The Collected Connoisseur

by Valentine, Mark

  After clarifying a few other points, The Connoisseur assured Dr Mallet that he would look into the incidents she had placed before him, thanking her for such an unusual account. After he had ushered her cordially out, he returned to his place before the fire.

  ‘I have heard rumours of at least two of the orders Edith Mallet encountered,’ he said. ‘Those are no matchbox-label collectors, though it was a devious ploy, doubtless prepared for just such an eventuality, the stray interloper. It’s troubling to hear of what seems so great a convocation. But why? What are they planning, and why on earth in High Mortain?’

  The Connoisseur’s final remark came to have much more import—disturbingly so—than I could ever have imagined at the time.

  ***

  There were lights in the hills as we drove towards the reclusive Shropshire town, flickering tongues of light: and the prevalent, sweetly acrid tang of wood-smoke in the air. Picturesque as the unfolding scene was, it had nothing of the bucolic idylls of novels by Miss Mary Webb or Dr Francis Brett Young.

  After Dr Mallet’s visit, The Connoisseur’s researches had uncovered a point which seemed to trouble him rather: the town had a tradition of holding its annual Bonfire Night a full fortnight and more earlier than the usual custom, and the villages all around would bring an extinguished brand from their own smaller fires to place upon the town pyre. For days in the mists of mid-October there would be gatherings in all the remote settlements around to set going their own fire, to gather at night in its glow, eat the specially prepared flat and oven-warm ‘soul cakes’, and give thanks for the benison of the flames.

  The Connoisseur had sent out his summons, by all sorts of means, without delay. When I next visited at his express invitation, my friend was most uncharacteristically whistling to himself. ‘ “Their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the earth”,’ he pronounced. ‘If you are still learning the glorious Mr Handel’s fine but overrated Messiah for the Choral Society’s Christmas concert, you will doubtless know the air that shortly follows: “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Anyway, enough! I have had the others’ responses. We can be on our way.’

  ***

  I had met individual members of my friend’s curious circle of esotericists before, owing to their involvement in some episode or other of his adventures in investigating the singular, but had hardly expected ever to see them gathered in one place. Around an old, deeply-lit walnut table in the creaking inn of the Talbot & Angel to which my friend had summoned them were pale, long-faced Lady Vesperine Wane; the high, coppery, almost Abyssinian features of Colonel Gaspard; the mild, bespectacled but shrewd visage of Ivo Tradescant; to which strange cenacle Dr Edith Mallet had also been admitted. After she had told again the account she had given us, ‘Ivo,’ The Connoisseur announced, ‘You had better go next.’ Young Tradescant’s glasses glinted in the gentle lamplight and he offered the following addition to the doings at High Mortain:

  ‘I went to a recital here recently, oh not more than a few weeks ago, by The Balzarths, brother and sister, of Anglo-Cretan origin; Alexander and Vivia. They have devoted themselves to the study of the most ancient music known to us, painstakingly piecing together fragments of Homeric and Delphic hymns, paeans, plaints, epitaph-songs, and of early Christian sacramental pieces. From papyrus, from vases, from funerary monuments, from stele and from friezes, they have traced hints and implications of the usages of music in the ancient days, and had copies made of what these images showed of the instruments the players wielded.

  ‘Then they try to demonstrate shards of the drones and melodies they have reconstructed, in lectures which include brief performances on these rediscovered instruments. I’ve been to a few of these recitals before, and frankly they’re usually a little dry. They will explain where they found the piece, how they reconstructed it and where they have had to speculate, then they’ll tell you all about the instrument, and then play a bare fragment, often of quite brittle sharpness. It’s far more of a lecture than a performance, but I go because I know that music of this kind played its part in the celebration of the Mysteries, and that is my chief interest.

  ‘I’ve travelled distances to hear them and so when I heard they were giving a concert here I thought it was not too far a hop westward from the Peaks, and I could go and make their acquaintance again. They were playing in the local Memorial Hall, but by all the gods, what a difference in their performance. It was extraordinary. The hall—you might have seen it as you wandered around—is a modest provincial piece of classicism in ashlar, with a couple of fine columns. But they had transformed it inside. It was hung with viridian veils, skeins of pale faded green like webs of woven verdigris. Sharp, myrrh-based oils fumed in encrusted brass crucibles, delicate crescents barely resting upon slender stalks. Tall, honey-toned tapers flickered in niches and corners. On tables to one side, pitchers of dark wine and platters of cinnamon- and cardamom-tinted sweetmeats stood. It all had more of an ambience of ceremony rather than lecture.

  ‘They are olive-skinned, and their hair has the colour and patina of black grapes. She, I have always thought, is purer in the form and line of her face than her brother, for hers is a serene oval whereas his had the merest hint of the off-true about it, a piquant slant, a quizzicism in the countenance. Both, however, are usually shy in the eye and avoid a direct gaze; with a hesitance about them which seems to deflect any closeness of human contact.

  ‘This time it was all different. They came onto the stage barefoot, she in a brilliant white chlamys, he in a blue robe, and without any preamble began to play, she at the sonorous double-flute and he on two great brass cymbals. The work started off slowly, languorously, winding its way into the mind with that hollow, cavernous sound of the ancient reed, accompanied by subtle shimmerings of the cymbals, but then it began to surge to a wilder pace, as they coaxed out more and more furious sounds. There were a series of insistent, soaring surges from the flute and great rippling shards from the cymbals, and as I sat there quite taken aback and drawn in, I kept seeing in my mind images of golden fire, as if the music were itself a fire turned into a new dimension.

  ‘I saw them afterwards. Despite the exhaustion of the performance, they were exultant, fervent-eyed and feverish, as I’ve never seen them before. Vivia’s purple lips glistened with seeping scarlet beads so that they seemed, frankly, like the flesh of cleft pomegranates. Alexander’s long fingers also bled ichors of red. I asked where on earth they had found such a work, and Vivia laughed, and simply said, “Perhaps not on earth, Ivo!” I could get no more out of them, except the title of the piece: The Bright Charioteer.’

  Ivo glanced at each one of the gathering in turn. Gaspard’s contribution, given next, was characteristically terser: he had seen the symbol on the finial before, in his travels among the Caspian and Black Sea lands, and in the more sinister quarters of several European cities. He could not say what it meant, but it seemed to originate with the people of the Peacock Angel, an highly heretical sect who believed that the Elder Son of God had been pardoned for his revolt and given all this world as his domain.

  Lady Vesperine Wane’s contribution, hesitant, in her gentle murmur, was the most enigmatic. ‘I have been unable to discern any important celestial disposition to account for the gathering that Dr Mallet witnessed,’ she observed, ‘and yet I am seized by the knowledge that there is some movement of the spheres that I have missed. I shall keep searching.’ And she subsided into silence as if she were conducting that very quest within the far reaches of consciousness there and then. There was a grave pause.

  Dr Mallet, evidently somewhat bemused, added: ‘I think I have done two things which will help me in my original mission, to discover more about this finial. In the first place, I have taken the liberty of renting the empty chambers in the old warehouse next door to the café. I am determined to inspect this finial and it occurred to me that there might be some rooftop route betwe
en the two. I shall investigate tomorrow under cover of darkness, if opportunity affords. Secondly, I have flung further afield my researches into the ironworker who might have made the finial. I reasoned that it must have been crafted within a reasonable radius of where we are, for ease of transport: and I have looked into all those locally connected to ironwork of any kind. I have drawn a blank thus far, but a few of those I went to see said the same thing when I described it to them: for its delicacy and yet strong definition, it has to be the work of Hephaestus Smith—a nom de feu, of course, as one might say—who has a forge in the forest not twenty miles away. He I shall visit also tomorrow, early on.’

  ***

  The next morning at breakfast, The Connoisseur informed me that he had decided to seek out what he described as ‘High Mortain’s small but I believe exquisite bookshop, as it apparently specialises in volumes concerning East European history and folklore, and I wish to see what it will have on the Iron Crown of St Stephen, and the Habsburg Rescript, which was not after all destroyed by that last Empress, the late Zita.’

  I decided not to accompany him, and, catching sight of Dr Mallet lustily demolishing her scrambled egg with capers and mushrooms, I felt that a bracing excursion further unto the Shropshire countryside was in order. Accordingly I secured Dr Mallet’s permission to accompany her to visit the forge of Hephaestus Smith.

  ‘I am most keen to visit the smith Smith—ha ha—as I believe that I may have seen other work by him in the course of my studies.’

  I hoped that Dr Mallet was better at driving than she was at wordplay. I smiled dutifully. ‘And it will be good to have a vigorous young man along too, just in case our Hephaestus is not, ah, amenable to visitors.’

  I made an observation about the artistic temperament, but Dr Mallet, thankfully, was concentrating on navigating the winding rural lanes towards our destination. I settled back and tried to enjoy the fusty atmosphere of her quaint old motor-car as I gazed out at the pointed hills, distant chimneys and tall clumps of trees in their shadowed green meadow-islands. I mentally rehearsed my small role as a member of the chorus in Messiah; but the tenor air kept on playing itself in my mind: ‘Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron … a rod of iron… .’

  I woke up suddenly. We had stopped. The light was dim outside. Dr Mallet intoned, with mock—I hope—gravity: ‘Young man, you were quite asleep. And singing some awful song under your breath. Well, here we are! The home of the Smith of smiths, ha ha, yes, quite.’

  We were indeed in the middle of a dense wood. In the gloom, I saw that the car stood at the end of a track which wound away behind us through the trees. In midwinter, when the trees were completely bare, I thought that the place wouldn’t seem so oppressive; but as it was, with the trees still bearing a remarkable percentage of their summer foliage, the effect was just that: oppressive. And silent.

  ‘This way!’ Dr Mallet grabbed my arm and started to walk along the path further into the wood. Then the forge came into view, just as the silence was shattered by the sound of hammer on metal on anvil. The structure looked most precarious and temporary, but it had probably looked that ramshackle for decades.

  ‘Yoo-hoo! Hello!’ Dr Mallet sang out as we reached the entrance. The hammering stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and there was the whooshing sound of red-hot metal being doused in water. Then I saw that there was certainly nothing ramshackle about Hephaestus Smith.

  He came to the door, a mountain of a man with a red beard and masses of flaming red hair. His face was red and lined, and judging from what I remembered Dr Mallet saying about him, he must have been at least seventy. But he was muscular and vigorous. He let the gigantic hammer he was holding drop onto the floor by his feet. It hit with a deep thud, cracking a brick. ‘Thou shalt break them . . .’ I whispered.

  ‘What was that? Who are you? What d’you want?’ Smith shouted, although I quickly realised that was his normal voice.

  ‘No need to bellow, ha ha,’ Dr Mallet said, smiling. She put out her hand. ‘I’m Dr Edith Mallet. Author of Edwardian Finials of the Welsh Marches and Iron in the Sky: The Finial Art of England. You may have heard of them? I’ve been wanting to meet you for a very long time, Hephaestus, can I call you that?’

  Smith looked utterly bemused as his huge hand closed round Dr Mallet’s, and she pumped it up and down. I held out my hand too, but Smith seemed too shocked to notice me. I followed them both inside the forge.

  The blacksmith was smiling by now, and he ushered us through the flickering dimness, past his fire and anvil, and into a room at the back of his workplace. Dr Mallet was talking rapidly, and Smith still looked bemused, but was clearly taking in what she was saying. For all her appearance, it seemed as through she could be a diplomat when she needed to be.

  Smith made a pot of strong tea, and tipped into it a few drops of something from a small green bottle that he returned to a high shelf. I sat in a rough but firm Windsor chair and sipped my strengthened tea while Dr Mallet and Smith talked. Although the back room—which must have served as Smith’s living quarters—was refreshingly cool after the atmosphere of the forge, I soon felt my eyelids droop, and despite every attempt to stay awake and listen, I fell asleep again.

  Something tapped—or rather, hammered—on my knee, and I woke up. It was Smith, his red and grinning face a few inches from mine. ‘More tea?’ he shouted. ‘You were asleep, trying to sing something. I recognised it, though, I’m sure I did. It will be right, let me tell you that.’

  I declined more tea. For a moment I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then I recalled that I had dreamt that the Choral Society’s tenor had been taken suddenly ill, and that I had been called onto the stage to sing in his place. And the air I was singing over and over again was …

  ‘I’ve finished here,’ Dr Mallet announced, getting to her feet. ‘We should get back now. I’ve found out what I wanted to know. Our friend will be most pleased, too, I think, if we can winkle him out of those precious bookshops of his.’

  We both shook hands with Smith again, and returned to the car. Standing at the door to his forge, with the firelight flickering in the darkness behind him, Smith raised his hand in farewell. Dr Mallet waved back.

  ‘Now, where is that reverse gear? I’m sure there was one,’ she muttered to herself, as the engine came to life.

  Once we had negotiated the track and left the woods, I settled back. Dr Mallet looked at me sharply, swerving to avoid something in the road as she did so. ‘You are not going to sleep again, surely not?’ she said.

  ‘No, certainly not. Not now,’ I replied.

  ‘Good. You can stay alert by telling me what you know about Hephaestus and Phaeton. Or do you not have classical educations these days?’

  As it happens, certain aspects of the ancient myths are a special interest of mine. And keeping the society of my friend The Connoisseur had also been a great incentive to learn more. ‘Hephaestus was the smith to the Greek gods,’ I said. He was the husband of Aphrodite, or Venus, and he made the golden chariot for Helios, the god of the Sun, to travel in across the sky.’

  Dr Mallet nodded approvingly. ‘Capital! And Phaeton?’

  ‘Let me see—yes, he was Helios’ son. He came to a bad end, if I remember rightly.’

  ‘Yes, quite so. He borrowed his father’s chariot. But he was a truly terrible driver, ha ha, and Zeus had to strike the boy with a thunderbolt to stop him crashing and setting the whole world ablaze. Quite some story, eh? But Hephaestus —our Hephy, that is—told me much more that I’m sure will shed light on, if not solve, our mystery—’

  I will not set down the three words that Dr Mallet uttered next, as she swerved to avoid a cyclist whom I thought (but didn’t say) was observing the Highway Code punctiliously. I hoped that we would both live long enough for Dr Mallet to tell The Connoisseur everything that she had learnt during our visit to the dim forge in the woods.

  ***

  Over tea that afternoon, Lady Vesperine Wane offered in her s
ubdued tones a hesitant suggestion: ‘There is a disturbance in the hidden heavens,’ she murmured, ‘A great force that is not visible to us is bearing down, bringing its influence near. It is not one of our known celestial bodies, of that I am sure: I have checked all of my charts. And yet it is there, and drawing near … ’ She subsided. There was a puzzled silence. The Connoisseur then described what he had gleaned that morning. I could see that Dr Mallet was impatient to tell our little circle about what she had found out during the morning.

  She flung her teaspoon into its saucer. ‘Dash it all, I’m not interested in some holy crown with a bent cross. They should have looked after it better. Do you or do you not want to hear about Hephaestus Smith and the finial? That’s what we’re here for, after all.’

  Gaspard whispered to The Connoisseur, ‘I’ll talk to you about that some other time,’ and we settled back to listened to Dr Mallet.

  The Connoisseur nodded in agreement at point after point during the narrative. ‘I thought as much,’ he said. ‘And they didn’t call matches “Lucifers” for nothing, either. The Bringer of Light, you know.’