Lasher Read online

  I was overcome with excitement. All I could think of for a moment was Marie Claudette's strange tale to me when I was only three of how a scholar from Amsterdam had come to Scotland and rescued poor Deborah, daughter of Suzanne. For a moment all manner of images came back to me, from the daemon's memories, and I almost lost consciousness. But time was too precious to indulge in any trances now. I had this kindly little doctor of history and had to get everything I could from him.

  "Witchcraft," I said. "Witchcraft up there. The burnings in the seventeenth century. What do you know of them?"

  "Oh, ghastly tale. Suzanne, the Milkmaid of Donnelaith. On that I happen to have an invaluable piece of material, one of the original pamphlets circulated in those days by the witch judges."

  He went to his press and took out of it a small, crumbling quarto of pages. I could see a coarse engraving of a woman surrounded by flames that resembled more huge leaves or tongues of fire. And in thick English letters was written:

  THE TALE OF THE WITCH OF DONNELAITH

  "I will buy this from you," I said.

  "Not on your life," says he. "But I'll have it copied in detail for you."

  "Good enough." I took out my wallet and laid down a wad of American dollars.

  "That will do, that will do. Don't get carried away! What a passionate fellow you are. Must be the Irish blood. The French are by nature so much more reticent. It's my granddaughter who does the copying and it won't take her that long. She'll give you a lovely transcript in facsimile form on parchment."

  "Good, now tell me what it says."

  "Oh, same old foolishness. These pamphlets were circulated all over Europe. This one was printed in Edinburgh in 1670. Tells how Suzanne, the cunning woman, came under the sway of Satan, and gave him her soul, and how she was tried and burnt, but her daughter the merry-begot was spared, for the child had been conceived on the first of May, and was sacred to God, and no one dared touch her.

  "The daughter was at last entrusted to the care of a Calvinist minister who took her to Switzerland, I believe, for the salvation of her soul. Name Petyr van Abel."

  "Petyr van Abel, you are certain of that name? It says it there?" I could scarcely contain myself. This was the only written word I had ever beheld to confirm the tale which Marie Claudette had told me. I did not dare say this was my ancestor as well. Having Tyrone McNamara seemed gauche enough. I merely fell silent, overwhelmed, and even contemplated stealing the pamphlet.

  "Yes, indeed, Petyr van Abel, right here," said he. "All written by a minister here in Edinburgh and printed here too and sold for quite a profit. These things were popular, you know, just like the magazines of today. Imagine people sitting around the fire and looking at this horrid picture of the poor girl burning.

  "You know they were burning witches, right here in Edinburgh--at the Witches' Well, on the Esplanade, right up till the seventeen hundreds."

  I made some murmur of total sympathy. But I was too stunned by this little confirmation to think clearly. Again I might have yielded to a load of Lasher's memories if I had allowed myself to do so. Hurriedly, I put my questions:

  "But by the time of the witch, the Cathedral was long burnt," said I, trying to get my bearings.

  "Yes, everything was pretty much gone. Only sheepherders up there. But do understand, some historians do believe that the witchcraft persecutions were a last bit of Protestant-Catholic feuding. There may be some truth to it. What they say specifically is this--life became very dull under John Knox, what with stained glass and statues gone, and all the old Latin hymns banned; and colorful Highland customs abandoned; and the people went back to some of their pagan ceremonies just to put some fancy in their lives, you know, some color."

  "Do you think that was the case in Donnelaith?"

  "No. It was a typical trial. The Earl of Donnelaith was a poor man, living in a dreary castle. We hear nothing of him in that century, except that he later died in the fire that killed his son and grandson. The witch was a poor cunning woman from the village, called to account for bewitching some other humble person. We hear of no Sabbats. But God knows, they were held in other places up there. And this woman had been known to go to the pagan circle of stones, and that was used against her."

  "The stones themselves. What do you know of them?"

  "Big controversy. Some say they are as old as Stonehenge, maybe older. I think they have something to do with the Picts, that at one time there were carvings on them. They're very rough, those stones, and all of different sizes. They are remnants of what was once there, and I think at one time, they were deliberately defaced--all the inscriptions chipped off or worn off, and then the rest of the work was done by the weather."

  He opened a small book of drawings. "This is the art of the Picts," he said.

  I felt a terrible moment of disorientation. I don't know what it meant. I shall never forget it. I looked at these warriors, rows and rows of crude little profile figures with shields and swords. I didn't know what to make of it.

  "I think the stones were their worshiping place. To hell with Stonehenge. But who will ever know? Perhaps the stones belonged to one of these strange tribes, or even the little people."

  "Who owns this valley?" said I.

  The man wasn't sure. All the land had been cleared up there by the government, the last starving settlers driven out for their own good. Pitiful. Just pitiful. Many had gone to America. Did I know of the Highland clearances?

  "I've told you all I know," he said. "I wish I knew more,"

  "You will," I said. "I will leave you the means to make a study."

  Then I begged him to join me on my trek to Donnelaith, but he swore he wasn't up to it. "I love that glen," he said. "I did go there many years ago with a man from the Amsterdam order. Alexander Cunningham was his name, a brilliant fellow. He paid for everything, and what a picnic we took with us. We stayed in the glen for a full week. I tell you I was glad to get back to civilization. But he said the strangest thing when he left me here, after our final dinner.

  " 'You didn't really find what you wanted up there, did you?' I asked him.

  " 'No, indeed, I didn't, and thank God for that, if there is one.' He went out of the house and then he came back. 'Let me tell you something, old friend. Never make light of the legends of those glens,' he said. 'And never laugh at the story of Castle Glamis. The little people are still to be found, and they'd bring the witches to the Sabbat if they could for the old purpose.'

  "Naturally I said to the man, 'What purpose?' But he wouldn't answer on that, and seemed to be sincere in his silence."

  "But what is the Glamis Castle story?" asked I.

  "Oh, that there is some curse in that family, you see, and when they tell the new heir he never smiles again. Many have written of that. I've been to Glamis Castle. Who knows? But this man from the Talamasca, he was a studious and passionate sort. We had a splendid time up there, in the glen, looking at the moon."

  "But you didn't see the little people."

  He fell silent, then: "I did see something. But it wasn't fairies, I don't think. It was just a smallish man and woman, rather misshapen, same unfortunates you see begging in the streets. I did see those two once very early in the morning, and when I told my Talamasca friend he was in a perfect fury that he himself had not seen them. They didn't come again."

  "With your own eyes, you saw them. Were they frightening?"

  "Oh, they gave me the shivers!" He shook his head. "I don't like to tell that tale," he said. "Remember, to us, my friend, fairies aren't merely humorous little beings. They are demons of the wild; they are powerful and dangerous and can be vengeful. I'll tell you this, there are fairy lights in that glen. Fairy lights, those flames that rise up in the night on the distant horizon without explanation. I wish you luck in going there. I really wish I could go. We'll begin collecting these research materials for you immediately."

  I went home to our fine lodgings in New Town.

  Mary Beth had still not come b
ack. I sat alone in our suite, a comfortable pair of bedrooms and a sitting room in between, and I drank my sherry and wrote down all that I could remember of what the man had told me. It was cold in these rooms. It would be cold in the glen. But I had to go there. The saint, the fairies, it's all mixed up, I thought.

  Then, in the silence, a feeling stole over me. Lasher was near. Lasher was in the room, and he knew my thoughts, and was close to me.

  "Are you there, beloved?" I asked casually as I jotted down the last few words.

  "So they gave you his name," he said in his secret voice.

  "Petyr van Abel, yes, but not the name of the saint."

  "Aye, Petyr," he said softly. "I remember Petyr van Abel. Petyr van Abel saw Lasher." His entire demeanor seemed tame and thoughtful. His secret voice was at its most resonant and beautiful.

  "Tell me," I coaxed.

  "In the great circle," he said. "We will go there. I have always been there. I mean that you will go there."

  "Can you be there and with us at the same time?"

  "Yes," he said with a sigh. But there seemed some doubt in his mind. It was, again, the limits of his thinking.

  "Be clever, spirit, who are you?" I asked.

  "Lasher, called by Suzanne, in the glen," said he. "You know me. I have done so well for you, Julien."

  "Tell me where my daughter Mary Beth is, then, spirit. I hope you did not leave her somewhere in this dark city to her own devices."

  "Her devices are very good, Julien, allow me to remind you. But I left her to her own vices rather than devices."

  "Which means what?"

  "She found a Scot who would be the father of her witch."

  I shot out of the chair in a protective rage! "Where is Mary Beth?"

  But even then I heard her singing as she came down the corridor. She opened the door. She was very red-cheeked and beautiful from the cold, indeed, sort of glistening, and her hair was loose. "Well, I have done it at last," she said. She danced into the room, and then put a kiss on my cheek. "Don't look so stricken."

  "But who is the man?"

  "Don't give it another of your precious thoughts, Julien," she said. "I shall never again lay eyes on him. Lord Mayfair is a good name, don't you think?"

  And so that was the lie that was written home, just as soon as we knew she had conceived. Lord Mayfair of Donnelaith had fathered her child. Indeed her "marriage" had been held in that "town"--though of course there was no town at all.

  But I jump ahead of my story. I had the keen feeling at that moment that she had mated with success, and as she described this man to me, pure Scots, and black-haired and wicked and charming and very rich, I thought, Well, perhaps this is as good a way to choose a father for one's child as any.

  Any pain I felt, jealousy, shame, fear, whatever, I buried it inside me. We were committed libertines, she and I. I would not have her laughing at me. Besides, I was too eager to go to Donnelaith.

  As I told her what I knew, our beloved spirit did nothing to come between us. Indeed, he was quiet that night. We were ail quiet. Though down the street there was quite a bit of talk. Seems one of the local lords had been murdered.

  I didn't learn till later who it was. And even then the name didn't mean anything. But I think I know now that it was the father of Mary Beth's baby.

  Let's go on to Donnelaith now. And let me tell you what I discovered there.

  We set out the very next day, with two big carriages, one for ourselves and our luggage, the other for several servants needed to assist us. We went north to Darkirk, to the inn there, and from Darkirk on together on horseback, with two pack animals, and two of the local Scotsmen also on horseback to guide us.

  We were both great lovers of horses, you understand, and riding in this treacherous hilly terrain was rather a treat for us. We had fine horses for the trip and provisions to stay the night, though not long after we set out, I became aware of my age, and aware of many aches and pains that I had been able to ignore before this time. Our guides were young. Mary Beth was young. I was pretty much on my own, bringing up the rear, but the beauty of the surrounding hills, of the rich forests, and the sky itself drugged me and made me very happy.

  There was a chilly haunted glory to all this, however. Scotland! But I had to go all the way to the glen. When I felt the urge to turn round, I kept my counsel and went on. We had a hasty lunch, then rode until almost sunset.

  It was just then that we came to the glen, or rather a slope descending upon it. And from a high promontory, just out of the deep forest of Scots pine and alder and oak, we saw the distant castle across the gulf, a hollow overgrown monstrous thing above the beautiful glowing waters. And in the valley itself the high straggled arches of the Cathedral, and the circle of stones, remote, and austere but plainly visible.

  Darkness or no darkness, we decided to press on. We lighted our lanterns and went down through the scattered groves of trees, and into the grassy glen, and did not pitch camp till we had reached the remnants of the town, or more visibly, the village which had lingered on after it.

  Mary Beth was for pitching camp in the pagan stones. But the two Scotsmen refused. Indeed, they seemed outraged. "That's a fairy circle, madam," said one of them. "You wouldn't dare to do such a thing as camp there. The little people would take it very ill, believe me."

  "These Scots are as crazy as the Irish," said Mary Beth. "Why didn't we go on to Dublin if we wanted to hear about leprechauns?"

  Her words gave me a little thrill of fear. We were now deep in the broad glen. The village did not include one single stone left standing. Our tents, our lanterns must have been visible for miles around. And suddenly, I felt strangely naked and undefended.

  We should have gone up to the ruins of the castle, I thought. And then I realized it. We had not heard from our spirit all day. We had not felt his touch, his nudge, his breath.

  The thrill of fear deepened. "Lasher, come to me," I whispered. I feared suddenly that he had gone off to do some terrible thing to those we loved, that he was angry.

  But he was quick to respond. As I walked out alone with my unlighted lantern in the tall grass, each step an ordeal since I was so sore from the ride, he came with a great cooling breeze, and made the grass bow to me in a huge circle.

  "I am not angry with you, Julien," he said. But his voice was thick with suffering. "We are in our land, the land of Donnelaith. I see what you see, and I weep for what I see, for I remember what there was once in this valley."

  "Tell me, spirit," I said.

  "Ah, the great church which you know, and processions of the penitent and the ill come for miles through the hills and down to worship at the shrine. And the thriving town full of shops and tradesmen, selling images...images..."

  "Images of what?" asked I.

  "What is it to me? I would be born again, and never waste my flesh this next time as I did in those years. I am not the slave of history but rather the slave of ambition. Do you understand the difference, Julien?"

  "Enlighten me," I said. "There are few times when you make me genuinely curious."

  "You are too frank, Julien," it said. "What I mean to say is this. There is no past. Absolutely none. There is only the future. And the more we learn the more we know--reverence for the past is simply superstition. You do what you must do to make the clan strong. So do I. I dream of the witch who will see me and make me flesh. You dream of wealth and power for your children."

  "I do," said I.

  "There is nothing else. And you have brought me back to this place, which I have never left, that I might know it."

  I was standing there idle under the darkling sky, the valley huge, the ruins of the Cathedral just ahead of me. These words sank into my soul. I memorized them.

  "Who taught you these things?" I asked.

  "You did," Lasher said. "It was you and your kind who taught me to want, to aim, to reach, rather than to lament. And now I remind you, for the past calls to you under false pretenses."

&
nbsp; "You think so," I said.

  "Yes," he said. "These stones, what are they? They are nothing."

  "May I see the church, spirit?"

  "Oh yes," said he. "Light your lantern if you will. But you will never see it as I saw it."

  "You're wrong, spirit. When you come into me, you leave something of yourself behind. I have seen it. I have seen it with the faithful crowded to the doors, and the candles and the Christmas green--"

  "Silence!" he declared and I felt him like the wind wrapping me so roughly suddenly he might knock me over. I went down on my knees. The wind ceased. "Thank you, spirit," said I. I struck a match, shielding it carefully, and lighted the wick of the lantern. "Won't you tell me of those times?"

  "I'd tell you what I see from here. I see my children."

  "Do you speak of us now?"

  But that was all he would say, though he followed me as I made a path through the high grass, over rocky and uneven ground, and came at last to the ruins themselves and stood in the giant nave looking at the broken arches.

  Dear God, what a grand cathedral it must have been. I had seen its like all over Europe. It was not in the Roman style, with rounded arches and paintings galore; no doubt it was cold stone, and lofty and graceful as the Cathedral of Chartres or Canterbury.

  "But the glass, does anything remain of the glorious glass?" I whispered.

  And in mournful answer the wind swept broadly and serenely across the entire darkening glen and passed through the nave, once again, making the wild grass bend to and fro, and ruffling around me as if to embrace me. The moon had risen a bit, and the stars were shining through.

  And suddenly beyond the very end of the nave, where the rose window had once been, where the arch stood at its height, I saw the spirit himself, immense, and huge and dark and translucent, spread across the sky like a great storm rolling in, only silent, and collecting and re-collecting and then in one sudden burst dispersing into nothingness.

  Clear sky, the moon, the distant mountain, the wood. All that was plain and still and the air felt cold and empty. My lantern burnt on bright. I stood alone. The Cathedral seemed to grow taller around me, and I to be dwarfed and vain and petty and desperate. I sank down to the ground. I drew up my knee, and rested my hand and my chin upon it. I peered through the dark. I wished for Lasher's memories to come to me.