Summon the Bright Water (24 page)

‘Give us half. Instalments as and when. Is it a deal?’

‘Done! But there isn’t a goldsmith among the lot.’

‘Will be, if I have my way. What do you think I’ve gone bald for, Piers?’

‘God knows.’

‘He does. You’re right. Solidarity, that’s why. I’m showing sympathy with the opposition. Beats them! They’re as curious as cats. Look here! All those decent chaps at Broom Lodge haven’t any religion. A pity, but there it is! I’d call ’em well-meaning agnostics. All that reincarnation stuff just makes them feel good. The only truly pious are the druidicals and myself. Their religion is sincere but their rites are degrading. How do you think the missionaries converted the Saxons? Started with a pagan priest of course. Converted him, and the other fellows followed.’

‘Elsa!’ I appealed. ‘Will you please tell me what the hell Denzil is talking about?’

‘But it’s simple, darling. You haven’t a business mind. We’ve solved the problem of getting rid of the gold without certificates and all sorts of papers we can’t get. Half for Broom Lodge. Half for us.’

‘But what has it got to do with goldsmiths?’

‘I’ll take ’em off wrought iron and give ’em six months training,’ Denzil explained. ‘Elsa supplies the gold. When we sell the gew-gaws, half the proceeds to Broom Lodge. Half to her. Have to work it out.’

‘Suppose what they make isn’t saleable?’

‘Who cares? It’s bought for the gold. For all I know, the buyers throw the rest away.’

Now that was close to what Marrin had actually told me.

‘But it all depends on your mission to the pagans.’

‘That’s where solidarity comes in.’

‘You’ll fetch up on the altar at Wigpool.’

‘Not if I can work a miracle.’

‘I don’t wonder a theological college threw you out. In the Middle Ages you’d have been flayed alive for blasphemy.’

‘It’s not blasphemy at all,’ he answered indignantly. ‘To convert the heathen a miracle is permissible. At least two saints crossed the Irish Sea on stones that floated.’

‘And if you can pull it off, are you going to be abbot of Broom Lodge?’

‘Not me. Raeburn has the makings of an abbot. He’s deeply religious and the sort of chap I’d go into the jungle with.’

‘And not come out.’

‘I think that if I returned the cauldron…’ Elsa began.

‘Good girl!’

‘And if I could return it in such a way that you had your miracle…’

‘Better and better!’

‘Pity it won’t float,’ I said, ‘but we might send it over the river in a toy boat.’

He was really angry with me now.

‘Not a game! It’s not a game at all. There must be true reverence.’

‘For a fraud?’

‘For what it creates. Simeon knew that.’

‘Don’t fuss, Piers!’ Elsa ordered me. ‘You aren’t the bloody inquisition. Dear Denzil, are you sure you can make them start training to be goldsmiths?’

‘No. But you can.’

‘How long must I stay?’

‘A week should do it. What do they call that thing which turns one stuff into another? A catalyst, that’s it. Well, you’re the catalyst.’

I was frankly shocked, but realised that with St Elsa’s help our fifth-century Paladin might be able to pull off his revolution. The druidicals were in disarray. Their high priest had died; his successor had been drowned; the gods were angry. While the rest of the commune was indifferent to any nonsense they might get up to, the major at least showed a sign of sympathy by his shaven head.

Denzil no longer believed that the cauldron was the Grail, but he did in some sense believe that its shape and its strange gold partook of the ancient myth. That was what the druidicals, encouraged by Marrin, had believed. So the violently heretical Christian and the pious pagan could agree on its sanctity so long as neither insisted on exact definitions.

Take my old friend Nodens as a half-absurd example. Whether I call him Nodens or an angel makes no difference to anybody. The essential is that I do not wholly deny a Something Else able to influence me. On that Something Else a fifth-century missionary could build, whereas he would have been helpless before a pure materialist – who didn’t exist anyway.

This attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible major by way of Nodens brought the god to mind. Spirit of land and river, healer, restorer of lost property and in his relations with me undoubtedly a god of mischief, he should find a miracle within his powers. Summoned by my thought of him, he remarked – as always through my imagination – that druids were not likely to be familiar with diving and it might be possible to stage a marvel more convincing than a toy boat – or a stone one if it came to that.

The major hurried back to his secular duties, which he was taking very seriously. He only knew a little about agriculture and nothing whatever about the crafts, but his military life had taught him that discipline can be imperceptible. He made no attempt to replace that benevolent dictator, Marrin. He merely organised committees and stood back.

‘You shouldn’t have been so rough with him,’ Elsa said. ‘You know he’s crackers.’

‘He’s not crackers. You just have to decide which century his memory is in while the rest of him is here and now. One half sees pets. The other half commits burglary.’

‘Anyway he saw how we could get rid of our gold before you did.’

‘If he can get his amateur alchemists to work. And that depends on the miracle.’

‘But I’ve made our fortune, Piers! And you aren’t excited, just dreaming.’

‘I am wondering what can give me the exact time when half the blasted Severn is going uphill to Gloucester and the other half going downhill to the Shoots and it’s high water at the Box Rock. Nodens and I will then produce a miracle while you, sweet St Catalyst, do your vestal-virgin stuff on the bank. So back to London and get the Grail out of pawn!’

I have an old friend whose hobby is vintage cars. By day he is an archaeologist, at night a motor mechanic. It seems to be a point of honour that one must rebuild every part as it originally was. To put in a new engine, new gearbox or anything new is as disgraceful as to salt a dig with bones which don’t belong to it. Consequently his workshop is a museum of bits and pieces.

I called on him with Elsa. It was the first time she had appeared to a normal friend in my normal life. She was looking as innocently alluring as an advertisement in a Sunday supplement and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

‘I want a thin steel rod,’ I told him, ‘painted black and about ten feet long, firmly fixed to a plate at one end with a quick release clamp at the other.’

‘What has the clamp got to take?’

‘The bottom rim of this, and it had better be padded.’

I took the cauldron out of its hat box and showed it to him.

‘What an exquisite thing!’ he exclaimed. ‘Persian and about sixth century B.C., I would say.’

I was glad of that. It showed that a better authority than I could be taken in. I had been feeling a litle humiliated since the verdict of the British Museum.

‘It’s only a modern replica. Gold-plated lead.’

‘But what for?’

I was momentarily stuck for a lie, but Elsa was not.

‘My cousin’s birthday,’ she said. ‘They’re filthy rich, jet set and all that. So I had to have something original.’

He looked at me ironically as if wondering how a serious economist could have got mixed up with a crazy bunch of conspicuous consumers.

‘I’ve got a bit of just the right rod. Strong as a Toledo blade. Come and have a look at it, Piers!’

He led me through a pool of oil round the back of a vast landaulette.

‘So you’ve been out baby-snatching! What a stunner! She looks like the Dea Roma on holiday.’

‘I’m the baby more often than not.’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘Salmon fishing.’

‘Not your style unless you were trying to find how much Julius Caesar paid for a pound. When does she want this device of hers?’

‘As soon as possible.’

‘She would! Well, it’s all straightforward except for the quick-release clamp. I’ll have to look around for that.’

‘And you must let me make a subscription to your old-age pensioners.’

‘It won’t be expensive. But this one would be grateful, wouldn’t you?’ He slapped the glossy flank of the landaulette. I wonder he didn’t blow up its nose.

When we were home again (what enchantment to be able to write ‘home’ instead of ‘my flat’!) Elsa’s curiosity was of course unbounded, but I refused to tell her what I was planning.

‘Because I need your inspiration when you see it for the first time. That’s decisive – far more important than anything else. Is it a miracle or is it not? If there’s any doubt, we’ve had it and you might be in trouble.’

She accepted this nobly and I was allowed to spend a few evenings in the home for senile motors, making a light raft with a float attached to each side to keep it level. When the ten-foot rod was ready, with its plate at one end and its clamp at the other, I tied the lot on top of my car, recovered the cauldron from the bank and told Elsa it was time to go down to Gloucester.

‘Oh, not Gloucester again!’ she exclaimed.

‘Well, the Thames is too crowded. But up the Severn somewhere we ought to find a bit of peace in the dusk.’

‘Thank God it’s not that horrible tideway!’

‘Not yet. And if all goes well and you approve, we’ll stay the night and have a conference with the major next day.’

The map suggested that the Haw Bridge, some six miles above Gloucester, might do for the rehearsal of my experiment. When we got there, the evening river was not so peaceful as I expected, so we walked along the bank carrying with us the raft, the rod, the hat box and all my equipment for diving until we found a spot a little upstream from the bridge where no pleasure cruisers were moored and there was a good screen of bushes between the tow path and the fields. I asked Elsa to cross the bridge, follow the far bank until she was opposite to me and then to watch the gently flowing current and report what she saw.

Meanwhile I changed and assembled the miracle – a mere matter of screwing to the centre of my raft the plate at the bottom of the rod and clamping the cauldron to the top. Then I pushed the raft out to deep water and reduced the pressure in the floats until the rim of the cauldron was just awash.

It was now dusk, permitting no clear view at a distance but quite enough light to see any floating object. Keeping on the same level as the raft I pushed it in front of me underwater until it grounded. That did not matter. It would never ground at all off the Box Rock.

I stood up and removed the mask, waiting for the vital comment. Elsa was clapping.

‘I could swear it floated across the river on its own. I could just see the rod once or twice but I’m sure I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t known it was there. And on the tideway, ripples and a bit of spray will hide the bottom. It left a little wash behind even on the calm river. Denzil will believe it’s a real miracle. Dare we let him?’

I said I’d love to – his reactions would be so fascinating. But he had to be in the secret in order to organise the reception party.

We returned to our hotel, where Elsa called up the major to make an appointment for next day. He said that he would meet us in the afternoon at the sapling stump – which indicated that by now the druidicals had returned to the routine of the commune instead of wandering disconsolately through the woods.

In the morning I visited the port offices to find out when it would be high water at Box Rock – a question apparently that only the river could answer. I was told that at Sharpness and Lydney there could be no doubt, but within the horseshoe bend it might depend on the wind. Since the tides were now neap there would be little or no bore. At the Box Rock and Bullo the top of the tide – give or take ten minutes – should be about 8.50 p.m. the day after tomorrow and the slack water wouldn’t last long. It would not yet be high tide at Gloucester, but the ebb would certainly have started below the Noose.

We found the major at the sapling stump, looking military but not to the extent of visionary stirrups. I explained to him how the cauldron would cross the river and asked if he could guarantee that his six pagans would be on the bank just upstream from the Box Rock on Thursday at half-past eight; they might have to chant or meditate for half an hour or more until the dusk was of the right texture.

I could see that his conscience bothered him. A miracle he had asked for, but not such a bare-faced miracle. He sighed but, yes, he was sure the party could be arranged at the right time provided Elsa returned with him now to Broom Lodge and mixed normally with the colonists.

‘Carry on as if no inner circle existed, just like your uncle.’

‘Are they likely to bow to me as they pass?’ Elsa asked.

‘I’ll settle that with Raeburn.’

‘Good God!’ I exclaimed. ‘Is he installed already?’

‘He is high priest. The rest will follow.’

‘Has Elsa got to preach to them?’

‘Not her job, old boy! That’s where I come in. All Elsa has to do is to visit the blacksmith’s shop and tell them they must learn to work in gold, that gold came before tin and is far more sacred. She will show them a sign.’

‘What about the training?’

‘Club porter. Nothing he doesn’t know. I’ll ask him to find me a young goldsmith who’d like the job. And must be an earnest Christian.’

‘We have to find a way of delivering the raw material.’

‘Darling, the priestess looks after that. I think the cauldron should not be empty. We’ll put a few ingots in it and I shall scatter them in the meadow like Flora with a cornu-what’s-it.’

‘But we haven’t any ingots with us.’

‘Yes we have. I always carry three in my bag for luck.’

I told the major to see that their torches were alight, and flaming red. As the marvel approached, Elsa would walk into the water, being very careful not to step over the edge into the Box Hole, undo the clamp – she had already practised that – and display the cauldron.

‘Do I beckon to it, or what?’

‘Just hold out your hands as if you knew it was coming. Do whatever you feel like. You were so magnificent at Wigpool. Nothing that I suggest could be as good.’