by Daniel Diehl
“Anyplace you like, dear. We’ll be with you in a jiffy.”
After ordering their tea they opened the big, awkward map book and spread it out on the table in front of them, scooting their chairs together on the same side of the table so they could both study the mass of red, blue and black lines.
“Would you like to see a selection of cakes?” The girl in the crisp, starched white uniform sat a steaming pot of tea and two cups on the table and stood back a step while they mulled over her question.
“Yes. I do believe we would.” Beverley looked at Jason as the waitress smiled, nodded and walked away, leaned toward him saying “Why not. There’s something so warm and cozy and private about a tray full of cakes. Don’t you think?”
His answer - “I think you’re WAY too easy” - was followed by a loud “oof” sound when Beverley jabbed him in the ribs and stuck her tongue out at him.
Over the next hour they alternately enjoyed each other’s company, splurged on Betty’s delicate pastries and tried to decide on the best way to get from York to Heathrow Airport, by way of West Wycombe and Francis Dashwood’s caves. After looking at several alternative possibilities they agreed that the most direct route would be the best; two hundred miles was a long way and they needed to get to the caves as early as possible. Fortunately, West Wycombe lay only about twenty-five miles west-north-west of Heathrow so they could spend as much time as necessary investigating the caves and how well they might, or might not, actually correspond to the bizarre riddle in the Gnostic Gospel. From the caves it should only take them about a half-an-hour to get to the airport.
“We still need to book rooms somewhere as near to Heathrow as possible.” Beverley furrowed her brow. “Neither of us is going to feel up to a long drive in the morning after a day spelunking.”
“All done. I got us rooms at a place barely two miles from the airport. It’s called King’s something or other. I have the reservation confirmation in the envelope with my plane tickets.”
“You are so efficient. I can’t believe it.”
“Faith, lady. Just have a little faith. Next week I promise to find the magical keys that will save the world and the week after that I’m going to rescue a puppy.”
Pushing her empty cup toward the center of the table and closing the map, Beverley grinned and stood up, saying she was ready to go whenever Jason was.
“I guess so. Time to move.”
The weather had cooled considerably in the hours since they left Jason’s flat and they decided to alter their route home, staying in the shelter of the narrow old streets and avoiding the chill air rising from the river. After moving up Stonegate to Parliament Street, and then turning left on their way past the cathedral, they were approached by a young woman about twenty years of age. By her florid dress and gaudy abundance of cheap, sparkly jewelry she made it obvious that she was a street gypsy.
“Cross my palm with silver and I’ll tell your fortune. You know you want a peek into the future.”
Drawing to a halt, Jason leaned down to the girl and said quietly. “I only have two possible futures and I am doing my damnedest to make one of them comes true so the other one doesn’t. And if I screw this up I can tell you the future of everybody on the whole fucking planet, and I guarantee you, sweetheart, it ain’t gonna be pretty.” Pulling back to his full height, he smiled, nodded and led Beverley away, leaving the girl staring after them open mouthed.
Chapter Seven
The weather remained dry and relatively warm throughout the drive from York to West Wycombe, but steely February skies constantly hovered above them, spawning a hard wind that pushed heavy, dark clouds ahead of it like a fleet of black-sailed pirate ships. The steady tail wind and clear road reduced the time it took to drive down the A1 motorway and around the northwest quadrant of the M25 London ring road from the normal four-and-a-half hours to slightly under four hours. Despite making unusually good time, by the time they reached the junction of the M40 leading off toward Oxford and High Wycombe, Jason’s long legs were beginning to cramp whenever he moved them from the accelerator to the brake and Merlin was shifting uncomfortably in the back seat.
“There.” Beverley looked up from the A to Z map that lay spread out in her lap, and pointed to the green sign suspended over the roadway. “That’s the one we want, the A40. It will take us past High Wycombe and straight on to West Wycombe.”
“How far to West Wycombe?”
“It’s only three or four miles beyond High Wycombe, so no more than seven or eight miles total. Keep an eye out for the turn off.”
“Oh, good. My back hurts and my bladder is stretched to the limit.”
Minutes later Jason wheeled the Mini off of the main road and onto a small side road that took them into the town center of West Wycombe. Spread out before them was an entire village with the charmingly disconcerting appearance of a place trapped in time, like a fly embedded in amber, never ageing and never moving. Late Tudor and Stuart era black and white half-timbered houses and shops lined the narrow cobbled streets and not a single modern building or fast food restaurant had cropped up anywhere to spoil the village’s pristine appearance. Jason, Beverley and Merlin all stared out the windows of the car, transfixed by the surreal scene unfolding around them.
“Oh, my God, it’s so twee.”
“Twee? What’s twee mean?”
“You know, Jase, like something that’s just too cute to be real; like the pictures they used to put on old fashioned chocolate boxes.”
“Oh, sure, twee. I knew that. Well, it certainly is.” Nodding and craning his neck to look at both sides of the street, Jason shifted his attention back inside the car, looking first at Beverley and then at Merlin. “Look, it’s almost noon and I really have to pee so why don’t we stop in at one of these ‘twee’ pubs and see what they have to offer?”
Merlin nodded his approval, saying “Ale houses have always been a center of talk and information, so one of the local pubs should also provide us with directions to the caves and possibly some additional background information.”
Jason found an open parking space on the main road and pulled in to the curb. After stretching out cramped muscles they walked the few dozen yards to the door beneath the nearest pub sign, an ornately painted placard proclaiming the establishment’s uniquely uninviting name of The Slaughtered Lamb. Swaying lightly in the sharp winter breeze, the grotesque signboard depicted the face of a slavering wolf with blood splattered teeth and muzzle, a stream of ruby droplets falling from his lips.
“Oh, God. Who would give a pub a name like that?” Beverley screwed up her face in a display of utter disgust. “I don’t want to go in there. Let’s find somewhere else.”
Merlin stared at the sign for a moment before turning in a small circle to survey the rest of the high street.
“I agree it’s in appallingly bad taste but I don’t see even one other pub on the main road. I don’t think we have much in the way of choice.”
Beverley shook her head and followed Merlin toward the door, her mouth set in a hard line of grim resignation. Bringing up the rear, Jason muttered to himself, “I’d swear I’ve seen that name someplace before.”
Once inside, they found the period look and feel of the building’s facade had been maintained on its interior. A low ceiling held up by a multiplicity of hand-hewn beams decorated with horse brasses and old pewter tankards hovered above a collection of ancient tables, Hitchcock chairs and high-backed settles. By mutual consent they took seats at the bar counter and by the time Jason returned to join them Beverley and Merlin had already ordered drinks. The beer was good, the food was excellent, several locals sharing the bar with them nodded cordially and the fat, smiling publican was friendly throughout their meal …at least until Merlin laid his fork aside, smiled at the bartender and asked for directions to the Hellfire caves.
No sooner were the words out of Merlin’s mouth than all conversation in the pub died so suddenly it was as though someone had flipped a s
witch. In the eerie quiet that followed, sly, suspicious eyes from up and down the bar and several small tables around the room turned toward the old man with the long hair and beard and his two companions. Jason looked one way and then the other, around and behind him, to see drinks half raised to mouths and forks full of food suspended in midair. Beverley leaned close to Jason’s ear and whispered “This isn’t good.”
Jason whispered back, “I think we just farted in church” and waited to see what was going to happen next, prepared to open a path to the door so Beverley could escape safely. After their nightmare trip through Mongolia he had absolutely no doubt that Merlin could take care of himself no matter how big and tough his opponent might be.
The bartender gently laid the towel he had been using to polish glasses on the bar, leaned forward toward Merlin and, in a quiet, even, but distinctly menacing voice said “You’d be strangers round here and maybe don’t understand the way things is done here in the village, but there’s some things is better left alone and allowed to be forgotten.”
“Have I said something wrong, young man?”
“Just take a word to the wise, Mr Whiskers; I’d not recommend that you or your young friends go to that place nor start askin’ questions round town. There’s things decent people rather not talk about and them caves is one of them. You understand me clear?”
Lowering his eyes and smiling benignly, Merlin nodded. “I understand.”
“Good. And no sense goin’ to the local tourist office nosin’ round, they can’t help you either. Why don’t you take my advice and go see Wycombe Park or Sir Francis’ mausoleum, they’d be nice places for punters like you to spend an afternoon and a whole lot safer for yer health.”
Merlin just stared into his drink and nodded for a moment before raising his head to lock his brilliant, burning eyes with those of the fat man behind the counter. Surreptitiously, Merlin began to run one finger around the rim of his nearly empty pint glass to produce a very small, high-pitched squealing sound. The bartender blinked several times, winced, turned his head to one side painfully and pressed the fingers of his right hand to his temple.
“Maggie” he called in a strained voice. “You take the bar for me. I suddenly come over all queer and now I’ve a right splittin’ headache. I need to lie down a bit”.
Before a small, frail looking woman could come out of the kitchen and put her arm around her husband he had slumped across the bar counter, grabbing the edge to keep himself from slipping to the floor. With a frightened look on her face, the woman led him out from behind the bar, telling the customers to drink up and that she would be right back. After she returned, Merlin, Jason and Beverley quietly paid their bill and exited The Slaughtered Lamb.
“You screwed around inside his head, didn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged, and I’m afraid I was none too gentle. I dislike being threatened. It was so obvious that he was hiding whatever it is the whole town seems to know and doesn’t want outsiders to find out about. Tragically, whatever that is, seems to be the exact thing I was hoping to learn about. At least I was hoping to discover where the caves are.”
“And?”
“He lacks clear thought processes. All I got were garbled thoughts about a church – but I don’t know which one – and something about some sort of a golden ball - somewhere.” Merlin threw up his hands and rolled his eyes heavenward in a theatrical display of surrender.
“Oh, great. That’s a load of help.”
While they were standing on the sidewalk talking, a hunched figure in a rumpled raincoat, slouch hat and knee-high rubber Wellington boots shuffled out the door of The Slaughtered Lamb and sidled up next to them but kept his back turned while he busied himself rolling a cigarette from a small packet of tobacco. “Don’t turn round. I don’t want ‘em knowin’ I’m talking to you.”
Merlin never moved his head but answered in a low voice “What can you tell us about the West Wycombe caves?”
“I can tell you that you’d be needin’ to talk to Rainbird up St Lawrence Church.”
“Can you give us directions to this St Lawrence’s Church?”
The man only got as far as mumbling the first few syllables of his answer when the door of The Slaughtered Lamb opened and a middle aged couple stepped out onto the sidewalk to survey the threatening look of the sky before moving away. Hurriedly crumpling shut his tobacco pouch and stuffing it into the pocket of his filthy coat, the old man muttered “Follow golden ball” before pulling his head down like a frightened turtle and scurrying across the street.
“Again with the gold ball.” Jason said, shaking his head. “What the hell does that mean?”
Merlin held up one finger, asking for a moment’s indulgence, and stepped into the middle of the nearly deserted street. Looking behind him and then in front, he marched forward motioning for Jason and Beverley to follow. After walking no more than a hundred feet he extended one arm and pointed across the tops of the row of ancient two story commercial buildings in front of him. There, on a hill beyond the northern edge of town, stood a massive golden ball apparently suspended in midair, just above the tree tops.
“Behold. Our destination.”
“How did you know that was there?”
“I didn’t, but it seemed obvious enough. If we were going to follow the ball we had to be able to see it, and since the land clearly rises at this end of town and remains flat at the other, this seemed like an obvious place to start looking.” Beverley grinned and Jason just shook his head. “I honestly don’t know how you modern people would survive without your maps and GSP things.”
“GPS, not GSP.”
Grinning broadly, Merlin put one arm around each of them and led them back to Beverley’s Mini. From the small shopping area in the town center Beverley turned the Mini to the right, picking up a small side road that wandered through a wooded hillside in the general direction of the mysterious golden ball. When they broke through the trees, ahead of them stood a neat, stone built Georgian church with a small tower at one end. On top of the tower, rather than a cross, stood a massive golden ball mounted on a delicate spire. The signboard near the small car park informed them that they were at St Lawrence’s Church. After parking the car they walked through neat rows of heavily weathered tombstones standing guard in the churchyard until they came around to the front door.
“Who are we looking for again, Bev?”
“The old man said we should talk to Rainbird. I assume that must be the vicar’s name.”
“Kind of a weird name, Rainbird.” Jason had already grabbed the heavy, decorative iron latch on the door and pushed it down expectantly. To his surprise the latch clicked and the door moved inward at a touch. Looking at the others he shrugged enquiringly, and when both Beverley and Merlin nodded he opened the door and walked in. Garbed in a neat, clean coat of white paint, the inside of St Lawrence’s Church was bright and cheery and the air was delicately scented by massive bouquets of lilies and ferns posted like silent sentries along the front rail and in each of five large windows running down each of the building’s long walls. Moving crablike between two rows of pews, a small, round, silver haired woman in an apron alternately leaned forward and stood up, moving hymn books, one at a time, from a pile in her left arm onto the seat of the pew in front of her. As the three visitors moved quietly up the center, isle the woman turned around and smiled.
“Hello. Can I help?”
Stepping forward Beverley answered. “We’re looking for Father Rainbird. Is he about?”
“Bless me, dearie,” the woman giggled, “but I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but Father’s never before been one of them.” Depositing her books on a seat the woman sidestepped from between the pews and into the aisle. “I’m Agnes Rainbird. Part time verger, sacrist, cleaning woman and general whatever-need-arises person.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. We were just told to see Rainbird at St Lawrence’s, and I just assumed…”
Extending her hand
toward Beverley with a broad smile she added “Not to worry, love. Being called Father is a bit like getting promoted. Now, how can I help?”
“We were really just looking for directions to Francis Dashwood’s caves and the people in the village were rather less than helpful.”
Mrs Rainbird smiled and nodded knowingly. “Just a mite off-putting, were they? Not unusual. People can be a superstitious lot.”
“I don’t think they like Sir Francis very much”, Jason interjected.
“Oh, it’s not Francis Dashwood.” Pausing in her narrative the verger waved a hand idly toward a pew. “Might as well make yourselves at home.” When all four of them had taken seats, Agnes Rainbird picked up the thread of her story. “Well now, as I was saying, people round here quite liked Francis Dashwood despite the fact that he was generally considered a bit of a wastrel and a rake. Fact is, when the crops failed he hired people to work in the mines – the ones where the caves are now. They dug out limestone and built new roads with it. That was the first paved road between here and High Wycombe. And he hired them as builders to turn the mines into his clubhouse and to work on the mausoleum. Local people even built this church at Sir Francis’ personal expense. The ball was his idea; Lord knows why. His morals might have been in question but West Wycombe owes its survival to Francis Dashwood and people still remember that. When the Dashwood family lost all their money in the 1929 stock market crash and sold off the town and the caves, people felt terrible.”
“So, if the problem isn’t Francis Dashwood and his Hellfire friends,” Jason asked, “why did the townies all but come after us with pitchforks and torches?”
Their host suppressed a snicker at Jason’s description of their welcome at The Slaughtered Lamb but nodded knowingly. “You have to understand that the Dashwoods were latecomers to this area. Right here - the very hill that this church stands on - has been inhabited for thousands of years. Before the Romans came it was a place of pagan worship and then the Romans had a fort here and later, during the Anglo-Saxon period, around four or five-hundred AD, there was a Saxon settlement here named Haeferingdune – that means ‘the hill of Haefer’s people’.”