‘As I mentioned on the telephone, we seldom have visitors so close to Christmas Day. I only open up because, you know, I have things to do, and if I’m here we may as well be available to the public. Now, if I can just ask for £3.50 for your admission ticket…?’
‘Of course.’ She fumbles for the money with cold fingers. ‘It’s good of you to give me access to the archive. I really do appreciate it.’
‘We are here to assist in any way we can, and my goodness, if we can’t help a local artist draw inspiration from our heritage then we wouldn’t be doing our job at all well, would we? You say your particular area of interest is Llangors Lake?’
‘That’s right, and the crannog. I’m really keen to find out about the people who lived there right at the end. Just before it was attacked by the army from Mercia.’
‘Ah, Aethelflaed struck a cruel blow. It was never inhabited again after that, you know?’
‘I understand the buildings were destroyed. Everything was burned, wasn’t it?’
‘They could have been rebuilt. And the crannog itself remained intact. As I’m sure you will have seen. No, I think it was the thought of that terrible day. So many slaughtered. There simply wasn’t the desire to live there anymore. Now, I’ll just drop the latch on the door for five minutes while I take you downstairs.’ He picks up a large ring of keys and a clipboard with papers and pen attached. ‘Follow me, please.’
He leads the way briskly through the main exhibition area of the museum. Tilda has to almost trot to keep up. They pass back through history with each exhibit, the Victorian schoolroom, the agricultural implements, the historical mountaineering, the shepherds and the drovers, all a blur of telescoped time as they descend to the basement.
‘Ordinarily,’ Mr Reynolds explains, ‘the artifacts and objects from our early medieval lake exhibit are kept in the blue room, on the second floor, but that is currently being refurbished. We have brought everything down here for safekeeping for the time being. And we’re taking the opportunity to give some items a bit of a once-over.’ He comes to a halt and gestures at a dowdy-looking mannequin dressed in a rough woolen kirtle and cape. ‘Poor old Mair could do with a bit of TLC. I don’t think the real inhabitants of the crannog would have been as troubled by the moth as we are!’
‘No?’
He shakes his head. ‘Much too cold, and their homes far too draughty and damp. Well, here we are.’ He throws numerous switches and now Tilda can see large boards showing artists’ impressions of how the dwellings might have looked on the crannog in the tenth century. There are three other models, all similarly dressed to Mair, sitting or standing in disconcertingly lifelike poses, as if they are patiently waiting to be spruced up and put back on display. There are boxed up, labeled parts of the collection stacked at the end of the room, and several small display cabinets containing fragments of pottery or jewelry or weapons.
‘These might be of special interest to you, I believe,’ the curator tells her, removing a pile of leaflets from the glass lid of one of the displays. ‘Some rather fine examples of Celtic knot-work here. And the fabulous remnant of gold-threaded cloth that was found on the crannog itself. Quite remarkable.’
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.