Saxon's Bane (11 page)

F
ERGUS PUSHED HIS
bicycle up the lane to the stables, defeated by the incline. No matter. He’d set a benchmark and would now measure daily improvements. Besides, the world waking around him was so intense that he almost wanted to linger. Sunrise to a businessman was something that always happened on the other side of glass. It might be the glass of a windscreen as you stared at a morning traffic jam, or the glass of the office as you lifted your eyes from the overnight emails, but sunrise had always been wallpaper, a mere backdrop to life. It slipped past as part of the scarcely-noticed transition from night to day, less significant than the coffee. Fergus could not remember having smelt the sunrise before, that richness of newly turned earth in a morning so chill that there might have been a glacier beyond the Downs.

He paused in Ash Farm’s car park, filling his lungs with the morning, letting his awareness expand. Fergus wondered how he could describe this moment to his former colleagues, then realised they wouldn’t understand. They’d think he’d gone soft. Around him the landscape swelled as if some vast subterranean body had inhaled, tightening the earth over its curves. The land was female, fecund, as English as nut-brown ale, and rich with birdsong. No hum of equipment, no engine noise, just the dawn chorus and, at the edge of hearing, a sound that might have been singing.

Music. There should be music to mark the way the first lance of the sun was warming the hilltop woods from grey to brown. Elgar, perhaps. Something majestic. As his senses opened Fergus wasn’t sure if the faint sound of chanting had been there from the beginning, or had just started, but it was there like a gentle undercurrent to the morning. There was something primitive about it, a tone signature from a time before music was written, sung in a rhythm that had the simple, insistent pace of a quickening heartbeat.

Intrigued, Fergus edged along the verge until he could look around the corner of the farmhouse towards the source of the chant. There, on grass that had once been a garden lawn, was Eadlin. She stood with her back towards him, facing the rising sun, with her arms stretched over her head so that her body formed the Y outline of a chalice, and she was singing a gentle chant in praise of the day. Rhythmic puffs of fog drifted from her mouth, fading from sharp light to nothing. Her forearms were outlined in a slender halo of gold where the downy hair stood clear in the cold against the rising sun.

Despite the morning chill Eadlin wore only a cotton shift, fine enough for the sun to hint at the silhouetted swell of a breast under her lifted arm. Her hair spilt down her back in a cascade that reached almost to her waist, auburn tumbling over white. Beyond her, horses grazed in the paddock with their breath steaming the grass. Behind her, her shadow stretched over the lawn until it split with the fork of her arms, one shadow arm running to his feet as if inviting him to join a dance. Eadlin’s near-nakedness was no more sexual than the swell of the landscape around her, simply part of an act of raw worship that came from the dawn of time. Fergus stood transformed by the beauty of the moment, this instant of ethereal perfection. He felt that even if she had turned and seen him, their eyes could have met in pure appreciation.

It took perhaps ten heartbeats before Fergus realised that he was intruding, and a niggling sense of voyeurism made him back away. Embarrassed now, he edged back along the grass verge until he could turn and move quietly into a barn. As he started to breathe normally, horses’ heads appeared over the stall doors, anticipating the morning feed and signalling the presence of a human by their whickering and movement. A little later, after his own morning communion with Trooper, the only sign that he had not dreamed the vision was the hairpin loop of footsteps in the dew across the lawn. As the sun rose further, soon that too was gone.

Jake arrived in the tack room later that morning while a stable girl was teaching Fergus the intricacies of bridles. He greeted Fergus by name, sliding one arm across his back as if they were lifelong buddies. His “heard you was back” was barked in the same tones that Fergus’s former boss would have used to greet a favoured employee returning from vacation. Jake let his arm fall and pulled his face into a satiated, alley-cat grin. Fergus could smell alcohol on his breath. Jake, it seemed, had been partying.

“Morning, Jake.” The stable girl looked at Jake from under lowered eyelashes, toying with a button on her shirt. Fergus was sure she had undone at least one button since Jake appeared.

“Morning, Emma.” Jake smiled at her the way a rock star might smile at a groupie, and pulled his saddle off its peg. Fergus watched him leave, thinking that the guy had more charisma than was safe. God, it would be barely legal with this girl. How old was she? Seventeen, perhaps? The girl caught his look.

“He’s gorgeous!”

“I think Eadlin’s ahead of you.”

She shook her head to dismiss his comment. “Won’t

By mid-afternoon, the sun had moved to the front of the farmhouse and Eadlin gathered a pile of tack onto one of the tables and showed Fergus how to clean it. They worked in amiable silence, working saddle soap into the stiffness of hard leather, while he formulated a question.

“Mary Baxter says you are a healer,” Fergus began, struggling with a piece of leather.

“My Mum taught me how to use herbs, that’s true.” Eadlin smiled at him over her own pile of tack.

“In the wreck, when you found me, I remember you sang to me.”

“You remember that, d’you?” Again, that lift of a single eyebrow. “You was almost beyond anyone’s help then. It was only an old song to keep your attention, to stop you slipping away, like. Nowadays I gather firstaiders tend to shout at casualties and slap their faces to keep them awake. I just sang you a song.”

“It had a strange rhythm, like an incantation.”

“What’s the difference? Incantation, prayer, song, they’re just ways we give voice to something we want.” There was a note of caution in her voice. The answer felt superficial.

“Well it worked for me, clearly. You could make a business out of it!”

Eadlin shook her head with a frown and a flash of what might have been irritation. “Nah. You can’t sell what I do. It just wouldn’t work. It’s something my mother gave me, to use where I saw fit, in the same way that my gran gave it to her. If I ever have children I’ll share it with them, if they have the aptitude. But it’s a precious thing, more of a way of life, so you don’t try and make a profit out of it. And you certainly don’t want all the scrutiny and regulations that herbal practitioners have to put up with.”

“You make it sound like a religion, almost like…” His voice tailed away.

“Like witchcraft, you mean?” Eadlin attacked a piece of leather as if it was responsible for such views. “It’s funny. Healers in India chant as they cure people with herbal therapies, and the world gives it a fancy name like Ayurvedic medicine. Nowadays it’s even acceptable in this country because it’s exotic and we’re allowed to be open to different ideas. Everyone forgets that we had similar knowledge here for thousands of years. The difference in this country is that a few hundred years ago they burnt anyone they caught doing it, so it went underground and a lot of knowledge was lost. But please don’t call it witchcraft. That has all sorts of nasty connotations.”

“So what
do
you call it?”

Eadlin looked at him and sighed, as if weighing up a decision.

“Well, if you’re going to work around here you’d better know, so you don’t barge in on any more morning prayers.” Fergus felt himself blush. “Some people would call us pagans but even that’s a label that the Christian church smeared us with, centuries ago. To us it’s simply the Old Way. Mostly it’s just traditions.” She looked around for inspiration, and then waved her piece of leather at the freshly ploughed field beyond the paddock.

“Farmers round here will plant a cake in the first furrow that they plough in the spring. Whether you call that tradition or superstition, it’s like a kind of respect to the soil that sustains them. Later in the year the same farmer will ask the Vicar to bless the harvest, and afterwards he’ll join in the village harvest festival. You won’t find the Vicar planting cakes in the first cut of a field, but he won’t turn the farmer away from communion neither. Traditions and faith rub along together well, if you let them.

“But do me a favour, and keep what you see private, like. Around here we’ve learned to live peaceably together by not being too obvious about any differences. Even pillars of the church like Mary Baxter know that kindness doesn’t have to wear a crucifix.”

Eadlin’s voice was even, with no undercurrent of mysticism, so she might as well have been talking about a church fete. Fergus had let his cloth drop onto the table, fascinated, but she waved a bridle at his pile of tack and reminded him that there was plenty more to do.

“So is this ‘Old Way’ a faith, or is it a way of healing?” Fergus was having difficulty concentrating on the stiff buckles in front of him. Eadlin put her own work down as if her answer was too important to be diluted with other activity.

“The Old Way teaches us that all living things are sacred, that there is a life force in everything and connecting everything.” She closed her eyes and inhaled, so that her words seemed part of the vitality she described. “The life force is stronger in some places than others. Old trees concentrate it, so do springs and streams. Some places are naturally sacred, others are made sacred. The church in the village is sacred not because some priest scattered holy water in it, but because people have been worshipping there for at least a thousand years. You try going in there. Close your eyes and feel the peace.”

Fergus felt that however bizarre this conversation would have been in the concrete of a city, it was strangely appropriate here in the countryside, surrounded by birdsong and blossom, the sounds and smells of spring.

“Isn’t it a bit strange for a... for someone from the ‘Old Way’ to be enthusing about a church?”

“Nah, why not? To us it’s simply a different way of saying the same thing. Christians pray to God for divine guidance. We chant to focus the energy of life, so our minds can find the spirit that’s inside all of us. When you’ve had a few more riding lessons we’ll hack out, and I’ll take you to some places that will feel at least as sacred as a church.”

“I think the Vicar might disagree. About it being similar, I mean.”

“I’m sure he would. He’d probably think we’re a bit too liberal in other ways, as well.” Eadlin’s eyes sparkled.

“In what way?” Fergus kept his tone innocent. He liked it when she flirted.

“Well I don’t go along with it personally, but some people think that making love is a way of channelling energy.” There were throaty undertones to Eadlin’s voice.

“But you don’t agree with that?” Now it was Fergus’s turn to flirt.

“Nah. If the sex is that good, the last thing I want to think about is a cure for Grandma’s lumbago.” Eadlin chuckled in a rich, earthy way as she picked up a piece of leather and started polishing. Fergus caught himself flicking a sideways glance at the way her sweater moved as she worked, and he spoke a question as it came into his mind, without thinking.

“So is Jake a follower of this ‘Old Way’?” He couldn’t reconcile his high-energy, high-ego picture of Jake with Eadlin’s picture of her faith.

Her mood changed as if some switch had been thrown. Too late, he realised that Jake’s alley-cat look that morning probably hadn’t been acquired in Eadlin’s company.

“Jake,” she said finally, “has chosen his own path.”

Then she worked silently, punishing the leather with brisk movements, with her mouth set into a line. Fergus bit his lip and cursed himself for his insensitivity.

The Paschal month… was once called after a goddess of [the Anglo-Saxons] named Ēastre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.

I
N HIS SECOND
week, the week before Easter, Fergus’s body was a collection of articulated aches, and he started to wonder if his exercise routine was too gruelling. At the end of the day he’d drag his bicycle through Mary Baxter’s front gate, in urgent need of a hot soak and a large glass of wine, but one evening he paused in Mary’s tiny front garden to listen to a woman’s voice singing in a rich contralto. But for the mess a pianist was making of the accompaniment, it could have been mistaken for a radio performance. Someone, nearby, could sing. The pianist fumbled to a stop.

“Sorry.” Clare’s voice was followed by more, inexpert attempts at a chord. Fergus traced the sounds to the fanlight window of Mary’s front room. Through the glass he could see Clare sitting at the piano, with Mary standing behind her, now humming her encouragement as Clare tried to find the notes. Fergus found it hard to believe that such a sound had come from Mary’s frame. It should have come from an operatic dame, all bodice and bosom, not from dumpy little Mary. The music stopped as his key turned in the lock, and the two women turned towards the door into the hall as he appeared, smiling at him over the top of their spectacles in accidental co-ordination.

“Hi Fergus.” Clare sounded genuinely pleased to see him. “We’re practising Mary’s piece for Holy Thursday.”

“With the choir,” Mary added. “I’m doing a duet with Cynthia Lawrence.” Fergus had a vague memory of Cynthia as the over-dressed soprano with the loud voice.

“Love it. Especially with a little grated parmesan and a nice Chianti.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Baroque church music. Mary’s singing Pergolesi’s ‘Stabat Mater’ and it’s beautiful. I’m staying in Allingley until after the evening service so I can listen. Do come.”

Which was how Fergus found himself in church on a Thursday, possibly for the first time in his life, and sharing a pew with Clare. Behind them people came through the doors in ones and twos and family groups, exchanging whispered greetings as they hurried to their pews.
Kiss, kiss, how’s the family?
The church inhaled life as the evening fell, with people fluttering in from the fading day to mass in the church’s candlelight like a horde of flightless butterflies. Beside him Clare craned her neck to study the church’s ceiling, and interrupted his reverie.

“Imagine what the medieval peasants would have thought of this place.”

Fergus sensed that Clare was about to launch into one of her imaginative descriptions. An easy companionship was developing between them; she was good company when she wasn’t talking about dreams.

“Much the same as us, probably,” he prompted.

“I doubt it. This would have been the only stone building for miles around. Put yourself in the mind of a serf who lives in a draughty, wattle-and-daub hovel. The priest would be dressed in a clean white surplice, and speak Latin, and you’d know yourself to be dirty and illiterate. His incense would make you realise you stank, and this,” she slapped the great column beside her, one of a line marching down the aisle, “stamps his authority on earth.”

Fergus looked around, impressed. Clare could conjure up the minds of the ancients. He could see no further than the plaques on the walls, and still only wonder at their lives. Near their heads, beneath a family crest and the badge of a distinguished regiment, was a simple memorial to Robert D’Auban, 2
^nd
Lieutenant, Mons 1914, Aged 19. Albert D’Auban, Captain, Ypres 1917, Aged 24.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Above them in the darkening glass a yellow-haired, infant Christ raised chubby fingers in blessing. How typical of the hubris of Empire, he thought, to show a blond Christ. It spoke of an age when God spoke English and had commissioned the British to civilise the world in their image.

Eadlin had said something about this church’s atmosphere, about it being a holy, peaceful place. Fergus shut his eyes and opened his mind, trying to let the tranquillity come to him. There was something there, perhaps, some pervasive calm amidst the hushed movements of the gathering congregation, but nothing as powerful as his moment of communion that day with Trooper. It was elusive, calling to him like the scent of a distant flower.

“Can you smell it?” He turned to look at Clare, interrupting a comment about the Tudor roses on the ceiling. She lifted her nose like an animal testing the wind.

“Smell what? I smell musty books, wood polish, candles, flowers… Smells like a church to me.”

Fergus shrugged. One minute Clare could have romantic notions about ancient peasants, the next she would deliver an academic treatise on medieval ceilings. Fergus tried to put his thoughts into words, surprised by his own candour.

“Peace. Centuries of peace.”

Clare looked at him through the top of her glasses, then pushed them slowly up her nose as if she needed a moment to digest his comment. “Well,” she said eventually, “this place has certainly been around for a while.” She nodded over her shoulder at a painted board, listing ‘Priests and Rectors of St Michaels Church’ in an unbroken line starting in 1210. A footnote explained that records before 1210 were unreliable.

Fergus shook his head, lacking the words to articulate a concept that was only half formed in his own mind. He was wondering if a place could have an atmosphere that would survive the people within it, the way mellow brick could absorb heat from the sun and stay warm through a chill evening.

Still musing, Fergus stood, sang, sat and knelt through the service’s ritualised choreography, as much a bystander as he’d been at that last sales meeting. His mind drifted back to another act of worship, when Eadlin had saluted the sunrise of Ostara on her lawn.

But gently, so gently that at first Fergus did not notice the shift in his mood, the atmosphere of the place started to take hold. As the light faded outside, the ceiling softened into a faint tracery, almost lost in darkness. Where it met the supporting columns, a line of stone angels gazed down. A trick of the eye and mind could easily imagine the music to be coming from them and from a celestial void beyond rather than the choir below.

In an expectant silence Tony Foulkes moved a music stand to the front of the choir stalls, and Cynthia Lawrence and Mary Baxter, in cassocks and flowing surplices, moved out to face the congregation. The cardboard edge of Mary’s music folder shook a little as she prepared herself, her face tight with nerves. Beside and towering above them, a bare wooden cross had been erected as the church’s only decoration this Holy Thursday night. Fergus glanced down at his service sheet, reading: