Dying Fall

of the Raven King, Ruth tells her silently. But she is only too happy to see the hikers hiking off in search of more interesting ruins.
    Cathbad, in contrast, seems enchanted with the place.
    ‘This is sacred ground,’ he says. ‘I feel it.’
    Ruth looks at him with mingled irritation and affection. Cathbad is apt to declare any isolated spot sacred ground, and if you add a pagan temple a psychic experience is more or less guaranteed. But, on the other hand,he has just lost his friend in horrible circumstances. Surely he is allowed some kind of spiritual leeway? And it can’t be denied that the site is looking its best in the afternoon light. The hills are dark against the sky. The tourists seem to have vanished and the river runs wide and lonely across the marshes. In the distance, Pendle Hill rises up out of the flat landscape like the hull of a vast ship. As Cathbad stands, head up, eyes shut, absorbing the psychic energies, a flock of geese flies overhead, calling plaintively.
    ‘That’s a sign,’ he says.
    ‘Of what?’ asks Ruth. She is trying to stop Kate digging in the mud. The child’s a born archaeologist.
    ‘Geese were sacred to the Romans,’ says Cathbad evasively. ‘It’s a sign of something.’
    ‘Everything’s a sign of something.’
    ‘Too true, Ruthie.’ He looks sideways at her, wondering if she’s noticed the nickname. ‘Is this where the body was found?’
    ‘Over here. Clayton thought it would have been below the altar.’
    Cathbad lifts a corner of tarpaulin. ‘There’s a really strong presence here.’
    ‘You reckon?’
    ‘Yes.’ Cathbad straightens up. ‘You know, I understand some of what Pendragon must have felt. The druids were a real focus of resistance to the Romans. To know that King Arthur was buried here, in such a Roman spot …’
    ‘After the Romans had left, though.’
    ‘Yes, but it’s a Roman place. It still feels like a Roman place today. A Roman cavalry fort. To Pendragon, Arthur was a mystical British figure, a pagan, a shaman. To find him here, in a Roman grave, to think that he might just have been another Roman cavalryman. It must have been like discovering that Merlin was in the SS.’
    Ruth smiles, but the mention of the SS reminds her that Pendragon, for all his harmless mysticism, had some very strange bedfellows, people who, presumably, believed in the master race and the subjection of others. She remembers Dan’s diaries and the letters calling him an ‘upstart Jew’. Somewhere along the line the shamans have got mixed up with the bad guys.
    She turns to check that Kate isn’t trying to eat the soil and finds that the little girl is standing stock still, staring at something across the river.
    ‘Funny lady,’ says Kate.
    Ruth follows her gaze and sees a figure moving steadily along the riverbank. Contrary to Kate’s description, it’s impossible to tell if it’s a man or woman because the person is dressed in a long white robe and hood. As Ruth, Cathbad and Kate watch, the robed figure turns to look at them. There is a black void where the face should be.

CHAPTER 26
    ‘A mask,’ says Cathbad. ‘It was obviously a black mask.’
    It is evening and Kate is in bed. Ruth and Cathbad are eating a Chinese takeaway in the kitchen. Neither of them had wanted to alarm Kate so it’s the first time that they have discussed the sinister figure on the riverbank. Not that Kate had seemed frightened. Both Ruth and Cathbad had found her silent acceptance of the apparition rather chilling. She had simply put her hand in Ruth’s and said ‘Home now’. And they had all, the two adults, the child and the dog, turned for home. Even Thing had seemed subdued. Now Kate is asleep and Thing is happily eating prawn crackers under the table. Cathbad refills their glasses.
    ‘It gave me a bit of a shock,’ he admits.
    ‘Me too,’ says Ruth, taking a gulp of wine. ‘The cloak, the hood, the mask. The way it appeared so suddenly. It was terrifying.’
    ‘Do you think the show was for our benefit?’
    ‘How could it be? No one knew we were going to Ribchester this afternoon.’
    ‘Do you think it was – what do they call him – the Arch Wizard?’
    This is exactly what Ruth has been thinking but she feels the need to squash this idea. The idea that the leader of the White Hand should materialise like that, right by the grave of King Arthur, it’s too spooky to contemplate.
    ‘Of course not,’ she says. ‘It was just some random druid.