Treasure of the Celtic Triangle Read online

  © 2012 by Michael Phillips

  Print ISBN 978-1-61626-586-1 (Paperback)

  Print ISBN 978-1-61626-715-5 (Hardback)

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-60742-041-5

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-60742-031-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover photography by Brandon Hill Photos

  Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Table of Contents

  Map

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Part II

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Part III

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Notes from the Author

  Author Biography

  Discussion Questions

  DEDICATION

  To the memory and legacy of

  George MacDonald,

  whose books and characters and spiritual vision still contain a power undiminished by the passage of more than a century to inspire hearts, change lives, and fill the soul with the wonders of God’s expansive fatherhood.

  [My purpose in my novels is] to make them true to the real and not the spoilt humanity. Why should I spend my labor on what one can have too much of without any labor! I will try to show what we might be, may be, must be, shall be—and something of the struggle to gain it.

  —George MacDonald, in a letter to William Mount-Temple, January 23, 1879, The National Library of Scotland

  A little attention … to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful as well as pleasant. That they are pleasant when well written, every person feels who reads. But wherein is its utility, asks the reverend sage, big with the notion that nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of Greek and Roman reading with which his head is stored? I answer, everything is useful which contributes to fix us in the principles and practice of virtue. When any single act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also.

  —Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Robert Skipwith, August 3, 1771, explaining his inclusion of works of fiction in a list of books compiled for purchase from England after his library of books and papers was destroyed by fire

  The Region of Gwynedd, North Wales at the Northern Expanse of the Cambrian Mountains

  PART ONE

  Changes at Westbrooke Manor

  Late 1872

  ONE

  Factor and Heir

  A clock of ancient date overlooking a stone-paved stable yard—originally rimmed with gold, fitted with brass ornamentation and shiny black hands, all now tarnished with the passage not merely of its circling minutes and hours but of centuries—had just struck the hour of one o’clock.

  It was a chilly day in the second week of October. The sun was bravely doing its best to counter the effects of a biting wind blowing down through the Celtic triangle onto the coast of north Wales. Alas, it rose a little lower in the sky every day. Thus, with every successive revolution of the earth into darkness and back again into its light, the great glowing orb had less warmth to shed abroad in the land. Those offshore winds pierced to the bone. They originated far to the north in regions where glaciers and icebergs made their homes, birthplace of the winter, which even now had begun its inexorable yearly march southward into the lands of men.

  Whatever happy memories remained of July and August had gone briefly into hiding. The sunlight seemed thin and not altogether up for the task. There would yet appear more exquisite reminders of the splendorous summer recently past. Autumn’s delicious warmth and the fragrances of earth’s slow, pleasant death into its yearly recreative slumber would return by tomorrow, perhaps the day after. It would hold winter at bay as long as it could.

  But as today’s chill breeze portended, it would eventually be forced to lay down the struggle and die a peaceful and quiet death. Beneath the ground its life must lie, while winter roared and blustered above, until such time as cousin spring rescued earth’s life again from the grave.

  A young man of twenty-two, stocky, strong, of medium height, shoulders broad and muscular, with light hair and a chiseled face, skin tough, leathery, and tan from exposure to the weather from the time he could walk emerged from the building. He was leading a gorgeous white stallion of three years, whose coat was gracefully highlighted by a few lines of gray, from its stall and through the back door of the stables. There a flat, grassy area suited his purpose more than the hard stones in front between stables and house. He was used to weather of any kind and laughed at cold and wind and rain. What were they to him when there was a world to enjoy?

  The beautiful creature following him had only been wearing the bridle a week. The young man thought him ready for a saddle today. He planned to move slowly, however, and continue to wait if he displayed the slightest resistance.

  He was one who knew animals almost as well as his diminutive cousin, who had
mysteriously disappeared from Snowdonia with her father a year before. No one could communicate with the creatures of the animal kingdom like she did. But after a life with sheep in the nearby hills where he had made his home until recently, he found the intuitive connection between man and horse a wonder and joy. In the month since his mistress had purchased this Anglo-Arabian from Padrig Gwlwlwyd in the village, he had been talking to him and walking him daily, allowing the animal to know him and trust him before attempting to ride him.

  Within a few weeks of her husband’s funeral, Lady Snowdon had asked him to be on the lookout for a horse of equal or greater potential than the one they had recently lost. It would, she explained, be a way to remember her husband and perhaps in some small way mitigate her son’s inevitable disappointment at finding the wild black gone. Nor could it be denied that Lady Snowdon herself loved horses no less than the two men of the family. During these recent months of loss, the solitary green hills of Snowdonia had been her frequent solace in companionship with one or another of the mounts in her well-stocked stables.

  One look at the Anglo-Arabian and she had fallen in love instantly. There was no haggling about the price. She had settled the financial arrangements, and he was in his new home in the manor’s stables the day after that. Surely there would be no lamenting the loss of the black now. Perhaps she would make the Anglo a homecoming gift for her son … whenever that might be.

  Meanwhile, in spite of the brightness of the day, an autumn chill had begun. Fires had been lit throughout Westbrooke Manor, the proud and ancient house that stood at the center of the estate of the late Viscount Lord Snowdon some two miles inland from Cardigan Bay. Hours later, they were still doing their best to warm the living quarters of Lady Snowdon, Katherine Westbrooke, widowed three and a half months earlier by the sudden death of her husband, and her twenty-year-old daughter, Florilyn.

  Lord and Lady Snowdon’s eldest son and presumptive heir to title and property, twenty-three-year-old Courtenay, had unexpectedly returned without notice the night before, about dusk, from three months abroad. He had not appeared at breakfast and had made a mere token luncheon, with surprisingly little to say to either mother or sister after so long away.

  In truth, his father’s death from a riding accident the previous June had shaken Courtenay more than he wanted to admit. He had needed to get away from Wales. And he had done so.

  Thinking himself recovered at last and prepared to confidently take up his mantle as the future viscount in his father’s stead, he found his homecoming—forced upon him sooner than he had planned—plagued by uncertainty. After spending what money he had, he was confronted with the painful realization that he was not exactly certain how the finances were supposed to work during this awkward interim before the Westbrooke estate became legally his. He was in possession of his own bank account, of course, and had been since the age of sixteen. But where the money came from that appeared in it each month, he didn’t know. He had had some vague idea that his father was responsible. He knew furthermore that his father and mother sometimes argued about money. He knew no details other than that his mother was rich and his father was less so. He had never given the matter much thought. The mechanics of finances in marital relationships lay miles outside his ken. As long as he was well provided for, that was all he cared about.

  But his resources had dwindled during his sojourn on the continent, an eventuality he had neither anticipated nor made much effort to forestall. Finally the sobering reality began to hit him that his account was running dry and was not being replenished in its customary fashion. This unpleasant fact ultimately left him no alternative but to return home, irritably disposed toward the world in general for this inconvenience to himself. He assumed the matter due to a procedural glitch or legal delay in the affairs of the estate occasioned by his father’s death and whatever stipulations superintended the months between now and his twenty-fifth birthday. Gnawing suspicions were at work, however, that made him uneasy.

  His first order of business was to see the family lawyer and get his account beefed up. He planned to ride to Porthmadog this afternoon for that very purpose. After that, whether he would return to the continent for another month or two or perhaps spend the winter season in London, always a diverting prospect, he hadn’t yet made up his mind.

  After lunch, Courtenay wandered outside. He shivered and glanced about. Though not overly fond of riding as a means to interact with nature and the animal kingdom, he was enamored of it as sport. His father’s dream of racing the black stallion Demon, possibly with Courtenay himself in the saddle, had remained with him, and even gone to his head. He was at least three stone too heavy to jockey a winning horse even at a backwater racetrack for the most miserly of purses. But he fancied himself an accomplished rider. In fact, his self-assessment was not far wrong. He was probably the fastest rider in Gwynedd. That Demon had been responsible for his father’s death caused him little concern. Courtenay attributed the accident as much to his father’s recklessness and his Scottish cousin’s presence on that fateful day as he did to the uncontrollable stallion.

  But though Courtenay Westbrooke was aware that he must wait until his twenty-fifth birthday to inherit his father’s title, he knew nothing of the trusteeship his father had set in motion on his deathbed giving his wife, Katherine, control of the estate for the next eighteen months. Neither was he aware of the retirement of his father’s factor, Tilman Heygate, or that in his absence his mother had hired a replacement.

  Ever since losing the majority of what remained of his assets two weeks before in a horse race in France, Courtenay had been revolving in his mind how he might put his father’s plan into action and quickly raise some badly needed cash for himself in the event the legalities took time to sort out. He would enter Demon in a few races, possibly at Chester. He intended to begin immediately. With a few wins under his belt, and with his father’s funds eventually transferred to his account, he would be able to afford to enter larger races and compete for more sizeable purses in some of the major handicap events in England.

  He wandered into the old stables, seeing evidence neither of his father’s groom, Hollin Radnor, nor of the black stallion whom he fancied to ride into Porthmadog. The place was virtually empty except for the old nags his mother and sister rode. He continued through to the back of the darkened building and toward the new stables where he assumed the powerful black thoroughbred now made its home.

  On the grassy flat between the two stables, he saw the young man about his own age leading a graceful, almost elegant beast of white and light gray in a slow, wide circle. He stopped and watched a minute as the trainer now removed a lump of sugar from his pocket and held it toward the horse’s big fleshy lips.

  At length he approached, prepared to assert the rights of his position, especially over one whom he took for nothing more than a clodhopping herdsman of a ragamuffin flock of sheep. The two young men had grown up in close proximity to one another, and the scion of the region’s aristocratic family looked down upon the other as contemptibly beneath him in every way. “You’ll spoil that stallion, Muir,” he said in a tone of command.

  Steven Muir turned, though gently. The sound had startled the horse, and he sought by his demeanor to keep him calm at the intrusion of a stranger. “Master Courtenay!” he said with a wide smile. “I did not know you were back. Welcome home!”

  “I arrived last night. I must admit I am surprised to find you still here.”

  “Your mother has been very kind.”

  “Yes, well … now that I have returned there will be a few changes. What are you trying to do with that horse?”

  “He has never been ridden, Master Courtenay. I am preparing him for the saddle. I hope to ride him in another two weeks.”

  “Then it’s the whip and spur he’ll need, Muir, not sugar.”

  “That is not my preferred method.”

  “We shall see about that. In the future, you may address me as my lord, or Mr. Westbrooke.
The Lord Snowdon will have to wait a year.” “Yes, sir … my lord,” nodded Steven. “Where is Radnor?” asked Courtenay. “I could not say, my lord.”

  “I take it you are still helping him out around the place?” “When I can, yes.”

  “Well then, you can help out now by saddling the black stallion for me. I take it he is being kept in the new stables?” “Not exactly, my lord.”

  “Never mind, then. Wherever he is, saddle him. I will be taking him out.”

  “I fear that will not be possible, my lord.” “What the devil are you talking about?” “I assume you were referring to the stallion Demon?” “Of course that’s who I’m talking about! Either tell me where he is or why you refuse to saddle him for me.”

  “Demon is no longer with us, my lord. Your mother instructed me to give him to Padrig Gwlwlwyd … or to get rid—” “You let that fool sell him! Why you?”

  “Lady Snowdon trusted my judgment. She left the matter in my hands.”

  “I can’t imagine what she was thinking!”

  “You will have to take that up with her, my lord.”

  “So you took the horse to Gwlwlwyd?”

  Steven nodded.

  “I hope you got a good price.”

  “Your mother did not want a good price.”

  “That’s absurd. Why not?”

  “She considered the animal dangerous. After what happened to your father, she simply wanted rid of him. She was fearful of endangering a new owner.”

  Courtenay burst out in a derisive laugh. “That’s hardly sound policy in horse selling. ‘Let the buyer beware’ is the foundation of that business.”

  “Your mother did not want the breaking of the sixth commandment on her head.”

  “Good enough policy in the church but heresy in the horse market. A man buys a horse as he takes a wife—for better or worse.”

  “That is not the way a Christian ought to look at it.”

  “And what would be?” asked Courtenay sarcastically.

  “If one knows the dangers of a horse, failing to reveal them to a new owner would also break the ninth commandment. We are told not to bear false witness against our neighbor.”