The Whispering Swarm (62 page)

We all seemed to be waiting for something. Had a bold attempt to arrest us been their real motive for coming here? Why did Marvell seem to show a keener interest in me than the rest of my companions? I felt time was running out. Were they hoping we'd bribe them with a treasure not ours to give?

‘Now sirs,' said Prince Rupert, much enjoying the joke. ‘What d'ye say we play some games and carouse a while longer, since you were so happy to make this day a public holiday, not yet a holy day?'

‘That will come,' said Love, ‘with the dawning of the millennium.'

‘Hark!' said the feverish Nevison, recovered enough to sit up in a booth. ‘There's a sound of fornication.' Pretending to a vision? ‘Oh, lord! Get the women in. Up the drawbridge. Fool! Old fool! The enemy's here and not a single dancer for the crown.'

‘We know you all took part in a plot to rescue a convicted murderer!' cursed Clitch as if hauling on that tiller would force the conversation back to what he understood.

My friends, of course, outnumbered Marvell and his pair of jacks-in-office. Their weapons piled on the bar, they sat there, sullen and defiant, sipping their rum. I didn't think them in danger. Molly was distracting herself with the flirtatious attentions of two other Cavaliers, but she kept glancing at me. My already damaged nerves weren't in great shape. I felt an almost unbearable pain in my chest. In spite of everything I was almost irresistibly drawn to her. Her beauty. Her fire. Her intelligence and daring. I longed for the old days back. She had the means to bring about their return. Could I just forget everything else and fall back into her arms? Never have to hear the Swarm again? How much longer could I stand the pain of staying away from her?

Prince Rupert ignored her, perhaps for my sake. Though now in his best clothes, he wore a broad black ribbon on his arm to mourn the death of his king. He scarcely said a word but clearly blamed himself for our failure to rescue the king, even if the king had refused rescue.

Remember!

I began to think I had no reason to stay there. Maybe I should return to the abbey and perhaps try to read one of my books? Later perhaps I could ask Father Grammaticus to tell me more about the silver roads, the bizarre mantra that came from nowhere, the Green Knight, the black tides. All the mysteries.

In the end it was Molly who drove me out of the tavern. She was breaking my heart all over again. I couldn't forget those love letters she had so recently sent, promising to be a different woman for me, a better and more constant lover, the woman I wanted her to be. Strange promises. Some I longed to believe. Others mystified me. I wanted so much to be there in our rooms together, experiencing that idyll. I wanted my past back and my future restored. All she could offer was a compromised present. And I couldn't forget Helena and the girls. One relationship made me weak. The other strengthened me.

I slipped out of the inn unnoticed and crossed the square. The abbey was in darkness, but I knew there would be a gatekeeper. Almost as if he expected me, Friar Ambrose let me in. I offered him a silent goodnight. To reach my room I had to go through the chapel. Pushing the door to enter, I heard low voices and realised some kind of service was in progress. All I caught was the term ‘Ketchup Cove' or something like it in a foreign language. Closing the chapel door very quietly behind me I couldn't see very clearly. Billowing light, alternately pale and rich, raced to embrace me. I turned to run. I looked towards the altar. The Fish Chalice writhed and flickered in its own glorious, extraordinary light. That light passed out into the chapel and back again, filling the place with soothing colours. The colours shaded into the tones of the song performed by the congregation singing gently in an unfamiliar language. I felt that the combination should be addressed to an entirely new sensory organ.

Although I hadn't heard it when outside, all this music was measured by the tolling of a single, sonorous bell, deeper and richer in tone than anything I had heard here in the past. Surely they were mourning the king. There was nothing I could do now but join the rest of that strange little congregation gathered in the abbey. To my surprise, not all were monks. Where were the newcomers from? I saw men with locks, thick black beards and long black kaftans. Although I didn't recognise individuals I was sure they were the Orthodox Jews I had seen earlier! They did not separate themselves from the monks but sat among them in no apparent order. Again I didn't know the language they used. Not Greek, Hebrew or Latin, it was probably Aramaic. I had learned a bit of Aramaic for my
Behold the Man
novel about a man looking for the historical Jesus in the Holy Land.

But then the language of their prayer changed, resembling the scraps of ancient Egyptian some radio linguist had spoken when I heard him trying to make a point about how the language must have sounded. Whatever it was they spoke it sounded closer to an African language than a European one. Perhaps Coptic?

One individual looked out of place. I was bewildered. There he sat as if in prayer, a figure I believed I had imagined! An armoured knight. His metal was Syrian or possibly Persian, of a kind I remembered from the Wallace Collection. His silks were all various shades of rich green and veiled his face so that all I made out were those expressionless eyes, so dark as to be almost black. On horseback he had led us along the silver roads. He had saved our lives.

Friar Theodore, the jolly, rotund monk who reminded me of Friar Tuck in the Robin Hood comics I used to write, saw me standing there and gestured for me to join them. Unable to refuse, I hesitantly went forward and sat in the pew furthest from the altar. Some of the monks and the Jews looked up. They smiled a welcome. The Green Knight turned, the veil falling away from his bearded face. I looked full into his intense dark eyes. He smiled. A substantial man. Then he looked back to the altar and bowed his covered head.

Though the Jews wore yarmulkes, the tonsured monks remained bareheaded. Breathing in the sweet incense, they were swaying in time to the bell. Why did they pray? To whom were they praying? Back and forth.
Jahweh. Jehova. Jahweh. Allah.
I recognised other names.
Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mahomet.
I had never heard of Jews or Moslems praying in a Christian church together or Christians in a temple or a mosque. Only as my eyes grew accustomed to the dancing light did I see two more men partially obscured by an arch. Both had their heads covered, not by cowls or shawls, but by the Arab chequered keffiyeh headdress. They reminded me of Saudi princes Christina's stepmother used to have to her parties.

With no familiar imagery to help me I sat quietly amongst the worshippers, watching the radiant chalice and listening to that beautiful music. As the congregation began to sing, a wonderful feeling of pleasure suffused me. The air grew warmer. The voices rose and fell in superb, unforced harmony. The colours of the chalice grew deeper, more intense, then became pastel again. His expression ecstatic, the abbot didn't direct the service but remained among the worshippers. I was surprised by the clarity and complexity of the singing. As if they had rehearsed for years. Those old Greek chants which had been popular for a while in the 1960s were my only comparison. I had visited the big Greek Orthodox church in Bayswater more than once, just for the pleasure of the choral music and the impressive intensity of the service. This was even better. Sublime.

The chant rose to a climax and then subsided, resolved. I got up and began to leave, making for the far door which would open on the corridor leading to my cell. The door opened before I reached it. There in the shadows stood what I took at first for a child. I then realised I saw a tiny and very ancient man held firmly between Friar Sholto on one side and Friar Erasmus on the other. Although old men themselves, they looked young in comparison. He was tiny, scarcely more than four and a half feet tall. Dressed in a simple red, black and green robe, the ancient wore a yarmulke on his completely bald head. There was nothing else to indicate his religion or his race, unless it was the thin silver beard falling to his chest.

The old man's smile was utterly benign. I knew he had experienced all the world's pain and most of its pleasures. All his earthly experience had added to his great store of accumulated wisdom. He was unimaginably old. His almost invisible skin was mottled yellow, taut over his delicate bones. His costume looked almost mediaeval. He was even smaller than the others, most of whom were only an inch or two above five feet. Standing over him I felt like some Nordic explorer meeting pygmies for the first time. He was not actually supported by the monks but walked under his own volition. When he smiled up at me his deep blue eyes held a quality I could only describe as divine. Amiable, certainly, and full of wisdom, yet he had another aspect I had rarely seen before. I guessed Gandhi and similar people had the same charisma, an empathy with the whole world in its sorrowing.

Was this appearance illusory, just something I wanted so painfully to believe? I found it almost impossible not to be convinced by those eyes. I was not looking at some hyped-up preacher with a message of salvation for those who agreed with him. He had a quiet integrity about him, a calmness and a self-confidence I had never encountered before. He certainly didn't need to persuade me of his authority. Who was he? With his thin, frail appearance, his sunken eyes, I thought at once of a Holocaust survivor. Why on earth would he be here in what was at least nominally a Christian church?

As if he recognised my confusion, the old rabbi stepped forward and reached out to touch my hand. I felt a shock of something. I never did understand it, but his smile was full of humour, almost as if I had just told a joke he appreciated. I was pleased to see this. He had all the qualities people ascribed to their ‘guru', whether it be the sad little Maharaj Ji or the jolly old gent the Beatles took up with. Yet I instinctively trusted him as I had never trusted anyone like him. I felt I was in the presence of something I could only describe as ‘divine'. Instinctively I knew he would reject any attempt by me or anyone else to call him that.

The abbot came from the front of the chapel to introduce me to the old man. ‘Master Moorcock of Brookgate, may I present Master Elias ben Moses, His Excellency the Chief Rabbi of London?'

I felt awkward. I didn't know how to address an ordinary rabbi, let alone the chief. I know my face was burning when I bowed and said: ‘Master Elias, I'm glad to meet you, sir,' and felt a bit foolish.

He smiled and put his hand out for me to shake. His fine, delicate fingers at once felt powerful and very fragile. I was hit by a strange emotion which made me want to laugh and cry. His accent wasn't in any way foreign. It was old-fashioned like the abbot's. ‘So ho—thou art the young fellow who comes to help us restore the balance of our lives!' He spoke in a light, vibrant, musical voice full of character. I, of course, hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about. I was, however, utterly fascinated by him. I had never met anyone so evidently ancient. I felt his delicate hand settle on my arm as he led me along a passage and into a chamber filling up with the rest of the abbey's occupants.

The Chief Rabbi asked me to sit beside him. I was a little embarrassed by the honour. Arriving in some disorder, Prince Rupert was the next to appear. ‘Marvell and his men sit like logs, refusing to leave the inn.' He was seated on the other side of the old man. Asked if his day had been good, the prince replied gravely that, with certain exceptions, to his surprise it had been. I knew he had not expected the king to reject his attempt at rescue. I also knew he grieved for our Jemmy. His old gravitas never failed him.

‘You're glad that your kinsman lost his life?' One of the Jews had obviously heard the recent news. Had one of our company carried it here? St Claire? No!

‘Of course not.' Prince Rupert's gaze was steady. ‘I wish with all my heart that he had lived. And that some compromise could be established between church and state. I have to say, I had begun to hold a rather unhappy view of the king's character. In the end he died with dignity.'

‘And how, Your Highness, was that death?' asked Friar Balthazar, his eyes twinkling as usual, no matter what the subject. I sometimes wondered what, if anything, he hid behind that expression.

‘King Charles believed that he died, Friar, to save others. Therefore he at last displayed true Christian qualities. He allowed his own sacrifice in support of the common good. I think he came to understand his faults and realised that he was paying a fair price for his sins. He died humbly, before God.'

I confirmed what he said. ‘The king could have saved his own head but believed in the end that his death as a man was justified. The office of king being what it was, he had already passed on his birthright to his son, who became king the moment Charles's head fell into the basket.'

‘But you risked so much to save him, Your Highness,' said the abbot. ‘You wanted him to live.'

‘Of course I did, Father Abbot. He was my kinsman. I promised his wife that I would do all I could to save him. He released me from that vow while going to his death with such courage. I still serve the Crown. Tonight I leave for France so that I might swear my allegiance. Charles II is my king now.'

‘So you believe, do you, Prince Rupert, that kings rule by divine right?' The old rabbi's voice was strangely vibrant, yet at the same time frail.

‘I do, my lord. But I also believe in God's wisdom. I believe He moves mysteriously and deviously to accomplish His will. I believe that this land had indeed, as the Puritans insisted, become ruled by Satan. Our kingdom was given to self-indulgence, grown unjust. The king lost all regard for his people. King Charles
was
the Realm and God's representative. That is my belief. Now that he stands before his Creator, I suppose it is fair to say the nation has been reduced to anarchy. I hope, for the nation's sake, Oliver Cromwell will soon see fit to restore the monarchy, albeit one ordered by Parliament. Stability is what we crave now, your honour, and consistency. We are neither rich enough nor secure enough to continue with that bloody business which my uncle, in his obstinacy, would have prolonged. For a while he had forgotten the whole of his duty.'