The Fabric of Sin

And they worshipped this bearded head, which came to be known as Baphomet. Mr Williams had told Jane that the name was seen by some sources as a corruption of Muhammad, but Merrily vaguely remembered other interpretations.

‘It was quite clever,’ Jane said. ‘If you look closely at the charges, you can definitely see where some of them are coming from.’

‘Yeah, I know. The denial of Christ could mean that they were simply denying the divinity of Christ because they were supposed to have known the so-called truth: that he’d died, leaving behind his girlfriend, Mary Magdalene and their family. On the same basis, you have the rejection of the Mass, because — allegedly — they knew there could be no transubstantiation.’

‘Right. And then we come to the head.’

‘OK, tell me about the head.’

‘Probably goes back to the Celtic cult of the head,’ Jane said.

‘I hadn’t heard of that connection.’

‘The Celts saw the head as the receptacle of the spirit, right?’

‘Mr Williams thinks the Templars actually did worship the head?’

‘Or maybe just recognized it as symbolic of something? Consider the fact that the Templars were linked to the Cistercians and gnostic sects.’

‘Here we go …’

‘And other guys who weren’t stupid enough to reject centuries of pre-Christian knowledge of nature and harmony with the land and … and a lot of other practical stuff that you can’t get in any way from the Bible.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it must’ve been symbolic of something. However, if the bearded head represents that revolting joke’ — Merrily jerked a thumb at the engraving of the horned beast with the candle on its head — ‘then it really doesn’t say a lot to me about mankind’s links with the earth. Especially as it also features in black masses and is often found above the altars of satanic temples.’

‘You haven’t actually read Levi, have you?’

‘Somehow, that thing with the teenage girl kind of said it all for me. But go on …’

‘What it basically comes down to …’ Jane shuffled papers ‘… is whole centuries of superstition, smears and misrepresentation. It’s a hieroglyphic representing male and female and illumination — the candle? It’s also Pan, the goat-foot god, the spirit of nature. OK, listen to this: “The symbolic head of the Goat of Mendes is occasionally given to this figure and it is then the Baphomet of the Templars and the Word of the Gnostics … bizarre images which became scarecrows for the vulgar.”’

‘So only thick people think there could be anything evil here. And the Church, of course.’

Jane shrugged.

‘Well, thank you, flower, you’ve converted me. I’ll pack in all this Christian crap, put up a Goat of Mendes poster in the hall — only ten dollars from the Church of Satan and All Fallen Angels, Sacramento — and once I’ve popped into the church and spat on the altar—’

‘All right … you can mock.’ Jane stood up. ‘I’m just trying to show you what you’re dealing with, that’s all. There are two sides to everything.’

‘So the Garway Green Man is actually Baphomet. Mr Williams thinks that?’

‘He knows Garway church, and he thinks it makes sense. And if what you found inside the inglenook at the Master House was a replica of the Baphomet in the church …’

‘You didn’t tell Robbie Williams about that?’

‘No, I just asked about it in a general kind of way.’

‘Only I would hate any of this to get back to your beloved head teacher, because if Morrell thought I was involving you, a minor, in what he regards as my unscientific, primitive and superstitious occupation …’

‘It’s OK. I don’t think Robbie Williams likes Morrell either. And in case …’ Jane’s gaze softened. ‘In case you were fearing the worst, even I would be a bit wary of bending a knee to Baphomet. Or the Goat of Mendes.’

She came over, and Merrily half-rose and then they were spontaneously hugging. Ridiculous. Embracing your heathen daughter because she’d granted you the concession of drawing the line at actual devil worship.

More probably, Merrily guessed, it was the formal sealing of a pact against what was upstairs.

‘Jane, look … I’m sorry. It was a bad night, and it’s not been a great day. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. Going over to Garway — it could be a wasted exercise. Even Huw Owen’s telling me to back off, because whatever happened there concerns ancient secrets that aren’t going to get cracked. Definitely not by someone like me.’

‘He actually said that?’

‘I don’t think he meant it in any mystical sense. I think he was saying I’d just tie myself up in knots, getting nowhere. And when you come home and hang all this on me, with the saintly Sian upstairs …’

Merrily was feeling almost painfully tired. Tired and inept. Huw was probably right: tamp it down, walk away and, with any luck, it won’t flare again in your lifetime.

‘Listen, there’s one final thing, Mum. Jacques de Molay?’

‘The last Grand Master of the Templars.’

‘I think there’s an engraving of him here. I’ve got it … there … He looks a bit like Baphomet himself, doesn’t he?’

Merrily looked at the drawing of the figure with the cross on his surcoat. Dignified but defiant. Che Guevara. Or maybe just the quiet one from some electric-folk band in the 1970s.

‘He was burned at the stake?’

Jane nodded. ‘After refusing to confess to sodomy, sacrilege and the rest of it. Most of the others who were arrested did confess after being threatened and tortured. But De Molay insisted to the end that he was a good Christian. He said he wanted to die facing the Church of Our Lady. But — get this — before the flames took him, he said that God would avenge him. He said the Pope and the King of France could expect to see him again before too long.’

‘I know. De Molay’s dying curse. Where’s this going, Jane?’

‘Neither the King nor the Pope lasted a year. And Jacques de Molay became this kind of cult figure. Still is, apparently.’

‘Yes.’

‘There was some guy in the French Revolution,’ Jane said, ‘and when they guillotined Louis XVI he was like, This is for Jacques de Molay.’

Merrily thought she could hear footsteps on the stairs and stood up. Felt, for a moment, slightly dizzy.

‘Suppose I’d better show Sian around.’

‘Hang on,’ Jane said, ‘I haven’t told you, yet.’

‘Sorry. Only—’

‘And this isn’t, like, supposition or legend or anything. This is official history. I think it was 1294.’

‘All right.’ Merrily paused, holding the door handle, aching for a cigarette. ‘What happened in 1294?’

‘That was the year Jacques de Molay came to Garway,’ Jane said.

27 Bev and Rev

Setting out a place by the window in the whitewashed dairy, now the guests’ dining room, Beverley Murray glanced at Teddy across the table, and you could almost see it happening: this smouldering issue reigniting in the air between them.

Then Beverley went back to the cutlery tray, and Teddy said, ‘If handled discreetly, I think it would be sensible. Discretion being the operative word.’

‘When was there—?’ Beverley letting the cutlery clink more than was necessary. ‘When was there