She thought, I’ll go out and look for other gods, and maybe they’ll be better and anyway they can’t be worse. Perhaps they’re still there in the wind, on the heaths and the old grey hills. I’ll pray for Thunor’s lightning and Wo-Tan’s justice, and Balder’s love; for he at least gave his blood laughing, not mangled and in pain like the Christos, the usurper… The house trembled and went out like a candle flame in a draught. She was falling again, dropping through space where sparks that were like stars or glowworms burned. She seemed all in the same instant to see Corfe loom at her with its skull face, the sea beyond whipped white by breaking waves, the cliffs tall in the droning wind; the Dorset wind, ancient and cold and keen, in from all the miles on miles of ocean.
The rushing stopped; and she stood and stared round her in wonder. From the past she had moved to the future, or to some Time that had never been and never would be. Above her was a whirling sky; and round about on either side rose pillars hacked from rough stone, old and textured, leaning mighty, fretted and worn, tortured by the centuries into holes for the wind to nest in. The cloud scud swirled, driving past them; beyond the wind seethed across a grey circle of grass. Beyond again was nothingness; a void into which she might tumble, fall off the sudden edge of the world.
In front of her, seated with his back against the farthest of the pillars was a man. His cloak swirled; his hair, long and light, lifted and blew about his round skull. She put a hand to her head. The face, she’d seen it before but where…
Even as she watched it seemed to alter, running and shifting, becoming the face of a thousand men, of no one. Of the wind.
She walked, or seemed to walk, towards him. In the dream she could speak; she made words, a question. The stranger laughed. His voice was reedy and thin, as if it came from a great distance. ‘You called on the Old Ones,’ he said. ‘Who calls on the Old Ones, calls on me.’
He gestured for her to be seated. She squatted in front of him feeling her hair flack round her face. The wind scourged at the strange place; then as she stared it seemed suddenly there was no wind, that she and the stones and the grass they stood on were being whirled at immense speed through an endless sea of cloud. The thought was giddying; momentarily she closed her eyes. ‘You called upon our gods,’ said the Old One quietly. ‘Maybe it was their pleasure to answer…’
She’d seen now, in the stone over his head, the mark she’d known must be there; the circle, the crab lines inside, overlapping and incomprehensible. She said faintly, ‘Are you… real?’
Amusement showed in his face. ‘Real?’ he said. ‘Define reality and I can answer you.’ He waved a hand. ‘Look into solid earth, into rock, and see the galaxies of all Creation. What you call reality melts; there is a whirling, a spinning of forces, a dance of motes and atoms. Some of them we call planets, one of them is Earth. Nothingness within nothingness enclosing nothing, that is reality. Tell me what you want, and I can answer.’
She put a hand to her forehead again. ‘You’re trying to confuse me…’
‘No.’
She blazed at him. ‘Then leave me alone…’ She beat her fists on the grass helplessly. ‘I haven’t done anything to you, stop… playing with me or whatever it is you do, just go away and let me be…’
He bowed, gravely; and she became suddenly terrified the whole strange place would snap out of existence and plunge her back into a life she knew she could no longer bear. She wanted now to run forward, hold his cloak as she had wanted to hold the cloak of the priest, but it was impossible. She tried to speak again, and he stopped her with a raised hand.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘and try to remember. Do not despise your Church; for she has a wisdom beyond your understanding. Do not despise her mummeries; they have a purpose that will be fulfilled. She struggles as we struggle to understand what will not be understood, to comprehend that which is beyond comprehension. The Will that cannot be ordered, or charted, or measured.’
He pointed round him, at the circling stones. ‘The Will that is like these; encompassing, endlessly voyaging, endlessly returning, enfolding the heavens. The flower grows, the flesh corrupts, the sun circles the sky; Balder dies and the Christos, the warriors fight outside their hall Valhalla and fall and bleed and are reborn. All are within the Will, all are ordained. We are within it; our mouths close and open, our bodies move, our voices speak and we are not their masters. The Will is endless; we are its tools. Do not despise your Church…’
There was more, but the sense of it was lost in the raving of the wind. She watched the face of the Old One, the moving lips, the strange eyes burning reflecting light from distant suns and other years. ‘The dream,’ he said finally, ‘is ending. If it is a dream. The great Dance finishes, another will begin.’ He smiled, and touched with his fingers the carved mark above his head.
‘Help me,’ she said suddenly. Begged. ‘Please…’
He shook his head, it seemed to her pityingly, watching her as she had watched the glowworms pulsing their lives out on the grass. ‘The Sisters spin the yarn,’ he said, ‘and mark, and cut. There is no help. It is the Will…’
‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Please. What will happen to me? You can do it, you’ve got to. You owe it…’
His voice droned at her, splitting the wind. ‘It is forbidden…’ His eyes seemed to veil themselves. ‘Watch from the south,’ he said. ‘There will be life for you, coming from the south, and death. As for all creatures born, so for you. There will be joy and hope; there will be fear and pain. The rest is hidden; it is the Will…’
She screamed at him. ‘But that’s no good, you haven’t told me anything…’
It was useless; man and stones were fading, diminishing, as she herself was whirled back and away. It seemed for an instant the face of the Old One glowed bronze and glorious till she saw the Christos, or Balder in his majesty, staring out the clouds; then he blackened, a darker shade among shadows of stones that dwindled to a point and were gone.
‘NOW THEREFOR DEPART, THY ABODE IS THE WILDERNESS, THY HABITATION THE SERPENT; NOW THERE IS NO DELAY… FOR BEHOLD THE LORD GOD APPROAGHETH QUICKLY, AND HIS FIRE WILL GLOW BEFORE HIM, FOR IF THOU HAST DECEIVED MAN, THOU CANST NOT MOCK THY LORD… ‘HE EXCLUDES THEE, WHO HAST PREPARED FOR THEE AND THY ANGELS EVERLASTING HELL; OUT OF WHOSE MOUTH THE SHARP SWORD WILL GO, HE WHO SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD AND THE WORLD BY FIRE…’
The thing was finished; and Margaret stared round at the faces of the others and at their hands, and knew. The room was quiet again.
She waited watching long after the others had gone, Father Edwardes sitting at the bedside and the nurse, the old man breathing slow, all effort ended. She stood with crossed arms at the window, feeling the night air move on her face, watching out over the house roofs at the blur of the heath and the thin pale line of horizon down to the south. Seeing with the clearness of hallucination Robert flogging his horse and swearing, cursing all women to the devil and beyond, riding to fetch her back to his hall. Her lips once nearly quirked into a smile. For the flower grows, the flesh dies, the sun circles the sky and we are within the Will…
She frowned, puzzling her head, but couldn’t remember where she’d heard the words.