The Green Lady and the King of Shadows

by Moyra Caldecott

  At the end he was called by the Abbot and went before him in some trepidation. The Abbot was an intolerant man, known to have had wrong-doers beaten for less an offence than Lukas had committed. He caught Brother Peter’s eyes as the other monks filed past him and he knew that, though Brother Peter was curious as to where he had been, he would have been happy to accept any reasonable excuse he was prepared to offer.

  But the Abbot trusted no one. He enjoyed imposing discipline. He had never approved of the custom begun by the previous Abbot of taking in orphaned children or those born out of wedlock and abandoned. Girls were always sent into the care of a sister monastery near Wells, but boys were brought to Glastonbury. In return for their keep and education a prince would have been proud to have, they helped the monks with the chores that the running of such a large community inevitably necessitated. Many, like Lukas, who had been taken in some years previously as a boy, stayed on intending to become monks themselves. These the present Abbot particularly distrusted.

  He glared at Lukas, and Lukas shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. What excuse should he make? This man was very different from the peppery but kindly hermit or the gentle Brother Peter. It had always seemed to him that the Abbot nursed a grievous and festering bitterness, as though his religion had spoiled his life instead of making it richer and more fruitful.

  ‘The Lord does not like being kept waiting,’ the Abbot said coldly.

  ‘I am sorry Father, forgive me.’

  ‘Forgiveness is for the Lord,’ the Abbot said, ‘after true repentance. You will stay on your knees outside the door of the chapel without moving, without food or drink, asking forgiveness, asking to be allowed back into the chapel. When the Lord decides that you have truly understood the privilege of attending His worship in His House, He will admit you.’

  Lukas caught his breath. When the Abbot said ‘the Lord’ he meant, of course, himself. Lukas had known him to keep a monk three full days and nights outside the chapel in this way. When they had finally been sent to release him from his penance he was unconscious.

  Lukas cleared his throat. ‘I . . . I was on the Lord’s business, Father,’ he said hurriedly in a low, hoarse voice.

  The Abbot eyed him malevolently.

  ‘And what business was that?’

  ‘I . . . I met a holy hermit living on the side of the Tor . . .’

  He was quite startled by the Abbot’s reaction to his words.

  ‘A hermit on the Tor?’ he snapped — whether in anger or surprise it was difficult to tell.

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘His name?’

  Lukas shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Father,’ he muttered.

  ‘What did he look like?’ barked the Abbot.

  ‘He was short and stout, with red hair and a red beard.’

  Lukas could see that he need say no more: it was clear that the Abbot knew very well whom he was describing. His expression was agitated — but with a jerk of his hand he dismissed Lukas from the room.

  ‘You can be sure the Lord had no hand in that meeting,’ he said. ‘Your penance begins now.’

  ‘Father . . .’

  ‘Now!’

  The Abbot’s rigid finger directed him to the door, and Lukas, with a bitter heart, went out. He was already weary and the ground outside the chapel door was hard.

  ‘What does he know of the Lord?’ he muttered to himself. ‘If the Lord walked through the door this very moment he would not recognize him!’ He wondered at the man’s agitation and the dark and brooding shadow that he saw on his face as he left.

  In the early hours of the morning when every bone in his body was aching and even his thoughts had ceased to go round and round in circles of resentment, Lukas drifted into what started as a reverie but later took on such a potent visionary aspect he could not be sure it was not more real than reality itself.

  It seemed to him he was once again in a barque gliding through the marsh mists. This time he was seated and someone else was doing the poling. He could see the dim outline of a figure standing in the prow, guiding the barque forward. He thought at first it was Matthew, but the figure was too large. He leant forward, trying to see who it was, but the mist swirled between them and he could distinguish no features. He thought of climbing forward to take a closer look, but was too lethargic. He relaxed, leaning back on comfortable cushions stuffed with aromatic herbs — wondering only idly why he felt no damp or cold, nor heard the splash of water as the punt pole worked the muddy depths.

  After a while the barque came to ground and the ferryman half turned to beckon him. Even now he could not see the man’s face, but he obeyed without question. He noticed that the barque did not rock as he rose to his feet and walked its length, and when he reached the prow the mysterious ferryman had disappeared. He seemed to be alone as he stepped ashore.

  He stood for a moment on the fine white-pebbled beach, peering through the mists, wondering where he was . . .

  He thought he caught a sound at last and strained to hear it more clearly. As he did so he began to recognize that it was singing — faint and far away but meltingly, hauntingly beautiful. For a moment he thought it might be the perpetual choir at the monastery, but the voices were high and delicate, and he knew that there were not enough young boys in the monastery choir to produce such a rich and soaring sound. The melody was different from any he had ever heard, lighter and merrier . . .

  The mist seemed to be lifting and he was beginning to be able to distinguish faint smudges which reminded him of trees. He left the barque and walked forward in the direction of the singing — feeling remarkably light-hearted and unafraid.

  The obscuring mist had all but disappeared as he reached the limit of the white beach. He could now see two trees before him quite clearly, their branches intertwined to form an arch through which he felt compelled to go. Beneath them a stream of clear water flowed and he had to step on mossy stones to traverse it.

  As his shoulder brushed against a low-hanging branch, a tinkling sound made him look up. He was surprised to see that the leaves were crystals, each catching the light which now blazed down from a cloudless sky. The iridescent colour-play almost dazzled him, the whole a shimmering, sparkling cloud of light.

  He hardly knew whether to look down at his feet to ensure that he did not miss his footing on the stepping-stones, or to gaze upwards at the magnificent kaleidoscope of ever-changing leaf-patterns. He was in one of those states, so difficult to describe to others, where he felt he was somehow more than himself. He was expanded. He was loosened like a boat that had lost its mooring rope and was drifting free of his own bodily shell. Words . . . The memory of words he had once heard drifted past him like flotsam . . .

  ’. . . the pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God . . . and on either side of it the tree of life . . . the leaves of it for the healing of the nations . . .’

  Was this from the Book of Revelations, the magnificent vision of the New Jerusalem the angel gave to Saint John on Patmos that he had copied out so patiently so many times in the Scriptorium? Or was it from a tale he had heard long ago before he had come to the monastery, from a travelling Irish story-teller, about how a man had entered one of the mysterious mounds left by the ancient pagans that lay here and there upon the land, and to do so he had to pass between two trees of crystal and drink from a sacred stream . . .?

  He stooped down and scooped up some of the water with his hand and drank it.

  On the other side of the great arch of leaves he seemed to be in the fairest land he had ever seen. Never had he witnessed so many flowers blooming at once, so many fruit trees bending with the weight of their crop. The light was unusual — as gentle as moonlight and yet with the power of sunlight. It seemed to emanate from the ground and from everything around.

  He could still hear the singing but it was a great distance away. More immediately he was aware of the notes of a flute weaving a thread of silver sound and
enchantment around him. He looked for the source and saw a young woman clad in green seated under a hazel tree. A woman so beautiful that, as he approached her, he was unable to take his eyes off her. Surely he had seen her before? Surely she was known to him? But he could recall no woman as exquisite as she in the humdrum life he had lived. She was like a princess in an ancient tale . . .

  As he drew nearer she put down her flute and rose to her feet, smiling, as though she knew very well who he was.

  It seemed to him that as he stood before her, looking into her eyes, he was falling back into a familiar role. Everything about her pleased him — the tilt of her chin, the delicate line of her nose, her long and silky hair, her softly rounded body. Her answering gaze was deep and warmly intimate. He had the feeling that he was a bird returning safely to its nest after battling through a storm.

  He reached out his arms to her, overwhelmed with desire.

  For a moment she looked as though she would come to him but something made her hesitate, he sensed a shadow cross her face.

  She drew back and turned away and it was as though the very light in the land had dimmed. Was that a cool breeze that had arisen or was the chill he felt one of foreboding?

  She was walking away across the meadow.

  He followed her, hurrying, trying to catch up with her. Though it seemed she walked quite slowly, he found himself no nearer to her.

  He began to run, his longing for her now almost stronger than he could bear. He wanted to call out, but he couldn’t remember her name. He couldn’t remember his own.

  They entered a wood and the trees crowded in around them. There were times when he couldn’t see her, and he was almost in despair. Then he caught a glimpse of her and stumbled on in pursuit.

  She appeared now to be carrying something on her hip. She was moving differently, her step no longer so springy.

  For a moment she paused and allowed him to see her more clearly. She turned towards him and for the first time since she had retreated from him he looked into her eyes. She was different, older. She was carrying a young child on her hip and at her waist hung a heavy ring of keys. Her face and figure were fuller, more mature. It seemed to him he had come home after a long journey and she was waiting for him beside the hearth. But even as he reached out for her once more she turned and moved away, disappearing through the trees.

  Again he followed. Again he couldn’t reach her.

  He could think of nothing else but that he must be with her. He could not — would not — go back without her.

  Go back? Where to? He had forgotten who he was and how he came to be where he was.

  And then he glimpsed her clearly once more for a moment — she was now an old woman, bent almost double. And then, suddenly, there was no trace of her. He searched frantically. It seemed to him the meaning of all things would become clear if only he could speak with her. He had desired her body when she was young, her comfort when she was middle aged, and now he desired her wisdom.

  And then he remembered the woman chained in the cavern beneath the Tor. He remembered the monastery — the apple orchard and the tunnel . . . He remembered his name.

  ‘That is where I’ll find her,’ he thought triumphantly, ‘back in my own time, my own place. That is where she is.’

  He turned to retrace his steps and found that the forest had vanished — the beautiful land had gone. He was lying on his face on the ground at the door of the chapel and Brother Peter was shaking him by the shoulders.

  ‘Quick!’ he was saying. ‘The Father will release you now, but he must not see that you have been sleeping!’

  Lukas had never heard the chapel bells so loud and discordant.

  Sleeping?

  6

  The next day Matthew was taken ill after a particularly vicious piece of bullying by Cerdic. Lukas stayed close and busied himself with his duties. Gradually the vividness of the experience he had had began to fade, and he started to believe more and more that he had been dreaming.

  But on the third day, restless again, his thoughts turned back to the mysteries of the tunnel, the woman chained there, and the young woman he had followed in that magical land. Illusion or not, the experience had been disturbing.

  The Tor itself, rising clear and bare above the forest, began to pull him like a lodestone. He could not help thinking that the secret of the woman buried in the tunnel beneath the Tor, the woman he increasingly longed to see again, must be connected in some way with the stories of the hauntings that surrounded that peculiar hill. He found himself going more and more to the place in the monastery grounds where he could see it. And the more he stared at it, the more the stirring in his heart responded to it. On the fourth day he could bear it no longer. He determined to climb the Tor and face whatever lay in wait for him there.

  * * * *

  He managed to persuade the duty master to assign him to garden duties and as soon as he could he slipped away. He had kept his oat-bread from breakfast and slipped it into a small pouch at his belt. He did not make for the tunnel entrance in the orchard. This time he set off confidently in search of the path that would lead him to the hermit. But it was not as easy to find as he had hoped. After several false starts he eventually found what he thought was the right track through the forest. Sometimes it was easy to follow, at others it disappeared altogether and he had to search his memory very closely for images of leaf and branch, of flower cluster and unusual rock to guide him in those places where the path petered out. He was overjoyed when he found himself at last in the green tunnel and knew that he was almost within hailing distance of the hermit. He wondered if he should speak with him, or hurry on? But the decision was made for him. When he reached the hut it was empty.

  He continued past the place and upwards towards the Tor. All seemed ordinary enough, but as he climbed further up the slope he began to feel a little strange. He found he was not climbing directly up the hill as he would have expected, but was winding round and round it, occasionally finding himself apparently doubling back, yet on a higher level than he had been before, following almost imperceptible ridges in the earth. While he was doing this he felt no weariness at all, but as soon as he decided to break away from the ridges and cut directly up the slope to save time, he felt his legs were made of lead. Something seemed to be dragging him down.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he told himself firmly. The direct way must be quicker. I’ll keep to that.’

  But it was not quicker because each step had become such an effort. It was as though he were pushing against something in the earth.

  A picture came into his mind as clear as though it hung before him in the air. He saw the image of a spiral maze burning like molten gold, turning through mist.

  He stopped short. Something stirred at the side of his eyes. He swung his head round quickly to see who or what it was. There was nothing there but the trees and the rocks, though he could have sworn he felt a presence.

  He shut his eyes and shook his head, trying to dislodge the disturbing image. When he opened them again he continued his progress directly up the Tor, but his heart was now as heavy as his legs. This was not the way. He knew it. Something was telling him to return to the place where he had left the ridges and follow them again.

  ‘No,’ he said aloud. But his unease grew, and his sense of potential defeat waxed so strong, he turned at last and retraced his steps to where he had left the faintly marked ridge path.

  From then on the way was easy. He walked lightly and confidently forward, led up and up the hill, turning with the curve of the earth, following its natural rhythm to the top.

  Suddenly the trees that had kept his vision close about him gave way to open space, and he paused with astonishment to see the landscape laid out before him in such splendour . . . his own forested island giving way to water and quiet reed beds . . . beyond these, long reaches of flowering marsh with occasional islands as richly forested as his own . . . and in the far west the silver gleam of the sea.

  H
is heart lifted with joy. Surely this high hill was the centre of the world, the place from which all else flowed?

  ‘You have not reached the top,’ a voice that was not his own seemed to speak within his head.

  Two more turns of the strange labyrinthine path and he would be at the very top.

  How many times had he circled the hill? He had lost count.

  His flesh began to tingle with a faint premonition. He looked uneasily around him.

  The sun was high and by now his presence at the monastery would have been missed. He should return, but he found that he could not. The compulsion to go on having come so far was too strong. This was no ordinary hill and he must know its secret.

  He looked up to the summit, knowing that if he walked through the tall wind-blown grass he could be there within a few moments. But he chose to keep to the path that had held him this far, and spiralled the hill twice more before he stood at last upon the highest point.

  He had the feeling that this place was at once familiar to him, yet alien too. The monastery seemed very far away, the rules that governed its days and nights and that he had believed were so inevitable and inexorable, now appeared arbitrary and mutable — the petty and rigid repetition of its rituals out of step with the complex and subtle harmony of the universe.

  Filled with an overwhelming feeling of triumph and excitement he flung himself down upon his back. Above him the immense dome of blue seemed to move, to wheel. Blood beat in his temples. Beneath his body the great earth turned. He could feel it, the earth turning, the sky turning, one within the other. Visible and invisible the realms of Being turned upon each other with a deep harmonious rhythm, more complex and more beautiful than anything man had ever dreamed of in his tiny cage of bone.

  Transfixed with the power and beauty of it, Lukas wished that he would never have to move, never have to go down to the valley again, to the mindless violence of people like Cerdic and the cold authority of the Abbot.

  He shut his eyes. The boundaries of things, the separation of one thing from another, ceased to exist. It seemed to him that he could feel what it was to be earth and sky, fire and ocean. He seemed to be ‘inside’ the Abbot’s head, ‘inside’ Cerdic’s, ‘inside’ the head of the reed-cutter he could see far in the distance wading up to his thighs in water. He felt the frustration of the first two as they battered themselves against the constricting walls of their own small egos, unable to break free into the wider realms of their true being. He felt the peace in the heart of the reed-cutter who knew nothing of the world beyond his village and this marshland, yet inhabited a greater world than either Cerdic or the Abbot. He felt the pain of warriors in battle, the sorrow of a mother holding a dead child in her arms. He shivered with excitement and awe, understanding in that brief moment that we are not just what we seem but carry in ourselves the life of the whole universe, secret and revealed, natural and supernatural. Whatever happens in the universe, happens to us!