So there I was, my success in the pulpit being the reason for my downfall. The devil had attacked me at my weakest point: my inability to realize the limitations of my sex.
A voice from the back. That’s a load of old twaddle and you know it. Now are we helping this child or not?’ It was Elsie. Someone tried to sit her down, but she kept struggling and then she started coughing and then she fell over.
‘Elsie.’ I ran down to the back, but got pulled away.
‘She can do without you.’ The others gathered round while I stood helpless and shaking.
‘Get a warm coat and let’s get her home.’ And they bundled her out into the porch.
While this was going on the pastor came up to me and said that as a mark of new obedience to the Lord I was to give up all preaching, Bible study classes and any form of what he called ‘influential contact’. As soon as I had agreed he would arrange for a further more powerful exorcism and then I was to go on holiday with my mother for a fortnight to the Morecambe guest house.
‘I’ll tell you in the morning,’ I promised, pleading tiredness.
Sir Perceval has been in the wood for many days now. His armour is dull, his horse tired. The last food he ate was a bowl of bread and milk given to him by an old woman. Other knights have been this way, he can see their tracks, their despair, for one, even his bones. He has heard tell of a ruined chapel, or an old church, no one is sure, only sure that it lies disused and holy, far away from prying eyes. Perhaps there he will find it. Last night Sir Perceval dreamed of the Holy Grail borne on a shaft of sunlight moving towards him. He reached out crying but his hands were full of thorns and he was awake. Tonight, bitten and bruised, he dreams of Arthur’s court, where he was the darling, the favourite. He dreams of his hounds and his falcon, his stable and his faithful friends. His friends are dead now. Dead or dying. He dreams of Arthur sitting on a wide stone step, holding his head in his hands. Sir Perceval falls to his knees to clasp his lord, but his lord is a tree covered in ivy. He wakes, his face bright with tears.
When the pastor came round the next morning, I felt better. We had a cup of tea, the three of us; I think my mother told a joke. It was settled.
‘Shall I book you in for the holiday then?’ the pastor asked, fiddling for his diary. ‘She’s expecting you, but it’s only polite.’
‘How’s Elsie?’ This was bothering me.
The pastor frowned and said that last night had upset her more than they had realized. She had gone back into hospital for a check-up.
‘Will she be all right?’
My mother pointed out that was for the Lord to decide, and we had other things to think about. The pastor smiled gently, and asked again when we wanted to go.
‘I’m not going.’
He told me I’d need a rest after the struggle. That my mother needed a rest.
‘She can go. I’m leaving the church, so you can forget the rest.’
They were dumbfounded. I held on tight to the little brown pebble and hoped they’d go away. They didn’t. They reasoned and pleaded and stormed and took a break and came back. They even offered me my Bible class, though under supervision. Finally the pastor shook his head and declared me one of the people in Hebrews, to whom it is impossible to speak the truth. He asked me one last time:
‘Will you repent?’
‘No.’ And I stared at him till he looked away. He took my mother off into the parlour for half an hour. I don’t know what they did in there, but it didn’t matter; my mother had painted the white roses red and now she claimed they grew that way.
‘You’ll have to leave,’ she said. ‘I’m not havin’ demons here.’
Where could I go? Not to Elsie’s, she was too sick, and no one in the church would really take the risk. If I went to Katy’s there would be problems for her, and all my relatives, like most relatives, were revolting.
‘I don’t have anywhere to go,’ I argued, following her into the kitchen.
‘The Devil looks after his own,’ she threw back, pushing me out.
I knew I couldn’t cope, so I didn’t try. I would let the feeling out later, when it was safe. For now, I had to be hard and white. In the frosty days, in the winter, the ground is white, then the sun rises, and the frosts melt. . . .
‘It’s decided then.’ I breezed in to my mother with more bravado than courage, ‘I’m moving out on Thursday.’
‘Where to?’ She was suspicious.
‘I’m not telling you, I’ll see how it goes.’
‘You’ve got no money.’
‘I’ll work evenings as well as weekends.’
In fact I was scared to death and going to live with a teacher who had some care for what was happening. I was driving an ice-cream van on Saturdays; now I would work Sundays as well, and try to pay the woman as best I could. Bleak, but not so bleak as staying there. I wanted the dog, but knew she wouldn’t let me, so I took my books and my instruments in a tea chest, with my Bible on top. The only thing that worried me was the thought of having to work on a fruit stall. Spanish Navels, Juicy Jaffas, Ripe Sevilles.
‘I won’t,’ I consoled myself. ‘I’ll go in the tripe works first.’
I made my bed carefully the last morning at home, emptied the waste paper basket, and trailed the dog on a long walk. She ran off with the Jack from the bowling green. At that time I could not imagine what would become of me, and I didn’t care. It was not judgement day, but another morning.
RUTH
A LONG TIME ago, when the kingdom was divided up into separate compartments like a pressure cooker, people took travelling a lot more seriously than they do now. Of course there were obvious problems: how much food do you take? What sort of monsters will you meet? Should you take your spare blue tunic for peace, or your spare red tunic for not peace? And the not-so-obvious problems, like what to do with a wizard who wants to keep an eye on you.
In those days, magic was very important, and territory, to start with, just an extension of the chalk circle you drew around yourself to protect yourself from elementals and the like. It’s gone out of fashion now, which is a shame, because sitting in a chalk circle when you feel threatened is a lot better than sitting in the gas oven. Of course people will laugh at you, but people laugh at a great many things, so there’s no need to take it personally. Why will it work? It works because the principle of personal space is always the same, whether you’re fending off an elemental or someone’s bad mood. It’s a force field around yourself, and as long as our imagining powers are weak, it’s useful to have something physical to remind us.
The training of wizards is a very difficult thing. Wizards have to spend years standing in a chalk circle until they can manage without it. They push out their power bit by bit, first within their hearts, then within their bodies, then within their immediate circle. It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change. Of course people mutilate and modify, but these are fallen powers, and to change something you do not understand is the true nature of evil.
For some time Winnet had noticed a strange bird following her, a black thing with huge wings; then for a whole afternoon the bird disappeared. It was that afternoon she saw the sorcerer. The sorcerer stood opposite her, on the other side of a fast flowing stream. She recognized the clothes and would have run away had not the figure called to her above the tumbling.
‘I know your name.’ And so she stopped, afraid. If this were true she would be trapped. Naming meant power. Adam had named the animals and the animals came at his call.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she shouted back. Then the sorcerer smiled and invited her to cross the stream, so that he could whisper in her ear. She shook her head; the sorcerer’s territory must lie across the stream; here at least she was safe.
‘You’ll never get out of this forest without me,’ he warned her, as she picked her way through the mud. Winnet
didn’t bother to reply. Another night fell, this time bringing rain that gusted the trees, and blew down her shelter. Then she was attacked by an army of water ants, forcing her to move on further into the dark and the forest. By dawn she was exhausted. Her stone jar of food and dry clothes had been lost, and by the bend in the river she realized she had hardly travelled at all. On the other side of the river, smiling gently, she saw the sorcerer.
‘I told you,’ he said.
This wasn’t what Winnet wanted to hear. She sat among some rushes and sulked.
On the other side the sorcerer lit a fire and got out a cooking pot. Winnet sniffed the air, and drew her legs closer. Smelled like pigeon.
‘I’m vegetarian,’ she yelled, watching his face.
‘Oh so am I,’ he replied in a pleased tone. ‘I’m making adzuki beans and dumplings, there’s plenty to spare.’
Winnet was horrified. How could he know? Memories of her grandmother floated towards her; her famous adzuki bean stew; the singing round the fire when the men had gone off to hunt. She hid her nose in her jacket and tried not to breathe.
‘Do you like coriander in yours?’ the sorcerer called again. ‘It’s fresh.’
‘Yes,’ cried Winnet, hoarse and confused, ‘but I’m not eating because you’ll poison me.’
‘My dear!’ The sorcerer seemed genuinely shocked.
‘How do I know I can trust you?’ (Winnet’s belly was rumbling.)
‘Because I don’t know your name. If I did, I’d have spirited you over here already. It’s so disappointing dining alone, don’t you think?’
Winnet thought it over for a few moments, then made a pact with the sorcerer. She would share his table, then he was to tell her what he wanted, and they’d hold a competition to decide. As a bond he drew her a chalk circle with a tiny gap to step into as she crossed the water. Then he threw the chalk to her on the other side. It was a rough brown pebble, and clutching it tightly she wobbled across the stepping stones, leapt in the circle and closed it behind her.
‘French bread or granary?’ the sorcerer asked as he passed her a steaming bowl.
For fifteen minutes they chewed in companionable silence, then the sorcerer sighed, tore off another hunk and mopped up his juice. ‘There’s no pudding I’m afraid. I was planning a custard, but milk’s hard to come by round here. Still we’ll have coffee, and I’ll tell you what I want.’
Winnet’s piece of bread stuck in her throat. She started to choke and was forced to let the sorcerer bang her on the back. Perhaps he wanted to chop her up, or turn her into a beast, perhaps he was going to make her marry him. By the time she got her coffee she was rigid with terror.
‘What I want,’ he began, ‘is for you to become my apprentice. The magic arts are dying; the more of us there are, the better. You have gifts, I know that, you can take the message to other places, where even now they hardly know how to draw a chalk circle. I will teach you everything, but I cannot force you, and first you must tell me your name.’ He leaned back and looked at Winnet. ‘There’s just one small thing; unless you tell me your name, you’ll never get out of that circle, because I can’t release you, and you don’t have the power.’
Winnet was speechless with fury. ‘You tricked me.’
‘Well it is my job you know.’
‘All right,’ said Winnet after a few moments. ‘Here’s a deal. If you can guess my name, I’ll be yours. If not, you show me how to get out of here, and leave me alone.’
The sorcerer nodded slowly, while Winnet wondered what fiendish game they must play to decide the contest. Suddenly the sorcerer looked up.
‘Let’s play Hang the Man.’
He took out a piece of paper and a fountain pen. ‘X,’ he started.
‘No,’ Winnet replied scornfully. ‘One to me.’
‘You ought to give me a clue,’ said the sorcerer, ‘after all we aren’t using magic arts.’
‘All right,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘Here’s a rhyme.’
‘To some my name is almost a bird,
To others a vessel for keeping the curd.’
‘And that’s all you’re getting.’
The sorcerer stood on his head for while, repeating the chant over and over.
‘P,’ he said at last.
‘Two to me,’ trilled Winnet.
Then the magician leapt to his feet crying, ‘Your name is Gannet Barrel.’
‘Wrong,’ snapped Winnet, ‘and I get two points for that. Next one and I draw in the noose.’
Around nightfall, as Winnet poured them both another cup of coffee, the sorcerer gave a chuckle. ‘I’ve got it.’
‘Oh really?’ inquired Winnet. ‘Remember I’m free in about two more goes.’
‘Your name is Winnet Stonejar.’ And the chalk circle vanished.
‘Oh well,’ thought Winnet, scuffing out the fire. ‘At least he can cook.’
The next morning they were standing in a castle with three ravens staring beakily down from an old flagpost.
‘Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,’ the sorcerer introduced. ‘You’ll get to know which is which, if you’ll pardon the pun. Now I’ll have to carry you over the doorstep here, or you’ll fall asleep. It’s all part of the security.’ And he picked up Winnet and brought her to a brightly coloured room with a huge hearth blazing at one end.
‘Do you like high ceilings?’ he asked her, as they perched at either end of the fireplace. ‘It’s all the same in these old buildings, but you’ll get used to it.’
‘How long have you been a sorcerer?’ Winnet asked, by way of conversation.
‘Oh, I can’t say,’ he replied airily, ‘you see I am one in the future too, it’s all the same to me.’
‘But you can’t be,’ Winnet argued, ‘it’s not possible to talk about time like that.’
‘Not possible for you my dear, but we’re very different.’
This at least was true, so Winnet turned her attention to the room instead.
It had very little furniture, but innumerable cupboards. On the right, by the window, hung an enormous embossed ear trumpet.
‘What do you use that for?’
‘Well, I’m not always as old as I am now, and when I’m older, I can get a bit deaf. That’s so that I can listen to the nightingales at night, when I’m lying on that couch.’
As far as Winnet could see there was no couch. ‘What couch?’
‘Why that one,’ said the sorcerer, surprised. She looked again, and there it was. This was only the beginning of Winnet’s adventure at the castle, but as she stayed there, a curious thing happened. She forgot how she had come there, or what she had done before. She believed she had always been in the castle, and that she was the sorcerer’s daughter. He told her she was. That she had no mother, but had been specially entrusted to his care by a powerful spirit. Winnet felt this to be true, and besides, where else could she possibly wish to live?
The sorcerer was good to the villagers who lived in clusters under the hills. He taught them music and mathematics and put a strong spell on the crops, so that no one got hungry in winter. Of course, he expected their absolute devotion, but they were glad to give it. Winnet learned to teach the villagers herself, and all went well until one day a stranger came to the settlements. He took lodging at one of the farms, and soon struck up a friendship with Winnet. She invited him to the castle on the day of the great feast.
The great feast was a remembrance and celebration for the village. Each home offered the sorcerer a present, and he gave presents in return, where he thought they were most appropriate.
‘Will you give the stranger a present?’ Winnet pressed her father, on the morning of the feast.
‘What stranger?’
‘This one,’ pointed Winnet, making him appear. The boy was shocked. A second ago he had been leaning against a tree gazing up at the castle. Now he was standing beside three ravens in a hall so high that the ceiling and the sky were confused. The sorcerer turned to them both and clapped hi
s hands. ‘What will be will be, you have already decided his present.’ Then gathering his robes about him, Winnet’s father was gone.
‘I’m frightened,’ said the boy.
‘No need,’ said Winnet, kissing him.
By sundown the hall had filled with people and animals. Some of the animals were gifts to the sorcerer for his own farm, others had just wandered in. By midnight, the wine had caused everyone to forget all but the moment, and the sorcerer was making his customary speech. He promised a good harvest again next year, and good health for his friends. To the young men leaving the village that year, he gave a shield, or a knife, or a bow. To the young women, determined to seek their own living, he gave a falcon, or a dog, or ring. ‘Let each protect each according to their needs.’ For the sorcerer knew the ways of travellers. Finally his face grew heavy, as he told of a terrible blight come to the land. ‘It lies in one of you,’ he warned them, watching them ripple with alarm. ‘He must be cast out.’ And the sorcerer laid his hand on the boy’s neck.