Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

‘Fits in. And if we were to go a step further down that road, we might find a nice kindly priest.’

‘Sure t’be,’ Gomer said. ‘Church gets to be more important, the nearer you gets to that big ole farm gate.’

Two bikers came in. One wore a leather jacket open to a white T-shirt with a black dragon motif. The dragon was on its back, with a spear down its throat. It was hard to be sure which side they represented.

At four o’clock, the ruined church of St Michael looked like an old, beached boat, waiting for the tide of night to set it afloat.

‘Going to be lit up like a birthday cake,’ Betty said with distaste. ‘You can’t spot them from here, but there are clusters of candles and garden torches all over it. In the windows, on ledges, between the battlements on the tower. It’ll be visible for miles from the hills.’

‘Making a statement?’

‘Yeah. After centuries of holding ceremonies discreetly in the woods and behind curtains in suburban back rooms, we’re coming out.’

They’d met in the decaying copse, Merrily walking from the old archaeological site, where Gomer had parked, Betty coming across the bridge from the farmhouse and joining the footpath.

The sky had dulled, low clouds pocketing the sunken sun, and you could feel the dusk, carrying spores of frost. Betty looked cold. Merrily tightened her scarf.

‘Bain still wants to do it naked?’

‘Possibly. They’ll light a small fire inside a circle of stones in the open nave. Dance back to back with arms linked behind. Not as silly as it sounds. After a while you don’t feel it. You’re aglow.’

Like singing in tongues, Merrily thought. A long, flat cloud lay over the church now, like a wide-brimmed hat. From the other side of the ruins, beyond the pines and the Sitka spruce, they could hear the sounds of a hymn: straggly singing, off-key. The Christians at the gate.

‘They’re going to keep that up all night long, aren’t they?’ Betty said.

‘You’ve heard nothing yet. There are scores more in the village now.’

‘Bad.’ Betty shivered. ‘Ned believes the spiritual tension will fuel the rite. He says we can appropriate their energy. That is way, way out of order.’ She shook herself. ‘I need to get them out of here, lock the gates and... try and save my marriage.’

‘Will you stay here... afterwards?’

Betty shook her head. ‘We won’t survive this. We’ll lose everything we’ve got with that house, but I don’t care if we’re destitute. Only problem is, I’m going to feel guilty about anyone else living here. I wish we could sell it to a waste disposal firm or something.’

‘But we’re going to deal with that,’ Merrily said firmly.

‘No. It was very stupid of me to ask you.’ Betty looked at her, green eyes sorrowful, without hope. ‘I wasn’t thinking. This is part of a prehistoric ritual complex. We don’t know who or what those original inhabitants were, but they chose their sites well. They knew all the doorways. Can’t you feel the earth and the air fusing together as it gets dark? This is a place that knows itself – but we don’t know it. Can’t you hear it?’

‘Just the singing,’ Merrily admitted.

‘I can hear a constant low humming now. I know it’s in my head, but it’s this place that’s put it there. We don’t know what went on here, nobody does. There are no stones left standing, only the holes where they were... and that church. And whatever – metaphorically, if you like – is underneath that church. And whatever it is, it’s much older than Christianity.’

‘And much, much older than Wicca?’ Merrily said.

‘Sure. We were invented in the fifties and sixties by well-meaning people who knew there was no continuous tradition. Most of Wicca’s either made up or culled from Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune. It has no tradition . There. I’ve said it. Is that what you wanted?’

The singing was already louder; more Christians had arrived.

‘There’s a tradition here,’ Merrily said, ‘of sorts. A strand of something that goes back at least to medieval times. Unfortunately, it seems to have been preserved by my lot.’

‘Yeah. You can certainly feel it in Cascob. Oh, and St Michael’s, Cefnllys. I meant to tell you – I looked this up – that when they eventually built a new church at Llandrindod the rector had the roof taken off Cefnllys Church to stop people worshipping there.’

‘He did?’

‘It was in a book. I suddenly remembered it from when I was a kid in Llandrindod. So I looked it up. I mean, was he thinking like Penney? Did they both feel the breath of the dragon? Probably didn’t understand any of it, but something scared them badly. Now people like Ned Bain are coming along and saying: it’s OK, it’s fine, its cool... because we’re the dragon. Do you still want to go in there with your holy water?’

‘What time?’

‘Any time after... I dunno, nine? If you don’t come, I’ll understand. Who’s that?’

It was a vehicle, creaking over the footpath, where it had been widened by the archaeologists. Merrily ran to the edge of the copse. She could see Gomer’s ancient Land Rover parked the other side, with Gomer leaning on the bonnet, smoking a roll-up, watching the new vehicle trundling towards him. It was Sophie’s Saab.

NO CANDLES? THE candles had gone from the windows. Not just gone out, but gone: the trays, the Bibles, everything.

At first, it seemed an encouraging sign, and then Merrily thought, It isn’t. It isn’t at all. In the face of the invasion, the local people had withdrawn, disconnected; whatever happened tonight would not be their fault.

It was about five-fifty p.m. The post office and shop had closed, there were few lights in the cottages. Only the pub was conspicuously active; otherwise Old Hindwell, under dark forestry and the hump of Burfa Hill, had retracted into itself, leaving the streets to them from Off.

The multitude!

In the centre of the village, maybe three or four-hundred people had gathered in front of the former school. They had Christian placards and torches and lamps. They were not singing hymns. They seemed leaderless.

Gomer put the Land Rover at the side of the road, in front of the entrance to the pub’s yard, where it said ‘No Parking’. The car park was so full that none of the coaches would get out until several cars were removed. Two dark blue police vans lurked inside the school gates. Four TV crews hovered.

The minority of pagans here seemed to be the kind with green hair and eyebrow rings. Maybe twenty of them, in bunches – harmless probably. One group, squatting outside the pub, were chanting ‘Harken to the Witches’ Rune’, to the hollow thump of a hand drum.

‘Sad,’ Jane commented. She and Eirion were in the back of the Land Rover; Merrily sat next to Gomer in the front. ‘They’re just playing at it, just being annoying.’

‘You’ll be joining the Young Conservatives next, flower.’

‘But those so-called Christians really make me sick. They’re tossers, holier-than-thou gits.’

‘Phew,’ Merrily said. Through the wing mirror, she saw Sophie’s Saab pulling in behind them. Sophie didn’t get out.

Eirion said, ‘What do you want us to do, Mrs Watkins?’

‘Just stay with Gomer and Sophie. Perhaps you could get something to eat in the pub?’

Jane was dismayed. ‘That’s all the thanks we get? A mouldy cheese sandwich and a can of Coke?’

‘Don’t think I’m not immensely grateful for what you two and Sophie’ve uncovered. Just that I need to put it to Ellis by myself. If there are any witnesses, he won’t even talk to me.’