The Triple Goddess (87 page)

In the calm at the eye of the storm, the devil lady sat at home doing her best to ignore the fireplace, and to look on the dark side. An increasing obsession was her inability to get the better of those who were not prepared to bend the knee to anyone but this one poor parish priest, the maddening and mad Ophelia. The DL was aware of the Anglican proverb defining the clergy as being invisible six days a week and incomprehensible on the seventh. They appeared only the Sabbath, popping up like Jacks-in-the-box in the pulpit to assure people of their essential worth, to cleanse them of last week’s sins as one might vacuum, dust, and clean, and then make themselves scarce during the week while the world was busy doing the things that it ought not to do so that it would have something to repent of a week hence. At all other times and in all other places, priests were misfits. They were the Castrati of society, and as tolerated and trusted as a eunuch in a harem. Within the Church, from archdioceses down to the lowliest parish, spiritual conflicts played out like games of chess. In the back rows the white king and Defender of the Faith, and his Satanic opposite number, sat enthroned, immobile and protected while their royal wives, their hereditary peers, their doctrinal counsellors, and their administrative legions waged war on their behalves and in their names. The super-mobile queens as State Ambassadors criss-crossed the board, executing anyone they came across who dared dispute their authority; the robed bishops, and the knight commanders of canons, archdeacons and deans, slid and kinked about the chequered field of Good and Evil; and the castles or rooks, the guardians of doctrine and shady henchmen, patrolled the alleys of passage to cleanse them of malingerers.

The churchwarden and councillor pawns functioned as the sergeants and foot-soldiers, grumbling, dogged, loyal, and brave. After one of each side advanced to begin the assault, and battle had been joined in earnest, they would break off into separate forces. Some might mass in the “testudo”, or tortoise, formation adopted by Roman soldiers when they were besieging a fortress, advancing with shields overlapped and locked above their heads to protect themselves against missiles. Some hurled themselves into the breach and sacrificed themselves in the name of duty and honour, some were detailed to hold positions of strategic importance, some were sent on covert assignment behind enemy lines. Decoration and promotion awaited anyone who penetrated the enemy’s inner sanctum where His Royal Highness had been barricaded for safety.

The devil lady knew, after her extraordinary confession to the fireplace demons, that she was losing the heart and stomach for conflict. Her confidence was shaken. She no longer felt the emotional detachment that was essential for any doing the job that was hers, in administering extreme unction to those who, labouring under the misapprehension that they were living not dying, were unwilling to be anointed by her. On Earth as it is in Hell, everything had to be done by The Book, and the protocols were strictly enforced under the terms of the Arbitra Convention’s bilateral agreement between Heaven and Hell.

Any soul who arrived at the Gates of Hell checkpoint with its papers not in order was taken into custody by a detachment of guards on a local train to the mezzanine station beneath Purgatory. There, a non-partisan panel attempted to agree upon whether it had been condemned fairly or not. If the vote was not unanimous, the soul was sent up with an E-ZPass on another train to the Purgatorial Court, which was always in session. There the Seven Justices decided the case by majority. If they decided to admit the soul on a visa, it was quarantined in Purgatory under supervision of Swiss Guards for as long as it took to be pronounced free of sinful taint by the Purgatorial physicians.

Then, bearing a certificate for presentation to the Recording Angel on duty at the Pearly Gates, the soul was further embarked on the first-class-only Hyperborean Express and zoomed up to Heaven with complimentary vouchers for a pre-beatification Cordon Bleu meal in the Dining Car. Then the train, now renamed the Combustion Express and comprising only cattle cars, zoomed back down without stopping at Purgatory, this time carrying voucherless passengers who had failed the examination set by St Peter’s Recording Angel’s assistants, to Hell’s Bottomless Perdition terminus.

Although there were many cases of burn-out, experienced devils such as the DL usually had no trouble doing things by The Book; or if they did they were able to suppress their rebellious inclinations. The penalties for indulging them were too severe. The pitfall for the callow ones was the temptation to cheat, either out of ambition to exceed their quotas or because they were in danger of falling short of their targets. What had been well learned in the classroom was no guarantee that it could be implemented in the field. The worst situations arose when devils began to identify with their candidates for subversion, even to sympathize with them. After all, they had once been alive themselves, had vestigial memories of what it was like, and were susceptible to becoming possessed by an unthinkable notion: that they might become human again.

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘Today we nearly didn’t have a Service,’ announced Ophelia in church. ‘We were asked not to by Father Fletcher, because the Bishop is in the area and Father Fletcher doesn’t want any trouble from the congregation. I gather that this was an easy sell to the Bishop, it being a Sunday.’

Much remarked upon before today’s gathering was that, for the first time in memory, not one of the ghosts was present. The speculation amongst the congregation was that the earthbound shades may at last have made the momentous decision to move up to the Light
en masse
. How bizarre, the puzzled worshippers thought; and many were upset that this should have happened without their being told, so that the proper goodbyes could be made.

‘Our Bishop Suffragan’s programme for the day,’ went on Ophelia, who appeared not to have noticed the absences, ‘is at this moment in progress. The Bishop is leading a group of the faithful and the doubtful and heathen alike, whoever might care to join the party, along the downs ridgeway leading to the Devil’s Breach. Which is an interesting destination, one might say, for a bishop on any day of the week.

‘The purpose of this excursion, Father Fletcher tells me, is for His Right Reverendship to meet and talk with as many of our community as possible in an informal setting. The outing will end with the Bishop and his Venerable colleague the Archdeacon, neither of whom are known for their love of out of doors exercise, parting ways with the episcopal entourage or sacerdotal squad as Father Fletcher might call the group, descending from the mountain and repairing to our former Rectory there to discuss some rather important matter, subject unknown, and tea-cakes with our Mrs Diemen.

‘In case any of you may feel inclined to join the heavenly throng immediately after Service, I should warn you that although the weather report this morning was excellent and the sun is out, there might be a storm on its way. I can feel it in my bones. The Bishop et al. are in for a soaking, I think, and we pray that their spirits will not be dampened as much as their clothes.’

En plein air
a couple of hours later, fortified by several stops for coffee and tea from Thermoses and a sandwich luncheon from their rucksacks, the Bishop’s retinue of hikers, “a wretched raggle-taggle straggling gaggle”, Father Fletcher muttered to himself as he raked the horizon with a powerful pair of binoculars—the manservant who was watching with him had no need of ocular enhancement—was proceeding eastward along the chalk and flinten track that ran along the top of the downs in the direction of the Rectory and, behind it, the Devil’s Breach.

The Bishop himself, exhilarated to be out doors on such a day, was striding along with great vigour and vim for one of his girth and appetites, admiring the view and snorting like a horse feeling his oats. The rolling hollows to either side were called “bottoms”, he had been told, which caused him to giggle. He had made a mental note to mention this to his secretary Gail at a nice little Thai restaurant that he had in mind to take her to during the week for noodles and hot sauce. Despite his avowed intention to be sociable, the gap between the bishop and the rest of the field was considerable.

He was eager to see the dramatic ravine called the Devil’s Breach that they were headed towards. The prelate had listened with interest to his Archdeacon’s description of this unusual geomorphic feature of the landscape, the Devil’s Breach, and was tickled by the quaint legend associated with it. The devil, so the story went, had it in mind one night to flood the plain and drown all the churches by digging with mattock and spade a ravine or trench to the sea. But he had been foiled by a certain St Bertram, who had arrived from Cornwall pushing his agèd mother in a wheelbarrow. Bertram displayed great ingenuity in seeing the devil off, asking the nuns of a nearby abbey to cause the stained-glass windows to be illuminated from within by candles, thereby causing the cocks to crow early; whereupon the devil, believing that the sun was rising, fled without completing his dastardly project.

The Bishop wondered what sort of reception to expect from his hostess at the Rectory, the mysterious Mrs Diemen, both as it concerned her reaction to what he had to say to her and whatever toothsome fare she might be serving for tea. Although he intended to give her and Dark the shortest of shrifts, his alfresco lunch was wearing off, and he intended to refrain from expressing the full extent of his displeasure until he had satisfied the inner man.

As delightful as it was to have outstripped the field and have a few moments to himself, the Bishop was aware that as the shepherd of this motley flock he was neglecting his duty. Already a few of the more lightly upholstered ovines were doing their best to catch up with him so that they might bend his ear on some career-clogging matter about which he knew nothing and cared even less. Reluctantly stopping to wait for them, he frowned at a sudden change in the sky. The azure wash was bleakening into a steely grey, the wind was freshening, and he felt a few drops of rain on his face; which reminded the bishop that, on account of the weather report of a one hundred per cent chance of sun, he had brought no wind- or waterproof garment with him.

Putting his concern aside, the Bishop was shortly joined by those persistent individuals who wished to task him on certain matters that were close to their hearts and far from his. He quickly got bored of this and, breaking out of the knot of people, began to circle around them in a manner more sheepdog- than shepherd-like. He had in mind losing a few pounds before his next encounter with Gail.

When the party arrived at the top of the next rise they startled a genuine hiker, a young man who, encouraged by the promise of clement weather, had laced on his boots at an early hour to back-pack from east to west between a landmark beacon and a historic ring of trees, one favoured by witches for their nocturnal covens, that had been planted long ago by a local landowner whose ancient property lay at the base of the hill. One moment the hiker had been alone and contemplative, drinking water from a bottle with his back propped against a marble monument inscribed with some versified remarks about the vista by some Romantic poet; and the next an audible dimension was added to his consciousness as a host of people walked into his ken dressed in sun-hats and tee-shirts, light jackets and cardigans, and shorts that revealed their white and spindly legs.

Their chatter burst the bubble of the hiker’s contemplation. Some of the crowd, he noticed, were carrying veed walking sticks of the expensive and useless type to be found in National Trust shops; and a number were trying to keep dogs under control on extendable leads. There was one authoritative-looking chap who was clothed from head to foot in a smock of Tyrian purple with a round white collar, and carrying a shepherd’s crook with which he was gesticulating to urge on the panting stragglers.

Despite the group’s smiling deference to the hiker’s seniority of arrival, before he could be surrounded he moved away and sat instead against a gnarled hawthorn trunk, next to a clump of gorse from which a moment ago a linnet had been singing. There, as he composed his expression to mark himself as being apart from the exuberant gathering, he noted that a ceremony seemed to be in the offing. Several officious individuals were handing out leaflets, and, ignoring his feigned disinterest, a young woman with frizzy hair ran over and pressed one into his hand. On it, he registered, was printed a short order of service consisting of several prayers, a hymn and a blessing.

Suddenly, the temperature dropped precipitously and a rumbustious wind arrived out of nowhere. The earlier light wrack of high fast-moving cirrus clouds was replaced by enormous and threatening cumulonimbus. Beneath the dark anvil of the formation, shafts of sunlight illuminated dense but mute sheets of rain. Electric tongues of lightning flickered, and thunder spoke around the empyrean. Gusts of wind ripped the papers from the celebrants’ clutches, and several dozen sheets, torn loose from a stack removed from a knapsack, spiralled into space.

Trying to ignore the change in conditions, everyone formed a ring around the lofty-browed shepherd with the crook, and one of his acolytes stood facing him holding out a programme that he gripped with both hands. After the important individual had read the prayers in a powerful incantatory voice that intermittently could be heard amidst the celestial noise, they all joined in singing
Onward, Christian Soldiers
; upon which the wind doubled in strength. The hiker could not hear the words, only see people’s mouths working, as they shivered and pressed their flimsy garments to their sides. A Panama hat went bowling down the hill, making great leaps off the springy turf.