by Jon Mackley
Tantris smiled. ‘Maybe I am the immaculate storyteller. But we could add another hypothetical situation, and add the times of the New Millennium, when so many countries were doing their best to initiate the peace programmes, or, at least, blow the living hell out of the Middle East in the name of freedom. Not fighting a country, but an ideology. Supposing there was a way to do that. Supposing the hypothetical Government had promised the documents to the original owners so they could all strike back against the common foe.’ His gaze passed from Will to Lara, then back to Will again. ‘So if these are the people who’re following you, then you’ve either seen some of the documents. Or maybe taken one. Which one is it?’
Will sucked his lip for a moment. ‘You know a lot about this simply from me mentioning Bath.’
Tantris raised an eyebrow. ‘It were my job to know these things. But, knowing about the storage areas lost me my faith.’ His eyes watched Will, steadily and evenly. ‘And before you ask: no, I didn’t work for the organisation that’s following you.’ He settled back in his seat. ‘I don’t believe an individual should wield power he don’t understand,’ Tantris said. And for the first time Lara saw coldness in his eyes. The sparkle had become moonlight against frost. ‘Power corrupts. One man shouldn’t be a conduit for the darker powers.’ He looked dangerously at Lara. ‘Whatever you may think, my girl, believe me. They do exist. But one thing’s worse than one man having such power and that’s a Government and her allies having that same power to beat their enemies into submission.’
Lara shook her head in disbelief. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a bit new to ideas like this. I’m sure almost everything in the universe has a rational explanation. A series of words can’t hold that much power.’
‘So if I call your name, will you not turn your head to see what I want?’ Tantris said dryly. ‘So surely it’s no different to invoking a demon and bidding It remember things It has known in the past.’
Lara shook her head. ‘It’s not the same, demons don’t exist.’
Will smiled. ‘It is important to have a faith, Lara,’ he whispered.
Tantris fixed his eyes on Will. ‘So what is it you stole?’
Will hesitated. ‘No occult text. It was a manuscript of Gawain and the Green Knight. As an historian, it was like finding that the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre was only a first draft. I see it as a poem, not a source of power.’
Tantris nodded slowly. ‘Be sure you always see it that way. There was a reason it were in Bath. Never believe you can command all its secrets or its secrets will one day command you.’
Jeanette called from the kitchen, stating she wanted the table set up. Tantris removed the card table and unfolded another.
When Jeanette entered with four bowls of rabbit stew and dumplings, Lara tried not to wolf down the food and made conversation in an attempt to avoid looking as though she hadn’t eaten for days.
‘Have you travelled much?’ she asked. ‘You know this area?’
‘All the time since I retired,’ Tantris said. He leaned forward seriously. ‘The only reason I said what I said is ’cause what I’ve seen burns inside me.’ He turned to Will. I’ve needed to talk to someone who already knew, someone who wasn’t bound by the Security Services Act. But knowing about the storage in Bath – and maybe knowing about things you don’t know – that jaundiced my opinion of the Establishment, any establishment. A house is too claustrophobic for me to live in now. A newspaper can’t print my story, because they’ll abuse the power. We make our lives now by travelling through the countryside and foraging for food.’
Will swallowed his mouthful before speaking. ‘Must be hard in the wintertime. This stew is excellent.’
‘Nature provides the ingredients. My wife does the cooking.’ He scratched his chin. ‘Sometimes the canals freeze over, but rarely so bad that we can’t move. If things get too bad we’ll go into a dry dock so we don’t damage the boat, but for the most part we just keep going.’ He eyed Lara curiously. ‘That wasn’t an idle question, young Lara. Were you looking for something in particular?’
‘Lara, don’t,’ Will warned.
‘Why not? These people have been all around the place. They know parts of the country we’ve never seen. Don’t be so arrogant to think we could work this without the experience of others who’ve seen things we haven’t.’
Will said nothing but glowered at her. Lara turned back to Tantris and Jeanette. ‘Something we’ve read recently mentions the ‘holy head’, possibly a reference to a martyred saint where the head would be kept as a relic.’
Tantris considered this. ‘Around Chester, you say?’
‘We think so.’
‘Then you won’t find the head. It were put back in its rightful place a time ago.’
‘What rightful place?’ Will asked.
‘Well, back on the shoulders of the person who owned it!’ He refilled his pipe and leaned back in his chair as he lit it. ‘St Winefride, friends,’ he said eventually as a plume of smoke filled the room, and Lara found herself inhaling the thick scent of burning cherry wood. ‘She were plain old Gwenfrewi in Wales back in the,’ he glanced at his watch. ‘Seventh century.’ His voice had become lower, gentler and Lara was reminded of the tones her father had used when reading the Shakespeare plays. ‘She were a maiden, but the daughter of a local prince. She’d go to a village called Greenfield on the coast of North Wales, where she would listen to her Uncle, St Beuno, and his Christian teachings. The stone where Beuno sat to instruct her still remains.
‘Like all the old stories, she were in love with one man, but receiving the unwanted attentions of another, one Prince Caradoc, who followed her around and wanted to marry her.’ He smiled at Lara. ‘Marriage was a euphemism.’ He grinned. ‘She said no, and in those days princes didn’t like to be refused, so he cut off her head.’
‘Not very friendly,’ Lara murmured. ‘Offering her flowers is much more effective.’
‘Prince Caradoc didn’t see it that way, lovey,’ Tantris said. ‘He thought decapitating her would end his emotional suffering.’
Jeanette leaned forward and placed a hand over Lara’s own. ‘Men sometimes have a heavy-handed way of showing love, don’t they?’
Lara wondered if Jeanette had seen something in her eyes, or whether this was just an attempt at humour. She hoped the shadows hid her expression. ‘Go on,’ she urged Tantris. ‘What happened next?’
‘The head struck the ground and the ground started to bubble and a well sprung from that place.’
‘The spring’s call,’ Lara breathed. Will nodded.
‘Winefride’s uncle, Beuno, was at hand. He picked up the head and put it back on to her shoulders. The miracle was performed and Winefride came back to life, completely healed, aside from a thin scar around her neck.’
Will gasped in surprise. ‘He picked up the head and it healed again; Gawain also had a thin scar around his neck from the knight’s blade.’
‘I think we’re on the right track,’ Lara breathed. ‘This could have been one of our poet’s sources.’ She looked back at Tantris. ‘What else happened?’
‘Well, of those characters we know nothing now, not even if Winefride was able to marry the man of her choice, but then I doubt it. She was now a venerated saint. Some legends speak of the ground swallowing Caradoc up.’
‘Just deserts,’ Lara said. ‘What about Winefride?’
‘Again, there’s not much known about her. The legend is she became a nun and later an abbess. That’s probably the closest to the truth. After all, most men would find it hard to lie with a woman who has been touched by God. They built a shrine to her and a town grew outside the shrine. It’s been visited by pilgrims ever since.’
‘I didn’t realise Christianity had got to Britain so early,’ Will said.
‘Officially it hadn’t, not until the later part of the seventh century,’ Tantris agreed. ‘But the first Christians were slaves brought over by the Romans, who settled in Britain right
at the end of the second century. You’re thinking of Augustine who arrived in Britain at the end of the sixth century. But, the Christian faith had to incorporate many of the ideas of the Old Gods. The pagans’ worship the elements and water is one of them: they saw water as having healing powers and that was one of the ideas taken by the Christians.’
‘Baptism,’ Will said.
‘The two ideas must have co-existed,’ Tantris said.
‘Where was this place?’ Lara asked. ‘The town that grew around the well?’
‘The Chester monk who owned it named it after the well itself,’ Tantris said. ‘They called it “Treffynon” –“Holy Well”. About twenty miles away from Chester.’
6
They stayed with Tantris and Jeanette for three days, chugging along the canal, away from the fear of whoever was following them. Tantris spoke no more about his ‘hypothetical organisation’, leaving Lara feeling – sometimes – that it really was just a story.
Instead, he told them anecdotes about life on the Canal, which usually ended with someone falling in the water. Lara smiled inwardly, watching Tantris from below deck as he guided the narrow-boat through the canals. Theirs was a peaceful existence, a kind of limbo, neither in one world nor another, only occasionally connecting with society, but generally contenting themselves with their own company.
Tantris had promised to see them down to Nantwich where they would be beyond the boundaries of the roadblocks and search parties. From Nantwich they would have to hire a car. They would be safe to travel to Holywell, providing they took a circuitous route.
They slept on benches in the dining area. Jeanette found them heavy woollen blankets. Every night before sleeping, Will sat at the stern of the ship, keeping his silent vigil. Once Lara thought she heard him talking, but when she peered out he was alone, his mouth moving in an unspoken prayer.
On the first night, as she lay in her bed with the blankets pulled tight around her, she heard Will enter. She didn’t open her eyes, but knew he was standing over her, watching her like a guardian. He remained there for a couple of minutes, before going to his bed. She was puzzled, not daring to move again until she heard his breathing become rhythmic.
The engines woke her the following morning. She stared out of the window. The barge chugged on at an unnervingly slow pace, as though it was waiting to be caught. She didn’t go above deck, even though she hadn’t heard the helicopter for at least a day. Instead, Tantris and Jeanette manoeuvred the boat and opened the lock gates. Occasionally Jeanette returned with vegetables, fresh wild mushrooms foraged from the woods and a handful of fragrant herbs. In the meantime, Will helped at mealtimes using the resources at hand and proving himself to be an imaginative cook of vegetarian meals.
‘Where did you learn to cook like this?’ she asked.
Will chewed his lips thoughtfully. ‘School of life, you get to know these things when you live on your own.’
Feeling as useful as a fifth wheel, Lara spent the day familiarising herself with Gawain and the Green Knight, struggling with some of the words and asking Will, who was never out of sight of the manuscript, what they meant. She was confused by the way the poet sometimes referred to the character of Gawain as ‘Wawen’, and various other spellings of the name.
‘It’s the way language was developing,’ Will explained. ‘The French didn’t have the letter “W”, so when words went over to the French, they were bastardised, so the royal line of “Stewart” was spelled “Stuart”, and when French words came over to English, the word “Guerre” became “War”, and “Guardian” became “Warden”.’ He laughed. ‘I suppose my own name “William” came from the name “Guillaume”. So when you read it, the “W” is often used instead of the “G”.’
Having completed a basic translation of the poem, she read one of the other poems in the manuscript, called Pearl, which was the story of a man whose daughter, Pearl, died when she was two. The poem described his mourning at her grave in a garden – he described it as losing his precious pearl in the garden – his subsequent dream vision of his daughter’s Resurrection in Heaven, and his inability to cross the Rivers of Death to reach her. He awoke, still grieving, but wiser through his experience.
There was something mathematical, formulaic, about the poem, the way lines contained words beginning with the same letter and the way that the poem contained one hundred and one verses – or stanzas, as Will insisted on calling them, – and each stanza a perfect twelve lines long. When she commented on this to Will, he smiled. ‘That’s why we know Pearl and Gawain were written by the same person. Gawain also has one hundred and one stanzas.’
‘But what about this?’ Lara said, pointing to the last stanza of the ninth section. ‘There’s a line missing.’
‘Don’t know. Perhaps he couldn’t find a rhyme to fit. It’s the same with the manuscript in the British Library. It’s line 472, isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘The poem continues as if it’s not been interrupted, so it’s obviously deliberate.’
‘Could it be a year or something?’
‘Maybe. And maybe the poet just couldn’t think of a rhyme.’
In the evening, after Will had cooked another meal and Lara was unwinding and her head feeling heavy, Tantris produced a small bottle of brandy. ‘Our one luxury,’ he said. ‘Will you take a drink with us?’
Will shook his head. ‘Kind of you to offer, but I prefer not to drink.’
Tantris did not appear offended. ‘Then we’ll find coffee for you,’ he said, putting on the kettle and pouring Lara a thimbleful of the drink.
The brandy only touched her lips, but it spread across her mouth like refining fire. She felt her body unwinding, ready for a relaxing sleep.
It was with a heavy heart at mid-morning on the third day that Lara watched the town of Nantwich coming into view. She was sad to leave Tantris and Jeanette. She would miss Tantris’s merriness and Jeanette’s unfailing certainty that nothing in the world would bother her. Both had had a positive effect on their dark situation.
Tantris helped them from the boat and on to the bank. He stared intently at Lara. ‘Remember what I told you,’ he told her. ‘Remember we’re talking about a large organisation. You’ll find there are a lot of folk working for them. The web of their deceit and influence stretches far.’ He turned to Will, shaking his hand. ‘Things get stored there for a reason. Don’t try and control all the secrets or they’ll end up controlling you.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ Will said and the two of them turned, walked along the canal towpath and then, mounting a flight of stairs by a bridge, turned along the streets of Nantwich that led to the commercial centre. They soon found a car hire firm that would rent them a Ford Focus. Will produced his driving licence and paid cash in advance for the car and a deposit, promising to return it the following day.
They drove west towards Wrexham and then south to Llangollen following the River Dee through the hilly landscape. ‘It’s not the most direct route,’ Will explained, ‘but it’ll keep them off our tail for a while.’
At Llangollen they turned north to Ruthin and followed the road up to the coast and to Rhyl. Lara felt a stab of excitement as the sea came into view, even though it was grey and tempestuous. She kept looking at it as they travelled east towards Greenfield and turned off at the first sign towards St Winefride’s shrine. The journey had taken just under three hours. It was starting to get dark.
‘I’m sure there are easier ways of getting from Chester to Holywell,’ Lara said.
Will grunted an acknowledgement, ‘Yes, when you’re not being followed.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘Do you think Mrs Victor called them?’
Lara glowered, bewildered. ‘How can you be so blasé about it?’
‘If I wasn’t blasé, I’d be angry,’ Will replied earnestly. He looked at the grey stone building on the left-hand side of the road. ‘I guess this is it.’ They peered down the slope into a large garden with a statue of the martyr standing on a pedes
tal.
Outside the building was a huge rectangular pool. High arches crowned the pool. The two pilgrims’ entrances were also dwarfed by the same mid-gothic stonework, reminding Lara of the Arc de Triomphe du Carousel from her visit to Paris. The top of the building was made of a similar stone, but unlike the lower part of the structure, this had been sandblasted down.
‘Do we go in?’ Lara said expectantly.
Will glanced at his watch. ‘It’s after four. They won’t be open any more. We’re going to have to wait until tomorrow.’
Lara rolled her eyes. ‘Not again, Will. Not after what happened last time. We should have asked Tantris to stop and let us get a newspaper.’
‘And what would that have said?’ Will wondered. ‘It’s unlikely to advertise their movements. Articles like that are meant to throw us out of hiding, which is what happened.’
He pointed a hundred yards along the street, up a steep hill. There was a fifteenth century hospice, built from the same stones as the shrine, and close to the parish church.
‘Same thing, over and over again,’ Lara said bitterly. ‘We’ll go in here and they’ll have seen the newspapers and then we’ll be in trouble again.’
‘This is a place for pilgrims,’ Will said. ‘They’re used to runaways. It won’t make any difference who we are.’
The door to the hospice was open, and Will entered the main hall. A tall, regal looking woman with flowing cascades of auburn hair stood behind a desk. Her eyes were as gentle as a sympathetic mother. Lara felt herself warming to her before she had crossed the threshold and was not cowed by the crucifix, hanging from the woman’s neck.
‘Good afternoon,’ Will said pleasantly. ‘I was wondering if you had two single rooms for tonight.’
The woman scanned a huge diary, but shook her head sadly. ‘We have a double room,’ she said, and Lara heard an echo of their stay in Chester. ‘Lara and I are friends, that’s all.’
The woman nodded, as if understanding a silent conversation, she traced her finger through another column in the book and shook her head again. ‘How about a room with two single beds?’
