The Devil in Green (7 page)

'Have many people come to join up?' Miller asked as he rode by.

The guard laughed indecently loudly. 'I shouldn't worry about having
to queue.'

'It's early days yet,' Miller said when they were out of the guard's
earshot.

'Look on the bright side,' Mallory replied wryly. 'At least the standards
will be low.'

At that same time of day, the outskirts of the city were deserted. In the
bright dawn light, it could have been any time before everything changed;
the fabric was, in the main, intact, although a few shops had been burned
out in looting, and others had been adapted to fill more immediate needs.
An electrical goods store had been converted into a cobblers and
leatherworkers. A video shop now housed carpenters and builders.

They made their way down Castle Street and before they had got to the
end of it they could hear loud voices, jocularity, cursing, life going on. The
farmers' market was in the process of being set up, with red-faced workers
loading piles of cabbages and bags of potatoes on creaking stalls. Many
places appeared to have quickly established a local economy and regular
food supply, but everyone was still fearing the winter, Miller noted.
Mallory pointed out that nothing would have worked if the population
hadn't been decimated.

Their attention was caught by an area of brightly coloured tents and
tepees on a park on the other side of a river bridge. They clustered tightly
together like a nomadic enclave within the wider city. A flag bearing red
and white intertwined dragons flew over the largest tent.

They followed the High Street past the shells of Woolworth's and
Waterstone's. The horse's hooves echoed dully on the flagstones; the
atmosphere in that area was strangely melancholic.

But as they came up to High Street Gate, the historic entrance to the
Cathedral Close, they were confronted by ten-foot-high gates of welded
metal sheets, the ancient stone surround topped with lethal spikes and rolls
of barbed wire. Beyond it, the cathedral looked like a fortress under siege.

'A man's character is his fate.'
- Heraclitus

The reinforced gates were rust-eaten, stained and covered with foul
graffiti. Mallory tried to decide whether they had been erected out of
fear, or strength; to keep the outside world at bay, or to keep those inside
pure. Whichever was the right answer, first impressions were not of an
open religion welcoming all souls into a place of refuge from the storm of
life. He'd only been there a moment and he already doubted the judgment
of those in charge. Situation normal.

He could feel Miller's uncertain gaze on his back, urging him to do
something to dispel the disappointment his companion was starting to
feel. With a shrug, Mallory strode up and hammered on the gates.
When the metallic echoes had died, a young man with a shaven head
and an incongruously cherubic face peered over the stone battlements.

'Who goes?' he called, with a faint lisp.

Mallory turned back to Miller. 'Well, that's scared me off.'

'We want to join you,' Miller shouted.

The guard eyed them suspiciously, focusing particular attention on
Mallory.

'We want to be knights,' Miller pressed. His voice held a faint note of
panic at the possibility that after all he'd been through he still might be
turned away.

'Wait there.' The guard bobbed down. Several minutes later, they
heard the scrape of metal bars being drawn on the other side. The gates
creaked open just wide enough for Mallory and Miller to pass through
in single file. On the other side were five men armed with medieval
weaponry: pikes, swords and an axe, which Mallory guessed had been
taken from some local museum.

The guard stepped forwards. 'Enter with humility before God.' An
implied threat lay in his words.

Mallory looked at him askance. 'Does everyone talk like that around
here?'

Miller gazed back at the fortified gate uncomfortably. 'Why all that?' he
asked.

'Times are hard.' It wasn't enough of an answer, but the guard turned
away before Miller could ask him any more.

Mallory was intrigued by what he saw within the compound. He'd seen
photos of the cathedral in the old days, had even caught the last of a TV
Christmas carol service broadcast from there, seen through an alcoholic
haze after a late night at the pub. The serenity of the expansive lawns
that had once surrounded the cathedral was long gone. Now wooden
shacks clustered tightly, some of which appeared to have been knocked up
overnight, offering little protection from the elements. Mallory also spied
vegetable and herb gardens, stables, a small mill and more. The grass was
now little more than churned mud with large cart ruts running amongst
the huts. The entire scene had an odd medieval flavour that discomfited
him.

The houses appeared to consist of only a single room, two at the most,
with small windows that could not have allowed much light inside. They
were arranged, more or less, on a grid pattern, the cathedral's own village,
although there were still a few remaining lawns around the grand building
to form a barrier between the sacred and the profane.

Once they were well within the site, they could see that fortifications had
been continued on all sides to create a well-defended compound. Most of
the wall was original, constructed in the fourteenth century with the stone
from the deserted cathedral at Old Sarum, but where gaps had appeared
over the years, makeshift barriers had now been thrown up. Abandoned
cars, crushed and tattered, building rubble, corrugated sheets, had all been
riveted together to become remarkably sturdy. Of the original gates, three
remained, all as secure as the one through which Mallory and Miller had
passed.

Enclosed within the new fortifications were several imposing piles that
lined the Cathedral Close, including the museums on the western edge,
which appeared to have been pressed into Church use. The weight of
history was palpable, from Malmesbury House, partly built by Sir
Christopher Wren and where Charles II and Handel had both stayed, to
the grand Mompesson House with its Queen-Anne facade, through the
many stately buildings that had offered services to the Church. Beyond the
houses, the enclosure ran down to the banks of the Avon past a larger
cultivated area providing food for the residents.

And at the centre of it was the cathedral itself. Dedicated to the Virgin
Mary, the grey stone of the gothic medieval building gleamed in the
morning light, its perpendicular lines leading the eye towards the four-
hundred-foot spire that spoke proudly of the Glory of Almighty God.
Even in that broken world, it still had the power to inspire.

They were led through a door near the west front to an area next to the
cloisters that had once held a cafe. The surly guard guided them to a
windowless room containing three dining chairs and a table. He sent in
some water and bread before leaving them alone for the next hour.

'What do you think?' Miller asked in an excited whisper.