What was happening in China, it was still too early to say; news was too thin and at too many removes. But such hints as there were seemed to point to a development similar to Russia's.
In India, the Dust had taken a terrible toll; New Delhi had given a vinegar-mask warning in good time, but the organization of supplies had been difficult and millions had been affected. Of those who were left at the end of the Madness, hundreds of thousands had contracted plague as they looted the uninhabitable cities for food. The remnants of the once-vast population had reverted to their immemorial village life and after disaster probably unparalleled anywhere else in the world, were achieving some kind of stability. Strangely enough, radio news from India was fairly plentiful; skilled refugees from a vanished technological civilization seemed to have an urge to communicate and enough of them had found or improvised the means.
America, being a continent and not a country in the ordinary sense, reflected most of these patterns. Urban life had virtually ceased to exist; New York, Los Angeles and other great cities were unapproachable rubble-heaps. There had been a general tendency to revert to State identity and in one or two places – Vermont, Illinois, Idaho – embryo State organizations were already struggling into being. Elsewhere – Oklahoma, Maine, Montana – the pattern seemed to be purely tribal and family, paralleling the British. There were pockets of brigandism, particularly on the fringes of the agricultural areas, and other pockets of fervently religious cohesion; Mormon Utah had a positively Messianic sense of identity. In California, as might be expected, a confusing patchwork of differently motivated communities vied with each other for attention. The American Beehives, with local patriotism as a morale factor in mind, had been organized in general on a State-by-State basis (with much cross-posting of personnel to give units a local character -a political decision which had greatly annoyed the top brass). But this had largely backfired. For the ordinary GI, and for many of his officers, home was too close, and in the face of universal destruction, too tempting. In many States, after Skylight, the Army had dwindled to a hard core of ex-townsmen whose homes, and even the remnants of whose communities, had vanished – and they were surrounded by independently minded farming groups, many of them armed deserters from their own ranks. Some wise commanders, in these circumstances, had abandoned all ideas of control and tried instead to provide useful services and protection against bandits.
One factor, in Europe and America, interested Dan in particular; in how many places had the witchcraft movement and a psychic battle been significant? He was collecting a dossier on the subject, but he was only at the beginning of his research, for in many places witches were cautious about talking on the air about such things. But he had some evidence already; for example, he was pretty certain that in West Germany, northern Italy and the Basque areas of France and Spain the witches had been well organized and had played an effective part. Interesting, he told himself, that those were the places where the emerging pattern of life seemed closest to that of the British Isles, and where armies had most quickly melted into the working population.
The Cauldron carried at the bottom of its last page the imprint: 'Editor, Geraint Lloyd. News Editor, Tonia Lynd. Published by Nigel Pickering at Camp Cerridwen, Dyfnant Forest, Montgomeryshire, North Wales.'
Mary Andrews first saw a copy early in June, a gift from an intinerant barter-pedlar. She had read it all through, eagerly, for Moira, Dan, Rosemary, Greg and one or two other old friends were mentioned in the camp news. Then she came to the imprint.
Within twenty-four hours – as long as she needed to bargain for a bicycle and to say goodbye to her community – she was on her way to Camp Cerridwen. It took her three days, all of them tormented by doubt. Was he married or involved with someone? Had he changed? Had she herself, too much for him?
She need not have worried. She rode into the camp on the third evening, too impatient to seek out Moira and Dan and announce herself, but simply asking the first stranger she met where she could find Nigel Pickering. The stranger directed her to a cabin from which came the churning sound of a hand-operated duplicator.
He answered the door and stood for a second gazing at her incredulously. Then he flung his arms round her, almost knocking her over; and when they both got their breath back, his first words to her after two years were 'Will you marry me?'
'I am attending the – er – handfasting,' the Reverend Phillips explained, 'I will not say "under protest", because that would be unneighbourly; let us say "with a certain sense of impropriety". But I will not stay till the evening and be a party to their pagan festival.'
'Oh, come now, my friend,' Father Byrne smiled. ' "Be a party to"! – it sounds like being an accessory to a crime. I never actually attend their rituals, of course, but neither do I scurry away out of sight of them if they are held in the open air. And I often gladly accept an invitation to enter one of their Circles once the ritual is over and the sociable part begins… And where's the "impropriety" about a wedding?'
‘You call it a wedding?'
'Of course it's a wedding. Two rather likable young people are being joined together, as man and wife, in front of their community and by a procedure recognized by that community. That defines a wedding – all the more so in the absence of any civil machinery for the purpose. If they choose to call it a "handfasting", I find it a charming word. Etymologically, "wedding" means "a surety" – sounds like a mortgage, doesn't it? "Handfasting" is much prettier.'
'It is still a pagan ritual, father. And you and I, as ministers of God – how can we be involved?'
'We are involved by our love for the people concerned.' The old priest sighed. 'And increasingly – God forgive me if I err – I have come to regard "pagan" as a rather meaningless label, in the two years since these young Samaritans picked up a sick old priest by Lake Vyrnwy and brought him to this camp. The Good Samaritan was a heretic, too, remember – which was the point of our Lord's parable… If you did watch tonight's Midsummer Sabbat, you would see 150 witches, as naked as the day they were born…' He smiled at his friend's shudder and went on: 'Shame at nakedness was the first symptom of the Fall, was it not?… As naked as the day they were born, joyfully saluting their Maker and honouring the Earth which is the Maker's gift. It matters less than I used to think, that they visualize that Maker as a duality of God and Goddess. You and I visualize Him as a Trinity – and the vast majority of my coreligionists at least worship a Goddess in the shape of the Blessed Virgin, whatever we theologians may try to tell them about the distinction between latria and hyperdulia… Are any of us wholly wrong, John? Have any of us a monopoly of the Mystery?… Do not mistake me; I am a Catholic and I believe as you do that Christ is the way and the truth and the life. I believe that these good people and they are good, you know that as well as I do – are missing much by not following that way. But nor will anyone convince me, any longer, that their way leads in the opposite direction. Or that I should be too proud to learn something from them. Etymologically, again, "pagan" means "of the countryside" – and we are certainly that here, all of us. And when tonight, the thirteen covens gather in their little Circles within the Great Circle, I shall be outside that Circle, but in a sense not alien to it. When they dance around the fire in honour of the Earth and the God-given currents that flow in her, I shall be with them in spirit, and I believe – if I may put it this way – that God will be, too.'