Returning to the old lady and served with his hot drink, introductions were duly made and so he met Lady Susan Warrilow. He corrected the misunderstanding that he was a priest and explained his presence in the area; for good measure, before his returned gown made it all too clear he confessed his status as a magician.
Lady Susan fixed him with a quite remarkable gaze. Once, long ago, she had been beautiful and powerful, thought Tobias.
‘How old are you, my boy?’ she asked in a voice without the least hint of a quaver.
‘Twenty-four, ma’am.’
‘I see … I’m eighty next birthday.’ She added this as an afterthought.
‘Then you are to be congratulated, my lady.’
‘Yes … yes, it’s a fine old age but I feel a good few years in me yet.’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’
‘Thank you, Curate; they do say a priest’s good wishes are worth any number of dedicated candles.’
‘Well, begging your pardon, I’m afraid I must take issue with that view.’
‘Good; so do I.’
Tobias had begun to take a liking to this tough old bird. ‘I presume you church in East Grinstead, my lady,’ he asked her.
‘Sometimes my boy, but in my state not as often as I should perhaps.’ She paused awhile. ‘You’re a priest as near as hang it – why don’t you come and give me communion of a Sunday – eh?’
Tobias had to think quickly. ‘But of course, madam, that’s an excellent idea; I will ask my Abbot for permission this evening.’
‘Good. It would save my poor old bones a bumpy cold journey every week and it would give poor Ambrose a Sunday lie-in; Lord knows he works hard enough around this place. Yes, it could be a Godsend meeting you, lad.’
‘Perhaps God works even through the medium of flying mud, my lady.’
She smiled brightly.
‘Well, we’re told he moves in mysterious ways aren’t we?’
Tobias smiled back.
‘Indeed so.’
‘Where were you trained? Rome, Avignon?’
‘Southwark, ma’am.’
‘A rough school so I’ve heard.’
‘I think most of the stories are exaggerated.’
‘Probably so; you don’t seem the type that they would produce.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘But of course, I could be wrong’, she added absentmindedly.
Tobias could not think of a rejoinder to this but none seemed expected so he remained quiet.
Emerging from her reverie, Lady Susan returned to the subject.
‘There’s not many magicians are trained in England are there?’
‘Just at Southwark, Westminster and an establishment in Liverpool, so I’m told, ma’am.’
‘And Glasgow.’
‘Yes, there too, but that’s Scotland of course. Forgive me for asking but are you interested in the magical arts? You don’t seem to have the talent yourself.’
‘No; it was once thought I had but they were wrong.’
‘Just as well perhaps, my lady, I believe female magicians were not looked on with favour until recently.’
‘There you’re talking about the Church alone; I’ve always felt that magic is a feminine art.’
Tobias declined to pursue the matter any further lest he provoke the old lady to any serious heresy. Lady Susan perhaps saw that she was treading on thin ice and the matter was dropped. They talked on other subjects until the silent young maid entered the room with Tobias’ gown, now dry.
‘Ah, thank you, Amy,’ said Lady Susan. ‘Perhaps if you’ll excuse me, Curate Oakley, I’ll retire to take some food. You may change in here where it’s warm, no one will disturb you. It may be that we shall see you again shortly in your religious capacity but in any case I insist you call again in what free time your vocation gives you. It is high time I got some value for my subscriptions and taxes to the Church.’ With that, she hobbled out of the room, accompanied by the maid, and the door was closed.
Tobias quickly changed. His gown was warm and reasonably dry but heavily mudstained. As he was replacing his boots there was a gentle knock at the door and Ambrose the coachman entered.
‘I’ve come to drive you home, sir.’
‘Don’t bother – it’s only a few minutes walk.’
The servant looked momentarily pleased and then remembered something.
‘It’s still raining heavily, sir.’
‘Oh – well, have you got an umbrella I can borrow?’
Mr Ambrose brightened again.
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Well, that’s that settled then isn’t it?’
Tobias walked with him into the dark and cavernous hall. Ambrose leaned into the shadows behind the great double door and reemerged bearing the promised umbrella. Then he struggled with the monstrous door-latch, a relic from the area’s more lively past, until, at length, the way to the outer world was cleared.
The rain was slight but constant, sullenly set in for the night.
‘Much obliged to you, sir,’ said Ambrose. ‘Thanks for saving me turning out.’
‘What? … Oh, that’s OK but as a favour try not to splash me next time or I’ll have to burn you with magic.’
‘Oh my God, no, please!’
‘It’s a joke Ambrose, just a joke.’
The servant mopped his brow, his eyes narrowing with something far from humour.
‘Oh I see, sir, yes, very good, very droll.’
‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, sir.’
Ambrose directly went to celebrate his survival with oblivion in what the Church called the curse of his class; scrumpy cider.
As he walked home through the dusk and drizzle, Tobias reflected that after all it had been a well-spent afternoon. His soaking apart, he had made a social connection, however tenuous, that might help him beguile away his monastery days. Beside which, Lady Warrilow was plainly from exalted stock and Tobias welcomed such contacts so that the remaining rough edges of his petty artisan upbringing might be smoothed off.
Just to be safe he would go and see Abbot Milne that evening and report his visit to the Warrilow abode in case the news reached him from other sources. At the same time he would seize the opportunity to put Lady Susan’s request to the Abbot – two birds with one stone.
Of Tobias’ days at St John Wesley monastery there was nothing the Abbot did not know. In between what he observed himself, learnt from others or was freely informed of by Tobias, there were no gaps or grey areas to fuel possible suspicion or existing prejudice.
Tobias felt sure he had little to fear but declined to relax his guard. He made rigorous orthodoxy and obedience the arbiters of his every waking action and allowed nothing to chance.
CHAPTER 14
In which our hero earns his doctorate.
All through the morning Tobias had felt that he was nearing a breakthrough, a feeling that made the regulated pace of the monastery seem interminable. All his free time in the last week, either in the library or sleepless in his cell, had been dedicated to work. Dinner was consumed with as much haste as seemed decent and he would then stride to the library where his books and notes had been left, neatly stacked, from the day before. By and by elderly monks would shuffle in to join him but this was a regular occurrence and disturbed him not at all.
He thought he had an answer to his debilitating insomnia. A spell to put others to sleep had long been a feature of many magicians’ repertoire but so far as he knew no one had ever constructed a sleeping spell effective on the caster himself. It seemed a simple proposition but in fact the absence of such a useful conjuration arose from the fundamental nature of magic itself, practical thaumaturgy depending upon belief for effect. That is to say, if the magician’s conscious mind did not have absolute faith in a spell it would fail.
Philosophers and erudite practitioners of magic found there was a hidden depth to this proposition. Few, very few, sorcerers could cast a spell
to make themselves stronger, more attractive, resilient, or anything else the human mind might conceive as desirable.
Understandably the first magicians, of a thousand years ago and from out of the East, found this very disappointing for those were the very things they wanted most. Alas, the vast majority had to content themselves with spells that affected only other people and objects. It seemed as if self was the one point of material reality that magic could not render plastic.
This point naturally became the lynch-pin of several interesting new philosophical stances and heartened the few remaining solipsists in their hiding places.
Philosophy apart, the consensus of educated magical opinion took this to show that there was a part of the soul or mind that could not be reached by rational processes and which knew that magic was a mere figment of itself, that is, the magician’s will. This seemed to cover the point nicely and, by and large, not being of a philosophical frame of mind, the magicians and their organisations left it there. Theologians, however, suffered from no such restraint. In man’s resistance to his own magic, they said, lay the proof of faith, of obedience, of spirituality beyond taint of earthly corruption.
All of which, broadly speaking, may have been true, but there were exceptions.
Throughout the history of the profession there had been people who could reach into their own being and somehow convince it in its entirety that nothing at all was true and unchangeable, not even itself. If this could be done on a regular basis then self-inflicted magic was practicable. Such people often accordingly became leading lights of their trade and aspired to high places.
It is not surprising, then, that such a possibility had captured Tobias’ imagination at a very early point in his studies, in Southwark in fact. He had compulsively read what little literature was available on the subject, and had initiated a programme of experiments which had entirely and completely failed. In all probability nearly every apprentice and journeyman undertook the same experience in their youth and, faced with absolutely no prospect of success, gave up. Later on they were taught a few charms and power-words that could calm the mind and body but these were mere clever catechisms and not magical at all.
And so the matter rested, until Tobias took the subject up again in his second year at Rugby. Here he compiled fuller notes and in a purely academic sense made some progress because of the excellent reference collections available to him. However, at length, the more rewarding and practical field of demonology drew him away and once more he conceded defeat.
Such was the measure of his lack of success that the matter would have rested for ever if pressing need had not impelled him to act.
He felt that he could not go on very much longer without sleep. He was not a weak man but his stamina and endurance was not unlimited – the monastic routine was quite demanding. Yet he could not ask the Abbot for a sleeping draught or the aid of a magician since this would be fatal to the settled and untroubled image he had to maintain at all costs.
Only one solution, save blind fortune, presented itself: the physician had to heal himself and so the research project began anew.
He had brought his notes with him and several of his magical tomes might be relevant; the monastic library, however, was next to useless for it was designed for a very different type of reader. Still, it was a convenient place to work.
His research had at least progressed to the point where he was clear as to the objective. He had devised a statement, or formula of intent, in the magical algebraic notation taught in Christendom which seemed logical and self-consistent. In ordinary circumstances this and a power-word were all that was needed to construct a spell for a competent sorcerer.
In this case, however, he was beyond the bounds of conventional magical practice and its strictures did not necessarily apply. As an experiment he flicked the embryonic spell through his mind and, as expected, nothing happened. The same had been true yesterday when he had finally completed it but there was no harm in trying again.
And there most researchers left it, for many had reached this same level of progress; but today Tobias had thought of a new approach. During the early morning hours of reading, in despair he decided to abandon such work as he had done and look at the problem as if it were new to him. At the time this revealed no fresh insights and he saw the impasse to which he, like all his predecessors, had come. But then, as so often happens, the answer came to him unbidden, as if from an exterior source, when he was piling timber in the monastery workshop. He had convinced himself that his magic was a reality, a physical force like gravity; that was why it worked. The task was not to try and further convince the sceptical, unreachable part of his mind, rather it was to undermine this scepticism. If he was to introduce further doubt and suspicion, might not the stubborn core of disbelief be induced to doubt even itself? Such was the metaphysical formula that Tobias deemed worthy of experimentation. Furthermore he felt he might just be particularly qualified to pursue this approach. Chasing the idea round and round his mind all morning when he should have been concentrating on prayer or ceremony, he had let his eagerness and hope grow.
Sitting in the library, he collected his rough ideas together. Essentially what he proposed was a sustained assault on his ego and his natural grip of reality; a course of action fraught with apparent dangers. To do it he need do no more than call to mind those times in the past when that great numbness and cold, his ‘nothingness’, settled upon his soul; in the grip of which, everything was meaningless and therefore permissible and which thus served as a perfect tool for the purpose in hand. In the back of his mind he was loath to descend into the icy fog but he was possessed and persuaded by the possible rewards. The precise recollection and holding of emotional states was the very cornerstone of the magical arts (in this it was akin to poetry) and so he envisaged no difficulty in producing the required passions. The more he sat and silently considered, the more he excitedly felt that – just perhaps – experience had provided him with the key to a rusty and disused lock.
At Southwark he had been taught to induce a slight contemplative trance suitable for deep or difficult thought. By now, with frequent use, they had an almost magical effect on him: it was with these he whiled away his insomniac hours. Now he would employ one to enforce his inner campaign of disbelief.
He jotted down a simple notation of the mood that he required so that it could easily be held in his mind. Then Tobias arranged himself comfortably on his chair, invoked his mood of unworried despair, and passed into a twilight reverie.
None of the sleepy or studious monks also in the library noticed the young magician and his inactivity. By now they were used to his presence, his long silences and sudden movements. Yet when dinner at last came around, the last old man filing out realised that their visitor was still seated at his desk, eyes fixed and glassy on the book before him. He crossed over to the table, mildly alarmed that his approach evoked no response at all, and shook Tobias by the shoulder.
Tobias started awake and stared at the monk who fell back a pace, deeply shocked by the look of limitless despondency and hatred he could see in Oakley’s eyes. The old man had been in Holy Orders since youth and the force of evil was known to him only by repute. At that moment he felt himself in its presence. It was a disconcerting experience.
But the moment passed so quickly it was difficult to believe it had happened, for Tobias recovered himself immediately and was his normal imperturbable self again.
‘Time for dinner is it, Brother? Thank you for reminding me; I was quite lost in thought there.’
The monk eyed him suspiciously for a moment and then recovered his manners. ‘Not at all Curate, please don’t mention it.’ He turned and hurried out of the room with much to think about.
Tobias had forgotten him already. He tried the spell again. Nothing. It was still mere lifeless words.
Somewhat sickened by his long dark reverie but still undaunted, he proceeded to dinner.
The measure of his determination wa
s such that he felt impelled to ask Abbot Milne for temporary release from his work and most religious observances, pleading a need for prolonged and sustained meditation over the next few days.
Pleased at this show of enthusiasm and motivation, Abbot Milne freely granted his charge three days ‘retreat’ as he termed it.
Tobias studied him closely as he did so for signs of doubt or suspicion but he could detect none and therefore felt his gamble had paid off.
And so day after day after day Tobias sat in the library (it was too cold in his cubicle). A simple learning device taught to all magicians formed a reliable alarm clock to rouse him at meal times and at the end of the day. While the bulk of his mind wrestled to grasp nothingness, one small part alertly watched a stone tower slowly succumb to the powers of time and ivy. It tumbled brick by brick until only a shapeless pile of rubble remained at which point Tobias would ‘awaken’. The speed of its decline could be exactly judged and so formed an excellent clock. The image was, of course, a purely personal one. At Southwark his fellow journeyman, Skillit, once confided to him that he used the vision of a nun disrobing; perhaps this was so, for each individual had to utilise that which he found most evocative.
Tobias had no measure to tell how well his work was going but he knew that he was, at last, on the right lines. Of course it was a sickly and debilitating thing to court insanity and he found the only release from the aftermath was sleep. Fortunately his repose chanced to be relatively undisturbed during his retreat.
And so, somewhat haggard and pale, he came to the end of his third day of meditation. During that time he had disciplined himself to forgo a premature attempt at the spell itself. Now at five o’clock on a dark November evening the attempt would have to be made. He could not risk asking the Abbot for further time and he could not face the self-inflicted pain very much longer.
To avoid procrastination and thus a loss of mood he immediately ran the spell notation through his mind. In an inexplicable way it joined, matched and merged with the nuance of emotion he had been exploring and the two became something more than their sum. Tobias could not explain how or why this was so, or how he knew that magic had just been created; it was simply undeniable.
A Dangerous Energy Page 21