‘I think there’s more to it than that,’ he said.
17
HARRY FOLLOWED THE MEN AHEAD OF HIM THROUGH A high stone archway and down a narrow cobbled alley that ran along the lower end of the churchyard. To his left were the medieval buildings of the old abbot’s residence and the monks’ quarters, on his right the high iron railings that topped this part of the church wall. It was the first time he’d approached the Renshaw residence; his previous meetings with his churchwarden had been in St Barnabas’s vestry or the White Lion.
Unlike much of the rest of the town, the stone of the Abbot’s House had been kept clean and was the pale colour of powdered ginger. Giant urns filled with wheat, barley and wild flowers stood to either side of the front door. The door had been carved with leaves and roses and looked as old as the rest of the house. It wasn’t open and the men ahead walked past. They carried on, past candle-lanterns that would guide them home after dark.
High on the wall a black cat sat watching them go by and Harry had a moment to wonder if it was the same cat he and Evi had seen a week ago. The Abbot’s House was huge, stretching nearly a hundred feet along the alley. Just ahead, another door lay open and the men were turning into it. Harry followed them into a large hall with high narrow windows. Trestle tables, piled high with food, had been placed down the centre, and at the far end a pulpit-like structure of almost black wood stood against the wall.
‘I’ll need to see the soles of your feet, Vicar,’ said a well-spoken, elderly voice at his side. Harry turned to see Sinclair’s father, Tobias, the oldest man in the town and, if rumour were true, the cleverest.
‘Mr Renshaw,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Harry Laycock. Good to meet you.’
‘Likewise.’ They shook hands. The men who had entered the hall first were hanging their scythes around the wall. Everywhere Harry looked, hooks were fixed into the stonework. More men squeezed in behind him. Women and girls carrying loose ears of wheat were beginning to arrive.
‘And what was that about my feet?’ asked Harry.
‘A tradition.’ Tobias smiled.
‘Another one?’ There wasn’t really room for a conversation in the doorway. Harry had to stand very close to Tobias. He would have been as tall as his son when younger. Even now, he was almost Harry’s height.
‘Oh, we have plenty of traditions,’ replied the older man. ‘This is one of our least disturbing. I advise you to go along, save your resistance for when you really need it. You, being a newcomer to the town, give me your foot – this charming young lady will help you balance, I’m sure – and I scrape the sole of your shoe with the welcome stone. It’s a religious tradition, started by the monks in the twelfth century. Far be it from you to turn your back on history.’
‘Far be it indeed,’ said Harry. ‘And what were you saying about a charming young – oh, hello again, Gillian. Actually I think I’m OK so, how do I do this, facing you like a can-can girl or with my back turned like a horse being shod?’
‘What kinky jinxes are these?’ asked Alice, appearing in the doorway with Millie on her hip. The two boys followed behind. ‘Move along, Vicar,’ she said. ‘There’s a queue.’
‘The queue will have to wait, Alice,’ said Tobias. ‘You’re next. And then your beautiful daughter. Good evening, my dear.’ He reached out and ran long, brown fingers over Millie’s hair.
‘Just go with it, Vicar,’ said another female voice, as Harry turned to see Jenny Pickup squeezing past them into the hall. ‘The first time you come to the harvest feast you have your shoe scraped with a bit of old rock. My grandfather’s been doing this for sixty years, he’s not going to stop now.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Alice. With Millie still hanging on one hip, she lifted her right leg until it made a perfect right angle with her left. Her foot was directly in front of Tobias. He caught hold of her ankle in one hand and with the other rubbed a smooth stone the size of a mango across the sole of her foot.
‘Impressive,’ said Harry, as Alice put her foot down without so much as a wobble.
‘Fifteen years of ballet classes,’ said Alice. ‘Your turn.’
Harry shrugged at Tom and Joe, grasped Tom’s shoulder for balance and offered his foot to Tobias. A few seconds later, Tom, Joe, Millie and Gareth Fletcher had all been foot-scraped and the Fletchers and Harry moved into the hall.
‘It’s like an armoury,’ said Gareth, looking round as the weapons count on the walls increased with every new arrival. High above the scythes hung shotguns and rifles. Some of them looked antique, collectors’ items. Others didn’t.
‘Cool,’ said Joe. ‘Daddy, can I-’
‘No,’ said Alice.
‘This was the refectory where the monks used to eat in the old days,’ said Jenny, who’d stayed with them. She was wearing a longsleeved, tight-fitting black dress. Somehow, it didn’t suit her as much as the casual clothes she’d worn the day she and Harry had met. ‘When my dad was young it was the grammar school.’ She pointed to the carved pulpit. ‘That’s the old schoolmaster’s chair,’ she said, before turning to Harry. ‘These days we just use this room for parties. Good to see you with your clothes on, Vicar.’
Harry opened his mouth with no clear idea of what he was going to say.
‘What’s that lady doing?’ asked Tom.
At the far end of the hall the woman who’d been standing with Sinclair and Tobias earlier had climbed the steps to the old schoolmaster’s seat and was intent upon something on her lap. Around her, women were putting the stalks of straw they’d picked up from the field into large water-filled tubs.
‘That’s my sister, Christiana,’ replied Jenny. ‘Every year she’s the harvest queen. It’s her job to make the corn dolly.’
‘What’s a corn dolly?’ asked Joe.
‘It’s an old farming tradition,’ explained Jenny. ‘In the old days, before we all became Christians, people believed the spirit of the land lived in the crop and that, when it was harvested, the spirit became homeless. So with the last few ears of whatever crop it was, they made the corn dolly – a sort of temporary home for the spirit over the winter. In the spring, it got ploughed back into the land. I used to be jealous of Christiana when I was a kid and begged Dad to let me be queen just once. He always said if I could ever make a corn dolly like Christiana then I would be.’
‘So did you?’ asked Tom.
‘No, it’s bloody impossible – ’scuse me, Vicar. I don’t know how she does it. She’ll have finished it by the end of the evening. Now then, let’s have a drink.’
Harry found himself being steered, along with the adult Fletchers, towards the drinks table. Around them, the hall was filling up and people were starting to spill out through a pair of wooden doors into the large walled garden beyond. Harry could see the deep turquoise blue of the evening sky and fruit trees hung with lanterns. A four-piece fiddle-and-pipe band was getting ready to play.
Along one wall had been fastened museum-style glass cases and their contents had attracted the attention of the Fletcher boys and their father. Harry joined them. The cases showed archaeological artefacts that had been discovered on the moors and preserved by the Renshaw family in their own private museum. There were flint tools from the Neolithic period, Bronze Age weapons, Roman jewellery, even a human bone or two.
He wasn’t able to look for long before his attention was claimed. Over and over again, people introduced themselves to him, until he lost all hope of remembering names.
After an hour or so it seemed he’d met everyone. The hall was getting hot and he set off for the garden doors, only to pause when he saw the Fletcher boys and a few of the village children gathered around the harvest queen on her schoolmaster’s throne. Over their heads he watched the quick, skilled fingers of Sinclair’s eldest daughter.