Time’s Legacy

9

Gaius watched as his brother rode off down the track. Flavius was heading towards the fishing village on the edge of the winter fens to interview one of the men there. A passing trapper, delivering a load of furs, had passed on word that a foreign-looking young man had gone out there to try and cure the old man’s wife. He had failed. Flavius had smiled when he heard the story. ‘Not such a miracle worker, then. But I must follow this up. There can’t be many men of foreign complexion working as healers in this part of the world.’ He had taken Gaius’s best horse, swinging onto the saddle with ease and eyeing the animal’s harness. The bridle was of tooled leather and the bronze bit and headpiece were of the finest workmanship. He smiled grimly, then kicked the animal into a canter.

Once he was out of sight Gaius turned back inside. ‘Let us hope this poor man he is after has already put many miles between himself and the village!’ he said grimly to his wife. ‘I wouldn’t wish the most vicious criminal a run in with my brother, never mind an innocent healer!’

Lydia glanced at Petra, who was lying on her couch, her eyes closed. She went over to Gaius and put her hand on his arm. ‘What are we going to do?’ she said softly.

‘We are not going to let him chase us out of our home again,’ he said robustly. ‘You are right. This time we make a stand.’ But how? The words remained unspoken between them. Flavius’s ability to cause trouble had always been subtle. There was no knowing which way his attack would come. ‘Never be alone with him,’ he whispered into her hair as he put his arms around her. ‘And never turn your back. Don’t let the children be alone with him either. Tell the servants and the herdsmen. I would rather they stay close to the compound while he is here. Sorcha knows. I could see she had the measure of him.’ He paused and looked round. ‘Where is Romanus?’

Lydia pulled away from him, suddenly worried. ‘He is obsessed by Flavius. He was watching him mount up this morning, taking in every detail of his clothes and baggage. Surely he wouldn’t have followed him?’ She turned towards the doorway. ‘Sorcha? Where is Romanus?’

Sorcha appeared. She had been sitting outside with the quern. Her clothes were covered with a large apron, but there was still flour in her hair and on her hands. ‘He went off early. He had a bow with him.’

‘Thank the gods!’ Lydia sighed with relief. ‘I was so afraid he might have followed my husband’s brother.’

Sorcha raised an eyebrow. ‘He will, if not today, then tomorrow. Your man’s brother is already drawing the boy in with his tales and stories of travelling in distant countries. Romanus is fascinated. Life here is dull for him.’ She shrugged. ‘And he’s not made to be a druid, if you forgive me for saying so!’

Lydia glanced at her husband who was bending over Petra, feeling her forehead with his hand. ‘We hoped he would follow his father into some form of trade, but he is so taken with Mora and Cynan. He sees their way of life as glamorous and serving the gods.’

‘And so it is, for those who are born to it!’ Sorcha’s mouth turned down. Lydia hid a sympathetic smile. Everyone for miles knew that the girl had set her cap at a handsome young bard from the college, but his parents had ordered him to turn her down because she did not come from the druid caste. A shame because the girl was intelligent and attractive and would make some man a good wife. She deserved better than being tied to a trapper or a shepherd and there were few farmers around who were not already married.

Mora arrived with Cynan as the sun stood high in the sky. Romanus still hadn’t returned and Cynan waited outside, watching Sorcha at her tasks while Mora went in to talk to Petra. The two young women sat by the smoky fire watching Lydia at her loom for a few minutes, then Mora took Petra’s hands in hers and began to examine the swollen joints. ‘These are no better?’

Petra shook her head. She was biting her lips with pain as Mora gently straightened the fingers. ‘I have brought you a new medicine. I am trying a slightly different combination of herbs, and I have brought you some ointment to rub into your hands and wrists and to put on your aching legs.’ She was talking softly. ‘I had hoped to bring a colleague with me. A young healer from the far side of the Roman Empire who has come here to study and teach. He has worked miracles with some of our patients.”’ She looked up and smiled. ‘He is praying for you.’ Her smile faded. ‘What is wrong?’

Petra shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ Her face was full of anxiety. ‘It’s just, my uncle has come from Caesarea and he is hunting down a young man whom he wants to question. He says he might be a traitor to the Emperor. Caesarea is on the far side of the Empire. It couldn’t be the same man. Could it?’

Mora shook her head. ‘I hardly think so. Yeshua is a gentle, kind man. I told you, he’s a healer and a teacher. Besides he has been travelling the world. It is a long time since he was in his own country.’ She pulled a small pottery jar of ointment out of her bag, unstoppered it and began to work it gently into Petra’s hands.

Petra groaned with pleasure. ‘It gives me so much relief.’

Mora nodded. ‘The medicines are blessed by our own mother goddess and I have used water brought from the sacred hot spring of the goddess Sul to blend the ingredients. You must keep your hands warm. Do you still wear your fur mittens?’

Petra nodded.

‘Go out on dry days in the sunshine, just for a few minutes if you can. The air will bless you and make you feel better. But on wet cold days stay in by the fire.’ She frowned. ‘Do you eat well?’

Petra smiled. ‘I have little appetite.’ She looked up as her mother tucked her shuttle into the weft and web of her weaving, making the loom weights rattle, and walked towards them. ‘How is she, Mora?’

Mora looked up. ‘She will be better. In my experience this aching of the bones often gets less as girls grow older. I am hoping it will start to ease soon. If it doesn’t, I have another medicine I could try. It is very strong, though. I’d rather not use it if possible.’ She laid her hand on Petra’s forehead.

Behind them Cynan ducked in through the door. ‘Sorcha is making some bannocks. She asked me to find out how many we would like. We are to have them with honey and blackberries.’ He smiled at Mora, then sat down next to Petra. ‘How are you?’

‘Better.’ She looked at him wanly. ‘You promised one day you would take me out in your canoe. I will hold you to that one nice sunny day. Mora thinks the air will do me good.’

‘Any time.’ The young man smiled at her kindly. ‘So, who’s hungry?’

When they left, Lydia looked at her daughter. ‘We will not mention this friend of Mora’s to anyone. I doubt if he is the same man, but if he is, I don’t feel inclined to help your uncle in his search.’

Petra nodded. ‘He brings such anger and cruelty with him. I can see it in his eyes. I want him to go away, Mama, if he makes you unhappy.’

Lydia sighed. ‘He will go soon.’ She wasn’t sure how, but one way or another she was going to have to make sure Flavius moved on otherwise he would destroy their family. But she was not going to help him by sacrificing some innocent stranger to him. Her mouth set with determination. On several occasions Flavius had come very near to ruining her life. It was not going to happen again.

Abi sat staring down at the rock crystal ball which lay in her lap. She was sitting on the bench near the ruins, feeling the warm autumnal sun on her face, her hair stirring slightly in the gentle wind. Her vision gone, she was staring out across the garden towards the orchards. From here she couldn’t see the Tor. Her stomach was churning; her brain was making connections which filled her with dismay.

‘Caesarea. The Roman province of Judea. A wandering healer. A teacher. A man with gentle eyes. A Jew. It couldn’t be him. It just couldn’t!’

She was frowning with concentration, thinking back to her studies when she was at theological college and before that, to her history degree. As far as she could remember they had been told that there had been numbers of itinerant teachers and healers and miracle workers wandering around the Holy Land at the time of Jesus. He had in a sense at first been one of many. One of the great unsolved mysteries of his story was what had he done and where had he been in the ‘missing years’ between his childhood and the start of his ministry. Of course she had heard the legends. Who hadn’t? The story that Joseph of Arimathaea had come to the West Country and that maybe he had brought the boy Jesus with him. There were other stories too. Some of these claimed that Jesus had travelled elsewhere in those hidden years, when no-one knows where he was. She remembered her tutor’s smile as he had recounted some of the most outrageous claims. The legends that he had gone to India or Tibet. And come back to the Glastonbury he had visited as a child, to study with the druids.

As if!

Nonsense!

She found she was holding the ball so tightly that her fingers had gone white; her hands were sweating. Her mother’s voice echoed in her ears for a moment: This will destroy your faith. That’s what it did for me.

Why? Even if this was – Jesus – her mind balked at even framing the word, why had this story destroyed her faith?

Because it would prove that he was just an ordinary young man travelling in his gap year? That he wasn’t the son of God? Because the Serpent Stone had lifted him off the altar and put him on a windy hillside and given him muddy feet and all too human emotions?

But he had to have been somewhere. Why not here?

She shook her head slowly.

No, this was ridiculous. She was inventing the whole thing. She had allowed herself to be overwhelmed with all that had been happening to her and now, being here in Glastonbury, her brain was working overtime to slot everything into a convenient mould. The stone. Her mother. Her mother’s death. Her faith and the strange things that had happened in Cambridge. It all had to be part of some brain fever. She didn’t need counselling so much as hospitalisation and some hefty doses of anti-psychotic drugs.

She put the stone down beside her on the wooden slats of the bench and rubbed her hands up and down on her jeans with a shiver. She had to stop this. Now. It had gone far enough. Cal was making lunch. In ten minutes she would come to the kitchen door and call her. She must stand up, go back in and that would be that. No more. Put away the stone. Hide it. Bury it. Throw it into the pond. Go back to Ben and ask him – ask him what? She stood up and leaving the stone on the bench walked over to the ruins, pushing her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket. She should pray. But how could she pray now when that young man’s face would come to her, between her prayers and Jesus Christ?

This will destroy your faith.

She stared down the garden towards the orchard. The old apple trees, lichen-covered and bent, their branches knotted and thickened like arthritic limbs, were starting to shed their leaves, but there were still apples on them, small knobbly apples of some ancient species. She watched a blackbird pecking at one. It stopped as she spotted it and flew off startled to perch on the top of the tree. A movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention and she turned. Mora was standing near her, watching her.

‘No!’ She stepped back. ‘No! This is not happening!’

The blackbird flew squawking its alarm and disappeared over the hedge. Mora had gone.

‘Abi!’ Cal’s voice echoed down the garden. ‘Lunch!’

It wasn’t until she was sitting opposite Cal at the kitchen table that she realised she had left the Serpent Stone on the bench.

Mat looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow. ‘So, how do you think Abi is getting on?’ They were sitting at a corner table in the Black Lion, each with a pint and a ploughman’s before them.

‘OK.’ Ben’s reply was guarded.

‘Can’t talk about her?’

Ben shook his head. ‘Not much. Anyway, she has to work a lot of this stuff out for herself.’

‘With God’s help?’

Ben nodded. ‘Exactly.’

‘It’s just, all this ghost stuff. It’s weird how she’s stirred it up.’

Ben nodded again.

Mat grinned. ‘Apparently one of the ghosts came into the kitchen while she and Cal were talking. Did she tell you?’

Ben reached for his glass and took a sip. ‘She did mention it, yes.’ He wiped froth off his upper lip.

‘Cal was stunned. She didn’t see anything, but she said Abi’s reaction was interesting!’

‘Ah.’ Ben pulled his plate towards him. ‘This whole business is interesting!’

The little church was shadowy and very quiet. Abi let herself in and walked thoughtfully to a chair about halfway along the aisle. Sitting down she stared up at the east window. Her mind was a blank. She hadn’t been able to eat much lunch and her conversation had been non-existent when Cal tried to chat to her, glancing every now and then at her in concern.

In the end Abi gave up pretending. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not very good company. I think I need to go and think about things on my own for an hour or two. I might go over to the church.’

Cal had smiled and moved the plates without comment. ‘Take your time,’ she said as Abi walked out into the sunshine.

Old churches always had an atmosphere. A combination of worship and prayer, pain and sorrow, alternated with long periods of quiet and emptiness as the stone absorbed the emotions of the men and women who had come there with their supplications. Old churches like this one and St Hugh’s, medieval churches, had been built, she had once read, incorporating special long-forgotten mystical techniques to ensure the processing of pain and the constant gentle broadcasting of peace and love and prayer. They were, in effect, prayer machines. She gave a wistful smile remembering how she had tried to tell Kier as much. Maybe it was rubbish, but it was alluring rubbish and it was working now. The place was gently radiating peace and reassurance. She was, she realised, avoiding looking at the east window with its ancient depiction of the man on the cross. Her Lord. Jesus.

Could he really be Yeshua? A living, breathing young man with intense brown eyes, with all the compassion and gentleness which she would expect and yet a young man who was wandering round this countryside with a druid priestess, who clearly fancied her, who had doubts and worries and -

She stood up abruptly and walked up to the altar, staring up at the window. ‘What am I thinking?’ she asked out loud. ‘What on earth is going on? It can’t be you. It just can’t. This is nonsense. Nobody believes you came here. Nobody! The thought makes historians fall about laughing, theologians become apoplectic and mutter about the New Age and atheists take it as proof that everyone is mad!’ Her voice rang out in the silence and was absorbed by the limestone walls. ‘Well? Say something! Come on. Explain what is going on!’ She rested her hands on the altar, frowning up at the window. On the great slab of carved wood beneath her fingers were two brass candlesticks and a wooden cross. The slab was cold to the touch. Above her the glass in its soft lead framing was rippled and flawed, the colours gently muddy, throwing a warm wash of insipid light across the chancel as she stared into the face of the man on the cross. His skin was pasty, almost green, his loin cloth the colour of raw linen, his head streaked with blood from the enormous thorns on the woven twigs wedged down on his brow. His eyes were closed, his face serene. She shook her head. ‘This is not happening to me!’ Turning on her heel she walked swiftly back to the door and let herself out, closing it behind her with a bang before diving out into the sunshine. Almost running, she headed down through the churchyard into the orchard and stood there panting, trying to push the image of the man on the cross out of her mind.

Flavius returned at dusk. Throwing the reins of his horse to one of the boys working in the granary with a barked order to rub him down and feed him, he ducked into the round house and stared down at Lydia and Petra who were seated in their usual places by the fire. Cooking for the household was usually done in the separate kitchen, but tonight Sorcha had brought in a cauldron of bean and mutton soup and hung it from a tripod over their fire. She was feeding twigs into the flames to warm it, her face reflecting the flickering light as she concentrated on her task.

‘So!’ Flavius stood, hands on hips looking down at them. ‘The woman, Mora. Is she not the one who comes here with medicine for you, Petra?’

Petra looked up at him, her face white. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ His face was tight with anger. ‘Because I have just ridden across the countryside to find out that the man I am looking for is one of her companions. He has been here months. He goes everywhere with her. He has probably been to this very house!’

Lydia stood up, her fists clenched in the folds of her skirts. ‘Do not dare to shout at my daughter, Flavius,’ she said, her voice tight with anger. ‘I can assure you no-one has come to this house with Mora except sometimes her betrothed, Cynan, who is as local as Sorcha here.’

‘What if I say I don’t believe you?’ Flavius pushed his face aggressively towards hers, his eyes as hard as flint.

‘What you believe, Flavius, is of no consequence to anyone here,’ Lydia said. Somehow she managed to keep her voice steady. She moved away from him around the fire and went to stand in front of her loom. As the flames under the cauldron rose, licking at the metal, the large room was full of leaping shadows. Lydia was studying the length of woven material hanging before her with exaggerated concentration, noting how the dancing light emphasised the russets and greens of her checked patterns. She reached out for the shuttle and weaving comb.

‘Leave it!’ Flavius was behind her in two long strides. He seized them out of her hand and threw them to the floor. ‘Look at me, Lydia!’ He grasped her wrist. ‘I will not be lied to!’

‘You will not threaten me, brother!’ She emphasised the word sarcastically, holding his gaze. ‘Take your hands off me now.’

‘Why should I?’ He gave a cold leer. ‘There was a time when you liked my hands on you, sister!’ He echoed her emphasis. ‘Does Gaius know about that?’

‘Mama?’ Petra’s call was anguished.

‘I’ll go for help.’ Sorcha dropped the ladle with which she had been stirring the soup back into the cauldron and turned towards the doorway. She dodged past Flavius and ducked outside before he could catch her. Within seconds she was back with two young men at her side. Dressed in working clothes, their feet swathed in loose-fitting boots, their hair long and unkempt, they stood side by side just inside the doorway looking at each other and then at Sorcha as though uncertain what to do.

He glanced at them and sneered. ‘Oh I am so frightened! Is this the best you can do, Lydia, in the way of a bodyguard?’ He reached into his belt and pulled out his dagger. ‘So,’ he said with an exaggerated sigh. ‘Who is first?’

‘Flavius!’ Behind him Gaius had appeared in the doorway, still swathed in his travelling cloak. He took in the scene in one glance. ‘Put up your dagger. How dare you!’ He stepped forward. ‘What in Hades is going on here?’

‘He is threatening us, Gaius,’ Lydia said coolly. ‘As we knew he would. I would like him to leave our house.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Flavius rammed the dagger home in its sheath and turned away from them to sit down next to Petra. He folded his arms. ‘I suggest you send these peasants away,’ he said. ‘This does not concern them.’

‘It concerns them if my wife and family are threatened,’ Gaius retorted angrily.

‘They are not being threatened.’ Flavius adopted a tone of exaggerated boredom. ‘What nonsense. Lydia is being hysterical. All I did was ask if this man I am seeking has come here to this house.’

‘And I told you he hasn’t!’ Lydia snapped.

Flavius shrugged. ‘If you say so, then I must believe you.’ He yawned. ‘Why not get that girl to serve some supper? If she leaves it much longer it will burn.’

Lydia glared at him. ‘I have not asked you to stay and eat with us.’

‘No, but you will.’ He smiled at her. ‘For old time’s sake.’

Gaius sighed. He reached up to unpin his cloak, then he stared round. ‘Where is Romanus?’

‘He went hunting.’ Lydia went to his side. She took the cloak from him and folded it over her arm. ‘He’ll be back before dark.’ She looked up at him. ‘Gaius -’

‘Here we go,’ Flavius put in. ‘Gaius, darling, your nasty brother is bullying me.’ He raised his voice to a falsetto as though imitating her. ‘Here. Lydia. A present for you. I bought this from the people I visited today. You see, I didn’t bully them or threaten them. I gave them money for something they had to sell. A trinket, but I thought you would like it.’ He reached into his pouch and held out his hand.

She stepped closer to Gaius. ‘Thank you, Flavius, I do not need trinkets.’

He shrugged. ‘Very well, then Petra shall have it. A pretty thing for a pretty girl.’ He turned and smiled at her. ‘Here you are, sweetheart. This will suit you better than your mother anyway. It will look nicer against a younger face.’ He tossed a small packet into her lap. Petra stared down at it, then at Lydia, her eyes full of anguish. Flavius watched, amused. ‘So, she doesn’t dare open it without your permission. She doesn’t have her mother’s spirit, does she!’ He reached down and picked the packet up. Unwrapping it he exposed a string of coloured glass beads. ‘There. Let me put it round your neck, child. See how pretty it is. The beads glitter in the firelight.’

Petra gasped. Her swollen hands went to her throat. ‘Mama -’

‘That was kind of you, Flavius.’ Gaius’s voice was acid. ‘How thoughtful. My daughter is very grateful.’

Petra opened her eyes wide. ‘I can keep them?’

‘Of course you can keep them.’ Gaius leaned down and kissed the top of her head. He glanced warningly at his wife. ‘Let Sorcha serve the food, then we will all get some sleep. I’m sure Flavius will need to travel onwards tomorrow.’

His brother grinned. ‘Tomorrow I am going to borrow your son. He can take me over to Afalon or whatever the place is called. The man I seek is a student there, as I suspected.’ He stuck his feet out before him towards the warmth of the fire. ‘Once I have seen him and dealt with that matter to my satisfaction, then I shall consider whether to go or whether to stay the winter here. It all depends, doesn’t it.’

‘Do you have any books about ancient Glastonbury in your library?’

Abi burst into the kitchen where Cal was once more sitting at the table wrestling with her piles of bills. Cal looked up startled. ‘Go and look, Abi. You’re welcome. There are lots of guidebooks and things in there, on the left of the desk in the window. We shove them all there when we have travelled anywhere so we know where they are. And the older books would be roughly where we found that one the other night. I don’t know what Justin took, but I doubt if it was anything you would need.’ She frowned. Abi was already heading for the door, her face intense. Shaking her head painfully Cal looked down at the table again, and resumed tapping at her calculator.

Abi let herself into the room. It faced the front of the house, the lawn, the long driveway, the hedges and behind them the road which led from Glastonbury to Wells. The guidebooks were obvious, lying flat on the shelf in a bright well-thumbed heap. She pulled them all out and laid them on the desk. Then came a tatty volume of William Blake’s poetry with a curly Celtic bookmark slotted, probably not coincidentally, opposite the page where ‘Jerusalem’, Blake’s own famous celebration of the fact that Jesus himself had walked upon England’s hills, was printed. Next to that was another selection of books of local interest. Some of these were modern, some she recognised from her mother’s shelves: John Michell, Geoffrey Ashe, Dion Fortune, Sabine Baring-Gould. She smiled. When she had studied history at Oxford the early Medieval period had been her speciality. She remembered some of this stuff from those days, and with them the botch of wishful thinking and confused rubbish which characterised the earliest chronicles and later inventions as England began to try and create for itself a pre-history to match its hopes and dreams as a nation. King Arthur of course was the most important character, his grave found right here in Glastonbury by the monks in the twelfth century. It was customary to put a cynical spin on all the legends these days. The unearthed couple were now thought more likely to have been some Iron Age tribal leader and his lady, if she remembered right. Whoever they were, the discovery of this tall rich man buried with a woman with golden hair, his Guinevere, did wonders for the income of the abbey. Pilgrims came from all over Christendom to pay homage, and it earned the approval and patronage of the king himself, remaining the richest abbey in England until Henry VIII set his greedy eyes on it. The legends about Joseph of Arimathaea and Jesus, as far as she knew, had come much later. She pulled out a small booklet. ‘Did our Lord Visit Britain’ by the Rev C.C. Dobson, MA. and smiled. The MA gave credibility presumably. She turned to the flyleaf. First published in April 1936. She read for a long time, one book after another. Some of these stories she remembered from when she was a child. She could hear her grandmother’s voice now, telling her the old tales.

Joseph of Arimathaea was, it was surmised, a rich merchant, trading in tin, copper, lead and silver. He was, possibly, probably, Jesus’ uncle, being the younger brother of Jesus’ father. Or mother. (Mind you a lot of the books said great-uncle). Anyway, some sort of kinsman. He was supposed to have brought Jesus with him as a boy on one, or several of his trading voyages west and so the young Jesus had visited Cornwall, and Somerset and possibly other bits of the British Isles as well and he had later come back to Glastonbury to study. It was peaceful and it was sacred, the perfect place to meditate and pray as a preparation for what was to come; the presence here of a druid sanctuary of especial holiness and the fact that druidism was a peaceful religion with a belief in the Trinity had been another draw. She scanned the pages of Dobson, intrigued. The three aspects of the Godhead, represented by three golden rays of light were Beli the Creator of the past, Taran, the god of the present, and Yesu, the coming saviour of the future. A title which Dobson put in capitals. ‘The more druidism is studied,’ he went on, ‘the more apparent is its relationship to the revealed religion of the Mosaic law.’ She put down the booklet and stared out of the window. She thought the whole point of druidism, the bit that most people knew, was that as it was an oral culture, so secret in its time that no-one knew anything much about it, beyond the sour complaints of Roman historians like Julius Caesar. But then Julius Caesar was sour about anyone who opposed his plans to conquer the world!

It was wonderful stuff. Intriguing. Mysterious. Irresistible. Abi leafed through some of the books again. All made more or less the same claims, with some asserting that Jesus’ mother, Mary, also came when he was a boy and again later, after his death. That was when Joseph returned with the vials or cruets of Jesus’ blood and sweat, collected at the cross, and with the Chalice from the Last Supper, which many identified with the Holy Grail and his staff, which implanted in Wearyall Hill became the famous Holy Thorn. Here, in Glastonbury, it was claimed, was the first dedication anywhere in Europe of a church to the Virgin Mary. All the books had scraps of credible history, all had stuff which was to her mind, rubbish. Most made the point that the true Glastonbury of history and the Glastonbury of legend were two different places, two different parallel worlds, co-existing to this very day.

She closed the books and stacked them neatly in front of her on the desk, staring again into the garden. In her previous life she had been, briefly, an investigative journalist and she could feel it again, now. The excitement, the curiosity, the enthusiasm when an idea began to run. How did her story, the story of her vision, fit into this legend? Could she be seeing history as it happened? And Yeshua. Could he possibly be Jesus?

Next morning she parked once more in the abbey car park, this time heading through a narrow passageway towards the entrance to the abbey itself. Her enthusiasm had taken a dive overnight. She woke up early with the firm conviction that she was undoubtedly mad and she thanked God she hadn’t mentioned her idiotic theory to Cal or Mat. She glanced up. Behind the high wall she could see the top of the ruined arches of the medieval building, but the entrance to the museum was modern. She paid her money and made her way in to the exhibition where for the time being she appeared to be the only visitor. Coming here was almost certainly going to confirm the impossibility of her ideas.

They were playing a CD of plainsong. She smiled. The gentle voices of the monks were soothing, wafting gently between the exhibits; just what she needed. A plaque near the entrance stated: The Somerset Tradition and described the whole story, pretty much as she had read it the night before, but of course as a quaint curiosity, not fact. Obviously. Further into the exhibition a glass case was labelled, ‘An Ancient Church Built By No Human Skills…’ So, it was all here. Slowly she made her way round the glass cases staring at the history of the abbey which had been, so famously and horrifically, destroyed by Henry VIII in 1539 after the abbot was hanged on the top of the Tor on trumped up charges of concealing the abbey’s treasure from the king’s representatives. It was all fascinating, but it was the earliest history she had come to see: the actual origins as far as they were known, of this holy place described by St Patrick as ‘this holiest earth’.

The site of Glastonbury Abbey was a huge thirty-six acres, according to the ground plan they had given her at the ticket office, of beautifully tended grounds, with what remained of the once great abbey standing stark and fragmented, the ruined walls neatly strengthened, situated towards the northern edge of the site.

Letting herself out of the museum, she headed towards the Lady Chapel, unusually at the west end of the abbey instead of the east, and built, it was claimed, on the site of the little mud and wattle church, the Vetusta Ecclesia, built with Jesus’ own hands.

But why, her cynical other self, the self who had gone to theological college, put in, would Jesus have built a church here at all when he hadn’t yet invented Christianity? If he invented Christianity, which he didn’t. Not really. That was Paul. Wasn’t it? The historical Jesus was an observant, probably a strict, Jew. Maybe an Essene, that intriguing ascetic sect who had hidden the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves at Qumran. He was certainly a rabbi. A scholar. He wasn’t, couldn’t have been a student here!

With a rueful smile at the contradictions spinning in her brain, she headed towards the walkway which ran at the original floor level of the Lady Chapel, above the now gaping crypt and she stood staring at two signs in front of her describing the building of this chapel after the original abbey had been burned down in the twelfth century. After reading them she turned back to the entrance and made her way to the flight of steps which led down to the floor of the crypt which in the sixteenth century had been turned into a chapel dedicated to St Joseph. The gallery was now behind and above her as slowly she walked forward between the towering, ruined walls towards the apse where a roofed-in area covered a plain altar. A few yards away from it she stopped. She closed her eyes. Could she feel anything special on this most holy of spots? It was hard to say.

Behind her she heard voices. Three people were standing on the walkway. They too had stopped to read the inscriptions there. She could feel their eyes on her back. It was hard to concentrate, to feel any sense of the sacred. It was all so neat, so – the word to describe it wouldn’t come. Antiseptic, perhaps. Regulated. Controlled. Where was a sense of the sacred sanctuary of the druids – the place dedicated in even earlier times, so some of the books said, to the mother goddess, hence the later dedication to the Blessed Virgin. Or had it been dedicated to his mother by the young Jesus himself; and where did Gwyn ap Nudd fit in? And who was he? She found herself shaking her head, still too cynical, too hog tied by history, too bound by her own orthodoxy to make any sense of this at all.

She waited. Because of this especial holiness St Bridget, St David and St Patrick had all come here. As a place of pilgrimage it had been called ‘the Second Rome’. Domesday Book itself confirmed the gift of twelve hides of land, given by the Celtic king Arviragus to Joseph to build his church. And yet she could feel nothing.

Turning she retraced her way to the steps and almost ran from the chapel, heading out across the grass which marked the position of the old cloisters. In the distance she could see the black silhouette of the Tor behind the trees. Nothing. No feeling of sanctity. She had felt it at Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. At Dryburgh in Scotland. Why not here? Here of all places she should sense it. She felt a wave of something like panic. She was being excluded from something precious. All around her, as the day warmed up and the sun appeared, lighting up the gold and russet of the leaves on the trees around her, were people immersed in the feelings which she should be feeling.

She sat down on a bench, her hands in her pockets, her shoulders hunched. She had come here to pray. No prayers came. She had come here to feel the ancient sacredness of the land. No feelings came.

A shadow fell across her and she looked up. A figure was standing on the path close to her, a woman’s figure.

Abi!

It was a whisper, no more.

Abi!

‘Mora?’ Abi leaped to her feet.

She had gone. There was no-one on the path at all.

‘Mora?’ Abi turned slowly around, straining her eyes into the sunshine. ‘Where are you?’

Nothing.

Kier drew his car up onto the gravel outside Woodley Manor and sat staring through the windscreen at the oak front door with its elegant, square Georgian porch and frame of scarlet Virginia Creeper. A road atlas lay open on the seat beside him. For several seconds he remained motionless. The house seemed deserted. There was no sign of any cars around; no people that he could see. He sighed. This was a lovely place. No wonder the bishop had chosen it as a retreat for Abi, where she could recover her sense of balance and her faith. Even here in the car he could feel the peace reaching out to him. Groping for the door handle he pushed it open and climbed out. When he rang the doorbell there was no answer. From somewhere deep inside the house he heard dogs barking but no-one came to the door. Maybe he should have phoned. But he had wanted to surprise her and have the chance to convince her that he wanted nothing but her happiness and wellbeing. He wandered round to the side of the house and found a courtyard area with a range of ancient outbuildings, and what looked like a couple of garages. Still no cars. So be it. He would have to come back later. He reached into the car for the map. He had been given the address of Ben Cavendish, her spiritual advisor. Perhaps he should go and see him first.

This time Athena took Abi to a different coffee shop. This one was opposite the Tribunal. As they sat on the comfortable green sofa, teapot and cups on a small tray in front of them, Abi was conscious of the other woman studying her face. She smiled uncomfortably. ‘I meant it when I said I needed to buy a book on crystals. I need to know more about them.’

‘So you couldn’t work it out on your own?’

Abi shook her head. ‘I can use it in that it has switched something on. I see these visions. I see -’ She hesitated. ‘Mora. She’s called Mora. My druid priestess. She is trying to speak to me. Just now I went to walk round the abbey and she was there. She came and stood right beside me. She cast a shadow…’ Again she stopped and shrugged. She reached out for her cup. ‘She shouldn’t cast a shadow if she’s a ghost. Surely that much we know about ghosts.’

‘And you spoke to her?’

Abi nodded. ‘Well, perhaps I was less than conversational. She gave me a fright! But I called out her name.’

‘And did she react?’

Abi shook her head. ‘She had already gone. Disappeared.’

Athena picked up her own cup and sipped thoughtfully. ‘So you need to know how to speak to her?’

Abi nodded.

‘It seems to me, it is nothing to do with the crystal. It is your own doubt and fear which are getting in the way.’ Athena set down the cup. ‘Is it possible the thought of making contact with another world like this is something you cannot bring yourself to believe in? You have set your own credibility limit.’ She leaned back into the sofa, sitting sideways so she could watch Abi’s face. ‘Or do I mean credulity?’ She shook her head. ‘You know what I mean.’

Abi smiled. ‘I do, and I would say that is undoubtedly one of my problems. The trouble is trying to reconcile what is actually happening here and what I believe is possible.’ She still hadn’t mentioned the priest bit. It was too big a deal. Bound to be. ‘So, how can I reset my parameters?’

Athena laughed. ‘My dear, I think that is for you to do. All I can suggest is that you give yourself a good talking to and logically confront what is going on. Look at what is real – have you been to the Tribunal tourist centre across the road, for instance? Upstairs there is a wonderful little museum. They even have an Iron Age canoe over there. That is the reality behind what you are seeing. Study it. Let yourself feel. Does anything come. Does it make a difference, looking at all this as archaeology rather than myth? Then see how you feel about what has happened with your ghosts and decide whether, logically, you can readjust your belief systems.’

Abi shook her head. ‘I fear that is easier said than done.’

‘I doubt it. If you were too disbelieving you would have dismissed all this as rubbish the first time it happened and shut down. I’ve seen people do that here. Glastonbury makes things happen for people. There is something in the air!’ she sighed. ‘They come, all excited and eager and waiting for some wonderful spiritual experience, then when – and if – it happens they go into free fall. It’s so sad.’

‘I sense there are no half measures here. One is either a Believer or a non-Believer in the Glastonbury experience.’ Abi was watching a group of women who had walked in. They went straight to the counter, helping themselves to trays. ‘You can tell by the way they dress,’ she added absent-mindedly.

Athena snorted with laughter. ‘So you have me down as a goddess worshipper, which in your case is not a compliment, right?’

‘OK. Sorry. Yes, I suppose I did. It’s your skirts. But I love them. I wish I had the courage to wear them myself. They are pretty and floaty and glamorous and they look very comfortable.’

‘And they hide the bulges, dear,’ Athena added dryly. She stood up. ‘I have to get back to the shop; it’s Bella’s half-day. We’ll talk about this some more, but in the meantime, go to the museum, then do some parameter stretching exercises.’ She smiled. ‘I would think just living round here for a bit would do the job; expanding your open-mindedness.’

Abi watched her make her way towards the door, greeting two people as she left, chatting to them briefly, then moving on. She seemed to know everyone. Abi sighed wistfully. She was an outsider here, an impostor, pretending to be someone she wasn’t, but no longer the person she was. She reached for her teacup and sipped from it thoughtfully.

The table jerked slightly and she looked up. The couple Athena had greeted had edged in beside her with enquiring looks to see if the seats were free. They both smiled at her.

‘You’re a friend of Athena?’ the young man said. He was tall and thin and dressed in cargo pants and a cheesecloth shirt. ‘Lovely lady.’

Abi nodded. ‘I’m just a visitor. She’s been very hospitable.’

‘She said you were interested in crystals,’ the young woman said. She put her head on one side surveying Abi critically. Abi was immediately conscious of her own conservative clothes. At least her hair was loose and wild, but the grey slacks and dark blue sweatshirt were unadorned, stereotyped: the female vicar trying to look the part off duty and, she suddenly realised, unremittingly boring. She nodded. ‘I was given one which appears to be very powerful and I’m not sure how to interact with it. That was why I went into Athena’s shop. For advice.’

‘I’m Serena and this is Hal.’ The girl held out her hand with unexpected formality. Her accent, Abi realised, was more home counties than Somerset. ‘We come down here every year. Hal makes musical instruments.’

‘Drums,’ Hal said.

‘Have you been up to the Tor?’ Serena asked. Again she put her head slightly to one side, like a bird listening for a worm.

Abi nodded. ‘Not lately but I used to come here a lot as a child. My grandparents lived up near Priddy.’

Serena nodded. ‘You’re local then. Lucky you.’

Abi was thoughtful for a minute. How strange, just as she had been feeling so much an outsider she was complimented on being a local. She found she was smiling broadly. ‘This seems to be a welcoming place. Very special.’

It was obviously the right thing to say. Serena’s whole face lit up with excitement. ‘Isn’t it.’ Hal said nothing.

Abi grinned again. Then she levered herself to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, but I do need to get on. Perhaps I’ll see you around?’

By the time she had reached the door they had taken receipt of two plates overflowing with salad and were leaning over their food with rapt expressions. Abi grinned again.

Athena was right about the museum. As she walked round the two small rooms looking at the glass cases Abi felt a definite pull into the past. These objects had belonged to people who had lived in the Lake Villages around Glastonbury which were constructed in the watery landscape in the years before the Romans came. This was the scene through which Romanus had paddled his canoe. This was the view she had seen with her own eyes. For real. She bit her lip, looking round. For real? Those loom weights, spindles, weaving combs, dice. Those cooking utensils. That jewellery and glass. The tools and belongings of a long-gone people. Downstairs, she stood looking at the dugout canoe which had been excavated from its watery grave and she gave a wry smile. Athena had thought it might help, coming here. What it did was to was create a strange ache in her heart, as though she could feel the touch of the men and women who had made these things; hear their laughter. And their anguish. For real. She shook her head thoughtfully. Perhaps Athena was right. Perhaps it was a help.

Pools of mist in a landscape of shadows and milky waters and iridescent light. He smiled. This was a land of dreams and fleeting sunbeams, of numinous tides and dancing wind. A place where leaves fluttered from the trees and floated in patches of gold on silver reflections, where islands vanished into the distances and reappeared as songs on the lips of children…