Lasher

  In an ugly dim flash, I remembered my mother's loathing, the touch of my mouth on her nipple. I brought my hands up to my face. Why had I come back to learn these truths? Why had I not stayed in Italy? Oh, fool! What had I thought an ugly truth could do?

  "It was the Boleyn," said the woman, Emaleth, my sister. "Queen Anne was your mother, and for witchcraft and for making monsters she was put to death."

  I shook my head. I saw only that poor frightened woman, screaming for me to be taken away. "The Boleyn," I whispered. And all the old tales came back of me of the martyrs of those times--the Carthusians and all the priests who would not ratify the evil marriage of the King to the Boleyn.

  My sister continued, emboldened when she saw I did not contradict or even speak at all.

  "And the Queen of England on the throne now is your sister," she said, "and so frightened is she of the blood from her mother that makes monsters that she will never suffer a man to touch her, and never wed!"

  My father tried to interrupt her, but she drove him back with her pointed finger as if it were a weapon that weakened him where he stood.

  "Silence, old man. You did it. You coupled with Anne when you knew she had the witch's finger, you knew it--and that, with her deformity and your heritage, the Taltos might come."

  "Who is to prove that such a thing ever happened?" said my father. "You think any woman or man from those times is alive now? Elizabeth, who was then a baby, that is the only one who is living. And the little princess was not in the castle that night! If she knew she had a living brother, with a claim to the throne of England, he would be dead, monster or no!"

  The words struck me as does everything--music, beauty, wonder or fear. I knew. I remembered. I understood. I had only to dwell for a moment in pain on the old story. Queen Anne accused of enchanting His Majesty, and bearing a deformed child in the royal bed. Henry, eager to prove he had not fathered it, had accused her of adultery, and had sent five men--of known laxity and perversity--to pave Anne's way to the block.

  "But they were not the father of the bairn," said my sister. "It was our father, and I am a witch for it, and you are the Taltos! And the witches of the valley know it. The little people know it--the trivial monsters and outcasts driven into the hills. They dream of a day when I will take a man to my bed who carries the seed in him. And from my loins might spring the Taltos as it did from poor Queen Anne."

  She advanced upon me, looking up into my eyes, her voice harsh and ringing in my ears. I went to cover my ears, but she took my hands.

  "And then they would have it again, their soulless demon, their sacrifice. To torment as never a man or a woman was tormented! Ah, yes, you catch this scent that comes from me, and I the scent that comes from you. I am a witch and you are the Evil One. We know each other. On account of this I have taken my vow of chastity as devoutly as Elizabeth. No man will plant a monster in me. But in this valley there are others--witches whether they would be or not--they can smell the scent of the Strong One, the perfume of evil, and it is already in the wind that you have come. Soon the little people will know."

  I thought of those small beings I had seen for an instant at the castle gates. And it seemed at this very minute some sound startled my sister, and she looked about her, and I heard a faint echoing laughter come from the darkness of the stairs.

  My father stepped forward.

  "Ashlar, for the love of God and His Divine Son, don't listen to your sister. That she is a witch herself is the perfect truth. She hates you, that you are the Taltos, that you were born knowing, and not she. That she was a mewling child like all the rest. She is but a woman--like your mother--who might give birth to such a miracle, or may never. It is unknown. The little people are sad and easily placated; they are old and common monsters, they have always lived in the mountains and the valleys of Ireland and Scotland; they will be here when men are gone. They do not matter."

  "But what is the Taltos, Father!" I demanded. "Is this an old and common monster, this Taltos? Whence comes this thing?"

  He bowed his head, and gestured that I should listen:

  "Against the Romans we protected this valley, when we were warriors of old and gathered the big stones! We protected it against the Danes, the Norsemen and the English as well."

  "Aye," cried my sister, "and once we protected it from the Taltos when they fled their island and sought to hide from the armies of the Romans in this glen!"

  My father turned his back on her and took me by the shoulders. He shut her out.

  "Now we protect Donnelaith from our own Scots people," he said, "and in the name of our Catholic Queen, our sovereign, of our faith. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is our only hope. You must put aside these tales of magic and witchcraft. There is a purpose to what you are and why you have come. You will put Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne of England! You will destroy John Knox and all his ilk. Scotland will never be under the boot of the Puritans or the English again!"

  "He has no answer for your question, Brother," cried Emaleth.

  "Sister," I said quietly. "What would you have me do?"

  "Leave the valley," she said, "as you came. Flee for your life and for our sakes before the witches know you are here, before the little people learn! Flee so that they do not bring the Protestants down upon us! You, Brother, are the living proof of their claim. You are the witch's child, deformed, monstrous! If you stir up the old rites, the Protestants will have us with the blood on our hands. You can fool the eyes of the humans around you. But you cannot prevail in a battle for God. You are doomed."

  "Why not!" I cried. "Why not prevail!"

  "These are lies," said my father. "The oldest lies in this part of the world. St. Ashlar prevailed. St. Ashlar was a Taltos, and for God he built the Cathedral! At the very spot where his wife, the pagan Queen, was burnt for the old faith, a blessed spring bubbled up from the ground with which he baptized all those who lived between the loch and the pass. St. Ashlar slew the other Taltos! He slew them all so that man made in the image of Christ would rule the earth. Christ's church is built on the Taltos! If that is witchery, then Christ's church is witchery. They are one and the same."

  "Aye, he slew them," cried Emaleth. "In the name of one God instead of another! He led the massacre of his own, to save himself from it. He joined in the fear and hatred and the disgust. He slew his clan to save himself! Even his wife he sacrificed. This is your great saint. A monster who deceived those around him so that he might lead and glut himself with glory and not die with his own breed."

  "For the love of God, child," said my father to me. "This is our miracle now. It comes once in so many hundred years."

  My sister turned to glare at me, even as he pulled her back.

  And I saw them together, looking at me, and I saw them as humans, and how alike they were.

  "Wait," I said softly, so softly that it might as well have been a wild cry. "I see clearly," I said. "All of us are born with a chance before God. The word Taltos means nothing in itself. I am flesh and blood. I am baptized. I have received Holy Orders. I have a soul. Physical monstrosity, that does not keep me out of heaven. It is what I do! We are not predestined as the Lutherans and the Calvinists would have us believe."

  "No one here argues with this, Brother," said Emaleth.

  "Then let me lead the people, Emaleth," I said. "Let me prove by good works that I do indeed have the grace of God in me. I am not an evil thing because I will not be an evil thing. When I have done wrong to others it was in error! If I was born as you say, and I know now it is true, then perhaps there was a purpose, that the power of my wretched mother should be broken, and that I should overturn my sister, and put Mary Stuart on the throne."

  "Born knowing. You are born the dupe of those who hold you prisoner. That is what the Taltos has always been. 'Find the Taltos, make the Taltos,' " she cried mockingly. " 'Breed it for the fire of the gods! that the rain shall fall and the crops grow!' "

  "That is old now and does not matter," said m
y father. "Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Jack of the Green. He is our God, and the Taltos is not our sacrifice but our saint. The Blessed Mother is our Holda. When the drunken men of the village don the skins and horns of animals, it is to walk in the Procession to the manger, not to cavort as of old.

  "We are one with old spirits and the One True God. We are at peace with all of nature, because we have made the Taltos into St. Ashlar! And in this valley we have known safety and prosperity for a thousand years. Think on it, Daughter, a thousand years! The little people fear us! They do not trouble us. We leave out the milk at night in offering, and they dare not take more than what we leave."

  "It's coming to an end," she said. "Get out, Ashlar, lest you give the Protestants exactly what they need. The witches of this valley will know you. They will know your scent. Go while there is time and live out your life in Italy where no one knows what you are."

  "I have a soul within me, Sister," I said. I raised my voice as much as I dared. "Sister, trust in me. I can rally the people. I can at least keep us safe."

  She shook her head. She turned her back.

  "Can you do it?" cried my father to her, accusing her. "Can you, with your magic spells and evil books and sickening incantations? Can you make anything happen in the world at large! Our world is about to perish. What can you do? Ashlar, listen to me, we are a small valley, a small glen, only one tiny part of the north country. But we have endured and we would live on. And that is all the world is, finally, small valleys, groups of people who pray and work and love together as we do. Save us, Son. I implore you. Call upon the God you believe in to help you. And what you were--and what your father and mother did--these things do not matter one whit."

  "No Protestant or Catholic can prove anything against me," I said softly. "Sister, would you tell them what you know?"

  "They will know."

  I walked out of the hall. I was the priest now, not the humble Franciscan but the missionary, and I knew what I had to do.

  I went through the castle yard and over the bridge and down the snowy path towards the church. From far around came the people carrying torches, looking at me leerily and then excitedly, and whispering the name "Ashlar," to which I nodded and gave a great open sign with both hands.

  Again I spied one of those tiny twisted creatures, garbed and hooded in black, and running very fast through the field towards me and then away. It seemed the others saw him, and drew together, whispering, but then followed me on down the road.

  Out in the fields, I saw men dancing. By the light of torches, and dark against the sky, I saw them with the horns and the skins! They had begun their old pagan Yuletide revelry. I must make the Procession, and take them to the Baby Jesus. There was no doubt.

  By the time I reached the gates of the town there was a multitude. I went to the Cathedral and bade them wait. I went into the sacristy, where two elderly priests stood together, looking at me fearfully.

  "Give me robes, give me vestments," said I. "I would bring the valley together. I must at least have my cassock to begin and a white surplice. Do as I say."

  At once they hurried to help me dress. Several young acolytes appeared, and put on their surplices and their gowns.

  "Come on, Fathers," I said to the frightened priests. "See, the boys are braver than you are. What is the hour? We must make the Procession. The Mass must be said at the stroke of twelve! Protestant, Catholic, pagan. I cannot save them all, nor bring them together. But I can bring Christ down upon the altar in the Transubstantiation. And Christ will be born tonight in this valley as He has always been!"

  I stepped out of the sacristy and to the crowd, I raised my voice.

  "Prepare for the Christmas Procession," I declared. "Who would be Joseph and who would be our Blessed Mother, and what child have we in this village that I may place in the manger before I step to the Altar of God to say the Mass? Let the Holy Family be flesh and blood tonight, let them be of the valley. And all of you who would take the shape and skins of animals, walk in the Procession to the manger and kneel there as did the ox and the lamb and donkey before the little Christ. Come forward, my faithful ones. It is almost time."

  Everywhere I saw rapt faces; I saw the grace of God in every expression. And only a glimpse of a small deformed woman, peering at me from beneath a heavy wrap of coarse cloth. I saw her bright eye, I saw her toothless smile, and then she had vanished, and the crowd closed around her as if, among the press of the tall ones, she had gone unseen. Only a common thing, I thought. And if there be little people, then they are of the Devil, and the Light of Christ must come and drive them out.

  I closed my eyes, folded my hands together so that they would make a small church of their own, very narrow and high, and I began in a soft voice to sing the plaintive beautiful Advent hymn:

  Oh come, Oh come, Emmanuel

  And ransom captive Israel

  That mourns in lonely exile here

  Until the Son of God appear...

  Voices joined me, voices and the melancholy sound of flutes, and the tapping of tambourines, and even of soft drums:

  Rejoice

  Rejoice

  Emmanuel

  Shall come to thee

  O Israel!

  High in the tower, the bell began its ringing, too rapid for the Devil's Knell, but more the clarion to call all the faithful from mountain and valley and shore.

  There were a few cries of "The Protestants will hear the bell! They will destroy us." But more and lustier cries of "Ashlar, St. Ashlar, Father Ashlar. It is our saint returned."

  "Let the Devil's Knell be sounded!" I declared. "Drive the witches and the evil ones from the valley! Drive out the Protestants, for surely they will hear the Devil's Knell too."

  There were cheers of approbation.

  And then a thousand voices were raised in the Advent hymn and I retired into the sacristy to put on my full raiment, my Christmas chasuble and vestments of bright green-gold, for the town had them, yes, the town had them as beautiful and embroidered and rich as any I had ever seen in wealthy Florence, and I was soon dressed as a priest should be in the finest linen and gold-threaded robes. The other priests dressed hastily. The acolytes ran to distribute the blessed candles for the Procession, and from all the country round, I was told, the faithful were coming, and the faithful, who had been afraid to do it before, were bringing the Christmas greens.

  "Father," I said my prayer, "if I die this night, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

  It was nearly midnight, but still too soon to go out, and as I stood there, deep in prayer, seeking to fortify myself, calling on Francis to give me courage, I looked up and saw that my sister had come to the door of the sacristy, in a dark green hood and cloak, and was motioning for me with one thin white hand, to come into the adjacent room.

  This was a dark-paneled chamber, with heavy oak furnishings, and shelves of books built into the walls. A place for a priest to hold conferences in quiet, perhaps, or a study. Not a room I had seen before. I saw Latin texts which I knew; I saw the statue of our founder, St. Francis, and my heart was filled with happiness, though no plaster or marble Francis had ever been the radiant being I saw in my mind's eye.

  My soul was quiet. I didn't want to talk to my sister. I wanted only to pray. The scent made me restless.

  She led me inside. Several candles burnt along the wall. Nothing was visible through the tiny diamond-paned windows except the snow falling, and I was stunned to see the Dutchman from Amsterdam seated at the table and motioning for me to sit down. He had taken off his clumsy Dutch hat, and looked at me eagerly as I took the opposite chair.

  The strange enticing scent came strongly from my sister, and once again it made me hunger for something, but I did not know for what. If it was an erotic hunger, I did not intend to find out.

  I was fully dressed for High Mass. I seated myself carefully and folded my hands on the table.

  "What is it you want?" I looked from my sister to the Dutchman. "Do you come
to go to confession so that you can receive the Body and Blood of Christ tonight?"

  "Save yourself," said my sister. "Leave now."

  "And forsake these good people and this cause? You are mad."

  "Listen to me, Ashlar," said the man from Amsterdam. "I'm offering you my protection again. I can take you from the valley tonight, secretly. Let the cowardly priests here gather their courage on their own."

  "Into a Protestant country? For what?"

  It was my sister who answered: "Ashlar, in the dim days of legends before the Romans and the Picts came to this land, your breed lived on an island, naked and mad as apes of the wild--born knowing, yes, but knowing at birth all that they would ever know!

  "At first the Romans sought to breed with them, as had others. For if they could father sons who grew to manhood within hours, what a powerful people they would become. But they could not breed the Taltos, save once in a thousand times. And as the women died from the seed of the Taltos males, and the Taltos females led the men to endless and fruitless licentiousness, it was decided that they must wipe the Taltos from the earth.

  "But in the islands and in the Highlands, the breed survived, for it could multiply like rats. And finally when the Christian faith was brought to this country, when the Irish monks came in the name of St. Patrick, it was Ashlar the leader of the Taltos who knelt to the image of the Crucified Christ and declared that all his kind should be murdered, for they had no souls! There was a reason behind it, Ashlar! For he knew that if the Taltos really learnt the ways of civilization, in their childishness, and idiocy, and penchant to breed, they could never be stopped.

  "Ashlar was no longer of his people. He was of the Christians. He had been to Rome. He had spoken to Gregory the Great.

  "So he condemned his fellow Taltos! He turned on them. The people made it a ritual, an offering, as cruel a pagan slaughter as ever was known.

  "But down through the years, in the blood, the seed travels, to throw up these slender giants, born knowing, these strange creatures whom God has given the cleverness of mimicry, and singing, but no true capacity to be serious or firm."