“Look away please,” she said as she crossed the room with the blanket around herself to where she’d left her clothes the night before.
“I am turned away.”
She dropped the blanket and dressed. She saw he was turned away, but then she saw he still stood before the mirror, and wasn’t she the foolish girl, she was putting on a show for him. An angry blush rose to her cheeks. “Close your eyes,” she said.
“They’re closed.”
“Keep them closed,” though she was dressed now, there was no point.
“If you’ll allow me to open my eyes, so I won’t be stumbling over my own feet, I’ll go down to the stable. I’ll settle our reckoning and see Neddy gets some oats and put the saddle on him.”
“Do that,” she said.
As he was going out the door he turned to say, “I’ll settle things with the innkeeper and the ostler. I think that latter is a bit of a thief but I’ll not let him swindle us. Don’t bother to say thank you, I think the words would probably knock a couple teeth loose trying to get out your mouth.”
“Oh that’s a hard way to talk. You feel so sorry for yourself go find someone who’ll treat you better. I never asked you to come.” But he was already out the door and down the stairs. Why was she so angry this morning? Was it just him, or was there something inside herself that was stirring her up? She looked out the window and counted to ten, forcing herself to feel calm. Then she followed him out the door and down the stairs.
Tavish was already outdoors when she got to the room below. There was only one other person in the room, or rather there were two. It was a woman giving suck to a very young infant. She looked up when Katie walked in and smiled, but said not a word. The baby was sucking intently on the woman’s left nipple. Katie watched as the woman used one finger to gently release its mouth and then shifted it to her right teat. She smiled at Katie and said, “She’s a girl. Just seven weeks today.” Katie came closer and watched. The little girl had her eyes closed, but her lips and cheeks were busy drawing forth the milk. Occasionally a little would escape and dribble down her chin for her mother to wipe away with a soft cloth.
“Might I hold her, just a minute?” said Katie.
The woman looked at Katie and saw the small bump in her belly. They smiled, knowing what they shared. She handed the infant to Katie, and as the baby drifted off to sleep, Katie rocked her gently, humming a soothing cradle song, one she remembered from her mother.
“When are you due?”
“I don’t rightly know.” She put the baby down in a carrier the woman held. She placed her on her stomach, her face to the side, two fingers in her mouth, her little tush in the air. She thought, Why does a woman love the baby to whom she’s given birth? It’s no longer part of her. It’s another person that’s come into the world with only one purpose and that’s to steal her life away, another person she’s condemned to care for and to nurture day after day, year after year, for the rest of her life. And yet she loves it. Why?
Half Moon spent the night in his teepee, shivering with loss. Since the arrival of Issoria and Vanessa he’d fallen hopelessly under their spell. He felt as if he’d been initiated into the truth of life’s purpose, the entire world holding significance only in so far as it bore witness to the hopelessness of ever loving them enough. And now they’d left him. He stepped outside, but they were not there. He looked to the east, where a towering column of billowing smoke was now taking shape, the visible sign of an awful conflagration. Almost the greatest of the flames could be seen, lighting the sky with a brilliance greater than the sun’s. He didn’t understand then what he was seeing, so unexpected and almost incomprehensible was the sight of Port Jay burning.
Chapter Fifteen
A MAN MUST HAVE A PURPOSE
Casper Clumphy had felt the call to enter the priesthood at an early age. Some of his tenderest and most prized memories were of the services at the local church where his family had worshipped. The incense, the sacred music and the light through the stained glass windows had combined with the words read from the sacred books to create an overwhelming awareness of the spiritual presence of a loving God.
When he was still young his mother and a younger sister had fallen prey to an attack from the death birds, after which his father fled the old country with the rest of the family and resettled in Port Jay. All he’d known prior to coming to the Coast had been the tales he’d read in an old book about savage Indians living in the woods, their faces blazoned with terrifying paint, and the harsh lives the settlers endured. There was also a story of the holy hermit Trogle, who’d entered the Forgotten Forest where he’d slept for fifty-seven years, and when he woke had spoken to the birds and the beasts. Many hours he gazed at his picture, hollow-eyed and stooped, his Druidical robes damp from the maddened waters of the sacred spring. The actuality he encountered in the bustling city of Port Jay was far different, but as he grew older he never entirely forgot the romantic images he’d formed of the natives, whom he was told could still be found living deep in the surrounding forests.
From the start he involved himself in his local parish. He joined the church choir and assisted during services. The first close attachments he made were to the deacons and monks he met in the church. He diligently sought these men out and joined them in their various tasks, such as visiting those members of the church who had fallen ill, and assisting at the altar. Finding himself much in their company he sought out their advice as to the path he should follow. One suggestion he was given was that of the missionary priesthood, and in this connection he imagined himself bringing the word of God to those savages whose warlike faces and exotic demeanor had held such terror and fascination for him as a boy. He envisaged himself holding the hand of a noble but spiritually empty Indian chief and leading him and all his tribe in prayer. It was a scene that frequently played itself out in the most intense moments of his inner vision. However, when he was finally ordained he put all such fancies aside and, taking on the role of a parish priest, settled into a comfortable routine of officiating at the sacramental table, performing baptisms, presiding at weddings and funerals and in general assuaging and salving the immortal souls of his parishioners.
Lately, however, his spirit had come to be troubled. More and more, while sitting solitary at night or in the confessional, the feeling came to him that he was no longer in touch with a credible source of moral principles. The spiritual presence he’d known in the church as a boy was now only a passing recollection, removed from his daily rounds. He watched the trivial feuds that seemed to inflame and animate so many of his parishioners, but saw no sense in them, and as he tried to reconcile their disputes he came to see that the whole basis for the golden rule was far from being self-evident. He couldn’t pin down where these notions came from or when he had begun to feel this way, but he was increasingly certain he could identify a similar malaise in the people of his parish, and in the city as a whole. He was struck by the fear that there was no cosmic order, that that had all been some sort of old wives’ tale or childish nonsense that could comfort him no more, and this fear was echoed and reinforced by the growing disorder and chaos in the streets around him. He felt as though he had turned away from the light and a shadow was now cast before him. When people and objects were seen in this shadow he saw them as they really were, and he was resolved to see truly in this way. He would not say he saw beauty where there was no beauty to be seen. And if he knew now that he lived in a wasteland and not a paradise at least he knew where he lived.
There were days when he would wander directionless, without any goal, one way seeming as good as another, and it struck him this was true of his spiritual life as well. There were no ideals anymore, and so far as he could tell there hadn’t been for quite some time. When had that happened, and how had he not noticed? Even the words yes and no became muddled and in some lights he could no longer distinguish between them, and the mass, which in the past had been a solemn mystery radiant with sacred significance
, now seemed like a hollow ritual drained of all meaning. Despite these inner misgivings he did his best to carry on as though nothing was amiss. As he spoke his sermons he looked around his cozy church lit with candles, the precious stained glass seeming to glow, the parishioners for one moment of the week bowed together in spiritual awe. He tried to take comfort from this homely scene. But what of the world outside? His fevered mind entertained fancies that the church had been submerged beneath a thousand feet of water. Outside the windows swam the ravening kraken and other terrible beasts of the deep, many-tentacled, their monstrous incomprehending eyes pressed to the glass. And he was startled to find his congregation rising from the service as contented as on Sundays past.
On the morning of the day that was to culminate in the great fire, Father Clumphy found himself on an errand for which he had little stomach. The Deacon had come to him a few days earlier with rumors of a troublesome young girl. The things that were said struck Clumphy as unexceptional – lewd dancing, linen stolen from a washerwoman, and various people complaining of aches and pains after she’d looked at them – but it was enough to elicit whispers of witchcraft. There were times when he wanted to tell the Deacon enough is enough. If you go about constantly telling people they are at the mercy of demons, eventually they will point the demons out to you. But this was not the time. So he’d promised to investigate.
The family had made him welcome when he’d shown up at their house. It was little more than a hovel really, like too many in this part of town. But they’d done their best to be hospitable, inviting him to their table, sharing their scant repast, smiling and calling him sir. Her parents accepted what he’d said about a philanthropic errand, outreach to the poor, without question, although there’d been nothing spoken of any sort of relief, only handing out some cards with schedules of services and some conventional prayers. Their affectless, dead-pan faces were giving nothing away if they had any misgivings about his uninvited presence. In the afternoon there’d been one occasion when the girl ran up to him, as though there was something she wanted to show, but after touching him on the knee and backing off she’d paid him no further attention. When they’d asked if he was staying for the evening meal he’d said yes, intending to leave as soon as it was over. But now, seated at their table, he realized that had been a mistake. Their invitation had been only perfunctory and he should have declined it. He felt like a fool, taking from them food they could hardly afford to dole out, seated in a room obscured more than illumined by rushlight, occasionally rubbing soot out of his eye, and spooning a ghastly bowl of soup into his mouth. There was no conversation, and just to break the nerve-wracking silence he’d thought to show off a little of his learning, sharing with them something the day had put him in mind of that he’d read in a book a few nights before. He said, “You know, there’s a place in the old country way up north I’ve heard of, in the Riphean Mountains maybe, you know where that is?”
His host nodded. The daughter looked a little blank. It seemed like the mother gave Clumphy a glance of withering hatred, he couldn’t have read that right, but they were all paying attention, so he went on. “Anyway what they say about the people up there is when a stranger comes visiting the first three things they tell him are lies. Then the fourth thing they say’s the truth.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth he realized it was probably the most idiotic remark he could have made under the circumstances. However, it didn’t seem to have made much of an impression, so he added lamely, “I just thought it was kind of amusing.”
The husband slowly put his spoon down by his bowl of soup and said, “You think that’s what we’ve been doing to you? We’ve been filling you up with lies to take back with you, and you were hoping now the truth’s going to come out?”
He said it so softly, and with such an open look on his face, at first Clumphy was blind to the man’s hostility, as though seeing a dagger, but one still in its sheath. He sat and thought a minute before he answered, “No, I don’t think so . . . This is right good food you’ve given me, and I don’t want to impose on you, so I think it’s time I left.”
“Well I think we’ve been repaid in kind,” the man said. “Because that’s three lies you just told us, before you told us the truth.
“First, you said you didn’t think we’d lied to you. That’s number one. Then, you said we’d given you right good food. That’s number two. What we ate tonight is slop, barely fit for humans, it’s a sign what this city‘s come to, people have to eat like this. I expect you don’t eat like this when you’re with your other priests up at the church.”
“No, that’s true. I don’t. I’m sorry. You’ve caught me out. But normal people don’t call those lies. It’s just polite conversation.”
“And the third was when you said you didn’t want to impose on us, because of course you think it’s your God given right to impose on the likes of us. It’s all you’ve done all day. But after three lies you told the truth. You said it was time for you to leave.”
Father Clumphy was roused by a sudden impulse of anger, but he forced himself to keep a lid on it. A hot flush rose to his face. “I can see I’m not welcome here, so the social courtesies can be dispensed with.”
“You were the one brought up lying and telling the truth,” the daughter said. She’d been standing and watching while they talked.
Clumphy rounded on her. “Do you think that’s a decent way to talk to people? Telling the truth?” He continued to horrify himself with the words that came out of his mouth seemingly before he thought of them.
“Maybe so,” said the mother, who’d remained silent up till now. “No more ‘Good day to you, Father, what brings you here, and how can I be of assistance?’ Maybe instead it should be, ‘Hah, you’re here to check up on us, heard our girl was getting uppity, didn’t you, well get the hell out.’ Maybe that’s the way we should talk.”
“I was going to return with word that your daughter’s innocent of any taint of witchcraft, if you must know. But maybe, I’m thinking, that’s not the right thing to say; not if we’re going to be telling the truth. Your daughter has a way of looking at a man that makes him convict himself out of his own mouth of ignorance, fear and sinfulness. It’s not right, what she does.” There’d been a crackling, spattering, hissing sort of noise building up outside the house, and he had to raise his voice to be heard.
“My ‘Becca’s untainted by witchcraft,” said the man. “She’s no more a witch than you are, or that mouse in the corner.”
Clumphy looked and there was a small mouse in the corner of the room. He was sure it hadn’t been there before. “How did that mouse get there?” he asked, edging his way towards the door.
“There is no mouse,” ‘Becca said.
Clumphy couldn’t make out her words over the noise from outside, which was now quite loud. “What did you say?”
“I said, there is no mouse,” she shouted back. The mouse was gone.
“I’m getting out of this house,” said Clumphy, bolting for the front door.
“Men invented words so they could tell lies to one another,” ‘Becca shouted after him. “Animals don’t need words. They don’t lie.”
But as Clumphy got outside the last words she said were drowned out by the huge sizzling roaring wall of noise that had been muffled indoors, and he found there was something far more terrible waiting for him. His first thought was that the mouth of Hell had opened to swallow him up. A wall of fire was marching down the street, devouring the small huts and buildings in monstrous gouts of flame. People were stampeding, running in desperation to get away from it. It was a scene of such chaos and destruction as he had never before imagined and it was heading in his direction. All thoughts save escape were driven from his mind. He didn’t stop to think of his own house and his possessions and the people he lived with. None of that existed anymore. He turned and joined the panicked crowd running, running anywhere to stay ahead of the flames.
That night was fi
lled with the roar of combustion and its intense, all-consuming heat. Clumphy had never conceived of heat such as he felt that night. It was all around him and in everything he touched. Everywhere he looked there were flames, and in the fires he thought he saw all the riotous fiends of Hell on holiday, laughing, shouting and burning. When he remembered it afterwards what he recalled was the whistling of the descending clinkers, the ash and smoke everywhere, and the screams of people and animals in their anguish and their dying. It was a nightmare world of pain, death and demolishment. He joined groups of strangers fleeing to the bridge across the River of Tears, to the fields and the Forest where the fire couldn’t come. He took little note of who he was with, and they took less of him.
The morning found him deep in the woods. He’d lost all sense of direction; all he knew was that fire was his deadliest enemy, and he’d escaped its touch. He felt drained and relieved and after what he’d come through, finding himself at last in a place where the flames couldn’t get him, where he could rest and think about something other than putting one foot in front of another, for an instant he felt a touch of hope, and it was almost as if nothing in his life before had prepared him for it. It was a blessing descending on him, all unworthy, that he had found life and safety, here in the serenity of the pathless woods. He looked about himself and at the others who were with him, who had shared his nightmare and were now awakened to this new day, even as many of them in their exhaustion closed their eyes and slept. He felt carried back in spirit to the days of his youth, inhabited by an emotion he’d forgotten, the simple love of God he’d known as the words of praise and the incense rose up through the lights to Heaven. He lived again his dreams of boyhood, everything intervening – the journey to Port Jay, the struggle to become a priest, the life of his parish – all of this obliterated now by the fire, wiped away, as though it had never been, and once again he imagined the Indians as he’d thought of them in his youth, terrible with a longing for life, and him bringing the word of God. So it was with little surprise, almost as if it had been expected, that he now saw there were actually Indians, slipping with their light tread into the glen where he lay.
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