“In whatever way you wish to define it, it stands as truth.”
Sighing, Aunt Caroline slowly nodded her head. “As you have given me no other choice, I am forced to accept your choice, but it is the wrong choice. Of that you can be assured.” Turning, she walked away in a state of great disappointment and agitation. “Once day you will see that I am right, when you are all alone having fallen prey to the fate of the cursed Queen Guinevere.”
Cleo’s eyes shot open and her mouth went dry. “What did you say?”
“I said that I am right and one day you will understand that.”
“Nay, the other part about the fate of Guinevere. What did you mean by that? I have heard the phrase before from my father but did not understand what it meant.” Cleo did not dare to tell her that it had been her father in a dream.
“Ah, that,” Aunt Caroline nodded. “It was something that our mother used to say. She would say that the true cursed fate of Guinevere was not that she was unfaithful to her husband, but that she died alone of her own free will due to her own indecision. Her fault did not lay in straying, but in not knowing her own heart and as a consequence she died broken and alone.”
“Do not fall prey to the fate of Guinevere,” Cleo repeated her father’s warning.
“Yes, precisely, and you, my dear, are well on your way to doing just that. Your father would not wish for you to be alone. No one deserves to die alone, no one.”
Chapter 21
The ghost of her father clung to Cleo’s mind for the remainder of the night. No matter what she tried to do to keep it at bay so that she might get some sleep, his haunting words persisted, as did the uncertainty of what she and Arthur had found that afternoon in the study. Arthur had just been about to tell her what he thought the runes meant when they had been interrupted, then separated. The uncertainty of it all pulled at her like an anchored weight on her heart. She could not wait for Arthur to return and tell her what he knew about the coded message and what could be done about it.
At the very least, I think now he will not be forced to travel so far afield for answers. Perhaps in that we can both find comfort.
The night dragged on until Cleo thought she might go mad from the waiting. When morning finally dawned, she raced through her morning ablutions and returned to her father’s study, locking the door behind her. She knew the Mrs. McGrath would show Arthur to the study when he arrived, so she did not worry about her aunt making things more difficult.
Cleo did her best to clean up everything that she had been in too much of a hurry to deal with the day before, being certain to restore the study as much to its original state as was possible considering what she had done to the wall. When she was done, she pulled the blanket from the wall and stood staring at the painted mural. The artist had chosen a handsome visage of a leader’s strength and a warrior’s acuity. Cleo rather liked the painting and thought that the man on the wall looked a lot like her own Arthur MacDonald.
What an odd likeness…I wonder who painted this and when.
When Arthur finally arrived, Cleo was ready. Aunt Caroline had left that morning for the ride to Dustshore Manor and Mrs. McGrath had made certain to provide them with tea in the study. The moment that Arthur walked through the study door, Cleo wasted no time in frivolities. “Please tell me that you can make sense of this gibberish.”
“Aye, I believe that I can,” he nodded his head as he came to join her at the desk. “I believe that the message speaks about you.”
“Me? What about me? Why me?” Cleo felt quite confused. “What possible connection could I have to King Arthur other than my father’s obsession? It is clear to me now that he treasured his secrets and this legend far above me or anything else in his life. How else could he have kept such a secret from me only to be revealed in cryptic messages upon his death? It is a secret that has caused me great distress over the days since his passing and I truly believe that it is this secret that resulted in his murder.”
“King Arthur and his legend was nae the most valuable thing o’ import tae yer father. Ye were and ye ken that well enough. It is only yer pain, grief, and frustration that are speaking. I assume that ye did nae get enough sleep last night?”
“Nay, I did not sleep well, but how can you say that I was the most important thing to him after everything that has happened? The longer we search for the answers, the more it becomes clear to me that I knew nothing about him. How can I have lived with a man for my entire life and still not have known about such a secret? He hid it right under my nose,” she proclaimed gesturing to the mural on the wall. “It was right there all of this time and I knew naught about it. Even now, I still know naught about its meaning or how it plays into recent events. How can you be so certain?”
“Because I did ken Henry, verra well, and regardless o’ his secrets, I ken that he loved ye above all else. He left these messages for ye, with the thought that ye would have the tools tae solve them and ye do. With a little time and a little patience, we can and will see this through. Ye must nae lose hope, lass. Dinnae lose faith in me now when we are so close tae ending this once and for all. I have a feeling that within these runes lies the answers,” he laid his finger on the paper containing the images.
“An unruly senseless assortment if you ask me,” Cleo scowled down at the page. Hearing the tone of her voice, she felt ashamed and attempted to adjust her attitude.
Arthur is right. I have not gotten enough sleep for this. I do not feel the least bit rational or forgiving in this moment and Father deserves better than that. He was a good man, I know that well, but no man is perfect, and it is time that I forgave Father for what he has left me with and move past the anger. Finding his killer is far more important than any bitter feelings that I might have about all of this. I somehow know in my heart that within the answer to all of these secrets and riddles lies the key to apprehending his murderer.
“Aye, it is at that, but there is another meaning behind the gibberish. We simply must discover it, just as we did before with the other two messages.”
“So, what makes you think that the message is about me and not Guinevere?”
“I did nae say that it could nae be about Guinevere, but if it is, I think that it is in a more indirect way. The direct meaning seems tae be a wee bit closer tae home. Yer faither’s choices o’ where tae hide his second riddle tells us that. This was personal tae him, nae simply academic. He would ne’er have written on the back o’ yer maither’s portrait if it was nae personal in a verra deep and intense way.”
Cleo thought about his words for a moment and nodded her head. “You are right of course. I never stopped to think about that when we found it, but you are absolutely right. Father revered that portrait and would not let anyone touch it. He even dusted it himself instead of having Mrs. McGrath do it. I never thought about why at the time, only that he had loved her very much, but now I see that there was something more behind his devotion to it.”
“I believe that it is that devotion that caused him tae place the riddle upon its back. He wanted ye tae ken just how important this was tae him, tae ye both. It is the location o’ the second riddle, combined with the meaning o’ the last two runes that tells me that this has something tae do with ye and yer maither.”
“My mother? What could she possibly have to do with this?”
“She gave birth tae ye, lass.”
Cleo’s face scrunched up in question. “Clearly or I would not be here,” she retorted somewhat sarcastically, losing her patience once more.I truly should have gotten more sleep last night;she silently lamented her negative attitude. “My apologies, My Lord.”
