The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman Page A

blood.’
    ‘What sort of phenomena?’
    ‘I’m coming to it. Most of it was centred on the orchard ... just over the wall? Powell’s orchard? Mum, you shivered ...’
    ‘I didn’t!’
    ‘You bloody did. And now you’ve lied in the House of God!’
    Merrily growled. ‘It gets cold in the House of God after a while. Just shut up and get on with it.’
    Jane peered at her notes. ‘Something about ... hogs? Oh. Yeah. The orchard belonged to the Church back then. They produced quite a lot of cider in those days, apparently, and the vicar’s stipend included what he could make out of it. Which was expected to be about fifty hogsheads of cider every year. Is that a lot?’
    ‘I have no idea. What happened in the orchard?’
    ‘Lights,’ Jane said. ‘Lights and music’
    ‘Parish barbecue?’
    ‘Strains of eerie music in the night.’ Jane’s voice dropped to a sepulchral whisper, which wasn’t actually all that funny in the vast, lamplit church. ‘Fiddle music, like for dancing. Little, glowing, bobbing lights among the apple trees. Wil Williams ... dancing with demons.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘One guy actually did see. Or claimed to. Lol couldn’t remember his name, but he was a local miller or tanner, one of these quaint, rustic professions. One dark night, he was coming back from the pub – probably well pissed – and he strayed from the track and wound up in the orchard. Or was kind of lured towards the lights and the music, couldn’t help himself. What’s that noise, Mum?’
    ‘Bats, probably. Vampire bats. Don’t try it on, Jane, I’ve got approximately an hour before the meeting. What happened to the miller?’
    ‘Private screening of the seventeenth-century equivalent of a dirty video. Wil Williams stark naked, dancing around an unearthly light with these silvery, shapely ... demons. Or sprites, as he called them.’
    ‘How very tawdry.’
    ‘Obviously gave the miller a hell of a hard-on.’
    ‘Jane!’
    ‘Sorry. Sorry, God. No, naturally, the miller claimed to have been shocked and terrified and he spread it all round the village, and word reached the Sheriff of Hereford and the Bishop of Hereford, and eventually a bunch of them went round to the vicarage, all official—’
    ‘ Our vicarage?’
    ‘Presumably. It’s old enough, isn’t it? So all these sanctimonious gits arrive on Wil’s doorstep to ask for an explanation or arrest him for devil-worship or whatever the charge was. But there was no answer when they knocked on the door. So they came ... here.’
    Merrily didn’t move. Resisted the urge to look around. It was only a story, it was all in the past, and yet ... she was apprehensive. She didn’t want there to have been some sort of Thomas a Becket death scene at the altar, the honeyed stones stained with innocent blood ... some set-piece slaughter she’d have to try not to think about when she arrived to take communion on drab winter mornings.
    ‘Somebody kicked open the door,’ Jane said.
    This time Merrily did look – towards the main oak door, imagining the group of po-faced guardians of the law striding righteously past the font, bearded men with swords half-drawn.
    ‘But the church was empty,’ Jane whispered. ‘Wil Williams wasn’t here.’
    Merrily sighed. The kid really knew how to spin out a story.
    ‘He was outside,’ Jane said. ‘In the orchard. All dressed up for them, in his full vestments and things.’
    ‘He was expecting them?’
    ‘Presumably,’ Jane said.
    ‘This is the suspense bit, is it?’
    ‘You could say that.’ Jane gave half a smile. ‘He was hanging from an apple tree.’
    ‘Oh God.’
    ‘In his richest vestments,’ Jane said dreamily. ‘Poor Wil, dangling there, all aglow on a bright, sunny morning.’
    Jane nodded to signify The End and closed the notebook with a snap, raising her gaze to the vaulted ceiling so that the amber lights were reflected in her big, dark eyes.
    ‘Terrific’ Merrily blacked out a flash-image of the