Page 86 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Power,” Dr. Davidson says. “The horror the ancients felt—that we feel—that is a kind of power. The inspiration millions have taken from the oblation on the cross—that is a kind of power. Fear, legacy, exhortation, security, absolution—power, power, power. That power is what drew your mother to study it. That power is why the memory of ritualized murder stays with us, even though the practice itself is long over.”
But is it over? Poe wants to ask. Estamond killed herself in the thorn chapel. Ralph Guest killed her mother. According to her father and even Reverend Dartham, people have been going to the thorn chapel far more recently than the Bronze Age. And not just people, but her own family. And Auden’s.
Remember, Estamond had said. It will happen again.
Poe picks up her drink and considers. She’s not afraid of asking questions, especially of teachers, but “questions inspired by dreams” is new territory for her.
Oh, what the hell. “Do you know anything about someone named John Barleycorn?” she asks.
The archeologist studies her for a moment. “Superficially, a folk character,” she says. “Burns has a poem about him, based on even older poems and songs. A man named John Barleycorn is cut, crushed, burned, and then his blood is drunk by his killers, and it gives them courage and heart.”
Poe sees immediately. “So he’s not really a person at all. He’s the plant! Scythed and ground into grain.”
“And brewed into delicious beer,” Dr. Davidson says, lifting her own bottle of John Barleycorn’s blood. “It makes for a good drinking song. But in the drinking songs, some might see the imprint of a deeper meaning. An older meaning.”
“John Barleycorn is a memory,” Poe murmurs.
Dr. Davidson looks surprised. “Exactly so. He represents the harvest—the cycle of sowing, growing, and reaping. He represents the spirit of the grain, which to the pre-Christian Europeans, was a real entity who needed a place to house himself when the grain was cut down. The practice of corn dollies—or leaving a hollow sheaf in the fields, depending on your geography—comes from this idea. The dolly or the sheaf would house the spirit of the grain through the winter, and then during sowing season, it would be plowed under the first furrow of spring, thus returning the god into the ground to grow again. The last grain to be harvested is the first to be sown, harvest into planting into harvest again. Death feeding life, and so on. I assume the human sacrifice subtext is plenty apparent here?”
Poe nods.
“The idea of the Year King is an enduring one, even if it’s lacking in actual evidence,” Dr. Davidson continues. “That a king is tied to the land in such a visceral way that his death is necessary to feed it. He must not grow old, he must not grow weak—he must be cut down when he is healthy and strong and vital—and then be fed back to the land that fed him. As the poem goes, John Barleycorn must die.”
John Barleycorn is a memory. She understands why Dream-Estamond meant it as a warning now. Because Poe knows about Year Kings . . . about Thorn Kings. Which means the memory of John Barleycorn is the memory of them, and she thinks again of Estamond bending the torc around her neck, walking to the thorn chapel alone in the dark.
“Dr. Davidson,” Poe asks, and then stops. And then starts again. “Do you have any theories as to why people would do this? Like, if they lived . . . recently. Not in
ancient times.”
The older woman takes a drink, already shaking her head. “They don’t do this if they lived recently,” she says. “This isn’t a modern practice, Proserpina. It’s not even a pre-modern one. The idea of human ritual murder was already abhorred by the time of Christ, that’s how old it is. And at any rate, I only deal in what I can touch and what I can see. I can give you facts. If you want religion, you’ll have to go to your father.”
“You promised.”
The lunch is over and all the guests—excluding Samson Quartey—are gone. The house has been tidied up, the dogs are napping, and Poe’s just cornered her father and Samson talking on the deck.
“You promised,” Poe reminds her father when he turns to face her. “You said if I came home, you’d tell me why you and Mom went to Thornchapel. You said you’d tell me what you were doing that summer.”
She expects him to defer, to deflect. She expects him to hedge away from answering like he has so many times before. But he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he looks over to Rebecca’s father, who nods at him, and it’s the kind of nod that makes Poe think they’ve already discussed this.
“You’re right,” David Markham says. “But I think all of you deserve to hear it, all together.”
It takes close to thirty minutes, but eventually everyone is gathered in the living room, sitting on overstuffed sofas and chairs—except for Auden, who sits on the floor so that everyone else can have a seat. His lap and legs are immediately covered with dogs looking for ear scratches, which he furnishes with a small smile and several low croons.
David insists that everyone has a drink, and while he’s pouring whisky and gin for his guests, Poe hears Delphine say to Rebecca, “Did you hear Emily Genovese say yesterday she’s coming to London next month? For a film festival?”
Rebecca’s voice is tense when she answers. “I didn’t.”
“Maybe we should take her out to dinner,” Delphine muses. “Or see if she’d like to come to Justine’s! That would be a nice way to welcome to her to London, since she let us play at Orthia’s.”
“Sounds brilliant,” Rebecca mutters.
Poe only has a second to wonder why Rebecca doesn’t seem to like Emily before Poe’s father is seated on a sofa next to Samson. They look cute together, in a mismatched kind of way—Samson in carefully pressed pants and a sport coat, and Poe’s dad in jeans and a fraying University of Kansas T-shirt.
David takes a drink and says to Samson, “I wish the others were here.”
“You mean our parents,” Becket says from his chair, nodding down to Delphine. Neither the Hesses nor the Danseys were able to come to Kansas for the funeral.
“They should be the ones to tell you,” Poe’s father says uncomfortably.
