STAGS 5, page 17
‘Keep dancing,’ I said. ‘What’s up?’
She held my gaze as we whirled around – her dark eyes burning through the mask with fear. ‘Ratio’s gone. He’s disappeared.’
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‘Disappeared?’ I repeated, probably a little too loudly.
‘Shh,’ she said. ‘He never came back from the recce this morning. I’m freaking out, Greer.’
‘Wait,’ I said, as we exchanged arms and spun round the other way. ‘Who’s flying the drone?’
‘Shafeen,’ Ty said. ‘He’s hiding out somewhere nearby, controlling it with Ratio’s phone.’
‘Wait. Ratio left his phone?’ I’d only known Ratio a short time, but he struck me as the kind of guy who’d sooner leave his right hand at home than his phone.
‘That’s what I mean. Something’s not right.’
Then we were obliged to swap partners again, and I whirled around with a rabbit and then a robin, until at last the music stopped, so of course we all did too. My head was spinning with the wine and the whirling and the worry that Ratio hadn’t come back from his recce. I told Henry, low-voiced, what Ty had told me, but before he could react, one of the musicians, the one with the accordion and the head of an otter, began speaking again in his booming islander’s accent. ‘Before we light the needfire, we will make the Lammas Circle.’
I expected this to be the part where we all linked arms and danced together, Mamma Mia! style – but actually what happened was much stranger. People started scrabbling in their pockets and fumbling at their wrists, ears and throats. ‘What’s happening now?’ I asked Henry.
‘We make the Lammas Circle by removing any metal from our persons,’ he said, his voice a little altered by the hawk mask. ‘You have to take off any jewellery, take any coins out of your pockets, belt buckles, etcetera.’
It was pretty strange seeing everyone acting like they were at an airport about to go through that metal-detector thing, but such a Medieval version of that Savage process. With a jingle and a clink, everyone laid their stuff in little piles, in this huge circle around the wicker stag. Henry said, ‘The circle of finery is supposed to make what happens inside the circle sacred.’
‘OK then,’ I said sceptically. Luckily I only had on a pair of cheap little hoop earrings, and I laid them down in the grass next to Henry’s coins and signet ring with the little antlers stamped on them. Henry said something like, The trick is to remember where you put your stuff, so I took especial notice of the little piles either side of mine. On one side, obviously, was Henry’s signet ring with the little stag’s antlers. On the other was a little heap of metal that had been put there by an unseen hand. A shining shape sprang out at me in the torchlight. An antler earring – not a spangly dangly one, but one of those butch ones that goes through the earlobe through an extra-big hole. I had seen it before in Glasgow, in the most techie bedroom I’d ever known, worn in the ear of the room’s owner. It gave me a warm feeling to know that Ratio must be here after all. I looked around to tell Ty and reassure her, but just then an owl and a dormouse came forward bearing a huge wooden board between them. On the board was some sort of cake in the shape of a deer – not one of those fancy birthday-type cakes, but a rough, bready construction, plaited and baked to a uniform golden brown. Two pieces of the cake were different to the rest. There was a round white bread bun for a tail, just like those little bobbing tails I’d seen on the fleeing deer at the Red Hunt. Then, at the other end, the antlers were baked a darker black-brown. The revellers applauded this creation, then the owl and the mouse set the thing down on the table and began tearing it into pieces in a swift, practised way. They put each hunk, including the antlers and the tail as separate pieces, into a canvas sack held wide by a goat-headed fellow. The goat then went around everyone, and each guest reached into the bag and took out a piece.
I looked at hawk-headed Henry through the holes in my hare mask, hoping he could see the question in my eyes.
He could. ‘It’s just bread,’ he said. ‘It’s the Lammas loaf – glazed with a custard of eggs and milk. Don’t worry. It’s nice.’
When it was my turn I reached into the bag and brought out a hunk – it was still warm. I fed it under my mask and it was indeed delicious, and as I ate a kerfuffle broke out on the other side of the circle. A mountain cat was shrieking and jumping up and down. ‘What’s her deal?’ I whispered to Henry.
‘She got the antlers,’ said Henry. ‘That means she’s the Queen of Lammas.’
I watched as the delighted cat was crowned with a flower garland, wrapped in a gilded cloak and carried shoulder-high around the circle.
‘What happens if you get the tail?’ I shouted above the cheers.
‘Watch,’ said Henry.
The person who had drawn the tail was a very tall man in a fox mask. He was ushered to the centre of the circle by the goat, who said in loud, ringing tones: ‘I declare the fox the Lammas Fool!’ The crowd jeered good-naturedly while the owl and the mouse went round the circle in opposite directions, handing out eggs and cups of milk. The goat took to his heels, leaving the fox alone in the circle, and the whole company threw their eggs at the fox, and their milk too, so in a very short time he was covered in a hideous custardy mess.
Then, almost imperceptibly, the atmosphere turned. I looked around at all the beastly animal faces. Of course they hadn’t changed at all, but they seemed to be wearing warped, bestial expressions as they pelted the poor fox with increasing force. Soon the Lammas Fool was staggering backwards, gloved hands held up, shielding his face. ‘Someone should stop this,’ I said to Henry. ‘He’ll get really hurt in a minute.’
‘Wait,’ he said.
The cat, lowered to the ground, raised a gloved hand and the pelting stopped. ‘Now as the Lammas Queen, she’ll speak the Bidding,’ said Henry in my ear. The cat read from a page of parchment, clearly and distinctly, in a voice that was like a chime.
‘I call upon the warriors of the past,
those who would stand up and fight,
those who would do what is needed,
those who would make sacrifices on behalf of others,
those who would die that others may live.
I call upon them this night,
to give me strength of heart, soul and spirit.’
There was an expectant silence. The poor fox, panting through his mask, sat soaked and stained on the grass. Then the otter from the folk band struck up a beat on his drum – a slow, dour tempo like you might hear on a march to the gallows. Below us in the valley, a glow of torchlight, which split and lightened into separate brands, carried by a procession of figures.
Antlered figures.
The DOGS.
The Dark Order of the Grand Stag approached to the beat of the drum, marching up the hill in time. They were wearing red floor-length monastic robes, with red hoods drawn up over their heads. And here, at last, were the deer masks. Every one of the red-clad figures wore the face of a deer, with antlers rising above, and they gathered in a circle in front of the wicker stag. As before, one of the DOGS had antlers that were larger than the rest, with the crowning branches I now knew to be called surroyals. This, I knew, was the Grand Master – presumably Gideon Villiers, the Old Abbot. The DOGS were, by far, the creepiest figures of all the creepy figures I’d seen that night, and my body had a visceral reaction to their arrival. I’d last seen them like this, in their ceremonial robes, at the Red Mass in the subterranean chapel of Cumberland Place. The time before that, they’d circled me onstage at the De Warlencourt Playhouse at STAGS and branded me on the thumb for the murder of Henry de Warlencourt, the young man who stood next to me now. I began to shake, and my legs suddenly felt totally unequal to the task of keeping me upright.
Henry gripped my arm. ‘Steady,’ he said. ‘Look up.’
I did as he asked. And there, high above us, far beyond the reach of the torchlight, was a tiny red dot – a little glowing eye in the sky looking down on me. The HAWK was there. ‘The Peel Tower Rebels won’t let anything happen to you,’ said Henry. ‘And neither will I.’
Now there was more activity around the Damh – four young girls, by the look of their dresses, all with the heads of songbirds, were arranging a frothy green plant around each foot of the stag. Then four DOGS stepped out of their malign circle and touched their torches to the piles. The plant, whatever it was, caught immediately, and long tongues of flame began to lick and rise around the wicker legs of the stag, like serpents of fire. ‘That’s the tein-éigin,’ said Henry. ‘The needfire. It’s kindled with an ancient herb called agaric. The branches of the Damh represent the tree spirit of fertility and vegetation, and the fire is purification – it burns up and destroys all harms.’
I shot a look at him but of course it was impossible to read his expression behind the hawk mask. Was there an ironic tone to his voice? It was so hard to tell.
As we watched, the needfire leaped up each leg and the body of the stag began to burn. The surreal scene before us was now as bright as day – and if we could see everything, the drone could too.
Something else was happening – the whole company was forming some kind of line, with the DOGS at the very front. ‘Now what?’ I said to Henry, with the weariness of dread.
‘Now the company process under the belly of the Damh three times. It’s supposed to bring luck for the following year.’
‘Luck?’ I bleated. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to be at the back. The longer the stag burns, the more unstable the whole structure gets.’
‘No shit,’ I said. So we joined the queue and followed the revellers as they danced under the bonfire, just as the creepy nanny had said at our first-night dinner. Even on our first go it was incredibly hot and bright, like actually being inside a fire, and I emerged on the other side with relief, even euphoria. The revellers were getting wild again, and I began to understand the heady rush of cheating death. This was why successive generations of de Warlencourts, even Henry himself, had tried to explain to me that the fox enjoys the hunt.
‘You think this is strange?’ bellowed Henry, as we passed beneath the burning belly a second time. ‘In olden days they used to drive all the Highland cattle under the legs too. You can imagine how much they liked that.’
‘Why?’ I yelled back over the crackling of burning willow.
‘They used to think that if they didn’t the cows would be attacked by giddiness and convulsions and dance in their stalls.’
‘Okaaaaaayyyy. Any more lovely surprises?’
‘Well, there’s a fertility element to the proceedings,’ he said, more softly now as we emerged on the other side of the fire.
I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘What kind of element?’
‘Well …’ He actually sounded quite shy for once. ‘Later in the night couples used to … fornicate – on the ashes, around the glowing stag. They believed it would make the men fertile and the women fruitful.’
I looked at him sharply through the holes in my mask. ‘Used to? Or still do?’
He didn’t quite meet my eyes.
‘Got it,’ I said. ‘Well, hopefully we can go home before the orgy stuff starts.’
Our third revolution under the stag was by far the scariest – burning brands were already beginning to fall from the belly of the structure. The stag was really roaring now, the flames almost reaching the neck. We emerged safely, as did all the other revellers, but there was still someone left to go. The Lammas Fool, alone, had been held back to run last of all. The fox-faced man stood, psyching himself up, alone on the one side, while the crowd stood, baying, on the other. On a signal from the goat he ran, shielding his head from what was now an inferno. I said: ‘They do this so he has more chance of being burned.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Correct,’ said Henry, watching too.
I was afraid for the tall foxy man, as even by his second revolution fire was positively raining down. ‘Henry,’ I said, ‘does anyone ever get hurt?’
‘Singed a little maybe,’ he said. ‘But the violence to the “special guest” usually happens at the Red Hunt. I’ve no idea why it didn’t this year. But I’ve never known a death at Lammas, if that’s what you’re asking.’
That was what I was asking. I was a little reassured, but I still fixed my eyes on the tall, slim man anxiously, willing him to get round unscathed. As I watched, I was struck by a sudden notion. I couldn’t see the fox’s hair, but I was absolutely convinced it was Ratio. No one else I knew was that tall, plus I’d seen his antler earring in the Lammas Circle. I saw him emerge from the conflagration untouched following his third and final pass, and the crowd, won over after jeering their fool, cheered instead.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I had high hopes that after all the fun and games everything would start winding down. Surely in the next few minutes the Damh would be completely burned up, the hillside would be dark again and we could all go home? I no longer cared if nothing happened that we could pin on the Order. Things had got weird enough and my only concern was to leave the place alive. I was already jumpy as a jackrabbit so when someone clutched at my elbow I nearly skipped out of my skin.
‘We’ve got a problem.’
It was Shafeen.
Alone among the company he wasn’t wearing a mask. Luckily everyone else was intent on the burning stag, because he didn’t look at all like the rest of the revellers. He was dressed head to toe in black and clutching Ratio’s phone, the one he was clearly using to pilot the drone. He looked like James Bond, but now wasn’t the time to swoon over him. He was saying something that put all other thoughts right out of my head.
‘Someone’s in the stag.’
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‘What?’ In my shock I turned to face him.
‘Keep looking forward,’ he hissed fiercely. ‘I can’t be seen.’
Henry, who had now detected Shafeen’s presence, came to stand on the other side of me, to hide the interloper from sight. ‘What’s up?’
‘There’s a person in the stag,’ whispered Shafeen. ‘I was flying the drone, and I couldn’t see a thing before the fire was lit. So I switched to infrared like Ratio taught me. And it picked up all the heat signatures of the people on the ground of course. But it also picked up a signature of someone in the deer. In the head, just under the antlers.’
Suddenly Ty and Nel were with us, and we stood in a tight circle about Shafeen as he rapidly explained the situation once again.
‘Jesus,’ I breathed. All those times I had jokingly referenced The Wicker Man. Well, now we were living it. ‘We have to do something. And fast.’ The fire was now burning along the body towards the neck of the stag. ‘It’s so lucky Ratio taught you the infrared thing.’
‘He’s still not back?’ asked Henry urgently.
‘No,’ said Ty, her voice strangled with tears.
‘I think he is here though,’ I said. ‘I saw his antler earring in the Lammas Circle.’
Then I realised.
The words I’d read in The Golden Bough wreathed around my head like glowing embers.
Colossal images of wicker-work were constructed … these were filled with live men … fire was then applied to the images … they were burned with their living contents …
‘Oh God. Oh God. Oh God,’ I breathed. ‘It’s him. It’s Ratio in the stag.’
Now the flames had mounted higher I could see a figure, lying prone, obviously bound and gagged, writhing like the serpents in the book. ‘We got this all wrong. He’s the sacrifice. It was him they wanted, not me. They stripped him of his metals, ready for the ritual.’
Ty ripped off her mask, her face a picture of agony. ‘We have to save him!’
‘I don’t think so.’
For a moment I didn’t recognise the voice – because I had heard it so seldom. It sounded like a younger Rollo, an older Louis.
It was Lord Peregrine.
We were surrounded by a circle of the Dark Order of the Grand Stag, cloaked and antlered and absolutely impassable. ‘Nice to see you again, my dear,’ said Lord Peregrine, nodding his antlered head towards Ty. ‘Although it is customary to wait to be invited.’
‘Ah, sir,’ said Henry, ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I’m afraid we have some uninvited guests. If you’ll allow me, I’ll find the servants and have them removed.’
I turned on him quickly, feeling the sting of betrayal. Had he been stringing me along all this time? Had he been on the Order’s side all along? But his blue eyes in the hawk mask held mine steadily.
Trust me.
Then I knew what he was up to – he was trying to break free so he could help Ratio. Admiring his quick thinking, I held my tongue and looked back at Lord Peregrine. He was silent beneath the mask, as if thinking, but this wasn’t his call. He looked to the figure with the largest surroyal antlers. And then I clicked. It wasn’t a question of whether Henry’s uncle would buy it. It was a question of whether the Old Abbot would buy it.
He didn’t.
‘I’m sorry, my boy,’ said Gideon Villiers. ‘More sorry than I can say, because of the great esteem in which I held your father Rollo. But I’m afraid you have proved to be a cuckoo in the nest, and your loyalties to the Order have, however understandably –’ he inclined his great antlers gallantly at me – ‘been compromised. No. You will stay and observe the ritual. All of you. And then you yourselves shall be tried by the needfire.’
This was the stuff of nightmares, and I willed myself to wake up. I, Henry and all the Peel Tower Rebels were imprisoned in a tight circle of red-robed figures bearing antlers on their heads and torches in their hands. Of course we struggled desperately and tried to break out of the circle, but even Shafeen and Henry, by far the strongest of us, were silently and firmly repelled by the dreadful, silent figures in the deer masks. Meanwhile, the fire crept slowly but surely up the neck of the wicker stag, to the desperate figure trapped in its head. Ty started to hurl abuse at the DOGS, dredging up every curse she’d ever learned on the Limehouse Estate, while Nel, softly and hopelessly, began to cry. It was horrible to see Ratio twisting and turning in the cage of wicker that was the stag’s head, knowing there was nothing we could do but watch him fry, knowing that we ourselves faced a similar fate.
