The Two Confessions

by John Whitbourn

  So, what if this week he married this delicious wench and set her up somewhere convenient? There was no one to see or object, not to hand nor in Heaven. Who was around to say nay?

  That being so, he’d damned well do it.

  And next week he'd go to Lewes and marry again.

  ************

  Attendance at Father Omar's funeral Mass was phenomenal. Half Lewes town turned up, and former St Philipians, many of them now nicely established, came from all over United England. The Bishop preached about good shepherds, the orphanage choir sang Purcell's sublime requiem for 'King James-the-True', and even prim people so far forgot themselves as to fight to touch the bier as it left St Pancras' priory church. A sharp summer shower, like the sudden fall of tears, did not disperse them or dampen their fervour. On the contrary, it seemed fitting.

  Samuel would have enjoyed that honourable scrimmage and been first and fiercest among them. Not a few looked for him there but looked in vain. He had a pressing alternative engagement at that precise moment: mounting his Welsh fiancée.

  Someone who knew Omar well had acquired some soil from the Holy City. A handful of it followed the deceased into the grave, landing on the shrouded face. Then the grown-up orphan boys, weeping or grim according to type, piled on the more homely but almost as loved earth of Omar's adopted Sussex.

  That night the Town taverns did poor business. Some even shut as a mark of respect. The dead priest's name was commended to God from numerous devotions, and would be (though, naturally, at rapidly declining rate) for some time to come.

  The Cathedral recalled deceased priests of the diocese every year at a special Mass. Their collective labours and dedication were thus brought to the Deity's attention, but there were just too many for individual mention. Likewise with St Philip's Orphanage 'founders-day' observances, when prayers were said for teachers past.

  Omar left behind a pitiful sum, not even enough to purchase one year's obits; but his executors concluded that must be by choice. It was all too like him to prior disperse what little he had in charity.

  Truth was, people assumed Omar Abdalhaqq ibn J'nna would not be long in purgatory in any case, and therefore unneedful of prayers. Perversely, the lack of arrangements was a tribute to his memory. They meant well. It simply did not occur to anyone that his wishes might be strongly otherwise.

  Father Omar had entrusted that knowledge to only one other person - and died with misplaced faith in him intact.

  U[U[U[U[U[U[U

  U[U[U[U[U[U[U

  ************

  ************

  THE SECOND CONFESSION

  'Nothing is true, and everything is permissible.'

  Traditionally attributed to Hassan i Sabbah, 'The Old Man of the Mountains'. (1034?-1124 AD)

  ************

  ‘We should be careful

  of each other, we should be kind.

  While there is still time.’

  Philip Larkin. ‘The Mower’. 12th June 1979 AD

  ************

  ************

  ************

  THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2020

  'I am fain to find God's city,

  That lies hid in Sussex hills....'

  'The Hidden City'. Arthur F. Bell.

  ************

  'For Lewes Town like Heaven is,

  And Heaven is like Lewes Town.'

  'St Peter & St Paul'. Sheila Kaye-Smith.

  ************

  cHAPTER 1

  ‘Dragons.’

  Samuel looked again. It was always the same answer and he wouldn't have it.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘They be dragon’s teeth, boss - what the Flood done for. I often comes across 'em.’

  Trevan trusted the foreman in all his other professional judgements. There was no good reason to come over doubtful now. And yet....

  He examined the array of regularities bound up in a matrix of chalk, tilting the thing this way and that, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘So how come we don't see them nowadays then?’

  For once the foreman's curiosity was dimmed. Show him an old-time knapped flint or pottery rim and he'd be over it like a sailor on shore leave, but this just failed to fire him.

  ‘I already says: they drownded.’

  Samuel persevered.

  ‘What: all of them?’

  ‘Pre-sumably. Noah wouldn't have 'em aboard. I don't blame him. Same with the giants and unicorns and such.’

  ‘Evidently.’ Trevan's tone was desert-dry.

  Foreman plainly thought the place for such relicts was the spoil heap from whence Samuel had recovered it. He wanted to talk about the marvellous discoveries they'd made atop Mount Caburn; not freaks God had turned a cold eye on.

  Trevan perceived that and was gentle. He said no more and replaced the small block - though noting its position for later. Unbeknownst to Foreman, his master had a fair collection of these mysteries now, gathered from all over.

  ‘Show me this burnt stuff then,’ he told his employee, and followed in his enthusiastic wake.

  The labourers had cleaned and cleared the trench for inspection. They were a picked team, winnowed free over the years of secret scoffers and those bemused by careful delving in the earth. Some of them had actually 'caught the bug' and took a keen interest in their work. Trevan had been known to arrange reading classes for the best and then lend them books. He could - when he wanted - be a good boss. There was fierce competition for his post-shearing, post-harvest, seasonal employ.

  The wind blew strong - as it usually did - across the top of Mount Caburn, and Samuel had wisely left his stovepipe hat down in the carriage in Glynde. Thinning hair a-dance he approached the hillfort's first rampart and was guided to the ladder down. He was no longer the explosion-waiting-to-happen of youth and young manhood, and there were crystal-conglomerates starting to restrict the freedom of his joints. All the same, he was still up to descending a deep trench unaided and assisting hands were batted away.

  ‘Bugger off! Who d'you think I am: Old Father Time?’

  That got some grins. Master was in a good mood and on fine form today.

  Samuel reviewed the section, strata by strata, and finally approved. It had taken him untold curses and some sackings to get the diggings done as he wished, but now they knew how. Sides had to be plumb-bob straight and the base-layer brushed speck-less. He'd hammered home the point that Mother Earth would only answer precisely framed questions. She had to be seduced with trowel and hand-shovel, not ravished with a pick. Foreman had long ago got the point and then run with it. Now Trevan himself could not have done the work so well.

  ‘Oh, I see….’

  He'd spotted the thin layer of black carbon concluding the inner edge.

  ‘That's 'er, boss. I reckon the fort was fired. There were a palisade on top and it tumbled down ablaze to ‘ere.’

  Trevan looked closer. The man was probably right. They'd lifted history's veil.

  ‘And this just above is natural accumulation, I think,’ said Samuel.

  ‘Wind-blow and soil-creep,’ agreed Foreman. ‘So, she weren't repaired or cleared. The visitors done the fort in and then left her be.’

  ‘What about dating material?’

  ‘Sea-pebble sling stones; nothing else yet.’

  ‘Belgae Celts?’ Samuel hazarded.

  ‘Reckon so, boss. Caesar says they were slingers.’

  Trevan was impressed. Foreman read with pointing finger and moving lips but he'd evidently battled through the ancient sources.

  ‘So, maybe the attackers were Romans?’

  ‘Could be, boss. I propose to take the ditch down to natural and then lift a strip of interior. That's where I hopes for pots and coins - for dating like.’

  Samuel nodded. It was what he would have done.

  ‘Good plan. Do it - but send word when you hit bottom. I want to sketch the rampart section myself.’

  ‘Righty-ho.’

  Fo
reman was already scratching at the burnt layer before Trevan was even halfway back up the ladder. He started the ascent cheerful enough but arrived disgruntled at being puffed out. There was always something there in life to spit on contentment.

  ‘What - are - you - lot - staring - at?’

  He knew the waiting workmen didn't deserve that and so felt even worse.

  ‘Fine work though,’ he added, after pause for breath and when the labourers were having trouble trying to ignore his gasps. ‘Visit the Lewes Arms tonight: there'll be a pound behind the bar.’

  That received a ragged cheer. It was enough for merriment but not oblivion. Everything Mr Trevan did seemed just as carefully judged. They were wary of him.

  Work resumed and Samuel was left alone to wander off.

  At Caburn's very top there was a view down into Lewes. He stood there and drank it in. For the thousandth time he told himself he'd won - and it still had the power to please.

  From there Samuel could see St Philip's-in-Cliffe and the life-size Omar of bronze outside. Within, they'd be working on the St Guy's Day effigy he'd funded; their best and biggest yet. If it didn't win the Orphanage first prize for the third year running Trevan would want to know the reason why.

  Up the rise of School Hill and High Street were Southover and Galen House, which he'd got from old man Farncombe and then glorified with marble. The Sicarii had squared him - and the Town panel - and everyone. Melissa said her father hadn't regained colour for two days after the Negro's call. Consequently, he'd gone to their grand wedding; apparently reconciled. Trevan and he even had some - halting - conversations in the years that followed, before father-in-law obligingly upped and died. Samuel had arranged a very decent headstone, considering. With the eye of faith, its white angel in St Michael's churchyard was just about visible from here. Samuel gloated over it. It was probably very cold in the ground this morning. He certainly hoped so.

  Further afield was his Welsh wife, installed in comfort and Guildford, up in the distant Surrey hills. He'd also got another woman stowed in Pevensey-by-the-sea, whose conversation could keep him with her for a whole evening, even after they'd been to bed. Trevan thought of each - and all the others - fairly often, but they were really, at base (so to speak), just entertainments. The only one he had to have was nearby and kept close, currently doing whatever it was she did when he wasn't looking, in Southover.

  Melissa had grown in girth just like Samuel (a man of the world complete with expanding equator). Likewise, she’d gone grey and lost her teeth. But there weren't two minutes together, not any day, when she wasn't in his thoughts one way or another. It was like longing for a thing and having it at the same time, all the time: cake and eating it: a perpetual festival. And if they hadn't been blessed with children to make things perfect, well: it wasn't for want of trying. Snow on the roof didn’t mean the fire had gone out. They'd had - and still had - their fun, and meanwhile Melissa mothered the Orphanage instead. It seemed to suffice. Samuel had never so much as raised his voice to her, let alone a hand. There'd been no need.

  It was November the second and an air of anticipation rose from the town like a buzz. From Trevan's vantage point he could count no less than seven huge bonfires in waiting. Everywhere people would be stockpiling fireworks and planning mild mischief. Samuel personally sponsored two of the societies in addition to the Orphanage effort. Lewes would have voted him Mayor if the Church had permitted. It should have been a faultless vista for him to behold.

  But Samuel being Samuel, he sought faults to frown at and fight against. There was invariably something if you looked long enough. Today, he found it in the dun clouds over Horsham way. They were going nowhere at present but perhaps...? Trevan wondered if the rain would hold off, both from his excavation and the bonfire jollities.

  And speaking of ‘buzzes’, the annoying inner resonance had returned to plague him. At first he'd thought it mere imagination, but recently that nice notion had been laid to rest. His doctor said Samuel just had to live with it; a real but mysterious malfunction of the ageing ear. And true, the thing was bearable, only an intermittent pain; but all the same….

  Even so, considering his years he'd been pretty much blessed with good health. A lot of his contemporaries were already dead and buried. Whereas all he had to contend with were visits from the 'rheumatiz' and times when his parts refused to perform; plus maybe some recent fuzziness of vision and the ‘buzzing’ business. So, on the whole, Samuel Trevan still functioned just fine, and, to quote an old acquaintance, he was nowhere near ‘dead yet’.

  Certainly, he was a figure in Lewes life, perhaps even a ‘big cheese’; and no one there slighted him: not to his face anyway. Once, long ago, the Town had spat him out and he'd wandered abroad in exile. But then he’d returned: not as a beggar, not even as a Church charity-boy, but vindicated, and with contacts, and in triumph. And if they chanced to be contacts he mustn’t mention, and a triumph he shouldn’t discuss, well, you couldn’t have everything. On that first return he'd crossed Cliffe Bridge feeling like a conqueror. There didn’t have to be banners and maidens scattering rose petals. What he had sufficed, and the town seemed like his by right ever since that day. Looking back down the years Samuel reckoned he'd done well.

  Health-related thoughts brought reminder he shouldn't brave the wind too much. Samuel Trevan might no longer believe in God but he had due regard for fate, and a new-ish aversion to tempting it. He'd spit with fury if a streaming cold confined him to bed through ‘Bonfire’. He and Melissa never failed to see the procession pass, standing arm in arm at the head of Church Twitten.

  So Samuel about-turned and quit the fort and view, wordlessly bypassing the dig (save to pocket the 'dragon's teeth' from the spoil heap), taking the steep path down to Glynde village. Haddad the coachman would be waiting there to ferry him back to the warmth of home.

  And not a moment too soon either, Trevan admitted, just to himself. Lately, cold open spaces seemed to incite his ear affliction, and even stir up trouble in the eyes too. Sometimes, a newly arrived blurring on the very edge of vision developed instants of expansion, acquiring the power to play tricks; even threaten to take shape. The wind blowing straight down his ears was to blame, doubtless. He ignored it all, confident a mulled brandy-and-cloves made by Melissa’s own fair hands would sort things out.

  Samuel Trevan took extra care with his footing and overcame these fresh opponents - as he always had every other. So far.

  ************

  ‘There you go, sir: hot and strong as pitch, just as you like it.’

  The hotelier was quite right, both about the tea and Samuel's tastes, but he got no thanks for it.

  ‘And the newspaper, sharpish!’ Trevan instructed, and duly received it - slung in his lap. Native Lewesians were a sturdy - to the point of stroppy - lot. They expected courtesy no matter how much money you had. Samuel admired that quality and it pleased him to provoke them - or at least it used to.

  What he didn't like was blind routine and being predictable. He now realised he'd come to Higham's Hotel most days this week, at about this hour, and always ordered tea. Trevan blamed the January chill and Higham's generosity with logs for the fire. Also, it was a well-ordered, respectable, place, ideal for reading the 'Times' and local 'Intelligencer' and wondering what to do next. The mercantile classes of Lewes used it as a meeting spot too. Trevan loved the low whisper of business-talk lapping round, even if he didn’t join in.

  He saw from today's paper that Mott was on a roll. A trade concordat with the Swedish Empire, ascribed to his presiding genius, would nicely freeze the Scots out of the Northern seas, thus adding impoverished isolation to all their other problems. Samuel wondered whether the General's ambition even seeped over the border into that unhappy nation, or was it mere mischief for mischief’s sake? Most likely the former, because if civil society there finally did go under then the Church might allow intervention. United England, out of the goodness of its heart, could send aid and tro
ops - purely to restore order, naturally. If all fell right, that'd be an end to an old story....

  Two pages on, Trevan smiled to read 'Edinburgh University in Flames - Mystery Arsonists Again'. He heard the sound of intricate clockwork clicking into place in perfect working order - and it sounded sweet. Never averse to foxes amok in other people's - particularly foreigners' - henhouses, there might also be something in this for him. Just perhaps. If Mott remembered him and if an archbishop or cardinal owed Mott a favour, then maybe....

  Samuel had these thoughts at least once a week. He wanted his life sentence commuted, he wanted to rejoin the community of commerce whose gossip teased his ears at that very moment. He wished to create again, not just spend. He yearned to go over to the two corn-factors by the fireplace and jostle with them for margins of advantage. General Mott could reinstate him there with just a few chosen words or a dash of his busy pen. That’s all it would take. Sorted! Samuel Trevan Esq. would be useful once more: a player in Lewes - and shortly after further afield too.

  He brooded over that, eyes glazing over the newsprint. How it galled him to know full well that local hauliers were ripe for reform – or replacement by underpricing. Some of them still used oxen! Given a free hand, those Sussex sleepyheads would all be out of business or working for him within a twelve-month! And as for the English gin trade; well, there was another low fruit positively gagging for someone to pluck it. Too timid to lobby the Crown about crippling Church tariffs; accordingly forced into bed with thuggish smugglers – pathetic! And… and… and most of all it galled Trevan that his letters to Mott went unanswered.

  The Sicarii was the one he should consult. He'd straightened out Mr Farncombe and the whole of Lewes all in the space of one short afternoon in town. The people he'd interviewed that day never spoke of it: an infallible sign of unconditional surrender. Yes, he was the one to have on your side. The Sicarii would smile enigmatically and go off and... somehow wipe away the humiliating requirement to report regularly to a brother in Lewes Priory. Just not having to give monthly account of himself would be something. Samuel would settle for that. For a while....