Paradise Walk

by Mary Malloy

  “And where does the Arthurian part come in?”

  “Apparently he misheard a local story about a ruin on Cadbury’s summit and mushed it up with one of the Arthurian tales of Chretian de Troyes.”

  “You will not believe this, but two days ago I had that very book in my hand! I will say once more, dear Jackie, that I am very glad you are here, but this Leland guy does not seem like a model for us at all!”

  “I know. He was really just an excuse. I was jealous that Kate was coming along on part of your walk and I wanted to get my oar into the enterprise.”

  Lizzie explained some of her conversations of the previous days with Alison about the persistence of the Arthurian legends. “And you should see Glastonbury!” she said with a hoot. “My God, it is King Arthur meets the Age of Aquarius! He is just as appealing to the New Age crowd as he has ever been.”

  “You will love this then. After John Leland identified Mount Cadbury as Camelot, a story developed that Arthur’s secret burial is in a cavern on the hillside and every year he and his knights come thundering down the mountain to Glastonbury at midnight on Christmas Eve, or Midsummer Eve, or Midsummer Night, or Halloween, or maybe only every seven years, or some other bullshit.”

  “You and Alison will get along very well when you meet,” Lizzie said, reflecting on the personalities of her old friend and her new friend.

  They walked on companionably, discussing books and ideas, personal and professional lives, and the terrific journal and tapestry left by the Weaver. Though they had been colleagues and friends for many years, they had never spent so much time together so far from home. They passed a pretty little Norman church at Yarlington, and took the opportunity to step inside the cool darkness to break the heat of the sun. There was a monument there to the son of the “Lord of the Manor,” killed at Ypres in 1916 at the age of twenty-three. It was a mosaic of an armored knight.

  “The images of the aristocracy are everywhere!” Lizzie said in feigned disgust.

  “You don’t fool me, Lizzie Manning! You love this stuff!”

  “Ha! I know an Englishman who will argue with you on that!”

  Occasionally they pulled out the map to check their progress and they found several intriguing placenames. “Jack White’s Gibbet” was especially interesting, but in trying to reach it, they ended up slogging through a calf-deep marsh that left them wet and soggy.

  As the afternoon wore on they were eager to find a place for lunch or tea and decided to walk along the road for a time rather than stay on the footpaths. Their shoes and socks were soaked and squishy, and at one point Lizzie found that her knees were refusing to bend. A lovely old hotel, the Hol-brook House, beckoned to them around a bend, with a sign out front advertising traditional English teas.

  “That sign is like a bell and I am Pavlov’s dog,” Jackie said. “Bring on the food, I am salivating.”

  They entered the lobby and sank into low soft couches.

  “I may not ever be able to rise from here,” Lizzie said in a half-complaint. “I’d like to strip off these shoes and socks, but I don’t think I can do it in a place so elegant.”

  Jackie leaned over and whispered. “It may have been elegant in its day, but that day is long past.”

  There were a few ancient relics sitting in chairs around the lobby. Like the place itself, they looked like they might have been elegant in their day.

  “Maybe we should just stay here,” Jackie suggested. “It will make tomorrow’s walk a little longer to Shaftesbury, but I am beat.”

  Lizzie looked out the window and saw a field of buttercups, through which a small herd of cows sauntered. One of them strolled over and looked at her.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s see if they have rooms available.”

  Once they had changed and eaten, Jackie asked Lizzie to explain to her again the purpose of the pilgrimage. “It doesn’t seem like the route is very exact, so how are you collecting evidence?”

  “This isn’t quite like any other research project I’ve ever undertaken,” Lizzie started. “I know that you think I generally make things up as I go along—this time I really am.”

  It was so much the history and habit of their friendship to speak acerbically to each other, that Lizzie was almost surprised by the gentle tone with which Jackie responded.

  “You know that you are my favorite scholar, Lizzie. You approach things with enthusiasm and you are open to changing your opinion if evidence goes in a different direction than you expect. I wouldn’t quite say that is making things up as you go along.”

  “Why Jackie,” Lizzie answered, touched by the remark. “That is positively sweet of you.” She pulled the journal and the tapestry pictures from her bag. “In answer to your first question, I am confused about how to proceed, especially now that Alison is out of the picture at a particularly crucial moment.” She gestured at the pile of papers and photos. “Will you help me?”

  “Get the maps out too,” Jackie answered. “You clearly know the major places to stop, as they are pictured on the tapestry map. But how are you determining the intermediate paths?”

  Lizzie raised her shoulders in frustration. “Alison was never very clear on that, beyond that there are some paths that are clearly ancient and that the Weaver would almost certainly have traveled on them; the path up from Castle Cary today is a good example.”

  “Yes, but after a time there were too many options and we just sort of sloshed around. Her journal doesn’t mention Wincanton or any other intermediate place?”

  Lizzie shook her head.

  “Then let us assume that unless a place is indicated in either the journal or the tapestry that it doesn’t matter.” Jackie began to line the journal entries up with the photographs. “So you have been to Bath, Glastonbury and Castle Cary, all mentioned in the journal. What did you find? Anything referring to our Weaver character?”

  Lizzie pulled her camera from her bag and plugged it into her computer. She showed Jackie the picture she had taken in Wells Cathedral.

  “Do you see this mark,” she said, pointing to the AW monogram carved into the stone. “This is her signature.”

  “Was she a stone carver?”

  Lizzie explained that she thought the Weaver might have commissioned a stone carving, in the same way she had commissioned Flemish weavers to make the tapestry.

  “So her monogram is on the tapestry?” Jackie asked.

  “Yes,” Lizzie answered, “in several places.” She drew one of the pictures from the pile. “It is on the edge of each of the panels. Here, for instance, you see it near Canterbury Cathedral, and here near London.” She explained that she had also seen it in the cartouche of Wells Cathedral on the tapestry, but only after she had found the signature on the stone. “And here it is on Glastonbury Abbey,” she said, the disappointment in her voice obvious. “If her mark means that she left some evidence there in the form of a donation, there is now no way to find out what it might have been. The whole place is a ruin.”

  Jackie arched one eyebrow and gave Lizzie her best imitation of a penetrating look. “Ha! No way to find out? Please Lizzie, it is our job to find things that seem not to be there.”

  Lizzie shook her head. “You are my favorite librarian, Jackie, because you are a font of knowledge on such an arcane range of subjects, but I don’t see how even you can pull an object out of the wreckage of Glastonbury Abbey five hundred years after it was destroyed.”

  Jackie knocked twice on Lizzie’s head. “Hello?” she said. “The Abbey was destroyed, but what about the stuff?”

  “What stuff?”

  “The contents! The marauders sent out to destroy the various religious houses carted the valuable contents back to London. And I would be surprised if our friend John Leland didn’t have something to say about that. Those guys kept excellent records; there is probably a list somewhere of everything they stole.”

  This had not occurred to Lizzie. “Where would such a list be kept?” she asked dubiousl
y.

  “Don’t know yet,” Jackie answered, “but give me an hour on the Internet.”

  Lizzie began to feel excited at the possibility. “But how would we ever be able to know what she might have given from a list of thousands of articles?”

  “If that distinctive monogram appears on anything, then it will likely be mentioned in a catalogue description if the piece still exists. You know that.” Jackie opened her computer and began to search. “My guess is that records like this are at the Public Records Office.” She spoke as she typed, “Reign of Henry VIII, Glastonbury Abbey, and oh my God, look at this!”

  Lizzie sat beside her and looked at the computer screen.

  “They actually have the records of an outfit called ‘The Royal Commission for the Destruction of Shrines.’ No attempt whatsoever to disguise the crime by a euphemistic name.” She scrolled through page after page of manuscripts that had been scanned and downloaded. “There may be a searchable transcription of this list,” she said, “and we certainly aren’t going to be able to get through it tonight, but now you know that all is not lost, Lizzie. We may yet find out what your friend the Weaver gave to Glastonbury Abbey.”

  “You are an absolute genius!” Lizzie gushed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I wish Alison was well enough for me to tell her.” She grabbed her cell phone. “I will call Edmund instead, and find out how she is doing after her surgery.”

  The news was good. Alison was resting comfortably and was expected to make a full recovery. She would stay in the hospital at Bristol for three or four days and then go to Hengemont with George. Lizzie told Edmund that Jackie was with her and that they would trek to Shaftesbury the following day. “Will Alison be ready to receive visitors the day after tomorrow?”

  “I know she’d love to see you. She was babbling a bit about some conference coming up next week, and wanted me to tell you that you must still go.”

  “I’ll let her get her full faculties back before we make that decision,” Lizzie said, “but please tell her I am thinking about her.”

  When she turned off her phone Jackie was looking at her. “Edmund?”

  “Yes, and why are you saying it with that look on your face?”

  “Is Martin jealous?”

  “Of course not,” Lizzie insisted, “and just to prove it I will call him as soon as you go to your own room.”

  As Jackie packed up her things they talked about the next day’s walk. “It’s going to be a climb,” she said. “Steeper than today. The desk clerk told me that Shaftesbury is on a hill higher than the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.”

  “What a wonderful way to measure it!”

  “Such an optimist,” Jackie said with a laugh. “My first thought was Ugh!”

  “Thanks again for coming, Jackie. Your timing was perfect!”

  Chapter 18

  The weather was cool the next morning, comfortable for walking. Both women felt strong and refreshed and they made good time along well-marked footpaths. The day was so quiet that they could hear the munching of cows as they passed along the side of a pasture. Their first goal was a nature reserve called Duncliffe Wood, and as they approached it, Lizzie told Jackie that this was the sort of path she had dreamed about when she accepted Alison’s offer. It was a straight path of hard-packed dirt; a high canopy of trees overhead blocked the brightest rays of the sun, but allowed pale beams to pick their way through and move about the path like small spotlights, as the trees bent and moved with the wind.

  The path gained elevation as the woods became thicker. At one point a ruddy brown deer stepped onto the path before them and Lizzie and Jackie instantly stopped, holding their breath to keep from startling it, but it seemed unconcerned about their presence and moved on at its own pace.

  They were silent for much of the time, though Jackie occasionally recited lines from poetry as the surroundings inspired her.

  “I know I should probably quote from Shelley or Byron,” she said at one point, “this being England and all, but when it comes to describing woods I don’t think any of them can compare to our own Robert Frost. These woods are lovely, dark and deep.”

  “And we have miles to go before we sleep.”

  “Okay, that too, but I was going to go on to that other great Frost poem about woods, because I think it speaks to your pilgrimage route planning: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

  And sorry I could not travel both

  And be one traveler, long I stood

  And looked down one as far as I could

  To where it bent in the undergrowth.

  Then took the other, as just as fair.”

  “You know that Alison teaches the British Romantic poets?” Lizzie broke in.

  “Of course. You remember that I looked up her entire career as soon as you said you were going to be working for her.”

  “Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray,” Lizzie quoted, trying on Jackie the Wordsworth poem that had failed to impress Alison. “And when I crossed the wild, I chanced to see at break of day, the solitary child.”

  Jackie gave her an unimpressed look.

  “What?” Lizzie whined. “Didn’t you think those little footprints disappearing in the snow were creepy?”

  Her friend ignored her. “Didn’t Alison write a book on Coleridge that has some Captain Cook references? Right up your alley I’d say.”

  “I read it and it’s not bad.”

  “So how is it, working for her?”

  “I am really loving this project. And I’ve come to love her too. She’s smart and straightforward. I think you’ll like her.”

  “Will we go see her tomorrow?”

  “That’s my plan. If I am going to give a presentation at the Chaucer conference, I need to check in with her.”

  As they left the woods and progressed to the back roads into Shaftesbury, the climb got steeper. At one point the hill was so steep that they could take only five or ten steps before they had to rest. They walked alongside an old stone wall which they learned at the top defined the perimeter of Shaftesbury Abbey. On the other side of the road were thatch-roofed cottages and beyond them a deep valley. It was a dramatic view.

  Shaftesbury Abbey was in even more of a ruinous state than Glastonbury. No part of it that had been above ground survived, and only an excavated foundation showed where the outline of the buildings had been. Here too, the Weaver had made a donation of some kind, described with frustrating terseness in the journal, and here she had put her mark on the tapestry.

  Jackie attempted to be encouraging when she saw the disappointed look on Lizzie’s face. “At least we now know that when the Commission for the Destruction of Shrines rampaged through here they left some records. We’ll just add this place to the search when we look at the Glastonbury material.”

  Lizzie nodded and thanked her. “What a terribly destructive business that was,” she said with a sigh. “To wreck centuries of art and architecture in the name of God.”

  “I don’t think God had anything to do with it. Henry VIII was not exactly a paragon of religiosity.” She asked how this site compared to Glastonbury.

  Lizzie answered that the site was much smaller, and the destruction much greater. “Time and neglect seem to have finished the work here that Henry started.”

  “It’s a nice garden, though,” Jackie said. She picked up a brochure at the gate. “They have reconstructed an Anglo-Saxon herb garden.”

  They wandered through the garden and read about the site in the brochure.

  “When Alison and I were in Glastonbury,” Lizzie said, “we spent almost the whole time talking about people with only a mythic relationship to the place, King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea, but here the historical record is really substantial. It was founded by Alfred the Great, who we know was an actual Saxon king.”

  Jackie was still reading the brochure. “I’m interested in the story here of Edward the Martyr. Apparently his corpse was the important one in terms of drawing people here for a pilgrimage.”


  “Who was he?”

  “In a nutshell, he was the son of a Saxon King, Edgar, and his first wife Ethelfleda the Fair. Young Edward succeeded his father to the throne in 975, but was murdered four years later by his father’s second wife Elfrida, who wanted her own son, Ethelred, to rule.”

  “How does that make him a martyr? Don’t you have to die for God?”

  “I think kings have a fast pass to martyrdom if they are murdered.” Jackie responded before continuing the story. “Anyway, Edward’s remains were placed here in Shaftesbury Abbey and started to perform miracles and attract pilgrims. Ethelred, who was called ‘the Unready’ for the rest of his life, was deposed by Vikings in 1013. His son also became a saint, Edward the Confessor.”

  “I wonder what happened to his corpse,” Lizzie mused. “Here was another former king, whose remains were apparently just swept away when the abbey was destroyed. Don’t you think that is strange?”

  Jackie shrugged. “I don’t know. Who cares?”

  “Obviously not you.”

  “I don’t care about kings or saints! In fact the whole idea of relics is just fucking weird!”

  As they walked back through the gate and onto the main street of Shaftesbury, Lizzie asked the gatekeeper what had become of the relics of Edward the Martyr.

  “They were hidden at the time of the destruction of the Abbey,” he explained, “and buried elsewhere on the grounds.” He leaned over to whisper to her. “They found them again when the site was excavated in 1931, and his majesty was sold to a Russian Orthodox Church in Woking that needed relics.”

  “What?” Lizzie said, shocked by the information. “The remains of a king and saint were simply sold?”

  The man nodded. “They were. This land then was owned by the Claridge family of hotel fame, and they sold them relics to the Russians. There are those who hope they will be sent back some day.” He pointed to a large square stone in the middle of the site. “You see that altar? That is where they hope to lay him when he returns.”