Most of the graves in the churchyard dated back no further than the 1700s, but the tomb of Sir Robert Meredydd in a small chapel to the left of the altar was late medieval.
Around the time of Owain Glyndwr. It was recorded that Glyndwr, as a young man, had been to Y Groesfan in the late summer of 1400 to "pay homage." This was only weeks before he was declared Prince of Wales following a meeting of his family and close friends at his house Glyndyfrdwy in northeast Wales.
All this Bethan had learned from the red notebook found under a floorboard by the late George Hardy.
"But why does it have to be relevant'.'" Berry asked.
They were heading cast from the town now, towards Rhayader, close to the very centre of Wales, where the executive council of Plaid Cymru had met to decide on a candidate for the Glanmeurig by-election.
"The last two people to hold this notebook are dead," Bethan said, the red book on her lap.
"That scare you?"
"Left here," Bethan said. She pointed out of her window.
"That church is Ysbyty Cynfyn. See the big stones in the wall? They are prehistoric. The church is built inside a Neolithic stone circle. It used to be a pagan place of worship; now it's Christian."
"Like Y Groes?"
Probably."
"You want to stop?"
"No. Can we go to England, Berry?"
"We sure can," he said, surprised. "Any particular part? Hull? Truro?"
"Not far over the border. Herefordshire."
"Any special reason for this?"
Bethan opened the red book. 'There's an address here.
Near Monnington-on-Wye. Do you know the significance of Monnington? Did you get that far in Guto's book?"
"Uh-huh." Berry shook his head.
"You can look out from there and see the hills of Wales."
"I think I understand," Berry said.
Chapter LVII
He liked less and less having to go into the oak woods, particularly in winter. Without their foliage, the trees could look at you.
And into your soul.
He did not look at them, could not face them. As he walked, he stared at the ground. But he could see their roots like splayed hands, sometimes had to step over individual knobbled fingers.
Remembering being introduced to the woods as a boy, as they all had been. Taught honour and respect for the trees, fathers of the village itself. And once, aged eighteen or thereabouts, bringing a girl into the woods one night in May and feeling afraid at the inferno of their passion.
Gwenllian. His wife now.
He told himself he was doing this for her. Ill she was now, most of the time. Did not want to cook, would go into no bedroom but their own, wept quietly in the afternoons.
Looking only at the ground, he almost bumped into the oaken gate.
Rheithordy.
Looked up then, and into the face of the rector.
Cried out, stifled it, embarrassed.
Ap Siencyn, in his cassock, standing at the gate, motionless, like one of the winter trees.
"Rector," Aled said weakly.
Only the rector's hair moved. Even whiter than Aled's and longer, much longer, it streamed out on either side, unravelled by a little whingeing wind which the oaks had let through as a favour.
The rector spoke, his voice riding the wind like a bird.
"You are a coward, are you then, Aled?"
"Yes," Aled confessed in shame. "I am a coward."
There was a long silence then, the wind cowed too.
"We shall have to leave, I know." Aled said.
"Indeed?"
"We… I… There used to be this exhilaration. A delight in every day. Contentment, see. That was how it was.
"And you do not think we have to justify it? Nothing to pay, Aled?"
"But why upon me? Me and Gwenllian, all the time?"
"Perhaps it is a test. A test which you appear to be on the point of failing."
"But when there's no contentment left, only a dread—"
"It's winter, Aled. In winter, the bones are revealed. In winter we know where we are and what we are."
Aled said, "Death himself walked from these woods last night, and across the bridge and to the door of the inn." The pitch of his voice rose. "We heard him knocking, with his claw, a thin knocking…"
The rector said mildly, "You've known such things before."
"It's changed," Aled said. "There is… something sick here now."
The rector did not move yet seemed to rise a full two feet, and his white hair streamed out, although there was no wind now.
"How dare you!"
Aled shook his head and backed off, looking at the ground.
"You puny little man." He was pointing at Aled now, with a thin black twig, like a wand.
"I'm sorry."
"If you go from here you must go soon," the rector said.
"Yes. There are relatives we can stay with. Over at Aber."
"You must get out of our country."
"Leave Wales?"
"And never return."
"But what will we do?"
"No harm will come to you, I don't suppose," the rector said. "Unless you try to come back here."
Meaningfully, he snapped the twig in half and tossed the pieces over the gate so that they landed at Aled's feet.
"It's building again, you see," ap Siencyn said, deceptively gently. "You must be aware of that. You must surely feel it growing beneath us and all around us."
Oh yes, he could feel it. Almost see it sometimes, like forked lightning from the tip of the church tower.
"It's like the rising sun on a cloudless day," the rector said. "Always brighter in the winter. Rising clear. And those who do not rise with it, those not protected, will be blinded by the radiance."
Aled thought, this man talks all the time in a kind of poetry. Perhaps it is a symptom of his madness.
But the parish owned the inn and many of the cottages and so he, in effect, was ap Siencyn's tenant. And in other ways, Aled knew, ap Siencyn had the power to do good and to do harm. He looked down at the two pieces of the twig at his feet and saw where his choice lay.
"Don't leave it too long, will you. Aled? Make your decision."
"Yes," Aled said. He walked back through the woods towards the road, and the oak trees watched him go.
Chapter LVIII
I felt it was right, see," Guto said. "Meant to happen. All my life, the disappointments, the frustrations — all foundations for it I mean, Christ. I needed this."
Dai Death said, "Oh, come on, man. Not over yet, is it?"
"It is for me. I'll tell you when it ended… that meeting in Y Groes. I just can't convey to you, Dai, what it was like. Thinking, you know, have I come to the wrong bloody hall, or what? Another pint, is it?"
"Not for me. And not for you either. Finish that one and get a sandwich down you."
"Bloody mother hen." Guto grumbled.
Well, all right, he was drinking too much, he knew it. And in public. The party's General Secretary, Alun, had warned him about this—"half the votes are women, never forget that" — as they drove across to Aber for a lunchtime conference with two other Plaid MPs. The other MPs had been encouraging. You could not really get an idea until the final week, they said. But Guto had followed campaigns where a candidate who'd been strongly tipped initially had dropped clean off the chart in the first few days.
By the weekend the results of the first opinion polls would be out. If they were half as bad as he expected, he'd be placed at least third…
"Bethan it is, though, really," Dai said. "Admit it."
Guto glared resentfully at the undertaker through his pint glass. Then he put the glass down, fished out a cigarette, the anger blown over now, leaving him subdued.