Lasher (58 page)

I pounded them with questions. They gave me nothing more. It was time for us to survey the ruins proper, the circle, the castle. The spirit lay back. I neither heard his voice nor saw any evidence of him.

Only once did fear come on me when searching the castle.

It was treacherous there. But he played no tricks.

We took our time. It was sunset before we made camp again. I had seen all that I had the strength to see. Many feet of dirt covered the original Cathedral floor, and who knew what lay below it? What tombs? What caches of books or documents? Or perhaps nothing.

And where had my precious Suzanne died, I wondered. No trace was left of roads or marketplaces. I could not tell. I did not dare to challenge Lasher or say any words to make him angry. I remembered everything.

In Darkirk, a small, clean Presbyterian town of white buildings,
I could find no one who knew a thing of Catholic saints. They would talk of the circle, the witches, the old days, Sabbats in the glen, and the evil little people who sometimes stole babies. But it was all remote to them. They were more interested in taking the train to Edinburgh or Glasgow. They had no love of the woods or the glen. They wanted an iron smelting factory to come. Cut down the trees. It was all bread and butter.

I was a week in Edinburgh, with the bankers, buying the land. But at last I had title to all of it. And I had set up a trust for its study with my little professor of history, who welcomed me back from my journey with a fine dinner of roast duck and claret.

Mary Beth went off on her own, another escapade, and took with her the daemon. He and I had not exchanged one silent or audible word since that terrible night, but he had hovered close to her, and spoken with her. And I had told her nothing of what I had done or learnt or said, and she had asked me nothing.

I was afraid to utter the name Ashlar. That was the truth. I was afraid. I kept seeing that storm around me. And those frightened men, and Mary Beth peering so curiously into the rainy darkness. I was frightened, though why I wasn’t sure. I had won, had I not? I had the thing’s name. Was I ready to wager my life in a battle with it?

At last I sat down with my little bald-headed bespectacled teacher in Edinburgh and said, “I’ve been through all the lives of the saints in the library, all the histories of Scotland, and I can find no mention of St. Ashlar.”

He gave me a cheerful laugh as he poured the wine. He was in great form tonight, as I had just laid upon him thousands and thousands of American dollars to do nothing but study Donnelaith, and his security was assured and that of his children.

“ ‘By St. Ashlar,’ ” said he. “That’s an expression the schoolchildren use. Saint of the impossible, I believe, rather like Jude in other parts. But there is no tale to it, none I know, but remember, this is a Presbyterian land now. The Catholics are very few, and the past is wrapped in mystery.”

Nevertheless he promised we would search through his books when the meal was over. And in the meantime, we discussed the trust for the excavation and preservation of
Donnelaith. The ruins would be fully explored, mapped, described, and then made an object of ongoing study.

Finally, we retired to the library together, and he sought, among his books, some old Catholic texts dating back to the days before King Henry, one in particular,
A Secret Historie of the Highland Clans
, which carried no author’s name on it. It was a very old book, of black leather, and rather large, and many of the leaves had come unbound, so it was more like a folio of damaged pages. When he laid it down in the light, I saw they were covered with writing.

There was a family tree of sorts described, and he followed it down with his finger.

“Ah, here, can you read this? Well, of course you can’t. It’s Gaelic. But it’s Ashlar, son of Olaf and husband of Janet, founders of the clan of Drummard and Donnelaith, yes, there it is. The word
Donnelaith
, and to think all these years I had never spotted it here. Though Ashlar I have seen in countless places. Yes, St. Ashlar.”

He paged through the sloppy fragile text until he came to another page. “Ashlar,” he said, reading the crabbed hand. “Yes, King of Drummard—Ashlar.”

He carefully read the text, translating it for me, and jotting notes on a pad with his pencil.

“King Ashlar of the pagans, beloved by his people, husband of Queen Janet, rulers of High Dearmach far north of the Great Glen in the Highland forests. Converted in the year 566 by St. Columba of Ireland. Yes, here it is, the legend of St. Ashlar. Died at Drummard, where a great cathedral was raised in his name. Drummard later became Donnelaith, you see. Relics…cures…ah, but his wife, Janet, refused to give up the pagan faith and was burnt at the stake for her stubborn pride. ‘And when the great saint mourned her loss, a spring gushed forth from the burnt ground in which thousands were baptized.’ ”

The image virtually paralyzed me. Janet burnt at the stake. The saint, the magic spring. I was too overcome to speak.

The scholar was tantalized. He quickly promised me that all this would be copied out and sent to me.

And now to his other books he went, finding in the history of the Picts the same Ashlar and Janet, and the dreadful story of how Janet refused to accept the faith of Christ, and indeed offered to die by fire, cursing her kinsmen and husband, and preferring to be delivered by fire to the gods than live with cowardly Christians.

“Now this is all legend, you understand. Nobody really knows about the Picts, you see. And it’s confusing. Doesn’t even really say for sure that they were Picts. Here, see these words in Gaelic, this means ‘tall men and women of the glen.’ And this here, it can be roughly translated to mean ‘the big children.’

“Ah, here, King Ashlar, defeated the Danes in the year 567, waving the fiery cross before their fleeing armies. Janet, daughter of Ranald, burnt at the stake by Ashlar’s clan in 567, though the saint himself was innocent, and begged his newly converted followers to show mercy.”

He took down yet another book.

“Ah, here we are. St. Ashlar, still venerated in some parts of Scotland as late as the sixteen hundreds, principally by young girls who would have their most secret wishes granted. Not a true canonical saint.”

He closed the book. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Not a true canonical saint. All of this is too early for us to call it history. That means he was never canonized by Rome, you understand. We’re dealing with another St. Christopher.”

“I know,” said I, but I was mainly quiet, swept up again in the memories. I saw the Cathedral so distinctly. For the first time I truly saw its windows—narrow, high, with bits of colored glass, not pictures, but mostly glass mosaics of gold, red and blue—and the rose window, ah, the rose window! Suddenly I saw the flames. I saw the glass shattering. I heard the cries of the mob. I felt myself so much in the midst of it that I knew for an instant my height as I faced the oncoming crowd, I saw my own hands outstretched against them!

I shook it off. The old professor was peering curiously at me.

“You do have a great passion for these things, don’t you?”

“Almost an unholy passion,” I said. “A cathedral of the twelve hundreds. That’s not too early to be called history.”

“No, indeed not,” he said, and now he went to another shelf, to a whole series of books on the churches and ruins of Scotland. “So much has been lost, you see, so much. Why, if it weren’t for the present scholarly interest in all these things, every
trace of those Catholic edifices would have been…here, ‘Highland Cathedrals.

“Donnelaith Cathedral, under the patronage of the Clan of Donnelaith, greatly expanded and enhanced from 1205 to 1266, by their chieftains. A special Christmas Devotion fostered by the Franciscan friars drew thousands from the surrounding area. No records remain today, but the principal patrons were always members of the Donnelaith clan. Some records believed to be…in Italy.”

I gave a long sigh. I didn’t want to be dislodged from the present by the memories again. What had the memories taught me?

He turned several pages. “Ah, see here, a crude family tree of the Donnelaith clan. King Ashlar, then look here, the great-grandson, Ashlar the Venerable, and here another descendant, Ashlar the Blessed, married to the Norman queen Mora. My, but there are any number of Ashlars.”

“I see.”

“And here an Ashlar, and an Ashlar, but you can trace the progress of the name, that is, if you believe all these chieftains existed! You know these clans reveled so in all this, and their mossback descendants write up these fanciful accounts. I don’t know.”

“It’s quite enough to satisfy my lust for the moment,” I said.

“Ah, lust, yes, that’s the word, isn’t it?” He shut the book. “There must be more. I’ll find it for you. But to tell you the truth, it’s going to be pretty much like this, in these old privately published texts, and the best you can say of it is it’s folklore.”

“But the fifteen hundreds, the time of John Knox, surely there were records of that time; there must have been.”

“Up in smoke,” said the old man. “We’re talking about an ecclesiastical revolution. You cannot imagine the number of monasteries destroyed by Henry the Eighth. Statues and paintings were sold off, burnt. Sacred books lost forever. And when they finally broke the defenses of Donnelaith, everything was reduced to cinders.”

He sat down and began to pile these books in a semblance of order. “I’ll find everything for you,” he said. “If there is any indication anywhere of records from Donnelaith being taken somewhere else I’ll find it. But I can tell you my guess. It’s lost. A land of monasteries and cathedrals lost its treasures then. And Henry, the scoundrel, it was all for money. All for
money and that he would marry Anne Boleyn! Ah, despair, that one man should so turn the tide. Ah, here, look, ‘St. Ashlar, the special saint of young girls who would have their secret wishes granted.’ I know I’ll find a dozen more mentions such as this.”

At last I left the man in peace.

I had what I wanted. I knew now
the thing had once lived; it was full of vengeance! It was a ghost
.

And I felt I had the proof of it in all this, and all that I had ever known, and as I walked home alone up the hill from the old man’s house, I kept repeating these details to myself, and thinking, What does it mean that this devil has attached himself to us! That he would be flesh. What does it mean? But above all how can I use this name to destroy him?

When I came into my rooms, Mary Beth was already home and asleep on the couch there, and Lasher was standing beside her. He was in his very old garb of rawhide clothing, hair longish, which I had not seen in years, and he was smiling at me.

For one moment, I was so struck by his vivid quality and his beauty that I did nothing but stare at him. And this he loved; it was as if I were giving him water to drink, you see. And he grew brighter and more distinct.

“You think you know, but you know nothing,” he said, moving his lips. “And I remind you again that the future is everything.”

“You are no great spirit,” I said. “You are no great mystery. That is what I must teach my family.”

“Then you teach them a lie. Their future is in my hands. And my future is theirs. That is your strongest suit. Be quick-witted for once, with all your learning.”

I didn’t answer. I was amazed that the thing would hold a visible form so long.

“A saint turned against God?” I asked.

“Don’t mock me with that foolish folklore, that nonsense. Do you think I was ever one of you? You are mad to suppose it. When I come again, I…” and he broke off, clearly on the verge of threats. Then he said with childish quickness, “Julien, I need you. The child in Mary Beth’s womb, it is no witch, but a feebleminded girl, suffering the same defect as Katherine, your sister, and even Marguerite, your mother. You must make the witch with your daughter.”

“So I have
that
to bargain with,” I said with a sigh, “and you want me to couple with my own daughter.”

But he had exhausted himself. He was fading. Mary Beth lay sleeping, lush and quiet on the couch, covered in blankets, her dark hair sleek and glowing in the light of the little fire.

“Will she give birth to this child?”

“Yes, bide your time, and wait. You shall make a great witch with her.”

“And she herself?”

“The greatest of all,” he said with an audible voice and sigh. “Unless one counts Julien.”

Michael, that was my greatest triumph. I learnt what I have told you now, its name, its history, that it was of our blood, but more than that I never discovered!

Ashlar, it was all connected with that name. But was the daemon Ashlar, and if so which of the Ashlars in the pages of the old man’s books? The first or one who came after?

The following morning, I left Edinburgh, leaving only a note for Mary Beth, and I traveled north to Donnelaith, going from Darkirk again on horseback. I was too old to make this journey on my own, but I was crazed with my discoveries.

Once again I searched the Cathedral, under the cool Highlands sun coming down in beautiful rays through the clouds, and then I walked out to the circle of stones, and stood there.

I called upon it. I cursed it. I said, “I want you to go back to hell, St. Ashlar! That is your name, that is who you are, a two-legged man, who would have been worshiped, and in pride you have survived, an evil daemon to torment us.”

My voice rang out in the glen. But I was alone. It had not even deigned to answer me. But then as I stood in the circle, I suddenly felt that awful woozy feeling, as if I’d been dealt a blow, which meant the thing was coming into me.

“No, back into hell!” I screamed, but I was falling to the grass. The world had become the wind itself, roaring in my ears, and carrying all distinct shapes and points of reference away with it.

It was night when I awoke. I was bruised. My clothes were torn. The thing had run rampant in me, and here of all places.

I was for a moment in fear for my life, sitting there in the dark, not knowing what had become of my horse, or which way to walk to leave this awful haunted glen. Finally I staggered to my feet, and realized a man held me by the shoulders.