Crybbe aka Curfew

'Right. So you know that where four or five sites fell into a straight line, he'd call it a ley, apparently because a lot of the places where these configurations occurred had names ending in l-e-y, OK?'

'Like Crybbe?'

Rachel grinned. 'Well, he didn't know about Crybbe, or he'd probably have called them Crybbe-lines. You read through Watkins's book, you won't find a single mention of Crybbe.'

'I know. I looked. I was quite disappointed.'

'Because, apart from the Tump, there's nothing to see. However, it seems there used to be bloody dozens of standing stones and things around here at one time, which disappeared over the centuries. Farmers used to rip them out because they got in the way of ploughing and whatever else farmers do.'

Rachel waved a dismissive hand to emphasize the general tedium of agriculture. 'Anyway, there are places in Britain where lots of ley-lines converge, ancient sacred sites shooting off in all directions. Which, obviously, suggests these places were of some great sacred significance, or places of power.'

'Stonehenge?'

'Sure. And Glastonbury Tor. And Avebury. St Michael's Mount in Cornwall. And other places you've probably never heard of.'

'But not Crybbe. You're really not going to tell me Crybbe was ever sacred to anybody.'

Rachel swallowed a mouthful of wine and wiped her mouth with a deliberately graceless gesture before topping up her glass. Down on your knees, woman, I'm afraid you're on holy ground.'

The bridge carried the main road into town and behind it Fay could see chimneys and the church tower. Wooded hills – mixture of broadleaf and conifer – tumbled down on three

sides. From anywhere at a distance, Crybbe looked quite picturesque. And that was all.

'So how come there aren't bus-loads of pilgrims clogging the roads, then? How come this is close to being Britain's ultimate backwater?'

'Because the inhabitants are a bunch of hicks who can't recognize a good tourist gimmick when they get one on a plate, I mean, they did rip out the bloody stones in the first place, that's why Max brought in Henry Kettle. He had to know where the stones used to be.'

'Henry divines the spots?'

'Sure. He pinpoints the location, then what you do is stick pole in the ground at the exact spot. And if you're as rich and self-indulgent as Max Goff, what you do next is have lots of lovely new stones cut to size and planted out in the fields, prehistoric landscape-gardening on a grand scale.'

'Gosh.' Fay was picturing a huge, wild rock-garden, with daffodils growing around the standing stones in the spring. Crybbe suddenly a little town in a magic circle. 'I think that sounds rather a nice thing to do… don't you? I mean, bizarre, but nice, somehow.'

'Except it's not quite as easy as it sounds,' Rachel said. 'And it's going to cause trouble. Within a couple of weeks Kettle'd discovered the probable sites of nearly thirty prehistoric stones, a couple of burial mounds, not to mention a holy well.'

'Wow.'

'And fewer than a quarter of the sites are on the eight and a half acres of land which Max bought with the Court, so he's going to restore Stone Age Crybbe he's got to negotiate with a lot of farmers.'

'Ah. Mercenary devils, farmers.'

'And awkward sods, in many cases.'

'True. So how's he going to handle it?'

'He wants to hold a big public meeting to tell the people how he plans to revitalize their town. I mean, obviously you've got the considerable economic benefits of tourism – look how many foreign trippers flock to Avebury. But also – unwisely in my view – he's going to explain all the esoteric stuff. What ley lines are really all about, and what they can do for the town.'

'Energy lines,' Fay said. 'I've also read that other book, The Old Golden Land.'

'By J. M. Powys, distant descendant of the great mystical writer, John Cowper Powys. Max loves that book. Coincidentally – or not, perhaps – he's just bought the company which published it. So he owns it now, and he likes to think he owns J. M. Powys… for whom He Has Plans.'

'He's coming here?'

'If he knows what's good for him. He'll have plenty of like-minded idiots for company. There are already nine New Age people living in the town in properties craftily acquired by Max over the past few months. Alternative healers, herbalists, astrologers.'

'Can't say I've noticed them,' Fay admitted.

'That's because some of them look quite normal. Only they know they are the human transmitters of the New Energy about to flow into Crybbe.'

The idea being that ley-lines mark out some kind of force field, channels of energy, which Bronze Age people knew how tap into. Is that right?'

'The Great Life Force, Fay. And so, naturally, re-siting the stones will bring new life flowing back into Crybbe. Max reckons – well, he hasn't worked it out for himself, he's been told by lots of so-called experts – that Crybbe is only in the depressed state it is today because all the stones have gone. So if you put them back, it'll be like connecting the town for the first time to the national grid. The whole place will sort of light up.'

Fay thought about this. 'It sounds rather wonderful'

'If you like that kind of fairy-tale.'

'Is it?'

'Oh, well, sure, what does it matter if it's true or not, it'll bring in the crowds, be an economic boost, a psychological panacea, create a few jobs. But you see, Fay, I know this guy.'

Rachel held up the bottle, but Fay shook her head and Rachel poured what remained into her tumbler. 'I don't think I can stand to watch him being baronial at Crybbe Court, with his entourage of fringe scientists and magicians and minstrels and sundry jesters.'

'Is that the central point, at which all these ley-lines are supposed to meet? The Court. Or is it the church?'

'The Tump,' Rachel said, it's the Tump. It's not a centre, it's a sort of axis. The lines come off it in a fan shape. The Tump is like this great power station. Get the idea? I mean, really, isn't it just the biggest load of old rhubarb you ever heard?'

Rachel brought an arm from behind her head and lobbed the empty wine-bottle into the air. Arnold tensed, about to spring after it, until he saw where it was going.

There was a satisfying splash.

'Now surely,' Rachel said, 'that's got to be pollution.'

CHAPTER VIII

Fay walked back to the cottage, for Arnold's sake and to clear her head, although she hadn't drunk all that much wine – not compared to Rachel, anyway. Arnold, however, looked as if he'd been drinking heavily, veering from side to side on his tautened clothes-line. He was hopeless.

Goff had not returned when they arrived back at the Court. She'd left Rachel carrying the triptych into the stable-block where it was to be double-locked into a store-room. Nearly a thousand quid's worth of less-than-fine art. Hereward and Jocasta Newsome would, for once, have good reason to appear appallingly smug.

'Whichever way you look at it, Arnie,' Fay said reflectively, 'our friend Goff is making waves in Crybbe.'

No bad thing, either.

Could she understand the guy's obsession? Well, yes, she could. A man who'd made his first million marketing anarchic punk-rock records in the mid-seventies. Waking up in the nineties to find himself sitting on a heap of money in a wilderness of his own creation. All the cars and yachts and super-toys he'd ever want and nothing to nurture the soul.

Not exactly a quantum leap, was it, from there to the New Age dream?

And, the more she thought about it, the proposed mystical liberation of an obscure Welsh border town from