The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman

reassurance.
    ‘Mum? That you?’
    Merrily’s eyes opened. ‘In here!’
    Jane’s head appeared round the door, hair as dark as the oak. ‘You’re not doing anything ... private?’
    ‘Like what, for heaven’s sake?’
    ‘You know ...’
    ‘Like doing the rounds? Locking up?’
    Merrily stood with hands on hips. Getting a bit fed up with this attitude, the kid treating God like a stepfather. Was it always going to be like this until she left home and old mum in the dog collar became a figure of affectionate amusement?
    ‘Got him, Mum.’
    ‘Well, don’t leave him on the mat. Who are we talking about?’
    ‘Wil. Wil Williams.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘One L. He was Welsh.’
    ‘Anything wrong with that in the seventeenth century?’
    ‘A lot wrong with him, ’ Jane said. ‘In the seventeenth century. Though I don’t think it would’ve worried me.’
    ‘Well, that’s wonderful,’ Merrily said glumly. ‘That’s all we need, isn’t it?’
    They sat side by side in the front pew.
    ‘There’s no evidence he was. ’ Jane picked at the thick varnish on the prayer-book ledge. ‘Not what you’d call real evidence. I mean, people were always getting stitched up in those days.’
    ‘But not vicars. Believe me, there’s very little history of this kind of thing inside the Anglican Church.’
    ‘Very little of interest has ever gone on inside the Anglican Church.’ Jane grinned. ‘Still, they haven’t had you very long yet, have they?’
    ‘Ha.’ Merrily looked up at the Norman arch, so plain, so curiously modern-looking. ‘All right, why hadn’t we heard about this, Jane? Why isn’t it a celebrated case, like Salem, Massachusetts?’
    ‘Because he was only one bloke, I suppose. Besides, it never came to a trial, according to Lol.’
    ‘Lol?’
    ‘Guy in the shop. Very nervous.’
    ‘You make everyone nervous. Where was Miss Devenish?’
    ‘Day off. Look, it’s all straight up.’ Jane pulled a little notepad from her jacket. ‘Date: 1670. That makes it after the Reformation, right?’
    ‘Restoration.’
    ‘Whatever. After Cromwell. Was that Charles the Second’s time, guy in the curly wig? Anyway, in rural areas, they were still very reactionary and always on the lookout for witches to persecute. Poor old Wil put himself well in the frame.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘I’ll tell it in sequence, so I get it right. He’d been vicar a couple of years, OK? Got the job possibly on the recommendation of the Rector of Credenhill, the poet guy ... ?’
    ‘Thomas Traherne.’
    ‘Yeah. They were mates. Went for long nature rambles together, Lol reckons, discussing ethics and stuff. Only then Traherne gets a new job near London, and when he leaves there’s nobody to stick up for little Wil and somebody like dropped him in it, big-time.’
    Merrily smiled. Jane’s style of historical narration wasn’t exactly textbook, but it did confer a certain immediacy.
    ‘See, from what I can make out, Wil Williams was serious, serious totty. Like really great-looking, in a poetic, ethereal, unworldly sort of way. Strawberry-blond, unblemished, lovely smile. Women swooning in the aisle kind of scenario.’
    Merrily frowned. ‘You’re not embellishing this by any chance? Because if you drop me in it at this meeting ...’
    ‘Swear to God. And it’s significant because this could be one reason he wasn’t all that popular with the men. I mean the macho, hunting types who ran things. Lol reckons parsons in those days were expected to ride with the hunt, drink too much port, get gout ...’
    ‘Sure. Go on.’
    Jane turned over a page in her notebook, following the lines with a forefinger; she’d never quite outgrown that.
    ‘Very superstitious times, OK? So when you get reports of strange phenomena, I mean, you know ... Sounds like complete rubbish, total crap, today. But people didn’t take too much convincing back then. Everything was an omen. You only had to start a rumour and they’d all be screaming for