Summon the Bright Water

by Geoffrey Household

  ‘And all for a quid’s worth of tin!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Metals, Piers, metals To get their own. That was the point. And Wigpool an obvious choice.’

  ‘But which came first? Religion or metals?’

  ‘Both. You don’t understand ’em, old boy. Re-enacting the past for the sake of the future – you got that much. Think of the chap who first smelted a stone and found it poured out a liquid. Put it down to his gods, didn’t he? But you and I would say he had a bright idea or a lucky accident. Simeon believed that his bright ideas were inspired. You’ll admit he had some reason to. And he thought there was a something which inspired, same as the chap who put it down to the gods. Underwater, underground. Searching and worshipping. That was Simeon. It paid off if he really did find the cauldron in the Severn. Paid off here, too, from his point of view.’

  He was silent for a moment shaking his head in the way he had, as if one self were rejecting the arguments of another self.

  ‘Visons of the past, old boy. Can’t explain them. Not reincarnation. It’s just that all time is one. You can’t get out of that if you believe in eternal life. I’ve had visions of the past myself. Can’t explain. Only last for a flash or two, but don’t know what world I’m in. Give you an example. When I was taking pictures of Simeon’s glyptodont, I knew at once that it was a pet. So bloody unlikely that I couldn’t have invented that for myself.’

  ‘Whose pet?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t know. Like a dream. Pet and bright water. And a great blank something.’

  He was most impressive there in the dark. I refrained from asking him whether the pet was Arthur’s and lived in the cauldron. And bright water was a pleasant dream when there was a chance that we both might finish up in black.

  The first we heard of them was a dragging of timber, and we hurried down the shaft. The major entered his private recess and returned to his mattress. I ran on, crossing the pool and, when I reached the far side, taking care to shake the drips off shoes and trousers over the edge so that no fresh sparkle of water should give away my passage. For the rest of the route there were enough old footprints for my own to be muddled.

  I found that the stream, after it flowed out of the side wall of the cavern and on to the lake, was shallow and ran in a bed worn down about a couple of feet below the level of the floor. In wading it I was only wet below the knees, but to enter the low mouth I had to crouch down and accept a soaking. The water, however, was not so cold as I expected, possibly descending from the divine warmth of midsummer rills down to the realm of Gwyn ap Nudd. Inside the channel Gwyn came into his own. It was riven and irregular, some of the rocks smooth with deposit and suggesting the rounded backsides of burrowing beasts, some jagged and fallen or seeming about to fall from roof and sides. Round a dark corner the passage became high and narrow. I took station just short of it, ready to retire into the cleft before a searching beam could reach me.

  The party were long in arriving and had left Evans behind. There were six of them, all in white robes and each carrying a red and smoky torch: the three master druids – if that’s what they called themselves – whose names I knew, plus the others who had been at the forest ceremony. One of these looked thoroughly dangerous, like a heavyweight boxer who had been converted and found salvation.

  The major was unaccountably absent. A good sign, I thought. They had got no more out of him, and he had no business at the hallelujah party. On the other hand, why was there a party at all since they had only come down to find out how and by whom the entrance had been opened? Very soon I had proof that they were not sure the major had told the truth. Ballard walked over to check the mouth of the stream. He didn’t like it. He took the cold-water treatment like a man, but he was going no further. That hole, once you were beyond the entrance, was a fitting home for the nastier spirits of the underworld. He was perfectly right to be content with shining a light inside. At the corner was waiting the werewolf, but it lay flat behind a boulder and had no intention of appearing till stepped on.

  Ballard returned to his fellows and I to the mouth of the channel. For a moment there was such a silence that the faint ripple of the stream seemed to echo back from the walls of their cathedral. Then the dark tunnel of the approach road was faintly illuminated, and the congregation lined itself up, three on one side of the altar and three on the other.

  Evans made his dramatic entry in Marrin’s blue robe, but without his dignity. He was leading the major by a light chain looped round his neck. Denzil seemed submissive, as if he were an animal destined for sacrifice, though whether because he was busy accepting martyrdom or whether any tug on the chain was painful I could not tell. Having arrived in front of the altar, Evans placed him at the centre of the circle, lifted the chain and substituted a wreath of yew. I never admired Denzil more. He took this sinister mummery as impassively as a recruit accepting a slight adjustment of the helmet. His eyes looked proudly into a past known only to him.

  On each side of Evans and the major was a line of three, holding their torches so that the whole scene was enveloped in a thin red mist. All eyes were on Evans and the altar. Though one line faced me, I thought I could take a risk in the prayerful concentration of hocus-pocus. I slipped out into the bed of the stream and crawled down it, hidden by the edge of the cavern floor, until I reached the lake. It was quite shallow where it met the rock and I continued crawling, very gently without making any wash, up to a point where I was below and behind the altar. If Evans went round it or leaned across it he was bound to see me, but so long as he was officiating I was safe.

  I had the impression that these raised arms and murmured prayers were a preliminary to something more serious. Preliminary to what? Human sacrifice of course went through my head, but I couldn’t believe it. The object of all this was more probably to dedicate the major to the divinity of the altar and so involve him in the mysteries that his religion rather than his body was sacrificed. If so, they underrated their man They knew that he had a limited sympathy for Broom Lodge faith, though distrusting Marrin and very far from accepting membership. They were also aware that he did not wholly reject – and that’s putting it mildly – the conception that the golden cauldron, whether found or materialised by Marrin, could be the Grail. What they did not realise was that he possessed two impregnable fortresses of resistance: that of the trained, sane, devoted Guards officer and a spiritual courage worthy of the Guardian of the Grail.

  The prayer meeting broke up. Time passed. Nothing happened. I hugged the sheer bank of the lake below the altar, in deeper shadow now that the torches had moved away. Evans was standing by the windlass erect and silent, his right hand resting on the tail of the dredge, his left napoleonically thrust into his robe. A group of three were strolling and muttering like monks in a cloister. Two others were away towards the far end of their temple. The seventh was near the junction of stream and lake, and if he had looked to his left he must have seen me or at least a lump where there shouldn’t be a lump. Fortunately he walked towards the dark mouth of the stream and stared into it, doubting, I think, if Ballard had done a proper job of exploration.

  Still nothing happened. The absence of tension was itself nerve-racking because one dreaded what the climax of the service would be when it was resumed. They might be waiting for midnight or some other propitious hour, or possibly for some sign from the major himself. I was again reminded of Mithraic ritual. In that case Denzil was being subjected to the Trial of Fortitude. Would he break down and scream because nobody was paying any attention to him? Would he rush out of the circle and attack the nearest officiant? He stood quite still within the spiritual wall. To the believers the apparent hypnotism may have been impressive magic, but in fact there was no magic about it. Denzil could gain nothing by moving. Escape, one against seven, was impossible. Meanwhile, among the unbounded number of places where he might choose to stand, the circle was the most obvious and most dignified.

  Time went on and on until I found that my own fort
itude was being severely tested. To lie, cold and motionless as a corpse in the black lake, to do nothing, absolutely nothing, while waiting to observe blood sacrifice or physical torture or the madness of hallucination was torment, and I doubt if I would have had patience if I had not appreciated that all this seemingly casual idleness was a most effective technique not only for softening up the victim but for provoking the observer – if there was one – into giving his presence away.

  I heard a sort of collective gasp and put my head over the edge. Into the scattered lights of the cavern something advanced down the path. Above it was the shape of the cauldron picked out by red reflections and seeming to be sailing at head height down the tunnel by itself. Everyone of the coven was motionless, turned towards it. The major made his first movement. He knelt down.

  With the slow march of a priestess, Elsa in her black robe, the cauldron held with both white arms above her head, walked towards the altar. She was as beautiful and timeless as some worshipper from the walls of an Egyptian tomb bringing an offering to Isis.

  If their astonishment had not been so manifest I would have thought they had been waiting for her. Better theory: that she was returning the bowl in the hope that if they were holding us they would release us. Impulsive, crazy rescue. Could end disastrously on that altar. What an unparalleled sacrifice of the beauty of the world! All this went through my mind in a second, followed by a savage inspiration direct from Gwyn ap Nudd himself or at least worthy of him. Evans had backed against the windlass, one robed arm gripping the structure. I crawled quickly behind him, reached up and released the brake.

  What I intended – and I swear that was all – was that the handle of the winch should knock him into the water and give us a chance to escape in the confusion. The lower rope came in while the upper rope attached to the heavy dredge whooshed out across the lake. Evans went with it, the flared sleeve of his robe caught in the dredge and possibly his arm as well. He kicked and yelled, but there he hung until he splashed into the black mirror and disappeared into that grinning opening between rock and water where the lake continued on to the unknown.

  I kept low. Nobody had seen me. Two of them threw off their robes and swam out. A third man ran for the windlass and struggled with the looping rope and the brake. After that he was fully occupied, for I had reached out for the torch he had dropped and set his nightdress on fire.

  I yelled to Elsa to run, for she was nearest to the passage. That brought our dreaming Perceval to life. He launched himself from his knees with the dash of the cavalry, butted Raeburn in the wind, doubled him up and raced on to cover Elsa’s retreat. Only two of the congregation, who had been helplessly watching the swimmers, were ready for action. By the time that I had jumped up to dry land and was running for the passage, they were almost on me but slowed down by their robes and their torches.

  Elsa and Denzil were struggling along in the dark until I was near enough for the beam of my flashlight to show them the way. Together we splashed through the pool and round the buttress of rock, so that our pursuers were momentarily out of sight but far too close for comfort. It occurred to me that when the three of us were scrambling out through the entrance, necessarily in single file, the last one would be caught. So I handed my light to the major and snapped at him to get clear with Elsa and the cauldron, for I knew the way and would be in no danger.

  There could be no question of defending the passage without a weapon; they could deal with me by shoving a torch in my face. But what gave me confidence was the patchy light of those torches, showering red smoke and sparks as they ran and illuminating the roof and sides of the gallery without throwing any beam ahead. I let them come round the buttress before I shot off, so giving Elsa and Denzil a good start of some seconds. As I expected, escape was not too difficult. They could see nothing twenty yards ahead of them while I was in a pink, faint dusk just sufficient to prevent me tripping over any obstacle.

  But my brilliant idea turned out disastrously. As I swung round into the straight lateral gallery I saw Denzil’s light vanish round the bend far ahead of me – too far ahead of me. The pair had gone straight on, passing Marrin’s entrance, and had turned into the blocked shaft. I should have foreseen that that could happen. The major, unconscious when he was brought in, had no picture at all of his whereabouts, and Elsa in her rash, passionate attempt to get through and deliver up the cauldron had never glanced back to see what the entrance looked like from below.

  The temptation was to follow my love whatever happened; it was too late to shout to them to turn back. Commonsense somehow overcame emotion. If I could get out and summon help, it would not be long before the pair of them were free. So I turned right and plunged at the correct entrance with one of my followers so close behind me, owing to my momentary hesitation, that I felt him grab at my ankle as I crawled through. Once clear of the pit props, I sprinted and dropped into cover. No nonsense of bonking my pursuer on the head. I had done too much damage already for easy explanation in court.

  It was the converted boxer who emerged. He relit his torch and had a look round above and below the slope but never spotted me among the tussocky grass. Only when he had returned below did I realise that they would assume all three of us had escaped, not just the mysterious unknown who released brakes and set fire to surplices. With sight limited by the wavering red circle of the torches they could not possibly have judged how far ahead was Denzil’s light when it disappeared, if indeed they had noticed it at all.

  That encouraged me to attempt some immediate tactical surprise rather than to wander off to scattered cottages and try to raise a posse among unbelieving villagers. Provided that I could return unseen, and provided that it was at all possible to get a picture of the movements and intentions of these scurrying and disorganised moles, I ought to be able to create a diversion. So I returned, wriggling like a snake into its hole and praying that no sound of displaced stone or pit prop would give the movement away.

  By this time I was very familiar with the plan of the galleries. It was simple – much like the letter F with a tail. The small bar was the druidicals’ entrance and the long bar the original adit, now blocked, where Elsa and the major would be silently crouching and wondering what the devil had happened. At the bottom of the F the gallery curved away downhill until it ended at the pool. I waited at the junction of the small bar and soon heard the low voices of two or perhaps three in the gallery to my right. It was the most awkward place they could have chosen. There was no hope of reaching Elsa and the major till these people were moved: I don’t know why they had chosen the place – certainly to be at hand in case the fugitives started to put back the pit props, possibly to be able to rush out from the dark directly behind anyone who returned as I had done. They had extinguished their torches.

  I felt my way along the cut-rock wall, round the corner at the tail of the F and down the passage to see if there was any earthly chance of decoying them away. I could of course hear nothing at all from the direction of the cavern and had to take the gamble that they were all occupied with the rescue of Evans. He would not be very deep down and it would not be difficult to cut him free if one of the fools had a knife and if it were only the robe which was caught. But after that would come the longer business of resuscitation.

  I felt oppressed and defenceless in the absolute darkness, and noticed that I was trembling. What scared me was that a party might come up, bearing Evans, and that I should be trapped between them and the picket at the entrance. I suppose that imagined fears are often worse than real danger – which God knows I had been in down below and had not time to think about.

  Half way down the gallery my misgivings were justified. I heard splashings as feet passed through the pool. The only possible hiding place was the major’s home from home, and I slipped inside the recess till the footsteps of one man had safely passed.

  When all was quiet I struck some matches and ventured a quick look round. It was the changing room. The major and I had seen little
sign of it since no solemn ceremony was then going on. There were seven silly little flat cases in which the celebrants had brought their robes. On hangers were three coats and a spare robe. Two spare torches were leaning against the wall beneath them. The oil lamp had been put out.

  Marvellous! That was all I needed for my diversion. It was the robe I had set on fire which at once put the idea into my head. I smashed the lamp and laid one of the torches by its side. On that foundation I built a bonfire of the cases, the robe and the coats, lit the second torch and threw it on.

  Smoke poured out of the recess and up the gallery towards the entrance. I hoped that would happen, for it would bring down the alarmed picket at the top, while leaving the air of the cavern clear for the present; but I had not reckoned on such a volume of fog in a confined space. We should all have been asphyxiated if my old friend Nodens had not overruled his son and sent flame from heaven to lessen the smoke.

  The party from the top came rushing down and entered the cavity coughing and choking. I was outside it, a little distance down the gallery and safe from detection. Holding my wet shirt over my face, I tip-toed past the changing room and ran for the entrance which seemed to be acting as a chimney. When I had passed it there was little more than haze – for which I thanked God since I had a vision of Elsa and Denzil trapped in their dead end.

  I called to them to run towards me and to hold their breath as they dragged themselves out to the open air. Elsa went first while I held the golden cauldron. The major was more alarmed for that than for her, so I handed it over to him and told him to hurry. When I myself reached the surface I had a longish bout of coughing and spitting before I could speak at all. I could only touch Elsa’s hand before I threw myself at the job of replacing the pit props.