Amanderella and the Marduk Affair Chapter 6.

Chapter Six.

 

The Church on the Hill.

 

Amanderella tapped her pencil against the cover. “I think I need to go and look at this ruined church.”

“Ivor Pugh, the guide, takes parties up there,” said Dotty, pointing to a notice behind her desk. “You’ve just missed the morning one, but there’s another at twelve‑thirty. That would give you time to have some lunch.”

“Lunch would be nice,” said Amanderella. “Where do you eat?”

Dotty blushed, opened a drawer, and took out a small greaseproof‑paper parcel. “I eat here,” she said. “Mrs Pugh‑Chapel Gate makes me sandwiches, and there’s a little stove in the back room for a hot drink. I could share these with you.”

Amanderella looked at the modest portion and shook her head. “That is very kind, but I think I should see what Aunty Mae has to offer.”

Dotty smiled, relieved. “Or you could try the little café by the harbour. The Harbour Master’s wife runs it. Visitors say the lunches are very good.”

“That seems a good idea,” Amanderella said.

“And the walks start there too,” Dotty added brightly.

Amanderella made her way along the Promenade to the café. The food was as good as Dotty had promised. She sat outside at a small table and poured herself another cup of tea. The first of the fishing boats nosed into the harbour on the rising tide.

“More fish for the Glyndwr kitchen,” she thought.

Off to one side, she watched Ivor Pugh gather his party for the walk to the ruined church: two tweed‑clad elderly ladies with stout shoes and sensible hats; a middle‑aged gentleman fussing over binoculars; a young couple with a toddler clutching a bedraggled teddy bear; and Ivor himself, beaming and checking that everyone had paid.

Amanderella shook her head. She preferred not to be part of that group. She paid her bill and waited for Ivor to set off with his little procession trailing behind.

She followed at a discreet distance, not close enough for Ivor to think she was part of the party, but not so far behind as to lose the path. Snatches of his commentary drifted back on the breeze. “And if you look to your left, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll see—”

She ignored it. By the time the group reached the churchyard and clustered around Ivor for his opening speech, Amanderella had already slipped away to the edge of the site, notebook in hand.

The ruins lay quiet in the sunlight, a scatter of low walls and tumbled stone.

She knelt beside the nearest stretch of masonry and ran her gloved hand along the surface. The stone was clean. Too clean.

“No scorching,” she murmured. “No reddening. A building burnt to the ground would show something.”

She moved to another wall. The blocks were neatly squared, the mortar pale and crumbly.

“Dressed stone,” she said softly. “Late medieval at the earliest. Not tenth century.”

She stood, stepped back, and studied the footprint of the building. Rectangular. Regular. Far too large.

“And the foundations… wrong shape, wrong alignment. This was never an early church.”

She walked to the supposed tower corner. There was nothing there but a slight rise in the turf.

“And no tower,” she said. “Not even a trace.”

She closed her notebook. “The legend says the church was burnt and never rebuilt. But these walls were never burnt. And they were built centuries after the story claims.”

Amanderella looked out across the landscape, her eyes narrowing.

“So where,” she said quietly, “was the real tower?”

She glanced back along the path from the harbour. She could no longer see the village or the sea; the view was completely hidden by the hill she had crossed.

She turned slowly. The ruined church sat in a shallow valley, hemmed in by bracken‑clad slopes. There was no view in any direction, nothing but hills and a strip of sky.

“A tower built here would see nothing,” she thought. “No coastline. No harbour. No warning of anything.” She tapped her notebook. “I wonder if that is why Marduk borrowed a book about map reading.”

A chill ran through her sleeves, the polite evening reminder that it was time to leave. She listened for a moment as Ivor Pugh faithfully repeated, almost word for word, the legend she had already dismantled.

She turned away from the ruins and began the walk back down the hill. The air grew warmer as she descended, and soon she could see the glint of the sea and the neat line of houses along the Promenade. Pentegfawr looked small and self‑contained, as though it had been folded carefully into the landscape.

Dotty was just locking the Library door when Amanderella reached the square.

“You’re back,” Dotty said, startled. “Did you find anything?”

“Enough to know the legend is wrong,” said Amanderella. “And that Marduk was right to be curious.”

Dotty sighed. “But we still don’t seem any nearer to finding him.”

“Progress is being made,” said Amanderella. “Now I need to talk to his landlady. Do you know where his lodgings are?”

Dotty nodded, relieved to be useful. “She lives in the yellow house on Marine Terrace. Number Six.” She hesitated. “I don’t know her myself. I’ve never been there. But most of the landladies along that row are usually in by late afternoon. They like to keep an eye on their houses.”

“That’s helpful,” Amanderella said.

She thanked Dotty and made her way along the terrace. The houses stood in a stiff, salt‑washed line, their yellow paint peeling in a way that suggested they were tired of the Atlantic wind. At Number Six, she pulled the polished brass bell‑handle.

Mrs Llewellyn answered the door, smoothing her apron with a look of mild suspicion that softened the moment Amanderella mentioned the name.

“Mr Tibrickler’s kin, is it? Step inside, girl, step inside. The draught is a terrible thing for the joints.”

She led the way up a narrow staircase that smelled strongly of beeswax and boiled cabbage. “A quiet gentleman, he was. Always a polite word, and his rent in a clean envelope every Friday morning. I’ve not had the heart to disturb his things. It feels as though the room is waiting for him, see?”

She opened the door to the attic room. It was sparse but meticulously kept, the bed‑linen pulled so tight it looked like paper.

“When did you last see him, Mrs Llewellyn?”

“Tuesday week,” she said, clasping her hands. “He came down with his rucksack, a great heavy thing that made him creak like a ship’s mast. ‘Mrs Llewellyn,’ he said, ‘I shall be away for a few days’ duration. I have a bit of wild camping to attend to.’ Said it cleared his head of the dust, whatever that might mean.”

“He went camping? In this weather?”

“Indeed. But he was a man for a plan, was Mr Tibrickler. He had his tinned meats, his spirit stove, and enough thick socks to outfit a regiment. Checked the barometer in the hallway three times before he set foot over the step.”

“And he gave no hint of his direction?”

“None, bach. Just a tip of the hat and a promise to be back before the laundry‑woman came for the sheets.” Her voice wavered as she glanced at the empty slippers by the wardrobe. “But the laundry has come and gone, and the sheets are still on the bed, just as he left them.”

Amanderella moved to the desk. A map lay there, its edges softened by use. A stubborn crease ran across it where it had been folded many times, and one corner was turned down firmly, marking a spot just beyond the town.

“You’ve been very helpful, Mrs Llewellyn. Truly.”

“I only hope the hills haven’t been unkind to him,” she whispered, dabbing her eyes. “He was a very tidy man, and the hills… well, they aren’t tidy at all, are they?”

Amanderella stepped out into the cool evening air. The lamps along Marine Terrace were beginning to glow. She walked slowly back to the Glyndwr Arms, her mind ticking over: the forged manuscript, the ruined church, the valley with no view, the map, the rucksack, the missing notebook.

After dinner she took her copy of The Strand Magazine upstairs, but she found herself reading the same paragraph three times. At last she set it aside, switched off the lamp, and let the quiet of Pentegfawr settle around her.

Tomorrow, she thought, she would find where Marduk had gone.