Lasher

by Anne Rice

  It was a cowardly and rash thing to imagine, far more rash than leaving with him had been. But that had been rash also. She realized it now. She was mad to think she could manage or control or study him on her own; what a fool, what a fool, what a fool. To leave that house alone with this wild and domineering demon, to be so obsessed in pride and hubris with her own creation!

  But would he have let it happen any other way? When she looked back on it, had he not rushed her, had he not pushed her, had he not said Hurry to her countless times? What did he fear? Michael, yes, Michael had been something to fear.

  But it was my error. I could have contained the whole situation! I could have had this thing under control.

  And in the pool of moonlight falling on the grassy floor of the castle's gutted main hall, she found it easier to blame herself, to castigate herself, to hate herself, than to hurt him.

  It was doubtful she could have done it anyway. The one time she accelerated her step behind him on the stairs, he turned and grabbed hold of her and put her up in front of him. He was ever vigilant. He could lift her effortlessly with one of his long gibbonlike arms, and deposit her on her feet wherever he wished. He had no fear of falling.

  But something in the castle made him afraid.

  He was trembling and crying as they left the castle. He said he wanted to see the Cathedral. The moon had drifted behind the clouds, but the glen was still washed in an even pale light, and he knew the way, ignoring the preordained path and cutting down through the slopes from the base of the castle.

  At last they came to the town itself, to the excavated foundations of its walls, its battlements, its gates, its little main street, all roped off and marked, and there, there loomed the immense ruin of the Cathedral, dwarfing every other structure, with its four standing walls and their broken arches reaching like arms to enclose the lowering heavens.

  He went down on his knees in the grass, staring into the long roofless nave. One could see half the circle of what had once been the lofty rose window. But no glass survived among these stones, many of which had been newly put in place and plastered to re-create walls that apparently had tumbled down. Great quarries of stones lay to the left and to the right, obviously brought from other places to reassemble the building.

  He rose, grabbed her and dragged her with him, past the barrier and the signs, until they stood in the church itself, gazing up and up past the arches on either side, at the cloudy sky and the moon giving just a teasing light through the clouds that had no shape to it. The Cathedral had been Gothic, vast, overreaching perhaps for such a place, unless in those times there had been hordes of the faithful.

  He was trembling all over. He had his hands to his lips, and then he began to give off that humming, that singing, and rock on his feet.

  He walked doggedly, against his own mood, along the wall and then pointed up at one high narrow empty window. "There, there!" he cried. And it seemed he spoke other words, or tried to and was then weary and agitated again. He sank down, drawing up his knees, and hugged her close to him, his head on her shoulder, and then nuzzling down onto her breasts. Rudely he pushed up the sweater and began to suckle. She lay back, all will leaving her. Staring up at the clouds. Begging for stars but there were no stars, only the dissolving light of the moon, and the lovely illusion that it was not the clouds which moved but the high walls and the empty arched windows.

  In the morning, when she awoke, he was not in the room! But neither was there a phone anymore, and when she opened the window, she saw it was a straight drop some twenty feet or more to the grass below. And what would she do if she did manage to get down there? He had the keys to the car. He always carried them. Would she run to others for help, explain she was being kept prisoner? Then what would he do?

  She could think it through, all the possibilities. They went round like horses on a carousel in her mind until she gave up.

  She washed, dressed, and wrote in her diary. Once again, she listed all the little things she had observed: that his skin was maturing, that his jaw was now firm, but not the top of his head, but mostly she recounted what had happened since they had come to Donnelaith, his curious reactions to the ruins.

  In the great room of the inn downstairs, she found him at the table with the old innkeeper in fast conversation. The man stood for her, respectfully, and pulled out her chair.

  "Sit down," Lasher said to her. Her breakfast was being prepared now, he had heard her tread above when she stepped out of bed.

  "I'm sure," she said grimly.

  "Go on," he said to the old man.

  The old man was champing at the bit and picked up apparently where he'd left off, that the archaeological project had been funded for ninety years, through both wars, by American money. Some family in the States interested in the Clan of Donnelaith.

  But only in recent years had real progress been made. When they'd realized the Cathedral dated back to 1228, they'd asked the family in the States for more money. To their amazement the old trust was beefed up, and a whole gang from Edinburgh was now here, had been for twenty years, gathering stones that had been scattered and finding the entire foundations of not only the church itself but a monastery and an older village, possibly from the 700s. The time of the Venerable Bede, he explained, some sort of cult place. He didn't know the details.

  "We always knew there was Donnelaith, you see," said the old man. "But the Earls had died out in the great fire of 1689, and after that there wasn't much of a town at all, and by the turn of the century nothing. When the archaeological project began, my father came to build this inn. Nice gentleman from the United States leased him this property."

  "Who was this?" he asked in utter bafflement.

  "Julien Mayfair, it's the Julien Mayfair Trust," said the old man. "But you really ought to talk to the young chaps from the project. They are a well-behaved and serious lot, these students, they stop the tourists from picking up stones and what-not and wandering off with them.

  "And speaking of stones, there is the old circle, you know, and for a long time that was the place where they did most of their work. They say it's as old as Stonehenge, but the Cathedral is the real discovery. Talk to the chaps."

  "Julien Mayfair," he repeated, staring at the old man. He looked helpless, bewildered, on guard. And as if the words meant nothing. "Julien..."

  By afternoon, they had wined and dined several of the students, and the entire picture emerged, as well as packets of old pamphlets printed from time to time to sell to the public to raise money.

  The present Mayfair Trust was handled out of New York, and the founding family was most generous.

  The eldest on the project, a blond Englishwoman, with bobbed hair and a cheerful face, rather chunky in her tweed coat and leather boots, didn't mind at all answering their questions. She'd been working here since 1970. She'd applied twice for more funds and found the family entirely cooperative.

  Yes, one of the family had come to visit once. A Lauren Mayfair, rather stiff. "You would have never known she was American." The old woman thought that was hilarious. "But she didn't care for it here, you know. She took some pictures from the family and was off at once to London. I remember her saying she was going on to Rome. She loved Italy. I don't suppose most people love both climes--the damp Highlands and sunny Italy."

  "Italy," he whispered. "Sunny Italy." His eyes were filling with tears. Hastily he wiped them on his napkin. The woman had never noticed. She was talking on and on.

  "But what do you know about the Cathedral?" he asked. For the first time in all his brief life, as Rowan had known it, he looked tired to her. He looked almost frail. He'd wiped his eyes several times more with a handkerchief, saying it was an "allergy" and not tears, but she could see he was cracking.

  "That's just it, we've been wrong about it before, we don't put forth many theories. Definitely the grand Gothic structure was built around 1228, same time as Elgin, but it incorporated an earlier church, one possibly which contained stain
ed-glass windows. And the monastery was Cistercian, at least for a while. Then it became Franciscan."

  He was staring at her.

  "There seems to have been a cathedral school, perhaps even a library. Oh, God only knows what we are going to find. Yesterday we found a new graveyard. You have to realize people have been carrying off stones from this place for centuries. We've only just unearthed the ruins of the thirteenth-century south transept and a chapel we didn't know was there, containing a burial chamber. This definitely involves a saint, but we cannot identify him. His effigy is carved on top of the tomb. We're debating. Dare we open it? Dare we seek to find something in there?"

  He said nothing. The stillness around them was suddenly unnerving; Rowan was afraid he would cry out, do something utterly wild, draw attention to them. She tried to remind herself that it would be perfectly fine if this happened. She felt sleepy, heavy with milk. The old woman talked on and on about the castle, about the warring of the clans in these parts, the endless battles and slaughter.

  "What destroyed the Cathedral?" Rowan asked. The lack of chronology was disturbing to her. She wanted a chart in her mind.

  He glared at her angrily, as if she'd no right to speak.

  "I'm not sure," said the old woman. "But I have a hunch. There was some sort of clan war."

  "Wrong," he said softly. "Look deeper. It was the Protestants, the iconoclasts."

  She clapped her hands almost with glee. "Oh, you must tell me what makes you think so." She went on a tirade about the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, the burning of witches that had gone on for a century or more right to the very end of the history of Donnelaith, cruel cruel burnings.

  He sat dazed.

  "I'll bet you're absolutely right. It was John Knox and his reformers! Donnelaith had remained, right up to the bloody fire, a powerful Catholic stronghold. Not even wicked Henry the Eighth could suppress Donnelaith."

  The woman was now repeating herself, and going on at length about how she hated the political and religious forces which destroyed art and buildings. "All of that magnificent stained glass, imagine!"

  "Yes, beautiful glass."

  But he had received all she had to give.

  As evening fell they went out again. He had been silent, not hungry, not disposed for love, and not letting her out of his sight. He walked ahead of her, all the way across the grassy plain until they came again to the Cathedral. Much of the excavations of the south transept was sheltered by a great makeshift wooden roof, and locked doors. He broke the glass on a window, and unlocked a door and went inside. They were standing in the ruins of a chapel. The students had been rebuilding the wall. Much earth had been dug away from one central tomb, with the figure of a man carved on the top of it--almost ghostly now that it was so worn away. He stood staring down at it, and then up at what they had restored of the windows. In a rage he began to beat on the wooden walls.

  "Stop, they'll come," she cried. But then she lapsed back, thinking, Let them come. Let them put him in jail for a madman. He saw the cunning in her eyes, the hate which for a moment she could not disguise.

  When they got back to the inn, he started listening to his own tapes, then turning them off, rummaging through his pages. "Julien, Julien, Julien Mayfair," he said.

  "You don't remember him, do you?"

  "What?"

  "You don't remember any of it--who Julien was or Mary Beth or Deborah, or Suzanne. You've been forgetting all along. Do you remember Suzanne?"

  He stared at her, blanched and in a silent fury.

  "You don't remember," she taunted again. "You started to forget in Paris. Now you don't know who they were."

  He approached her, and sank down on his knees in front of her. He seemed wildly excited, the rage going into some rampant and acceptable enthusiasm.

  "I don't know who they were," he said. "I'm not too sure who you are! But I know now who I am!"

  Past midnight, he'd wakened her in the act of rape, and when it was done, he wanted to go, to get away before anyone came to look for them. "These Mayfairs, they must be very clever people."

  She laughed bitterly.

  "And what sort of monster are you?" she asked. "You're nothing I made. I know that now. I'm not Mary Shelley!"

  He stopped the car and dragged her out into the high grass and struck her again and again. He struck her so hard he almost broke the bones of her jaw. She shouted a warning to him, that the damage would be irreparable. He stopped his blows and stood over her with his fists clenched.

  "I love you," he said, crying, "and I hate you."

  "I know just what you mean," she answered dully. There was so much pain in her face she thought perhaps he had broken her nose and her jaw. But it wasn't so. Finally she sat up.

  He had flopped down beside her, all knees and elbows, and with his large warm hands began to caress her. In pure confusion, she sobbed against his chest.

  "Oh, my God, my God, what shall we do?" she asked. He was stroking her, covering her with kisses, suckling her again, all of his old tricks, his evil tricks, the Devil slipping into the cell of the nun, get away from me! But she didn't have the courage to do anything. Or was it the physical strength she lacked? It had been so long since she had felt normal, healthy, vital.

  The next time he became angry, it was when they'd stopped for gas and she'd wandered near the phone booth. He caught her, and she began to say very fast an old rhyme that her mother had taught her:

  Alas! Alas! for Miss Mackay!

  Her knives and forks have run away;

  And when the cups and spoons are going,

  She's sure there is no way of knowing!

  Just as she hoped, it made him weak with laughter. He actually fell to his knees. Such big feet he had. She stood there over him chanting:

  Tom, Tom, the piper's son,

  Stole a pig and away he run,

  The pig was eat, and Tom was beat

  And Tom went crying down the street.

  He begged her to stop, half laughing, half crying. "I have one for you," he cried, and he leapt up and sang as he danced, slamming his feet on the ground, and slapping his thighs:

  The sow came in with the saddle.

  The little pig rocked the cradle.

  The dish jumped over the table

  To see the pot swallow the ladle.

  The spit that stood behind the door

  Threw the pudding-stick on the floor.

  "Odsplut!" said the gridiron,

  "Can't you agree?

  I'm the head constable,

  Bring them to me!"

  And then he grabbed her roughly, teeth clenched, and dragged her back to the car.

  When they reached London, her face was entirely swollen. Anyone who caught a glimpse of her was alarmed. He put them up in a fine hotel, though where it was she had no idea, and he fed her hot tea and sweets and sang to her.

  He said that he was sorry for all he'd done, that he had been reborn, did she not realize this, what it meant? That in him resided a miracle. Then came the predictable kissing and suckling and a coarse rough-and-tumble sex that was as good as any. This time, out of sheer desperation, she pushed him to do it again. Maybe she did this because it was the only way she could exert her will. She discovered that after the fourth time even he was spent, and he lay sleeping. She didn't dare move. When she sighed, he opened his eyes.

  He was now truly beautiful. The mustache and beard were of biblical length and shape and each morning he clipped them appropriately. His hair was very long. His shoulders were too big but it didn't matter. His entire appearance was regal, majestic. Are those words for the same thing? He bowed to people when he spoke, he tipped his soft shapeless gray hat. People loved to look at him.

  They went to Westminster Abbey and he walked through the entire place studying every detail of it. He watched the faithful moving about. He said at last: "I have only one simple mission. Old as the earth itself."

  "What is that?" she asked.

  He d
id not answer her.

  When they reached the hotel he said:

  "I want your study to begin in earnest. We shall get a secure place...not here in Europe...in the States, so close to them that they won't suspect. We need everything. Cost must be no obstacle. We will not go to Zurich! They'll be looking for you there. Can you arrange for large amounts of money?"

  "I already have," she reminded him. It was clear from this and other remarks that he did not remember simple things well in sequence. "The bank trail is well laid. We can go back to the States if you wish."

  In fact, her heart silently leapt at the thought of it.

  "There is a neurological institute in Geneva," she said. "That's where we should go. It's famous worldwide. It's vast. We can do some work there. And complete all the arrange-States. They are going to be looking for you. And for me. We must return. I am thinking of the place."

  She fell asleep, dreaming only of the lab, the slides, the tests, the microscope, of knowledge as though it were exorcism. She knew of course she could not do it on her own. The best she could do was get computer equipment and record her findings. She needed a city full of laboratories, a city where hospitals grew as if on trees, where she could go to one large center and then another...

  He sat at the table reading the Mayfair History over and over. His lips moved so fast, it was the humming again. He laughed at things in the history as if they were entirely new to him. He knelt by her and looked into her face.

  He said, "The milk's drying up, isn't it?"

  "I don't know. There is so much aching."

  He began to kiss her. He took some milk between his fingers and put it on her lips; she sighed. She said it tasted like water.

  In Geneva, everything was planned, down to the last detail.

  The most obvious choice for their final destination was the city of Houston, Texas. Reason? There were, very simply, hospitals and medical centers everywhere. Every form of medical research went on in Houston. She would find a building perhaps for them, some medical space now vacant due to the oil depression. Houston was overbuilt. It had three downtowns, they said. No one could find them there.

  Money was no obstacle. Her large transfers were safe in the giant Swiss Bank. She had only to set up some sort of dummy accounts in California and in Houston.