Beneath the Tor

by Nina Milton

  The man laughs. “There was a tunnel uncovered, oh, forty years ago. It was nothing but a medieval drain.”

  “Monks used it to go into the hollow of the hill!”

  “Okay. Well, it was blocked up. Health and safety.”

  The acolyte snatches at his russet cloak. “Show us.”

  “Look, please, sir; I’ll have to ask you to keep your voice down. This is the abbey grounds.” The Red Knight says no more. He walks away, fast, glancing behind to where they are watching him.

  Morgan leans in. “I say we should follow the Red Knight, and in a quiet place, take the thing that is to hand, and pound and pound until he drops like a stone.”

  The acolyte looks down at the doorstep below his feet. He eases the corner of the broken slab from its place. Yes. It feels right. “Life from life,” he whispers.

  Loving Morgan le Fay is like stepping on hot coals. Like lighting a garden fire, watching it grow fierce, and, on the opposite side, visible through the flames, there she is. Silent but calling. He would just … walk through … over the hot coals … there’s no alternative. It had been like that from the beginning.

  He first saw her at the library. He’d been taking out his usual pile of books. She’d asked if he needed the one on the top, a book on astrology. Sun signs. How to understand the age-old method of reading destinies.

  “I’m hooked on that sort of thing, aren’t you?” she’d said. “I have the sun in Gemini and the moon in Libra. It’s a combination that makes me glow bright, but makes me also a little ethereal. What is your ascendancy?

  “I … I’m not sure. I won’t find out, will I, if you pinch this book.”

  She had laughed, so infectious. “I like to travel. I do so all the time. Life is never dull with my chart the way it is.”

  The paving stone digs into his palm. They’re both moving fast, now, and when the Red Knight glances back, he sees that they are following. The Red Knight begins to run.

  “Go!” Morgan whispers. “Life from life!”

  He doesn’t think about it. He can’t, his head is too full of clang. His teeth are throbbing with the drill. He keeps his shoulders low and the bit of paving slab behind his back and sprints, full at the tilt. The Red Knight slips out of sight between low-lying bushes. They burst after him into a small copse of trees.

  “Pound and pound,” Morgan screeches.

  The Red Knight glances round. His brow furrows, as if he can’t comprehend what is happening and yet knows all too well. The cloak swirls out like a girl’s dancing skirt. The acolyte makes a heroic dash and snatches at it, pulling the Red Knight full under the darkness of the trees.

  “Whatchyu-watchyou-gerrofff …”

  The cloak tightens around his neck until the pin that secures it springs away. The guy unbalances. He thuds onto the ground. He lets out a strangled “ugh,” but he’s winded only for seconds, then is struggling up.

  The acolyte steps in and uses his elbow as a club. The knight topples backwards. His eyes have gone wild, he’s swatting his hands at the acolyte, eyeing the corner of paving stone. He lets out a shout of alarm—high—almost a scream. For a second, they are looking at each other. It’s a connection. All along the Red Knight set out to mislead and prevent them from finding their way into the Hollow Hill.

  The acolyte drives the point of the paving stone into the man’s scull. There is a soft sound. Wet. There is a lot of red. It smears his hands and the knight’s face. The smell makes him heave. He wipes his hands on the man’s red cloak.

  “My work here is achieved,” he whispers. He doesn’t care if Morgan hears him or not.

  ten

  esme

  Alys’s inquest was opened, using formal terms and legal confirmations, and then adjourned. The Coroner’s Office was still waiting for the full outcome of the autopsy and the toxicology tests. As soon as those were complete, Brice could start to arrange the funeral.

  “It’s taking a heck of a time,” Brice said to me, as we left the Town Hall. His voice was as thin as a washed-out rag. When I had spoken to him on the phone he sounded bright and in control, but face-to-face, he was grey, his eyes pulled back into their sockets. “I need a drink.”

  I led the way into the Crown. I thought a nice hotel would be better than some dingy watering place. Brice was kitted out in a suit and tie, and it felt right to take him somewhere civilized. Besides, I didn’t want to face the possibility that he’d get too wasted to drive. I made him order a sandwich to accompany his drink.

  “Glad to get this over with?” I asked as we found a quiet corner.

  “That was the easy part, wasn’t it?” He bit into his chicken and ham on wholemeal and chewed as if it was transforming into cardboard in his mouth. “I’m now contending with rumour. All this talk about toxicology; people are hinting that Alys must have taken something. That wasn’t her. She was into her fitness. At the gym three times a week. She ran marathons, you know.”

  “I didn’t, but looking at her figure, I should have guessed. Very toned.”

  “Whatever she did, she gave it the full wellie.”

  “Did she work for the same bank as you?”

  “Yes, but not in the same department, or even the same building. We met at orientation. It was my first day and hers too. She’s in the auditing department. I’m a manager at a branch on the South Bank. She actually earns more than me, not that it ever mattered to us.”

  “She sounds an amazing person.”

  “She is. Was. No, is. Amazing. You can still be amazing after death, can’t you?”

  “I think the memories of Alys will always be amazing.”

  He nodded for a long time. “They will.”

  “Are your parents still staying with you?”

  “No, they’ve gone back now. It was a bit cramped in our flat and hotel prices in London are silly in the summer.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I told them to go. I have to get back into the groove, haven’t I?”

  “The groove?”

  “Work, seeing mates, living my life, I guess.”

  “Can’t be easy.”

  “Nope.” Brice was picking the sandwich apart. “They’ve given me this pamphlet thing. ‘The Stages of Grieving’. I’ve never read such crap in my life.”

  “I don’t think it’s supposed to dictate how you should feel, Brice, just give you a route—”

  “I don’t want a route, thank you.”

  “You’re not finding the pamphlet a help, then?”

  “No, because it’s trying to tell me that, in the end, it will all be better. I don’t want that. I don’t want better.”

  “You said yourself you had to get back in the groove.”

  “Yeah. Earn money. Keep a roof over my head. Eat to stay alive.”

  “I didn’t know her well, Brice, but maybe Alys would want you to do that.”

  “And I am. I am doing that. I just don’t want to be told that right now I should be feeling fucking depressed or fucking guilty or fucking angry.”

  I tried a smile. “Even if you are fucking angry, eh?”

  “Yeah. Even if.”

  “Some people find those pamphlets quite a support.”

  “I can’t believe that anyone actually wants to feel better. To ‘recover.’ I want Alys back. If I can’t have her back, I can pretend, at least. Talk to her. Dream about her. I love it when people talk about her. Not that they do, much.”

  “People don’t find it easy.”

  “Correct. D’you know what I think? They should make those pamphlets for all the others. The people who know the bereaved ‘loved one.’ Tell them what to do. Because mostly, people are fucking useless.”

  I nodded. At that moment, I had great sympathy with anyone who felt useless.

  Brice directed a morsel of chicken towards his mouth. �
��It was her idea, of course,” he said, having finally managed to swallow. “The whole stupid Tor experience.”

  “Shell said something about that. How Alys had been wanting to spend summer solstice on the Tor for ages.”

  “What else did Shell say about her?” I felt his eyes bore into me. Did Brice know that Alys hadn’t felt well that day? Surely the pathologist knew that. “Did you speak to Alys? What did she say to you?”

  “Mostly that Anagarika was a jerk.”

  That made him laugh. “I’ve started to think what Alys would like at her funeral. Naturally, Alys didn’t think she’d need a funeral. I know she’d like some ritual elements to it and I want to be inclusive of people she thought of as friends.”

  “Who you invite is up to you.”

  “Anag got my fucking goat.”

  “He’s a dickhead, Brice.”

  “Even so, I guess I’d include him. For a start. I need to clap eyes on him again, because … well, did he look to you like the practical joke sort?”

  My heart gave one big thump. “What d’you mean?”

  “I was sitting in that bloody hospital. We weren’t being told much, at first, but then they put us in a room. There were flowers in a vase and a tray of tea and I’m thinking—uh-oh. Then they tell us. They ask if I’d like to view the body. They don’t ask if I’d like to be sick, but, hey. Fucking awful. Shell’s let off that; she’d gone back for my car. So I go in, on my own, and Alys is lying there. Like she’s asleep, Sabbie!”

  He began to study his phone.

  “So then Alys’s parents go in and I’m back staring at the four walls and vase of flowers on my own and ping, an email arrives.” He tapped the screen to its side and pushed the phone towards me. “Fucking bizarre.”

  I felt oddly shy of reading his email. The wording was in a fancy font, as if written with a calligraphy pen.

  It has begun. The dancing damsel, the maiden from the well, was cut down on the hallowed hill with a dolorous blow. The wasteland is upon us; a desert of death. Those who laughed—those who pushed forward to gloat—have been punished. The Green Knight has been taken down and others will perish likewise if they bring opprobrium to the ancient land of Logres.

  Morgan le Fay

  I looked up, blinking in the sun pouring in through the pub window. The words felt like lead in my mind.

  “What’s that about, Sabbie?”

  I shrugged, perplexed.

  “You know … about these things.”

  “Who sent you this?”

  “Not a clue. I almost deleted it, but I’m glad I didn’t.” He took back the phone, adjusted the screen, and pushed it back to me across the table. “Because, today, day of the inquest, of all fucking days, ping!”

  The Tor needs no sacrifice. This utter waste of blessed life signals doomsday. The wasteland creeps over Logres. We are all witnesses to the slow destruction. Before it is too late, we must wake the Sleeping King, yet the passage from the abbey grounds into the Hollow Hill has been blocked. The Red Knight is both thief and liar and has been fatally struck.

  Morgan le Fay

  “These are appalling,” I said. “You should report them.”

  “I don’t want to show them around. Actually, I’ve shown no one but you.”

  “The police could find the source faster than it takes to swallow a pint. There’s probably some Internet law this ‘Morgan le Fay’ could be questioned under.”

  “I don’t want to involve the police in Alys’s death. Frankly, I don’t plan to do anything about this. That’s what this Morgan wants. She want me confused … I dunno … upset.” Pain stretched across Brice’s mouth. “The email leads nowhere. I got one of the IT guys at work to trace the address; she had no success. I tried a Google search, but that was crazy. Morgan le Fay is all over the Internet.”

  “A lot of pagans take names like that.”

  “One of them has a dumb perception of a very stupid gag.”

  “You don’t know who might have sent this?”

  “No. I thought you might. You mix with all those Glastonbury types.”

  “You think this is someone Alys met on the Tor?”

  “Or in that house.”

  “Stonedown Farm?”

  He pushed his plate back and looked steadily at me. “You might as well know that I hated the entire experience. I hated almost everyone I met during it. Even if Alys and I had got back … unscathed … I would never have wanted to repeat it. Alys asked me to go with her, and I did. I will regret that I didn’t dissuade her for the rest of my life.”

  “Brice, could you forward those emails?”

  I passed him my business card, which had my email address on it, and he fiddled again with his phone. “Done. Now I can delete the vile things. I don’t understand a word of them anyway. What is all this knight shit?”

  “The Green Knight is a legend, an Arthurian myth. And Morgan le Fay was King Arthur’s half sister. Logres is an old name for England, I think. I’ve never heard of the Red Knight, but I bet some scholar in medieval literature would be able to tell us.”

  “I’d better hit the road.” He stood, patting his pockets for his car keys. “You were the only one, Sabbie. Of all the people at Stonedown, the only one knew I could trust.”

  When Brice had left the bar, I got my own phone out. The two emails were sitting in my inbox. I read the words again, then again. They were crazy; senseless, yet, horrifically, they made plain sense. I wondered if a crime had been committed in their sending. I was sure Rey could tell me. Maybe he could get some tech nerd at the station who owed him a favour to trace the email address to a computer.

  I got in the Vauxhall and drove the five or so miles that separated Wells from Glastonbury. I planned to collect my drum from Stonedown Farm before going home. I’d texted Stefan to that effect. There’d been no reply, but I had a feeling Stefan and Esme were less than rigorous about locking doors, so even if they were out, I could still pick it up if I left a note.

  Twenty minutes later I was parking by the pillared front door. Stonedown Farm hadn’t lived up to its farming title for decades. Stefan McKiddie had inherited the entire thing from his uncle, the last in a line of local farmers. He’d immediately put the two hundred acres of land up for auction, leaving a little copse of native trees with an ancient pet cemetery at its centre, an acre paddock wherein Esme kept a wild-eyed but well-groomed Arab, and a pleasant bit of lawn at the back of the house. Stefan had lived on the proceeds of that auction ever since. Not that he and Esme didn’t work. Stefan ran his psycho-spiritual and counselling services from an outhouse in the garden and Esme was a potter whose bowls and jugs fetched good prices. She came out of the house when she heard my car roll over the gravel.

  “Did Stefan get my text?”

  “He’s not here.”

  Esme was what Gloria would have called big-boned; her shoulders loomed over averaged-size individuals like me. From well-muscled arms dangled big hands that were ideal for controlling the fast spin of the potter’s wheel. She hid her high forehead with fringed scarves tied as thick bandanas. Oddly, her cumbersome figure was the one thing that endeared me to her and helped me forgive all the bitchy asides and cold stares.

  “I’m hoping you found my drum.” Actually, I didn’t think Esme would have spotted it; she wasn’t the sort who tidied up immediately after guests. She turned without further communication and stood, almost holding the door open for my impending departure, while I scurried into the workshop and gathered it up.

  “I’m sorry to miss Stefan,” I said as I returned to the hallway.

  “I thought he’d be back by now. I suppose this sort of thing does take time.”

  “Business deal?” I asked. Stefan and Esme would never admit they engaged in “business,” or ever did “deals,” so it gave me great pleasure to watch her face.

 
“Actually, a friend of his was rushed to hospital.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Not serious I hope?”

  “You could say so. He had his head bashed in.”

  “Goddess! That’s awful.”

  “When I say ‘friend’, of course, I don’t mean close friend. Just an acquaintance.” She gazed past me as if hoping Stefan would roll down the drive and rescue her from hostess duties. “Between us, I’d say we know almost everyone of significance in Glastonbury. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Huh? Oh, sorry, yes, of course you do, Esme. You’re part of almost every event.”

  “Stefan is the sort that can mix with all comers—pagan, Christian, Buddhist …” She nodded a couple of times, to confirm the statement.

  “Nice of Stefan to support this guy.”

  “Hmm. I can’t see why he has to spend all day hovering over the chap’s bed.”

  “Will he pull through?”

  “Who knows? I certainly don’t. This chap does voluntary stints in the Glastonbury Abbey grounds. The story runs that they found him in some bushes, bleeding from a head wound.” A smile flickered. “Not good for the abbey’s image, methinks.”

  “That’s shocking.”

  “It’s the world, though, Sabbie, isn’t it. It’s a nasty world, out there.”

  I was thinking about the nasty world inside Esme’s head, but I kept my peace, giving her a sweet smile. “I haven’t asked how you are.”

  She sighed and leaned against the doorpost. “I’ve been trying to persuade Stefan to stop the workshops. I hate having our home invaded.”

  “Okay, Esme. I’m sorry we walked in on you. I had no idea you were all rowing in there. Maybe you don’t know, but Wolfs was worried that Stefan might have been trying to sell drugs to the workshoppers.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Stefan isn’t a pusher. Or a handler of any kind.”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I don’t know why that row blew up.” I paused. “But you do. You were there. What was it about?”