“So why would Beltane be so important to Jake?” Fergus still held the posy limply between them.
“If you worship the Horned God, then Beltane is a fire festival, one of the great sabbats of the year. It’s a time when the shadow world is closest to the living world, like it is at Halloween. If Jake wanted to make a point to his gang, then Beltane is the time to do it.”
“And this bunch of flowers will help?” Fergus hoped his scepticism didn’t show too much.
“Please. If you still have any connection to the shadow world, Beltane is also when you’re most vulnerable.” The fervour of Eadlin’s plea made Fergus relent. He passed her his baseball cap.
“OK. Why don’t you sew it to that?”
“Tomorrow,” Eadlin said, as she threaded a needle with the same scarlet thread, “we’ll shut at lunchtime so everyone can go to the festival. I need to go earlier with the draught horses so that they can decorate the wagon, but please come in with the stable girls, not on your own. Russell and I will watch your back, but make sure you stay in the crowds.”
Fergus was only half listening. Watching her sew that ridiculous bunch of foliage to his cap reminded him of the stories of knights of old, whose ladies stitched their favours to their champions’ helmets. Except, of course, Eadlin was not his lady, even though the andness still confused him. As she tugged at the thread she seemed strong, alluring, unattainable, and different, centred in a world he would never fully understand.
Chapter Forty
“EADLIN SAYS IT’LL keep us safe.” Russell held the posy between them like a lovelorn suitor.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Russ, I’m an academic! That’s pure superstition.” Clare had waved the flowers away before she heard the tetchiness in her own voice.
“I thought superstition was partly why we’re here. Give him a pagan funeral, and all that.”
She laid her hand on his arm. “Sorry, Russ. Bit short of sleep. You wear it for me, if you want.”
Russell lifted the lapel of his overalls and showed her his own posy hidden underneath.
“Maybe later, then. I don’t want to attract attention on campus. Anyway, it’s time for you to hide.” Clare lifted the tailgate of her Volvo estate as if she was inviting a dog to jump in after a walk. Was she really doing this? So much subterfuge, meeting at a remote woodland car park, just to let Russell leave his own car and hide in her boot without attracting notice. It was unreal. Clare threw a rug over Russell and the large, pine blanket box that Eadlin had provided from the farmhouse. Already they were acting like a pair of criminals.
Clare’s mouth felt dry as she drove onto the campus and parked beside a back door to her block. She stood by her car, scanning the windows around her. Laboratories, offices, lecture rooms, all empty. No security cameras. She could still back out, apologise to Russell, and say it was all a mistake. In the morning light the nightmares felt less real. Reality was a pedestal ashtray outside the faculty door, awash with dirty water and floating cigarette butts. Clare tested the door and her movement disturbed some pigeons on an overhead ledge. A feather floated down, pearl grey, the colour of the dawn when the swans came for Olrun. Was the dream a sign of madness? Or was madness the way she left the locked door and walked round to the main entrance, leaving Russell shut in her car?
“Morning, Tom.” The security guard looked up in surprise and softened at the sight of her. Dear old Tom. He was like an elderly, family friend who wished he was thirty years younger and single, and Tom always wanted to talk. Yes, she was very dedicated to be in so early, and on a Bank Holiday. No, no-one else was around, not even a research student. And yes, she was fine, Tom, really, just a bit tired. Clare could see herself in the mirrored surface behind the reception desk. God, she looked awful. Pale face, eyes smudged dark, hair going lank. The only fresh thing about her was the loose, man’s shirt stuffed into her jeans. By the doors into the passage Clare turned and waved, just to make sure Tom had stayed behind the desk. He could be too friendly, sometimes. Tom beamed back at her, pleased by her gesture.
Clare stopped beside the door to smokers’ corner, breathing deeply, scanning the frame for any trace of an alarm system. None. With the sense that she was pushing her career out over a void, she pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, pressed the emergency exit bar, and let Russell into the building. He also wore gloves. Criminality starts here.
“You OK, Clare?” Russell pulled the door shut behind him, carrying the blanket box. Clare nodded, not quite able to believe that the moment was happening.
“Let’s get you out of the corridor.” She pulled out her keys and led the way to the laboratory, locking the lab door behind them.
“Hey, my friend.” Clare’s voice was tender as she pulled off the baize cover and opened Aegl’s case, ignoring the sounds of disgust from Russell.
“Do you need a hand?” His tone begged her to say no. Clare shook her head. This was a service she wanted to perform for Aegl herself.
So light. There was no substance left to him. Clare lifted Aegl’s body in her arms, supporting the neck and head the way a mother might cradle a child, inhaling the smell of old leather and mushrooms. So dry, so rigid. Clare gasped as both legs separated and fell back into his case with a noise like falling books.
“I’m so sorry.” She spoke to Aegl, distress prickling her eyes. This was far, far worse than breaking ancient pottery. This was wounding a friend.
“Get on with it, Clare.” Russell spoke in the strangled tones of someone trying not to vomit.
She laid Aegl’s head and torso tenderly in the nest of wood shavings that Eadlin had prepared in the blanket box, and touched his face. The skin beneath the beard had the hard coolness of the laboratory work surface.
“Someone’s coming. Move.” Russell pushed her aside and dumped the legs into the box without ceremony. Clare started to arrange them into a dignified position, but the skeletal arm was almost thrown on top and she glared up at Russell, eyes flashing her anger. Aegl deserved better. Only when Russell put his finger across his lips did reality hit her.
Footsteps were clicking their way down the corridor in a slow, measured tread, and Clare knelt on the floor of her own laboratory, surrounded by scattered wood shavings and the evidence of her crime. She stared at the frosted glass panel in the door, incapable of movement, with the panic rising like bile in her throat. It was Russell who had to throw the baize cover back over the trolley and push it into its corner, but the outline of a figure beyond the glass galvanised her into sliding across the floor until her back was against the wall. Russell had hefted the blanket box and was trying to stand in a corner in so that his shape would not be visible through the door. They both held their breath while the handle rattled.
Tom, on his rounds. Just don’t try and unlock the door, Tom. When the footsteps moved on, Clare almost wept with relief. Russell exhaled, placed the blanket box on the floor so gently that even Clare did not hear a sound, and started to screw down the lid. Clare restored the lab to its normal appearance, hoping that it would be days before anyone noticed Aegl’s absence, then pulled a perspex box out of a drawer, and emptied the contents into a manila envelope.
“Olrun,” Clare explained as she stuffed the envelope in her jeans pocket. Russell looked blank. “His wife. Now let’s get you both into the car.”
Five minutes later Clare walked alone through reception, clammy-skinned and sick with apprehension, carrying a large roll of paper and a box of drawing materials. Tom smiled his affection. “Are you starting an art class, Doctor Harvey?”
“Have you ever been brass rubbing, Tom?” Tom shook his head. “Well I’ve found an old stone with strange carvings on it, and I’m going to take a rubbing. Watch.” Clare put a coin on the counter, unrolled a corner of paper over it, and rubbed the paper lightly with a ball of dark wax. A perfect image of the coin appeared on the paper.
“Cor, that’s clever.”
“And with luck it will pick up the carvings on the stone so I d
on’t have to bring the whole thing back here.”
“You sure you’re all right, miss? You look proper poorly.”
“Been working too hard. Bye, Tom!”
In the eyes of an ageing security guard, Clare had arrived alone, and left alone with nothing larger than a roll of paper. Aegl slipped from academia as unobtrusively as a stag crossing a forest clearing.
In the woodland car park she let Russell out of the boot, and stared at the blanket box.
“I’ve blown it, Russ.”
“Nah, no-one saw.”
“My career. They’ll know it was me.”
“No, they won’t.” The encouragement sounded limp. “Anyway, there’s no going back now.” The lost look in Clare’s eyes made him give her an awkward hug, until she stood on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek in thanks. Russell blushed as he turned towards his car.
“Best you follow me to Allingley.”
Allingley was alive with preparations as they drove through the village an hour later. A maypole had been erected in the centre of the green, where teachers from the primary school were arranging coloured ribbons ready for the dancing. Near Russell’s Forge Garage, two of Eadlin’s horses stood harnessed to an old farm cart, tossing their beribboned heads at the flies, and surrounded by a crowd of children. A working party of parents was tying freshly-cut whitethorn boughs into a hoop behind the carriage seat, and decorating a throne for the Queen of the May on the bed of the cart. As Clare and Russell drove past the green, Eadlin handed the reins of her horses to a parent and followed the cars into the garage’s servicing bay.
“Hello gorgeous!” Russell pulled the doors closed behind them and gave Eadlin a surreptitious squeeze. “You look stunning!” Eadlin was dressed for her carriage-driving role in polished riding boots, skin-tight white jodhpurs, ruffed shirt and a tricorn hat.
“Success?” Eadlin asked, as she disengaged from Russell. “Hey, come on girl,” something in Clare’s eyes made Eadlin fold her into a hug, “we’ll sort this out together, tonight.”
“I know it’s the right thing to do. I just hope it doesn’t cost me my job,” Clare mumbled into Eadlin’s shoulder. She stood back after the embrace. “Love the costume. You make me feel quite dowdy.”
“Fancy dress is not obligatory. Here.” She took her own whitethorn posy from her hat and pinned it to Clare’s shirt. Behind her, Russell spread his hands and shrugged.
“Can we put Aegl somewhere safe, until tonight?”
“Use my office, if you like.” Russell nodded towards a booth in a corner of the service bay. “I can set the alarm.”
Clare insisted on carrying the blanket box herself, cradling it like a parent with a child’s coffin. After Russell had locked up she stood staring at the door until Eadlin touched her arm and she started.
“Sorry, I was dreaming. I brought Olrun as well.” Clare patted her pockets. “I’d like to bury them together.”
“Olrun? Oh, she’s…” Eadlin’s voice faded away in puzzlement. “You’re going to have to take me through this later, step by step. Maybe it didn’t all sink in, like, the first time. Right now it’s chaos outside, and any minute there’ll be a squeal when one of my horses steps on a child. Hey, if you want a laugh, take a look in the yard of the Green Man,” Eadlin called as she pulled open the door. Clare decided not to tell her about Russell’s large, dirty hand-print now decorating one cheek of her jodhpurs. “Jake’s in a foul temper, trying to find a way of strapping himself into his Jack-in-theGreen costume without hurting his hand!” She giggled as she left, leaving Clare looking thoughtfully after her.
“What’s on your mind, Clare?”
“How long before the parade starts?”
“Ages yet. Why?”
“If Jake Herne’s busy here, the rune stone will be quiet.” Clare’s faced creased into her first real smile of the day.
Chapter Forty-One
DICK HAGMAN LEANED against the gate into the Green Man’s delivery yard, looked up the lane towards the village green, and excavated his ear with a finger while he watched the flow of activity.
“His girlfriend’s back.”
Behind him the struggles inside the Jack-in-the-Green costume stopped. Hagman looked back over his shoulder and stifled a laugh. Jake Herne didn’t like to be laughed at; he needed to be the jester, not the fool. In an hour or two his face would be covered in green greasepaint, decorated with leaves, and leering out of the costume with sinister merriment. Girls would shriek, toddlers would scream and hide in their mother’s skirts, and the merriment would begin. But at the moment, Jake’s face revelry sweating and pinkly ludicrous as he struggled with the straps inside.
“What?”
“His girlfriend’s back. I saw her car go past.” Hagman scrutinised the contents of his ear and flicked his fingernail into the yard. Jake swore loudly.
It had been a morning for swearing. Getting Jake Herne inside the Jack hadn’t been the problem. It fitted over his shoulders in a harness like a bell tent, festooned with foliage and may blossom, with an oval cut out for his face. Jake could shoulder the burden easily, and he was fit enough to dance inside it as he led the maypole dancers and the morris men. The swearing had begun when he tried swinging the costume one-handed in a practice dance. Both hands were definitely needed. Hagman had helped Jake buckle his plaster cast to one of the harness’s handles. It worked, after a fashion, but it hurt, and with every twinge Jake had sworn revenge.
“So what if she is?”
“Well, what if we can’t get him on his own?”
“Then we’ll have to find a way of keeping her out of the way. Slip her a spiked drink, cosh her, or whatever, we only need a few minutes.”
Hagman wasn’t sure if Herne was joking. Still, he had a score to settle with that little archaeologist; she’d interrupted the esbat just when it was getting interesting. Hagman licked his lips at the memory of the naked woman on the rhododendron branch, all curves and shadows in the moonlight, in the moments before the hysterics started and the torch shone in his eyes.
“Are we still going to do it, then?”
“Of course we bloody are.” Jake rested the costume on two tables either side of him, and crawled from under it. “Shut that gate, you never know who’s listening.” Hagman pulled the double doors closed behind him. Their height made the small yard seem cramped. The space was normally occupied by Herne’s Range Rover but it was now dominated by the costume perched between the tables. Around them the walls were lined with beer kegs and stacked crates of empty bottles, a rack of weight training dumbbells and an exercise mat, the debris of Herne’s existence.
“You sure about this, Jake? Couldn’t we just rough him up a bit? Scare him away, that sort of thing? I mean, it’s murder, innit?”
“That bastard’s going to suffer for what he did to me.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think the others will go along with killing someone.”
The speed with which Jake could move stunned Hagman. One second Jake was flexing his plastered arm, the next his good hand was around Hagman’s throat, lifting him against the doors so that he could feel his jowls pouched out above Jake’s thumb and forefinger.
“Then don’t fucking tell them, you pillock.” Hagman struggled to get his toes to the ground to relieve the pressure on his windpipe. Jake let him drop and patted his cheek, suddenly calm. “We’ll just let the word spread, afterwards, when they can’t stop it and can’t prove it. And maybe by then they’ll have more than a missing cripple to think about.”
Hagman massaged his throat, eyes lowered, sullen. “What d’ya mean?”
“I sacrificed a stag and we got the Saxon. I sacrificed a goat and the choirmaster died. Now we’re going to give Him a man. Let’s see what He does with that.”
Hagman shivered. He didn’t like this new certainty in Jake. When Jake spoke like that, a frightening look came into his eyes, the sort of look that made Hagman want to hide. Jake’s hand came back again and Hagman cringed against the
doors, whimpering, but Herne folded his third and fourth fingers under his thumb to make the sign of the Horned God with his index and little fingers, and pushed the sign under Hagman’s nose.
“We’re going to do this and we’re going to do it well because it’s His will. If you let Him down, He’ll make sure you’ll regret it for all eternity.” Jake’s chilling intensity softened and he slid his good arm around Hagman’s shoulders. Now when he spoke, it was like a parent encouraging a child.
“Stay strong. You’ll find He has a way of helping out. Now, I’ve got a job for you.” Hagman looked up at him gratefully, like a beaten dog that suddenly receives a pat from its master.
“I’m going to do this properly, robed and masked,” Herne continued.
“What, in front of everyone?”
“Especially in front of everyone. Now take my car keys and fetch my hood and gown.”
“But I’ll miss the parade…”
“Nah, there’s ages yet. I want you back here in time for us both to get ready. Remember, you’re crucial.”
Hagman puffed himself up and reached for the keys. He liked driving Jake’s Range Rover.
A few minutes later he stopped where the bridleway met the Downs road, and furrowed his brows in thought as he stared at Clare’s parked Volvo. Some people never learned, did they? The question was, what to do about it? Hagman pulled out his mobile phone and called Jake.
A minute later, Hagman eased Jake’s car forwards onto the bridleway, and parked it a few hundred yards from the clearing, where the bridleway widened enough to turn around. He wouldn’t want to scare her off, now, would he? But maybe the boyfriend was with her. At the thought of Fergus’s stick, he pulled a folding shovel out of the boot. It was best to be prepared.
CLARE KNELT IN front of the stone, with her roll of paper in the grass beside her, willing the pattern of runes to emerge from under the surface mosaic of orange and white lichen, grey stone, and dried blood. This would be even harder than she thought. Once, the stone had been intricately carved, but now whole patches of the surface had flaked away, and she doubted if even laboratory techniques would uncover what once had been in those areas.
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