Deliver us from Evil (60 page)

'Milady nodded faintly. "And the priest?" she murmured. "It was Tadeus, of course?"

'Haszler nodded dumbly.

' "And what did he want from you?"

' "A job."

' "What job?"

'Haszler breathed in deeply, then swallowed again. "He wanted a Jew."

' "Why?"

' "He didn't tell us, just gave us the name. A Rabbi - Rabbi Samuel ben Jehuda Loew."

'As he said this last name, of course,
I
glanced at Milady, my eyes very wide - just as yours are now, my Lord - for
I
presumed that this Rabbi was his famous father's son. But Haszler seemed not to have noticed my surprise; and
I
was careful not to interrupt him in his talk. "Of course," Haszler continued, "we wanted to know, how were we to recognise this Samuel? Father Tadeus answered me by seizing my chin; then by stabbing me, it seemed, very deep, with his stare. And at once
I
imagined
I
was standing in the Ghetto, in a narrow alleyway leading from the Synagogue: and
I
saw, coming towards me. a bowed, white-haired man in a Rabbi's long robes. And then Tadeus released me - and the vision was gone. 'That,' whispered Tadeus, 'was Samuel.'

' "
I
shrank back from him, then shook my head. "How is it,"
I
dared to ask him, "that you require my help, when you possess such wondrous and unearthly powers?"

' "A shadow seemed to pass across Tadeus' face; and for a moment

‘I
was afraid
I
had angered him. Then he shrugged. '
I
am not the only one,' he answered, 'with unearthly powers. That same wisdom
I
want from Samuel, is also what guards his thoughts from the practice of my own. Yet he is feeble for all that; and in his bodily strength at least' - he smiled - 'no match at all for you.' "

'Haszler nodded grimly. "And that was true enough." He paused, then grinned. "Samuel was just an old man, after all; and for Kroger and me, it was a favourite game, taking people where they didn't want to go. We'd met him by the Synagogue, in the very place where
I
'd seen him in the vision; and then we brought him, slung like a carpet over Kroger's shoulder, to the ruins of an abbey some distance out of Prague.
It
was a warm summer evening; but the moment
I
stepped inside that abbey,
I
felt frozen, as though the walls had been chiselled out of ice. They were all streaked and daubed with blood; and
I
recognised some of the symbols, for Wolverton, when he used to desecrate churches, had often painted the walls the same way. He was waiting for us now; and as we joined him, he led us up the nave towards the altar. Father Tadeus was waiting for us there, standing in the shadow of a giant crucifix, which had been painted like the walls with strange symbols in blood. He ordered Samuel bound to this cross; then reached to the altar for a hammer and nails. He smiled very coldly, and lifted a nail before the Rabbi's eyes,
I
want to know,' he whispered, 'where the
golem
was made.' Then he aimed the nail above Samuel's palm, and hammered it in fast, as Samuel screamed. 'The
golem,'
Tadeus whispered again; but Samuel only moaned and shook his head. Tadeus shrugged; then he nailed Samuel's other hand, and both his feet. 'Haszler, Kroger,' he shouted out suddenly. We hurried to join him. Tadeus gestured to the Jew.
I
have been told,' he murmured, 'that you possess certain skills.
I
would be very grateful, if you would display to me what they can achieve.' "

'Haszler's voice trailed away at this point. He was clutching and pawing at his crucifix again. But
I
knew he was feeling, not remorse, only fear.
I
stepped forward. "Well?"
I
pressed him. "Did your reputations prove to be deserved?"

'Haszler swallowed. "We were very . . . practised," he answered at length. "Samuel lasted better than most, but
..."
- he shrugged - "he was old."

' "And then?"

'Haszler swallowed again. "Samuel was removed from the cross.

He was given brandy. And then - he was ordered to take us to the spot."

"Which he did?"

'Haszler nodded. "That very night." '

Lovelace paused in his narrative. He had been staring for a long while into the darkness; but he turned now, and glanced down at Lord Rochester. 'Samuel led them to a quarry on the banks of the Vltava.' He nodded. 'Yes, my Lord - that same quarry which the Pasha described to us before.'

Lord Rochester met his companion's eye; but then he frowned, and slowly shook his head. 'No,' he murmured. 'This was - what? - more than sixty years after Rabbi Loew's death.'

'As
I
told you, my Lord - Samuel was his son.'

'Yes, but even so,' Lord Rochester protested, 'how could he have known? Not without the book.'

'There is a great tradition amongst the Jews of knowledge being passed down through the generations.' Lovelace turned, and gazed into the darkness again. 'It struck me, even as
I
listened to Haszler's account, that Rabbi Loew might easily have shown Samuel the book, and taught him how to read it, for he could not have been certain that the Pasha would appear. Tadeus,
I
supposed, must have thought the same way -for why else would he have bothered to torture Samuel, if he had not suspected that the Jew might know what he needed to find out?'

'Needed, Lovelace?'

'Yes, my Lord. He
needed
that spot where the
golem
had been made - where the line of power possessed its greatest strength.'

Lord Rochester's frown began to deepen with the silence. 'Yet if Tadeus already knew so much,' he said at last, 'then why had he waited to interrogate Samuel?'

'Indeed,' Lovelace shrugged, 'that had briefly puzzled me. But then Haszler continued with his narrative. Wolverton, it seemed, had been in a febrile and wild-talking mood as they had journeyed to the quarry. He had told Haszler many strange things, which Haszler himself had barely comprehended. But when they were repeated to me
..
. well -then
I
understood.'

'Indeed?'

'Oh yes, my Lord. For Wolverton had apparently boasted that his flesh was to veil the Lord of all the World.' 'By which he meant—'

'Azrael - the Angel of Death . . .' Lovelace paused; then, slowly, whispered the title once again. 'Who at that very moment,' he continued, 'lay as scattered dust. For remember, my Lord - the war in Germany had just been brought to an end; the times had started, however feebly, to be healed. The Pasha's struggle had been fought; and in the end, it had been won. But not utterly . . .' He paused. 'As Tadeus was to prove .
..'

There was silence. The shadows seemed suddenly to quiver and darken. Lord Rochester shifted uneasily. 'How, then?' he whispered. 'How did he achieve it?'

Lovelace shrugged and half-smiled. 'There is a myth amongst the Jews that a soul can be passed from body to body, becoming a wraith to which they give the name of
gilgul.
It is a vulgar legend, of course; and yet it conceals, it seems, in Prague, the hints of a higher and more terrible truth. For what was the
golem
in the end, my Lord, but a breed of
gilgul,
in which a compound of dust contained a transmigrated spirit? Tadeus too, apparently, had mastered such a wisdom - although darker, in his case, and sodden with blood.'

'That is what he did, then?' Lord Rochester whispered. 'He made a
golem
of Sir Charles' flesh?'

'The Spirit was redeemed from the dust by Kroger's blood. Tadeus had seized him in his gaze; then slashed with a knife across the naked throat. Doubtless it had been his intention to kill Samuel and Haszler as well; yet the merest touch of Kroger's blood had proved sufficient, for immediately the dust had started to stir. Seeing this, Sir Charles had knelt down; then he had cried out exultantly and prostrated himself. At once, the dust had begun to crawl like a plague of hungry fleas across him, until Sir Charles had seemed submerged beneath a seething cloud of darkness. Samuel had already turned; and Haszler, seeing him flee, had started to slip and slither desperately after him. He glanced back only once. The whole quarry seemed enveloped by a storm. Dimly, Haszler could make out Tadeus, his arms outstretched, speaking strange words to a figure of clay lying where Sir Charles had formerly been. Then Haszler turned; and he did not look round again.'

'So he did not see what occurred next?'

Lovelace shrugged, it needs little wit to imagine it, though. Tadeus would have had Sir Charles' body packed; and doubtless the dust from the river bank as well - for you will remember perhaps, my Lord, the mud which my father discovered in the cellars, and which he wrote had seemed to suck upon his boots?'

'You think some residue of the Spirit might have lingered in it still?' 'Why else would Tadeus have transported so much dirt?' 'But to Woodton, Lovelace? Why so far?'

'Because Woodton is the nearest place to Stonehenge; that much Tadeus would have learned from Sir Charles. For do not forget, my Lord: Tadeus was a correspondent of Madame la Marquise; and the Marquise had been an associate of Dr Dee. When Sir Charles described to him the wonders of his home, Tadeus would have recognised them, doubtless, as the ancient marks of a mighty line of power.
It
would have needed no book to discover such a line; nor, indeed, the torturing of a Jew.'

Lord Rochester pursed his lips. 'And when Haszler fled the quarry,' he asked, 'did he meet with Samuel again?'

Lovelace smiled, and shook his head. 'His terror had been far too great. He had been capable of nothing but a desperate flight.'

'To his mountain haunt?'

'Where he then sat and mouldered for many years, thinking of the damnable horrors he had seen - and dreading the arrival of a creature such as Tadeus.'

it would have been a mercy indeed, to put an end to such an existence.' indeed.'

There was a silence. 'You rode, then,
I
assume,' asked Lord Rochester at length, 'onwards to Prague, to discover if Samuel was still alive?'

Lovelace nodded; then he paused, and smiled again. 'Milady, before we left for Germany, had been growing like you, my Lord - positively womanish with rediscovered qualms. Yet as you have just suggested yourself - it is the quality of mercy that it can sometimes satisfy the appetites as well. Such was the mercy' - he bared his teeth - 'which Milady showed to Konrad Haszler.' The smile faded; he inspected his nails. 'And when it was finished - yes, we continued then to Prague.'

'For it was as Rabbi Loew taught, that in a rose all the secrets of the world might be found.'

Traditional Jewish folktale

‘W
e did not approach the city,' Lovelace continued, 'with any great hopes that we would fi
nd the Rabbi alive. He had been
old already when Haszler met with him, more than twenty years before; and his sufferings on that night had been terrible enough.
I
was tempted, as we travelled into Prague, to head directly to the Ghetto, to make certain at once of the prospect of our hopes; yet when
I
suggested this, Milady refused. You will have remembered yourself, my Lord, how desperate she had been to fathom the book; so you will understand my surprise that she was now insisting we should first find rooms.
I
stared into her
face, and thought suddenly how
exhausted and nervous she appeared.
I
knew that she was thirsty; and yet
I
wondered as well, passing through the city, whether she had not been infected by a spirit in the air, for there seemed something listless and morose about Prague, as though the shadow of some horror still lingered on the streets. The city's beauty appeared pallid, haunted, spent - such as you might recognise yourself, perhaps, my Lord, when you admire the loveliness of a woman's face even as her life is ebbing softly away.

'We found rooms in a palace, in the shadow of the Castle; and then at once Milady slipped back into the streets.
I
did not go with her - the pain in my stomach had been growing ever worse. Yet even as
I
lay curled up on my bed, waiting for Milady to return,
I
could feel my impatience mounting as well; and at length it triumphed, and
I
could wait for her no more. Swallowing back my pain,
I
ventured out into the gloomy twilight.
I
crossed the bridge, and passed into the Ghetto; and then, just as the Pasha had been, found myself swept upon its crooked, stinking streets until
I
was brought, without intending it, to the Synagogue's door.
I
could hear the wailing of a voice from within, and then the mumbling of a congregation's answer.
I
passed inside, and peered through a window at the house of prayer beyond.
I
recognised
it
at once, from the image
I
had glimpsed before in the Pasha's mind. But the air was greasy now with the stench of oil lamps; and the light they cast was so foggy and wan that
I
could barely make out the forms of those within.
I
could understand, though, the words they were singing, a lament for the destruction of Jerusalem - that time when the Wanderer had appeared once before. And now
I
was standing where he had appeared a second time, bearing the gift of a book within his hands; and
I
shuddered to think of it, and the secrets it might contain.