Lasher

  Finally only two of the monks remained. One stood before me, tall but not as tall as I, and red-haired and with soft green eyes. He smiled upon me in that moment, and his smile was like the sound of the music, utterly quieting, and I felt a sinking in my soul.

  I knew the others loathed the sight of me! I knew they had run from me. I knew the panic was the same as I had seen among the women of my mother, and in my mother herself.

  I was trying to understand it, to know what it meant. I said, "Taltos," as if this would trigger some revelation stored within me, but no more came.

  "Taltos," said the priest--for that is what he was, though I did not then know it, a priest and a Franciscan--and again he gave me this great and gentle smile.

  All had fled the hall now but my father, myself, the priest and the Laird, who stood upon the table, and three men crouched by the fireplace, as if in waiting, though for what I couldn't guess.

  It frightened me to see them, and the anxious way in which they looked to the Laird and the Laird looked down on me.

  "It is Ashlar!" cried my father. "Do you not see with your own eyes! What must God do to claim your attention? Destroy the tower with lightning? Father, it is he!"

  I realized that I had begun to tremble, a most amazing sensation, which I had never felt before. I had not even shivered in the cold of the winter. But I could not control this trembling. Indeed, it must have looked as though I were standing upon a piece of earth that was shaking, so violent was it, though I managed to remain on my feet.

  The priest drew close to me; his green eyes very much reminded me of jewels, except that they were obviously made of something soft. He reached out and stroked my hair gently, almost tenderly, and then my cheek and my beard.

  "It is Ashlar!" he whispered.

  "It is the Taltos, it is the Devil!" declared the Laird. "Heave him into the fire."

  The three at the hearth came forward, but my father stood in front of me, and so did the priest. Ah, yes, you can imagine it, you can well picture it, can't you? One screaming for my destruction as if he were Michael the Archangel, and the gentler ones not letting such a thing happen.

  And I--gazing at the fire in terror, barely aware that it could consume me, that I would suffer unspeakable pain if I were thrown into it, that I would be alive no more. It seemed in my ears I heard the cries of thousands suffering, dying. But as my fear crested, the memory became nothing but the violent quavering of my body, the tensing of my hands.

  The priest enfolded me in his arms and went to lead me from the hall. "You will not destroy what God has done."

  I almost wept at his touch, his warm arms guiding me.

  I was then led out of the castle by the priest and by my father, and the Laird, who came with us, eyeing me with great suspicion, and over to the Cathedral we went. The snow still fell lightly, people everywhere passed us, mounded with wool and furs. It was almost impossible to make out who was a man, who was a woman, so covered up were they, and so hunkered over against the cold. Some of them were smallish, rather like children, but I could see their faces were old and gnarled.

  The Cathedral was open and filled with lights, and the people were singing, and as we drew close I saw that the same greenery had been strewn all about the great arched doors. The singing was swelling and beautiful beyond belief. The smell of the green pine woods filled the air. Delicious smoke wafted on the wind.

  And the noisy song inside was jubilant and merry, something much more festive and discordant and triumphant than the song of the monks had been. There was not a steady rhythm to it which caught me, but rather a general elation. It made the tears come to my eyes.

  We fell into line with those entering the church and proceeded slowly, thank God, for I could not keep my balance on account of the song. The Laird, who had thrown his wool cape up over his face, my father, who had never shed his fur garments, and the priest, who had raised his cowl against the cold--these three supported me, astonished by my weakness, yet easily helping me a step at a time.

  The informal stream of pilgrims moved sluggishly into the giant nave, and even with the music distracting me I was overcome with wonder at the sheer size and depth of the church. For nothing I had seen so far could equal this structure in grace and in height. Its windows seemed impossibly tall and narrow and its branching arches above to have been made by gods. At the far end, high above the altar, was a window shaped like a flower. It really did occur to my newborn mind that people could not have done it. And then I became overawed and confused.

  At last, as we drew closer to the altar, I saw what lay ahead. A great stable full of hay, and there a cow lowing, and an ox, and a sheep. These animals were restless on their tethers and the warm steaming smell of their excrement rose from the floor of hay. Before them stood a man and a woman made entirely from lifeless stone. Indeed, they were symbols only. Their eyes were painted and so was their hair. And between them, in a tiny bed, lay an infant human child, of marble, same as the man and the woman, only the child was chubby and more shiny, with smiling lips and eyes made of shining glass.

  This was a marvel to me, for I have already told you how the priest's eyes made me think of jewels, and now I beheld the artificial eyes of this baby, and the connection confused me and held me in thrall.

  The music infused these thoughts; indeed it made all thought seem dreamlike and slow, and uncertain, but then in a deep sad moment I knew the truth:

  I knew completely that I had never been such a newborn infant as this; that all of these people had been infants; that it was my size and my articulation which had terrified my mother. I was a monster. I felt this completely, perhaps remembering the things the panic-stricken women had cried at my birth. I knew. I knew I was not one of the human race.

  The priest told me to go down on my knees and kiss the child, that this was the Christ who had died for our sins. And then he pointed to the bloody crucifix hanging from the high column to the right. I saw the man there, saw the blood streaming from His hands and feet. The crucifix Christ. The God of the Wood. Jack of the Green. These words went through my mind. And I knew the infant and the Christ on the Cross were one. Again, I heard those distant cries in my memory, as if of a massacre.

  The music brought it all together. I did truly feel that I would soon faint. Perhaps then the veil came close to falling, and I might have reached through and known the past. Ah, but other, more painful moments would follow, with greater cooperation from me, and nothing much was ever revealed.

  Looking at the crucifix, I shuddered all over to think of such a horrible death. It seemed monstrous to me that anyone could have created a beaming child to suffer such a death. And then I realized that all humans were created for death. They were all born as little struggling innocents, learning to live before they knew what it was about. I knelt down and I kissed this hard stone baby all painted to look soft and real. I looked at the stone face of the woman and the man. I looked back at the priest.

  The music had died away, leaving only roaring whispers and coughs echoing beneath the arches.

  "Come now, Ashlar," said the priest, and he took me hurriedly through the crowd, obviously not wanting to attract notice, and we entered a chapel off the main nave. There was a steady stream of the faithful coming into this chapel, admitted two by two. Other monks in robes stood guard, and the priest bade them now to close it off and have the others please patiently wait.

  The Laird would say his nightly prayer to St. Ashlar. It aroused no resentment but seemed a natural thing. Those who must wait fell on their knees and said their beads.

  We stood alone in the stone chapel with walls half as high as the nave. Yet how grand it seemed; a narrow holy place. Banks of candles burned beneath its windows. A great sarcophagus with an effigy upon it lay in the middle of the floor. Indeed, it had been around this long rectangular stone box that so many were gathered, praying and kissing their hands and putting kisses to the carved man in the stone.

  "Look there, my boy," said
the priest, and pointed not at this stone characterization but up at the window which faced the west. The glass was all black with the night. But I could see easily the figure made into it by the lead seams with which all the pieces of glass were formed. My eye could see a tall man in long robes, with a crown on his head. I could also see that this figure towered over the figures beside him, and that his hair like mine was long and full, and his beard and mustache of similar shape.

  Latin words were written into the glass, in three stanzas, which at first I could not understand.

  But the priest went to the far wall and, reaching up to point to them--they were well over his head--read them out to me from the Latin into English so their meaning went into me complete and entire:

  St. Ashlar Beloved of Christ

  And the Holy Virgin Mary

  Who will come again.

  Heal the sick

  Comfort the afflicted

  Ease the pangs

  Of those who must die

  Save us

  From everlasting darkness

  Drive out the demons from the glen.

  Be our guide

  Into the Light.

  My soul was filled with reverence. The music began again, distantly, and jubilantly as before. I resisted it, trying not to let it overtake me, but I couldn't prevent it, and the spell of the Latin words was dissipated, and then I was led away.

  We were soon gathered in the priest's quarters in the Cathedral sacristy, and he sat with us at the table. The room was small and warm, quite unlike any chamber I had seen so far, except in a country inn perhaps, and very pleasant it seemed to me.

  I put my hands to the fire, then remembered that the Laird had wanted to burn me, and drew them back inside my velvet cloak.

  "What is this thing, Taltos," I said, suddenly turning to face the three of them, who were staring at me in silence. "What is it you called me? And who is Ashlar, the saint who comes again?"

  At this last question, my father closed his eyes in grave disappointment and bowed his head. His father looked ferocious with righteous anger, but the priest only continued to gaze at me as though I had come from heaven. He was the one who spoke.

  "You are he, my son," he said. "You are Ashlar, for it was God's gift to Ashlar that he should be flesh more than once, indeed that he should come again and again into the world for the honor and the glory of his Creator, granted this dispensation from the laws of nature, as was the Virgin when she was assumed into heaven, and as the prophet Elijah who was borne off to heaven, body and soul. God has seen to if that you would find your way into the world more than once through the loins of a woman, and perhaps even through a woman's sin."

  "Aye, that's certain!" said the Laird darkly. "If it wasn't out of the little ones, by the sin of a witch and a child of our clan it had to be."

  My father was both frightened and ashamed. I looked at the priest. I wanted to tell of my mother, of the extra finger on her left hand, and how she had held it up to me and that she had said it was a witch's finger, but I didn't dare to do this. I knew the old Laird wanted to destroy me. I felt his hatred, and it was worse than the most dreadful bitter cold.

  "The mark of God was on the birth, I tell you," said the great Laird. "My damned son has done what not all the little people in the hills have been able to do for hundreds of years."

  "Did you see the acorn fall from the oak?" asked the priest. "How do you know but that this is a changeling and not our spawn? How!"

  "She had the sixth finger," my father said in a whisper.

  "And you lay with her!" demanded the Laird.

  And my father nodded, yes, that he had; and he whispered that she was a great lady, and he could not name her, but that she was great enough to have made him afraid.

  "No one must hear of this," said the priest. "No one must know what has taken place. I will take this blessed child in hand and see that he is consecrated to the Virgin, that he never touches the flesh of a woman."

  He then put me into a warm chamber where I might pass the night. He bolted the door on me. There was only a tiny window. The cold air crept in, but I could see a tiny bit of heaven, a few very small and bright stars.

  What did all these words mean? I didn't know. When I stood on the bed and peeped out the window, when I saw the dark forest and the jagged cut of the mountains, I felt fear. And I thought I could see the little people coming. I thought I could hear them. I could hear their drums. They would use their drums to freeze the Taltos, to render him helpless, and then they would surround him. Make a giant for us, make a giantess; make a race that shall punish the people; wipe them from the earth. One of them would climb the wall, and pry loose the bars, and in they would come--!

  I fell back. But when I looked up again, I saw the bars were secure. This had been a fancy. In truth I had spent nights in rustic inns with farting drunkards and belching whores, and in the very woods where even the wolves ran from the little people.

  Now I was safe.

  It must have been an hour before daylight that the priest called me. For all I knew it was the witching hour, for a bell was tolling, ominously and endlessly, and as I woke, I knew I had heard this bell, like a hammer dropping again and again upon an anvil--in my sleep.

  The priest shook me by the shoulder. "Come with me, Ashlar," he said.

  I saw the battlements of the town. I saw the torches of the watch. I saw the black sky above and the stars. The snow lay still upon the ground. Again and again, the bell rang, and the sound clattered through me, shook me, so that the priest reached out to make me steady and see that I walked at his side.

  "That's the Devil's Knell," said the priest. "It is ringing to drive the devils and spirits out of the valley, to scatter the Sluagh, and the Ganfers, and whatever evil lurks in the glen. To rout the little people if they have dared to come out. They may know already that you have come. The bell will protect us. The bell will drive them away with all the unseelie court and into the forest, where they can do no harm save to their own kind."

  "But who are such beings?" I whispered. "I'm afraid of the sound of the bell."

  "No, child, no!" he said. "It is not to frighten you. This is the voice of God. Take one step after another and follow me into the church." His arm was warm and strong around me, nudging me forward, and once again he kissed me in a soft, tingling manner on the cheek.

  "Yes, Father," I said. This was like the milk to me, as I have said, this affection.

  The Cathedral was deserted; and I could hear the bell more distantly now, for it was high in the tower and made to echo off the mountains and not inside the church.

  He kissed my face warmly again and pulled me into the chapel of the saint. It was cold, for there were not thousands of warm bodies within the Cathedral, and the dark winter was right against the glass.

  "You are Ashlar, my son. There is no doubt of it. Now tell me what you remember of your birth."

  I didn't want to answer. A horrid shame came over me when I thought of my mother crying in fear, when I thought of her hands pushing at me trying to make me go away from her, and my lips closing on the nipple and drinking the milk.

  I didn't answer him.

  "Father, tell me who is Ashlar, tell me what I am meant to do."

  "Very well, my son, I will tell you. You are to be sent to Italy, you are to be sent to the house of our Order in the town of Assisi, and there to study to be a priest."

  I considered this but in truth it meant nothing to me.

  "Now in this land good priests are persecuted," he said. "Outside this valley are rebellious followers of the King and others, the rabid Lutherians and countless other rabble that would destroy us and destroy our great cathedral if they could. You have been sent to save us, but you must be educated and you must be ordained. And above all, you must consecrate yourself to the Virgin. You must never touch the flesh of a woman; you must forgo that pleasure for the glory of God. And mark my word, and never forget it, the sin with women is not for you. Do what
you would with other friars. As long as God is served, so what? But never touch the flesh of a woman.

  "Now this night, there are men ready to take you away by sea. They will see that you reach Italy. And then--when God gives us a sign that the time is right; or when God reveals His purpose to you directly--then you will come home."

  "And what then shall I do?"

  "Lead the people, lead them in prayer, say the Mass for them, lay hands upon them and heal as you did before. Reclaim the people from the Lutherian devils! Be the saint!"

  It seemed a lie, an utter lie. Or rather an impossible task. What was Italy? Why should I go?

  "Can I do this?" I asked.

  "Yes, my son, you can do it." And then under his breath he said, with a wicked little smile: "You are the Taltos. The Taltos is a miracle. The Taltos can do miraculous things!"

  "Then both tales are true!" I said. "I am the saint; I am the monster with the strange name."

  "When you are in Italy," said the priest, "when you stand in the Basilica of St. Francis, the saint will give you his blessings and all will be in God's hands. The people fear the Taltos--they tell the old tales--but the Taltos comes only once in several centuries, and it is always a good omen! St. Ashlar was a Taltos, and that is why we, who know, say that he comes again."

  "Then I am some being other than mortal man," I said. "And you are wanting me to declare that I will imitate this saint."

  "Ah, you are very clever for a Taltos," he said. "Yet you have the divine simplicity, the goodness. But let me put it this way to your heart which is so pure. It's your choice, don't you see? You can be the evil Taltos or you can be the saint! Would that I had such a choice! Would that I were not this feeble priest in an age when priests are burnt alive by the King of England, or drawn and quartered, or worse. In Germany this very day Luther receives his revelations from God while seated upon a privy and hurls excrement in the Devil's face! Yes, that is religion. That is what it is now. Would you seek the glen and the darkness and a life of beggary and terror? Or would you be our saint?"

  Without waiting for me to answer, he said in a low and mournful voice, "Did you know that Sir Thomas More himself has been executed in London, his head struck off and stuck upon a pike of London Bridge! That was the wish of the King's whore!" said he. "That is how things stand!"