Lasher

  But nothing came but my loneliness, and my sense of the absolute wonder of my life, and how much I loved my family, and how they flourished beneath the wing of this terrible evil.

  Maybe it was so with all families, I thought. At the heart a curse, a devil's bargain. A terrible sin. For how else can one attain such riches and freedom? But I didn't really believe this. I believed, on the contrary, in virtue.

  I saw my definition of virtue. To be good, to love, to father, to mother, to nurture, to heal. I saw it in its shining simplicity. "What can you do, you fool?" I asked of myself. "Except keep your family safe, give them the means to live on their own, strong and healthy and good. Give them conscience and protect them from evil."

  Then a solemn thought came to me. I was sitting there still, with the warm light of the lantern about me, and the high church on both sides, and the grass flattened like a bed before me. I looked up again, and saw that the moon had moved right into the great circle of the rose window. The glass of course was all gone. I knew it had been a rose window because I knew what they were. And I knew the meaning as well, the great hierarchy of all things which had prevailed in the Catholic Church and how the rose was the highest of flowers and therefore the symbol of the highest of women, the Virgin Mary.

  I thought on that, and on nothing. And I prayed. Not to the Virgin. No, just to the air of this place, just to time, perhaps to the earth. I said: God, as if all this had that name, can we make this bargain? I will go to hell if you will save my family. Mary Beth will go to hell, perhaps, and each witch after her. But save my family. Keep them strong, keep them happy, keep them blessed.

  No answer came to my prayers. I sat there a long time. The moon was veiled by clouds, then free again and brilliant and beautiful. Of course I did not expect to hear any answer to my prayers. But my bargain gave me hope. We, the witches, shall suffer the evil; and the others shall prosper. That was my vow.

  I climbed to my feet, I lifted the lantern and I started to walk back.

  Mary Beth had already gone to sleep in her tent. The two guides were smoking their pipes, and invited me to join them. I told them I was weary. I'd sleep and wake early.

  "You weren't praying up there, were you, sir?" asked one of the men. " 'Tis a dangerous thing to pray in the ruins of that church."

  "Oh, and why is that?" asked I.

  " 'Tis St. Ashlar's church, and St. Ashlar is likely to answer your prayer and who knows what will happen!"

  Both men roared with laughter, slapping their thighs and nodding to one another.

  "St. Ashlar!" I said. "You said Ashlar!"

  "Yes, sir," said the other, who had not spoken till now. "Was his shrine in olden times, the most powerful saint of Scotland, and the Presbyterians made it a sin to speak his name. A sin! But the witches always knew it!"

  Time and space were naught. In the quiet haunted night of the glen, I was remembering: a boy of three, the old witch, the plantation, her tales to me in French. "Called up by accident in the glen..." I whispered to myself, "Come now my Lasher. Come now my Ashlar. Come now, my Lasher! Come now, my Ashlar!"

  I began to murmur it, and then to say it aloud, the two men not understanding at all of course, and then out of the heart of the glen came the roaring wind, so fierce and huge it wailed against the mountains.

  The tents flapped and whipped in the wind. The men ran to steady them. The lanterns went out. The wind became a gale, and as Mary Beth crept to my side, and held tight to my arm, a storm came down on Donnelaith, a storm of rain and thunder so fierce that we were all cowering before it.

  All save I. I righted myself soon enough, realizing it was pointless to cower, and I stared back into it. I stared up into the heavens as the rain pelted and stung my face.

  "Damn you, St. Ashlar, that's who you are! Go to hell with you!" I cried. "A saint, a deposed saint, a saint knocked from his throne! Go back to hell with you. You are no saint. You are a daemon!"

  One tent was torn loose and carried away. The guides ran to stop the other. Mary Beth tried to quiet me. The wind and the rain gave their full breath, strong perhaps as a hurricane.

  To a peak of anger it came, so we saw a ghastly funnel of black cloud rising suddenly from the grass and spinning and spinning and darkening the whole sky, and suddenly--as swiftly as it had come--it vanished.

  I stood stock-still. I was dripping wet. My shirt was half torn from my shoulder. Mary Beth uncovered her hair and walked round in the damp, staring upwards, bravely and curiously.

  One of the guides came back to me.

  "Goddamnit, man," said he. "I told you not to pray to him. Whatever in hell did you pray for!"

  I laughed softly to myself. "Oh, God, help me," I sighed. "Is that the proof, Almighty God, that you are not there, that your saints could be such petty demons?"

  The air was warming slightly. The men had the lanterns lighted. The water had vanished from the earth as if it had never come at all. We were still battered and wet but the moon was clear again, and flooding the glen with light. We went to right the tents, to dry the bedding.

  I lay awake the whole night. As the sun came up, I went to the guides. "I have to know the story of this saint," said I.

  "Well, don't say his name for god's sakes," said the other. "I wish I hadn't said it last night, I'll tell you. And I don't know his story and you won't hear it from anyone else I know either. It's an old legend, man, perhaps a joke," he said, "though we'll be talking about that storm last night for many a night to come, I can tell you."

  "Tell me all," I said.

  "I don't know. My grandmother said his name when she wished for an impossible thing, and said always to take care, and never wish for something from him unless you really wanted it. I've heard his name once or twice up there in the hills. There's an old song they sing. But that's all I know of it. I'm no Catholic. I don't know saints. No one hereabouts knows saints."

  The other man nodded. "I myself did not know that much. I've heard my daughter call on him, though, to make the young men turn their heads to notice her."

  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.

  LEGENDS OF THE HIGHLANDS

  "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 i
n 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.