Vaesen Ep8: Queen of Sorrow

Dr Hiram Quill (played by Christopher Lee)

Tucked up in their beds at the Abbey Inn in Glastonbury, all the party members dreamed they stood on the shores of the ancient island of Avalon, and saw women in a boat bearing a fallen king approach the island, and disembark, carrying the warrior on a stretcher. In Dr Cedric Fitzpatrick's dream, however, he stood closer to the women than the others, and one of them, obviously the Mourning Queen, glided towards him across the water.

The Mourning Queen offered Fitzpatrick an apple and said she could provide him with power over life and death. Fitzpatrick accepted the apple, which turned rotten, then crumbled into black ash in his hand.

The men awoke from their dreams on a very wet morning in Somerset. Going downstairs, they discussed them at breakfast, speculating that they were witness to the arrival of the body of Arthur to Avalon. They also soon noticed Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) enter the dining room in his dressing gown, looking the worse for wear. He pointedly ignored the investigators, and sat down at a different table, with a gaunt looking man in tweeds with a moustache. They began talking in a conspiratorial manner.

Dr Nathaniel Mew then arrived at the inn to tell the characters of a night full of portents, including that a traveller had disappeared in one of the flooded lanes around Glastonbury and people were out looking for him. Also many of the children in the town had been found out sleep walking in the night, and some had gathered around the Chalice Well. Mew agreed to take the team to the small library of local lore maintained by the Bath & Somerset Antiquarian Society.

Roddy MacLeod determined to go over to speak with Dodgson and the stranger, who proved to be the antiquarian from Bristol, Dr Hiram Quill. While Dodgson was sniffy about Roddy, Quill welcomed him. The two men had been discussing a parchment that sat on the table, but on Roddy's approach, Dodgson had hidden this under his napkin. All Roddy could see of it was the title, the Lament of the Hollow. Quill spoke of the supernatural disturbances affecting Glastonbury and that he was convinced the Mourning Queen walked Avalon again. He invited Roddy to accompany him and Dodgson to the summit of the Tor at noon, where he would be conducting a prayer.

Breakfast over, the group walked with Dr Mew down the high street, only to see several people heading down a lane towards the abbey grounds, including two police. Leaving Fitzpatrick and Mew to carry on to the library, the rest followed the constables to the abbey. Here they found the old medieval cemetery had been completely dug up, although on closer examination, it seemed as if the graves of the monks had fallen in. Their bones were still there. MacLeod was approached by the spectre of a monk which pressed some gravesoil into his hand. William later kept this in his hat. The police seemed baffled by the vandalism of the graves.

At the small two room library Fitzpatrick made little progress in his research on the Mourning Queen, finding only some tomes on legends and witchcraft in the West Country. He did however find some confirmation of the elements of the ritual needed to bind the Queen into the land once more, including the presence of the 'four witnesses' and the use of a sacred stone.

Returning to the inn, it was decided that Roddy would walk up the Tor with Quill and Dodgson while the rest of the party went on ahead to covertly keep watch at a distance. At the summit they found a group of about 40 townspeople and tourists already milling about, as if waiting for them. When Quill arrived, with Roddy and Dodgson, he started to lead the people in a prayer in Old Brythonic. The investigators quickly realised Quill was trying to summon the Mourning Queen. The group moved against Quill to stop him, grappling him and trying to beat him senseless. Dodgson sought to protect him but was hit by an iron axe wielded by Lord George Fallowdrake and knocked to the ground, where he cried plaintively for the police.

The Isle of Avalon

At this point it was seen that apple blossom was raining out of the sky over the Tor. The other people there scattered in fear, crying that the pagan pacts had been broken. Fallowdrake quickly collected some blossom and the group carried the unconscious Quill and the semi-conscious Dodgson off the hill. Fallowdrake removed the parchment with the Lament of the Hollow from Dodgson's pocket.

Before Quill could recover, the party bundled him onto the train to Bristol and removed his shoes. The last they saw of him, he was slumped in a carriage of the 3.43 to Bristol, pulling out of the station. Dodgon was treated by Fitzpatrick and left in his room at the Abbey Inn next to his opium pipe with his head bandaged.

Binding the Mourning Queen

The group now asked Dr Mew to find them the four witnesses they needed for the ritual. They decided that Mew himself would qualify as the priest (as he was a theologian). They ate a late lunch in the inn. Fallowdrake used his spirit writing and necromantic magic to check with the spirits and Isaac Merrow on the location of the binding ritual and any ingredients they might be missing. Merrow emphasised that the edge of the waters surrounding Glastonbury would work. The spirits also mentioned use of the grave soil from the abbey as a key component.

The Mourning Queen

Mew returned with a widow, a midwife and a child around eight in the evening, and the motley team proceeded through the rainy dark to the edge of the town, at the littoral between the high ground and the muddy waters of the flood plain. Here Roddy led the four witnesses in the Lament of the Hollow at midnight.

As the four witnesses began chanting, reality warped and a huge, crystal cathedral seemed to form around the party. At one end the Mourning Queen sat on her throne, while ghostly monks lined the walls. Among them William spotted his doppelganger, wearing a black habit, with a silver tear on his cheek. There was no sign of his fiddle.

The Queen called to William, asking him to return to her as one of her true servants. William decided instead to charge her and attack her with his fabled knuckle dusters. He was assisted in his attack by Fallowdrake. The Queen's defences proved inadequate to the task, and she screamed and vanished under the brutal assault while the 'other' William wept his silver tears. The glass cathedral shattered and collapsed around them and William and Fallowdrake found themselves floundering in the water. Luckily it was not too deep and William managed to rescure Fallowdrake from drowning.

The curse of the Mourning Queen has been lifted from Glastonbury, at least for now. The rain has ceased and our heroes have returned to Harrowcombe where they have built a workshop in the house.

Next time: A witch hunt in the Mendip Hills!