Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

He sat down on the hearthrug, looking up at Merrily on the sofa. She looked small, vulnerable, and there must be something he could do.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we try and work this out?’

‘Don’t have much time. Parish meeting at seven. Maundy service tomorrow. Chrism mass at the Cathedral – I’m not going to make that this year. Why does Easter always come at the wrong time?’

‘Does Barry know anything about this?’

‘I don’t think Barry’s told me everything he knows. I don’t think he knows about the rape, but he does think Byron’s a dangerous man. Warned me not to try and talk to him.’

‘But you still went to find him.’

‘No… I just went to the church because there was clearly something there that fascinated him. He must’ve spent virtually everything he had buying that land.’

‘Where he now stages war games behind barbed wire?’ Lol leaned back against an inglenook wall. ‘The rift between him and Syd – what was that about?’

‘All we know for sure is that he hated Syd becoming an ordained priest. Byron’s own religious beliefs, if he had any, appear to have been pagan. Saw himself as a Celt, like his hero Caradog. Locked away in his tower room, turning himself into Caradog. Leaving Caradog’s… ambience.’

‘If I’ve got this right,’ Lol said, ‘Caradog held out against the Romans until he was betrayed and captured and taken to Rome. Where his oratory made him a celeb. A hero.’

‘But Byron’s fictional story seems to deviate. He’s not interested in oratory. His Caradog has to impress the Romans with his military skills. Which are obviously akin to SAS methods. I called in at the bookshop to see what the chances were of getting his other books, but Amanda says they’re out of print.’

‘And Caradog was a druid?’

‘He worked with druids. According to the stories.’

‘What might Jones have been doing, then, in that tower room?’

‘Maybe meditation, visualization. To focus his mind for the writing.’

‘And the smell?’

‘I don’t even want to think about the smell.’

‘Did Syd know Byron was at Brinsop, when he took on the job?’

‘That’s the interesting question. I’d say he did. My feeling is that he always knew where Byron was, at any given time. When Byron was at Allensmore, Syd went to see him, maybe to try and sort something out… but maybe not. “They’re all dead,” he’s saying. “All dead now.” Who did he mean?’

Merrily spread her hands in defeat.

Lol said, ‘Would Syd have known, do you think, the reason Byron wanted to live at Brinsop? Or at least have an idea?’

‘Let’s assume he did. Let’s also assume there a connection with this very unusual church, which Byron kept photographing from the air.’

‘How would he do that?’

‘Not a problem in this area. He’d know people with private planes. Helicopters. A lot of the SAS had contacts with Shobdon airfield. Recreational. Parachute clubs, all this.’

‘It’s just that aerial photography might suggest the site of the church is more important than the church itself,’ Lol said.

‘And lines. He’d drawn lines across the aerial photos.’

‘Woooh… leys?’

‘Possibly. Not saying a word to Jane. I don’t want her within five miles of Byron Jones.’

‘Leys, if they exist, are pre-Celtic,’ Lol said. ‘Bronze Age or earlier.’

‘I’m just telling you what Liz said.’

‘I’d quite like to look at Byron’s book sometime.’

‘It’s in my bag.’ Merrily gathered it up from the floor and stood. ‘In fact, they’re all here. I’ll leave you the Wordsworth, too. Any perceptions, flashes of inspiration… would be very welcome.’

‘Merrily…’ Just inside the door, he grabbed hold of her, hugged her, hard. ‘I’m sorry…’

‘What for, exactly?’

She kissed him and he felt a quiver in her.

‘Been letting things slide,’ he murmured. ‘When something’s finally paying the mortgage, you tend to go at it round the clock in case it doesn’t last. And you forget what’s really important.’

‘At least you don’t have God on your back. Swan later?’

Lol opened the front door. Up the street, at the Eight Till Late, Jim Prosser was taking in his paper rack. A news bill said: HEREFORD HORROR.

Lol watched Merrily walking back to the vicarage. The voice in his head sang, Do something. But he didn’t know where to start.

The blood on the book cover was embossed, glossy-bubbled against the background’s matt black and greys and the white title.

CARADOG

They came, they saw…

Lol took it over to the desk in the window, flipping through for any local place names. Nothing he recognized immediately, but it was, after all, fiction.

He took the legionnaire from behind. A thrust to the spine and then, as the man fell back, moved around and hacked off his head from the front, a practised upward stroke. They were easy meat, most of them, mercenaries who’d never seen Rome. They obeyed orders and understood discipline – he’d give them that. But they lacked the ability to think for themselves or operate in small units. And, as lowly foot soldiers, they were not attuned to the higher energies known to the elite and now, at last, known to Caradog, who felt them rising like fire from the pit of his gut. A fire kindled from the sun itself.

Cartoon violence. Kids loved this stuff, but they’d probably turn off at the first mention of higher energies. Lol scanned several chapters, finding two more references to Caradog drawing energy from the sun, at one stage holding up his sword to catch the light before going calmly into battle and efficiently slaying a large number of Romans.

Druids worshipped the sun.

It was a start. Lol opened up his laptop, put Google on the case. There was modern druidry, the religious arm of Greenpeace, and there was the kind the Romans had known, altogether darker, with animal and possibly human sacrifice. But the Roman accounts might have been propaganda.

He Googled Wordsworth and Brinsop. Quite a lot. Wordsworth had been Poet Laureate when he was holidaying at Brinsop Court.

And then the Net, as occasionally happened, threw up an unexpected link – not to Brinsop but somewhere not far away – which sent Lol back to the small green book: Wordsworth’s Britain: a little itinerary.

He found it tucked in after ‘Tintern Abbey’. A poem commemorating:

ROMAN ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED AT BISHOPSTONE, HEREFORDSHIRE

While poring Antiquarians search the ground

Upturned with curious pains, the Bard, a Seer,

Takes fire:-The men that have been reappear;

Romans for travel girt, for business gowned;

And some recline on couches, myrtle-crowned,

In festal glee: why not…

The poem was dated 1835 and carried a note from Wordsworth describing its inspiration: a Roman pavement discovered only yards from the front door of Bishopstone parsonage: in full view of several hills upon which there had formerly been Roman encampments

Doubtless including Credenhill, with its Iron Age fort. In Wordsworth’s day, any kind of camp might be considered Roman.

Lol put a block of ash on the stove and dug into the shelves for an OS map: Hereford, Leominster and surrounding area. Cleared his desk and opened out the map to the area west of Hereford.

It brought an invisible landscape into existence in various archaic fonts and symbols.

ROMAN ROAD (course of)

Again and again: Roman roads either side of the Wye. One skirting Credenhill. Under the hill was Brinsop, the church marked only by a small + but earthworks and moat nearby signifying an area of extreme antiquity.