Lucifer's Crown (42 page)

"It's magic,” said Maggie.

The tower loomed close above, a dark masculine vertical rising from the glistening feminine curve of the hill. “Mind your step,” Thomas said softly. They passed another bench, and turned left along a ridge not far below the tower. Behind it, at the most precipitous part of the hill, Thomas took first Maggie's and then Rose's hand and guided them onto a lower terrace. A flight of steps and a circular track just below the flat ground where the tower stood brought them back to the main path. “Fifth circuit."

"Isn't this where the last abbot of Glastonbury was judicially murdered by Henry VIII?” asked Maggie.

"Richard Whiting, an aged and gentle man, was done to death with two of his monks—one of whom was named Arthur. The gallows was set up just there, where tomorrow that cresset will hold a solstice bonfire.” Thomas's gesture toward the black shape of the fire-basket on a pole retracted into the sign of the Cross. “It was a cold November day, the wind sobbing through the doors of the church. The lands below lay hazy and gray, like repudiated legend. The commissioner who watched as the head was struck from Whiting's body and mounted above the Abbey gates had red hair."

For a long moment Rose and Maggie stood silent. Then Thomas said, “A cautionary tale, yes, but this place is haunted less by it than by echoes of life ever-blooming. Lift up your hearts—we're almost there."

In silence the women followed him back down the main path to the brink of a sharp slope and then around to the left, just above an exposed area of rock and sandy soil. Once again Thomas helped them climb the kink. Back at the ascending path he announced, “Sixth circuit. One more,” and led them down and to the right. Past the kink they went, and a row of trees and a muddy spot covered with nettles. They found themselves standing at the bottom of the exposed area, upon a patch of snow.

Save it wasn't snow. They stood amongst white flowers growing thickly together. Flowers which glowed. The face of the Tor shimmered and thinned into a curtain that parted before them.

"Very good,” Thomas breathed. “Shall we go in?"

He had to prod Maggie forward with his torch, and grasp Rose's sleeve to hold her back, but inside they went, to a staircase of hewn stones. The air was cool, but warmer than the icy night outside, and smelled not only of the deep earth but of spices. Voices ebbed and swelled like the murmur of the sea. Thomas switched off his torch. “Down."

They walked down the spiral staircase. The walls were of closely set stones like the pavement of the Old Church, save these stones glowed like parchment lit from behind. At the foot of the stair the pavement crossed a stone bridge above a stream of dark green water. Beyond the bridge a bronze mist filled some vast but undefined space ... The mist parted. A man and a woman walked along hand in hand, smiling over a private joke. “Calum and Maddy Dewar,” whispered Rose. “Mick showed me pictures."

Behind them came Bess Puckle, talking animatedly with Vivian Morgan. “My God,” said Maggie, “they're..."

"...reflections,” Thomas told her.

A horse trotted through the gauzy light. Its rider's armor was dented but his face was bright and eager. He closed his visor, set his lance, and spurred the massive horse onward in a drumroll of hoofbeats. A dragon stirred and woke, its scales gleaming in jasper, lapis, sapphire, carnelian. Then knight, rider, dragon—all were gone.

Another knight, this one older, dragged a woman across the pavement. Her long flaxen braid swung back and forth as she struggled. Melwas, king of Somerset, abducting Guinevere to his palace on the Tor ... Arthur stepped from the mist, an Arthur with Thomas's own face. Excalibur gleamed in one hand, his other extended toward a Guinevere who looked suddenly like Maggie—and they, too, were gone.

A man in a monk's robe emerged from the shadows, clutching an earthenware flask. Before him the mist rolled up and vanished, exposing a hall lined with stone pillars. Brightly-clad men and women sat at long tables, laughing and feasting and throwing tidbits to several cats and dogs. On a dais sat a powerfully-built red-bearded man wearing a crown. Thomas felt both Maggie and Rose tense. He said, “That is Gwyn ap Nudd, King of Faerie, Lord of the Underworld. The monk is St. Collen, a hermit who had a cell on the slopes of the Tor."

Each luminous face-for good reason were they called “the Fair Folk"—turned toward Collen. Gwyn stood, raising a cautious hand.

"Demons!” Collen scattered water from his flask.

For just a moment the voices stopped. Then Gwyn threw back his head and laughed, a rich bass laugh that had in it thunder and deep waters and solid rock. Collen shrank into the mist filling the spaces between the pillars.

"Oh,” said Maggie. “If Gwyn and his court weren't demons then holy water wouldn't have much effect, would it?” Musicians began playing a subtle melody on flute and harp. “I know that music."

"That's the tune Mick heard at the Eildons,” said Rose.

The deep note of a bell vibrated in the stone itself. From the dais a wisp of vapor spiraled upward and became the Lady, a red-haired Lady wearing a gold torc and a plaid caught by a jeweled brooch. She turned toward Thomas, Maggie, and Rose, opening her arms.

At her feet appeared a steaming cauldron. Nine young women walked from the glistening shadows and paced solemnly around it. Every face reflected Rose's, bright, clear, radiant with intelligence. The original Rose gasped. “It's Ceridwen."

Or perhaps it was an image of Mary in her blue cloak, light shining from her brow. She picked up the cauldron and it contracted to a small shape, so bright Thomas winced to look at it. A knight with Mick's face knelt before it, his head thrown back, his gray eyes reflecting the light of the woman's halo and of the Grail itself. Galahad, who saw the Grail at a Mass of the Glorious Mother of God.

Suddenly the hall went silent, empty save for the Lady. Gwyn, his court, the maidens, the tables and the foodstuffs—all had vanished as utterly as last winter's snow. A cold wind blew away the fragrances of flowers and food. With one last keen look from her earth-deep brown eyes, the Lady set the shining object down and faded into the darkening mist.

Curls of vapor crept across the floor and down from the ceiling. A box sat upon the stone pavement of the dais, gleaming faintly, like a moon rather than a sun. Thomas walked forward and picked it up. It was the olivewood box he himself had fashioned long years past.

Maggie and Rose waited by the bridge whilst he returned back down the hall, the mist closing in at his heels. “We should be going."

"Yeah,” said Maggie dazedly.

Rose was grinning from ear to ear. “Awesome! Totally awesome!"

They climbed the spiral staircase, darkness following at their heels. In a small, damp, stone-lined chamber at the top of the stairs Thomas pushed open a stone slab and one by one they stepped out into night. “Where?” Maggie began, and then saw the empty archways to either side. “Oh. The room at the base of the tower."

Moonlight silvered the fog below and the heavens above, illuminating the carving of St. Bridget in the side of the tower. To the north rose the black bulwark of the Mendip Hills. To the southwest the mount of Chalice Hill resembled a whale, a hint of substance beneath the surface of a misty sea.

Thomas looked from Maggie's face to Rose's, and smiled tenderly at each. A glance at his watch showed that it had gone midnight. The witching hour. The cusp of a new day. Of a new year.

"Now what?” Rose asked at last.

"We go from the center out, although I should suggest instead of threading the labyrinth again we simply go straight down and home."

"Just like a man,” teased Maggie.

"How do we know home is still down there?” Rose asked. “What if we come out in 1256 or 1702 or 2138, for that matter?"

Thomas tucked the box under one arm and switched on the torch. “I should think it is still the threshold year of 2000, otherwise there would have been no point to our retrieving the Cup."

Leaving the silent radiance of the moon behind, they entered the fog, walked down the slope, and returned to the world. Streetlights still glowed orange. A few cars traversed the streets. The mini-bus sat in the Chalice Well car park where Maggie had left it. They piled inside and sat shivering whilst she switched on the engine.

Thomas's fingertips quivered with the faint but unmistakable chord that emanated from the box he held. Here it was, again in his hands, exposed to the world and its dangers. He was elated. He was grateful for his companions. He was bone-weary of his everlasting task.

"How did you get the Cup to begin with?” Rose asked.

Maggie switched on the heater. A breath of warm air touched Thomas's face. “From people who never perceived it as a sacred relic."

"The Cathars,” Maggie said, “who denied Christ's humanity."

"They led relatively ascetic lives, and did not go about torturing their neighbors over points of doctrine. There is something to be said, I suppose, about refusing the symbolism of the blood."

The lights of the town streamed by the windows of the car like sparks thrown from a bonfire. “The Inquisition was started,” said Rose, “to root out the Cathar—well, they said it was heresy."

"The Templars refused to join in the Albigensian Crusade. Our refusal tainted us with heresy as well. In 1244 many Cathar leaders were besieged in their fortress at Montsegur. I volunteered to act as mediator but failed to bring about a compromise. The night before the Cathars surrendered, their leader—a woman—gave me the cup, as thanks for treating her and hers with respect. Or as thanks for speeding their entry into the next life, however unintentionally."

"So she died?” Rose asked.

"The defenders of Montsegur walked down the mountain singing, and were, to a man—and to a woman and to a child—burned to death in the field below. Robin stood amongst the Inquisitors that day, truly powerful, as two hundred twenty souls were butchered in the name of the Prince of Peace."

"That didn't wipe out the Cathars, though,” said Maggie, turning onto the Beckery roundabout. “Or the Inquisition, which is still with us in many different forms."

Thomas shook his head. “The Cathars, steeled by violence and injustice, survived. That they eventually faded away is due partly to St. Francis's example. Through his love of birds and animals, of the sun and moon, he demonstrated the goodness and joy of God's material world.” The mini-bus turned through the gates of Temple Manor. “Speaking of the goodness of the material world, would you care for a nightcap?"

The main house was dark. He had left one small light burning in his cottage, where they found Dunstan having a wash and brush-up in the chair. “And what've you been up to?” Rose asked, tickling his ears.

A note lay on the table. “D. C. I. Swenholt called about the B. He'll call back tomorrow. Anna."

"I hope that means Mick and Willie pulled it off.” Maggie reached for the bottle of whiskey and set out three glasses.

"You didn't have your cell phone with you?” Rose asked Thomas. “What if Mick tried to call?"

Reverently Thomas set the box on the table. It was like removing an iron filing from a magnet to take his hands away from it. But it was not his alone.

He retrieved his mobile from the desk. “I didn't think it appropriate to carry something so relentlessly contemporary on the evening's quest, Rose."

"I guess not,” she said. “Can I call Mick now? Just to see if he's okay, and on his way."

"By all means.” Thomas handed over the mobile and accepted a glass of whiskey from Maggie.

The small electronic instrument chirped as Rose played its buttons. She put it to her ear. She frowned. She replayed the same melody and held it again to her ear. “He's turned off his phone,” she announced.

"Trying to get a good night's sleep?” suggested Maggie, her slightly forced smile refusing to admit any other conclusion.

Her brow furrowed, Rose put away the mobile and accepted a glass of whiskey. The three glasses clinked lightly together. “To the solstice,” Thomas said, “the re-birth of the sun and the hope of the future. May Christ, the light of the world, illuminate our path, and Mick's, and Willie's. In the name of the Father..."

Dunstan leapt from the chair, raced to the window, and bounded onto the sill. His bottle brush of a tail swished back and forth. Thomas peered out between the drapes. He saw nothing, but he could imagine any number of things.

The fur settled down on Dunstan's back and tail. “He could've seen a dog,” offered Rose.

"Yeah, right,” Maggie said.

Firmly Thomas tugged the drapes closed and turned back into the room. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

"Amen.” Rose sipped at her whiskey. Her cheeks, already burnished pink by the cold, flushed a glorious crimson. Maggie drank, and the fault lines in her face eased.

Thomas let the bright, hot liquid warm his mouth before he swallowed. How could anyone, he thought, reject the felicities of the material world? And yet love of the material world could lead terribly astray.

Putting aside his glass, he said, “Well then. A preliminary revelation is in order.” He opened the box. Inside, nestled in rich red velvet, sat the gold reliquary in the shape of a chalice he himself had fashioned long ago.

"You made that, didn't you?” Maggie said. “It's beautiful."

Even in the dim light the gold glowed, and the filigree knotwork with its morsels of color on handles and base seemed to ripple gently, like a flowing stream or leaves shifting in a spring breeze. “It looks like the Ardagh Chalice in Dublin,” said Rose.

Thomas lifted the chalice from the box, and the upper half of the chalice from its base. Inside gleamed a common Roman drinking vessel, a flat cup made of thick glass.

Rose genuflected. Even Maggie was speechless for a long moment. At last she asked, “May I?” She set her fingertips against the rim of the glass. “Should I be feeling something?"

"I sense a harmony emanating from it. From each of the relics. But then, I'm not exactly of this world myself. Rose?"

First wiping her hand on the tea towel, Rose ran a forefinger round the rim of the glass. “Maybe there's a sort of vibration, like a bell after it's been struck."