The Chalice (79 page)

      
She wondered what day it was. Was it Christmas yet? Always
hated Christmas. All those fruity voiced oafs smelling of drink and cigars, and
then going stiffly to church.
'Merry Christmas, m'Lord, Merry
Christmas. Thank you, m'lord, very kind, very kind of you
…' And Boxing Days
echoing to the horrid peremptory, bloodlusting blast of the hunting horn.
  
'Time
we had you riding, Diane? 'Doubt if we've got a horse fat enough and stupid
enough. Father, ha ha...'

      
'Time to wake up, Diane.' Ceridwen was at her bedside.

      
'It's still dark.'

      
'It will soon be dawn.'

      
Ceridwen no longer wore the starched uniform of the nurse or
the nanny, but a long purple robe.
      
'This is not a hospital, is it?'

      
'It has made you well, however,' Ceridwen said. 'You've
learned what you needed to learn. Without this knowledge you could never be
free.'

      
'I ... I suppose that's true.'

      
She had dreamed of blood. The blood around her birth, she had
remembered her mother's cooling arms. She knew who had murdered her mother. She
was, at last, approaching an understanding of who she was.

      
'You once came to me to ask if you were an incarnation of Dion
Fortune. You always knew that, didn't you?'

      
'I...'

      
Ceridwen went down on her knees at the bottom of the bed. 'I
honour you, Diane Fortune.'

      
And then there was a rustling all around her, and other people
in robes emerged from behind the pillars, bearing candles. Among them, faces
she knew.

      
Rozzie and Mort and Viper and Hecate, the girl who had been so
rude to her and had made the children paint the bus black.

      
They all dropped to their knees.

      
And then Gwyn appeared, tall and bearded in a shroud of mist,
and he held up his sickle before throwing it to the ground at the bottom of the
bed. And all the people in the room said in unison, 'We honour you, Diane
Fortune.'

Verity awoke into shrilling
darkness and clicked off her travel alarm.

      
She had slept for four hours, after making Wanda's supper and
mugs of calming cocoa.
        
Wanda, who
had drunk too much, had been in one of her unpleasant, resentful moods at being
obliged to rise before dawn to put on a public relations sideshow with a bloody
Christian.

      
The luminous hands of the travel alarm told Verity it was five
thirty. She arose at once, against the tug from her hip, into the tainted
luxury of her suite at Wanda's.

      
Tainted by guilt. She arose into guilt. She had deserted her
post. She had allowed Mr Powys to guide her away from the 'grave and mortal
danger' foretold by Major Shepherd.

      
And left little Councillor Woolaston in its path.

      
Perhaps that part was over. Perhaps the intruders had been
caught and detained by the police.

      
And perhaps something horrible had occurred.

      
Verity washed in cold water, for the heating had not yet come
on. She heard the first spatter of sleet against the window.

      
She felt sick to her soul.

FIFTEEN

Lights Go Out

Woolly played patience at
the kitchen table and didn't once win.

      
Life was like this. All you could do was keeping turning over
the cards, never knowing how they were stacked.

      
Of course, this wasn't the case with everybody. Some people
cheated, and some people actually knew how to shuffle the pack. Glastonbury had
far more than the average number of people who thought they knew how to stack
the deck, but Woolly had no illusions.

      
He dealt himself three more and turned over the stack, but
nothing would fit.

      
He knew he'd done one good thing this past night, but couldn't
figure how he'd done it.
      
Maybe,
just that once, he'd turned the right card. Maybe he'd found an opening in the
house's black atmosphere. Whatever, something had let him take the wheel of the
black bus, and he'd saved a life.

      
Woolly hoped it was a good life.

      
He was hoping this when the lights began to go out.

Powys put his hands on her
shoulders and was horrified. There was a layer of frost on the muslin.

      
'I'm all right,' she said, 'leave me.'

      
'You're not.' He thought, what are we doing?
What
have I done? She's had pneumonia, she's been through hell. Just for odd
moments he'd thought,
this is it.
Without quite knowing what he meant, or even what he hoped for.

      
It had been a really crazy thing to do. Madness. He opened the
suitcase and took out her cloak and put it around her shoulders. Very gently,
he brought her to her feet. Her face was very close, but he couldn't see it
very well. The moon had gone, the mist had arisen, there was a thin and icy
wind.

      
'I c-could see her.' A tremor in Juanita's voice. 'She was in
a grey place and she was lying down. I g-got a feeling of terrible confusion. I
tried to tell her I was there. Sure she knew at one point. But then she turned
away.'

      
She buried her head in his chest and he held her under the
arms of the Abbey as the sleet came, deceptively gentle at first.

      
'I felt a light go out,' Juanita said.

      
As they came back over the wall, Juanita shivering inside the cloak,
Powys heard the rumble of traffic, the criss-cross of headlights on the stone.

      
Two vans came out of High Street; he turned and saw them enter
Wellhouse Lane. An ancient, clattering Rover followed. And then - oh God - a
bus.

      
A couple of dozen people were walking up High Street. They
wore big boots and carried backpacks and rucksacks.

      
'What's happening?'

      
'You don't know?' a young woman said. 'Demo, mate.'
      
'Where are you from?'

      
A bloke said, 'Bristol Eco-guerrillas. BEG. Except we don't.
Be people here from all over the country by morning. You know they started the
road?'

      
A woman spotted Juanita in her cloak. 'You one of the pagans?
It's getting, like, a bit confused. Groups everywhere been waiting for the call
on the road, you know?'

      
Someone leaned out of the back of a truck. 'Happy solstice,
sister!'

      
'Let's get out of here,' Juanita whispered. Powys wasn't aware
until they were heading through the already crowded central car park to the
back entrance of The George and Pilgrims that she had taken his hand.
      
In hers.

Shortly before seven,
Matthew Banks and his friend, the secondhand bookseller, called for Wanda in
Matthew's Discovery. Wanda was petulant and bothered about her clothes, settling
at last for the capacious black and white cape and a black, wide-brimmed hat
which Verity knew would be blown away by the wind on top of the Tor.

      
'You'll have to carry my bag, darling,' she snapped at Verity.
'I can't manage everything. The bloody, bloody bishop. Why couldn't he have
simply waited until the Summer Solstice?'

      
'I'm not coming.' Verity handed Matthew the flask of coffee
she'd made for Wanda and a half bottle of Glenmorangie.
      
'Don't be ridiculous. Get in the car.'
      
'I'm needed at Meadwell.'

      
'That damned house needs nobody. Except possibly a demolition
crew. Now get in, Verity.'

      
'I'm sorry, Wanda. I should never have come here. I know you
couldn't refuse. I know how much you owe Ceridwen.'

      
'What on earth are you talking about?'

      
'They made you invite me to stay, didn't they?'

      
'What utter non—'

      
'To get me out of the way. Well, you can tell them I'm going
back.'

      
She turned her back on the Discovery and walked off down the
mews. Someone would give her a lift, perhaps.

      
'Verity!' Wanda screeched. 'I've done everything for you, you
sad little woman!'

Don Moulder was manning his
field gate, keeping the riff raff out, shouting at them that it was private
property.

      
Who were all these buggers? They never said this. There'd been
talk of a small demonstration against Bowkett 's Restriction of Access Bill (of
which Don Moulder was fully in favour).

      
'No, you can't!' he roared at some cretin in a cagoule leaning
out of his car and waving a twenty pound note. 'This is the official car park.'

      
At last, two new-looking cars prodded through the cold mist
which was alternating with freezing clear spells and sudden wintry mist, the Tor
appearing and disappearing, against a filthy night sky.

      
'Mr Moulder? Peter Wakery, Archdeacon.'

      
'Thank Christ.'

      
'Indeed,' shouted the Archdeacon. 'The Bishop's behind me in
the BMW. Just tell us where to go.'

      
'Over there. Under the tree. By the buzz.'

      
Don Moulder didn't look at the bus. He hadn't been close to it.
Hadn't even liked putting the keys in his pocket. Maybe the Bishop could bless
them too. And then he'd sell the bus back to the scrap-yard for half of what
he'd paid. Give the proceeds to charity. Thus cleansing himself and his land.

      
The Bishop was wearing a tweed overcoat, buttoned around a purple
neckpiece. He stepped out under an umbrella.

      
'Morning, your grace. Donald Moulder. This is my field.'

      
'Good morning, Mr Moulder. And a very fine field. Wonderful
view of the Tor.'

      
'About the buzz. Bishop ...'

      
'The buzz?'

      
'I spoke to a feller in your office. Reverend Williams, could've
been. Arranging for you to help me with this buzz. This one behind you.'

      
'My God,' said the Bishop, 'I don't think we can tow it away.'

      
'To cleanse it. Bishop. To free this buzz and my field from
unwanted presences. This Reverend Williams said you could, like, exorcise it
...'

      
'I'm sure he said no such thing, Mr Moulder.' The
Archdeacon
,
a powerfully built man in a Goretex jacket, thrust
himself behind them like a bodyguard, 'I think you must have misunderstood.'

      
'You sayin' this man lied to me?'

      
'He was in no position to make any such promise and on a day
like this, with a schedule like ours ... I suggest you write to the diocese.
I'm sorry. Mr Moulder, we do have to get on.'

      
'Drop us a line,' said the Bishop, as he was hustled towards
the field gate.
      
Don Moulder looked back towards the
bus. All he could see in the darkness was a great black bulge in the field and
the glimmer of the scab like radiator grille, rust on it like dried blood on
grinning teeth. Grinning at Don Moulder's stupidity.

      
As the Bishop's party left the field, another BMW pulled halfway
through the gate, a head leaned out of the driver's window.

      
'Mr Moulder!'
      
Archer Ffitch's voice.
      
'Hell's going on?'

      
Don wandered over. 'Somebody told 'em the new road's under
way.'

      
'But that's nonsense.'

      
'You tell them that. Looks like hundreds of the bolshie devils,
comin' from all over, look. Won't do your campaign no harm, though, will it, Mr
Archer? You wanner get up there, argue with 'em. Be telly crews in a bit. Make
the most of it, I would.'