The Fabric of Sin

‘You bloody denied it!’

‘No big deal, anyroad. I’m not an official consultant or owt like that, just acknowledged as not linked to any of the factions in the Church. Safe pair of ears, in other words.’

‘You’ve met him?’

‘No. Never. No need. Best not to, really. Basically, this is summat I inherited from Dobbs. No offence to you, but he could never trust a woman. And you weren’t around then, anyroad. Essentially, there’s a handful of us — Jeavons is another.’

‘Ah.’

Canon Llewellyn Jeavons, once tipped as the first black Archbishop of Canterbury — until his wife died and he went strange, becoming an expert on healing and deliverance with an email address book containing Somali witch doctors and Aboriginal songline-hoppers. It figured.

‘It was decided that certain people close to the throne needed a bit of looking out for. With regard to spiritual aspects of their lives and work. This lad, his heart’s in the right place, but he will keep putting his foot in it.’

‘BMA chauvinism and architectural carbuncles?’

‘Tip of the iceberg, lass. He gets frustrated and fires off letters to Government ministers. Well, fair enough, I say. An independent mind. If a man thinks he can see the civilized world going down the pan and he wants to use whatever influence he’s got to try and stop it, I’m all for it. But they don’t like it. Far as the Government’s concerned, the Family ought to know its place. Which is on the sideboard.’

‘Strictly ornamental.’

‘Exactly. You heard from that chippy little copper?’

‘Bliss? Yesterday.’

‘Got a feller on his back, you said.’

‘Jonathan Long.’

‘Aye. Slime like him, see, times’ve changed. Used to be the spooks automatically supported royalty as an institution. Now they’re Government animals. Servants of spin. And if the Government of the day should contain a number of people of, shall we say, republican instincts, in key positions … You know what I’m getting at?’

‘Go on.’

‘For instance, Governments, national and European, don’t like alternative medicine, they like straight doctors, drugs and drug companies. They like GM foods and meat imports and they don’t really give a shit for animal welfare. Or farmers, for that matter.’

Huw stopped and looked at Merrily. Merrily shrugged.

‘Plus, unless you’re Islamic and they can’t decide whether to bang you up or kiss your arse, this is now a secular country. Merlin the Wizard, he could be heading for the sideboard, too, and he knows it. And yet, despite what anybody says, there’s a great spiritual yearning out there.’

‘Just that the way some of it’s expressed doesn’t please some of our more traditional colleagues,’ Merrily said.

‘And if some of these oddball spiritual pathways appear to have been trodden by the heir to the throne — well, not good news for the Church, but not necessarily bad news for the republicans. Use it to shaft him again — eccentric’s one thing, bonkers summat else. There’s quite a body of opinion thinks this could turn out to be a good time to lose ’em.’

‘Dump the monarchy?’

‘Or stand well back and allow it to dump itself. A lot of cynicism about the Family right now. What’s your view?’

‘Expensive, undemocratic. And some, on the fringes, have been free-loading airheads. But, at the end of the day, I suppose I feel happier that they’re there. They represent something I feel kind of reassured to have around. Plus, can you think of a contemporary politician you could stand to see as President?’

‘Happen you’d’ve got on with Dobbs better than either of you thought possible.’

‘I’m guessing Dobbs was closer to all this than you. He knew Laurens van der Post, for a start.’

‘Aye, he did. Knew him way back, and renewed the contact not long before his death. See, there’s a lot of superstition around the monarchy, and Charleses haven’t been too lucky. Charles I, executed — very public human sacrifice. Charles II had to hide in an oak tree, thus becoming the Green Man. You heard that one?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘The head of Charles II peering through the foliage … the green man to the life.’

‘I suppose it is. What’s the significance?’

‘A title which, for different reasons of his own choosing, could easily be applied to the future King Charles III. But because Charles is seen as an unhappy name for a king, the word is he’ll adopt one of his other names and become King George VII. Which doesn’t change things much, as your green man in churches has also been associated with Saint George. But that’s by the by.’

‘Huw, aren’t we getting just a bit …’

‘I’m giving you the folklore. The mythology. The superstition. Dobbs was a mystic. He believed the monarchy — good or bad, strong or weak — was preserving something fundamentally essential to the spiritual welfare of Britain … part of the soul of the nation, if you like. That if Church and State were still in bed together, nowt much would go wrong in the great scheme of things.’

‘So Charles suddenly announcing he wants to be defender of faiths plural …?’

‘Weakens it. At the wrong time, Dobbs thought. That’s where he and van der Post fell out. All that about all religions being the same dog washed, that came from van der Post.’

‘I don’t knock it,’ Merrily said. ‘If we can coexist …’

‘Aye, in theory. In practice, it gets politicized, and Islam wants to run the show. And that’s where the Templars came in — the first fusion. Picking up Islam from the Saracens, Jewish mysticism, Egyptian mysteries, happen some Celtic paganism and goddess-worship via the Cistercians. They were accused of undermining Christianity from within and happen there’s some truth in it. A multifaith multinational, building up massive wealth, very, very quickly. Undermining kings and popes.’

‘And did they practise some kind of ritual magic?’

‘It were said they used their knowledge of the so-called dark arts in warfare. Change the weather? Bring down mist, create storms? We’re never really going to know what they were about.’

‘And you see van der Post in the Templar tradition?’

‘In some ways. Mate of Carl Jung, who was an admirer of the Gnostics … and can you find a better Jungian archetype than the green man or the Baphomet? Ah, you can go on like this for ever.’ Huw started gathering up papers. ‘Folk might well be asking why the Duchy’s suddenly buying Templar properties in Herefordshire.’

‘Just the one, surely?’

‘No. Let’s not forget the big project — Harewood Park. Large estate, with an old chapel in the middle, granted to the Knights Templar in 1215 by King John.’

Upstairs, Roscoe started barking.

‘Why don’t I know these things?’ Merrily said.

‘And a satellite of Garway, as it happens. Could be pure coincidence, but some folks might see a significance. The Masons, for instance. They don’t like no longer having a foot under the throne. If he appears to be into Templarism, they’re happen wondering if he might not be ripe for a new approach.’ Huw looked up. ‘How do, lad.’

Lol had let himself in, having slipped off home in the early hours.

Merrily thought he still didn’t look too happy.

For some reason, he was insisting that when she went to see Sycharth Gwilym, she shouldn’t go alone.

49 Let Her Squirm