The Book of Crows

by Sam Meekings

‘Before my companion could finish his well-practised speech, the monk had thrust his thumb in the direction of the cloisters and walked away from us. Alessio shrugged and pushed me towards the low stone buildings.

  ‘Having spent your life in a monastery, Rosso, you may find it hard to appreciate the shock I felt as I looked around. You must remember that I was used to villages, to mud and grime, to two-storey shacks and back alleys bearing black rivers of piss. I was amazed at the size of the place, for it seemed as if the monks had managed to build a whole new world within those vast stone walls. Beyond the stables and the gardens we passed the kitchens and the infirmary, spotting the abbot’s grand house in the distance, flanked by orchards and a small cemetery. My amazement did not cease once we had ventured inside the cloisters, for, as we searched for Father Emiliano, we came across a number of monks engaged in sorting herbs for medicinal use, the pittancer counting coins in a small office, as well as an elderly prior shouting at a number of young novices.

  ‘For all our wandering, it was surprisingly easy to find Emiliano’s rooms, and I began to think that the rehearsal for our elaborate deceit was completely unnecessary, and that perhaps I would not be required to do anything at all. Most of the monks we came across did us the courtesy of ignoring us completely. Alessio’s priestly gowns elicited such unearned trust that for the briefest of moments the thought entered my mind that he might not be a priest at all, and that I too was being fooled by some elaborate ruse. Since none of the small cells had doors, it was easy enough to peer in at the inhabitants, and thus we worked our way along until we found the white-haired monk that Alessio informed me was Father Emiliano.

  ‘He was a pinched twig of a man, the knuckles of his spine poking up against his brown habit like knots in a length of rope as he hunched over a tiny desk, his wrinkled face pressed so close to an open book that his hooked nose seemed to be brushing against the pages. Standing in the doorway, we cleared our throats and then knocked against the wall, waiting to be invited in, but it took an inordinate amount of time for the old man to notice us. Alessio finally resorted to stamping his feet upon the cold stone floor.

  ‘“Ah! My friends, do come in. Yes, yes. Good. Do take a look – it’s animal hide. Remarkable, eh? Mostly sheep, I think. Or was it goat? I forget. How many beasts do you think it took to make this copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest? How many knives slicing thin slivers of their skin, how much blood? And how many months did it take the distinguished scholar to copy out the text, word by word, line by line, toiling from dawn until midnight each day? How many hours? How many oak apples did he have to pick to mix the many pots of iron gall ink he must have used? How many goose feathers for how many worn-down quills? How many candles burnt to the snub while he wrote through the long evenings? You cannot tell me, can you? This is not just a book, my friends, oh no, not just a book. You can keep your looms and your aqueducts and your wells and your telescopes. This is the pinnacle of human labour. This is an invention against Death. It is befitting that it took such work, such time, such sacrifices, and thus we should show it the reverence it deserves.”

  ‘Both Alessio and I stood awkwardly in the tiny room, unsure of how to respond to the old man’s words. The coastal breeze hissed in through cracks in the stones, though it did not seem to bother our host. He moved his hands tenderly over the pages, as a child might stroke a small dog, before turning the heavy cover to set it closed. This small effort seemed to overwhelm him.

  ‘“May peace be upon you, father. We have come on an important matter. You are much renowned in this land, and those who know you have nothing but respect for your intellect, your piety, your charity. It is said that you have read more than —”

  ‘“You do not need to flatter me into submission,” the elderly monk smiled, raising a knurled hand to halt Alessio’s speech. “I do not get many visitors these days, so all friends are welcome. I see you are a man of the cloth, which heartens me. Yet I do not doubt that you are here for the same reason as all the others. You come because of your dreams.”

  ‘Alessio smiled and bowed.

  ‘“I cannot deny it, Father. It is well known that you are the foremost expert on the interpretation of dreams on this whole island. Yet we do not wish to trouble you. You only have to say the word and we will leave you to your studies.”

  ‘“No, no, you are most welcome to stay. What is the point of acquiring knowledge if one cannot share it with others? Please be seated and I will help you as best I can.”

  ‘Alessio and I knelt down before the old monk.

  ‘“It is because of my young charge here that we have come to you, father. He has been having most unsettling dreams.”

  ‘Emiliano nodded sagely.

  ‘“Strange dreams are not unusual in the young. They are a natural part of the body and the mind’s development. I should warn you right now that it is highly likely that I shall say the same thing to you that I say to most who come to seek my guidance. Each month I am besieged by visitors with unusual dreams, each one of them ready to quote from the Book of Job: ‘For God does speak – now one way, now another – though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds.’ And so each visitor comes to ask me, what is the meaning of my dream? What is the Lord trying to tell me? Is it a vision, a prophecy, a commandment?

  ‘“Yet most dreams come not from the Lord, but from ourselves. Of course, that does not mean that we cannot learn something from each dream. We may learn much about the dreamer’s desires, his secrets, his plans, his past. But dreams can also be false and misleading. They can be sent to tempt us, to trick us, to pull us towards sin. The Devil lives among dreams, and we must be vigilant always against him. But most of the time, however, dreams come neither from the Lord nor the Devil. As any physician will tell you, dreams can be caused by an excess of bile, by an imbalance of the humours. Nothing more.”

  ‘Alessio shook his head. “But Joseph was given dreams that foretold the future. God came to Abimelech in a dream, and Jacob was shown the eternal ladder in a dream.”

  ‘“Yes, and Noah lived 950 years, while Methuselah lived 969. The era of such prophets is over, my brother. But let me hear this young man’s dream, and then perhaps I can help him.”

  ‘The two men both turned expectantly towards me. It was time for me to give my performance, and I believe I did an exemplary job.

  ‘“I dream of barren fields. Baked red earth that blows in dusty clouds between the houses. Dried-up riverbeds and cattle so thin you can see their ribs curving out like longbows beneath their tatty, threadbare hides. And then, in the midst of all of this, I see a crow. At first it is a solitary bird, flapping its way towards me. Then I spot another, then another. Soon the sky is filled with crows, the heavens so thick with black feathers that not a trace of blue can be seen behind them. The sound of their beating wings pounds through my skull, and I clutch my bleeding ears to try to blot out the fearsome clamour. Then, just as suddenly, they are gone. I look around, but cannot see a single bird. Yet now the fields are green and full. The wheat stands tall and luscious, keening to the wind. The river pulses past and the fat cows waddle to the banks to drink their fill.”

  ‘The old man narrowed his eyes as I spoke, though I could see that he was taken in.

  ‘“How many times have you been afflicted with such visions?” he asked.

  ‘“Every new moon I dream the same dream, father,” I lied.

  ‘For a long time after this Father Emiliano sat in silence, his mouth pursed, his eyes staring past me, and I took this as a sign that my well-rehearsed story was having the desired effect.

  ‘“It could not be clearer if it had come to Joseph himself. The barren fields, the dry riverbed, the emaciated cattle, these are all Biblical images that tell us that the world has grown malnourished. It has turned away from the Lord, and so the Lord has abandoned it. The dream appears to suggest that after the crows come the world is born again. The crows mus
t represent Christ, whose sacrifice feeds and nourishes all souls, and who gives eternal life to all who come to him. But perhaps it’s not that simple,” he murmured.

  ‘“I believe it is a prophecy, father,” Alessio said. ‘As you say, the world has turned from the Lord. Great changes must be made to bring men back to the true path. There is surely only one way to achieve this.”

  ‘“No, no, I cannot believe it. What you say may be true, but … it is a myth, a legend.”

  ‘“But the dream, father. You said yourself that the crows must represent Christ. And I have heard that some refer to the Last Gospel as the Book of Crows. Do you not think that the dream is a message, that the time is ripe for the Last Gospel to be revealed to mankind, that his soul might be delivered from the darkness in which it now dwells?”

  ‘Father Emiliano had turned as pallid as milk. “In all my years, I have never been asked to interpret such a dream before. The symbolism, as you say, is clear. And yet … and yet. I cannot believe it. The Book of Crows, as some of the esoteric texts do indeed call it, is nothing more than a rumour, an apocryphal heresy. The crows in the dream might as easily represent the journey of the spirit after death, or the black robes worn by myself and my Benedictine brothers. Yes, yes, that must be it. Your charge is being called to become a Benedictine monk. That is why the Lord has led you to me this day.”

  ‘Alessio stood up from the bed. “But father, if there is even the smallest chance that the dream is a message from the Lord calling us to find the Book of Crows and reveal it to the world, then it is surely our sacred duty to try to find it. What if it is not a myth? What if it is as real as the other Gospels?”

  ‘Alessio looked up at the old monk imploringly.

  ‘“Come, father, you are probably the most learned man on this island. I do believe there is not a single book I could name that you have not read. Help us. You must have found a reference to it somewhere, a footnote, an aside.”

  ‘Emiliano took one of his wrinkled hands in the other, and pressed them tightly together.

  ‘“It is a fool’s errand. Better men have lost their souls in search of it.”

  ‘“Then you know of some who have looked?”

  ‘The old man shifted uncomfortably, toying with his stubby fingers.

  ‘“I have known men destroy themselves in the desire to lose the self in the divine, and I have known men who have spent their lives digging up the earth that they might find a path to hell and so fight the Devil on their own terms. I have known men waste years at the side of the dying, desperate to see the soul as it departs from flesh, and men who have whittled away their time on constructing giant bird wings that they might ignore the wise providence of nature and soar to Heaven themselves. I have met heretics, dissenters, traitors and fools, but none is as dangerous as the man who has convinced himself that he alone can succeed where all others have failed. Forget the book.”

  ‘“But you yourself have heard the dream. Would you ignore the command of the Lord?”

  ‘He slumped, defeated, pursing his fleshy lips.

  ‘“Once, only once did I see the tiniest shred of evidence that it might be anything more than the most fantastical of tales fit only for the gullible and demented, though until today I have never told anyone about it. I was in a monastic library in Messina, whose exact location you need not trouble yourselves with, when I was a much younger man. I remember reading a copy of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, an incomparable work of the most enviable scholarship. If you are an educated man, my friend, you will undoubtedly have come across it yourself. I think it is the fifth book in which he cites the lost writings of Apollonius of Ephesus, who argued against the false prophecies of the Montanist sects in Asia Minor. Beneath this fleeting reference someone had scribbled on the page in a crude hand. I recall being much perturbed that another reader had had the audacity to deface such a work, yet my curiosity got the better of me, and I found myself reading the smudged insertion. The despoiler had written

  Apollonius was wrong, the Montanists held true

  but driven to the yellow east they go

  bearing among them the secret of the crow.

  It was common in those days for brothers in the seminary to debate the ancient heresies as a test of our reasoning, and thus the fanciful tale of the Last Gospel, or so-called Book of Crows, was fresh in my mind. I thought at first it might be some childish prank, yet the Messina library offered its collection to only the most renowned scholars. Whoever wrote that note must have believed there was a link between the Montanists and the Last Gospel.”

  ‘“That is all you know?”

  ‘Alessio seemed somewhat disappointed.

  ‘“It is a trifle, I admit. Yet it has played on my mind many times in the years since. I am too old for riddles and conspiracies, but surely it is no coincidence that all of the writings of Apollonius of Ephesus have been destroyed. I have met no one who has heard of a single of his works surviving the centuries since his death. And thus much of what we know of the Montanists is shrouded in mystery. We know they rejected a priesthood, saw all men as equal in appreciation of the Word. We know that Montanus was taken as a prophet by his followers, yet it is unclear what he prophesied. If perhaps the sect did have access to the Last Gospel … but no, it is too ridiculous an idea to countenance.”

  ‘“Yet you think it is possible that this mysterious sect fled east to avoid persecution, taking the book with them. That despite the fact that almost all evidence of their very existence has been destroyed, perhaps the book they stole away is hidden still, awaiting the time when mankind will be ready for its revelations.”

  ‘“No, no. It goes against everything I have ever believed.”

  ‘Alessio placed a hand upon the old man’s shoulders. “Do not worry, father, all that we have spoken of shall remain between us. You have helped us unravel the message of the dreams, and for that we thank you. I know this visit has not been easy for you. Will you join us in some wine before we depart, that we might show our gratitude?”

  ‘“A small draught, perhaps. Though I feel ashamed of myself for what I have told you. The Last Gospel does not exist. I do not know a serious scholar who does not treat the idea as anything more than a joke. You seem like such earnest young men, and I do not want you to get into any trouble on my behalf. I shall pray that your dreams do not lead you away from the righteous path.”

  ‘Alessio unstoppered his carafe and slopped a good measure of dark red wine into Emiliano’s wooden cup. He then raised the bottle to his lips, and put his hand to his chest. As they drank, I looked awkwardly at my feet, embarrassed to have been excluded from this adult ritual.

  ‘“May the Holy Spirit be with you, father. We will not interrupt your studies any longer, for the dream seems to tell us that there is much work to be done.”

  ‘The old man sighed and nodded his head as we bid him farewell. Outside the cloisters, the mute porter helped us saddle the mules and hauled the great creaking gate closed behind us. It was not until we had picked our way down the overgrown trail, through the throngs of bracken and gorse to the bottom of the valley, beyond the reach of the long flung shadow of the old stone monastery, that my companion spoke.

  ‘“I almost feel sorry for the old fool,” Alessio snorted as we turned down the dirt track back towards Palermo.

  ‘“How so?” I asked, somewhat confused by the sudden change in his attitude.

  ‘“Though he pretends to know everything of dreams and prophecy, he understands little. Why do you think we visited him? There are a hundred more knowledgeable men on this island. Yet most of them are selfish old misers. As it is with riches, so it is with learning. Some people crave it, and when they get it they want to hide it away so that no one else can get their hands on it. Emiliano was easy to read. He’s been mocked and patronised by other scholars all his life for studying dreams. All he probably ever wanted was a little attention, a little deference and respect. At least we could grant him that, albeit at t
he last hour of his life.”

  ‘“How could you possibly know that?” I asked.

  ‘Alessio merely reached down and shook the carafe of wine looped through his belt. I said nothing as I slowly realised what I had been a part of.

  ‘He shook his head wearily. “You must know how vital it is that no one finds out what we are after. If someone else found out where it might be … it does not bear thinking of.”

  ‘Not another word passed between us on the long journey back into the city, and I recall that it was a full three days before I spoke to my roommate again. Of course, I knew that it was foolish to think that we might leave a trace of ourselves somewhere and run the risk of someone letting slip of our mission. But I was upset that he had not confided in me, that he had thought I would not have been up to the test had I known beforehand what was planned.

  ‘Are you still there, Rosso? Are you still frowning? I imagine you are not best pleased with the direction my confession is taking. However, I am convinced that I will change your mind, as the Order changed mine. The Last Gospel is more important than anything else on this earth, and if a few men have to die to save it from the wrong hands, then that is how it must be. No, do not argue. You will come to agree, when you have heard what else I have to say.

  ‘Now, while I still have a little strength, I wish to tell you about the night I killed Father Sebastiano.’

  The late-morning wind hisses between the tents, clawing at worn cloth and threatening to uproot our entire camp. Yet Lovari is oblivious to it. He is sweaty and pale, but he knows the stages of the sickness as well as I and it seems he will not be able to rest until he has finished his laboured confession. I must admit I do not much relish the thought of listening to a man wallow in his most foul sins, yet I must steel myself, for it is my job to deliver him from the clutches of the Devil and give absolution before it is too late.

  ‘Let me press you now, brother, to take this opportunity to ask the Lord for forgiveness. No doubt you were forced by trickery and threats to kill your old priest. I cannot even begin to imagine the guilt that must have plagued your sleep these many years, the deepest regret that must be burning in your soul.’