The Stranger House

‘Fine. A little tired perhaps. What an interesting old building this is. Was it always an inn?’

‘No. There used to be a priory hereabouts and this is what’s left of the old Stranger House—that’s where visitors and travellers could be put up without letting them into the priory proper.’

‘And it became an inn after the priory was pulled down by Henry’s men?’

‘Know a bit about history, do you? I suppose you would. Not right off, I don’t think. But it was so handy placed, right alongside the main road, that it made sense. It’s all in the old guidebook the vicar wrote back in the eighteen hundreds. I’ve got a copy. I loaned it to Miss Flood when she arrived, but you can have it soon as she’s done.’

‘Miss Flood?’

‘My other guest. In the room next to yours.’

‘Oh yes. The red-haired child. I saw her.’

Mrs Appledore laughed.

‘No child. She’s a grown woman. OK, not much grown, but she’s over twenty-one. Says she’s looking for background on her grandmother who emigrated to Australia way back. I think she’s been steered wrong, so she’ll probably be on her way soon. You know how restless young women are these days.’

‘Are they?’ he said. ‘I haven’t noticed.’

‘No, you’ll not have been around them much, I daresay. Whoops. Sorry.’

Madero studied her over his glass then said pleasantly, ‘You seem to know quite a lot about me, Mrs Appledore.’

She said, ‘All I really know is you’re writing a book or something about the old Catholic families, right? No secrets in a village, especially not if it’s called Illthwaite.’

‘So I see. But if you know all about me, it is perhaps fair if I get some inside information in return to prepare myself. What kind of man is Mr Woollass, for instance?’

‘Gerry? He’s a fair man, I’d say. Not an easy man, but a good one certainly. There’s not many folk in Skaddale won’t bear testimony to that. But he’s not soft. You’ll not get by him without an inquisition.’

He noted her choice of word.

‘Is there a Mrs Woollass?’ he asked.

She hesitated then said, ‘Probably best you know, else you could put your foot in it. There was a wife. In fact, there still is in his eyes, him being a left-footer, sorry, Catholic. She ran off a few years back with the chef from the hotel down the valley.’

She suddenly laughed and said, ‘Come to think of it, if I remember right, he was Spanish, so I’d definitely keep away from the subject!’

Her laugh was infectious and Madero smiled too, then asked, ‘Children?’

‘One daughter. She was at university when it happened, but it seems like she sided with Gerry.’

‘You call him Gerry,’ he said. ‘You are good friends?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ she said. ‘But what should I call him? Sir, and curtsy when he comes into the bar?’

‘So you are all democrats in Cumbria? It’s not quite the same in Hampshire.’

‘Oh well, but Hampshire,’ she replied as if he’d said Illyria. ‘It’ll be nobs and yobs down there. Don’t mistake me, we’ve got a pecking order. But we’ve all been to the same school, up till eleven at least, and most families have been around long enough to have seen everyone else’s dirty linen. It’s not whether you’re chapel or Catholic, rich or poor, red or blue that matters. It’s what you do when your neighbour’s heifer gets stuck in Mecklin Moss on a dirty night or his power-line comes down on Christmas Day.’

‘You make it sound like an ideal community,’ he said.

‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘We’re all weak humans like anywhere else. But for better or worse, we stick together. And Gerry Woollass is part of the glue.’

He smiled and finished his drink.

‘I too am a weak human, and I think I’d better get some sleep. By the way, I couldn’t find a phone point in my room.’

‘Likely because there isn’t one,’ she said. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘Only if I wanted to get online with my laptop. No problem. I’ll use my mobile.’

‘Not round here you won’t,’ she said. ‘Had to tell Miss Flood the same. No signal. But feel free to use my phone here whenever you want, no need to ask.’

‘Thank you. And thanks also for the drink and the conversation. I look forward to talking with you again.’

He meant it. She was a comfortable companion.

‘Me too, Mr Madero,’ she said, carefully getting it right this time. ‘Sleep well.’

‘Thank you. Goodnight.’

She watched him leave the kitchen, noting his careful gait. But despite what she perceived as a slight stiffness in his left leg, he moved very lightly, passing up the stairs with scarcely a telltale creak.

Two interesting guests in one day, she thought. The girl she’d be glad to see the back of, but this one was rather intriguing, and sexy too in that mysterious foreign way. Talking to him would make a change from the usual barroom fare of local gossip and tales she’d heard a hundred times already.

She wondered if the monks had felt like this about the strangers who sought shelter here, eating their simple food perhaps at this very same table. Or had they blocked their ears to news from the great world outside, doubting it could be anything but bad? In the long run, they’d been right. Fat Henry’s men from London had come riding up the valley and made them listen and told them their way of life was all over. Nowadays they didn’t come on horseback. In fact usually they didn’t come at all, just sent directives and regulations and development plans. But the message was still the same.

She poured herself another glass of brandy and pulled her chair closer to the fire. The heat had almost died away, only a hollow dome of coal remained, at the heart of which a thin blue flame fluttered one of those membranes of ash which in the old stories always presaged the arrival of a stranger.

‘Bit bloody late, as usual,’ said Edie Appledore, sipping her drink. ‘Bit bloody late.’

Part Three The Death of Balder (#ulink_7aad3b30-3e04-514c-8659-5626f1f8da64)

This was the greatest woe ever visited on men or gods,and after he fell, everyone there lost the power of speech.

Snorri Sturluson Prose Edda

If you want to be clever learn how to ask questionshow to answer them also.

‘The Sayings of the High One’ Poetic Edda

1 the last prime number (#ulink_299c5f6e-3c5e-5db9-addd-9291131b58e3)

Next morning Sam woke to sunlight, the first she’d seen since dropping through the clouds over Heathrow four days earlier.

She opened her window wide. What she could see of Illthwaite looked a lot more attractive in the sunshine. In front of her across the Skad the ground rose unrelentingly to a range of hills which looked so close in the clear air that she felt she could trot up there before breakfast. But a glance at her map told her they were four miles away.

She found Winander’s house, the Forge, marked on the map. It was on a narrow road, presumably Stanebank, snaking uphill from the humpback bridge almost opposite the pub. Half a mile further on Illthwaite Hall was marked. She raised her eyes again and finally managed to spot an outcrop of chimneys. Their size gave her a proper sense of scale and put paid to any residual notion she might have of a quick walk up to the ridge.