The woman shrugged as she carefully placed a brass incense burner into a carrier bag. ‘I suppose so.’
Meggie sensed a veil of smugness emanating from Tamara Trewlynn, which screened her true thoughts. The younger woman clearly had her own ideas about what they’d heard, and Meggie had no doubt that eventually Tamara would deign to reveal it to the others, probably at a moment when it could subtly undermine Meggie’s authority. For over a year, Tamara had been challenging Meggie’s words and actions, but now was not the time to deal with her tendency to rebellion. Meggie knew Tamara had a frustrated desire for power within the group, but Meggie was not too concerned about it. She did not expect, or want, her sisters to be passive slaves to her decrees. The moment she could not cope with outspoken Pelleth was the moment when someone like Tamara deserved to replace her.
The crash of the storm could be heard plainly now, and Meggie did not relish the thought of crossing the wind-harried beach, where the spiked fingers of the elements would stab at her old bones. Neither could she imagine the tortuous climb back up the cliff would be an easy task. Still, it was done. The omens had been heeded, and the ritual completed. Seference had spoken, and confirmed their hopes and fears. Lord Shemyaza, fallen angel, disgraced prince, was made flesh in the world.
The women extinguished the last of the candles and, by the light of hurricane lamps, made their way down the tunnel to the beach. Here, the weather was as bad as Meggie had feared. The waves crashed angrily against the rocks, throwing stinging spray across the narrow walkway of sand. They were like angry monsters, those waves, and Meggie knew that if they took a shine to the thought, they would thresh their way further onto the shore and devour the group of women. She made a few conciliatory gestures at the pounding sea, hoping the storm-beasts were too intoxicated by the madness of their own power to notice the fragile creatures of flesh feeling their way along the cliff to the place where the upward path began.
Lissie and Tamara, the two snake-crowned women, walked either side of the oracle, leading the way. The boy seemed not to notice the wind or the rain, his back erect, his head raised. Meggie, walking behind them, the hand of the girl-child clasped firmly in her own, noticed how tall the boy was getting. Soon, the time might come when he would be given to the elements, too much of a man to fulfil his function, as androgynous channel for the Shining Ones and their minions. She had seen many beautiful boys hold the office of oracle in her time. Already, a boy child of five years was being groomed to take over the role when the moment came. A boy, who had grown up with the thought that his life would be short, extinguished during his late teens or early twenties. One she had known had made it to twenty-five, but he had been an exception. All children, Meggie knew, were primarily female, as they had been at the moment of conception. In the womb, mysterious processes decided whether a child would be male or female, but even so, they were predominantly female in their hearts during their growing years. All children were psychic, hovering between the world of reality and that of the unseen. They were innocent, joyous, full of potential. Then the curse of puberty would begin to curl its cold, steel fingers around their bodies, and the veil between the worlds would thicken in their sight. Women, privileged because of their moon cycles, could sometimes keep on the way of the wyrd, but boys grew up to be men, changed into those creatures. If their blood coursed to the tides, it was often only to manifest as madness. Men had no place in the ranks of the Pelleth, the wielders of the secret ways. Men were providers, lovers and fathers, but magic was weak in their angry hearts. Neither must they ever discover the mysteries, which was why all the oracles were slain once their function was over. They could not be trusted, as men, with the knowledge they’d acquired during their office.
As the women slowly climbed the path from the private beach, the storm lashed them cruelly. Meggie could feel its mad passion. It was like an exuberant animal and its rough attentions were without malice. It was simply unaware of its own strength, playing mischievously with those who knew its heart. The child, Agatha, suddenly pulled on Meggie’s hand. ‘Look, Gran!’ She pointed into the air. Meggie nodded.
‘Aye, love.’ No doubt the elemental spirits were clearer to the child. With her fading eyes, Meggie could make out the dim suggestion of impish faces, of long, attenuated limbs. When the wind gusted, the skeletal fingers would reach out and pinch the billowing cloaks of the women.
Agatha laughed and waved her free hand.
‘Mind!’ Meggie chided. The spirits were not beyond taking advantage and plucking the child from the cliff-face.
Eventually, the top of the cliff was within reach. As soon as Meggie stepped off the path, the wind caught hold of her, and if it hadn’t been for Agatha, with the help of Jessie behind her, the old woman would have been tossed back down to the beach. It had been easier in the past to match the elements, to give herself to their arms without fear. This body was too feeble now, and sardonically the spirits teased her. It was the same for her sister, Betsy, Meggie knew. One day, when life became too onerous, she and Betsy would surrender themselves to the storm for the last time, and let it take them to the next world. But that time was not yet.
The lights of the Penhaligon house were visible from the cliff-top. In fact, the garden ran right to the edge. At one time it had been longer, but the weather and the sea had eaten away at the land. The beach below belonged to the Penhaligons and had done so for as long as anyone remembered, or was recorded. The giant’s chair was a great relic, but no-one save the Pelleth knew of its existence. When the tide was high, water gushed into the cave, and whoever sat upon the chair was marooned until the waves receded. Over the centuries, the action of the sea had created a plinth for the chair. All initiates to the Pelleth were required to spend a tide’s-time in the cave, sitting upon the throne of the Old Ones, pondering the power of the Fathers of Thunder.
Long ago, when the giants had come to the island, they had hewn the chair out of the rock for their own, mysterious rites. The content of those rituals were mostly lost and forgotten. All that remained was the knowledge of the serpent power that they had left below the earth, and how the dreams of its eternal slumber could be tapped, and shaped into forms of magic. Meggie’s people were the inheritors of this knowledge. For many thousands of years, their ancestors had kept the legends of the giants alive. They knew that the giants themselves had been half-breeds of an ancient race, who were remembered in myth as angels and demons. They also knew the significance of all the sacred sites of the land that the giants had constructed, and worked with the latent energy that was enshrined in these places. In the distant past, the giants had been served by the people of the land, revered as gods, feared as warrior kings. The tall strangers from far across the sea had built themselves fortress eyries in the highest places, and with some of the women of the little people, they had bred, further diluting the blood of their forbears. The children of these unions drew away from their mothers’ race to share the power of their fathers. Eventually, the giants and their children had melted into the wild land, leaving their places of power behind them, untended. Workers of magic, such as the Pelleth, were attracted to these sites, and learned to work with their energies. Over the centuries, memories had become folk-tales, and the giants had grown in both stature and potency in the memories of the local people. Now, they were almost feared, and seen as a force to appease.
The Pelleth always consisted of women, but for the oracle. The Conclave of Seven were led by the eldest members of the group, and various other offices were held by women of a prescribed age and appearance. The oracle, Delmar, was the son of the Tremaynes, who owned Enoch’s Hall outside the village. Ellen Tremayne, his mother, was a member of the Pelleth, but as she was not a member of the Conclave, she never witnessed her son’s trances. Delmar had been marked for the position of oracle even before his birth. The Pelleth had delivered him in a sacred pool that was hidden in a sea-cave and refreshed by the tides every day. Sea-born boy; on land, or out of trance, he seemed ba
rely alive.
The group walked back through the rain to the grey-stone house. Smoke curled from the chimney to be dispersed by the wind, indicating that Meggie’s youngest son, Tom, had arrived home to stoke up the fire, and hopefully greet the women with hot tea and toast. About thirty yards from the house, the rambling garden stopped at a wall, beyond which was the cultivated area that Meggie and her family had tended for generations. Here, she and Betsy grew their herbs and special plants. Locally, they were regarded as healers of the ancient kind.
Tamara pushed open the soaked wooden gate set into the wall, having to give it a good shove with her shoulder because the damp had warped it, and led the line of women up the path towards the back door of the house. Agatha hung back, gazing out through the gate at the slope of the wilderness.
‘Come on, girl,’ Meggie said. She smiled, envying and admiring the fact that the child seemed oblivious of the bitter wind and slicing rain.
Agatha glanced round at the older woman. ‘Gran, will we see the giants one day?’
Meggie laughed, and stroked the girl’s wet hair back from her forehead. Not too much had been explained to Agatha, yet she’d made her own connection between mention of Shemyaza and his half-breed descendants, who had come to England so many thousands of years ago. ‘Child, the giants are dead and gone. All that remains is the memory of their power, and...’ Here the old woman grimaced. ‘...those that came from them. But they are not the same.’ She shook her head. ‘Come now, shut the gate, will you? My old bones are calling for the hearth.’
Agatha obediently pushed her small body against the old wooden slats and fastened the latch. She skipped beside Meggie as they went towards the house. ‘Shemyaza is a giant, though, isn’t he, and the goddess said he’s here again?’
‘Hush now!’ Meggie chided. ‘We don’t talk that way in the open, now do we?’
‘Sorry,’ Agatha said, covering her smile with her hands. ‘But will you answer me, Gran, just this once?’
Meggie put her arm around Agatha’s shoulder and pulled her close. ‘Yes, he is a giant. Tall and strong and fearsome, with a shining face. He is an angel, darling, fallen from grace. You could not look upon him, you know, for it would burn out your eyes.’
Agatha giggled. ‘Oh, Gran!’
‘No laughing matter,’ Meggie said, though without harshness. ‘It is all true, which is why it’s a frightening thing to hear he’s abroad in the world.’
‘Then it would be dangerous for him to come to us?’ Agatha’s smile had faded a little.
Meggie nodded. ‘No doubt of it! This is our heritage, child, our curse and our blessing. We shall have to be careful and cunning, won’t we?’
Agatha nodded gravely. ‘Yes, but you and Aunt Betsy will keep us safe.’
They had reached the back door, which stood open, as everyone else had already gone into the house. Meggie was warmed by the child’s confidence in her, but found it difficult to share. What form would Shemyaza wear in the world? She did not think he would be clothed in light or visibly inhuman. They already knew that the body he wore, and the mind that contained his essence, were not yet aware of what and who he was. He would have been born to one of the descendants of the giants, of this she was sure. Although the Pelleth had no direct contact with these people, it was known that they called themselves Grigori. Long ago, the Pelleth had attuned to the faint power that the giants had left in the area. They respected the great serpent that had been left slumbering beneath the earth. But Meggie and her sisters would have nothing to do with the Grigori, despite the fact they carried the blood, however thin, of the giants. In the eyes of the Pelleth, the Grigori were corrupt, greedy for wealth and temporal power, and made all the more dangerous because they possessed vestiges of the great powers of their ancestors. They lurked behind every rumour of conspiracy: they broke the backs of world leaders, sacred kings and wise prophets upon the cruel, hard wheels of their complex web of power. Meggie despised the Grigori. She knew the ancient Kingdom of Cornwall was rife with them, because this was the place where their ancestors had made landfall, but she also knew they must be scattered all over the country, if not the world. The Grigori were doubtless already aware that Shemyaza had returned, and they too would be eager to draw him to them. Wizards and charlatans, power-mongers and wheeler-dealers; that was how Meggie saw the Grigori. They would want Shemyaza with them to increase their own power. Meggie’s people had different ideas. Shemyaza and his colleagues had fallen from grace because of their love of humanity. The knowledge they possessed they had wanted to share. But the Grigori were jealous of their power and looked down upon those who were not of their kind. They would not want to share Shemyaza’s light with Meggie’s people, or indeed any other pure-born humans. Therefore, it was the Pelleth’s duty to get to Shemyaza first and protect him and his knowledge from his greedy descendants.
The kitchen was the heart of the Penhaligon house: a massive room, complete with a temperamental old range, as well as a modern, fitted oven and hob. An enormous table filled its centre, and this was where much of the business of the Pelleth was discussed, as well as all manner of things pertaining to the welfare of the villagers and the surrounding countryside. It was also where Meggie and Betsy held their ‘surgeries’, when they prescribed herbal remedies, or else read the cards for tourists. The house was very old and had a sunken, relaxed appearance, its gables sway-backed like an old mare. In the summer, Meggie and Betsy, aided by a couple of girls, served cream teas in the garden, and sold strawberries grown by their own hands. Meggie liked talking to ‘foreigners’ — as she referred to anyone not born in Cornwall — and was rarely hostile to tourists. Once, she had been asked by archaeologists to give her permission to examine the cove below the house; a request she had politely refused. There was nothing of interest there, she said, and if they did not believe her, they realised the futility of pressing the matter. As the years passed, the Pelleth knew that more and more people were paying attention to the old legends, and were waking up to the fact that once England had been known as the island of giants. Scholars were putting two and two together and coming up with ridiculous numbers, especially concerning the connection between the giants and the legends of fallen angels from the Middle East. It did not bother the Pelleth, quite the opposite, in fact. They knew that eventually, the whole world would have to wake up to this knowledge, but in the meantime they guarded it carefully. Sometimes, if necessary, they would employ extreme means to keep their secrets, and it was not unknown for the over-curious and persistent to disappear during one of the vicious wind-storms that assailed the Cornish coast. The Pelleth regarded themselves as the Keepers of Knowledge, and knew that the time had not yet come when it could be revealed.
Tom Penhaligon was Meggie’s youngest son; she had borne him in her fortieth year. Now, he was thirty-five: a lean, stooped man, who was still handsome, although he had never bothered to take a wife. Meggie knew he considered himself part of her secret work, even though he knew virtually nothing about it. It was his job to make sure the house was warm when the women came back from the beach, that the tea-urn was freshly-filled, and hot food available. He took pleasure in these tasks, and never pried into matters that did not concern him. Now he moved quietly about the kitchen, as the women divested themselves of their wet cloaks, shaking out their dripping hair, chattering and laughing amongst themselves. Meggie signalled Tom to escort the oracle, Delmar Tremayne, from the room. The boy was shivering and needed a hot bath and to change into warm clothes. Also, the women had important matters to discuss, and not even the oracle was privy to that.
Once Tom had closed the kitchen door softly behind him, Meggie and Betsy took their places at either end of the long table. Tom had already poured out steaming mugs of tea, and two plates of hot crumpets steamed enticingly before them, salty butter sliding over their crisp surfaces. For a few minutes the women drank and ate in comparative silence, their hair steaming in the warmth from the range.
Meggie was
the first to speak. She put her mug down upon the table. ‘Well, the news we have been waiting for has been delivered. This day will be marked in our records as one of great importance.’
Tamara spoke up. Although her body was voluptuous, her eyes were narrow and her lips thin; marks of the snake in an otherwise moonish face. Her long blond hair hung raggedly around her shoulders. ‘We know the gist of what this information means. What concerns me is what the Grigori will do about it. We can’t imagine we’re the only ones privy to this knowledge.’
Meggie wished Tamara had not spoken the obvious. ‘We must draw the Hanged One to us.’
Tamara shook her head and smiled. ‘Our psychic beacons will be forever eclipsed by the great light-houses of Grigori awareness.’
Meggie had the distinct impression that Tamara was playing with words, almost as if she was initiating this argument purely for the sake of it. ‘We have to suppose the man, if not what he represents, will have some autonomy.’
‘No doubt he will want to be with his own people.’ Tamara threw up her hands. ‘We must face it, Megs, this will be a difficult task. Why should Shemyaza ally with us? We can assume his power outstrips our own. The Grigori will use him to awaken the serpent, and once that is done, they will claim its power as their own. We have tended the dreams of the serpent for generations, yet once it is free, it will be attracted to the Grigori because they carry within them a memory of their ancestors.’
Meggie’s eyes had become dark. ‘Enough!’ She slapped the tabletop with her palms. ‘What is this useless talk? We must plan and prepare the ancient sites for the time when the serpent wakes and the Hanged One walks this soil. The task may be hard, yes, but not impossible. It is what the Pelleth was formed for. It is our function.’
Tamara shrugged in a conciliatory manner. ‘I am not arguing with you, Megs, but merely stating the obstacles. They must be confronted.’
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