“I think not I’ve discussed Fairchild with the elders. We can kill him later, if we have to, but I have a slightly different strategy in mind. It’s time that Dr. Fairchild and I got to know one another. I’ll set something up and let you know the outcome. Now, do you have the items I asked you to prepare for me?”
“Aye; here they be. Nice and fresh, too.”
“Lovely. Have Jamie load it all into the car. We have another Sabbat scheduled for Winston-Orley later this month. I’ll need more of everything then.”
“And when shall we be having the honor of a Sabbat at Creypool, might I ask?”
“Not until this messy business is settled. Your coven is welcome at Winston-Orley, you know.”
“Aye; but Creypool is special. There’s none can match the high times we have at Creypool! Even the old days at Brixton Barrow was naught compared to what we have here.”
“And that’s just why we must be especially careful, Giles. The sacred rites of Creypool must survive at all cost . . . Well, Jamie, all loaded? I must be off, then.”
The door was shut and locked. Footsteps crossed the yard; the car door opened and the man called Regis said, “I’ll be in touch, Giles. Not to worry; the Yank won’t trouble us for long.”
I waited in the shed until I was sure they had gone their separate ways, then peeked out at the brightness of midafternoon. It had been a most foul and disgusting warehouse of horrors, and to cleanse my mind of what I’d seen and heard, I made my way through the woods to the brook Stephany had shown me, where I washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face. Then I lay down on the carpet of moss and gazed up at the vast, indifferent blue of a sky which would never look quite the same to me.
Quite unintentionally, I had set up the poor parson for murder; in a sense, I was also responsible for the death of Greggs and Stemp. That alone seemed to require that I go to the police with what I knew. The contents of the woodcutter’s cottage would be enough to ensure a thorough investigation, but I had no way of knowing what that investigation might mean for the professor and Stephany, or whether it would impede my own efforts to redeem Geoffrey Gervaise from literary obscurity. Was a poem, no matter how great, more important than human life? A few weeks earlier I would have said, “Show me the life first.” Now I didn’t know what to think. But this was no ordinary poem, and its mysteries had assumed a human—and even ghostly—importance I felt duty bound to understand. The police, then, would have to wait their turn. The first crack at solving these mysteries went to me.
The sun was going down, the shadows long across the lawn, when I finally made for the house. The rooks cawed down at me from the tall trees. A cat glared at me from beneath the shrubbery. If Giles or Jamie had come suddenly around the corner, I might have fainted dead away.
A winter dusk in the mountains of northern Wales. Wind and rain verging on sleet. Dense, clotted clouds cluster along the ridges and mountaintops, blot out the valleys. A lone traveler, wrapped in a cloak of ragged furs, urges his horse up the steep and icy path. As he ascends a shallow U-shaped valley, strung like a hammock between two craggy peaks, the rider encounters large boulders fallen ages ago from above, piled on top of one another like crude monuments. Nearly indistinguishable from the boulders is a primitive hut of earth and stone built into the mountainside. The rider dismounts and ties his horse to a stunted bush in the lee of the hut. Its door of rough-hewn logs is adorned by a pair of massive ram’s horns, to which are attached sprigs of mistletoe. A bell of weathered bronze hangs beside the door. Its harsh clang is carried off by the shrieking wind. The rider waits, huddled in his cloak, then beats on the door with his fist. At last a light appears through the chinks in the logs. A bolt slides back, the door opens a foot and the light of a lantern fails upon the muffled face of the rider, revealing two intensely eager eyes.
“Who is it?” a voice asks. “What do you want with me?”
“Are you the one they call Gwynneddon?” the rider shouts over the wind.
“Why seek you old Gwynneddon on such a foul night?”
“I have come to test your wisdom and beseech your help. My name is Gervaise.”
“I thought you might be. Come in, man—come in out of the cold.”
The hut is small and low-ceilinged, crudely furnished with stools, a table, a pallet of straw piled with filthy blankets and furs. Gwynneddon, an old hunchback with long white hair and beard, his dwarflike figure crouched beneath its hump as if beneath a peddler’s sack, leads Gervaise to an inner door which opens upon a flight of stairs.
Down, down, into the rocky core of the mountain they descend. A huge subterranean chamber appears—a natural cavern filled with the paraphernalia of the alchemist’s art. In the center of the chamber there is a large kiln in which a fire roars. Around the kiln there are tables and shelves stacked with the necromancer’s supplies—vials, urns, pestles and mortars; bins filled with powders, crumbled minerals, strange chunks of ore; vats of grease and bad-smelling pastes; other jars filled with herbs, roots, acorns, berries, cones. There are also ancient books and parchments, various implements for weighing, measuring, dissecting, distilling. The light from the kiln plays over this cluttered laboratory and reveals stalactites like giant daggers suspended from a roof hidden in darkness. Other chambers open off this one, dark sockets in the porous, glistening wall. From the shadows peer the yellow eyes of several watchful, wary cats.
Gervaise removes his cloak and throws back his cowl. He looks uneasily around the chamber as Gwynneddon fetches a jug and two cups from one of his cabinets.
“A drink to take off the chill of this ferocious night. A hard journey you’ve had of it, by the look of you. Sit down.”
Gervaise samples the brew with but a sip; then, finding it palatable, he drains the cup and extends it for more.
“You know who I am?”
“I’ve heard of you from the spirits, Gervaise. So few come to seek the counsel of old Gwynneddon in these days, I am glad to see you. Here at last!”
“And what have your spirits told you about me?”
“All that is needful. You are a priest and scholar, a philosopher like myself, though of a different faith. You currently dwell in a monastery in West Saxony called Blackstone. Men say you are learned in the ways of the ancients, but your wisdom has not satisfied you. Thus you have sought out me, whom all the world seems to have forgotten. Yet the spirits have not told me why.”
‘‘I am surprised your spirits know me so well, old one. There is a monk at the monastery who hails from these mountains. He was once your apprentice before he embraced the true faith and escaped the powers of darkness that dwell here. He says you are a wondrous magician, adept at casting spells and reading omens, and that your power has been given you by the devil—”
“He whom you call the devil, Gervaise. You and your kind, who have driven his followers into exile. I know the lad of whom you speak. I could put a curse on him even now as he cowers behind your monastery’s walls. I could snuff out his traitorous life within the hour. But I have spared him out of pity and my old regard, and perhaps—who knows?—because the spirits knew that eventually he would lead you to me.”
“These spirits you speak of—they are demons?”
“They are the ancient spirits who ruled this land and lived in peace with its inhabitants before the invaders came. They still live in our trees and rocks and running water, and they shall haunt your people for generations to come. I have looked into your Bible and heard your priests; I know the lies your Church has spread across this island, and across all Europe. But there are many gods, and many powers in the unseen world which no man can comprehend. Can your God withstand all of them? The hour of reckoning will come. The banished gods will claim their due.”
“I know something of these other gods. I have learned to read many languages, and I have studied the Cabala, the writings of the Gnostics, the Islamic philosophers, the Pythagoreans, Platonists, Manicheans, and all the great astrologers and alchemists ...�
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“And you have learned?”
“Nothing I might not have known before, through the exercise of reason and native wit. I have learned that we are creatures of the earth—fashioned from dust, conceived in animal frenzy, born in agony and blood to live in shame and filth, to grow old in wretchedness and fear, to die in ignorance and despair.”
“That is the legacy of your religion, Gervaise. It is not so for those of us who cling to the old beliefs.”
“What is true for some must be true for all. All men must die, and all men live their lives in the shadow of the grave. Yet our souls know of another world. It is the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ which has freed us—”
“You are not free. You would not have come to me if you were.”
Gervaise replies thoughtfully. ‘‘I have never been free, as a Christian should be free in heart and mind. My—my slavery has driven me close to madness. You are said to converse with demons, to cast mighty spells, to raise the dead and foretell the future—”
“No doubt my powers have been exaggerated. The spirits work through me to do what they will and to claim what dominion may be left to them. I am a scholar like yourself, and a seeker after truth. What is it, priest of the Christus, that you seek? Are you willing to renounce that jealous God of yours in order to attain wisdom, power, riches, immortality?”
“I shall never renounce my God,” Gervaise says with passion, “and I seek only the freedom to follow Christ, as the saints have followed Him, to everlasting glory.”
“That you cannot get from me! I deal in herbs, potions, spells. I can teach you how to bind others, but not, alas, to free yourself. You may, of course, choose the terms of your bondage, but no man is free.”
“So I have often thought myself. Since my childhood, old one, I have been possessed by evil spirits. They have made me unworthy; they have denied me the blessings of grace, my birthright as the child of God. I can bear my deprivation no longer.”
The old man peers closely at Gervaise, then breaks into hoarse laughter. “A strange dementia, this! So you have sought your God and been rebuffed. And now you seek commerce with His enemies . . .”
Gervaise rises. ‘‘Only to confront them. I have come here to challenge Satan. Let him meet me, face to face, so that I may look upon him and engage him in battle. I am determined to overcome this evil or perish in the attempt!”
“Aye; but to perish may not be the worst of it. Are you willing to wager the fate of your immortal soul?”
Gervaise drops back into his chair. “My soul seems lost in any case. Do I suffer damnation for a life of sin, or for a lost wager? What I seek is the chance to win—or at least to fight my enemy on equal terms.”
“Your strength is surely but that of a mortal man. Your weapons are of human making. How can you stand against such a foe? Think clearly. There is much at stake.”
“There is a way in which I may put Satan to the test, and he may test me. Place him here before me and I will present my challenge.”
The old man looks admiringly at Gervaise. “I respect your courage and warrior’s spirit, but you are a fool. Your enemy—for you have made him that; he would gladly be your friend—could squash you beneath his thumb.”
“Then let him try!” Gervaise cries.
The old man rises and, stooped beneath his hump, a symbol of all the burdens men must bear, paces the chamber. “I must commune with my spirits on this matter,” he says at last. “I must know their will.”
“Do you wish me to withdraw?” the priest asks.
“It is not necessary. The spirits may come and take counsel with me in your presence. Remain in your chair but do not speak or move. Let nothing frighten you. You shall see things, perhaps, which one of your faith has never seen before.”
Gwynneddon goes to a cabinet in the shadowy reaches of the chamber. Over his hermit’s skins he puts on the long white robe of the Druid, and over his shoulders a shawl embroidered with mysterious figures and symbols. To the table he brings a large jagged stone marked with bright encrustations and embedded veins of precious metals. He lights two candles, placing them on either side of the stone. Beneath their flickering light, the strange elements in the rock twinkle and shimmer; they seem to move across its jagged surface, to leap out from its recesses like distant stars. The old man fixes his gaze upon the stone and places both his hands upon it. He begins to mumble in an ancient tongue, using words and phrases which Gervaise believes he may have heard, long ago, from the lips of the old woman who first taught him to fear the devil. The stone begins to glow with an inner light. Gwynneddon’s eyes become glassy. He falls into a trance.
After a while, Gwynneddon stirs, moans. His arms shake as he holds to the stone; his eyelids flicker beneath quivering brows. The mysterious light of the stone seems to fade. Gervaise pours more brew from the jug and waits for Gwynneddon to throw off the lingering stupor of his trance. The man must be a hundred years old, Gervaise thinks, perhaps two hundred. The sad light of centuries is in his eyes.
“Well? And what have the spirits said to my challenge?”
‘‘Return to your monastery, Gervaise, and dwell there yet another fortnight, till the nights be dark and moonless, the stars at their brightest. You shall recognize the night by the brilliance of the stars. Tell no man your purpose, but go alone to the top of the hill you can see from the window of your cell. Do you know the one?”
“Brixton Barrow?”
“It is an ancient burial ground of my people, a spot sacred to our gods. Once a temple stood upon that hill. Before the invaders came to this island we worshipped there. The ground has been consecrated by blood.”
“And Satan will come to me?”
“Enter the ring of large stones that remain upon the hilltop. Find the innermost stone and lie down beside it. I shall give you a potion brewed on instruction from the spirits, made of herbs that grow on these mountains. You must drink the potion and lie down to rest beneath the stars. You shall fall into a deep sleep and in this sleep you shall see visions. The one you seek shall come to you in your dream.”
“Only in a dream? But I have had many dreams. This is not the meeting I have asked for.”
“There shall be other meetings. You shall see the world transformed before your waking eyes. The heavens themselves will show signs and wonders. This first night is but the beginning. Our gods have accepted your challenge. May your own God have mercy on your soul!”
“I am not afraid. If the Lord will not help me, my own wit shall.”
“I have never seen a man so curiously intent upon his own destruction—and all in the name of faith! So be it. Yet one word of advice I would give . . . Some success you may have at first. Do not be misled, nor duped by your own pride. If you are given the chance to quit your strange contest as the winner, do not let it pass you by. The gods always win in the end.”
“I shall remember your advice, and I thank you for it. One of the gods must win, and I pray it shall be He whom I wish to champion. Now, can you give me the potion of which you spoke? I am anxious to begin my journey home.”
“It is a pity that you are so intent upon this odd business. We might have compared our philosophies and delved deeply into the mysteries we have studied. I could have taught you much, Gervaise.”
The old man shrugs and turns away. Gervaise watches him prepare the potion from the jars and vats of his workshop. Gwynneddon measures, mixes, stirs. He heats the mixture over a small fire and a curious odor wafts across the chamber—vaguely sexual, like the reek of a whore’s bedchamber, or the fertile smell of spring fields. Gwynneddon pours the mixture into a vial, which he seals with stopper and wax and gives Gervaise. Then he takes up the lantern and leads the way from the chamber. As they ascend the stairs, and as the light from his lantern diminishes, the blazing hell mouth of the kiln casts its red glow over the cavern, and in its shadows reappear the gleaming eyes of several cats.
The letter was waiting at my place when I came down for break
fast Friday morning—a plain white envelope with ‘‘David Fairchild, Esquire” written neatly across the face in black ink. Mrs. Mortimor was just bringing in our breakfast. “A lad brought that round to the kitchen this morning,” she said. “A gentleman stopped him on his way to school and gave him sixpence to run it up to the house.”
I tore open the envelope and extracted a card displaying the same fastidious though archaic penmanship:
Dear Dr. Fairchild,
It has come to my attention that you would like to speak with me. I also understand that we have certain interests in common and may be able to help one another vis-à-vis a certain manuscript. If you will meet me at 4 p.m. this afternoon, at the Royal Mariner Inn, Wimsett, we can discuss these matters.
Cordially yours,
Simon Regis
I read the letter again as Mrs. Mortimor puttered about and left for the kitchen. At first Simon Regis had been only a name, then a voice behind a door. Now he had become an elegant pen which put a fanciful flourish to his signature. I felt sure that the more of himself he revealed to me, the less I’d like having made his acquaintance.
“What’s that you have?” Stephany asked, coming bright-eyed and beaming into the dining room.
“Nothing,” I said, and slipped the envelope into my pocket. “Did you sleep well?”
“You should know!” She laughed, and bent over to put a kiss on my cheek, just as she customarily kissed her father before sitting down to breakfast. It seemed so natural and right by now to receive her kisses (and Stephany was a very kissing young lady) that I couldn’t help wishing we could greet the professor on his return from London with the news that in future, Miss Trevor-Finch would regularly render that service at my breakfast table.
An hour was coming, I thought, when we would all have to speak and deal plainly with one another, and then we would see just how many of these tender sentiments had survived.
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