Reliquary (255 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryLabels: Ubermadness_IV
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Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2007-02-05 18:40:34 EST
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The words come in a whisper as soft as the salt-tinged sea breeze seeping through the shuttered windows.
'Caution, my love.'
In that unfettered state between dream and reality, Thomas wishes he had the courage to drive a knife through his heart to still the pain he has borne for so long now.
"Lydia," he says.
Thomas hears his wife sigh close to him and almost feels the heat of her breath on his ear before sounds from outside his mind intrude. He hears a shutter creak and a small knot pop softly in the embers of the fire and the faint and distant thudding thunder of hooves on the inland road.
It is early spring and the night air is cool here on the bluffs above the sea. Rising from his bed and pulling on a worn robe, he lights a lamp from the fire and passes through sitting room and entryway of a home considered opulent and sees a thin calico cat sitting before the door. The cat was a favorite of his wife, which is probably why he hasn't done away with it, but it does keep rodents out of the house. The cat looks at him and he shoos it away. He opens the front door and sees two men approaching on horseback, and his dead wife whispers in his ear.
'Now it begins.'
<>
Wickes was the village smithy, a small, wiry man as strong as the iron he worked with hammer and tongs. Oliver was a fish merchant who owned four boats and the lives of the men who worked them. They were hard men who rarely showed any fear, and now their faces were drawn and pale.
They approached and dismounted. They removed their caps, and bent a little, faces pained as if they were passing gas.
Thomas nodded as they bowed to his authority, recognizing a status that had been ignored for many years.
"There's trouble in the village," Wickes said. He was twisting the brim of his cap, his face damp with sweat.
Thomas remembered how confident and strong the man had been on that night many years ago when the ironmonger used a hot iron to put out Lydia's beautiful dark eyes.
"Evil," Oliver whispered. "Evil work."
And Oliver, the self-appointed savior and protector of souls, stood there, mouth quivering with fear, the same mouth that had decried to the assembled villagers that Lydia was a witch and must be put to death.
There were nights Thomas dreamed of a great fire descending from the sky or a wave high enough to blot out the stars sweeping across the village of Turrelow and erasing it from existence. More than once Lydia's soft voice had told him he need not waste his energy thinking such thoughts. 'Half a century from now we will be joined, and this village will be but a dream.'
My love, he thought. Although she spoke to him every day, he missed her reality, her warmth, her flesh. Skin as pale as a winter moon, hair as dark as a moonless night.
Thomas stepped outside, letting the chill in the air strip away such pointless, torturous thoughts. The light in the lantern danced in the dark.
There was a time when his robe was new, and made of the finest cloth seen in the village. There was a time when some called Thomas 'Lord'; his family owned lands from the shore to the village and all the surrounding fields. There was a time when he was respected for his continental education and people would come to the one named Thomas Dimanche for advice and arbitration.
All of that changed when he married the woman would die as a witch.
Now they were coming to him for help.
"We've never seen anything like this," Wickes said. "We need the help of... of a learned man."
"The old priest Ranulph is dead," Oliver said. "Dead in a most horrible way."
Thomas spoke for the first time. "More horrible than what you did to my wife?"
He saw anger in the eyes of both men, and saw them struggle to extinguish their righteous rage.
"I will see Ranulph," Thomas said. "Not for your sakes, but for his. He was a gentle old man, one who never judged me, or my wife."
And that was true. The priest who preached the ways of Christ had been one of the few speaking out for the preservation of Lydia's life on that terrible night and Thomas had never forgotten it.
"Where is he?"
Oliver pointed toward the village over the hill that separated Thomas from everyone else on this part of the Devonshire coast.
"In the chapel."
"Go then," Thomas said, "And let him lie. I will see him shortly."
The men got on their horses and departed.
Thomas turned and saw the cat sitting in the doorway. "Prepare my bath, and my horse," he said. The cat didn't move. As the sun began to light the sky, he shooed it away a second time and went inside.
<>
Thomas had not been in the village in two years. He received deliveries of goods from those merchants he still had respect for, but had no other contact with anyone from Turrelow. He maintained his home and rode his horse and fished and read from his small collection of manuscripts. He walked the shoreline, the soft hiss of water on sand so like his lost Lydia's voice.
He rode down a road built by the Romans a century ago to a crumbling, half-finished wall at the edge of town. Thomas walked his horse to the chapel, passing the central square where more than one poor unfortunate had been hanged or tortured or burned alive for real or imagined transgressions upon those Turrelow residents now following the words of St. Augustine, who said heretics, pagans, and Jews would burn forever in eternal fire unless saved by the Catholic Church.
The village had been made a community by worshippers of every faith, pagan, Christian, even Roman, all living together, but it seemed that of late the Christians had the upper hand. What some were calling witchcraft had for years been accepted as one of the natural arts.
Lydia had not been burned here. She had been burned near her home. It had been two years and not a single blade of grass grew in that scorched circle.
Thomas saw a stake had been erected, and used, and smelled the faint scent of char. He saw a few clots of ash that had not been dispersed by wind or rain. He was glad he no longer came to this place.
The small chapel had been built before Thomas was born. His father had given the energetic old priest the funds needed to construct this place of worship. Etched into a cornerstone were the numerals CDXII. The Christ had been dead almost four hundred years when this place was made in his memory, a place to worship and remember his lessons.
There were a few villagers standing before the chapel. Some bowed to Thomas, some gestured at him with forked fingers and turned away. Most watched him with a mixture of curiosity and fear. A young woman wearing a shift of rough dark cloth smiled at him and gesticulated, making the sign of the cross. Her hair was the color of straw and her eyes were as green as water mint leaves.
Thomas entered the chapel with none of the reverence shown by Wickes and Oliver. He had little need for Jesus or any chapel, but Ranulph had been a good man regardless of his calling.
Now the old man was still, and as white as the marble slab he sprawled upon. His eyes were open and he started at the heavens he so espoused.
Ranulph had been laid upon the altar at an angle, his limbs dangling to the four points. He was naked, and his throat had been rudely slashed. Another cut had been made from his chin down to his sternum, creating a crucifix in raw, red flesh.
"It is far too clean here," Thomas said, his voice echoing off of cold stone.
Lydia whispered, 'We see dew when we should see rain.'
Oliver came forward a few steps, gesturing at the stained sides of the altar. "Clean? This place is soiled by his spilled humors."
"Yes, I see some blood and bile," Thomas said impatiently, "But that is seepage. Where is the mark of the font?"
Oliver and Wickes shared a glance. They shrugged.
Thomas closed the old priest's eyes. "Have you never slaughtered a pig?"
"We aren't fleshmongers," Oliver said.
Thomas laughed. "And I suppose neither of you remember the scarlet spray released from my wife's belly when you drove your knives into her before putting her to the fire?"
'Now-now,' Lydia said, soothing him. 'That road leads nowhere, dearest.'
Larark and Wickes lowered their eyes.
Thomas was wondering if Ranulph had been killed elsewhere and moved here, when a large woman bustled into the chapel and grabbed Oliver by the arm.
"Husband," she said, in a hushed and horrified tone, "We have found another."
Oliver's mouth quivered again. He looked like an old woman. "Who?"
"Capus," the woman said.
Thomas was surprised by this. Killing an old man like Ranulph was one thing, but Capus was an old warrior, muscle for hire who most often did the bidding of distant magistrates. Capus would not have gone easily. The former legionnaire who preferred these northern shores to the hills of Rome had fought Picts from the north and barbarians from the south. Capus had allegiance only to coin, and Thomas remembered the scarred former soldier binding him in chains before they dragged Lydia to her doom.
Oliver looked at Thomas, and Thomas nodded. "Let us go to him."
They left the church and crossed the square. Thomas saw more forked fingers and saw the young woman in dark cloth smiling at him again from a distance.
"Who is that girl?"
Wickes glanced once and snorted. "Just another trollop for hire. She cooks and sews and licks clean the glans of any man with free coin in his purse."
The girl brushed the fingers of one hand across her mouth and licked her fingers, before turning and disappearing from view.
They went to the Gaff and Gully, Turrelow's only inn.
Peterson, the owner of the inn, led them upstairs to the room Capus lived in. The room reeked of stale ale and old sweat. Peterson and Oliver's wife stood by the door, refusing to enter.
Capus was lying naked on his bed. The slashes in his throat were the same as those that had killed the priest. A cord had been tied around his manhood. The organ was erect and almost black and a sluggish fly crawled on the tip.
"He has been dead longer than the priest," Thomas said. "And again, there is not as much blood here as there should be."
"Sacred Jesus," Wickes said.
Oliver began to quake in his boots. "A revenant. Saints preserve us, this is the work of an unholy revenant."
Thomas was tempted to tell Oliver that hysteria would not help them find any answers to these puzzling deaths and struggled to hold his tongue.
"We must inspect the graveyard," Wickes hissed. "We must look for a disturbed grave, the resting place of the malignancy."
"And take off the foul thing's head," Oliver said.
"Let us look for answers in this world," Thomas said, "before going on a witch hunt for something from the next."
He leaned close enough to the pale face to kiss the dead man's violet lips. He plucked something from the man's shoulder with finger and thumb. It was a strand of hair the color of straw.
"The girl I asked after," he said. "Has she had any recent intercourse with both Ranulph and Capus?"
Wickes scratched the side of his nose and let out a bitter laugh. "Well, of course. She professed love for a possessed man we put to the Lord's cleansing fire one night this winter past."
"Oliver," Thomas said. "Gather some men. Find that girl. And Wickes, are there any other townspeople who attended this—"
Thomas was going to say something vulgar, but Lydia censured him, saying, 'Hold your cunning tongue, my sweet.'
"—recent activity? Anyone you have not seen of late?"
Wickes spread his arms wide. "Most of the townsfolk were present," he said. "Anyone not in the square as we passed through could... wait a moment. I have not seen old Alice Gray for some time, and she comes by every day to chatter at me, as her husband was the town smithy and taught me his trade."
They left the inn, Oliver having to be prodded again to go and find the girl and seeming quite put out having to take orders and not suggestions from Thomas.
When Wickes and Thomas reached Alice Gray's home, they heard the drone of flies the moment they stepped inside her door.
"God," Wickes said, retching loudly. "The stench!"
"Purge yourself outside," Thomas said, "Not in here."
Wickes trotted back the way he had come and Thomas closed the door.
Alice was propped in a chair in her kitchen, her cold, drained body resting beside the cold wood stove. She was naked, bore the crucifix wound, and her body was alive with maggots. Flies rose into the air like a storm as Thomas stepped into the room. There were a few drops of blood on the floor, but no splashes or sprays.
While Wickes vomited loudly out in the street, Thomas found a tablecloth in the pantry and draped it over the old woman.
When they returned to the town square a crowd had gathered, many holding crucifixes. Thomas heard whispers of demons and revenants.
"It is all due to that man we sent to hell," one man shouted.
"Aye," another said. "Sanguyne, he what burned at the stake."
Thomas turned to Wickes. "Tell me of this man."
Wickes looked at the crowd and looked at his feet. He would not look at Thomas as he spoke.
"He was a stranger. He came into town on the Yule of the year and took a room at the Gaff and Gully. He was only here a few days when Peterson began to find dead animals behind the inn. Rats and mice and birds. Some cats. The creatures had their throats cut. One day when the man was out Peterson went into the rented room and found a tin cup with... with dried blood in the bottom. The stranger was drinking that blood!"
Thomas realized the man had arrived in the village on the winter solstice. The shortest, darkest day of the year for some... but a time to celebrate rebirth and fertility for others.
"When we sought this man," Wickes said, "He ran to the chapel and demanded that the priest offer him sanctuary. When Ranulph hesitated, the stranger mocked Jesus Christ and the church and Ranulph let us take him."
Many of those assembled nodded fervently.
"And then?" Thomas asked.
"And then," Wickes said, "We lopped off that wicked stranger's head and burned him at the stake. The only one who spoke up for him was the trollop."
"Her name is Nest," someone said. "She come from Wales, she did."
Wickes nodded. "Foolish little thing. She was taken with the stranger."
"Taken with his cock," someone else said.
Thomas looked at the crowd. He didn't see the girl or Oliver, and he asked if anyone else had seen them.
"Oliver went down to the hovel that girl calls home," an old man said. "At the end of Seagate Road."
Thomas went to his horse and rode down the road, unsure if any others would follow.
<>
Near the end of the road to the sea was a path leading to a small house of damp stone that Thomas knew had been abandoned many years ago. Outside the home was Oliver's horse.
Thomas dismounted and went inside. The distant sound of the waves on the beach seemed to be just as loud in the gloom of this place, and it took Thomas a moment to realize he was not hearing the susurration of sea on sand but a soft sucking sound that filled him with horror.
'Stand fast,' Lydia whispered in his ear.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom Thomas took a step backward.
There was a bed, just a pallet holding a straw mattress. Oliver lay upon it, his cloak and tunic lying on the floor.
The girl Nest was straddling him. She too was naked. She held a bloody knife in one hand and she was sucking at the cruciform wound in his throat.
"My God, give me strength," Thomas whispered, and Nest looked at him and smiled.
Her face was soaked with blood. As she stood before Thomas blood ran down her slender form over the curves of breast and belly, from the golden strands on her head and to the golden ringlets below, and she touched herself there, sliding two red, slick fingers inside herself.
"Thomas Dimanche," she said, flicking an erect nipple with the blade of the knife.
Thomas looked away.
'Don't be the upright gentlemen now, my love!' Lydia sounded harsh, almost angry. 'Let not your eyes stray from this foul girl for one moment!'
He looked into those green eyes.
"What have you done, child?"
She thought a moment and said, "I feed the coming red storm." Her accent was lilting, like music. "I feed the child inside me until it can feed itself."
Nest's eyes seemed to flicker like lightning in a distant thunderhead and Thomas stepped backward until he bumped against one wall.
The girl came closer, waving the knife between them. "Ooooh-ooooh," she said, giggling and sounding like a child playing at being a spirit in the night.
There was a whisper only he could hear. 'She will not take you, Thomas, but you must listen and learn.'
"I will not take you," Nest said, echoing Lydia. "Your blood is too... pure."
Thomas tried to raise his arms as she came closer still, but he could not move, he was entranced by those green eyes.
"His name was Sanguyne," Nest said. "He was my love, and these pious fools killed him. It was preordained, but that does not take away from the pleasure I feel in ending their sad little lives."
Nest touched his thigh, and her hand rose to cup his crotch.
'Forward little wench,' Lydia murmured, and Thomas could almost see one dark eyebrow arched with the ire he had experienced from time to time.
"He told me about you, Thomas," the girl said. "He told me how your wife was accused of witchcraft. How she was cursed simply because she was an outspoken woman. Because she understood herbs, and the weather, and was kind to all animals, even shunned things such as garden snakes and cats and toads. He told me how you were bound in iron chains in the dark of night and had to watch as your wife was blinded and gutted with a rusty blade and then tied to a tree and burned alive, until only a great circle of ash remained, and in the center of that cold circle, your heart."
Nest laughed a girlish, musical laugh.
"Did you know," Nest said, "That they also killed the child within her? Your child, Thomas?"
"No," Thomas said, unable to breath. "No."
Lydia's voice was silent.
Nest stood on her toes and kissed him, and Thomas tasted blood.
"My love's name was Sanguyne, and he was a saint. A saint of a new order. And he had to die that his will may survive, through his son. A twist on the stories of Jesus, eh?"
"I don't understand," Thomas said.
Lydia spoke to him and sounded exasperated. 'Now is no time to be thick, dearest to my heart.'
Nest stood on tiptoe again and whispered in his ear. "I am his reliquary. I carry his child, and feed it blood, and when it comes into the world, men will fear it." She lifted one of his numb arms and put the knife in his hand, pointing the blade at the curve of her left breast. "Will you strike me down in the name of the Lord God?"
Thomas considered mustering his will against the lethargy now filling him.
'Patience,' Lydia said.
Nest stepped back and Thomas felt his arm hang dead at his side. The knife fell to the dirt floor of the house.
"I thought not," Nest said.
As Thomas watched she pulled on her clothes and passed him by without another look. He heard her mount his horse and ride away.
Thomas lurched and fell to his knees, drawing a deep breath of sea air. Feeling ran back into his limbs and his flesh felt full of pins and needles.
In the distance he heard horses coming down the Seagate Road from the village.
He picked up the blade Nest had used on Oliver and stood.
"I should have killed her," Thomas said aloud.
'No,' Lydia replied, only to his ears. 'If we kill the child before it is born that black spirit will go elsewhere to be born again. We must kill the being and the sprit as one to stop the coming storm. And now you know what to look for, Thomas. Now you know what lies ahead of you.'
Thomas looked at the knife in his hand. He could sit down, right here, and open a vein. He had heard it was a painless way to die. And he would be with her. His love.
"Oh Lydia," Thomas said, his voice raw. "How can I live without you?"
'I do not know, my love. But you must find a way. There is much to do before we can embrace once more.'
Thomas nodded. He tossed the knife away and stepped outside.
The skies were clear, but the storm was coming.
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