“Got it in one.” He stooped and unzipped a side pocket from his bag. “Hope I’m not too late, I mean, this being St Michael’s Church and all, I wanted to give you these before we left.” He started handing around small cards bearing the image of an avenging St Michael the Archangel subduing the Evil One even as flames from the pit of hell reached out to devour him. “My church—well, my gran’s, really—is St Michael’s, so they sent these to everyone.”
Antony turned his card over. May the prayers of St Michael and All Angels sustain you on your pilgrimage. You will be remembered each day of your journey by our congregation. The cards had been printed especially for them. The thoughtfulness and devotion that had provided these cards warmed him.
“The priest, er, like, blessed them, too. He said to say. He’s an old geezer, but he’s cool.” Jared was obviously embarrassed by all the holy stuff he had been commissioned to relay. He let out a long breath when his duty had been performed.
But the sense of comfort Antony had first felt ended in a shiver. “Your priest. What’s his name?”
“Father Finan.”
“Gray hair, long? Beard?” Antony held his hands out from his face to indicate a substantial bush.
“Tha’s it. You know him?” Jared seemed pleased.
“Not personally.” But Antony knew his reputation. Father Finan had written an important book on his experiences as a deliverance minister. How appropriate that he was now vicar at a church dedicated to St Michael the Archangel, of whom demons were particularly afraid.
Did this prescient, experienced exorcist have a premonition that they were going to be in special need of his prayers?
Chapter 9
Monday, continued
Felicity volunteered to be first to carry the cross, although when she picked it up she was surprised at its weight. Carrying this up and down mountains could amount to more than a symbolic burden. Still, with all that had been going on, she wanted personal contact with this concrete reminder to pray. The weight of the cross felt good.
If only it were the only weight she felt. Even in the late morning sunshine, she had a sense of brooding darkness as if clouds surrounded the sun, rather than only scattered bits of stratus. She tightened her grip on the uneven bark and raised the cross aloft. What was she thinking to let depression get her down? This wasn’t like her at all. Good vigorous exercise was what she needed to shake off this mood. She would outwalk the darkness.
She gave her head a hearty shake, making her hair cascade across her back, raised her chin and looked at Ryan for directions.
“Cross the road in front of the church,” he pointed. “Then take the track to your left. On up a bit when the track becomes a driveway to houses, you’ll turn left and follow the way-marked footpath round the back of the industrial buildings.” He held the map out for her to see.
“Industrial buildings.” Felicity groaned and looked at the dispiriting buildings and tarmac before them. This was supposed to be a bucolic ramble through green hillsides dotted with safely grazing sheep. She looked closer at the map: Industrial park, industrial estate, tight clusters of buildings drawn on the map. How was she going to outstrip her depression in such dismal surroundings?
Ryan consulted the notes accompanying his map. “The traditional route out of Llantarnam followed an ancient trackway which was used in 1179 as the boundary of the land given by Hywel ab Iorwerth to the monks. Unfortunately, it’s now a suburban main road.” He shrugged and smiled as if to say, “Can’t fight progress.”
Right. Best thing was just to get through it. Felicity led out. Once everyone was safely across the road she half turned to Ryan. “So you’re doing your gap year?” That part of the educational schedule for so many British young people was an intriguing idea to Felicity. That it should be an accepted thing for a student to take a year off their formal studies to work, travel, do volunteer work, or explore new interests before going on to university was not part of the American system. Of course, many young people had to take some time to work to get money to go to college or university, but taking a gap year would more likely be viewed as slacking.
“Yeah, it’s been good. I’ve had time to think. I worked in a garden center and volunteered at a youth club. This pilgrimage sort of brings it all together.”
“Being out in nature—getting close to the geography, you mean?”
“Well, yeah, there’s that. We’ll be walking through some amazing land formations, but I meant more the spiritual side. I wouldn’t have wanted to come on this a year ago, but working with the kids at the club—a lot of them were pretty troubled— made me appreciate my family.”
They continued to chat intermittently, but the whizzing Monday midday traffic in the heavily built-up area made sustained conversation difficult. Still, Felicity held in her mind the idea that she would soon be above all this, on the cool green mountainside she occasionally glimpsed in the distance. Then she could begin the “getting away from it all” that Antony had promised her when she had signed on to this adventure. Whenever her steps started to flag with the weight she carried at the back of her mind, she gave herself another shake and pushed forward with a lengthened stride.
Walking along the canal offered a bit of a respite, and the stone buildings lining the high street of Old Cwmbran held traces of its quieter, perhaps more picturesque, past. But Felicity was finding the upward slope of the street to be deceptively steep.
“Shall I carry the cross for you?”
Felicity smiled at Ryan and handed it over gratefully. “I’ll take the map, then.” But after she looked at it and saw that they had next a retail park and then an industrial park to go through, she wished she hadn’t looked ahead. Walking through urban industrial areas was not her idea of what a pilgrimage should be. Still, there, just on a bit was the Greenmeadow Community Farm where they would meet the minibus for lunch, and the second Station.
The path up to the farm grew increasingly steeper, the traffic along the road below the footpath noisier, until the now-wooded trail moved off to skirt around the back of a housing estate on their left. Felicity was happy to be walking on a dirt path after all the pavement, but in spite of the leafy branches overhead, the path was anything but idyllic. The way was marred by litter caught in the bushes, rusty wire coiling along the side, and shards of broken glass in the walkway. Ryan lowered the cross to lead them through a damp, shadowy underpass where a couple stood wrapped in each other’s arms continuing their intense kissing unperturbed by the train of pilgrims passing only a couple of feet beside them.
Out of the tunnel, the air cleared as the path emerged on the edge of a green, wooded hillside. The sun had ducked behind a cloud; it was almost misty. Felicity took in a great gulp of air and looked around in wonder. “It’s so peaceful after all of that.”
Jared gave the wide, loose-lipped smile that covered half of his face. “Have to take the good with the bad, don’t you?”
Remembering Antony’s admonition that the walkers should get to know each other, Felicity asked, “Jared, what are you interested in?”
He looked puzzled at first, as if he couldn’t think of anything. And then his face lit up. “Llamas.”
“You’re interested in llamas?”
“Yeah, I guess I sort of am. But I mean—look.”
The hillside to their right was dotted with the woolly, long-necked creatures with their floppy ears and gentle eyes. “Supposed to be the largest herd of breeding llamas in Wales,” Ryan turned back to say. “All kinds of animals here.”
Jared looked back over his shoulder for as long as the animals were in sight, until the path veered to the left. Felicity wondered if he had found an interest; perhaps boredom was the root of his history as a troublemaker.
Felicity’s stomach growled and she began looking around for the familiar silver van. She felt as if they had been walking for ages. It couldn’t have been more than two or three hours, yet it seemed like days since they had thanked Sister Alicia and th
e fully recovered Sister Florence for their gracious hospitality, and set out walking in a scraggly queue across the abbey grounds.
Around another curve in the steep path, a familiar figure strode toward them. Michael raised a hand in greeting. “Anyone hungry?” A chorus of assenting groans greeted his implied invitation. “I found a nice green spot just up here a bit.”
A green spot sounded wonderful, but Felicity was so hungry she would have accepted a cup of tea and a sandwich even if it had meant standing in a musty underpass with a fondling couple beside her. When they arrived at the rolling green hillside dotted with scrub brush and deciduous trees, however, she was happy, indeed, to be beyond such unsavory surroundings. Now, a nice cup of tea, some nourishment, a bit of a rest and the real pilgrimage could begin. No more gloomy doldrums, she vowed. Her earlier megrims were merely low spirits. Nothing more sinister than that.
“Michael, you’re a genius.” She surveyed the feast he had spread for them, even unfolding a small camp table to hold all the sandwich-makings he had purchased in Cwmbran for everyone to assemble their lunch from. Felicity started to fall ravenously on the food, then realized she was supposed to be the hostess. “Come on, Adam.” She steered the boy who was looking even smaller and paler than usual to the buffet. “How did you do with all that walking?”
“Oh, it was brill,” he said, grabbing a slice of bread and slathering it with mayonnaise before stacking on cold cuts and pickle. He grinned. “Did you see those two snogging? And—”
“That’s enough, Squib,” Lydia cut her brother off with a sharp rebuke. Pink tinged his cheeks, and his shoulders slumped as he returned silently to his sandwich-making.
Felicity moved on to see if she could help Michael serve the tea from the large flasks he had prepared before they left the abbey, but again Lydia preempted her as the auburn-haired woman began filling bright plastic beakers with steaming liquid.
After everyone had eaten their fill, and Lydia had efficiently repacked the leftover food while Felicity was enjoying her second cup of tea, Antony strolled over to join her. He sat on the grass, his back against a small, scrubby tree. “Not bad for our first official morning, do you think? How did you get on?”
“Brilliant. Great!” Then she realized her brightness sounded too forced. “Well, OK after the yucky bits. But it’ll be fine now.” Her smile felt only slightly stiff.
Michael joined them, holding out his map. “Right. St Derfel’s Chapel next stop. Only a few miles, but this bit,” he indicated the contouring on the map, “will be plenty steep.” He grinned at Antony. “Might want to say a Station before you start down that, Father.”
“And then we start up again.” Ryan, who joined them around the map, spoke up. “Steep grade there. I assume that cross is where we’re going.” He pointed to the tiny black mark on the map.
Antony nodded. “St Derfel’s Chapel. Well, what little is left of it, anyway. Still, a traditional stop for pilgrims. We’ll have Eucharist there, and tea.”
“I’ll do my best,” Michael said. “It’s a bit off the road, so the satnav can’t find it.”
“What, no postcode for a ruined sixth-century chapel?” Colin chimed in.
Felicity’s mind boggled at the idea of keying an ancient chapel named after an obscure saint into a GPS. “Maybe they should come out with a new version that can pick up on vibes— halo nav.”
Antony called the rest of the group, scattered across the green hillside, together. Jared arrived with Evie and Kaylyn, Evie walking with a jaunty step and giggling as she tipped her head back to look up at their tall escort, Kaylyn still in her remote shell. Lydia shooed Adam forward sharply. “Wake up, Squib. Must you always be daydreaming?” Then added to no one in particular, “That child is a constant plague.”
Nancy picked up the cross Ryan had leaned against a bush, and carried it forward for the reading of Jesus taking up His cross. Then, refreshed by the stop, they moved forward. Felicity soon noticed their path was significantly lower than the land on either side. “A hollow way,” Ryan explained before she could ask “Over time they are created incrementally by erosion, by water, and traffic.”
The way was steep, but with such a definite trail there was no risk of losing their way here. They passed a few houses which Ryan told her were nineteenth century. That sounded old to Felicity, but she realized it was brand-spanking new from the perspective of St Derfel.
The going was hard as the way climbed steadily. They crossed a road near some cottages to ascend a steep hill, and eventually joined a rough road near a farm called Gelli Grafog. “Do you know what that means?” she asked Ryan.
“Roughly, small wood or copse.”
“Do you speak Welsh?”
He shrugged. “Not really speak. But I can get the sense of most things. With something like that—it helps one understand the geography.”
Now the way led as sharply downhill as it had earlier been up. Felicity was aware of less general conversation among the walkers, although she could hear a steady hum that told her Colin was talking nonstop to Antony, and an occasional giggle from Evie who dogged Jared’s heels on the single track path. Felicity hoped they wouldn’t have trouble finding this chapel. She knew Antony was concerned that they were behind their expected pace, and the sun was already arching toward the west. Even with her determination, she was feeling her energy lag.
And then from just ahead of her a light soprano voice led out, “Walk, walk in the light…” Ryan, nearest to Nancy, picked it up. A breeze blew the words back and others joined in. “Walk in the light of God…” Felicity tuned her ear to catch Antony’s rich tenor, but was surprised to hear Jared’s deep bass, and then a pure soprano that she at first thought must be Evie and then realized was Adam—a chorister any cathedral would boast of. What an interesting group this was. She wondered what other surprises these diverse personalities held.
By the time they reached the bottom of the draw her legs were aching, but her spirits were the best they had been all day. Nancy had been inspired to start singing. This quiet young woman was certainly going to be an asset to the group, thought Felicity. Less than a mile on and a small signpost read “Llandderfel Farm.” Ah, that was what they were looking for.
“What does llan mean? That prefix seems to be everywhere,” Felicity asked Ryan, whom she was quickly coming to consider a source of all knowledge. It was no wonder he had won a place at Oxford for the fall term.
“Llan originally referred to an enclosure; later it came to mean ‘church.’”
“Oh, so this was Derfel’s church!”
“Right. We’ll have you speaking Cymru before you go home.”
Felicity laughed. “Oh, I doubt that. But I would love to pick up a few words.”
They gathered on the track below the stone farmhouse nestled on the green hillside and said a Station. Felicity was glad enough to take a breather as she took a long draw on her water bottle, but was becoming more concerned for their time.
At the end of the brief meditation, Adam stepped forward and held out a hand to Nancy. “I’ll carry it now, if I may.”
The cross was taller than he was, and Felicity could see Nancy’s hesitation to hand it over.
“What nonsense are you about, Squib?” A sharp voice demanded.
“Of course you may!” Nancy thrust the cross into Adam’s hands even before his face could fall at his sister’s sharp rebuke.
“Wait here,” Antony directed. “I’ll just check with the farmer. It’s supposed to be cleared for us to go into his field.”
Felicity looked around. There was no sign of a silver van. Perhaps Michael’s “halo nav” had let him down. They hadn’t seen an actual road for some time, but the land was crisscrossed with farm tracks. How would Michael ever find them? The sun now seemed to be lodged permanently behind a gray cloud bank, and a chill breeze was rising. She shivered. She had heard how quickly mists could come up, shrouding whole hillsides.
Antony, however, returned smiling,
and led the way up a dirt lane. Behind a low, iron-roofed stone barn the farmer stood in his Wellington boots, holding a gate open for them. “Ye may get a mite muddy up there, but ye’re right welcome. Lot of interest in that old pile of stones, it seems.”
They all greeted him and said “thank you” as they entered. “Right, you are. It’s noo trouble. Just make certain you lock the gate when ye’re done.” Antony assured him they would, and led the way on up the hill to, as the farmer had said, to a pile of scattered stones, indicating the broken walls of an ancient building.
Colin was the first to ask, “So who was this St Derfel?’
Felicity was glad it was a Welsh pilgrim who asked; it made her feel less ignorant. She was hoping she wasn’t the only one completely in the dark.
Antony gave his “I’m glad you asked that” smile. “Actually, Derfel is little known outside his home territory. I’ll admit to having swotted him up in preparation for the lecture Father Stephen was supposed to be giving you here today.” His smile didn’t speak of dissatisfaction with the new arrangement, however.
“Local legend holds that Derfel was a warrior of King Arthur. Derfel Gadarn—Gadarn meaning mighty, valiant or strong—was reputedly born around 566. He is said to be one of seven warriors of Arthur left standing after the Battle of Camlan. Derfel the Mighty is said to have survived by his strength alone. After Camlan, Welsh tradition is unanimous that Derfel entered the religious life.”
“And had a monastery or hermitage or something here?” Colin asked, looking around for more evidence of such activity.
“Tradition suggests he was a hermit for a while. That wouldn’t have been unusual, especially for one who had been a warrior. After that he is said to have entered a monastery and to have founded ‘Derfyl’s Church’ on this spot. It’s all a bit speculative, of course, but at a minimum, it’s likely he preached here, although the structure these stones represent would have been of later construction, dedicated to him.”
An Unholy Communion Page 8