The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘Shut up, Antony,’ Ben said. Antony peered down at Ellen’s breasts, then looked up at Ben and grinned.

Jane said, ‘What happened?’

‘There was an archery contest at Llanddewi, near Llanbister. Ellen went along disguised as a man. John Hir was the champion archer and she challenged him. John put his arrow into the target, Ellen put hers into John.’

‘Feisty,’ Antony said. ‘Is it true or a legend?’

‘It’s believed to be entirely true, although it does rather correspond to a few classic myths about the vengeful-huntress figure. It’s said to have happened in 1430, after Ellen’s marriage to Thomas Vaughan. She must have been a very young woman at the time because Thomas was killed at the Battle of Banbury nearly forty years later.’

‘I like it,’ Antony said. ‘We could’ve used it.’

Ben turned to Jane. ‘Antony did a Channel 4 documentary series a few years ago about the psychology of women who kill. Women of the Midnight?’

‘Aw, I hated that title,’ Antony said. ‘It was imposed on me. What I had in mind was to call it My Milk for Gall. Something like that.’

‘Lady Macbeth?’ Jane said. ‘ “Unsex me here and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers.” I… wow.’ She stared at Antony with new respect. This man was actually the producer of Women of the Midnight? ‘That was like… heavy stuff.’ Not admitting that she hadn’t actually seen it, having been only about ten at the time.

But she saw now why Ben was courting Antony so assiduously. She was fairly sure that Women of the Midnight had won some prestigious award for Channel 4, which must make Antony a seriously influential producer. Like, if he brought in an idea, people would listen to him, the people with money to hand out. So the main problem for Ben was convincing Antony himself, and perhaps this would be the only problem.

‘Too late now though, huh?’ Antony was looking down wistfully at Ellen Gethin again. Ellen’s eyes were shut.

‘Such a shame,’ Ben purred. Jane thought, Milk for Gall: Lady Macbeth, Myra Hindley… Ellen would probably have fitted nicely into the format.

Antony moved away from Ellen and stood at the feet of Thomas, with his Doc Martens and his little alabaster dog.

‘So what about this guy?’

Ben shrugged. ‘We don’t know very much about him. He was born in 1400, was initially a supporter of the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses but for some reason changed sides. One version says he was on his way to the Battle of Banbury in 1469 when he was captured by the Lancastrians, accused of treason and beheaded. His body was brought back here.’

‘And was he like Hugo Baskerville? A bad guy, a tyrant?’

‘We don’t know. We don’t know what kind of man he was when he was alive. He’s better known for his activities afterwards. All the accounts say he made a very angry and destructive ghost, haunting the stretch of road between Hergest Court and Kington, often in broad daylight. Rearing up in front of women, and causing farm carts to overturn.’

‘What did he have to be mad about?’

‘Dunno, but it’s said the town was in terror. The road to Hergest was shunned. Taboo. Got so bad that Kington market began to suffer because nobody wanted to come. Vaughan could change shape, tormented horses as a fly. Appeared in this church as a bull, roaring through the pews during a service.’

‘But not a doggie.’

‘That came later,’ Ben said. ‘After the exorcism.’

Jane said, ‘What?’

Apparently, it had taken twelve experienced ministers to deal with Vaughan, all of them gathered inside a circle drawn on the floor at Hergest Court, each with a lighted candle. There was also a woman and a young baby, presumably newly baptized and presumably representing purity. When your mother was in the trade and left books lying around, you learned quite a lot about the history of dispensing with demons.

Ben said the story had been chronicled by the Herefordshire folklorist Ella Leather and, before that, collected by the Border diarist Francis Kilvert.

‘Hell of a struggle, candles going out, slanging match with Vaughan’s spirit. But they eventually reduced him to something small and manageable, and then they confined the spirit in a snuffbox.’

Snuffbox — this angle sounded familiar, and Jane figured she was bound to have read about it, at some stage, in Mrs Leather’s book. It was a big book, with thousands of stories, many of which you forgot because they weren’t strictly relevant at the time. She’d go back to it, check all this out.

‘Vaughan’s spirit had expressed an aversion to water,’ Ben said. ‘So they buried the snuffbox at the bottom of Hergest Pool.’

‘As you would,’ Antony said.

‘It would dramatize beautifully.’

‘And if you wanted some authentic stuff on exorcisms,’ Jane said, ‘my mother might be able to—’ She broke off, her hand touching Ellen’s white, shiny elbow — how broad and muscular that arm appeared now. Jane drew her hand away. Best, on the whole, not to say anything to Mum about this: she wouldn’t exactly be in favour of dramatizing an exorcism, however many centuries ago it had happened.

Ben and Antony were both looking at her.

‘Of course,’ Ben said, ‘your mother’s a vicar, isn’t she?’

‘Um… yeah.’

‘With a special interest in this… area?’

Jane sighed. Had he heard whispers? Was Mum’s name still mentioned at this end of the county in connection with her run-in with the creepy evangelist, Ellis?

Whatever, it was too late now.

‘She’s, erm, the Deliverance Consultant for the Hereford diocese. Diocesan exorcist, as was. But like, on second thoughts, I think it would be best if she didn’t know I was involved in anything like this. Dabbling? You know? They discourage it.’

‘How interesting,’ Ben said.

‘She just got pushed into it by a previous bishop, who thought it’d be cool to have a woman operating in that area. Look, I really don’t want to tell her about this, OK? If you want any information, we’ve got lots of books at home. I could get you anything you needed.’

‘Fine,’ Ben said. ‘Super.’

‘You really are a slippery bastard, Foley,’ Antony said.

Ben didn’t look at him. ‘Ah… We don’t know precisely when the Vaughan exorcism was, but the inference is that Vaughan was never seen again — not in person, anyway. However, as recently as 1987 two women were visiting this church when one of them distinctly saw the shape of a bull form in the atmosphere.’

‘In here?’ Jane glanced from side to side.

‘She said it seemed to coalesce, as if it was composing itself from dust motes in the air. She was from Solihull in the Midlands, a tourist. Oddly, her name was Jenny Vaughan. The bull didn’t do anything, it just formed and then presumably dissolved again. Like a show of strength.’

‘And the Hound?’ Antony said.

‘It’s known simply as the Hound of Hergest. It was said to appear before the death of a member of the Vaughan family. There were nine generations of Vaughans after Thomas and Ellen, and the last one to live at Hergest Court died childless at the beginning of the eighteenth century. But the phenomenon remained. Other people, over the years, are said to have seen the Hound in the lane leading to the Court. And a former tenant of Hergest used to speak of hearing what sounded like a large dog padding across the floor upstairs. This was quite recently.’

‘And folk died?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware. Though perhaps some Vaughan descendant somewhere…’

‘OK, it’s interesting,’ Antony conceded. ‘So, tell me — how important would it be to the Devon people to