Phil Rickman
The Cold Calling
Prologue
Sacrifice should not be equated with our modern attitude to murder.
I
He is invisible in the greenery.
The Green Man.
The very oldest Guardian of the Earth, whose face one sees carved in stone above church doorways, his hair luxuriant with leaves, the leaves bearing fruit — stone nuts and stone berries. More leaves sprouting whole from the grinning mouth, foliage gripped between stone teeth. The grin that says, I am the Earth.
The Green Man, who stands — or crouches, or squats — for the Old Energy which once sprang from hill to holy hilltop across a shimmering land — a force which could make the fields breathe visibly and bring the oldest and coldest of stones to squirming life and…
Stop. Listen. Watch.
This day, the Green Man, our Green Man, knows he is perceptible only as foliage — roots and branches, fungi and moss. He is of the Earth.
Utterly, utterly still, he listens to the Earth, his mother, his sister, his wife … her heart beating faster and fainter nowadays … most people have never heard it, will not leave their cars to walk on anything more responsive than tarmac or concrete.
And these people …
Even they, who consider themselves defenders of the land and Her creatures, are unaware of the Green Man as they slouch in the clearing, filling their senses with cigarette smoke, plotting.
‘Hear what he said?’
The bearded man in the khaki anorak unknowingly crosses the energy line as he speaks.
‘When they come out the pub, this colonel-type guy says, Oh, they won’t show up today, Jeremy, it’s raining. No fun in the rain. Haw haw. Arrogant bastard. They think we got no staying power.’
‘Be a lovely surprise for them.’
The female.
She is about thirty. Could be quite pretty if she let her hair grow, took a few of the rings out of her nose. The rings imply some tribal affiliation. What utter nonsense. These people have no ethnic roots; they are outcasts.
The other two are shaven-haired teenage boys, possibly twins. They grin a lot and kick mindlessly at the Earth…
Kick at Her!
The Green Man hopes that one of these boys will be separated from the others and will cross the line alone at an opportune time.
As that first rabbit did. And the squirrels, and the fox. And once — at night — a badger. Whump! Speeding down the line, the Earth swelling with the energy of blood.
‘OK,’ the bearded man says. ‘Here’s how it works. I’ll go to the top of the mound and when I see them leave the road I’ll wave both hands. Like this, yeah? So you keep an eye on that mound, ‘cause I’m not gonna get the chance to do it twice without one of ‘em sees me. So when I wave … Maria, if you can count to thirty, then give a little toot.’
From the pocket of her waterproof jacket, the female pulls a hunting horn and shakes it. ‘Hope it bloody works this time.’ She gives a smoker’s snort of laughter.
‘Well don’t fucking try it now. All right. Shaun, if you and Gary go down the dingle now, and open the metal gate … Idea is, the hounds’ll come tearing this way and when they’re through the gate, you shut it bloody fast and piss off quick ‘cause they’ll know what’s happening by then and they’ll be bloody mad enough to do you an injury.’
‘See ‘em try,’ one of the boys mutters mutinously.
‘You won’t. You’ll disappear, soon as that gate’s shut. We’re not here for aggro, this is about saving life.’
Listen to them.
Mindless, disconnected vermin. The badger was worth more. At least the badger knew the rules.
They think that by breaking the natural cycle they are saving life. They want to sit in their eleventh-floor flats watching the foxes and badgers scamper innocently on the neat, square lawns.
But foxes kill.
Badgers kill.
The Earth kills.
And so life goes on. The faint spark of life that flits from the small body is drawn back into the greater organism. Blood-fed, the Earth breathes more deeply … and She feeds us.
Because, you see, once, we all killed. Isn’t it obvious? It is as natural as eating and sleeping. And as important. It invigorates and enhances us. It renews us.
And hunting … the very act of hunting … all the senses streamlined, focused, combined into a single electric impulse. In hunting, we are more aware, more open to revelation. Was not John Aubrey out hunting when, in 1648, he realized the significance of the great stones of Avebury?
And even as the Green Man is thinking this, there comes through the trees the distant baying of the hounds, a sound as natural and joyous as birdsong, but, of course, more focused. Hounds hunting in packs. Hounds and horses and men, a tight and yet gloriously ragged combination, a stream of pure, concerted energy.
As old as England. Older. A communion. Pure instinct. Fusion. The wild sound of the horn on the wind, the primeval bellow, tally ho, the ecstatic blooding after one’s first hunt, licking it off, swallowing it. So much sweeter than human sex.
‘They’re away,’ the female says.
‘Right.’ The bearded man throws down his cigarette. ‘Let’s do it.’ He grins. ‘Sab, sab, sab.’
* * *
Closing his eyes, the Green Man hears the man and the youths stumbling gracelessly between the trees. The swelling heart of the wood — an entity in itself — pounds loudly in his ears.
Only the female is left in the clearing. With the Green Man and the Earth.
He feels Her pulsing with anticipation against his groin, stiffening him. Stiffening his resolve. It isn’t a major step, just a question of breaking a small, social convention.
Ideally, it should be the man, as he stands upon the mound.
Motte it says on the Ordnance Survey map, signifying an artificial mound where a Norman castle once stood. In fact, many of these castles were built on the so-called ‘burial’ mounds created as far back as the Bronze Age, when all men hunted and were instinctively aware of the needs of the Earth and the subtle patterns of Her energies.
The female lights another cigarette. It is raining steadily and strands of her short hair are gummed to her face. She waits, smoking.
When, then?
Watch. Listen to the Earth.
He wishes there was some way She could speak directly to him, make Her wishes known. The old shamans would go into trance, make their requests and receive their instructions. He doesn’t have their skills. Not yet. One day, it will all be given to him. In the meantime he must rely on signs and signals.
The female has taken out the hunting horn. Suddenly, she disgusts him, with her sexless, shorn hair, the rings in her nose, her apathy, her negativity, her hatred and contempt for the upholders of tradition.
She moves forward to see the mound through the misty rain, and she steps into the line, which he can see clearly now, falling straight as a sunbeam, having travelled half a mile from St Agnes’s Well and crossing another track leading to Salisbury Cathedral.