The Two Confessions

by John Whitbourn

  ‘Single file,’ he commanded - albeit quietly. ‘Twelve steps on and then halt to reform.’

  In the event their path dictated that anyway. A dozen steps were all that remained after they edged past the bars. The stairs and descent ended in a wide vestibule whose edges were beyond the torches' reach.

  ‘Circle. Then to the centre. My lead.’

  This was another long-practised formation. The soldiers formed an outer ring round the two engineers and the Wizard. Samuel was at '12 o'clock' and others at '3', '6' and '9' could be deputised to lead the way at need.

  They soon discovered myriad small objects underfoot, making each step treacherous. Samuel called a halt, and torches directed floorwards revealed they were walking on coins; a patchy, scattered layer of minted gold. Some looked fairly modern, others ancient indeed.

  ‘Don't even think about it,’ Trevan ordered, in wearied tones. Several of the gun-toters had developed stooping shoulder syndrome. It was rather disappointing really: he'd had hopes such a careful selection process might have sifted out those enslaved to instinct. But, thinking on, it was really more his failing than theirs. His fault in forgetting, even temporarily, the reliable shabbiness of human nature. Shame on him.

  A few paces on and a grinning face lurched into sight. Fortunately it was dead - long dead - and detached from its former body and covering flesh.

  The skull had been impaled on a rough-hewn stake, which was itself driven deep into the floor slabs.

  Trevan drew close to his cheerful new friend and looked him (or her) in the eye. He learnt nothing. An exploratory tap to the brow dislodged a gentle fall of dust.

  ‘Human,’ he announced.

  ‘Deceased,’ added the Wizard.

  Samuel span on him and served an evidently eloquent 'not here, stupid!' expression which shut the man up. Indeed, it almost shocked him into apology - almost.

  There were other occupied poles dimly visible now and Trevan ordered all torches held aloft. The chamber's outer limits came into rough and ready view. It proved to be ideal: he'd been looking for somewhere safe and small-ish to wean them off bunching together against the dark.

  ‘1, 4, 7 and 11 o'clock to the room corners. Then torches high.’

  It was gratifying and a tribute to him or his training that they went right away, no slacking; scrunching and sliding over the coinage carpet.

  The rest of them waited in a constricted circle for the artificial dawn.. It duly came - and, like the real one, revealed a landscape of mixed blessings.

  They were alone and unthreatened; the way ahead was fairly clear: a tunnel at the room's far end, like the one they'd just quit. Meanwhile, the making of moderate prosperity was all around, there for the taking. On the other hand, there were... discouragements. It was not a happy place.

  Quite apart from the heads and body-parts thrust onto spikes, rearing up at eye-level from the floor, even a poor light showed the garish colour scheme that was surely no monastic choice. Brown and pink washes raged for supremacy on walls and floors and ceiling, in coats of varying thickness and age. The overall effect was claustrophobic, like being inside a joint of beef.

  Samuel queried it with a look to the Wizard. He shrugged back his lack of comprehension.

  ‘That’s a mystery too,’ the magician added, pointing at the nearest wall.

  Samuel looked - and then peered harder. Could sorcerers enhance their sight as well as all the other unfair advantages? He tried again and then grasped the elusive images. A shape or symbol: innumerable upturned and impaled m's, or maybe a speared seagull, was daubed in mad, overlapping, lack of order on every flat surface. Soot or charcoal had been employed for some, but most were suspicious-red or faecal brown.

  ‘I think,’ said Wulfstan, transcending the decor to give a dispassionate opinion, ‘that this was the vestibule; the way in.’

  His assistant, a pale and intense youth, consulted his drawing.

  ‘We've met the primary avenue,’ he agreed. ‘It should lead back to the main gate blocked in 1702.’

  ‘Only now there's a new way out,’ butted in one of the corner men. He was an old London acquaintance of Trevan's and thus felt up to joining their counsels.

  Samuel went to look. The man was right but not thanked for it. What looked like a giant animal burrow clawed its way upwards at the junction of two walls. Though hardly fresh-made it was a lot younger than anything else here. Trevan knelt to investigate and thought he caught the ghost, far away above, of blessed fresh air. There wasn't space for a man to stand upright within but a crouched ascent might be just about possible. So, someone or something here cared to interact with the wider world. If you considered carefully there was comfort in that. Things that need routes for feet also had tongues to make talk and bodies to skewer.

  ‘Doors here, sir.’

  The low call came from the other side of the hall. Samuel crossed from one shadow zone to the other, threading his way through the stake display. Four decayed but still standing doors were pointed out to him. This was something else they'd anticipated and rehearsed.

  ‘Threes,’ he ordered. ‘In and hold.’

  A team of three addressed the first door. At Trevan's signal, one soldier booted it aside (and asunder) and stood back. Another piled in with torch and pistol; the third stood by, aiming, ready to supply back-up or revenge.

  ‘Clear!’ The process and call was repeated four times without incident. Samuel then went on a tour of inspection. They were all small side-rooms, functional adjuncts (once) to the entry hall. Taking a torch himself, he made swift inventory:

  One: spare stakes, some flint knives (adeptly knapped); two stone bowls, a new-cut rowan branch. Dust and dirt.

  Two: a part consumed man, long set aside and mummified by age. A clerical collar hung around his thin chewed neck.

  Three: an armoury - of sorts. Two old muskets, not matched; a brace of pistols likewise; four spears, flint or glass topped; more flint knives and two human hands.

  Four: nothing - but in the corner was another burrow, leading far away into dark. A faint, warm, animal odour trickled down it. Trevan sensed life but not intelligence. He disdained to explore. They were after bigger game.

  ‘Not for us,’ he told the Wizard on re-emerging. ‘Others can apply cleansing fire and sword. Form column! Far tunnel!’

  They assembled commendably quickly and advanced. The passage was broad and fair going and they no longer walked on human money. Wulfstan's whisper numbered their steps for his assistant to note. At fifty they were stopped again.

  Once more, at outer torch limit, their encounter had the semblance of life, but closer to they were reassured - if not much. The effigy was crude, even allowing that they weren't sure what was depicted. Stone and gravel, dirt and bone, were compacted in some unknown matrix to make a shape. It had two arms and two legs, plus two breasts and a head: so it could be said to be man-like. But even assuming a spectacularly bad sculptor, Samuel did not think a human likeness was intended.

  The Wizard came front-wards and examined it like a connoisseur pondering an acquisition.

  ‘I’d say a demi-demon,’ he said, in his own good time, ‘of obscure breed. Disva perhaps? A padfoot? But no, note the pendulous udders and huge lashed eyes. I confess myself uncertain, Mr Trevan. There is infinite variety of these scum from nature's bath-tub.’

  So Samuel had heard, though the Lord's favoured creation had exterminated many and driven the rest into the margins of the world. His interest lay more in learning this sort’s mettle than a precise taxonomic placing.

  ‘But note the repetition of the vestibule motif,’ said the magician, eager, for once, to supply helpful information. He pointed to the large 'impaled m' painted with incongruous care on the thing's bulging loins.

  ‘And you note these,’ Trevan replied, indicating the vestigially moist intestines coiled bandoleer-style round its shoulders. Tokens of contemporary life were mounting up.

  ‘I had,’ said the Wizard, without
inflection.

  There were doors to left and right but Samuel ignored them. He'd got the tone of the place now and didn't need to bother with side issues. The column parted around the tribute to something-or-other and moved on.

  Another fifty paces forward and they saw light ahead to greet them. It was no torch flare and certainly not the sun's rays, but rather more of a dismal glow. Samuel wondered at the ancient instincts within that made any light at all welcome.

  The corridor ended and they entered a colossal space, vastly beyond their powers of illumination. The light source was somewhere out in the middle of that expanse and they felt dwarfed and vulnerable in the sudden immensity. Wulfstan's assistant's dull-dog focus saved them by supplying location.

  ‘This must be the cloisters,’ he said, apparently uninhibited by the brooding silence. ‘I reckon they've followed standard layout. There'll be a walkway round and all sorts of rooms off it. If I'm right, the ‘refectory’ should be over to the west.’

  ‘Speak plain,’ snapped Samuel, ‘Or do you see sun and stars to guide us?’

  ‘Sorry, I mean the left. The kitchens and eating room and sleeping quarters should all be to the left. Y’see, there was an underground monastery in Estonia once - before it was overrun. I got hold of a plan. So far this is like it: not exact, but good enough.’

  Trevan was impressed, though he didn't show it. He foresaw a big bonus for this boy should they both survive.

  Wulfstan didn't want to feel left out.

  ‘I picked him myself,’ he confided. ‘He'll go far.’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Samuel. ‘He'll go to this 'refectory' and prove his theory.’

  He turned back to the assistant. ‘Refresh my memory: name?’

  ‘Winston: Winston Cook.’

  ‘Right, Winston; take four blokes and check it out. Oh, and 'fore you go, what should be over there where that glow is?’

  The youth tried to nonchalantly ride the surprise extra delivery of fear. He almost managed it, hiding reaction in a hasty flick through papers attached to his clipboard.

  ‘A central feature: to aid contemplation sort of thing. A statue? Or maybe a fountain.’

  ‘Thanks. Cheerio.’

  Young Winston departed like a dog to a bath but had to hurry lest the soldiers left him behind. They disappeared into the black, a diminishing cluster of fireflies.

  ‘Let the boy earn his spurs,’ Trevan told the rest. ‘Meanwhile, we'll wander in cloistered calm’

  ‘Peter 2, chapter 1, verse 19,’ intoned the Wizard. ‘‘Ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place’.’

  ‘Yeah, that as well,’ said Samuel. He'd meant his levity to settle the troops, not incite the magician to scripture. ‘Let's go look at this light.’

  It was a bit of a wrench to leave the 'safety' of the corridor and issue out into the void. The torches' best efforts fell far short of the roof, and the clack of their heels, magnified and repeated, spawned the desire to mince along like a troupe of burly ballerinas. Dignity prevailed in that particular struggle but resolve weakened just a notch.

  'Boy' Winston was soon proved to be doubly, even trebly, right. Slaves to the founding template, the monastery builders had put a sloping roof over the cloister-walk, even when there was no sun or rain to guard against. Then, in the centre of the presumed square, they saw there had been a statue and a fountain - once.

  The original stone figure - a saint or church-father - was more than mutilated: it had been perverted a universe away from initial intentions. A monstrous stone prick had been grafted on, and the pelvic parts of a skeleton impaled on that. Where once there'd been a human head and piety depicted, a monster's face now sat in grinning triumph. Its skinny arms were likewise raised in acclaim.

  Below, in the dry bowl of the ornate fountain, there were rag bundles; torso-shaped and carelessly piled high. Fortunately, they had an excuse not to enquire about them, for that would have meant treading upon the mushroom fields.

  Ordinary fungi don’t glow, and so that alone would have marked them out from the norm. However, their leprous light was only one of the incentives against consumption. Samuel was a country boy and had often gone mushroom gathering at dawn to enliven the orphanage menu. Even so, he'd never seen anything like these gooey, bulging, pink things, nor would he be distraught never to see the like again. They gave the impression that the slightest brush would trip some internal pressure, setting off a bomb of spores.

  Yet someone must have relished them, for these were definitely fields of cultivation. All around the fountain, almost to the cloisters' edge, the monks' paving slabs were levered up to make way for a dark layer of humus. Some areas had been harvested of mature specimens, and reed baskets ditched to one side made their utility crystal clear.

  Samuel doubted it was pure imagination to detect gentle movement amidst the crop. It was like observing an obscene phalli farm.

  ‘What d'you reckon?’ he asked the Wizard. ‘Food or poison?’

  ‘Tricky, Mr Trevan: as you know, one man's meat is another man's-....’

  ‘Forget it! Circle. Follow me!’

  He took them back to the deathly-still cloister route, near to where they'd entered. Its token outer wall and pointless tile roof supplied illusory comfort.

  ‘Look!’

  It was one of the local hirelings who spoke. A gamekeeper by trade, he was very far from anything remotely sympathetic to him. His voice conveyed urgency so Samuel stopped and complied.

  ‘Look at what?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said the man.

  ‘One annoying cunt is enough: not you as well!’

  ‘I meant no dust: there should be even dust all over. Not here in the middle path there 'ain't.’

  Trevan checked and saw it was so.

  ‘Others walk here,’ the gamekeeper concluded, ‘and regular-like.’

  ‘Perhaps some of the original monks got left behind?’ said a sadly familiar voice.

  Samuel suddenly found it easier to transcend the Wizard’s 'wit'. His day of reckoning would come.

  ‘Thank you, keeper. Good work. Move on.’

  At last they hit the corner of the huge chamber and could turn north along its second, 'eastern', side. Now there were doors varying the plainness of the wall, but they were hardly inviting. Samuel sought excuse for ignoring them and found it in not wanting a barrier between themselves and the detached party.

  Wulfstan had taken over mapping duties and his pen tapped two hundred paces before the opportunity arrived to turn again. They then hugged the wall along the third side, a constellation of puny lights in orbit round a cold fungoid sun.

  The doors had stopped: which was a relief - until Trevan admitted to himself that exploration without event shouldn’t be regarded as a blessing. They'd - he'd - let himself be lulled. 'First entrance - we go in,' he resolved.

  The great scriptwriter himself must have been listening, for straightaway an enormous doorway came step by step into torch range. As best Samuel could judge it was half way along the cloisters' northern wall, opposite the corridor that had brought them here.

  ‘Double door. Team of five,’ he decreed; then stepped up to be one of them.

  Neither the proposal nor variation flustered anyone - which was good grounds for carrying through. Trevan felt justified in saying ‘Go!’

  Two men slammed the solid barriers back and retired. Samuel and two others stepped in.

  The lack of response or anyone to meet them allowed space to consider the implications. Wood of medieval vintage should long ago have rotted and weakened, even in this arid place. Likewise, centuries of disuse ought to have welded hinges into stubborn blobs of rust. The way these doors were so ready to serve spoke volumes. Samuel observed the signs of present occupation slowly dawning on even the dullest of the team but, visibly at least, no one wavered.

  It was another big room, not as cavern-like as the one they'd left, but still above torch range. Its function leapt out at them, ev
en if nothing else did. Those parts they could see were lined with shelves. Books and bits of books were everywhere, some stacked neatly while others, grossly tortured, lay wounded on the ground. Samuel edged forward under the cover of guns to sample the wares.

  The worst treated were the oldest: he found only loose bindings and stray pages of those. He didn't trouble his scant Latin to discern precisely what they'd been. Some of them were likely original monastery stock, like the beautifully illuminated capital he found actually nailed to the floor. Another, more recent, tome, a translation of Herodotus, looked like it had been shot through; probably after the addition of childish obscenities. Someone had spent hours drawing crude (in every sense) stick figures on every page. Samuel was about to hurl it from him when he recalled their location. The travesty was gently – and silently - replaced.

  Yet, for all the wild anarchy wreaked on some of the stock, Trevan found other sections to be fastidiously arranged. He examined one such and discovered every work one could wish for (and more) on ornithology. Another gathered together all that Jane Austen had ever written, including editions only a few years old. They looked well thumbed.

  Samuel had been brought up to revere the printed word, and that remained with him even now when much else was lost. All the same, the wantonness of this assembly, its tedium and perversity repelled him. He felt the urge to burn it, preferably along with its owner. Which, for once, was no vain daydream. In present circumstances, he might actually get to indulge the desire.

  ‘Someone's buggered a good library,’ he told his team, and left it - and the ‘library’ - at that.

  Across its expanse, in the corner of the northern wall, there was a smaller door. A 'team-of-two' was sufficient to hit that and reveal a small office, recently vacated. The disorder there was more personal, though not so great as in the library. A selection of volumes on a desk looked intended for reading, not violation. There were pens and ink and candles. On a nearby trestle table was set an array of flasks and glassware and botanical specimens standing ready in pestles. An enquiring mind had clearly lingered here not so long ago.