by Mervyn Wall
“Don’t judge all sylphs by me,” interjected Gertie bitterly. “I had a figure once, but what he’s done to the four of us in the way of exaggerating our curves passes all belief. I always said the Devil had no taste.”
“Now Gertie, don’t start complaining again,” retorted the Prince of Darkness. “You’ll all get your figures back when the job is done. I’ve explained to you till I’m worn out that the clergy’s conception of women, both physically and mentally, is a conception of something which doesn’t exist in this world. To tempt them properly and efficiently you must appear to them as they conceive women to be. The moment the operation is complete I’ll restore your figures to the four of you, and you can wander off to your woods and streams, the sweet, slender creatures that you always were.”
“I hope there’ll be no mistakes when you’re turning us back,” was Gertie’s acid retort as she looked down in disgust at her plump hips.
“Come on,” said the Devil, “we’ve wasted enough time already. Strip off, Fursey, and exchange clothes with the lady. You can turn your face to the wall and throw your clothes over your shoulder if you’re bothered by the virtue of modesty.”
“I don’t think I like the plan,” said Fursey.
“So you’d prefer to be disembowelled and burnt?”
“No,” responded Fursey glumly, and he turned his face to the wall. As he took off his habit he felt in the pocket the little box of ointment which he had taken from The Gray Mare’s cabin. Reflecting that it was his only possession, he pulled it out and laid it on the bed.
“Here,” said the Devil, “put these on.”
“I don’t know how women’s clothes go on.”
“I’ll help you,” said Satan impatiently.
In a few moments Fursey was dressed, the Devil hooking him dexterously down the back and helping him into the sylph’s cloak and veil. Fursey picked up the box of ointment and after some struggling with the unaccustomed clothes, found a small pocket into which it fitted nicely. Meanwhile, Gertie, wearing his tattered habit and sandals, had stretched herself on the pallet. The Devil shouted for the guard, and when the door was opened, the two conspirators passed out and up the narrow steps into the open air.
“What are you walking like that for?” hissed the Devil. “Do you want to attract everyone’s attention?”
“I can’t help limping,” replied Fursey indignantly, “with the soles nearly burnt off my feet.”
“There’s no need for you to limp with both feet at the same time,” retorted the Archfiend. “It looks awful. I never saw anything like it. It looks as if both your knees were broken.”
“I’ll try walking on my toes,” replied Fursey miserably.
It was dark in the street at first, but a round, jolly-faced moon came sailing from behind a cloud, flooding the open space with mellow light.
“Come into the shadow,” whispered the Devil.
Fursey stood shivering against the gable of a cottage while the Devil gave him his final directions.
“Go up the hill past the King’s House. You’ll meet less people that way. Keep in the shadow of the houses. The palisade of the city runs along by the King’s House. You must get over it somehow.”
“How?” interjected Fursey.
“By ingenuity,” answered the Fiend impatiently. “Once you’re across it, you’re out of the city. If you turn to the left, you will come to the northern road; if you turn to the right, you will soon reach the road that leads to the south.”
“Which way will I go?” asked Fursey.
“How do I know which way you’ll go?” replied the Devil irritably. “That’s your affair. Go now, and go quickly; for you’ve one thing to remember. The moment Gertie decides to vanish from your cell, her clothes which you’re wearing will vanish too. And let me tell you, it’ll be no joke for you if they catch you in a Christian city like this scampering around in your pelt. You’ll have to face a charge of indecent exposure as well as charges of murder and witchcraft, and I don’t know that the authorities don’t look on it as worse. Goodbye now, and go quickly.”
As the Devil vanished in a delicate thread of smoke, Fursey glanced around fearfully. The moonlight lay on the roofs of the huts and the cabins, giving the entire settlement a ghostly character. The shadows of the houses lay squat and square across the silvery road. Fursey gulped and set off, hobbling rapidly in the direction that the Devil had indicated, pausing hesitantly before he ventured to cross each patch of moonlit street. He stopped once to crouch in a doorway as a drunken townsman passed him singing heartbrokenly about the beauty of love. Otherwise the streets seemed deserted: the hour was late; good people, no doubt, were at home and in bed. As the moon drifted coyly behind a downy cloud, Fursey uttered a sigh of thankfulness and limped quickly up the incline towards the King’s House. He was skirting the King’s backyard when the sound of someone humming a gay, little air made him press himself back against the wall, where he stood, not daring to breathe. He heard footsteps slowly approaching, and a moment later a small figure turned the corner. It was King Cormac, back from the Bishop’s banquet, full to the gills with wine, out for a saunter up and down his yard before going to bed. Fursey uttered a prayer that he would not be seen, but it must be that a wizard’s prayers are obnoxious to Heaven, for at that moment the moon began to come out again smilingly from behind her cloud, as if she and Fursey were playing a game. As the shadows crept back before the light, Fursey glanced around him desperately. In a moment the moonlight would reach him. He made out the outline of a doorway behind him, and quickly lifting the latch, he disappeared into the interior, closing the door gently behind him. Breathlessly he watched through a crevice as Cormac sauntered unsteadily up and down the yard in the best of good humour, stroking his beard and telling himself jokes, but a moment later Fursey was startled by a rustling of wings in his rear. He threw a frightened glance in the direction from which the sound had come, and realised with a sinking heart that he was in the Royal poultry house. A monotonous clucking began in the darkness, and in a moment every hen and fowl had awakened and was clucking and cackling indignantly at the intruder. Fursey pressed his face against the door and gazed out in terror through the crevice to see whether the King had heard. Yes, Cormac had heard, and evidently believing that some dishonourable fellow was stealing his hens, had drawn his sword and was creeping towards the poultry house on tiptoe.
The door was flung open, and Cormac stood with his sword at the ready, the fire of battle in his eyes.
“Come out,” he commanded.
Fursey emerged without a word.
“Ha!” said the King. “A wench. Exactly what was needed to finish a perfect day.”
He returned his sword to its sheath and stood beaming at Fursey. Then he laid his hand on Fursey’s arm. “Come around the corner of the house,” he whispered, “there’s a seat there.”
“What for?” asked Fursey.
The King nudged him playfully. “As if you didn’t know,” he said.
Fursey followed the King apprehensively around the corner of the house and seated himself on the edge of the bench.
“You seem to be bad on the feet,” remarked Cormac as he sat down in close proximity. “Have you been drinking too?”
He went off into a fit of convulsive laughter at this jest, and Fursey managed to conjure up a feeble grin with the object of keeping the King in good humour. Then Cormac plunged into a rambling account of the evening’s festivities, every sentence borne on a wave of wine fumes, which he exhaled as a dragon does its fiery breath; but Fursey scarcely listened. He was too worried at the possibility of being seduced. At last the King was silent, and Fursey cautiously turning his head, observed that Cormac was watching him roguishly. A moment later the monarch had slipped an arm around his waist. Fursey withdrew as far as it was possible to do so, without falling off the bench.
“A high-born gentleman like you wouldn’t take advantage of a poor girl,” pleaded Fursey, pitching his voice to a shrill
falsetto in keeping with his character as a lady.
“Wouldn’t I now?” rejoined Cormac, stroking his moustaches in a very dashing fashion. “You don’t know the sort of fellow I am.”
“If you don’t behave yourself, I’ll scream,” declared Fursey in a cracked treble.
“What are you afraid of?” asked the King. “There are none of the clergy around.”
“I’m a decent girl,” asserted Fursey.
“That’s what they all say,” grinned the King, “but I know better.”
Fursey’s brain simmered as he laboured to find a solution to his present predicament, but almost before he realised it, the situation resolved itself.
“You’ve a lovely face,” murmured the King, bending forward, a tremor of emotion in his voice. He raised a bejewelled hand and gently drew back Fursey’s hood, advancing at the same time his white bewhiskered visage with the evident intention of planting on Fursey’s cheek a chaste kiss, but at the sight of Fursey’s close-cropped head of white, stubbly hair he stopped petrified. The arm encircling Fursey’s waist stiffened with terror. For a moment he stared at Fursey, then his voice came out of his throat in a horrified hiccough.
“The sorcerer! The demoniac! Maybe both!”
It was borne in powerfully on Fursey that it was time to betake himself elsewhere. He arose quickly and ran around the corner of the building, pulling his hood over his ears as he ran. The fascinated King came staggering after him. In front was the palisade, but against it leaned a man-at-arms, idly sharpening the head of his spear. He glanced up quickly as Fursey approached; then his eyes fell on the King, who had reached the corner, but whose legs would take him no further. For once Fursey’s little share of wit stood by him. He walked coolly up to the soldier.
“Here, fellow,” he pronounced in ringing, feminine tones. “Help me over the stockade.”
The surprised soldier glanced from Fursey to the frozen figure of King Cormac in the shadow of the building. Fursey turned and waved his plump hand daintily in the King’s direction.
“Goodbye, my love,” he shrilled.
Cormac staggered and leaned unsteadily against the wall, still incapable of speech; but the guard appeared to notice nothing untoward. A sly smile spread slowly over his honest visage.
“I understand, my lady,” he said knowingly. “You don’t want to be seen leaving by the front.”
The soldier bent his shoulder and in a moment had hoisted Fursey on to the top of the palisade. Fursey squirmed uncomfortably on the tips of the sharpened stakes, but the solder lent a willing hand to disentangle his dress, which was caught in the thorns and spikes. It was at this moment that Fursey’s clothing suddenly vanished, leaving him straggling on the top of the stockade completely naked. The sudden disappearance of a charming, well-dressed lady and the unaccountable substitution of a small, plump, white-headed man in the buff was too much for the soldier. He immediately took to his heels, and King Cormac, who saw no reason for remaining, joined him in his flight. The two of them ran hell-for-leather around the building, and Fursey, who had fallen on the far side of the palisade, only paused to pick up his box of ointment before making off as fast as his legs could carry him in the opposite direction. He had run down the incline and half-way up the opposite hill before he paused to consider in which direction he should go. He stood trying to recover his breath as he stared at the settlement below him and at the two white roads that led north and south. The northern road led to Clonmacnoise. For a long time he stood uncertain. He thought of the peace which he had once known in the cloister, and he remembered the gates closed in his face. Still he hesitated. Then he remembered the Abbot Marcus as he had stood in the roadway in the cold, early-morning light when Fursey had been pinioned by the soldiers and thrown into the high cart. He saw the Abbot’s face again, hard, as if carved out of stone; and a cold flood of water seemed to flow over Fursey’s heart. He turned his back to Clonmacnoise and slowly made his way to the moonlit road that crept away over the hills towards the south.
* * *
It was late in the night when the Bishop’s serving men helped the last guest into his cloak and persuaded him to go home. Bishop Flanagan stood in the doorway of his dining hall and eyed with distaste the overturned goblets and the scattered remnants of food that lay on the tables and floor. Father Furiosus, who was in residence at the Palace, was the only one left. He sat crouched over the fire, his wine-flushed face reflecting the leaping flames, whistling meditatively the notes of one of the more popular hymns.
“The worst of these banquets,” declared the Bishop, “is that there are always some few of the fathers who manifest a marked disinclination to go home. I thought I’d never get rid of Canon Pomponius. He attempted to sing his way through the entire Seven Penitential Psalms in the hall. I had to send two of my houseboys home with him lest he be an occasion of scandal to the neighbourhood.”
The friar interrupted his whistling for a moment.
“I never saw a man with a goodlier appetite for wine,” he averred.
“I am not myself a wine-bibber, as you have no doubt observed,” remarked the Bishop frigidly. “It disagrees with my stomach.”
“You might be a better man if you were,” replied the friar mildly, and he re-commenced his whistling.
“I think it’s time for bed,” said the Bishop, lifting a torch from its bracket. Father Furiosus arose and stretched his huge frame until the joints cracked.
“It was a massive feast,” he remarked regretfully as he followed the prelate to the door, the nutshells that littered the floor cracking pleasantly beneath their feet. They made their way along the dim corridor to the sleeping apartments. The Bishop’s room adjoined, but was beyond that which Father Furiosus occupied. In fact, the only entrance to the prelate’s chamber was through the room in which the friar slept. When they entered the first room, Father Furiosus wandered across to his bed and stretching himself again, opened his mouth to emit a yawn like the roar of a young lion. When Bishop Flanagan had lit the rushlight by the friar’s bed from the torch which he carried, he paused at his own door and stood watching the friar’s tonsils vibrating in the torchlight. When the yawn was finished, and the friar had closed his mouth, the Bishop addressed him.
“Do you remember during the trial this afternoon,” he asked, “it was asserted that a witch could only die if she succeeded in breathing her unholy powers into someone else? Can that be altogether true? After all, a witch is successfully disposed of at the stake.”
“Cases vary,” replied the friar, “but it has been proved to be true in many instances. Witches, however, may always be destroyed by fire or by drowning. That’s why the Church and the secular authority always insist on execution by fire, so as to make certain of the witch’s destruction.”
“Yes, of course,” agreed the Bishop. “The assertion of the demoniac Fursey, that detestable powers were breathed into him by the old woman so that she might find relief from her pains in death has been exercising my mind ever since. That’s why I asked you.”
Father Furiosus had drawn his habit over his head preparatory to retiring, and his voice came out muffled by its folds.
“The story told by the devil who possesses Fursey, was logical and correct,” he answered, “but fortunately we know that The Gray Mare was not a witch.”
The Bishop remembered that The Gray Mare’s innocence was a point on which Father Furiosus felt strongly, so he did not pursue the matter further.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night, my lord,” replied the friar, hanging his habit on the back of the door.
In his own room Bishop Flanagan lit the rushlight on the table beside his bed and extinguished the torch by pressing it against the earthen floor. Then he knelt to say his prayers, which were tedious and protracted. He had not been praying for very long before he heard the friar’s snores reverberating in the neighbouring room. He shook his head disapprovingly. The fact that Father Furiosus was already asleep meant t
hat the friar’s prayers had been brief, even if fervent. Bishop Flanagan continued on his knees for an hour, ending with a stern petition for a recall to their duty of those of his flock who were in arrears with their contributions to their pastors. At length he arose and turning down the bedclothes, drew back the undersheet. He took from the table by his bedside a small shovel, and from a corner of the room he shovelled up a heap of smooth stones that were neatly piled there. These he distributed judiciously beneath the sheet on which he was to lie. Such was the nightly practice of this godly man so as to mortify the flesh, lest unawares he should fall into the sin of luxury. When this pious operation was completed, he undressed himself and assumed a long nightshirt composed of crude linen and horsehair, which modestly covered his person from his ears to his heels. Then he clambered gingerly on to his hard couch and drawing the blankets over him, composed himself for sleep.
With his long, lank neck stretched on the pillow the Bishop had passed into the happy, dreamy state between waking and sleeping, when from ever so far away the sound of soft music came seeping into his consciousness. The music was sweet, and the Bishop’s thin lips jerked with sleepy satisfaction and appreciation. The soft, insidious air increased in volume, the melody swaying from something that was very near to heartbreak, back through tones that came falling prettily, little golden notes that dropped one by one. The prelate moved his head restlessly on the pillow, and the corners of his mouth came apart in a happy grin as the memory of Prince Apollyon’s gift of gold now in his cellar came creeping in upon his mind. The music swelled in a voluptuous curve, and fell; and from nowhere there crept in on the harp notes a woman’s singing voice, laden with sweetness.