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LOST TRIBE

(The first three chapters of the novel)

BOOK ONE

EPONA

“The history of Britain is in some ways the history of its trees. One of the enduring images of early prehistoric Britain is of a vast, dense forest, which gradually vanished over the centuries as a result of clearance for timber, settlement or agriculture.”

Damian Goodburn, “An Image of Ancient English Woodland”,
British Archaeology, Issue No. 42, March 1999.

Chapter One

Strange images span past him, shedding light and colour like disintegrating rainbows. Harsh voices and laughter roared in ragged choruses, soaring in volume then dying to nothing. He was out of control and almost out of the world. He wanted to creep away from them before they saw him, but he found he was now incapable. Hidden in trees at the edge of the glade, he struggled to drag himself to the safety of bracken and bramble, but the nerve endings that joined self to reality were no longer there to serve him.
   Then, suddenly, terribly, breaking through his distorted perception, the body loomed out at him from the darkness as they carried it away. It was a sad, faceless thing, its skin glowing blue-white beneath the bright moon, its chest cut and bleeding, its lolling arms criss-crossed with welts.
   The shock of the sight coursed through him and he struggled to accept what they had done - though in truth he had really known but, powerless to stop them, he had denied it, letting his mind escape from the horror. He struggled now to fix his gaze on the body, to make himself see it and accept the truth. And, despite his terrible fear of discovery, shamed and angered by what he saw, he found himself called to be the body’s reluctant witness. As if sobered, he stopped his attempt to escape and instead, accepting his duty, he drew nearer.
   He managed to stay close as they carried it away and to his relief they did not see him. Perhaps they did not expect him to be there, close at their heels and watching at their shoulders, a shadow amongst shadows. He looked on as they threw the body into a van then, puzzled by his new facility, he found he could follow them as they drove it to a waiting boat.
   When they fastened weights to the body and dumped it into the cold sea he was still there, bearing witness. As it disappeared beneath the waves he found himself overwhelmed by pity so that he wanted to shout at them, to admonish them for their cruel indifference. When they motored away he stayed with the body, circled above it as it sank, followed it down into the green depths where it hung, its arms spread out in a welcome to the darting, silver fish that came to feed.
   He waited patiently with his charge in that dark place amongst the kelp, sharing the cold currents that swirled past it, the salt water washing away the body’s few remaining sins. He could not leave it alone and abandoned, lost to those who had once loved and cared for it, but he had to struggle to stay, to fight against them, for he was summoned, called away by those who now had power over him. He could hear their insistent voices in his ear; he sensed their anger when he did not respond.
   Yet he would not go, he would not relinquish his responsibility. He could not leave this poor thing by itself, hidden away and un-avenged. If he could do nothing on his own to redeem it, he willed it to somehow be found, prayed that it might be reclaimed by kinder hands.
   As the days went by, his prayers were answered. Slowly, through a magical working of sea and of flesh, the body was transformed. Then one day, when it was ready, it rose through the water as if in a resurrection, pulling chain and weights with it. He heard a shout, saw the first frightened face peer down into the water. Sharp eyes had caught sight of the pale, truncated shape beneath the surface, had seen its open hands reaching up towards the sunlight in supplication.
   He watched as it was pulled roughly over the side of a boat and then tumbled onto the cold, painted metal of the deck. He saw its saviours drag the body out of the scuppers by the chain wrapped around its swollen ankles. He found himself saddened when, instead of showing pity, they covered their faces and turned away in disgust.
   “Easy there now, lads, remember this was someone’s son, someone’s husband or father,” said an authoritative voice. This seemed to calm them and they treated the body more gently. The words also stirred his own thoughts.
   He recalled those who had loved him in better times, and he rejoiced just a little, comforted by fond recollections. But his new keepers were pulling at him more fiercely now, demanding that he obey. And so, in his turn, he was dragged away by the chain that bound him, claimed by those who owned his very soul, his duty to the body - his own, lost body - now done.

Sarah Doyle had been sitting at the desk in her study for nearly an hour, overwhelmed by the past. Her hands lay clasped on her lap and she played with her engagement and wedding rings, staring out through the window into her garden where the evening light was fading. She was trapped in memories, memories that tormented her. She looked down at the closed drawer of the desk, knowing that it could open deep wounds. Finally, she pushed back the loose strands of her long, blond hair and forced herself to unlock the drawer, noting with no surprise that her hand was shaking. The lock turned smoothly and precisely and the drawer slid open easily, the work of a proud Victorian craftsman that now conspired to hurt her.
            Shuddering in revulsion, Sarah made herself lift out a beige file, place it on the leather desk top and open it. She pulled out a sheaf of newspaper cuttings and spread them purposefully in front of her. ‘Another Buster Crabb,’ said one headline. ‘Headless Body Found in Harbour’ announced another. She picked up one that said, ‘Headless Body Identified’. She looked at the date, accepted that over a year had now passed - then read it to herself. She focused carefully on each word, her lips moving slowly, reading as if she was a child again, determined to ensure she knew and fully accepted it all.           
            Police today confirmed that the body found yesterday at the entrance of Portsmouth Harbour was the headless torso of Professor Tony Doyle aged 43. Professor Doyle, a specialist in Anthropology at the University of Southampton, has been missing for nearly a month and was last seen at his office. Inspector Susan Waits of Hampshire CID has confirmed that the case is being treated as murder and asked the public to contact their local police station if they can offer any assistance in the ongoing enquiry.
            Professor Doyle, who was married to Sarah Doyle the journalist and television presenter, made the news earlier this year when he helped police in preventing the illegal auction of the famous ‘Cwm Dannog Cauldron’, a priceless Celtic ceremonial bowl now displayed in the British Museum. A police spokesman has declined to comment on whether there is any connection between Professor Doyle’s role in the rescue of the cauldron and his murder.
            When she had finished, Sarah sat in silence for some minutes. Then she carefully replaced the cuttings and put the file back into the drawer.  This time she didn’t lock it. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine and then took it with her upstairs. She went into the spare bedroom and opened the door of an oak wardrobe.
            She could have been opening a coffin. Piled up inside were Tony’s files and belongings from the University flat he had been living in before he went missing. When the police had finished with them, they had returned his things to her. She had hidden them away in here. They were part of her husband’s last known remains so she had dutifully buried them. Buried them deep within what had once been their home.
            On top of the pile was balanced, rather precariously, Tony’s computer, also thoroughly examined. She realised absently that it belonged to the University and she shouldn’t really have it.  She stared at her distorted reflection in the depths of its smoky screen. She seemed an insubstantial, frail figure with the light of the room behind her - one hand on the door peering into the darkness, a glass in her hand.
            Sarah had always felt that the police had gone through all the motions when they investigated Tony’s death, but then had far too quickly given up. Apart, that is, from Susan Waits, who seemed to not only have an essential integrity but an intellect Sarah could respect.  On her part, Sarah was sure there was more to find and she was now, she hoped, well enough and sufficiently resolved to find it. Some of her confidence had returned and she trusted again, just a little, in a world that had seemed so suddenly to have betrayed her.
            It had been over a year of misery, lost in depression and grief, but at last she felt ready to start her life again. And she would begin by obtaining the justice both she and her daughter Alex deserved.
            “Well I am supposed to be a bloody reporter of some kind,” she said out loud to the empty room, “An investigator, and a journalist…maybe even some kind of bloody detective.”
            Sarah had never taken seriously the role that two short television series had begun to build around her of an investigator of the mysterious and the paranormal – now it seemed particularly inappropriate. However she was resolved to do what was necessary, but no more for tonight. She had put one foot in the water and survived - that was enough. Tomorrow she would contact Detective Inspector Susan Waits.

The police station in Fareham was a modern building nestled into a backstreet behind the shopping centre. Before her husband’s murder Sarah had passed it with no emotion other than a faint curiosity. Now, however, some of the most traumatic events in her life had been acted out here, so she approached it with trepidation. It did not help that Susan had at one point told her that the building had been designed for defence in a civil emergency. Heavy metal gates could close off the inner courtyard and the windows, all of which were on the first floor, could be heavily shuttered against attack. This secret persona seemed rather incongruous in a peaceful, south coast town, but Sarah now saw the building as a hidden bastion - a place of power that may or may not be benign and was perhaps a portal into a more threatening world.
She queued patiently in the reception area behind someone who had brought in their driving documents, then a telephone call from the desk brought Susan Waits down to collect her. Sarah followed Susan to one of the grey and depressing interview rooms she was now all too familiar with. They stopped on the way by a drinks machine, to get tea in flimsy, plastic cups. Then they sat opposite each other, a battle scarred tabletop heavily marked by cigarette burns between them.
“Sarah, it’s good to see you again. How are you and Alex getting on?” Sarah noticed that Susan had not put a file or notebook onto the table.
“We’re fine Susan, I wondered if there had been any progress. It’s been so long now.”
“Sorry Sarah, there’s no news I’m afraid. It’s been a long time I know, but we’ve nothing left to investigate. We’re stuck until we have more evidence. We need a lead of some kind, a way forward, something new we can follow up.”
Sarah thought the dark blue eyes were as sharp as ever and the smile of welcome had been genuine enough, but Susan seemed edgy, for some reason uncomfortable at having to meet with her.
“Is there nothing you could try, Susan? What about the people at the auction, were they all interviewed in the end?” asked Sarah.
“Sarah, in all honesty, as you well know, we messed up. The raid went wrong on us; we didn’t expect such big players to be there. Some of them even had armed bodyguards and helicopters in the grounds. We ended up catching either agents acting on someone else’s behalf or organisers and their flunkies. So no… most of them weren’t interviewed.”
“But you are still pretty sure one of those big players was responsible?”
“No, we’re not sure at all. It’s all we have had to work with. Some of them were very heavy end, East European gangsters and American Mafia. That is according to the ones we did get and who decided to make a show of being helpful. Mind you, even they found themselves unable to give us names. In my view, a position it was very wise of them to take,” said Susan, taking a definitive mouthful of tea.
“If you even have some idea who might have been there, couldn’t you talk to them?”
“Sarah, think about it, we’ve no real proof they were even at the auction and no link between them, the auction and Tony’s death. They aren’t likely to be that co-operative and they are probably more than capable of not talking themselves into a police enquiry.  Hell, we’d even have to extradite some of them if we did get anything on them. And their lawyers will be the best that money can buy, you can bet on that.”
In the cells below them someone began shouting and the sounds of a noisy struggle drifted up to them. Sarah and Susan looked at each other across the table in silence for a while. Then abruptly the shouting stopped and a metal door banged shut.
“What about Tony’s things? Couldn’t you check them out one more time? Please Susan, after all, it was helping you that got him killed,” said Sarah. She regretted this even as she said it, feeling churlish and carping, somehow dependent. “Sarah, Tony volunteered. He came to us when he was invited to the auction. If we could really help we would. The truth is we’ve run out of options. Everything was examined and logged and we found nothing. All we’ve got is a possible motive. Anyway, I’ve been told to leave it alone for the time being until we get a new lead.” Susan was playing with her now empty cup, pushing it about the table with one finger.
“What if I could find something new, would you follow it up?” asked Sarah, who knew with Susan no longer involved in the case that it was unlikely that anything much would happen. She also thought it sounded as if Susan was being warned off.
“Yes, of course we would follow it up,” said Susan meeting her gaze. “But Sarah, it would be best if you stayed out of it. Something will turn up eventually, it always does. I believe in the old proverb ‘the truth will out’. There’s not a lot of honour amongst thieves. Someone will know and eventually they’ll talk to us.”
“I think truth needs all the help it can get,” said Sarah. “I can’t stay out of it, Susan, especially if you’re not really prepared to do anything. Look, I know I shouldn’t go on about it, I know you’re trying to do your best, it’s only … well I can’t just give up.”
“Sarah if you get any ideas then come to me; don’t follow them up yourself, just come to me. On my part, I promise, should we get anything, I’ll let you know immediately. In the meantime, I know it’s hard, but try and get on with your life. You’ve got Alex… your career”
“Susan, my husband has been tortured and murdered and his killer has just walked away free. I don’t even know why he was killed. I hadn’t realised until this happened how important justice is in life. It’s so hard to move on, so very hard.” Sarah stood up, pushed back the plastic chair and hooked the leather strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Thank you Susan. I know you will do your best for me. I’ll be in touch if I find something.” She shook Susan Wait’s hand. There was still at least a bond between them, a respect, although Sarah was now sure that otherwise the police were very happy to leave this particular case unsolved.

Going home by way of the old High Street and the cemetery, Sarah walked back to her house. She had always loved her house - and since Tony’s death it had become even more of a place of comfort to her. Some of the spirit of the good times in their marriage remained there, despite the unhappiness that had begun to cloud their relationship before it was so suddenly brought to an end. It was a Victorian gentleman’s residence, faced with flint from the chalk downs and set high on the edge of the town.
From what had been their bedroom she could look out past the church to the river valley below and, although nearby the town was now built up with an industrial estate and supermarkets, she could still see green fields and the downs beyond, so that some of the potential that the Victorian architect had reached for still remained for her to enjoy.
For Sarah, this corner of the old town also held something else. She had never really pinned it down but she knew she felt a great sense of peace in her garden and, at night, the empty streets held a sense of mystery generated by the high, white flint walls, mature trees and the old fashioned street lights. The church in particular seemed to gather atmosphere around it, so that when she walked back from a shopping trip she always came back by the old High Street and the graveyard.
There was an ancient cast iron gate that pushed open with a creak and a clang, then a tumble of sepulchres and gravestones amongst the gnarled, red roots of a huge yew. The yew sat on a substantial mound amidst the ancient dead, somehow dominating them. It had a brooding, primitive presence that made her treat it with reverence; she always walked past it quietly, showing it respect. The church itself was late seventeenth century brick, but Sarah thought this ancient cemetery was older and held more power than any building.
Sarah put a lot of the atmosphere around her house down to the graveyard and the yew. She felt that up here above the valley had been an important spot for many centuries and she knew that many of the nearby houses had been built over ancient wells and springs. She felt that this was the real centre of the town. Not the new shopping centre or even the Georgian market square - they were empty in comparison.  So even in the worst of times she found her house and its surroundings helped give her the strength to continue, strength to journey on, no matter how hard the way might prove to be.

Chapter Two

A long-fingered hand reached out and gently moved a branch aside. Dark eyes peered through leaves to view the line of the motorway that cut across the landscape like a scar, forcing a gap in the green, partially wooded hills. A procession of trucks sped past in a grey haze, the sun glancing off windshields in flashes of white light - heat shimmering as it rose up from the tarmac. Tonight he would have to cross this road, although his stomach knotted in fear at the thought of the danger.
Small insects circled his head where he crouched in the fragrant leaf litter and he fanned one hand in front of his face and scratched his thigh; the long muscles whorled with a faint, blue tattooing. There was beauty in his lithe body. He shook his head clear of a persistent fly and the movement allowed a tiny, yellow loop of river gold, strung in his black hair, to glint briefly in a shaft of sunlight. His skin was oiled with perspiration and he was tired. He knew he should retreat into the trees and sleep in their cool shade until it was dark and safer to travel, but he was determined to keep going if he could. He was too anxious to rest, fretful, wanting to move on.
Normally he stayed well away from civilisation. He was a creature of the forest, living as his people had lived for eons, staying clear of roads and towns and the misery they carried. But now he needed to journey and so he took risks. Reaching behind his shoulder, he swung his longbow around, so that it hung against his side and would not catch in the low branches. Then he ran, with a long silent stride, up through the trees and then down towards the road. At times he was almost doubled over to make a passage through the thick undergrowth, but he did not change his pace and he was moving very quickly, always moving. He passed by so quietly there was no break in the noisy birdsong in the trees around him.
Where the woodland opened up, he paused behind a broad trunk to listen and scan a clearing. A small deer, grazing amongst saplings, did not even notice his presence. Another time he would have taken it – today, though, he could not risk either butchering or cooking food. As the most dangerous predator of the wild places, he feared very little, but the newcomers had little respect for his prowess and they were close upon him. Only an invisibility, permitted by their sluggish senses, protected him. That and the fact they thought his kind were extinct – long dead – so they no longer expected to see him.
For in truth his people were almost gone - lost from the earth. The small tribes virtually wiped out after a history of tens of thousands of years. Now only ‘solitaries’ survived, living alone to avoid detection and scattered to the wild corners of the land.
Sometimes the way was hard upon them but it also brought many a blessing. His people had grown closer to the woods and trees and the wild places, joining with them in a true communion and disappearing into them. If life was precarious, it throbbed with a deep sense of meaning and a great joy, and out of their solitary ways came peace, dignity and pride.
When the newcomers passed, the old ones, with their finely attuned senses, watched unseen from the trees and felt the newcomer’s anxiety and misery. He could sense it now as he ran, the sickness clawing at his stomach, taking the strength from his legs and making him stagger, so that he wanted to get away, to escape. At times he felt sorry for the newcomers, although many of his people did not. But the newcomers’ pain was contagious and now they were very near, crowding in on him.
Suddenly he entered a hidden glade, bright and rich in wild flowers and sunlight. The gentle spirit of this natural sanctuary was like a balm, counteracting the evil he could hear roaming unseen in the distance and which tried to intrude into the trees. It calmed his soul and he silently mouthed a prayer to the Goddess he served, his Flidhais of the wild places – she who gave him strength each day and who one day would return.
Now he felt his weariness and old injuries in his legs had begun to ache, so, as he had reached deeper cover, he decided to rest. He sat cross-legged in the cool shade and pulled an arrow from his quiver. He began to retie the sinew that, together with resin, held the stone head in place. He used his teeth to get the binding tight. The arrow was fletched with black feathers sheened purple, the flights special to him. The arrowhead was flint, typical of his people who disdained bronze and iron. He worked only in stone, wood and bone, avoiding anything not of the Mother. When the arrow was repaired he held it up and inspected it with satisfaction, then he replaced it and reached for the rolled leather map he had painstakingly copied. He carried it in a small pack, which contained all he owned in the world apart from his weapons.
He had lived for many years in a remote valley in the north of the country, where almost all the forest had been cleared and the land turned over to grazing. It supported fewer people now than when his tribe had once roamed and hunted the wild wood. Only a small acreage of trees remained, but it was seldom visited so he lived there in isolation, hunting across the denuded pasture and wild moor at night when he could move unseen. He had lived in a secluded, wooded valley in a shallow cave, with a deep bolt hole he could retreat into if threatened and a hidden back entrance to escape from if he needed to. It was a wild land with only a few stones, overgrown mounds and lost field boundaries to show where the newcomers once tried to live and were long ago defeated. They had flourished for only a heartbeat of the Goddess. Then the land, exhausted by their exploitation, had rejected them, forced them to move on and let the wild things, gentler in their ways, return again to claim their heritage.
Where his river valley opened up onto the lowland, lived his mentor, Ceredwen, whom he visited regularly. He had only distant neighbours apart from her, but he knew every animal, every plant and every tree and bird in his valley. They shared the world together. He believed all were the children of Flidhais and equal in her eyes, so really he had many neighbours and friends.
Ceredwen was so kindly and wise it had brought her fame. She lived many miles down river, so that he had to run half the night to reach her. She was a mother to him; she had nursed him back from the edge of the otherworld when he had been badly injured and waited patiently while his broken body mended under her care. Then slowly, over many, many years - for his love and trust in life and in others were damaged as much as his body - she had completed his training as a priest. She helped him find a new and deeper strength and a new trust that had grown out of his pain and despair. She had taught him her many arts of healing, of the body, the spirit and of the mind. Many people came to her for assistance so gradually he became her help and her pupil, learning as he watched her care for them. Young and now fit again, he could travel where she could not and would take medicine to those who could not come to her.
A few days ago, when he had presented her with her supplies of food and bade her formal greetings, to his surprise, Ceredwen had told him of a female, nearly three week’s travel to the south, who was seeking a mate. He had caught her gentle smile at his sudden interest, then impatiently he had listened through the rest of the news: the death of a solitary to the east after a long illness; a child that had been born on a nearby territory when the stars had been particularly auspicious. Then she had shared the most breathtaking revelation, which she had kept until last. She had smiled at him, her eyes still sharp and bright – framed by her long grey hair and beautiful in the dusk.
“Also know, Taliesin, my only real son,” she said, “that I have sent word to Felim the Servant of the Goddess. I have told him you have completed your training, and are ready to serve again. He sent for you at once, he needs you now, needs you, badly. It seems things are hard for them in the south. I had not realised. I have kept you here long enough, perhaps should not have done so. But kiss me farewell now and travel well. Find your love and then serve our little Flidhais and our people”
“Oh Ceredwen, how can I leave thee?” he had replied, for she had given him the love his long dead mother could not, she was his family as well as his mentor.
Later he had hurried sadly away from the hollow tree in which she lived, deep in the warm darkness. There had been the usual ritual prayer and blessing, but then a kiss and a long embrace. Despite her joy in his leaving, he felt guilty. Hers was a quiet post, despite her fame and wisdom, chosen as somewhere to live out her latter years.  Ceredwen spent many hours in meditation deep in the tree, carving its inside with his people’s myths and legends. Her carving nearly finished, she was herself now growing into the tree as she waited for her death. He had expected to find the tree quiet and her in her final sleep on many visits now. He doubted she would be there if and when he ever returned. But duty drove him on, that and love - perhaps a chance of love before he was too old, a first love to break his solitude; the price his people paid for survival.

Chapter Three

It was more like springing a trap than entering an office. When Bernadette Bredy pushed open the door to the little estate agents, it set an old fashioned bell ringing. Then she immediately stumbled down a steep step, set just inside the door.  Recovering her balance, she found herself in a small room with a low beamed ceiling - which would have given it  rather a quaint air if it wasn’t for the badly fitted, bright red carpet and a clutter of old filing cabinets and desks. However the walls were covered with pictures of rural properties, farming calendars and maps. It smelt of pipe tobacco, farmyards, dogs and - after a heavy storm - wet clothing. Bernadette smiled, she rather liked it.
“It is really you. I couldn’t believe it when I saw your name. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Robert Patterson - I sent you the property details. I’m so glad you’re interested in one of them. I’m a big fan, you know, watch your series without fail, wouldn’t miss it for anything.” 
A young man in his thirties had extricated himself with difficulty from among the furniture and, after knocking over a pile of files, had shaken her hand warmly.  As he did so, true to form, he looked straight at her breasts. After seven years of media exposure, Bernadette was, in fairness, well used to this. She was fully aware of the basis for much of the male population’s interest in her gardening programme.  However if at times she was slightly embarrassed by her fame and would perhaps have preferred to be admired for her considerable expertise as a landscape gardener, in the last analysis Bernadette didn’t give a damn. If she wasn’t sure she was exactly happy, at least for the first time in her life she did not have to worry about money.
“Tell me about Chariot Farm, it looks an interesting property,” said Bernadette, eyeing in her turn, and with some amusement, his big bow tie.     
“I knew it would be that one, it’s the lost garden and the ruins. You’re going to include it in your TV series aren’t you?” Robert Patterson was slender and bird like. He was also very enthusiastic, probably, Bernadette thought, about almost anything.
“Well, actually no, I was looking for a personal retreat. Sure, the lost garden bit caught my eye...but what do you mean ruins?” asked Bernadette.
“Oh ignore the blurb, it’s mostly written by the Church Commissioners. The place is a complete tip. What you get for your money is fifty acres, complete seclusion and not a lot else,” said Robert emphatically.
“Seclusion and a spring, a very large spring?” asked Bernadette, whose dream home had some very specific features.
“A spring and a swamp I’m afraid. But there’s a lot of water up there. The previous owner had planning permission to bottle water commercially, but it needs to be developed. Oh I see, for water features. ”
“Perhaps it’s best if I get to look at it? Could you perhaps arrange a viewing for me?” suggested Bernadette, rummaging in her bag for her card and organiser.
“No problem, I have a key here and you can be assured of my undivided attention.” said Robert Patterson. “You are bound to be disappointed by the house though, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Are you ready?” He had grabbed a green waxed jacket worn shiny in places and with cow-shit on its lower edge from an old fashioned hat-stand and was hustling her towards the door.
“What, ready now? We can go straight away?” asked Bernadette, having already resigned herself to coming back another time.
“Why not? No owner to bother us and no tenants either - the place has been deserted for years. It’s a bit of a lost valley.  Mary will hold the fort, won’t you Mary?” As if summoned by his words, a rather anorexic woman in her fifties appeared from a back room with a cup of coffee, said ‘hello’ with the deep croaking voice of the long-term smoker, and sat down at a computer. There she began to work through a piled up in-tray of papers. 

Bernadette and Robert made a slow passage out of Dorchester along the old High Street, which was clogged with cars and still wet from the rain. As Robert’s battered green Land Rover, also smeared liberally with mud and cow shit, left the supermarkets and ugly industrial units of the town’s outskirts behind them, they were slowly immersed in rolling green fields. Soon Bernadette began to catch little glimpses of blue water through gaps in the hills.
Then a broad expanse of sea and a range of coastal headlines, stretching to the horizon, opened up before them. The sun dazzled them as it forced its way through a haze that still hung above the waves from the recent rain. After about a twenty-minute drive they turned off the coast road and began a winding, bumpy ascent, up a narrow track with high, unkempt hedges on either side.
During the drive, Bernadette had established that the house she was interested in had stood empty for the last three years, following the death of the man who had built it nearly twenty years ago, a Mr Ernest Featherington. He had purchased, for a song, the lease on the uncultivated land and the ruins of a Victorian lodge with planning permission to build. They were part of an older and much larger local estate but had been bequeathed in the eighteenth century to the church. Mr Featherington’s intention had been to develop the property as a sheep farm. Instead, he had become obsessed with reclaiming the Victorian gardens and had perhaps worked himself to an early death trying to do so.  He hadn’t got far, according to Robert Patterson, and years of neglect had undone what little he had managed to achieve.
“But it’s now for sale as freehold?” asked Bernadette. She had long term ambitions for the right piece of land.
“That’s right. On Mr Featherington’s death the lease reverted back to the church, but they had difficulty finding a new tenant. I think they had a lot of trouble with Mr Featherington and weren’t very happy with what he did to the place. In any event, when they eventually got round to coming down here, their man from London took one look at it and said ‘sell’. They probably also need the money.”
“So why is it called ‘Chariot Farm’?” asked Bernadette. She had to raise her voice to be heard. The storm had returned and rain beat noisily on the roof of the Land Rover.  Robert had to lean forward in his seat to see through the beating windscreen wipers and had slowed down.
“No-one really knows. One story is that an early owner of the original estate, one of those seventeenth century amateur archaeologists that dug up half the county, found the remains of an ancient British chariot in a barrow on the hill. Then, before he could even touch it, the whole thing crumbled to dust. Another version says he found the golden chariot of a king and made his fortune.”
“Is there really a barrow on the land?” Bernadette was immediately hooked by the history of the place.
“Several, as it happens. Round barrows, loads of them around here and most of them probably pillaged. There are some other odd ditches and banks too, so locals have the idea there was a Durotrigian fort up here. The previous tenant did a lot of digging as well. There are some things he found lying about in the house. Nothing valuable though, he just became obsessed with digging.”
“You said the locals thought there was a Durotrigian fort, what does Durotrigian mean?” queried Bernadette.
“The Durotriges were an ancient Celtic tribe who ruled the area, a fearsome bunch according to the historians, gave the Romans a lot of trouble. Maiden Castle, the big earthwork we passed a while back just outside the town, that was their capital. Anyway, what do you think of it?”
“I’m sorry?” said Bernadette, gazing around at thick unkempt hedges with rough fields behind.
“We entered the land a while back. Where I turned off was the very edge of the property. A cottage once stood there that was perhaps the home of the labourers who worked the land. Now the fifty acres are wrapped around you. One thing you will get for your money is privacy; another is a wonderful view across the bay from the hill. There’s the house, just coming up now,” said Robert, pulling the Land Rover off the track and parking under a beech tree. As they stopped, the last of the rain passed over and suddenly beams of bright sunlight poured down from a patch of deep blue sky above the farm.         
Standing in front of the house Bernadette despaired. She thought it easily lived up to Robert Patterson’s description. It was one of the most depressing houses she had ever looked at and it was completely uninhabitable. Its setting, against a steep, partly wooded hill and looking out over its own secluded valley, was truly beautiful. But whilst the house and outbuildings were stone built, the cheap pine window frames had almost rotted away and the front door was hanging forlornly from its hinges. The roof was made of black painted corrugated iron and in places big holes had rusted through. Saplings had colonised the chimney breast and other plants were well established in the guttering. It was as if the house was being pulled back into the hillside it had originally grown from. As they walked towards it in the bright sunshine, the ground was steaming as the rain was burnt away by the hot sun. Right up to the walls of the house grew a profusion of wild flowers and long grass.
“I don’t think we’ll need your key after all, Robert,” said Bernadette carefully easing the hanging door open.  
Inside was no better. The ceiling of the hall slumped and wallpaper hung down in swathes. Interesting fungi grew on the stairs and mildew colonised the walls. The stench of rot reminded Bernadette of a cathedral crypt she had once visited and she was frightened to trust her weight to the floorboards. An exploration of the rest of the downstairs rooms found nothing any better. Only one room at the very back of the house and built into the hillside was bearable. In sharp contrast to the rest of the property, it had stone steps leading down to it, a stone flagged floor and a huge, crude, stone fireplace.
“The only remaining room of the Victorian lodge, I would speculate - with a suitably eccentric museum display,” said Robert as they viewed the room.
Bernadette was gazing up at the wall rather unhappily. “Should that be here? Isn’t it sacrilegious or something?” she asked.
Along one wall of the long room there stood an open, wooden bookshelf that reached to the ceiling. What concerned Bernadette was that in the centre, in pride of place, was an ancient skull. Around it was broken pottery, bent pieces of green metal and white corroded lead. Here and there were flints and more bones, some with faded labels, and rusty iron blades. At one end, an old chocolate box and a biscuit tin sat on top of a pile of shoe boxes. Everything was obscured with dust that rose up, hung in the air and shimmered in the beams of sunlight from the long narrow windows high in the wall above.
“It is a little macabre but I suppose it’s an archaeological artefact. This is Mr Featherington’s collection. The result of many years of labour and, I’m afraid, not worth a bean,” explained Robert pulling a sad face and dusting himself down.
  
Outside, the land around the house was also damp and untended, but Bernadette found it much more interesting. Behind and to its left was a mature wood that covered the side of the hill. It was dense with nettles and briars, dank, silent and impenetrable. A lichen-covered rail fence bordered it, running in broken confusion along a clogged and ineffective ditch. However, there were some impressive oaks and chestnuts, as well as the obviously diseased trees. Bernadette noticed the many casualties of storms had just been left to rot where they fell. The ground was littered with their corpses, long grey, rotting trunks and tangled branches, interlaced with bramble and bracken.
“Didn’t care much for his land, this Mr Featherington,” said Bernadette, quietly to herself, but Robert heard and nodded.
“No, not much of a farmer, or a gardener I’m afraid. One of those people who goes through life messing the world up,” he said shaking his head.
Yes, thought Bernadette, that’s about it, and she wanted to be one of those people who got it right. She wanted to be someone who created something beautiful, something really special, something to rival Monet’s garden and then left it for the enjoyment of others. For, when all the media hype and silliness were gone and her TV fame was a distant memory, she wanted to be remembered for a place she had created that really took people’s breath away. 
In front of the ruin of a house, in amongst some trees were the remains of a very large pond, now deteriorated into a swamp. Bernadette explored and found that it was fed by a weak spring dribbling into a crude stone trough. The trough looked like it had once, in turn, gushed out into the pond. Now it was cracked and clogged, so the water ran straight out, or rather trickled. Everything was black mud, flag iris and moss. Where water had collected it was pea green, or yellow with blooms of algae. One bigger pool of water was covered with the small leaves of ‘Ginny Green Teeth’, named after the witch that Bernadette had been told as a child, lived in deep, stagnant water.
At one time, though, Bernadette got the impression this had been a substantial pond and she could make out a stone edging around parts of it. Since the spring was still flowing in hot weather, in winter it could be much stronger. Not the basis for a bottling plant though. Not the basis for her streams and ponds, or for a lake.
“I thought you said it was a powerful spring, Robert, capable of ‘being exploited commercially’?” said Bernadette letting irritation creep into her voice although she hadn’t meant it to.
“It seems there’s an underground stream below it,” said Robert, flicking through the papers on his clipboard. “Yes, that’s right. A report estimated a flow of 1,500 gallons of water an hour, sixty feet below the surface. You will need to drill a bore hole and probably have to pump it up, but we are talking a lot of water down there.”
“Who did the report?” asked Bernadette.
“A dowser,” said Robert, “This is Dangley Darset, me dear, we have many old and strange ways.” Bernadette didn’t disagree with him.
Beyond the spring, Bernadette could see that the lost gardens began. Climbing steeply up, the hill past the wood was a mass of grass covered mounds, fern bedecked low stone walls and weed clogged paths. This obvious area of activity petered out after about fifty yards, but ridges and hollows, undisturbed for years, stretched to the peak of the hill, quite a height above the house. A solitary sheep grazed amongst the gorse in the distance, the only thing moving on the expanse of green hill beneath the blue and empty sky above. The sheep pointedly ignored Robert’s and Bernadette’s petty deliberations far below.
Around the pond, Bernadette plunged about and found some healthy shrubs and ornamental trees. Others were clearly ailing beneath the wild growth. The design of the extensive but mostly empty flowerbeds was, she thought, strange. Long curved patterns and shapes, some bounded by paths, others by dry stone or even piled turf walls. There seemed to be no straight lines or regular shapes at all and very few plants except at the lower levels. The paths swirled up the hill like tangled rope, crossing and re-crossing until both they and the beds quickly faded into rough hummocks and grass. ‘Chaos gardening’, she thought to herself.
With Robert in tow, Bernadette walked to the limits of Mr Featherington’s endeavours and then scrambled up the rest of the long, steep slope above the confused garden, struggling on the wet, slippery grass. Ledges, perhaps worn by sheep, made what would otherwise have been a very hard climb at least possible, providing a green staircase up the hillside. But her thighs were aching and she was breathing heavily by the time she reached the top and waited for a floundering Robert to join her. The house far below really looked no better from the hill, but there was the compensation of a superb view across to the rocky crag of Portland in the distance, a mysterious place that Bernadette remembered Thomas Hardy had called ‘the Isle of Slingers’. Bernadette and Robert stood for a while enjoying the sunlit panorama of grey cliffs in the far distance and a blue, glinting sea interspersed with the occasional white, rolling wave. Bernadette was lost. The colours, the space the salt breeze, they all made her giddy.
“How much?” asked Bernadette, with a note of determination in her voice. The property was awful and she was in love with it - story of her life.
“The church will be expecting to get the asking price,” said Robert, keeping an exaggeratedly straight face.
Bernadette took a deep breath. “I will have to knock down the house and start again. The sheep is underweight, the spring dribbles and the gardens aren’t just lost they have buggered completely off. It has no electricity, no mains water and a cesspit they took off the Ark. So, how much?” asked Bernadette, sure she could beat him down to a good price she could afford.
Robert Patterson smiled at her, thrust his hands into his pockets and squared his shoulders.
“I am advised the church could accept a small reduction, perhaps five percent? You could recoup some of the money immediately by felling the wood, it is very mature you know,” he said, doing his best to sound sincere and looking at his clipboard professionally.
“Mature as in ‘well past its prime and a mess’. How would they view say ten percent?” said Bernadette, kneeling down to examine an orchid. 
“With horror. No, I’m sorry Ms Bredy that wouldn’t do at all.
“Anything less than that will be too steep for me Robert,” said Bernadette.
“Sorry,” said Mr Patterson, “no can do.” And he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
“The church wouldn’t even consider the offer?” Bernadette had just bought a London flat and was still paying off the purchase of her business - the bank couldn’t really stand much more, even if the garden centre was thriving. If she was to have any money to spend on the house and on her gardens she couldn’t really stretch any further. She had hoped they might take her offer, the place was a mess and the market had slowed down.
“I act for them and no, they won’t. I’m so sorry, the place seemed just right for you,” said Robert sadly.
“Yes,” said Bernadette, “I was just starting to feel at home,” and she turned away, went back down the hill towards the Land Rover, striding down the slope, upset and unable to stop herself showing it. She did not like to give up on her dreams, life was too short.
However, the exhilaration of her descent down the difficult, grassy hill somehow influenced her. It was as if at every step a little jolt of energy coursed through her body from deep within the land, filling her with hope and determination. Chariot Farm was just what she was looking for. A private adventure of her own, a place to hide, a place she could make beautiful. If at first she couldn’t afford to rebuild the house or work on the gardens, she could put a caravan on the site and explore and clear the land. Prices were rising. She’d be better off buying rather than waiting. She stopped half way down the hill and looked out over the woods and then back up to Robert who was hurrying down after her.
“I just can’t say ‘no’ Robert, it’s far too lovely. You’re on. Call in the solicitors, the moneylenders and all the other hyenas and tell the church they’ve got a deal.”
“Excellent! Welcome to Dorset Ms Bredy! Funny place, Dorset, it is very hard to resist once it has really called to you,” said Robert Patterson with a smile.