Page 76 of Feast of Sparks (Thornchapel 2)
“I only know about the Great Rite from books,” Saint says. “But it doesn’t seem that much different than what we did on Imbolc.”
“That’s why someone—Estamond, I think—made that note in the Record,” Proserpina says. “I think they do it differently here than it was done elsewhere.”
“Right, because usually a young woman is selected to be the May Queen and then only performs May Queen duties on May Day—or Beltane, as it were,” Becket chimes in. “But here at Thornchapel, the May Queen is chosen earlier.”
“Consecrated on Imbolc, not Beltane,” Proserpina echoes. “The real question—the one I keep asking myself—is why does it matter? Who cares if the May Queen is chosen and ‘married’ in February rather than May? Why was it important enough for Estamond to cross out? For my mother to underline?”
“Maybe it hews closer to the mythology that way?” Becket wonders aloud. “The May Queen is a representation of the goddess, and the lord of the manor, it seems safe to presume, is the May King, and therefore a representation of the god. Which means both have stirred back to life after the Winter Solstice—”
“They’ve died?” Auden asks, eyebrows raised.
“The god has,” Becket says. “I’ve read a few different versions—that he dies on Lammas or on Samhain or even that he slowly begins to die after the Summer Solstice. Symbolically, of course, although there is some suggestion that these myths were acted out ritualistically.”
Auden pauses mid-drink, and that’s when Proserpina notices that the three men have managed to put an impressive dent in the scotch since she’s fallen asleep. “Acted out like the Stations of the Cross?” Auden asks, his I can pronounce Magdalene College correctly, can you? accent even more vaguely disdainful than usual. “Or are you saying ‘acted out’ as in human sacrifice?”
Becket looks a little uncomfortable. “Well, both, I guess. I mean, yes, acted out in a purely allegorical way, where no one would be killed, but where the legacy of the killing is still present in the ritual.”
Auden sets down the bottle. Clunk. “And by legacy, you mean . . . actual human sacrifice?”
At Becket’s guilty expression, Auden shoves his hands through his hair and pulls. “Why is this place so intent on killing things? People? And this is my home?”
St. Sebastian seems both sympathetic to Auden’s murder angst and also amused by it. “It wasn’t just here, Auden. Human sacrifice was everywhere at one point. Europe. The Levant. The terra-cotta soldiers at the First Emperor’s tomb aren’t surprising because they’re there—they’re surprising because they weren’t actual, sacrificed people instead.”
Auden keeps his hands in his hair but slides his eyes over to Becket and St. Sebastian. “So the god dying—you think that was human sacrifice, once upon a time? Like in The Golden Bough? Because I liked that book too, but you should know nobody takes it seriously anymore.”
“You took it seriously enough to name your dog after the author,” St. Sebastian says mildly.
Auden looks drunkenly affronted. “Sir James Frazer is not a part of this!”
“Wait, which Sir James Frazer?” Proserpina asks, genuinely confused now.
“Anyway,” Becket says over all of them, “this is the mythological framework I think we’
re working with: there’s the death of a god—”
“Not always,” St. Sebastian interjects. “Adonis was mortal.”
“Okay, fine, death of a god and in one case, a mortal.”
St. Sebastian lifts a hand, as if accepting this correction.
“The god—or mortal—is a consort to a goddess. Tammuz had Inanna, Attis had Cybele, Osiris had Isis, and so on—”
“But Jesus and Dionysus are in Frazer’s book and they’re not consorts to anyone,” Proserpina points out. “Even though they fit the mold most of all.”
Becket huffs a little. “I’m not Wikipedia. I’m just trying to explain the context around where these rituals emerged.”
Auden still has his hands in his hair. He clutches his fingers tight to pull harder and then releases a deathbed-worthy sigh. “Go on, Becket, horrify me further.”
Another huff. “As I was saying, when united, the goddess and consort pair are productive and fertile, and this is spring and summer. Everything is growing and wet and green. But then something happens and the consort is killed. Sometimes he’s resurrected, but sometimes he’s not—in any case, the period following his death is winter.”
“Also Inanna and Persephone die or disappear each year too—and it is their absence that causes winter and their return that heralds spring,” Proserpina says. “So let’s not get too caught up in the notion that being a vegetation deity is the sole province of boys.”
“Regardless,” Becket pronounces, “the idea is that these myths are holding onto kernels of older beliefs. You can see traces of human sacrifice everywhere—the Bible, the Greek myths, obviously in concepts like the Wicker Man and John Barleycorn—there’s no doubt that it was real and common right up to the Bronze Age and even later in some cases. But what the Thornchapel practices say to me is that the people here were interested in a very specific kind of sacrifice, a very specific kind of story.”
“The Year King,” St. Sebastian says. And with those quiet words, the arguing stops. The fire cracks again, and Sir James Frazer gives a long groan.
After a minute, Auden drops his hands, looking from Proserpina to St. Sebastian to the priest. “The Year King,” he repeats. “And this is like the priest at Lake Nemi in The Golden Bough?”
