It was two in the morning when Kier finally got back to his hotel. He had to knock up the night porter to get in. He regained his room and sat for a while, exhausted, on the bed. He must have dozed off because the next time he glanced at his watch it was nearly five. Splashing his face with cold water he switched on the kettle, then he took his notebook out of his suitcase. He had reached a decision as he sat in the little church in the dark, listening to the owl in the churchyard outside. He was going to follow Abi. She had taken a bag so she was going to stay somewhere. Cal had passed them a basket. If it was food it implied a long journey or going somewhere that might not be ready for them. Justin’s house. It was worth a gamble, and what other lead did he have? He thought hard. Where was it Justin lived? Surely one of the articles he had read online had mentioned a town? Ten minutes later, fortified by a cup of coffee mixed with two pots of disgusting milk substitute, he had the answer. Hay-on-Wye. Fifteen minutes after that with the help of his credit card and the fact that Justin Cavendish was not a common name he had the man’s address. He smiled grimly. The click of a button and he could download a satellite picture and mapped instructions on how to find the cottage. He silently thanked his former curate – former but one – he corrected himself wryly. Almost the only useful attribute that the man had possessed was a sure grasp of computer skills. One day when Kier had bemoaned the fact that he had lost touch with an old college chum the young man had introduced him to the art of people-finding. Kier finished his second cup of coffee, then he stood up. Within half an hour he was washed, shaved, packed and ready to go downstairs to pay his bill. Outside the window, even here in the city, the mist had returned.
Justin was sitting at the table in the living room when Abi appeared at last. A fire was blazing in the grate and the room was full of the incense smell of the oak blocks from the basket. He glanced up with a grin. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘OK.’ She sat down opposite him. ‘Did all that really happen or was it a bad dream?’ She ran her hands through her long hair, still damp from the shower. She had dug a pair of black jeans and a blue shirt out of her bag, with a cardigan slung over her shoulders.
‘It all happened.’ He reached across the table towards a jug and poured her a mug of black coffee. ‘I’ll make you some breakfast. Welcome to my world.’ He gestured towards the windows. The mist was still thick and white, lapping against the glass.
She took a sip of coffee and felt the caffeine hit as a physical jolt. ‘Have you heard anything from Woodley?’
He nodded. They are all there and still waiting for the bishop to arrive, I gather. No sign of Kier. Cal is cooking them all a huge breakfast which is what gave me the idea.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘You and I have work to do later, so food would be a good way of grounding us before we start.’
She scanned his face. ‘Work?’ It was slowly dawning on her that she was alone with this man, a druid priest, who was far too good-looking and attractive for her peace of mind, in the middle of God knows where, part of something which had all the makings of a first-rate melodrama, and they were discussing breakfast.
‘Did you bring your magic stone?’
She nodded. ‘It’s in my bag.’
‘Good. That will be where we start.’
While he was in the small kitchen – ‘only space for one at a time in here, so you can’t help,’ – she stared round. It was a man’s room, a scholar’s room, lined with books. On the table in the window she could see a computer – so he probably did have e-mail – and a phone, papers, more books. But there were other things, interesting things. Crystals, a drum, jars of dried herbs, bunches of ditto, a jar of large feathers – buzzard at a guess. Were these the working tools of a druid in the twenty-first century? Apart from the desk and writing chair there was the large table at which she seated herself, and two deep armchairs near the fire. There was no TV that she could see, and there were no other doors. In the corner of the room a small winding stair led out of sight to the upper storey. That must be where his bedroom was. Her own room was off a passage on the opposite corner on the ground floor, in a converted outbuilding of some sort, as was the kitchen and the obviously newly built bathroom with to her relief, every modern convenience. She was conscious of the smell of bacon drifting through the door. Not a vegetarian then. She bent to throw on another log. She suddenly felt ridiculously happy.
‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked as they tucked into the bacon and eggs and toast.
‘About five years.’ He gazed round the room fondly. ‘This is a magic house. I was incredibly lucky to be able to buy it. A young couple, Beth and Giles Campbell lived here, but they decided it was a bit remote once they started a family. Before that, a friend of mine, Meryn Jones was here for years. My guru and teacher.’ He gave a mischievous grin. ‘He lives in Scotland now, so I have in a sense inherited his hideout.’
‘It feels very special.’ She looked towards the window. ‘Is there a view?’ The mist was still all round them.
He laughed. ‘The gods of the druids have given us protection today. We are on top of the world here. You can see, and be seen, for miles.’ He paused. ‘I am sorry. Does it make you uncomfortable if I talk about other gods? It is easy to forget you are a vicar.’ So he too was aware of the irony of their situation.
It was her turn to laugh. ‘It should, but somehow it doesn’t. Everything that has been happening to me has opened my eyes to other beliefs in a way I hadn’t expected. If Our Lord studied with the druids, why shouldn’t I?’
He reached for the coffee jug. ‘Why not indeed.’ He looked at her attentively. ‘So, would you like to talk about your stone?’
They were shaken awake at dawn. ‘Come.’ The man beckoned Yeshua and Mora out into the cold rain-washed world. ‘The gods are with you. The tide and wind are right. I’ll take you over now.’
Mora glanced at Yeshua and put her finger to her lips. ‘Think of Sabrina as the guardian angel of the river,’ she had whispered to him the night before. ‘Your father god will help us – but so will she.’ And so it proved. The wind had dropped and the waves of the night before had settled to a gentle swell.
The boat was bigger than the ones she was used to on the meres and fens of home, with a small stumpy mast and a sail of tanned deerskin. A pile of nets lay in the stern. The tide was rising, carrying them over the mudflats then out across the deep channel and towards the northern coast. She could see two small islands with their attendant clouds of birds, and beyond them the dark hills of the interior of the Silurian territory, rising misty and mysterious in the distance. Once the breeze caught the sail they were able to ship the oars and sit back, enjoying the sunlight on the glittering water, watching the gulls swoop and dive. Nearby a seal surfaced briefly and gazed at them with soulful eyes before vanishing again under the waves. There were no other boats near them; if Flavius was still on their tail he must be waiting at Axiom for them to appear. Mora turned to look behind them, but there was no sign of any ships emerging from the harbour mouth beyond the point.
Their host ran the boat ashore at last on a pebbly beach below low cliffs. In the distance they could see a farmstead, much like the one where they had spent the night. ‘They will see you on your way,’ he said. ‘Good people even if they are from over the water.’ He chuckled.
Yeshua threw his pack onto the beach, then he climbed over the side and stood for a moment in the shallow water, holding the edge of the boat. ‘I want you to go back, Mora,’ he said. ‘This kind man has said he will take you and put you ashore somewhere safe.’ She had already risen to her feet and for a moment she stood balancing as the boat moved gently up and down beneath her, its nose firmly wedged in the sand, the tide already threatening to lift it free. ‘From now on I go alone,’ he said firmly as he saw her hesitate. ‘You must go back to the college, to your people and to Petra.’
‘But I want to go with you!’ She caught his wrist, feeling the warm blood pulsing under his skin. ‘Please.’
‘But you have healed her already,’ Mora protested. She was clinging to his hand.
Gently he freed himself. ‘Go home, Mora. Now, as the tide turns. I have to leave. I will always remember you.’
She felt the tears well up in her eyes. ‘Will you be safe?’
He nodded. ‘You know I will. It is written by the prophets. I will go home to my people and I will take up the position that my father put me on Earth to fill. He turned to look up the beach. ‘It appears I haven’t finished my apprenticeship in the Isles of the West. I will make my way north as far as I can go and then I will cross over to the eastern coast and return to my home from there. Do not fear, Flavius will not catch up with me. Not yet. But you must take care, my Mora. I do not want you to fall into his clutches.’ He put both his hands on the gunwale of the boat and began to push it round. The tide lifted it at once. ‘Take care of her, my friend,’ he said to their host. He leaned in and put his finger on Mora’s lips. ‘Do not look back. Fix your eyes on the south.’ With a last hard push he sent the boat sliding into the deeper channel, then he turned and began to walk up the beach.
Abi looked up at Justin. There were tears on her face. ‘She didn’t go with him.’
He shook his head. ‘It appears not.’
‘So, where were they?’
Justin stood up and went over to his bookshelves. He brought out an old cloth-bound volume and then after staring at the shelf for several seconds, another. ‘There are legends that after visiting Cornwall and various places in Somerset including of course Glastonbury and Priddy, Jesus crossed over into South Wales. Interestingly there is one strand that follows him in a fairly logical fashion doing exactly what he said, according to your Mora’s story. If I remember right, he was supposed to have landed near Monknash and Llanilltud Fawr on the coast near or in the Vale of Glamorgan.’ He was rifling through the pages. ‘Then the stories say that he went on, probably by sea, landing here and there up the coast of Wales, maybe over to Ireland, then to Scotland where he is supposed to have gone to Mull, I think, and of course to the sacred isle of Iona and then across to Fortingall where there is an ancient yew tree which would have been already ancient when he was there.’ He saw her look of incredulity and smiled. ‘It is a wonderful skein of legend and myth, always involving the druids, and, who knows, with maybe a bit of history thrown in, all trying to explain why in many eyes Britain is – or was – such a sacred, special place.’ He sat down at the table and reached for the other book. ‘I used to pooh-pooh this sort of thing as utter waffle, but over the years I have become more open-minded. Social and political historians will talk about attempts to boost Britain’s self-esteem and the need for a Protestant foundation ethic and such like, but, who knows?’ He shrugged. ‘And now here we have a window into what happened, via your stone.’
They both looked at it, nestling on Abi’s lap as she sat in one of the chairs near the fire.
‘The Serpent Stone.’ She smiled.
‘Is that what it’s called?’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I wonder why. Of course, the ancient druids were sometimes known as adders, as perhaps you know. In Welsh, the glain neidre, the jewel of the snake, was a special talisman, known to have powerful magical properties. No-one really knows what they were like, so perhaps we are looking at one here.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘But how does it work? Does it create a hologram?’ Picking it up she turned it over and over in her hands. ‘If we knew that, wouldn’t it give us some idea as to its – ’ She paused, searching for the right word.
‘Authenticity?’
She smiled. ‘If you like, yes. And its purpose. Why does it exist?’
‘I think a hologram might be a good way of describing what happens. I don’t know any more than you, to be honest. I do know that technically crystal can hold a memory. From the esoteric point of view we can say that looking into a crystal is an aid to looking into your own subconscious, just like looking into a bowl of water or a saucer of tea leaves.’ He grinned. ‘But crystal has an extra quality which can be scientifically measured. Quartz oscillates to a specific frequency which can be made to match the frequency of sound and of thought. So what is happening may not come from inside your head, it may be an actual physical phenomenon of some kind. I will dig out a book for you if you are interested. Crystals can be encoded and I think that is what has happened here.’ He stood up and held out his hand. ‘May I?’
She handed it to him and watched as he cupped it in his palm. ‘All we need to do is ask it,’ he said after a few seconds, shaking his head. ‘And that is for you to do. I have my own theories about how this was done, and how it is user protected,’ he grinned, ‘but I think you will have to ask Mora. It may be that we are not permitted to know that particular secret.’
A ray of sunlight fell on it, lighting the prisms in the cloudy crystal core of the stone. Putting it down, he stood up. ‘The mist has withdrawn. Come out for a moment and look round. You need to clear your head anyway before going back to the story.’
Following him out of the door she stood and stared. The cottage and its garden nestled in a nook on a low summit; on almost every side the ground fell away in stunning open views across the grassy mountainside, ridged and folded and sweeping. To the north, he showed her, they could see out across the Wye Valley to the Radnor Forest beyond; to east and west more hills, pools of mist still lying in some of the hollows. ‘It is beautiful.’ She turned round slowly, taking it all in.
He watched her, touched by the carefree expression on her face as she walked across to study his herb garden, Meryn’s herb garden, lovingly tended and enlarged by Beth. The strain and pallor had gone and with it the hunted look in her eyes.
Behind them the track led across the soft, sheep-cropped turf between the cottage and the hill road above. Abi stared at it for a moment. Was that a movement up there? The glint of sun on windscreen? She stepped away from Justin, thoughtfully narrowing her gaze against the glare. Kier was no fool. He could well have worked out where she might have gone; the others wouldn’t tell him, but it was probably possible to find his address somehow. She sighed.
Justin frowned. Something wasn’t right. He could sense it. ‘Shall we go back inside,’ he said quietly. ‘I want to study the stone, maybe test it further.’
She followed him in. With a quick look behind him he closed the door and slid the bolt. She bit her lip. ‘You saw it too. There is someone out there, isn’t there.’
He nodded. ‘I think so. We won’t take any chances. There are only two doors and they both have stout locks and bolts. We have nothing to fear.’ He glanced at her. She didn’t seem afraid at all. Was that her own serenity showing through or was it her confidence in his ability to keep them safe? He gave an inner chuckle. What he was about to do would probably freak out your average clergy person. He wondered how she would react. Probably calmly, he decided. He hoped.
He closed his eyes, went briefly inside his head and in seconds he had cast a protective shield around the house. The sun became hazy; a pall of mist drifted back up the valley. Opening his eyes, he gave her a sideways look and saw her raise an eyebrow. ‘Druid magic?’ she asked. She had noticed then! She didn’t seem phased when he gave a nod.
‘I’m sorry. I am sure Christianity has its own esoteric branches; probably no more than special prayer but maybe you need to know how to word it?’ He grinned.
‘I suppose we just pray. Perhaps I don’t know the esoteric stuff.’ She went to stand near the fire. ‘This is all so strange. Jesus, my Jesus, is different now. I see him in a new way. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to believe any more. This man, who kissed Mora, and paddled
in the sea, down there in the Bristol Channel, is my God.’ It was strangely easy to talk to him about her faith. In some ways easier than to his brother.
‘I don’t have to tell you, there is a lot about Jesus and boats in the Bible. His disciples were fishermen.’ Justin came over and piled logs onto the fire. ‘He stilled the storms. Who knows, perhaps that was druid magic he had learned here.’ He frowned as he straightened, listening. All they could hear was the crackle of the flames as they licked round the logs. He hastened across the room and pulled the curtains, hurrying between the windows until the room grew shady. Then he went over to the door and put his ear against it. Abi hadn’t moved.
He gestured at the front door silently. There was someone there.
Abi knelt down in front of the fire and held out her hands to the flames. She watched as Justin waited by the door. She could picture Kier the other side listening just as they were listening. He would know someone was at home because the car was outside, so why hadn’t he knocked?
She hugged her cardigan around her shoulders and watched as the flames climbed higher, illuminating the chimney. There was a loud crack as one of the logs split and she jumped. She turned and looked at Justin. He smiled at her and gestured at her to wait. Not long, he seemed to say. Just be patient.
‘I know you’re in there!’ Kier’s voice was suddenly very loud in the room. He had crouched down and spoken into the letterbox.
Justin didn’t answer. He tiptoed across to the table and reached for one of the jars. Inside were several bundles of dried herbs bound up with wool. Taking one out, he brought it over to the fire and pushed it into the flames. He waited until it had caught, then he blew it out gently, leaving the herbs smoking. Abi saw the trail of fragrant blue smoke spiralling lazily round his head. He winked at her and went back to the door. Somehow he managed to lever the inner flap of the letter box open and he held the bundle near it and, pursing his lips, he blew smoke towards the aperture.
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