Abi grimaced. She gave a deep sigh. Athena frowned. ‘I’m always here if you want a chat. Where did you say you were staying?’
‘With a family called Cavendish. At Woodley Manor on the Wells Road.’
Athena nodded. ‘I know Justin.’
Abi’s eyes widened. ‘He dropped in this morning.’
‘Really?’ Athena seemed astonished.
‘Mat and Cal were out.’ Abi rubbed her forehead. She was feeling her way. She didn’t want to gossip but on the other hand perhaps Athena was a friend of the family. She hoped so.
Athena laughed. It was a deep throaty chuckle. ‘Justin and Mat have never got on. They come from two different planets.’ She hesitated. ‘A word to the wise. Be careful of Justin.’ She leaned forward on her elbows, cupping her chin in her hands. ‘So, Abi, how do you fit in with the family? You didn’t say.’
‘I was having man problems. A…’ She hesitated. ‘A friend suggested I come down to stay for a few weeks while I got my head together.’
‘I see.’ Athena glanced up at her face thoughtfully. ‘And what did you say you do for a living?’
‘I didn’t.’ Abi bit her lip. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t lie to this woman, but on the other hand if she told her Athena would probably get up and walk out. Almost certainly she was a pagan if she was anything at all and pagans in her experience did not like Christian priests. There were several students who called themselves pagan on her beat in the parish at home. They had made their feelings abundantly clear. Her church was to blame for witch burnings, for the crusades, for the Inquisition, for the persecution of women in general, for every real and perceived iniquity which had been enforced against the feminist cause, for destroying the planet, for burning the rain forest, for exploiting animals. The list went on and on. And most of the accusations, she had to admit, were to some extent based on real attitudes and real stances which from time to time various elements within the Christian church had embraced with so much misguided fervour. Not all, she wanted to say. Not today. Not me. It was not what Jesus wanted. It never mattered. She was tarred with the Christian brush. They never let her go any further with her self-justification. She looked at Athena and shrugged. ‘I resigned from my last job. I’m unemployed at the moment.’ That at least was true. Athena nodded. Abi had a feeling she knew that this was not the whole story but for now she was prepared to let it lie. ‘I hope we meet again. I will come into the shop next time I come to Glastonbury,’ she went on quickly. ‘I’ve so much enjoyed our talk.’
Athena smiled. ‘Me too.’ She stood up, and to Abi’s surprise leaned across to give her a warm hug. ‘Relax, Abi. Listen to your heart. Stop worrying about what everyone else thinks.’ Again she seemed to have read Abi’s thoughts. ‘Be your own woman!’
The crystal was still there on the window sill. Abi gazed at it for a few minutes, then she picked it up. Carefully rewrapping it in its cotton bag she laid it in a drawer hidden under some jerseys. Then she knelt down by her bed and began to pray.
Mora lay back on her elbows and stared up at the sky. She had fair skin and red-gold hair, bound into a heavy plait which she wore twisted round her head. Her eyes were slate-blue. Wearing a brown woollen cloak, she gave the impression of a slender flower emerging from the dead leaves of winter. ‘Was it ever this beautiful in your country?’ She threw a glance at her companion.
Yeshua was sitting a few yards away from her, staring down from the hillside across the glittering sunlit waters of the reedy mere spread out beneath them. He smiled. ‘Every country I have visited has its own beauty.’ He reached for the jug at his feet and drank a few sips of the sweet local cider. ‘Some are hot with desert sands; some are green and full of forests or grassy plains. Some have mountains so high you cannot see the top. They have snows all the year round. But here, yes, there is a special beauty. The water is everywhere. Your sunlight is soft, your mists beguiling, the smell of apple blossom enchanting.’ His eyes were deep warm brown. She could see he was laughing at her.
‘Pass me the jug.’
Standing up, he brought it over. He was a tall, slim man with light olive skin and dark brown wavy hair. Between them lay two woven bags, full of packets of dried herbs, their pharmacopoeia and medicine chest. ‘We must get on.’ Drinking her fill, Mora rammed the stopper back into the jug. ‘We need to be at the fisherman’s house before the sun begins to drop. I need good light to examine his wife. She has a canker in her breast.’ She shook her head. ‘I have tried everything. I’m afraid all I can do is relieve her pain. Maybe you can do something.’ She was beginning to have great faith in this young man’s powers of healing. He was a student and a teacher, who had travelled far across the seas to study with the druid priests of the Pretannic Islands and on arrival in Afalon had been assigned to her care by her father, Fergus, the archdruid, to watch and help her as she carried out her duties as a healer. More often than not however, their roles had been reversed. She it was who was watching and learning from him. He had not studied medicine. He did not use herbs as she did. He worked through instinct and through prayer. He examined a patient, and considered the nature of the illness, and sometimes he held his hands over the wound, or he ran his fingers across a sore stomach or laid his palms gently on an aching head and bade the illness go. She had tried it secretly. It didn’t seem to work for her.
The message from the fishing village had come as they were setting off towards home after several days moving sometimes in rain, sometimes in sunlight, amongst the homesteads and farms in the foothills to the east of their watery home. They would barely make it before dark.
Trefor was waiting for them at the door to his house, his face lined with sorrow. ‘It is too late, Mora. She’s gone.’
He turned and led the way inside, gesturing towards the bed by the fire. His wife lay there, her eyes closed, her face white as marble.
Mora sighed. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She had already guessed as much. The lonely call of the curlew across the marshes had signalled a death. She knelt at the bedside and touched the woman’s face. It was ice cold. ‘At least she is free of pain, now,’ she said sadly. ‘And she is with the ancestors where there is no fear or anguish. You will see her again.’ She looked up at him.
Trefor nodded. He shrugged his great shoulders miserably. ‘Who will look after the children?’
‘You will find yourself a new wife, my friend.’ She rose to her feet and laid a hand on his arm. Behind her Yeshua stepped forward and bent over the cold body. He laid a hand on the woman’s forehead for a moment, then he too shook his head sadly.
‘Who are you?’ Trefor had swung round suddenly as he saw the stranger stoop over his wife. ‘Don’t you touch her.’ He looked afraid.
Mora stepped forward. ‘Peace, Trefor. This is Yeshua, one of the students at the college. He is a healer like me.’ She frowned at Yeshua. ‘There is nothing we can do.’
Yeshua nodded and stood away from the woman’s body. ‘I’m sorry. I had no intention of upsetting you.’ He smiled regretfully. ‘She was a beautiful woman.’ Mora saw the older man frown, hearing the strange accent. But the meaning of his words were clear and he nodded sadly, reassured.
Behind them three small faces had appeared at the doorway. Yeshua turned. He walked over to them and in moments they had come trustingly into his arms. It was a long time before they let him depart. Mora gave an inner smile. Wherever they went he attracted children. They seemed to adore him unreservedly, begging for stories, queuing for the little models of animals and birds he whittled for them with his knife, reassured when they were sad, comforted when they were in pain.
‘It makes me so angry when we are too late!’ Yeshua shouldered his bag at last and led the way out of the compound. It would soon be dark, but the family in their distress had not thought to ask them to stay. ‘If we had been there days ago, perhaps we could have done something. The poverty! The exhaustion on that poor woman’s face! It is so wrong. If the children were only old e
nough to help her! Or her husband did more! If he had gone to the king and begged!’ His voice rose in anger. ‘I can’t bear it when I see so much suffering everywhere I go. Good people, in so much pain and so much misery and grief. How can God allow it?’
‘Her spirit was ready to leave,’ Mora replied as she ran to keep up with him. ‘One cannot always save people, you know that. She wanted to go.’
He stopped and turned to face her. ‘How do you know?’
‘I saw her.’
‘You saw her spirit?’
She nodded. ‘She was tired. Sad to leave him and the children, but she was exhausted; beyond life. Beyond recall.’
‘So, you are saying I couldn’t have saved her?’
Mora nodded. ‘You know we couldn’t.’
‘I get too angry!’ He shook his head after a moment.
‘Only because you care so much.’ There was a long pause. She stood looking down the track ahead of them towards the fen. The sun was setting, leaving a trail of gold in the waters. ‘Do your people believe as we do that there is somewhere wonderful that we go when we die?’
He nodded. ‘It is called Heaven.’
‘And is Heaven full of apple trees?’
He smiled at last, his anger subsiding. ‘Ah, there is a garden called Eden. It is a place of everlasting blessings.’
Mora nodded, reassured. ‘She will be happy there.’ She sighed.
He glanced at her. ‘But her spirit is lingering, watching over them all.’
Mora nodded again. ‘That house is full of the dead. I sometimes think we should teach people how to speak to their loved ones who linger, and help them on their way.’ She shrugged. ‘Trefor needs to let the sunlight and the air into that place. It courts illness. Three of his children have died. That is his third wife. The other two also died. One in childbirth, with the baby barely born, the other of an injury which went bad. I could do nothing for any of them, and yet still he asks me to come. He trusts me. He believes I can help him.’ Her voice rose in frustration.
Yeshua reached across and laid his hand on her arm. ‘Don’t punish yourself, Mora. You do what you can. There are many others you do help. I have watched you.’
She gave a sad little smile and shook her head. ‘Come. We must set out. It will be full dark soon.’ She sighed.
‘The nights come earlier and earlier,’ he said after a moment. ‘You know I am going to have to leave before the winter sets in.’
‘Not yet.’ She went cold at his words. ‘There is so much for us to talk about. So much to study together. There will be time for some more visits before you go?’ She heard the plea in her voice and despised herself for it.
‘Oh, yes.’ He smiled. ‘There will be time for a few more yet.’
She reached out her hand as if to touch his, then changed her mind. Already he was striding ahead of her into the trees. He hadn’t noticed the gesture.
Abi jerked away from the scene with a start. She had put the stone away. This was ridiculous. She had to take control of herself. She sat down on her bed. So, Mora, the healer, was away visiting her patients whilst the family out here in the garden were looking for her. She was a herbalist, but her skills were limited; a druid healer who was not all-powerful. She didn’t use a wand or magic or invoke the druid gods of healing. She did her best with the medicinal herbs she had collected from the countryside around. Like her companion, she was frustrated and angry and miserable because she couldn’t help. And her patient had died of what, breast cancer? Abi stood up and walked across to the window and stared out towards the Tor. Two thousand years later and they still hadn’t conquered it!
She found Cal in the kitchen. For once she wasn’t cooking. She was sitting at the scrubbed oak table surrounded by sheaves of bills. Abi grimaced. ‘Oh dear. Is this a bad time?’
Cal looked up. ‘It’s always a bad time when I have to try and sort this lot out. Come and sit down. Did you have a good day?’
Abi nodded. ‘I went into Glastonbury and wandered around. Went into some of the shops. Had coffee with a fascinating woman from a crystal shop. Athena.’
Cal shook her head. ‘My God! Boadicea herself! How on earth did you get talking to her?’ She shuffled several bills together and fixed them with a paperclip.
Abi shrugged. ‘I was in her shop. We talked about this and that. She designs jewellery.’ She paused. ‘She mentioned Justin.’ She hesitated. ‘He was here this morning. Did you know?’
Cal looked up. ‘Here? In the house?’
Abi nodded. ‘He said better not to mention it in front of Mat.’
‘Too right!’ Cal said fervently. ‘What did he want? He obviously knew Mat and I were out.’
‘I think he must have waited until he saw you leave. He was indoors – I didn’t let him in. He was in the library, looking for some books.’
Cal nodded. ‘He always thinks of the books as his own. I think their grandfather promised them to him at some point. It seems only fair as Mat and Ben got all the rest. Not because Justin was diddled out of it, he just didn’t want to be part of it. They were supposed to end up with third shares in the house, but it didn’t work out that way.’
‘Can I ask why they don’t get on?’
Cal let out a gusty breath, blowing the pepper and salt fringe up away from her eyes. ‘Chalk and cheese. Justin is a good ten years younger than Mat. Mat resented him when he was born, I think. He had been the baby for a long time. But they never had anything in common. Justin is a natural rebel. A bit of a free thinker. I am not surprised Athena knows him.’
A word to the wise…
Athena’s warning rang in Abi’s head for a moment.
Cal pushed back her chair and stood up with a groan. ‘Tea? I’m exhausted after a day in town. Too much traffic; too many people; too much noise. I’ve turned into a country bumpkin. But at least I got some shopping done. I needed a halfway decent coat for the winter.’ She paused frowning. ‘But at this moment I’ve got a splitting headache and I feel like death.’
‘Would you like me to massage your shoulders?’ Abi offered. ‘Something I’m quite good at,’ she added humbly. She didn’t call it healing any more. Not after Kier’s comments.
Cal gave a wan smile. ‘Thanks. I’d love it.’ She subsided back into the chair.
Abi stood behind her and rested her hands gently on Cal’s shoulders. She could feel her fingers tingling. Her hands were heating up. Then suddenly the sensation was gone. She stared down, devastated. She couldn’t do it. Not any more. She gave Cal’s neck a perfunctory massage, then stepped back. ‘Is that better?’ She could hear the huskiness in her voice.
Cal stood up. ‘Much. Thank you.’ She glanced at Abi, frowning, sensing that something was wrong, but not quite sure what. ‘Shall I make us that tea?’
She was holding the kettle under the tap as the phone rang. ‘Can you get that?’
Abi picked it up. ‘Hello?’
Silence.
‘Hello, Woodley Manor?’
There was a quiet laugh. ‘Hello Abi.’
‘Kier?’ Abi froze.
‘Your father gave me the number. How are you?’ He paused and when she didn’t answer he went on. ‘Things are not going well here. I’m not very happy, Abi. I thought you should know. The bishop has suspended me.’
‘Because of what you did to me?’
‘Of course. He thinks I should take time out to consider my behaviour.’ He gave a weak laugh. ‘So, what did you tell him about me, exactly?’
‘Only the truth, Kier. That I couldn’t work with you any more. That I wanted to leave. It wasn’t all your fault, and he knows that. I realised that I no longer had a calling to the priesthood. Perhaps I never did.’
Hearing Abi’s tone Cal turned off the tap and put down the kettle. She ran her finger across her throat. Hang up!
Abi shrugged and shook her head. ‘Kier, I am truly sorry, but the bishop knows best. If he thinks you should take a break –’
‘They’ve b
rought in someone else to look after the parish. They have told them I’m not well. Sandra thought I must have cancer.’ He gave a strange, humourless laugh. ‘You have ruined my career, Abi. Did you set out to do that? To seduce me? To use magical powers to draw me in?’ His voice was tight and oddly expressionless.
Abi opened her mouth to retort and found no words came. She was literally speechless.
‘I suspected as much when I heard what you were doing in the parish,’ he went on. ‘I tried to understand, to give you leeway, but you just used the time to condemn yourself more. I have told him about all that. Your healing powers, your magical passes, your spells and potions.’
‘What spells and potions?’ Abi stammered at last. ‘What on earth are you talking about!’
‘Don’t pretend not to know,’ Kier went on. ‘That was how you drew me in, didn’t you. You probably put something in my drink. And The Bishop knows it. After all, he hasn’t moved you to another parish, has he. He’s suspended you too. You will go before a consistory court to explain what you’ve been doing, I shall see to that. I’m afraid you will be unfrocked, Abi. You may even go to prison, but I will support you. You know I will –’
Abi slammed down the phone. She was shaking. ‘OK.’ Cal came over to her. ‘Sit down. I got the gist of that, the man was speaking so loudly. This is your ex-colleague, Kieran, I gather, and he thinks you’re a witch?’ Suddenly Cal’s face creased with laughter. ‘I’m sorry, Abi, but this is ludicrous. This is the twenty-first century, for goodness sake!’ She broke off, seeing Abi’s expression. ‘Oh no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed. Of course I shouldn’t. This is your career, but truly, he sounded completely off his rocker!’
‘My career doesn’t matter any more.’ Abi had sat down at the table. Her hands were shaking. ‘I have tried to give in my resignation. I expect now it will be accepted with alacrity.’ She gave a small bitter laugh. ‘It’s just so damn wrong! A bigoted, sexist man shouldn’t have the power to ruin someone’s life. I might have been a good priest but I never got the chance to find out. We were warned there were a lot of people out there who would try and bring us down just because we were women, we were even warned from time to time people would mention witchcraft, but we all laughed; we thought it was a joke. That happened at the beginning, not now there have been women priests for ages. I never expected this.’