Phil Rickman - The Fabric of Sin

Changing down for a sudden incline, Jane let the clutch slip.

‘Sorry …’

‘It’s OK. Take your time.’

Jane, red-faced, pulled the car out of its shudder, the Volvo wheezing and protesting like an old dog being dragged out for a walk by a child who didn’t understand.

‘So if The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail concept is that the Grail is actually the suppressed feminine principle as, like, enshrined by Mary Magdalene, who was Jesus Christ’s other half … and don’t look at me like that, Mum.’

‘You don’t know how I’m looking at you, your eyes are firmly on the road.’

‘I can feel the self-righteous hostility.’

‘It’s not self-righteous and it’s not hostility. It’s just that all that’s been discredited. Even the authors are now saying they were just testing a theory.’

‘It doesn’t change the fact that Mary Magdalene, whether or not she was Mrs Christ, represents the goddess figure which male-dominated Christianity suppressed.’

Jane’s debating skills had become formidable, but how many times had they been here?

‘Look … I accept that there may be a hidden feminine principle. What I don’t accept is Jesus and Mary Magdalene being an item, starting a bloodline. For which, when you look into it, there’s no real evidence at all.’

‘Aw, Mum, why do you have to deny the poor guy a sex life?’

‘There you go. The guy . If he was just a guy, just another prophet who didn’t rise again, didn’t ascend into heaven … if you want to deny his divinity …’

‘I don’t want to deny anybody’s divinity, I’m into divinity big time. But I don’t see why women shouldn’t have a share of it, whether it’s Mary Magdalene or the Virgin Mary.’

‘We won’t argue now,’ Merrily said. ‘Take this bit slowly.’

Maybe she ought to be driving instead. The lanes were proving unpredictable, and there were more of them than she’d figured. More to Garway, too, than you imagined; flushed by the low sun, it seemed like a remote and separate realm. Like Cornwall was to England. Maybe the Duchy had recognized that aspect.

Jane glanced at a signpost which seemed to have been twisted round, so that Garway was pointing into a field.

‘So Garway and Garway Hill are like separated, right?’

‘Looks like it. I thought the church and a few cottages nearby were the centre of the community, but apparently not. You get these separate clusters … kind of disorienting.’

After half a mile or so, the landscape broadened out and they were into a random scatter of modern housing and an open stretch of common with a children’s play area. Across the lane from the common was a pub of whitewashed stone with a swinging sign: a full moon in a deepening twilight sky.

THE GARWAY MOON.

‘Cool sign,’ Jane said. ‘Artistic. Kind of pagan.’

‘Why does the moon always have to be pagan?’

‘You tell me. Does the Bible have much to say about it?’ Jane relaxed into the driver’s seat. ‘This is very much my kind of place, Mum. It’s like frontier country. On the edge.’

‘It is frontier country. Those hills are Wales.’

‘I actually meant frontier in the deeper sense. The Knights Templar move in, monks with horses and swords, and they stamp their presence on the whole area. Infuse it with mystery. I mean like, why out here? Unless … maybe it was considered a really good, obscure place to conceal secrets, practise arcane … practices.’

‘Or they were just given the land. Maybe no better reason than that.’

‘There’s always a better reason,’ Jane said.

‘For you, flower, there always has to be.’

‘Don’t call me “flower”. And don’t tell me you’re not curious, too.’

‘I can be curious without having to subscribe to the whole fashionable Gnosticism thing.’

Jane slowed, as the road sloped past a modern-ish primary school on one side and a run-down village hall on the other.

‘I don’t see what’s so wrong with Gnosticism. It’s just saying that faith is not enough. The Gnostics wanted to know . They wanted direct experience of the reality of … something out there. God. Whatever. I don’t see why you have a problem with that.’

‘Anyway …’ Not now, huh? Too weighty. ‘… I’d’ve thought you’d lived in the sticks long enough to know it’s absolutely the worst place to keep a secret.’

‘Yeah, now . But in medieval times, when almost nobody could read.’

‘Including the Templars. Most of the Knights Templar seem to have been illiterate.’

‘Mum, they were international bankers! People could stash money at one preceptory and withdraw from another.’

‘Since when did banking demand literacy?’

‘OK, then, maybe this was just where they came to carry on their own form of Gnostic worship, which the straight Church would see as heresy.’ Jane pulled the Volvo over to the grass verge to let a tractor get past. ‘Was that all right?’

‘Except you should’ve signalled first, to let him know what you were doing. And why are we going up here?’

Inexplicably, Jane had taken an uphill right.

‘Sorry. I thought …’

‘I think the church was straight on down the hill. Never mind, carry on.’

It didn’t matter. Merrily suddenly wanted to hug Jane. If the worst you had to deal with was theological debate …

‘You OK, Mum?’

‘Mmm.’

She felt the pressure of tears, deciding that when Jane wasn’t around she was going to ring Eirion on the quiet, find out what had gone wrong between them. Just wanting the kid to be happy.

‘This sort of location is actually more suited to the Cistercians,’ Jane said. ‘They liked to be way out on their own. But, see, that fits, too, because the Knights Templar were connected with the Cistercians. Through Bernard of Clairvaux? The top Cistercian fixer, smartest operator in the medieval Catholic Church?’

‘I know who you mean. I’m just impressed at the extent of your knowledge.’

‘It’s in the medieval history syllabus – just. Our history guy, Robbie Williams, it’s his period. So what happened, Bernard cleared up the problem the Templars had about being devout Christians and also having to kill people on a regular basis. Simple solution: he ruled that it was OK to kill non-Christians.’

‘Especially Muslims,’ Merrily said. ‘A medieval interpretation, which now seems to operate in reverse. What’s your point?’

‘Comes back to paganism again. Of all the medieval monastic orders, the Cistercians were the ones who most reflected pre-Christian religion. The old ways.’

‘ Some sources might say that, but—’

‘Come on – natural successors to the Druids? Sheep farmers who liked relative isolation and were into ancient sites and earth-forces and sacred springs?’

‘Natural running water was very much prized in the days before taps,’ Merrily said. ‘And, sure, maybe they dowsed for it. That doesn’t mean—’

‘Garway Church has a holy spring, doesn’t it?’

‘It does. And if you can find somewhere to turn this car around we’ll go back and check it out. No, not there. Jane, keep your eyes on the—’

‘Did you see that sign?’ Jane’s head swivelling. ‘On the house?’

‘Mmm. I’m afraid I did.’

They’d passed a grey stone corner house which might once have been a pub and still had a big yellow sign on the side. THE SUN . A mystical golden sun, with a smug-looking, curled-lipped face and waving tendrils of radiance; below it were sunflowers and a naked figure on a horse. Merrily also noticed that the farmhouse almost opposite had a name plate: The Rising Sun .