Saxon's Bane

by Geoffrey Gudgion

  “Landlord says it’s on the house.” She nodded over her shoulder at a grinning host.

  “Tony Foulkes was well loved round here,” the man called, dismissing their thanks.

  “Local hero.” Clare poured and touched glasses.

  “Let’s hope there isn’t a price to pay.” Fergus felt his euphoria deflate as he saw a hand-written notice on the doors into the function room saying ‘Choir Practice Cancelled’. Next to it, a printed sign announced ‘Function Room Reserved For Committee Meeting Tonite’.

  The bar was filling up. A steady trickle of people walked through, some staying by the bar, others going straight into the function room. John Webster walked through and nodded towards their table. He managed the brief, flickering smile of someone whose mind is elsewhere, but did not speak. Cynthia the Soprano followed soon afterward, tick-tocking over the flagstones in gold shoes and black stockings like a walking ormolu clock. Her face wore the distant, dutiful pride of a Committee Member.

  “How are the legs?” Under the table, Clare ran her hand down the inside of his thigh.

  “Stiffening up.”

  Clare laughed, then sat back and beckoned as Russell and Eadlin came in. Russell beamed at the sight of her.

  “Good to see you.” There was a touch of shyness about his grin. “I thought all you university lot had finished today.”

  “My mud monkeys have gone, but I’m staying on tonight.” Clare stood and kissed them both on the cheek while Fergus waved a tired greeting.

  “Bring some glasses; the wine’s on the house.”

  “Thanks, but I can’t stop.” Russell nodded towards the function room. “I’m on this Committee.”

  “But I’m not.” Eadlin pulled up a chair as Russell left, and smiled at Clare in a knowing way. “Unless I’m intruding?”

  Fergus looked at Clare, wondering what Eadlin had seen. That glow to her skin, that sparkle under lowered lashes, was it so obvious? The look the two women were giving each other spoke of a sisterhood to which men could never belong. Eadlin reached across the table and picked a flake of leaf out of Clare’s hair. Clare blushed as she shook her head in answer.

  “Not at all.”

  “So what’s this committee all about?” Fergus nodded towards the function room.

  “The May Day Committee. The Vicar’s trying to persuade people to drop the Jack-in-the-Green this year. Too pagan, he says.”

  “So why is this Jack-in-the-Green so bloody important?” Fergus was bewildered. “I mean, it’s just a bit of fancy dress, isn’t it?”

  “It’s important because John Webster and Jake Herne have made it important, and neither of them want to back down.”

  “Does that mean Jake Herne’s coming tonight?” Clare looked worried.

  “Him? Nah, he’s not a Committee man, and there’d be a fight if he turned up in here. But at least two of his little group are in there. If it comes to a vote, it’ll be close.”

  “Why’s that? Surely people will react to Tony’s death?

  “Not everyone links the Jack-in-the-Green to Tony’s death, leastways not directly, and some of the people that do make the connection are scared. Jake’s friends have been dropping hints that anyone objecting too strongly might find a nithing pole in their front garden one morning. A lot of people believe Jake Herne has real power, now.”

  “Do you think so, Eadlin?” Clare reached for Fergus’s hand as she spoke, gripping it too tightly for mere tenderness. The esbat and nithing pole seemed to have rattled her badly. Eadlin thought hard before answering.

  “Nah.” Eadlin shook her head. “Jake knows some of the old words, but that ain’t enough. Like, I could learn to say the ‘Hail Mary’, but that wouldn’t make me a Catholic, let alone a Cardinal.”

  “But what if he coloured the runes with blood?” Clare leaned forward, eyes wide behind her glasses.

  “If that’s significant, it’s accidental. But Jake really believes he’s a force to be reckoned with, and I’m afraid John Webster’s chosen the wrong battleground.” Eadlin sipped her wine. “Like I said, people don’t link the Jack with the goat’s head. The Vicar might as well try and stop the kids dancing round the maypole. That ain’t Christian, neither, but all the mums and dads want to see their kids dressed up. May Day’s just a bit of fun, and the village will need a laugh after Tony Foulkes’ funeral next week. He was well liked.”

  “I’ll come back for the funeral.” Clare was thoughtful for a moment, toying with her glass before speaking carefully into her wine. “I wonder what sort of funeral the Saxon might have expected, before the church arrived?”

  Fergus could feel Clare’s leg against his, and gently increased the pressure against her thigh.

  “I thought that was your speciality, you being an archaeologist, like.”

  “We don’t know enough about Saxon rituals.” Clare returned the pressure. “They didn’t write much down.”

  “So if you don’t know, what makes you think I might?”

  “Clare’s got an idea,” Fergus spoke quietly, looking at Clare for a nod of permission. “She wondered about giving her Saxon a pagan funeral.”

  “Seriously?” Eadlin sat back in surprise, and then clapped her hands with excitement. “Go, girl!”

  “It’s only an idea. It seems so unfair to keep him like a specimen in a drawer, see, or worse still, in a museum case for ghoulish people to gawp at. If he was a relative, say, of yours, how would you bury him?”

  “It depends on what sort of beliefs he had. I don’t know if what I believe is what he believed.”

  “So what do you believe, then?”

  Eadlin paused, closed her eyes and breathed as if she was inhaling the answer, with her palms turned upwards in her lap in a posture that was almost yogic. She opened her eyes and smiled as she found the words she needed.

  “I believe we’re only truly fulfilled when body, mind, and spirit are in harmony.” Eadlin spoke in a soft, measured way with breaths between each phrase, an oasis of calm in the midst of the noisy bar. “When the body dies, the mind fades away with it, but the spirit is eternal. Christians think that the spirit keeps its individuality, but the Old Way teaches us that the spirit is absorbed back into a stream of life that connects all things. Sort of like raindrops, which are separate for a while but fall to earth and are absorbed. The water remains, but will never again group together into that particular raindrop.”

  As she spoke there was a subtle radiance to her skin as if the life within her was illuminated by her convictions.

  “So what about ghosts?” Clare asked. “Does that mean you don’t believe in all this talk about the Saxon?”

  “I believe that there is something of ourselves that survives death for a while, like an echo, which stays separate until it’s absorbed back into the stream. Some people would call that a ghost. Maybe something stops them from joining the flow, like a really traumatic death, or p’raps they just don’t want to let go. Sometimes, though, I think they’re kept here by something outside of themselves.”

  “Like a curse.” Clare was listening intently.

  “Could be, but if the power of how to do that ever existed, I mean really do that as opposed to simply wishing evil on someone, then the knowledge has been lost.”

  “So how would a pagan funeral work these days, then?” Fergus brought Eadlin back to the original question.

  “Sadly, the law has very strict rules about how to dispose of bodies. We’d probably have a standard cremation then scatter the ashes with a small ceremony. Sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear.”

  “It doesn’t sound as if your rituals would be the same as the Saxons’, anyway.” There was disappointment in Clare’s voice. “They also believed in the individual surviving into an after-life. The warrior feasting in the halls of the gods, and all that.”

  “Maybe the actual words aren’t as important as the honour we give to a dead person, or the blessing we wish on his spirit. Next week the Vicar will bury Tony Fo
ulkes and I’ll go to the funeral, but no-one will see anything sacrilegious in that. It’s a way of showing respect for Tony and support for Julia.” Once again Fergus glimpsed wisdom in Eadlin’s eyes, something ageless behind the grey. “Maybe we all find what we believe in. I hope Tony has his eternity as Tony in a Christian heaven. When it’s my turn I’ll be content simply to be a part of a universal spirit.”

  “A pulse in the eternal mind, no less.” Clare smiled to herself.

  “Rupert Brooke!” Fergus exclaimed, his face lightening.

  “You’ve lost me.” Eadlin looked from one to the other.

  “‘Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given.’” Fergus was on a roll.

  “Will one of you please explain what you’re talking about?”

  “Rupert Brooke, First World War poet. I had to learn it at school,” said Fergus.

  “Come on then.” Clare’s smile hardened into a challenge.

  “And think, this heart, all evil shed away

  A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

  Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given...” He faltered.

  “Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day...” Clare prompted,

  “And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

  In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”

  Fergus and Clare finished the last two lines in chorus, to laughing applause from Eadlin.

  “You two are good together.” Eadlin looked over her shoulder as raised voices broke through the murmur of debate from the function room. “Sounds like the Vicar’s having a rough time.”

  “… I believe a real and tangible evil has entered our community…” John Webster sounded cornered.

  “… come on, Vicar, this is the twenty-first century.”

  “… but the goat’s head in the churchyard...” Cynthia the Soprano’s voice lacked confidence.

  “… is nothing to do with the Jack. We’ve always had a Jack.”

  “There’s no need to shout.”

  “… and no-one knows for sure who put it there, anyway…”

  “… take a vote…”

  John Webster’s face said it all when the meeting broke up. He and Cynthia walked through to the street door with tight-faced dignity, the first of the crowd that emerged into the bar. Russell just shrugged his shoulders as he joined them.

  “Bunch of sheep.” His tone was contemptuous. “It was the God Squad – the Saint Michael’s crowd – versus the rest. Half of those were in a funk and the others just want a quiet life.”

  “So you voted with the Vicar?” Clare sounded approving.

  “Yeah, but not because I liked his argument. I just don’t like being threatened, especially by Jake Herne. And oh,” Russell changed the subject, “your car is going to take several days to fix. Need to order in the parts, see?”

  If it wasn’t for the way Clare’s fingers were linked with his under the table, Fergus could have felt jealous about the spark between Clare and Russell. There was a touch of the ‘little girl and puppy dog’ about it, even if the puppy dog was more of a bashful manmountain. Within a minute Clare had asked Russell if he’d give her a lift up the road to fetch Fergus’s car, and Russell had accepted as if she’d thrown him a stick to chase.

  “Don’t worry.” Eadlin interrupted Fergus’s thoughts as he watched Clare and Russell leave.

  “You’re very relaxed about it.”

  “Like I said once before, you’re safe. Leastways, you are from Russell. Sure, he’s sweet on her, but it’s a protective thing; he’s not chasing her. And you, my friend, are a lucky man. It should have happened weeks ago.”

  “Are we that obvious?”

  Eadlin picked up a flake of leaf from the table. “You’re shouting from the rooftops. But take care of her. I’ve got a nasty feeling that Jake’s planning revenge. He’ll hurt both of you if he can.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ST MICHAEL’s CHURCH was filling rapidly for Tony Foulkes’ funeral. Clare and Fergus chose a side aisle by the wall, placing themselves at the edge of the hierarchy of grief radiating outwards from Julia. Around them individuals and families filed into the pews quietly, muttering subdued greetings before they bowed their heads in prayer or sat in quiet contemplation. A slow peal of bells reverberated through the church from the tower behind them, ringing out alternately with sharp clarity then heavier, softer tones as if through a wall of cloth. Fergus heard a fellow mourner whisper that they had muffled the bells.

  In front of them the stained glass window of the lady chapel was a Victorian complexity of reds and blues and golds, its colours too rich for the moment. Its central panel depicted a winged angel in knightly armour, presumably Saint Michael, raising a sword to strike at a devil at his feet. The artist had given the saint’s face the same honest frown of a hero in some pre-War children’s story book, the kind of book where a clean-limbed young man would be drawn seeing off the cads and bounders with a righteous fist. Grouped around the saint was an adoring circle of lesser angels with androgynous, vaguely female figures. Their faces all had the same lean, finely chiselled look, as if they were a chorus of identical Clares. An irrepressible, irreverent corner of Fergus’s mind was wondering if angels came equipped with naughty bits when a chord from the organ announced the arrival of the cortege, and he started guiltily.

  There was a terrible sense of mortality as the coffin was carried in. Apart from Kate, death had always been an impersonal event, reported off-stage like a Greek tragedy. Even Kate’s death seemed part of a nightmare, still not fully resolved. Today death arrived shoulderhigh and feet first, awful in its reality, borne with ritual dignity to be laid on trestles between ranks of weeping choristers.

  The choir did not give their best performance, and they knew it. Their voices faded into near silence as ripples of grief shook their singing. Even Cynthia Lawrence’s pure soprano was almost inaudible. It was only when John Webster walked forward to stand in front of his friend’s coffin, after all the hymns had been sung but one, after all the words of praise from the family’s oration, that the mood started to change.

  “Today,” he started, “must be one of the hardest days of my priesthood.” He paused, gathering his strength.

  “Priests are supposed to develop an emotional distance. We have to learn to share moments with sensitivity and feeling while avoiding the full emotional burden. Our role is to help others in their grief or happiness, and not to talk over-long about their personal emotion. But today I cannot do that because we are burying a beloved friend and brother in Christ. And more than that, a friend who has become a casualty in a very old battle.

  “Oh, I have no doubt that Tony’s death will be recorded officially as ‘natural causes’, but many in this congregation today will know of the evil that has entered our community, focusing its hatred on this church, an evil that has taken its first life. It is a blow beyond description for Julia, who has lost her soul mate, her friend, and her lover. For almost forty years the hearts of these two musicians have beaten to a shared rhythm. It is also a terrible blow for the church because the church’s strength is not in these mighty stones around us; it is in the people, the communion that worships within its walls. And I cannot imagine a greater wound to this church than the loss of this dear and decent man.

  “So we have two priorities in the coming weeks. Firstly we must support and pray for Julia and comfort her in her loss, and secondly we must pray for our church, that we might find the strength and the means and the champions to fight this war. I do not doubt that with the help of Christ we will find that strength.”

  John Webster’s voice shook with emotion. Now he paused, and drew a folded piece of paper out of his pocket.

  “The hymns we are singing today were chosen by Tony. He and Julia have known for some time that he had a heart condition, that his time with us might be limited.” A ripple of surprise ran through the congregation. “Earlier this year he wrote to me with very clear instruc
tions in the event that he left us suddenly, with no time to prepare. Some of his letter is private, but let me read you his final paragraph.

  “‘Marrying Julia was the best decision I ever made, and not only for the joy of our life together, but because she brought me to Allingley. I have been made so welcome in this wonderful community that I have felt little yearning to return to Wales, to the ‘Land of my Fathers’, so to speak. But I would like to be taken out to the sounds of the valleys and that wonderful tune ‘Cwm Rhondda’. And, my friend, ask them to belt it out, will you? Especially the basses. Give it some wellie, as they say. Don’t be too sad; if the Good Lord is merciful, there will be another tenor in heaven.’”

  John Webster was unable to continue. Slowly, he folded the letter and replaced it in his pocket, breathing deeply several times before he managed to straighten his back and speak.

  “So now we will sing our final hymn, number 214, ‘Guide me, O thou great Redeemer’. And while we grieve with Julia and for ourselves, let us also rejoice that there is indeed another tenor in heaven.”

  The first lines were scarcely audible above the organ. Only Mary Baxter of the choir, strong little Mary, managed to put some power into her contralto voice. In desperation John Webster moved to stand on the chancel steps, opening his arms wide in command so that his surplice spread like wings, shouting the hymn with little thought for harmony.

  I am weak, but thou art mighty; Hold me with thy powerful hand:

  Behind him at least one tenor and a bass swelled in support. Fergus could almost hear Tony Foulkes’ rumbling laughter that first night in the pub, when Tony had introduced him to the choir.

  “Tom Caister and Allan Bullock,” he had said of the two men. “Just think of them as Castor and Bollocks, the Heavenly Twins.”

  Bread of heaven

  Feed me now and evermore.