A Crown of Lights mw-3

by Phil Rickman

  ‘You’ve done Imbolc before, of course, Robin?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘It is very appropriate.’ Ned picked up the Tilley lamp by its wire handle. He looked like a modern, clean-shaven Christ out of Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World. ‘It’s the first fire festival of the year. The kindling in the forest of winter.’

  ‘Like, the winter of Christianity?’

  ‘Well perceived,’ Bain said very softly. Robin felt stupidly flattered. ‘It is the winter of Christianity.’

  ‘And Ned’s devised a rite reflecting that,’ George said.

  ‘Didn’t take many modifications. Which shows how essentially right it is.’ Ned Bain raised the lamp so that there was a core of light in the centre of what had been the chancel. ‘For instance, when we chant, “Thus we banish winter, thus we welcome spring”, we’ll be banishing rather more than winter. Or, in this case, a spiritual winter which has lasted two thousand years. And we’ll be welcoming, into this temple, a new light stronger than any one spring.’

  ‘Right,’ Robin said.

  The lamp sputtered. Around Ned, as he lowered it, shadows grouped and divided again.

  ‘What I’m saying, Robin, is that for the duration of our rite, Old Hindwell will be the centre of... everything.’

  Robin was awed, no longer reluctantly.

  George said, ‘She’ll be sorry she missed out on this.’

  ‘Betty?’

  ‘Yeah. Can’t you get her back, man? She’s the priestess for this. She’s got more’ – George opened his hands like he was letting out a cloud of smoke – ‘than any of us.’

  ‘I was very much looking forward to meeting her,’ Ned Bain said. ‘Word gets around.’

  ‘Well, uh...’ Robin looked down into the dark around his feet. ‘I guess the pressure got too much, is all. Things haven’t been going so very right for either of us.’

  ‘Yes. I heard about Blackmore.’

  Robin looked up.

  ‘He’s an awkward sod.’ Ned shrugged. ‘But personally... you know... I liked that design.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘A lot. I mean... Well, I still think Kirk could be persuaded to listen to reason.’

  For Robin, the volatile light seemed to leap up the walls. ‘Even at this stage?’

  ‘The central motif’s there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, sure, I... I could have all seven covers...’ Robin’s heart raced. ‘I mean I could have them completed inside a month.’

  ‘Well, you know, I can’t make any promises. Except to talk to him. But we go back quite a long way.’

  ‘There you are, man,’ George said. ‘Ned talks to this Blackmore, you talk to Betty.’

  Robin breathed out ruefully. ‘My part is not gonna be easy.’

  ‘Do your best.’ Ned Bain clapped Robin on the back. That heat again. Bonding. ‘We’re going to need all the psychic energy we can produce.’

  Robin was elated. The electricity of fate. After the blackest night, the last night of winter, his personal lowest point for years, this guy just shows up without warning and things start coming together. Holism? Interconnection? The central premise in Wicca.

  There was some kind of psychic energy here today all right. The kindling in the dark forest. Robin’s inner vision projected it onto the church walls like the airbrush mist around Lord Madoc. He could see it all coming together, like a beautiful painting. Betty would inevitably be drawn back. It was how these things worked.

  Imbolc: it would be their rebirth, too. Robin tried to conceal some of his delight. He mustn’t look naive.

  ‘Well...’ He grinned. ‘I guess the whole thing would be easier if Ellis and his... flock... Like, if he just gave up and left us alone.’

  George glanced at Ned Bain.

  Ned Bain smiled broadly, shaking his head.

  George felt it was safe to laugh.

  Max said, ‘I don’t think you quite get this, do you, Robin? This is the energy. The surrounding hostility, the negativity from the village, all helps to create a rather special kind of tension. What you have is the whole struggle in microcosm. With those fanatical, fundamentalist Christians the other side of the gate singing their simplistic hymns, throwing everything at us, everything they’ve got left.’

  ‘Friction, man.’ George Webster rubbed his hands together and then did that smoke thing. ‘The combustion. It’s a fire festival. The dragon rises.’

  42

  Raising the Stakes

  ‘CHRIST BE WITH me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me...’

  In the not-quite-silence of Ledwardine Parish Church, amid dusty skitterings at mouse and bat and early-bird level, Merrily was kneeling near the top of the chancel steps, asking for clarity of mind, clearance of all nightmares. Murmuring the ancient Celtic prayer, St Patrick’s Breastplate.

  ‘I bind unto myself the Name,

  The Strong Name of the Trinity...’

  Today was Candlemas – known to pagans as Imbolc. It concerned the quickening of life in Mother Nature’s belly. The Catholic Church blessed its candles on this day. The Church of Nicholas Ellis kept them in its windows to ward off witchcraft.

  When the Breastplate was around her, Merrily went and sat in the front pew. She was wearing jeans and a sweater and Jane’s duffel coat. She was still recalling details of Ellis’s exorcism of Marianne Starkey.

  Cursed dragon, we give thee warning in the names of Jesus Christ and Michael, in the names of Jehovah, Adonai, Tetragrammaton...

  In the half-light, she was granted clarity. What became clear was that Ellis was following a tradition of exorcism accepted there on the border for many centuries. Betty had written out for her what she could remember of the charm found in the fireplace at St Michael’s farmhouse and also the one in Cascob Church: a mongrel exorcism, a cunning cocktail of Catholicism, Anglicanism, paganism and ritual magic. Precisely what you would expect to find in an area where cultures and languages and religions overlapped and survival often depended on juggling in the dark. This litany of names of power and magical repetition was a blunt instrument, a club. Merrily imagined Elizabeth Loyd three hundred years ago, kneeling cowed and emptied on the stone flags of St Michael’s Cascob.

  When you found an adversary or an obstacle, you demonized it and then, powered by the sacred names, you beat it into the stones. Hard, practical... tested over centuries. Father Ellis doesn’t do a soft ministry.

  It’s hardly Jeffery Weal, is it? Barbara Buckingham had said of Ellis’s happy-clappy evangelism. Hardly. But happy-clappy was only the surface of it. Happy-clappy could unite the population, ensnaring the hearts and minds of local and incomer alike.

  But under the surface, as Judith had said, Ellis suited the village. A quiet evangelist, neither ebullient, nor charismatic in the popular sense, but practical – dressed like an army chaplain. And he could, when required to, put the fear of God into people: the councillor’s boy who took a car, threatening to bring dishonour to his respected family... the kid with a pocketful of Ecstasy... the repressed solicitor who only wanted his love for his wife to be reciprocated... the bored and lascivious licensee’s wife who, sooner or later, might tempt a local man.

  Ellis had earned his support by dealing with ripples on the normally dark and stagnant waters of Old Hindwell, while focusing, beyond them, on some bigger, darker, more nebulous objective. In the village hall, he had been rooting out some imagined, petty demon of desire. But also, through Marianne, attacking Robin Thorogood and what he represented.

  But what did he represent? The Thorogoods had made no threats, taken no particular stance – Betty even appeared unsure that witchcraft was the right and only way for her. Yet Ellis had lost no time in demonizing them.

  Gotter be a problem for you, this, girl. Question of which side you’re on now, ennit?

  Merrily stood and approached the altar. The stained-glass windows were coming alive with the dawn. She spoke the last verse of the Breastplate, the address to J
esus.

  ‘Let me not run from the love that you offer

  But hold me safe from the forces of evil.

  On each of my dyings shed your light and your love.

  Keep calling me until that day comes

  When with your saints I may praise you for ever.

  Amen.’

  Merrily walked, blinking, out of the church. It was going to be a cold, bright, hard day.

  When she got home, Jane had breakfast ready. The radio was turned to 5 Live, the news station.

  ‘Mum, they’ve just trailed a report from Old Hindwell. It’s coming up within the next ten minutes. That was about five minutes ago.’

  ‘Better turn it up then.’

  ‘And...’ Jane cleared her throat, ‘there’s some stuff I need to tell you.’

  ‘Any chance it could wait? It’s just I seem to have got more to think about than at any time since my A levels.’

  ‘No,’ Jane said, ‘it can’t wait. It’s about a Web site, called Kali Three. Kali as in the goddess of death and destruction?’

  ‘Not one of ours.’ Merrily helped herself to a slice of toast. She was thinking about how best to approach Marianne Starkey. Marianne was crucial now, if Merrily was going to restrain Ellis. ‘Not even one of Betty’s.’

  ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Sure. Sorry.’

  ‘There’s this obscure Web site. A really heavy occult thing. A kind of like a hit list of people who are considered a threat to the, er... to, like, the expansion of human consciousness through magic, that kind of thing. Anyway, you’re included on it.’

  ‘You’re kidding! Still... shows I must’ve got something right.’

  Jane said, ‘Sometimes you just make me sick, you know that?’

  Merrily put down her toast. ‘Jane, any other time I might be mildly affronted to think a bunch of loonies had put out a fatwa on me on the Internet, but right now... hold on, turn it up.’

  Jane angrily turned up the radio far too loud. A woman said, ‘... remote Welsh border village of Old Hindwell, where the local rector has declared holy war on a community of witches occupying a one-time parish church. In Old Hindwell is our reporter, Tim Francis. Tim, what’s happening there?’

  ‘Well, not too much at the moment, Melissa, but I suspect this is merely the calm before the storm, because tonight is when the witches are proposing to actually reconsecrate this former Christian church to their own gods. Tonight is, in fact, the pagan festival known as Imbolc – I think I pronounced that right – which is apparently the first really important witches’ sabbath of the year.’

  ‘Gosh, that sounds rather sinister.’

  ‘Well, apparently it commemorates the start of the Celtic spring, which is not terribly sinister... However... what is seen by the rector, Nick Ellis, as a provocative gesture is the witches’ intention to celebrate that festival tonight inside the former St Michael’s Church, which in effect will make it into a pagan temple again.’

  ‘And are they going to dance in the nude, Tim?’

  ‘God,’ said Jane, ‘this woman is so sad.’

  ‘I would say that is, um, a strong possibility. Now, last night we saw the new owner of the church, Robin Thorogood, clearly trying to calm down the situation when he confronted Nick Ellis here at the entrance to his farm, also leading to the church.’

  Clip of Robin Thorogood over rain: ‘We never touched your lousy church. There’s no dragon here, no Satan. So just... just, like, go back and tell your God we won’t hold you or your crazy stuff against him.’

  Tim said, ‘However, Melissa, last night’s placatory attitude was to be short-lived. We believe about a dozen witches are now residing at the farm here, and their leader, the latest to arrive, is a former official of the British Pagan Federation and an outspoken proponent of pagan religion. That’s Ned Bain...’

  Jane gasped.

  ‘... who joins me now. Ned Bain, the impression we all get is that you’re raising the stakes here. The very fact that you, a leading pagan activist, have come all the way from London—’

  ‘I think, Tim, that the stakes have already been raised enormously by Nicholas Ellis. He’s a driven man, a fanatic, who’s made life hell for two people who just wanted to be left alone to practise their religion.’

  ‘In a Christian church.’

  ‘In an abandoned church built on a site of ancient worship. Nicholas Ellis made the preposterous suggestion last night that he and his cronies should be allowed access to the site to carry out what amounts to an exorcism. Well, let’s not forget this land now belongs to Betty and Robin Thorogood. They’ve been faced with an army of militant Christians who’ve promised to turn up in even greater numbers. We’re here to support the Thorogoods.’

  ‘And you’ll be welcoming the Celtic spring with them tonight.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘At the church itself?’

  ‘At a site of established ancient sanctity.’

  ‘And how many of you will be involved in that?’

  ‘A full coven. Thirteen members.’

  Melissa said from the studio, ‘Ned, you going to be dancing in the nude?’

  ‘We shall probably be skyclad, yes, unless the weather is particularly inclement.’

  ‘You’ll be freezing!’

  ‘Melissa, our beliefs will keep us warm.’

  ‘Well, rather you than me. Thank you, Ned Bain, and Tim Francis. And we’ll keep you up to date with whatever happens. Now, here on 5 Live...’

  Jane switched off. When she turned round, her face had darkened.

  ‘They’re not taking any of it seriously.’

  ‘Vicars and witches? What did you expect?’

  ‘How can you sit there and—’

  ‘Because I’m used to it. It’s a secular society and we’ve become a quaint anachronism. Of course they’re not taking it seriously.’ Unfortunately, they would do soon, if it came out that the police had interviewed Betty regarding Mrs Wilshire.

  Jane pulled out a chair and sat down directly opposite Merrily. ‘You have got to listen to me, do you understand?’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Ned Bain—’

  ‘He’s a smooth operator. A clever man.’

  ‘It goes deeper. Up in the gallery, at Livenight, we found the researcher already knew all about you and Dad and how Dad died and where it happened and everything, and he told Irene he got that information from Ned Bain, and it’s all there on the Kali Three Web site with suggestions that you should be regarded as an enemy, like, by pagans and occultists everywhere.’

  ‘How do you know all that?’ The kid had her full attention now.

  ‘Because Irene spoke to Gerry, the researcher, afterwards.’

  ‘About your dad? They had all that?’

  For an awful moment, she was back in that stifling, oppressive studio, dry-mouthed, with Bain lazily watching her through what appeared, for just a moment, to be Sean’s eyes.

  ‘Everything,’ Jane confirmed.

  And earlier that man smiling Sean’s pained, ‘Isn’t it all so tedious?’ smile. All of it following a Sean-haunted drive up the M5, and then, when returning home, on that same stretch of motorway, on the way back.

  ‘What we figured it means,’ Jane said, ‘is that people all over the world were probably sending you ill will at that point.’

  ‘Down their computers?’

  ‘Don’t try and laugh it off. You were crap on telly.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Maybe that wasn’t all your fault, you know? There’s a lot of really heavy people out there. They knew your weaknesses: your guilt trip about Dad and the Church.’

  ‘That’s... silly.’

  ‘And now Ned Bain’s in Old Hindwell.’

  ‘OK, not good.’

  Two religious fanatics facing each other across the ruins of a church that was spiritually suspect. Both sides raising the stakes.

  Betty Thorogood came down, wearing a sloppy old baseball sweate
r of Jane’s. She declined an egg, but accepted toast and honey.

  She’d heard the radio report from upstairs.

  She said she was going back to St Michael’s.

  ‘I don’t want that church reconsecrating – not in anybody’s name. I’m not forecasting some apocalypse scenario, I just don’t want it to happen. I’m stopping it.’

  ‘You’ve got thirteen people to persuade. All determined to celebrate Candlemas.’

  ‘They can bloody well do it somewhere else,’ Betty said flatly.

  Merrily brought coffee. ‘Tell me exactly what happens at Candlemas.’

  ‘It’s the festival of Brigid, the triple goddess.’

  ‘Three stages of womanhood,’ Jane translated, ‘maiden, mother, hag.’

  ‘Imbolc means belly. It’s about Mother Earth giving birth to spring, so in Wicca we put the emphasis on the mother. Three women are involved in the rite, but the mother wears the crown of lights... that’s a headdress of candles. This is a festival of light and new awakening. Of all the sabbats, it’s probably the one closest to Christianity, I’d guess.’

  Merrily nodded.

  ‘Normally, it would be an especially good time to consecrate a church or temple, simply because it’s coming out of a long period of darkness, reawakening to spring.’

  ‘Everything perfect, then,’ Merrily said neutrally, ‘for giving back Old Hindwell to the old gods.’

  ‘No, everything’s utterly wrong – take it from me. If there were good omens before, it all reversed when we moved in. I’ve become snappy and irritable and... alienated from Robin. We’ve hardly even, you know, touched each other since we arrived. And even regarding money. Robin had the possibility – almost the certainty – of a very lucrative contract, to do seven book covers for Kirk Blackmore, the fantasy writer.’

  ‘Wow,’ Jane said. ‘I used to read his stuff, when I was a kid.’

  ‘And then the rug seems to have been pulled. Blackmore’s decided he doesn’t like Robin’s concept, and it’s Blackmore calls the shots. That’s just the latest thing to go wrong.’