An Unholy Communion Page 5

  Antony stood for a moment, pondering whether he would have felt better if the policeman had assured him there was nothing to the horned snake emblem, or if he was glad to think they might have found a clue. He had promised Felicity a peaceful getaway. He hoped he could make good on that. For the first time he questioned his wisdom in encouraging Felicity to join this pilgrimage. What had he gotten her into?

  He had taken one step back toward the hall when the door opened quietly and a dark figure slipped out and headed down the street. There was nothing wrong with any member of the party taking a walk. So why the furtive air?

  Inside the hall it took only a quick glance to see that Michael was missing. Rendezvous with the barmaid, perhaps?

  The others seemed ready to settle, so he called them into the sanctuary before they were all cocooned in their sleeping bags. “It’s a little late for evening prayers, so I think we’ll say Compline.” He chose to stand on the floor before the pews rather than behind the pulpit which, in good Methodist fashion, occupied center place at the front of the church.

  “The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end,” he began.

  “Amen,” the little band replied.

  Felicity was glad he had chosen this, the quietest and most contemplative of all offices. It invited reflection on the events of the day past. And what a day it had been. It seemed like a week ago she had stood, disoriented, on the train station at Newport. Then following that she had spent most of her day in Roman times. Little wonder if she felt jetlagged.

  And then there had been those two vivid reminders of the event that had catapulted her into this journey. She shivered and forced the image from her mind. Concentrate on the prayers, she told herself. “Visit, O Lord, this dwelling, and drive away all snares of the enemy; may the angels preserve us in peace, and your blessing be ever upon us…”

  Her “Amen” was hearty.

  “In peace, we will lie down and sleep…” Antony declared.

  “For you alone, Lord, make us dwell in safety,” came the response.

  “The almighty and merciful God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, bless us and preserve us.”

  With the final “Amen” they were dismissed to their beds.

  Felicity barely mumbled a “goodnight” to Nancy and Lydia on either side of her before she was asleep.

  Hours later she jerked awake so violently she bolted upright with her sleeping bag around her. She stared into the thick blackness of the hall, listening to the rhythmic breathing of the mounds around her. Why was it so dark? She held a hand out tentatively as if she could touch the darkness, mold it in her hand like play dough.

  Ridiculous. She must have been sounder asleep than she thought. She shook her head to clear it. Surely everyone was as deeply asleep as she had been moments ago. And yet she had been so sure. The voice had been clear. Antony calling her. “Felicity.” Then a pause. “Felicity.” And a third time, more insistent. “Felicity.” She didn’t think she had been dreaming.

  Carefully, so as not to disturb anyone, she unzipped her sleeping bag and padded barefoot across the tiled floor, slowly, with her hands in front of her to ward off the dark. Her foot touched Antony’s bag and she knelt, feeling his shape. The bag rose and fell rhythmically with his slow, steady breathing. She put her hand on his shoulder, but didn’t shake him. Dead to the world was the expression. But she didn’t like that.

  It was possible he could have called out in his sleep, but if so, he slumbered soundly now.

  She crossed the floor on her hands and knees. She told herself it was easier. Of course it wasn’t that she didn’t want anything to see her in the dark. She crawled into her bag and zipped herself in. But this time it didn’t feel cozy. It felt confining. The bag was part of the dark pressing down on her.

  She would need her sleep if she were to function at her best as assistant leader tomorrow, but her eyes wouldn’t close. The black burned itself into her eyeballs. This is silly, she told herself sternly. She forced her eyes closed and concentrated on stilling her breathing. But she did not sleep. Instead double-headed horned serpents writhed on the back of her eyelids.

  Throwing off her restricting bag and pulling jeans and sweater from her pack, she slipped silently into her clothes to go for a predawn walk. Some caretaker must have been attentive to oiling the hinges because the door opened silently. Felicity stepped into the adumbral world. She took a deep breath to steady herself, and filled her lungs with the fresh air. You’re breathing the darkness in. She silenced the taunting voice.

  A single note from a bird in the branches above her head signaled that dawn was not far off. Hold to the coming of the light, she told herself. Still, for the moment she must watch carefully where she stepped so as not to trip over a half-buried stone or crash into a bush.

  She could make out the shape of the nearby St Cadoc’s Church just across an expanse of lawn, so turned that direction, but had taken only a few steps when she stopped. She had thought herself alone in the world awaiting daybreak. Just herself and one solitary bird. But now she distinctly heard voices only a few feet away, on the other side of that mound of bushes. Not exactly arguing, but one at least was very insistent.

  Was it some of their group? She had assumed all the sleeping bags were occupied when she left the hall, but she hadn’t actually checked. She took two steps across the dew-soaked grass.

  “You must know something. You’re so keen on the subject. I saw you looking at the letters.” Michael’s voice, she was certain.

  The muttered reply was softer. A lighter, younger voice. Male. Colin? “I don’t know anything about a missing letter. Ask Father Antony. He’s the one…”

  The figures emerged from behind the bush. Felicity stepped back into the shelter of the nearest tree.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, Michael. It was a brilliant adventure anyway, huh?”

  She could tell now Michael was smiling. “Yeah, it was all right. But it’s our secret, right?”

  “Right.”

  Felicity turned and followed a distance behind, thinking they would go into the church hall, but instead they made for the van. At Michael’s instruction, Colin flicked on the torch he carried so the driver could see to unlock the rear door. Felicity just made out that he stored a small spade before relocking the vehicle.

  What had these two been up to with spade and torch in the dark of night?

  Chapter 6

  Sunday After Ascension

  Caerleon to Llantarnam

  Felicity was still rolling up her sleeping bag and wishing she had slept better when three grey-haired Methodist ladies bustled in with boxes of cereal and bags of fruit. Antony and several pilgrims who had been more efficient than she at their morning ablutions in the rather primitive washroom began folding out the tables stacked against the wall and setting out chairs. Sounds of boiling kettles and popping toasters came from the kitchen.

  “Sorry to hurry you along, luv.” One of the ladies, her rotund figure swathed in a flowered pinny over her Sunday dress, gave Felicity a warm, motherly smile. “It’s just that we have a Sunday school class meeting in here in an hour.”

  “Oh, no. That’s absolutely fine.” Felicity did up the zipper on the duffle that held the sleeping bag, air mattress, and battery-powered pump she had borrowed from a friend in Kirkthorpe. “Thank you so much for bringing in our breakfast. It’s absolutely lovely of you.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble a’tall. We’re happy to help out. It’s an extraordinary thing you’re doing, isn’t it? Walking all these young people across the ancient ways. Not enough youngsters interested in such things these days. Seems like all most of them want to do is play those video games. I know that’s what my grandchildren do.”

  Felicity smiled. “Yes, and I think we have three more joining. It should be a good group.”

  “Ah, that’s lovely. Come have your tea, now.”

  Felicity couldn’t have been happier to obey. As she sliced a bana
na onto her cornflakes she surreptitiously watched Colin and Michael. Had that mud been on Colin’s boots yesterday? Whatever they had been up to, neither Colin nor Michael looked any worse for their escapade. Neither had dark circles under their eyes like she did.

  The activity in the room whirled around her as Antony, his plate stacked high with toast, took a seat next to Adam. “Sleep all right, did you?”

  Adam answered readily enough, but Lydia, sitting on the other side, chided her brother for putting too much sugar in his tea. Felicity flinched. There was sure to be antagonism if Lydia insisted on mothering her younger brother.

  Then she looked around. Where was Nancy? That solemn young woman was so quiet one tended to overlook her. And yet Felicity was certain there was a depth there that would be well worth getting to know. A moment later her question was answered when Nancy emerged from the door to the church and tucked her prayer book and Bible in her neatly packed bag before getting a mug of black tea.

  “Is that all you’re having?” Felicity asked. “I think it’s something like seven miles on to Llantarnam.”

  Nancy gave her a brilliant smile that made her chestnut eyes sparkle. “Oh, I’ll be fine. It’s no matter.”

  Felicity suspected she was being scrupulous about a pre-Eucharistic fast. It would be a long time though before they joined the nuns for their morning service.

  As it turned out it was to be even longer than she thought, because Antony announced that as soon as the van was loaded they would go back to the field beyond the amphitheater for one more bit of history before leaving Caerleon. Nancy beamed, but Felicity was almost certain she heard Lydia groan. Felicity smiled at her, thinking how well she knew the feeling. It had been such a short time ago that she herself had thought she would go cross-eyed if she had to listen to one more history lecture—until she learned the relevance such ancient accounts could have. In their recent experience, the understanding of historical events had become a matter of life and death. Felicity gave a soft sigh of relief that this time no such desperate import attached to Antony’s lectures. She could simply enjoy them for the sake of the story.

  Felicity stepped into the kitchen to thank their hostesses one more time, then picked up her luggage and took it to the van where Michael was loading. It required a bit of moving her bags around, but she managed to position herself so that her glance could fall seemingly naturally on the shovel tucked along the side of the back seat. “What’s that for?”

  Michael looked where she was pointing and shrugged. “Standard equipment. Mud can get pretty deep on some of the back roads if we have a good rainstorm.”

  She nodded and handed him her bag, not mentioning the fresh-looking clay on the blade.

  At least they didn’t appear to be in danger of a rainstorm today. The morning sun shone brightly as they gathered around Antony who stood with the green mounds of the amphitheater behind him. “All right, you’ll be hearing a lot about St David, especially in the second week of our time together when we’ll be in his city and staying at the retreat center that bears his mother’s name, but I wanted you to have the Caerleon part of his story before we move on westward, following pretty much the path David and his monks would have taken when he moved his see.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anyone here who doesn’t know that David is the patron saint of Wales.” If there was, no one raised their hand. “You all wear daffodils on St David’s Day, do you?”

  “I wear a leek,” Colin declared. “St David ordered his soldiers to wear leeks on their helmets—they were fighting the Saxons in a field of them.”

  Antony smiled. “Or, more realistically perhaps, because of its importance to the national diet in days of old, especially in Lent.” Colin frowned at such a mundane idea.

  Felicity wondered about wearing such a pungent vegetable on one’s shoulder, but she could imagine Colin doing just that.

  “Getting back to David,” Antony continued. “He was of noble lineage, his father, Sandde, was descended from Bran the Blessed, his mother, Non, of the family of Vortigern. We’ll be seeing his birthplace in a convent on the cliff overlooking the Irish Sea.

  “David was dedicated to the church at an early age. He lived and studied at Henfynyw monastery in Menevia, the city that now bears his name. While still young he is said to have healed his teacher Paulinus of blindness. David grew to be six feet tall and exceptionally strong. He believed in self-denial—living on bread and vegetables and drinking only water. As a result he was known as the Waterman, an appropriate title, as he also stood up to his neck in cold water as a penance.” Antony smiled as several of his listeners shivered.

  “David put all his physical strength and moral vigor into his passion for proclaiming the Word of God and establishing monasteries. With his own energy and his gift for leading others, he built a string of twelve monasteries around Wales from which the nation was Christianized. This circuit of monasteries forms a path around Wales, part of which we’ll be walking as we follow in St David’s footsteps.

  “But David’s greatest gift was in fighting heresy. The event he is best remembered for occurred west of here at Llanddewi Brefi. His eloquence so put the heretics to confusion and made such an impact that the synod at once elected him archbishop of Caerleon and primate of the Cambrian church:

  Light gathered in the clouds over his head as David, standing near the bank of the River Brefi, its waters running blue and swift, surveyed the vast crowd covering the field before him. The popularity of the message being preached by the British monk Pelagius in Rome was much talked of even here in their rugged land beyond the shielding mountains. Many church officials in Rome and throughout what little was left of the empire had been persuaded of Pelagius’s enticing doctrine that there was no such thing as original sin. Humankind was basically good and could overcome evil and make itself fit for heaven by its own efforts. There was no need for the atoning sacrifice of Christ, only for strength of will and energy of activity.

  David shook his head. His mane of gold-shot brown hair tossed in the breeze behind the half moon tonsure that left the front of his head clean-shaven. The white dove that had followed him since his childhood hovered near his shoulder. That so many had assembled for the debate proved the correctness of Archbishop Dubricius’s decision to call this synod. And David feared it would be a debate, not an automatic acclamation of acceptance for the historic faith delivered by the apostles. Even priests and monks from some of the houses he himself had founded had fallen under the spell of this heretical teaching. David closed his eyes and raised a fervent prayer that Archbishop Dubricius would be able to persuade them to stand strong for the orthodox faith.

  David opened his eyes and started when he saw Dubricius himself standing before him. “My lord Archbishop, I pray for your strength and wisdom. This heresy must be uprooted before it spreads like a virulent weed throughout our land. Already its poisonous tentacles are gripping much of the church.”

  Dubricius nodded his head in a kind of bow. “And I pray for your wisdom. And success in persuading your hearers.”

  It was a moment before the significance of Dubricius’s words struck him. “My lord, you would have me address the synod?”

  “I know of no one else so well qualified in the skills of debate and proclamation. Ever you have stood strong for the historic ways. May your strength not fail you today.”

  David looked at the throng of churchmen gathered across the field. An image of our Lord teaching and then feeding the 5,000 came to him. He could not refuse to do the archbishop’s bidding. But he felt so inadequate. So unprepared. And the stakes were so high. The very gospel itself was at risk. The truth must be preserved for future generations.

  “My lord Archbishop,” he bowed his head. “I humbly accept. Permit me a few moments’ preparation.”

  Dubricius raised his arms to call the congregation to order and began a chant that was half prayer, half hymn: “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His cove
nant and His testimonies.”

  And across the field the antiphonal response came: “Let Thy loving kindness and Thy truth continually preserve me.”

  The plea for the triumph of truth ringing in his ears, David entered his cell. He lifted the carved chest and drew out the cherished document. No time now for study, but it would serve as a focus to guide his prayers.

  Minutes later his fears were calmed; he knew what he would say.

  The chant was concluding, the echoes ringing from side to side of the field, as David walked to the head of the assemblage: “Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.”

  David joined in the doxology: “Great is our God which keepeth truth for ever.”

  David raised his arms, aware of the dove fluttering just at his right shoulder. “My brothers, it is the keeping of the truth, the historic faith of the prophets, the apostles and the fathers I declare to you. The precious faith of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This we must not sacrifice for any easy doctrine, no matter how honeyed the words.”

  David was aware that those standing near him—even those he knew disagreed with his position—were listening intently. But he could sense a restlessness at the back of the throng. And little wonder; they could neither hear nor see him. How could they be persuaded of so sensitive an issue?

  He looked around. The riverbank offered a slight elevation. He took a few steps backward to gain perhaps a foot or two of height, but not enough for even his powerful voice to reach to the back.

  All he could do was carry on. And pray. He raised his voice, “Always the new ways glitter. The easy ways entice. How pleasant to believe that we carry no stain…” His words continued, the arguments flowing easily, but David was less aware of his own words than of the look of amazement on the faces of his hearers. He could feel the air vibrate with the intensity of their attention.