“Jesus Christ,” Andy whispered, ignoring the disapproving look Wilkins threw his way.
Six carvings of foliate heads grinned down at him. Wooden faces, painted in various hues of green, their wild staring eyes finished in a brilliant emerald gloss. Black pinpricks of pupils gleamed. Vegetation disgorged from their mouths, spreading around the framework of their faces like a halo.
Now he knew why Philip Lotson had arranged this meeting at such short notice. And now he knew why Geoff Michaels had spent so much time with the Reverend Ian Wilkins while working on his dissertation.
“A little hobby of mine,” the vicar sighed as he closed the door. “At least, that’s how it started. I’m afraid to say it’s become more of an obsession now.”
“Not to worry,” Andy said tightly. “Phil gets quite obsessed with his work as well.”
Wilkins looked at him shrewdly. “Mr Lotson. Yes, we’ve spoken a great deal. It was Phil who came to me for help on the Elizabeth Woodcock chapter of his current book. Has he not spoken to you about it?”
Andy frowned. “No. Should he have?”
“I see,” Wilkins sighed. “Well, all in good time. Come this way, gentlemen.” He led the way up stairs.
Andy followed, his eyes firmly fixed on the vicar’s back and away from the dead gaze of the carvings.
“I’ve only recently put them up. My wife never allowed my collection to go beyond the realms of my study.” He paused on the final step. He spoke to the newel post. “She died last year. Lung cancer. And she never smoked a cigarette in her life…
“Since then I’ve devoted all my spare time to the study of these remarkable images. Church business isn’t exactly demanding these days, so this…keeps me busy.” At the top of the stairs, the landing led to three rooms. Above the lintel of each door, another carved face stared downwards.
“Veronica hated these things, said their eyes followed her across the room. Now I feel a sense of peace with them around the house. They comfort me…I don’t feel alone.”
Andy said nothing.
“What you see are cheap replicas that I’ve collected over the years, from various cathedrals and museum gift shops. I’ve managed to obtain original carvings from churches that have…succumbed to the ravages of time. I keep these in a safe place.”
“What’s the appeal these carvings have to you, vicar?” Andy asked. Wilkins smiled, pointed to the lever arch file Andy carried.
“The same appeal they had to Mr Michaels. Yes, I recognised the handwriting on the spine.” He took the file and leafed through it. “They represent a real mystery. Pagan fertility symbol? Gargoyle? No one knows the real purpose of the Green Man, or has a definitive explanation of his origins. But everyone who sees one understands - instinctively, you might say - that the face in the leaves represents something very deep and very important to mankind. Perhaps our origins or our relationship with the natural world. He is an archetypal image. An icon, if you will.”
Andy stared hard at the large display case mounted on the far wall facing him. The stone faces here were not replicas. The musty and unmistakeable smell of ancient stonework refused to be imprisoned behind the glass. It was pungent, yet strangely soothing and reassuring, like the welcoming smell of a cooling, empty church on a hot summer’s day.
Some of the carvings were faded, their features almost erased by centuries of English weather. Some, carved in wood and clearly taken from ends of pews and misericords, had been carefully restored and lovingly polished. The smell of varnish accompanied the musty aroma of stone.
They all had something in common, though. They were disgorging vegetation, and they all looked to be in pain.
“The Green Man in anguish,” Wilkins said in a low voice. Whispered, respectful, as though he was at a funeral. “The most…disconcerting aspect of these carvings.”
Rob backed into the study, a finger raised aloft, and clearly associated with Jasper. The collie was sat on his haunches, grinning happily in the doorway. Rob turned back to Andy and the vicar.
“Okay, I think he’ll be cool now.” He nodded to the folder Wilkins had open. “Geoff was quite taken with these things as well. I didn’t realise how much work he’d put in until I read that.”
Wilkins nodded. “Geoff has done his research very well. I see he quoted extensively from Kathleen Basford’s book, The Green Man - the first, serious scholarly exploration of the theme. She was obsessed with it - and she was a botanist at Manchester University, a scientist, no less. Obsessed…” his voice trailed off as he stared at the picture in Geoff’s folder.
It was an eight by ten inch glossy of a carved foliate head, with a Post-It note attached. On the yellow paper, Geoff had written: Keystone from window - Chapel of Nine Altars, Fountains Abbey, York.
Andy peered at the picture. The foliate head was cold blue stone: the eyes open wide, blank, lacking pupils. The foliage emerging from its mouth took the form of thick branches that entwined around its chin and spread upwards to form a crown.
“I thought the Green Man was a pagan image? How come you see so many of them in churches…Christian centres of belief?”
“The Christian church never fully vanquished the old religion. The still-holy world of forests and sacred groves, rivers and springs was impervious to the new religion. So…the church took over these old bastions and rites from the past and assimilated them. However, the old gods were seen as very real threats by the pre-medieval church…to their faith or to their power, I’ll let you decide which.” He smiled sadly.
“Some see the Green Man as a demonic figure, old gods rendered impotent by being trapped in holy stone - hence the anguish. There are three types of Green Man. The foliate head, completely covered in leaves; the charmingly titled ‘bloodsucker’ head, where vegetation sprouts from all facial orifices, and the one that always fascinates me: the disgorging head, where vegetation emanates from the mouth of the Green Man. This is what you see here. And, of course, in your van.”
Andy felt cold as they walked over to the window next to the display cabinet. Wilkins pulled the curtains apart and they looked down onto the van parked on the path. The porch light was still on and they could just see the carving on the bulkhead. Disgorging vegetation, Andy mused.
“Why is it called a Green Man?”
“It was Lady Raglan who coined the name ‘Green Man’, back in the nineteen-thirties with The Green Man in Church Architecture in The Folklore Journal. She was convinced its origins lay in the figure known as Jack-In-The-Green, or Robin Hood - the central figure in the May Day celebrations throughout Northern and Central Europe - convinced that it was associated with vegetation myths and the notion of sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?” Andy’s face hardened. Wilkins was staring at him again - in that cool, appraising way he had done earlier.
“Offered to the gods…to ensure the land prospers, and mankind survives.”
Rob and Andy looked at each other. The Divine Judgement…for the love of humanity.
Wilkins flipped a few more pages of the dissertation.
“It’s a theory that is still in doubt, of course. I did tell young Geoff not to read too much into it…” He sighed as he looked through the dissertation. “Oh dear. I see he’s rather run away with himself here. Hmm.”
“Sorry chaps, I really need a smoke.” Rob had a Mayfair in his mouth, the unlit tip shaking visibly.
Nicotine withdrawal, or fear at what he was being told? Andy wondered.
“I’ll see you outside.”
They waited until the front door was closed and they could hear sounds of footsteps and dog claws on the frosted path outside. A flare of orange, then grey smoke rose into the night air.
Wilkins turned from the window and gazed at his collection behind their glass prison.
“It’s been suggested that the Green Man is in anguish to express the death of nature. ‘All greenness comes to withering’ as the medieval poem says. What we are looking at are the faces of the dead, in despair an
d agony.”
Andy thought about that for a moment. His eyes never left the carving on the van’s bulkhead. He noticed Rob had his back towards it, hunched over Jasper and petting him, shivering in the cold as he sucked hard on his Mayfair.
“But the greenery springing from the mouth…surely that’s a sign of new life?” Andy asked. “Rebirth in the face of death, hope of life eternal. That may explain why the Church kept them in their buildings - life eternal is the same message you share with the old religions.”
Wilkins raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Yes, you could be right. But look at the Green Man in your van. Tell me what makes it different to the ones you see here.”
Andy frowned. “The vegetation. Something different…”
“Yes. There are three types of foliage to be found in the mouth of the Green man. Vine leaves, the symbol of Bacchus, or Dionysus. Acanthus, sacred to classical and Northern European traditions as a symbol of rebirth. And oak, sacred to the druids.” Wilkins flipped through the folder, searching for something. “Yours has the latter…and something else. The greenery you have on there is not symbolic of spring. You have holly, ivy, mistletoe…all winter plants.
“It’s unique. Kathleen Basford knew about this one….ah, and I see Geoff Michaels did as well.” He showed Andy the picture.
A photocopy, a line drawing of a foliate head.
“This didn’t warrant an entry in her book because she wasn’t certain it existed. She went to the place it was seen last, to try to find clues as to its whereabouts…and to find out who carved it. She was unsuccessful.”
There was no mistake. The illustration was that of the Green Man carving in Rob’s van.
“The last place it was seen was in the chapel of All Souls College.”
Andy felt the floor lurch beneath his feet.
“And Geoff Michaels was determined to follow the trail, was he not?” Wilkins stared hard at Andy. “I wonder what he discovered.”
He flicked back through the pages.
“Seems he read some of Ms Basford’s notebooks. What’s interesting is that the last time this carving was seen was in February 1799 - just before the meteorite hit the college. It was never seen again. Until now.”
He closed the folder and placed it on top of the glass cabinet. He folded his arms and gave Andy a hard look.
“So tell me, young man. How did your lady get hold of it?”
“I think she got it at a stall at a folk festival. Each year they sell all sorts of pagan and gothic knick-knacks - like this.” Andy pointed to the collection. “I had the feeling at the time it was no replica, but…it’s not usual stone, either. Black stone.”
“Black stone?” Wilkins frowned. His eyes took on a faraway look. “Black stone…like that in the Great Hall. How is it affixed to the van?
“You won’t believe this, but…” and he told Wilkins Rob’s description of the event.
“Fire…” Wilkins eyes glazed, and Andy thought for a moment that the cataracts were returning. He blinked, and the vicar continued
“Fire, black stone…incredible.” He looked away from the window. “Does this mean nothing to you?”
Andy frowned. “I’m looking to you for the answers, pal.”
“The name Elizabeth Woodcock? Is it not familiar?” There was earnestness in the vicar now, as though he was in the presence of someone powerful - or holy.
“Should it be?” And then it hit him. Perhaps it was Rob’s description of the fire that burned when holding the carving.
A fire from the Heavens…“forgive me, Elizabeth. This is the will of God.”
“Anything to do with the Divine Judgement?”
“Everything.” Wilkins opened a drawer in the base of the display cabinet and pulled out a cardboard folder. He opened it and took out what looked to Andy like a facsimile copy of an ancient newspaper.
“The Cambridge Independent Press and Chronicle. Dated ninth of February 1799, a week after the meteorite hit All Souls. This is a report of the consequences of the particularly vicious winter that gripped our region in that year - rather like the one we’re suffering now.
“Three deaths were reported. Rebecca Freeman, a sixty year old woman who froze to death on the Ickleton-Chesterford Road. John Limner, a shepherd from Woodditton, who died on Newmarket Heath. But it’s the third death that has relevance to us.” He held the paper up to the light and read aloud.
“‘An Impington woman named Woodcock has been missing since Saturday and is supposed to have perished in the snow. She left Cambridge at about six o’clock in the evening and not withstanding a diligent search her body has not been found. The mail coaches have in many places been entirely stopped by snow and the mail forwarded on horseback…’ It goes on about the state of the region for a while. Elizabeth Woodcock was the wife of Impington farmer Daniel Woodcock. She rode to Cambridge each Saturday to sell surplus goods on the market. She was quite a drinker by all accounts, and met up with friends at the Three Tuns on Castle Hill for a good old booze up before heading back home.
“Well, this particular Saturday was the second of February. The storm she rode out in had worsened on her way back to Impington. Drifts built up along the dykes and the trackway was barely visible.
“Half a mile away from home it was reported that a meteor flashed through the sky.” He paused, and Andy nodded for him to continue.
“It seems that a piece broke from the Divine Judgement after it hit the college and flew along Woodcock’s path. Her horse reared and threw her.
“Now, she was quite the worse for wear at this stage. She’d drunk extra to ‘keep out the cold’ and it probably did keep her warm, but it sealed her fate. She tried to get up but was too drunk to stay upright. She fell unconscious and the snow, whipped up by the wind, formed a drift around her while her horse found its own way home. Her friends, family and distraught husband searched for several days before reluctantly giving up. No one could survive temperatures of that severity. They waited for the thaw.
“But Elizabeth Woodcock was not dead. The drift froze around her, imprisoning her…”
Andy felt chills running down his spine. A cavern of ice and snow, her final resting place. A frozen tomb…
“She kept warm with controlled sips of whiskey from her flask and liberal intakes of snuff. She forced a hole in the top of the drift - igloo, I suppose, tied a piece of her torn petticoat to a branch and thrust it through. Of course, being on the part of the common so far from the path, no one saw it, until a week later.” Wilkins turned to another page.
“Sixteenth of February. ‘Her voice and pulse were as strong as in full health. Her legs appeared like those of a drowned person and mortification had taken place in consequence of their being buried in the snow.’ Frostbite, in other words. She lost most of the fingers on both hands.”
Andy remembered the bloodstained, torn nails of blackened fingertips, feebly scratching at the roof of the ice tomb. He shivered.
“This is a piece from the Impington church parish register. ‘On the eleventh day of February 1799, Elizabeth Woodcock, wife of Daniel Woodcock, died aged 43 years of a lingering Disease in consequence of a confinement under the snow of nearly eight days and nights, that is to say from Saturday the second until Sunday ye tenth day of February 1799.’”
“Hell of a story,” Andy said. “To survive for that amount of time…”
“In sub zero temperatures, with nothing but snow and snuff.” Wilkins smiled. “She became something of a celebrity. People would travel from miles around to visit her - and bring a bottle for her! Sadly, it was the drink that killed her. The doctor’s report of her death noted that her passing had been ‘accelerated by spirituous liquors afterwards taken - procured by the donations of numerous visitors.’ A plaque in Impington Church shows her as a beautiful woman sleeping peacefully in an ice cavern, looking for all the world like Snow White in her glass coffin…are you all right, young man?”
“Yeah. Reminds me of a dream I had thi
s morning.”
Wilkins’s eyes narrowed. His fingers tightened on the paper. “Go on.”
“I dreamed I was looking for her: didn’t know why I was looking, or who she was. But when I found her…she didn’t look like a forty-year old farmer’s wife. She was a beautiful young woman…spitting image of my girlfriend. And she was holding onto something. A black rock, carved into a face…”
The colour drained from the vicar’s face.
“My God,” he whispered. “Did she…did she say anything?”
“She couldn’t speak much, but she called me…called me Charles.”
“Charles Harvey,” Wilkins said in a hollow voice. “It’s true, then.”
“What’s true?”
Wilkins rubbed his eyes and sank down into the office chair next to his desk. “Some of Elizabeth’s visitors were distressed at the sight of her, so much so that her husband forbade anyone to see her until three weeks after her ordeal. After the fear had subsided and her ravings ceased. She’d screamed about being burned alive, by a fire from Heaven.”
My God, Andy thought. He stiffened.
“Holy fire, come to punish us all…and her in particular. It was Elizabeth Woodcock who first used the words Divine Judgement to describe the meteor strike.
“Not just that. She’d had no previous contact with people, no one told her of what had happened to All Souls College on the night of her disappearance. And yet she knew. She knew the college had been the target. When she came out of her fever, she told Daniel that it was the fire that had kept her alive. All Souls is five miles from where she fell. She wept uncontrollably, refused to tell her husband more.
“Daniel Woodcock went to the Three Tuns on the night of his wife’s disappearance, knowing that was her last port of call before her fall. The landlord told him that Elizabeth had come in looking extremely upset, and he’d listened in on her conversation with the other farmer’s wives. He was reluctant to tell Daniel what he’d heard. He eventually confessed.”
The Caretakers (2011) Page 23
