Addedomaros glanced up. ‘Cynan? We have a visitor I see.’ The old man’s white hair and beard were neatly trimmed, his well-worn, patched robe freshly laundered. At first sight there was nothing to show that this man was one of the most powerful healers in all the Pretannic Isles.

Romanus was standing a little behind Cynan. He met the man’s eyes nervously. ‘My sister is ill again, Father Addedomaros.’

The old man nodded. ‘I feared as much. And Mora is not here?’

Cynan shook his head.

‘She has gone to the mainland with Yeshua?’ Addedomaros asked. He gestured sharply at the young man with the bottle, who hastily stopped pouring, put it down and re-stoppered it.

Cynan nodded reluctantly. ‘He is keen to see everything she does.’

‘He is here to learn as well as teach.’ The older man spoke gently but there was a slight note of reproach in his voice. ‘It was her father’s wish she mentor him, Cynan.’

Cynan looked down at his feet. ‘Could you make up something for Romanus to take back with him?’ he asked after a moment.

‘Of course. Sylvia will make it up.’ Addedomaros glanced across at one of the students. The girl looked horrified at being singled out so peremptorily. ‘Willow and ash bark in equal quantities. With some birch leaf and burdock,’ he commanded. ‘And add some elderberries.’ He glanced at Cynan. ‘Should you be at your studies?’

Cynan nodded.

‘Then go. We will see that Romanus has his medicine.’

It did not take long. Clutching the flask to his chest Romanus raced back to his canoe and stowing the precious liquid in the bow he pushed off, the water ice-cold around his ankles, the mud soft between his toes as he hauled the heavy boat off the bank and into the deeper water. Leaping in, he seized his paddle and drove the dugout round threading his way through the reeds back towards the shore of the mainland. A pair of pelicans, landing heavily in the water near him, distracted him for a moment and so he did not notice the tall man waiting for him. Only when he had dragged the vessel up onto the grass and thrown a rope around a tree trunk to make sure it was safe did he look up and see him. ‘Papa!’ His face lit up. Then, after a second searching glance, he stepped back, puzzled. The man standing looking down at him was at first sight so like his father it was uncanny. But this man was shorter. Where his father had adopted the style of the local people and wore his hair long and sported a fine moustache, this man was clean-shaven and his hair was short-cut, his clothes like those Romanus had seen down at Axiom when the traders had come in from the distant corners of the Empire.

The man smiled. ‘So this is Romanus, I presume? What perfect timing. As I came up river from the port with some local fishermen they spotted you and said you were Romanus the son of Gaius. I am your Uncle Flavius, young man. Now you can show me the way to your house. Your mother is going to be so pleased to see me.’

‘Abi?’ Cal, wandering out into the garden later, found her guest standing transfixed, staring into space. ‘Are you all right? Did you see something?’

Abi jumped. For a moment she didn’t seem to recognise Cal, then she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I was miles away.’

Cal noted the fork in the flowerbed. Almost no progress had been made with the weeding. The robin was singing from the top of the cotoneaster now, his breast blending perfectly with the russet of the leaves and berries. ‘So, what did you see?’

‘It was amazing!’ Abi shook her head. ‘It was as if I had some sort of day dream. I didn’t see the ghosts. At least, not like before. I wasn’t looking at them from outside the way I saw them yesterday. I seemed to be dreaming their story. Of course I might have been making it up. Having some sort of weird reverie; a fantasy. Perhaps I was asleep. The scene was set in a round house, not a Roman villa. Petra, the daughter, was ill and her younger brother was trying to fetch some medicine for her. He went to Glastonbury. It seemed to be a real island then and he paddled a dugout canoe across to it. I could see the Tor. He visited some sort of druid village and went to see the senior chap who seemed to be taking a class of students. He gave him some medicine for Petra. Then he came back and his uncle was waiting for him.’

Cal sat down on the bench. ‘My God! You make it sound like a film. Then what happened?’

Abi shrugged. ‘Nothing. You came.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry, that sounded a bit cross. I didn’t mean it that way.’ She paused thoughtfully. ‘I must have been dreaming, but it was all so real!’ She paused again. ‘Have you heard of a place called Axiom?’

Cal wrinkled her nose. ‘Axium was a Roman port on the Bristol Channel. I think it’s at Uphill near Weston. The rivers and coastline have all changed so much over the millennia but somewhere like that. Does that help?’

Abi nodded. ‘It fits, I think.’

‘I’ve read masses about the area over the years. Glastonbury wasn’t – isn’t – technically quite an island as I expect you know. It’s a peninsula. Now the levels have been drained, it’s an island in a flat landscape, but once it was surrounded by water at least in the winter. They think Ponters Ball, which is an earthwork across the neck of land between Glasto and the mainland, was a defensive barrier which effectively turned it into an island. No one knows for sure what was here, as far as I know, in Roman times or before, but if it was a sacred place, a sanctuary under the druids, then that would have been its boundary.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I’m trying to remember my local history. If it helps, the names of both our rivers, the Axe and the Brue, meant river in Celtic times. Axe from the same word as Isca and Brue meaning something like fast flowing water. Which it isn’t. Not now! So, Axium just meant a place on the river! If your port was called Axiom perhaps it was the pre-Roman name.’ Her gaze was resting on the crystal ball in Abi’s hands. ‘What on earth is that? I’ve been dying to ask.’

Abi looked down at it almost guiltily. ‘Something my mother gave me.’ She reached into the wheelbarrow for the cotton bag and carefully inserted the lump of crystal into it, wrapping it gently. ‘It’s strange, I know, but I have been wondering if this is what helped me make contact with your ghosts. An ancient crystal ball.’ She laughed in embarrassment.

‘And did it?’

Abi shrugged again. ‘Something did.’ She laid the bag back in the wheelbarrow. ‘Is Ben still around?’

Cal shook her head. ‘He went home a while back. If you need to see him again I am sure you could give him a ring and drive over there. It is not far.’ She wiggled the fork free of the soil and laid it in the barrow. ‘Come in, Abi. You look very cold. If you’ve been standing out here for hours you must be chilled to the bone in this wind. And we have a problem.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve had a phone call from your father.’

Abi looked up, startled. ‘He’s not supposed to know where I am!’ she said sharply.

‘No, that’s what I thought you said. He gave me a number and asked me to get you to ring him. He said you weren’t returning his calls on your mobile. He sounded -’ She broke off as though uncertain how to put it. ‘He sounded a little impatient.’

‘My father is always impatient.’ Abi stooped to pick up the handles of the barrow. ‘I am so sorry if he was rude. That was one of the reasons I didn’t want him to know where I was. I hoped my mother’s death,’ she paused and took a deep breath, ‘well, I hoped it might bring us closer together, but it seemed to do just the opposite.’ He hadn’t rung her mobile. No-one had. All her friends, it appeared, had decided to give her some space.

The number he had given Cal was the home phone. After some hesitation she pressed dial on her mobile as she stood at her bedroom window looking out towards the Tor. Her father answered after two rings. He must be sitting at his desk. She tried to suppress the wave of misery which threatened to overwhelm her as she thought of him alone in the echoing empty house.

‘Abigail?’ His voice rang in the room. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you had been sacked?’

She closed her eyes briefly. ‘I haven’t been sacked, Daddy. I resigned. As a matter of interest, how did you get this number?’

‘The bishop’s office. Your boss came to see me,’ her father went on without pause. His voice was neutral. She couldn’t read his thoughts. ‘Kieran Scott.’

‘I am sorry.’ She gave a wry smile; she thought of Jesus as her boss. She toyed for a second with the thought of her father and what his reactions would be to an encounter with Jesus Christ, wondering who would win the argument.

‘We talked. He’s an interesting man.’

‘He’s an ordained priest,’ she retorted. Had Kier turned up without the dog collar, knowing her father was an atheist? If so he was a hypocrite – something to add to all his other sins in her eyes.

‘He explained he had been your employer. Why did you feel the need to run away from him?’ Her father sounded merely curious, his tone level. She still couldn’t guess where he was coming from.

‘Didn’t he tell you?’

‘He said he misinterpreted your feelings; he said he might have frightened you. He is extremely sorry that he upset you.’

‘And he’s asked you to be his spokesman?’ She was incredulous.

‘Not in so many words. I liked the man.’ She detected a note of embarrassment. ‘He believes in God which I suppose is his prerogative, but he assured me he would never require anyone else to do the same. We talked about the chemistry of the universe. We talked about definitions. He agreed that a great deal of the received attitude to mysticism is a nonsense which the church as an institution could well do without.’

‘I see.’ Abi pushed open the window and leaned on the sill, staring out at the garden. So Kier was crawling to her father. Thank goodness she had insisted no-one tell him where she was staying. The thought, as soon as it occurred to her, was dashed. ‘He said he hadn’t been told where you are,’ her father said. ‘But I don’t see why you don’t want him to know. Why not give the man a chance?’