The Echo of Crows, page 7
‘Have you never wondered why, like most other priests, you haven’t been made responsible for several extra parishes over a wide area? Parishes which, in some areas, might simply have been abandoned.’
Merrily took out her vape stick and let it slide through her fingers. Of course she’d wondered. Extra parishes meant a vicar becoming less significant in all of them.
‘Are you going to say it’s because my deliverance work has increased?’
‘If I am, I’m only going to say that to you,’ Siân said. ‘And don’t expect the Bishop ever to say it to you, however indirectly. Be that as it may, your deliverance adviser, Huw, has been saying it and trying quietly to help you. But, essentially, you’re going to be on your own. As I’m sure you know, Huw thinks a lot of you, Merrily. He’ll never tell you this, but I think he sees you as next in line – a possible successor to himself – as the exorcism consultant for the border and a wide area of rural South and Mid Wales.’
Siân sat back. Merrily put down the vape stick, shaking her head. She’d read a New York Times story online and a few British broadsheet pieces pointing out that 45 per cent of contemporary Americans were said to accept the existence of the kind of alleged paranormal phenomena her work involved…
‘There’s one familiar story you won’t find much in the USA,’ Siân said. ‘It makes regular appearances in our press these days – especially in the tabloids.’
‘Let me guess.’ Merrily sighed. She didn’t really like the way this was going. ‘Is it the one that highlights all the surveys showing that there are more people who now believe in ghosts than in God?’
Siân’s faint smile clearly contained the answer.
‘And let’s not forget…’ she leaned over the table towards Merrily and lowered her voice, ‘…how the Church in this country is sometimes replacing spirituality with politics. I don’t know how you feel about this but it’s going to affect you increasingly.’
Merrily said carefully, ‘Politics and spirituality probably employ different parts of the brain. Or, in the case of spirituality, something beyond the brain. I don’t know.’
The rain was crashing on the cobbles. Against the sudden violence from above, the Archdeacon spoke softly.
‘Have you called the Cathedral gatehouse recently?’
‘With Sophie reduced to one day a week, that’s when I phone.’
‘Try her when you get home. She’s resumed the administration of the clerical and communication aspects of work in the deliverance office.’
‘In a seriously reduced way. And for how long?’
‘Ask her. She may be able to clarify some things for you.’
The Archdeacon finished her tea and rose to her feet. She kept away from the papers jammed into Merrily’s bag. The practical side of deliverance in Hereford diocese seemed to be all Merrily’s business now.
Merrily turned towards the exit, beginning to feel slightly overburdened. Several phone calls to make, including one to Sophie, and, maybe, one to Huw, and another expected from Autumn Wise.
12
Died for love
THE RAIN HAD broken off as the Archdeacon drove away. Merrily tightened her woollen scarf against an ambitious wind. Although the first covid pandemic was long gone from the village, a few of the people who passed her were still wearing protective masks over their mouths and noses. Paranoia died hard.
Ethel, the black vicarage cat, followed her in, through the back door. She was used to an extra mid-morning feed from Jane, who had left yesterday to help Eirion move into his first small flat in Abergavenny. Merrily suspected Jane might have suggested moving in with him if she hadn’t agreed to manage the first Ledwardine festival shop until festival-time next year. She was old enough now to think she should be making her own decisions about relationship issues but, for Merrily, it was a case of one problem-age following another.
*
When Merrily entered the hallway and bent, Ethel’s head pushing into her left hand, she realized Jane was back. Sounds of books and papers being moved in the kitchen. But, when she entered, no Jane. Must have left through the bottom door, leaving the books and papers heaped together on the dining table in the window. They were the ones chronicling the crash which had killed the Wises, which Merrily had printed from the Net last night as background for her next encounter with Autumn. Jane had obviously been reading them and didn’t want her mother to know.
Hmmm. Not the first time.
Merrily straightened the pile. There was nothing here that Jane didn’t or shouldn’t know about, but why couldn’t she just ask?
What the hell…? There were more important things to find out about. She opened a sachet of Felix for Ethel, then went into her office and rang the Cathedral gatehouse. Holding her breath, picturing white hair bowed over a shorthand notebook, a sharp chin holding the phone in position, a pen flitting left to right as Sophie lightly snapped, ‘Deliverance.’
The voice just as crisp as in the old days. Merrily collapsed into the captain’s chair behind her desk and let out the suspended breath. Was it true? Could the old days be back?
‘Sophie… You didn’t say anything about coming in today when we last spoke.’
Sophie said carefully, ‘Can I take it that you’ve had a call from the Archdeacon?’
‘A visit, in fact. She’s only just left.’
‘Presumably having told you that she’d been invited to resume her role as chair of the diocesan deliverance panel.’
‘She didn’t actually say that. But… well, good, very good. Does that mean she’s now been empowered to increase your one-day week?’
Sophie, devastatingly calm, said, ‘Last night I agreed to work here five days a week again, to restore some order to the deliverance office. With the agreement – reluctant, I imagine – of the Bishop. So I seem to be here full time again, for the foreseeable future.’
‘Not that I’m… not delighted, Sophie, but… why? What’s happened? Why’s the Bishop closer to accepting deliverance as we knew it?’
On the desk was a slender paperback, Exorcism by Martin Israel. It was likely to be needed again as a point of reference, though she didn’t remember bringing it down from its high shelf. Had it pulled itself out, or was this another of those signs you occasionally noticed in this job?
There was a strangely shaky silence, until Sophie said she had not been officially made aware of the Bishop’s views having altered to any extent… although everything else had changed in the past couple of years, hadn’t it?
‘I was considering taking my formal retirement,’ she said, ‘but I dared to suspect you might not want me to go away… Not quite yet, although the way things are going…’
Not too long ago, the Bishop had decreed that, in the future, people seeking deliverance from some perceived paranormal intrusion into their lives should be tactfully made aware that the Church of England no longer involved itself with alleged ‘supernatural’ incidents. For a time, it had looked as though exorcists were finally entering Anglican history. The phenomena they professed to deal with were simply not real. The Bishop didn’t actually say this out loud in an area of Britain where foolish superstitions were still largely considered valid, but he was among the large number of senior clergy now in search of a ‘rational’ reason for them to survive and quietly hoping they wouldn’t find one.
‘I think…’ Sophie hesitated, ‘that during the later stages of the pandemic, the Bishop’s office was being subjected to a larger number of deliverance enquiries, and he was beginning to find that embarrassing.’
‘He’s not easily embarrassed, Sophie. What kind of enquiries was he getting?’
‘Many, as we can guess, will have been unconvincing if sincere,’ Sophie said. ‘Certain cases – some bereavement apparitions, I would think – may be dealt with by giving simple advice on the phone or by email. But some people… just won’t let go. They think they’re entitled to receive help, day and night. Especially night. And, of course, some these days are… rather litigious, even when dealing with the clergy. Am I making sense?’
‘You always make sense,’ Merrily said. ‘But if I can just ask, who’s been dealing with exorcism at the Bishop’s office?’
‘I would imagine some inexperienced priests who very soon found themselves out of their depth.’ Sophie coughed lightly. ‘Don’t think I’m trying to sound smug here, Merrily, but having someone whose primary function is to look into people’s apparently psychic problems keeps the Church’s purpose essentially open-ended, if that’s the correct phrase.’
‘Has there really been a significant increase in enquiries since the first lockdown?’
‘Like you, I’ve only spoken to the Archdeacon,’ Sophie said, ‘but she’d already given me a list of seven people asking for deliverance advice who won’t be fobbed off.’
‘Seven? Bloody hell.’
‘Some, I think, could be dealt with by a local vicar, who may not need or want advice. But I hope you agree that you need to be aware of everything, including approaches from certain police who seem to think we’re obliged to disclose anything that may overlap their enquiries. If you’re not available and they’re in a particular hurry, they’ll sometimes try me, and if I decline to help them…’
‘…they’ll know they’re actually onto something,’ Merrily said, smiling.
Like old times?
There was suddenly a persistent hooting from the driveway as Merrily put the phone down. She grabbed a mac and opened the front door to find an energized Huw.
*
‘Gomer Parry’s bloody brilliant,’ he said. ‘He’s just put a new tyre on for me and done a second checkover and everything’s good. So, just thought I’d call on the off chance you were in and let you know I’m off to Clodock again now. No chance yesterday.’
Merrily led him into the kitchen and put the kettle on.
‘I’ve only been once myself,’ she said, ‘and it was quite a memorable place, though nothing significant, from our point of view, has happened since the king was killed.’
She could have added more recent, breaking news on the radio about a fatal shooting but let it go. This was an area where history and legend easily became entangled – useful for storytellers like Autumn Wise, but beyond that…
Huw said, ‘I had a small chat wi’ Cloddy.’
Could he really mean St Clydawg, of the sixth century, too long-dead to chat to Huw or anybody?
Probably.
‘Did you talk to him in old Welsh?’ Merrily asked, one eyebrow raised.
Huw said nothing for a while, then he nodded, once.
‘Aye. Cloddy, king and saint. A rare combination.’
‘He tell you anything interesting?’
‘Went over a few things,’ Huw said.
She frowned. No, you didn’t. You just want to add weight to whatever you’re here to share with me. ‘You’ve got time for a cuppa?’
‘A quick one,’ Huw said, ‘while I tell you what happened.’
He settled into his chair. ‘Well, back in the Dark Ages, he were betrothed to a local girl. And this guy, who fancied the lass for himself, killed him one day in the Monnow valley. And this was where they built the church that still carries his name. He died for love. I thought you’d know that.’
‘Maybe I didn’t know all the details but I recall the gist.’
‘He were a good man from a highly respected, pious family, Merrily. And she were a lass of noble stock. She’d had other proposals, but she were determined to marry t’king.’
‘So the legend says.’
‘It’s in th’history books, too. And it lives on in Clodock.’
‘Lives on?’
‘Merrily, our job’s all about things as keep living on, you know that.’
‘I don’t know anything.’
‘Then it’s bloody time you did,’ Huw said. He wasn’t smiling. ‘Anyroad, I’m going back to Clodock. Summat’s trying to tell me summat. And a friend confirmed it. Not some has-been exorcist.’
Merrily was smiling. He liked investigating mysteries so old that any revealing evidence must have vanished centuries ago.
She thought of the Apparitionists’ journal’s only entry on Clodock:
The king’s murder remains its most notable historic event.
That was fifteen whole centuries ago. How could it possibly matter now?
‘You’re not a has-been,’ Merrily said, as he drained his mug and headed for the door. ‘Like Gomer, you’ll always be needed… and you know who finds work for idle hands.’
13
Ancient voices
MID-MORNING AND THE top of the Black Mountains was cold but dry; no sign of rain, thank God. Not a big sun, but not too small, in Huw’s experience, for the start of November.
He reversed his Land Rover into a tight space in the village of Clodock and headed straight for the church. Not as easy as he’d expected. Narrow village street, not much parking and the church wasn’t as he remembered it from yesterday. The stone seemed mellower, the starkness softened. King Clydawg was here like he’d died only yesterday, Huw thought, hearing the long-late monarch speaking to him in an accent that he half-recognized as possibly medieval Welsh. He didn’t know how he half-recognized it; nobody had spoken to him in medieval Welsh before, even at college, and if this was Clydawg, it would surely be pre-medieval Welsh.
Walking in through the church’s main doorway, Huw realized he wasn’t hearing the actual words, only the sense, and there was nowt weird about that.
In one of the history books, he’d confirmed that when his old man, Cledwyn, died and Clydawg became king, he was betrothed to a nobleman’s daughter who had many admirers but wanted to be wed only to the king.
So why had there been no marriage? Why, instead, had Clydawg been slain on this riverbank by an insanely jealous competitor for her hand, a Saxon who thought Clydawg’s murder would be a quick and simple resolution of his desires?
Huw was aware of a lingering sorrow and then was suddenly angry. He’d awoken early with a head full of Clodock images and had raided his library and attacked the Internet before tossing a bunch of books and printouts into his Land Rover. Now here, in perhaps the loneliest part of middle-England, something was determined to impart a significant message and, this time, he wasn’t going to let it get away. He’d been glad of Merrily’s tea but not her sympathy. She needed proof. He would get it.
He walked out of the church again and round the walls until he was looking down the Monnow valley. He turned until he was facing Clodock church and the green space that had been here before there was a church. And then, in his head, he was on the opposite bank, following a gloomy group of people with a wooden cart pulled by oxen and possibly carrying the remains of the King of Ewyas.
There were monks and a bishop. He didn’t see a young woman, but he felt she was there, and angry, too, inside her sorrow. And then the oxen stopped and would not approach the spot chosen for the king’s final resting place. Two crows seemed to circle it and then land, strutting purposely around and across until, their role played out, they flew off slowly to view the scene from the branches of a spreading elder, a magical tree said to protect against and ward off evil spirits.
How did he know that this had been the chosen spot? How did he know whether what he was seeing was merely imaginary… or was it visionary?
He didn’t know and didn’t care. He hadn’t been in this mental and spiritual state many times in his life, and he knew that now he had to turn off the analytical part of his mind and just… just surrender to it.
*
The day was advancing but slipped back into darkness very quickly as a rough circle of people formed. Huw was aware of an enthralling, entrancing chant in Welsh, as pale moonlight shone from the mirror of river alongside. It silhouetted the blades of spades and axes held ready to excavate a fitting resting place for a king. Huw accepted he could be imagining all this, but that made it no less impressive. It was a scene he was privileged to feel part of; a sacred tableau replayed for its historic significance.
Only a few people remained in the darkness. Time passed unmeasured as the ground quivered and yielded to the thrusts and slams of tools wielded by untiring hands. Suddenly, faces were burnished by a burst of flames from the new grave, forming a column of living fire, lighting the cold air as it rose from the damp riverbank and into the continuing Dark-Age night. Huw stood watching it all in his head as the original oratory became a church, forming organically around him. Its wood had turned to stone but its medieval frame had resisted the Victorianization that had remodelled all the other churches in the area.
As soon as Huw walked in, his eyes found the lofty three-deck pulpit rising from the pews almost to the roof, and he saw the rising column of flame within it. Then he was realizing that the permanently rising pulpit carried the same energy as the original pillar of fire. He’d read that remains of the first stone church were now lying beneath the current chancel. It was all here… everything you could have seen in the sixth century, along with a holy well. It had become a shrine, a place of pilgrimage. Huw knew there were a few of these pilgrim-attractions around his own diocese, but he felt this place was special, inside England but not fully English. Not Welsh-speaking any more, but if you put your head to the ground you could think you were hearing ancient voices. Before leaving home he’d read that the parish had been under the control of the Welsh church until 1858 when it became part of the English diocese of Hereford. But to Huw, it still seemed a place that belonged only to the Black Mountains, which were more than mountains. A place that had its own sacred Otherness.
He couldn’t believe that Merrily Watkins had never had cause to come out here.
Huw knelt and said a prayer for all past saints and all other departed on this All Saints’ Day; a special day with a privileged insight he would never forget. The rhythm of the prayer acted like a slow countdown from a hypnotic spell. Three, two, one, Amen. He was back, in mind and body, and he urgently wanted to share what he’d witnessed.
