An Unholy Communion Read online

  And then he realized he could see their faces. Even those as far back as the monastery wall—he could see them. And they him.

  He looked down and saw that where all had been a level field, he was now standing on a raised hill the height of a man’s head. And the dove no longer fluttered, but sat on his shoulder.

  David’s heart rejoiced. His plea had been heard. His voice increased in vigor as his appeal reached to the farthest corners: If no sin, there was no need of God’s grace. If man could save himself by his own righteous acts, what use then Christ’s saving act through His great loving sacrifice?

  It was the hard way they must take. As our Lord had taken. The hard but true way. The way delivered unto the saints. The way opened for all by our Lord’s sacrifice.

  He didn’t know how long he spoke. Afterward he could not recount the arguments he had made. But when he was finished he descended the hill, not knowing that his face was shining.

  Nor, thought Felicity, did Antony know his face was shining when he finished his story. But then, perhaps she was prejudiced. It could just have been the morning sun.

  Chapter 7

  Sunday, continued

  Before they set out on the walk to Llantarnam Abbey, Felicity, Antony and Michael got their heads together over their maps. Ordnance Survey Explorer maps with a scale of two and a half inches to the mile; a well-marked set each for the driver and for the leader of the walk. Both cut into the size of a sheet of A4 paper and neatly put in order in a clear plastic folder, with a shoulder strap for the walk leader. Every detail had been seen to.

  Michael traced the dark blue highlighted line with his finger, starting at Isca Roman Fortress, clearly indicated with a drawing of the amphitheater below it. “Walking route’s about the same as I’ll be driving. Back through town, then along Malthouse Road, then north at Craig Wood to the abbey. I’ll head on up and get the minibus unloaded. Ring me on your mobile if you need me to come back for anything—anyone sprains an ankle or anything.”

  Felicity gave a little shiver. He said it as a joke and she wasn’t really superstitious or anything; still, she had an impulse to knock on wood. Michael handed her the set of walking maps, but she held up her hand. “Er—” She turned to Antony. “Do you mind awfully? I know the idea was for me to lead so you could stay back with any stragglers, but I’m afraid I’ll be the straggler myself this morning. I really hate to admit it, but I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

  Both men were instantly solicitous. “Of course, ride with me. I’d be delighted for the company,” Michael said.

  “Felicity, you should have said.” Antony looked worried.

  Felicity forced a laugh and felt guilty. Well, she was feeling less than refreshed, but her real reason for wanting to ride was to see if she could learn anything about what Michael had been up to last night. She certainly didn’t want to cause Antony concern. “Oh, no worries. Sorry. But it would feel good to sit down. I do feel a slacker, though, I heard Colin declaring this morning that he intended to walk every step of the trail and here’s me sitting out before we start.”

  Antony placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “That’s the time to do it—before we start. Official starting point for medieval pilgrims was St Michael’s Church. We start out from there tomorrow. So, by all means, take a break now. We’ll meet you at the abbey.” Without even looking to see whether or not anyone was looking, he leaned forward and kissed her.

  She was still smiling as she settled into the seat that in America would have been on the driver’s side. It still required a conscious effort on her part to get it right. Or to smile at the teasing that always ensued when she got it wrong. “Thinking of driving, were you?”

  Waving to the pilgrims on the ground, Felicity sat back as the van rolled through the town toward the open countryside. She pretended to be captivated by the scenery as she struggled to form a question that would help her learn what Michael had been up to without giving away that she had been spying on him. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do?” Seemed as safe a place as any to start.

  “I’m from Llandaff—well, that’s Cardiff, really. I work in the diocesan office with Father Stephen.”

  “Ah, so that’s how you got roped into this job?”

  “In a way. My job is to promote the church’s Tourism Network, so I guess helping with a pilgrimage is pretty much a natural. That’s what Father Stephen thought, anyway.”

  “Church Tourism Network? You mean there is such a thing?”

  Michael grinned. “‘Putting tourism into church and church into tourism’ is the motto. Not a bad idea, really. Make people aware of our spiritual heritage. Get some tourist money to help restore some of the old sites.”

  “Evangelism and practicality.”

  “Exactly. And we work with the Ecumenical Council because we promote nonconformist chapels just as much as the medieval sites.”

  “Do you drive for these tourist groups?”

  “No. No, nothing like that. Just sit in the office mostly and look up things on the computer to answer queries, recommend religious venues for tours, suggest accommodations near chapels or abbeys that groups are interested in seeing. Lot more enthusiasm for a site if they know there’s a good pub or leisure park nearby.”

  “You must have been invaluable for Father Stephen in planning this.”

  “We worked on it all for months, yeah. Walked a lot of it together—so I don’t mind driving now; I’ve already done most of it. There are so many alternative routes to choose from. Had to be sorted out ahead the best we could. Such a shame he has to miss it.”

  “Did you know any of the pilgrims before?”

  “Not really. I took the registrations as they came in, answered their questions about what they’d need to bring, where to meet up, that sort of thing. When Lydia registered to come along with her little brother and mentioned her nurse’s training, Stephen asked me to contact her about being prepared to do first aid, so we’ve corresponded a bit.”

  Felicity smiled. Ah, perhaps that was it. Maybe a letter from Lydia? They were both in their early twenties, a good age for a romance. She thought for a moment. Yes, they would make a cute couple. That could make the pilgrimage interesting. Or difficult. She would keep her eyes open. And mention it to Antony. But that hardly explained the dirt on the shovel. And would Michael really discuss a budding romance with Colin? What had Michael and Colin been doing last night?

  Recently trimmed hedgerows lined both sides of the narrow road, giving the sense of driving in a deep, narrow canyon. The road wound up the side of a hill. Just as they reached the crest, the sun came out from behind a cloud like a spotlight across the green, sheep-dotted fields, intersected by hedgerows. All the while Felicity was thinking about the predawn excursion she had witnessed.

  “Did you sleep all right last night?” she asked. “That floor was awfully hard, wasn’t it? I suppose we’ll have to get used to it, though.”

  “I slept fine.” Just then they met a car, requiring Michael to reverse to a spot barely wide enough to allow the other vehicle to pass. “That is, I would have if that wet Colin had let me.”

  “Colin?”

  “Said he’d had a bad dream. Wanted to go for a walk. Seemed easier to comply than argue. After all, I was awake by then.”

  Check, thought Felicity. That still didn’t explain the spade, but she simply couldn’t think of any way to approach that.

  Felicity argued with herself for the rest of the brief journey. She knew she had an overactive imagination. And how many times in the past had it led her astray? She had had trouble sleeping, so why shouldn’t some of the others? She had wakened from a dream, thinking Antony was calling her. What was unnatural or to be feared about that? She had gone for a walk and heard Colin and Michael arguing. No, they weren’t even arguing, just talking intently. And she had no business to be eavesdropping—much less following them. And what was so alarming about Michael carrying a spade? Colin probably wanted to collect some soi
l samples from a historic Roman site. Or maybe examine the footings of the Roman fortress more closely. Probably with the idea of some original research for an essay. Or maybe…

  In the dark? A small niggling voice said at the back of her head. But, well, Colin was pretty obsessive. She was still spooked from that awful experience back at Kirkthorpe—which she had come all this way to forget, she reminded herself sternly. She really must concentrate on the bucolic scenery, and relax.

  Now the road was lined on the left by a stone wall with little purple flowers growing between its stones, and grassy banks of green with yellow flowers at its feet. Ponies grazed in the field beyond. They swung around a corner and there before them was the ornate Gothic, stone gatehouse of Llantarnam Abbey at the end of a long, wooded drive, with ivy covering the trunks of all the trees. Signs pointed them to Ty Croeso, the House of Welcome.

  They parked between ancient cedar trees taller than the abbey, and crunched across the gravel to the courtyard. The bell was marked “Please Ring” so they rang. A tall, thin woman wearing a brown cardigan over a beige skirt and blouse answered the door. She introduced herself as Sister Alicia.

  When Michael explained who they were, Sister Alicia offered a tour. “That way you can show the others around when they arrive.” She started down the hall, pointing out the comfortable visitors’ lounge, each comfy chair carefully provided with an antimacassar to protect its upholstery from soil. “We are forty Sisters, but I’m afraid many are elderly and keep to the infirmary. And many Sisters go out from here to work in schools, parishes and hospitals. Above all, we are a place of prayer and we are most happy to provide hospitality for those who would join us for quiet days.”

  Felicity thought of the clutch of energetic pilgrims walking their way, and hoped that, indeed, it would be a quiet day.

  Along another hall, Sister Alicia opened the door onto a warm room with golden oak wainscoting and a carved oak ceiling. “Our refectory. It was the men’s billiard room when owned by the Morgan family.”

  “Oh, was this a private home?” Felicity had been sure it was an ancient monastery. Hadn’t the monks at Caerleon moved here for more quiet?

  “Yes, it was in private hands for many years.” Alicia led the way across the room and opened a door onto a sunny, glassed walk lined with pots of orange lilies. “We record our history from the middle of the twelfth century when the Cistercians established a monastery here. Although they say St David may have had a community here earlier. Of course, it was all confiscated by Henry VIII. William Morgan obtained the land. He was directly descended from Hywel ap Iorweth, the founder of the abbey.”

  “Was Hywel an abbot?” Felicity asked.

  “No, no. Most definitely not. He was a man of war. In his own words he said he gave the lands to the White Monks ‘for the salvation of my soul and that of my parents and predecessors.’ It was frequently the case that a wealthy member of the nobility would endow a monastery in return for the prayers of the monks.”

  “How amazing that it then came back to his family.”

  “It is, yes. The land stayed with the Morgan descendants until the twentieth century. The building was used as an American Air Force storage depot during the Second World War and the Sisters of St Joseph— that’s us—came here in 1946 to make it a house of prayer again.”

  She turned to the front of the house. “Here now, the entrance hall was part of the original pre-Reformation abbey. It was the entrance hall for the family. And let me just show you something amazing.” With a mischievous smile she opened a door marked “Gents” and invited her visitors to look in.

  “Oh!” Felicity couldn’t repress a small giggle at the sight of an ornate pink marble loo with a decorated plaster ceiling, and the Morgan coat of arms in stained glass in the window.

  “We think that’s rather fun.” Another sister, this one shorter and plumper than Sister Alicia, wearing a beige skirt and white blouse and her soft face framed in a flowing veil, joined them. “The Morgans and their guests lived quite well, it seems.”

  Their guide introduced Sister Florence, and Felicity and Michael explained about their pilgrimage before she wished them a blessed stay in their house before departing by the side door. “Sister Florence is our sacristan; she’ll be seeing everything is ready for Father Giles. He comes over from Newport to give us mass after he finishes in his parish,” she explained as she led the way down a hall.

  Sister Alicia stepped into the library, giving her visitors a glimpse of parquet floor and stacks of books. Seconds later she emerged with a small booklet which she handed to Felicity. “Here you are. The whole history of us.”

  Felicity thanked her and started to comment on the sweeping gardens beyond the glassed walk. It seemed one couldn’t look out a window without seeing something beautiful. But Sister Alicia had turned to lead up a magnificent oak stairway to point out the guest rooms. Felicity sighed in anticipation. Tonight she would sleep in a bed. And there were bathrooms with tubs and showers. She knew that once they started on the pilgrims’ trail there would be no more such luxuries.

  After showing them their rooms, Sister Alicia left them to settle in. Michael and Felicity had just finished unloading the van, although they had not carried the gear up that grand staircase, when the merry walkers crunched up the gravel path. Ryan, their enthusiastic geographer, who had apparently taken on the map-reading task, led the file with the map case hanging around his neck. Nancy, her red jumper tied around her waist and her brown pony tail bobbing, walked beside him. Antony and Colin came last, Colin swinging his walking stick and talking nonstop. Felicity’s heart gave that little skip it always did when Antony came into view, and went out to meet them.

  “Have Kaylyn and Evie arrived yet?” Antony took a long pull on his water bottle.

  “Oh, are those the walkers meeting us here? I haven’t seen anyone.”

  The words were no more than out of Felicity’s mouth than a large black car swept up the drive. Gravel crunched as the driver braked hard. Two teenage girls emerged from the back seat. Felicity had to check that her mouth wasn’t gaping. Not stereotypical pilgrims.

  “Hi, I’m Evie.” The plump girl with spiked maroon hair and multiple piercings and tattoos gave a giggle. “This is Kaylyn.”

  Kaylyn was almost a head taller than Evie and thin, emaciated, with long, shaggy, kohl-black hair. She swept the group with a bored glance and said nothing.

  Antony stepped forward. “Welcome. Did you have a good journey from Brighton?” He had apparently checked his notes.

  Again, Evie was the spokesperson. “It was fast. Kaylyn’s brother drove us.” She giggled again and looked toward the window shielding the driver. “Gareth, he is.” Her smile said that the youth hiding behind the tinted glass was, to her way of thinking, pretty special.

  “Fine, let us help you with your gear.” Apparently the delightful Gareth wasn’t planning to lift a hand because he merely pulled the lever to unlatch the boot without getting out of the car. Antony had barely slammed the boot shut when Gareth spun out of the driveway, spewing gravel behind him. “He’s in a hurry,” Evie explained unnecessarily, accompanied by her apparently perpetual giggle.

  Antony held his hands up and called for attention. “All right, everyone. Well done on your first bit of walking. A good warm-up, yes? We have almost an hour to settle in. Then you can take another walk around the grounds if you like.” He smiled at the chorus of groans. “Or have a rest. Eucharist will be at one o’clock. Dinner in the refectory after that.”

  The next half hour or so was a flurry of activity as pilgrims were assigned rooms, and toted their bags up the grand staircase of the abbey-cum-manor house-cum-abbey. Finally Felicity had a chance to corner Antony. “We need to talk. That is, I want to talk to you. Er, I mean, I missed you.”

  A huge smile, several times the kilowatt power of Antony’s usual little lopsided grin, split his face. “That’s great. Even if it was just over two hours.”

  Felicity noti
ced he didn’t say, “I missed you, too.” But that was all right. She knew he did. “There’s a gazebo at the foot of the garden—garth, they call it. Let’s go there.”

  Felicity had spotted the gazebo on her earlier tour, standing in the far corner against the high, grey stone garden wall. Square, formed of natural golden brown wooden slats. “Sister Alicia said it was donated to them by a lady. It was vandalized in the lady’s garden, so she gave it to the Sisters.”

  Antony surveyed the fortress-like wall. “Should be safe enough from vandals here.”

  “Yes, Sister Alicia gave me a booklet about the history of the order. It’s titled Behind the Walls. She said they chose that title because so many first-time visitors say, ‘Oh, I always wondered what was behind the walls.’”

  They sat on the lattice-backed wooden bench and Felicity breathed deeply. “Ah, mock orange. I love that scent. At home we call it syringa. It’s the Idaho state flower because it grows wild in our mountains.” By mutual consent they reached for each other and clasped hands. “I’ve been thinking I would like to wear a halo of syringa over my veil. This absolutely confirms it.”

  Antony squeezed her hand. “Good. See, you did get a bit of wedding planning done.”

  Felicity sighed even though she was still smiling. “Yes, sitting around reading Today’s Bride would have seemed too—I don’t know—too flippant, I guess… After what happened. Anyway, I’m not sure if they have such things in England.”

  “I rather think it’s simply called Brides.”

  Felicity’s mouth dropped open. “Fancy you knowing that!”

  “Gwena kept them under her bed as a teenager. Ironic, really, given how many er—relationships she’s had, and no weddings.”