Ormond House - The Bones of Avalon

Not any more.

We sat down on the edge of the tor’s small plateau, maybe where Joan Tyrre had sat with Cate Borrow, and I could scarce keep a limb still. If I truly had been a conjurer, then I might have summoned the spirit of mad John Leland to join us. But at least I had his notebook. At least I knew his mind.

And so began to talk of Arthur, said by some to be descended from Brutus the Trojan, first King of Britain. Arthur had been Leland’s passion. Everywhere he went on his itinerary he’d discover more of his hero’s footprints, memorably proclaiming that the earthworks around the hill at Cadbury – not a long ride from here – made it, unquestionably, the site of Arthur’s Camelot.

‘So we can see why he spent so much time in Somersetshire,’ I said, ‘and why he returned here after the fall of the abbey. It was all about Arthur. ’

‘Arthur’s bones, perchance?’

‘Nothing so prosaic. This town stands for the magic side of Arthur. Here’s the place to which he was carried by barge, by fey women, either to die or to lie until his country hath need of him. And this – where we’re sitting – was where lived his magician. Merlin. Who came before Arthur and gave to him, in particular, the round table. Do you begin to see now?’

‘In truth,’ Dudley said, ‘no.’

‘Nel Borrow said her mother knew nothing of the Holy Grail but had once said that some of Arthur’s round table was still to be found here. Clearly, this must have become part of local legend, because Benlow the bone-man offered to sell me a piece of it.’

I reached into a bare patch of earth and scratched up some soil, holding it out on the palm of my hand.

‘In truth, this is a piece of it.’

Bringing out the hide-bound notebook, then, opening it up and turning it on end, so that a drawing of what had appeared to be a serpent now looked more like a swan with open beak.

‘These are the creatures of the stars… the signs of the Zodiac – Pisces, Aquarius, Libra… I could draw them all in my sleep. Yes, they look different here – the shapes are not as recent astronomers have drawn them. Which is why it took me so long to work it out. These may be much older versions.’

‘On the… ground?’

‘The signs of the Zodiac created upon the land… giant signs, in a circle which appears to be ten miles or more across. Marked out in physical features of the landscape – in the shape of hills and the paths of rivers and roads, fields, hedgerows. This… is the great secret of Glastonbury, passed on by Merlin the Druid, guarded by the monks.’

‘But who-?’

‘ I don’t know. The ancient people. The old Britons. Maybe the people who were here when Pythagorus was alive. Or earlier… when Hermes Trismegistus walked the earth. The very builders of the landscape… perchance with the help of the cosmos itself-’

‘Calm yourself, John, you’ll have a seizure.’

‘Mercy.’ I swallowed, leaning over with hands on knees, could barely breathe. ‘A… a celestial mirror. The earth here – the holiest earth. Dear God, it’s wondrous.’

‘If it’s right, my friend,’ Dudley said. ‘If it’s there. It’s just I don’t see how they could have done it. If it’s not possible for anyone to see it fully, even from the highest ground…’

‘You also,’ I reminded him, ‘found it impossible to see how one man might chart the land, the shapes of hills, the shape of the coastline. The point is… if it were possible to stand in one place and see the whole circle, it would be no secret. Its power lies in the knowledge of its existence… how it lives in the mind. As above, so below.’

Of course, it would not be so obvious now as it might have been in centuries past. Hills would be eroded, rivers grown wider, some dried up.

‘But if it would’ve meant altering the paths made by roads,’ Dudley said, ‘and maybe changing the direction of rivers and streams… then too many people would have to know the secret, and it wouldn’t be a secret and we’d all know of it.’

I shook my head.

‘Not so. Who owned all this land, or most of it? The abbey. Who decreed how it should be maintained? Who decided where roads might go, how the flat lands might best be drained… The abbot. The farmers and builders would do as the abbot decreed.’

‘So you’re saying this was the secret Abbot Whiting would not reveal?’

I shrugged.

‘Jesu,’ Dudley said.

‘It was also, I’d guess, the secret that drove Leland out of his mind. Did it not bring together the two most important things in this man’s life – the charting of the country…?’

‘And Arthur.’ Dudley came to his feet. ‘By the Lord God, John, what have we stumbled upon?’

‘We didn’t stumble upon it. We had to dig for it.’

I looked down at the notebook, these rough sketches: the design of insanity? For all I knew I was on the same path as Leland, destined for the Bedlam.

‘Let’s look at this chronologically. We don’t know when it was made, but we must assume it was before the time of Christ.’

‘So no abbey…’

‘Hell, Robbie, it explains the reason for the abbey. If this was a wonder of the ancient world, an island of the stars, then surely it justifies the story of the Saviour being brought here as a child. There would’ve been a college here, where the knowledge was held and passed on by the Druids.’

‘Merlin?’

‘Merlin indeed, whoever he was. In all probability, a Druid. Someone best qualified to reveal to Arthur, when he came of age, the great celestial secret… in other words, presenting to him the round table.’

‘But did Arthur come before or after Christ? I mean, in Malory-’

‘Malory wrote stories, not history. It matters not a toss which came first, the Zodiac fits either version. Arthur comes to die in the most sacred place in all England, Christ is brought here to learn the mysteries of astrology. Joseph of Arimathea founds the abbey to guard and maintain the great Zodiac.’

‘But then the abbey falls…’

‘Which is where the darkness comes down. If we assume that the secret of the Zodiac was held only by the abbot and maybe one or two of his most trusted monks… were these the two executed with him?’

‘Here.’ Dudley glancing over a shoulder. ‘Here where we sit.’

I could not but sense the agony of Abbot Whiting. Dragged up here upon a hurdle. Hanged. Cut down when not yet dead to be gutted and quartered. I looked at Dudley, saw the tightening of the muscles of his face, knew he was thinking not only of Whiting but of Martin Lythgoe.

Neither of whom were at peace.

‘I think we can assume,’ I said, ‘that Fyche was not one of the monks trusted with the secret. Yet, having aspirations to become the next abbot, would be close enough to know that there was a secret. Which he’d do anything to discover.’

‘For himself?’

‘For himself.’

Dudley stood looking across the town on the purple-grey edge of evening. You could, at least, see all of that, from the crow-picked skeleton that had been an abbey to the fish hill on whose flank Cate Borrow lay.

‘You believe Fyche tortured Whiting?’

‘Or had it done.’ I arose, went to stand beside him, looking down. ‘I’d give anything to prove it.’

‘But even if you could… it was more than twenty years ago. Hard times. Atrocities happening daily. And the Papists were worse. I won’t shed too many tears over a Papist. And anyway, who’ll charge Fyche now? And with what?’

‘It wouldn’t help his reputation,’ I said.

‘He’d still be a monk, then, right?’

‘So? He’s from a moneyed family. Not too difficult to get the ear of Thomas Cromwell.’

‘Luring him with this talk of a secret?’