? Was there a child? And if there was, did he or she make it off the crannog, or did they perish too?

Tilda already knows from her conversations with the professor that the prince for whom the royal dwelling on the crannog was built is thought to have fallen in the battle. There is no record of him living beyond that date. What seems certain is that his wife, the princess, was among the prisoners.

But who else? Who else?

She pulls a box file of dusty documents from the shelf declaring themselves to be pertinent to the lake and baring the dates 900–920 AD. It seems as good a place to start as any. She finds a chair and pulls it up to one of the sturdier display cabinets which she uses as a desk, spreading out the papers and files, poring over them, her eyes straining for mentions of crannog dwellers, prisoners, and, ever hopeful, shamans and witches. A plain-faced clock on the far wall marks the passing of the first hour. And the next. Tilda works on, taking care to replace the documents in the order she finds them, making notes in her notebook of any details that seem relevant or helpful, though it is hard to find anything beyond what she and Professor Williams have already unearthed. The chair soon becomes cripplingly uncomfortable, and she wishes she had brought more than a bottle of water to sustain her. She repeatedly stumbles upon the reference made in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. She knows how many people were taken, and where they were taken to. But then the trail goes cold. She sighs, stretching her aching back.

Nothing. Not a single, solitary damn clue.