Phil Rickman - Candlenight

Part One

PORTENTS

Chapter I

Laughter trickled after him out of the inn.
Ingley's mouth tightened and he wouldhave turned back, but this was no time to lose his temper. In a hurry now. Knewwhat it was he was looking for. Could almost hear it summoning him, as if thebells were clanging in the tower.
Besides, he doubted the laughter wasintended to be offensive. They were not hostile in the villageyes, all right,they insisted on speaking Welsh in public all the time, as if none of themunderstood anything else. But he could handle that. As long as they didn't getin his way.
"Torch," he'd demanded."Flashlight. Do you have one I could borrow?"

"Well..." AledGruffydd, the landlord, had pondered the question as he pulled a pint of beer,slow and precise as doctor drawing a blood sample.

The big man, Morgan somebody,or somebody Morgan, had said, very deadpan, "No flashlights here.Professor. Blindfold we could find our way around this place."
"... and pissed," a mancalled out by the dartboard. Blindfold and pissed."

Aled Gruffydd laid the pintreverently on a slop-mat and then produced from behind the bar a big blackflashlight, "But we keep this," he said, "for the tourists.Rubber, Bounces, see."

Morgan laughed into his beer, ahollow sound.
"Thanks," Ingley said,ignoring him. "I... my notes, And a couple of books. Left them in thechurch. Probably there in the morning, but I need to know." He smiledfaintly. "If they aren't, I'm in trouble."

The landlord passed the rubbertorch across the bar to him. "One thing. Doctor Ingley. Batteries might berunning down a bit, so don't go using it until you need to. There's a good bitof moon for you, see."

"Quite. You'll have itback. Half an hour or so, yes?"

"Mind the steps now,"Gruffydd said.

There was a short alleyway formed by the side of the inn where he'dtaken a room and the ivy-covered concrete wall of an electricity sub-station.From where it ended at some stone steps Thomas Ingley could hear the riverhissing gently, could smell a heady blend of beer and honeysuckle.

This pathway had not been builtwith Ingley in mind. The alley had been almost too narrow for his portly body,now the steps seemed too steep for his short legs. On all his previous visitsto the church he'd gone by car to the main entrance. Hadn't known about thesteps until somebody had pointed them out to him that morning. The stepsclambered crookedly from the village to the church on its hillock, an ancientman-made mound rising suddenly behind the inn.

As the landlord had said, therewas a moonthree parts full, but it was trapped behind the rearing church tower(medieval perpendicular, twice repaired in the nineteenth century) and therewere no lights in the back of the inn to guide him up the steps. So he switchedon the torch and found the beam quite steady.

Ingley had lied about leavingnotes in the church. Kept everything-because you couldn't trust anybody thesedaysunder the loose floorboard beneath his bed. He wondered what the hell hewould have done if one of the regulars had offered to help him. Can't go upthere on your own in the dark, Professorbreak your neck, isn't it? He'd havebeen forced to stroll around the place, pretending to search for his documents,the tomb tantalisingly visible all the while, then have to wait for the morningto examine it. Too long to wait.

He never put anything off anymore. If one had a line to pursue, strand to unravel, one should go onregardless of ritual mealtimes, social restraints, the clock by which man artificiallyregulatedand therefore reducedhis life.

And depressingly, with Ingley'scondition, one never knew quite how much time one had left anyway.

He set off up the jagged steps.

A bat flittered across the torchbeam like an insect. Bats, likerats, were always so much smaller than one imagined.

Ingley paused halfway up thesteps. Had to get his breath. Ought to rest periodicallydoctor's warning. Hescowled. Stood a moment in the scented silence. Did the sense of smellcompensate for restricted vision in the dark? Or were the perfumes themselvessimply more potent after sunset?

A sudden burst of clinking anddistant clatter, then a strong voice in the night. A voice nurtured, no doubt,by the male choir and the directing of sheepdogs on windy hills.

"Professor! Dr. Ingley!Where are you. man?"

Morgan. Dammit . Dammit. Dammit. Snappingoff the torch, he held himself very still on the steps. Or as still as onecould manage when one was underexercised. overweight and panting.

"Prof, are you all right?"

Of course I am. Go away. Goaway. Go away. Thomas Ingley stayed silent and clenched his little teeth.

Another voice, speaking rapidlyin Welsh, and then
Morgan said "O'r gorau" OK,thenmust mean that, surely. And the heavy front door of the inn closed with athunk that sounded final.

Ingley waited a while, just tobe sure, and then made his way slowly to the top of the steps. Emerging ontothe plateau of the churchyard, he stopped to steady his breathing. The sky wasa curious moonwashed indigo behind the rearing black tower and the squatpyramid of its spire. A dramatic and unusual site in this part of Wales, wheremost people worshipped in plain, stark, Victorian chapelsrigid monuments tonineteenth century Puritanism. Even the atmosphere here was of an older, lessforbidding Wales. All around him was warmth and softness and musty fragrance; wildflowers grew in profusion among the graves, stones leaning this way and that,centuries deep.

Not afraid of graves. Graves heliked.

"Dyma fedd Ebenezer Watkins," the torch lit up, letters etchedinto eternity. "1858-1909."

Fairly recent interee. Ingleyput out the light again, saving it for someone laid to rest here well over fourcenturies before Ebenezer Watkins. Excited by the thought, he made straight forthe door at the base of the tower, straying from the narrow path by mistake andstumbling over a crooked, sunken headstone on the edge of the grass. Could fallhere, smash one's skull on the edge of some outlying grave and all for nothing,all one's research. "Don't be stupid," he said aloud, but quietly. Heoften gave himself instructions. "Put the bloody light back on."

Followed the torchbeam to thedoor, which he knew would be unlocked. "A hospice, sanctuary I suppose youwould say, in medieval times," Elias ap Siencyn had told him. "Andtoday, is there not an even greater need for sanctuary?" Impressive man,ap Siencyn, strong character and strong face, contoured like the bark of an oldtree. Too often these days one went to consult a minister about the history ofhis church to be met by a person in a soft dog collar and jeans who knewnothing of the place, claiming Today's Church was about people, notarchitecture.

At the merest touch the ancientdoor swung inwards (arched moulded doorway, eighteenth century) and the churchyatmosphere came out to him in a great hollow yawn. He was at once in the nave,eight or nine centuries or more enfolding him, cloak of ages, wonderful.

All the same, was it not takingtradition too far to have no electricity in the church, no lights, no heating?

Inside, all he could see weresteep Gothic windows, translucent panes, no stained glass, only shades of mauvestained by the night sky. He knew the way now and, putting out the torch, movedbriskly down the central aisle, footsteps on stone, tock, tock, tock.

Stopped at the altar as if aboutto offer a prayer or to cross himself.

Hardly. Ingley didn't sneerthis time, but it was close.
Table laid for God. A millennium ormore of devotion, hopes and dreads heaped up here and left to go cold.Confirmed atheist, Thomas Ingley. Found the altar just about the leastinteresting part of the church.

He'd stopped because this waswhere one turned sharply left, three paces, to get to the secret core of theplace, the heart of it all. Simply hadn't realised it until tonight. Been uphere five times over the weekend. Missing, each time, the obvious.