Time of the Beast (10 page)

I shook my head. In my present state of mind I did not wish to discuss with him the fearful book of St. John’s Revelation.

‘The prophecy also reads: “It is the number of a man”,’ I observed. ‘What if I am right, and you find this demon to learn that he is only a savage madman? How will your words of exorcism protect you from a mortal murderer?’

He frowned at me as if I were mocking him, then replied:

‘Do not doubt that I have knowledge in these matters.’ He reached inside his robe and produced a small hide-bound book which he opened before me, and I saw upon its pages grotesque diagrams of demonic figures and writings in a text I did not recognise – presumably some form of Celtic. ‘As I have said, knowledge
and
experience.’ Then he turned to point back in the direction from which we had come, saying: ‘I have given you the explanation you asked for. It is time for you to return safely home. No doubt our arrival has disturbed the routine of your daily devotions. Farewell.’

So he dismissed me, and now it seemed that his words mocked me. I looked back to the remote woodland where my dwelling stood, realising suddenly how far away from it we had come. Yet the distant sight of it as it lay bleakly beneath a cluster of dark heavy clouds felt at once overwhelmingly dismal and oppressive, as I recalled for the first time since awakening the burdensome duty I owed this day to Ailisa, and gloomily anticipated my future solitude and confinement here. A kind of mad panic seemed suddenly to descend on me. I grew breathless while a cold sweat covered my body as I felt simply that I could no longer endure the misery of my situation. What Cadroc had implied seemed utterly true: of what use was I to anyone, alone and raving day after day in my cell as I slipped ever further towards madness? How could this achieve the redemption of my soul? Then, in that instant, as if with the force of divine inspiration, it seemed I understood with total clarity the meaning of it all, and I knew at once with certainty what it was I must do. With no time to consider further, I spun about and raced after the two men as they moved away.

‘Brother, wait!’ I called out. ‘Forgive me if I appeared to doubt you.’ Cadroc waved his hand at me as if to brush the matter aside, but I went on: ‘I have indeed remembered something more, to reconcile our opinions. Whether this marauder is a man possessed by a demon, or truly a devil in the flesh, I must accept that it is an unholy creature. When I fled the scene of slaughter I sensed its presence come after me. In terror I cried out with holy words, and when I looked back it was gone. This is surely the reason that I alone have survived such an attack?’ In fact I could not be sure of this – my feeling that I had been stalked by the killer as I fled from the massacre might simply have been born of my delirium and dread – but it seemed expedient now to say it, and indeed in that moment it felt like the truth to me. Cadroc gave a slight nod to indicate that I told him only that of which he was already certain. As he went to move on, my own purpose was becoming ever clearer, and as I continued to speak I reached out to grip his arm and detain him. ‘Brother Cadroc, your fortitude and zeal have inspired me. There is more I must tell you. In the night I had a dream. And in this dream the evil thing from the fen came to me and we fought a great battle. It all seemed vivid and real and most terrifying, but I see now it was a sign and an injunction I dare not ignore. I awoke from this dream to find you at my bedside, then discovered that you are a godly man set upon a quest to fight with darkness itself.’ I paused for a moment as I gathered courage to say now what I knew I must. ‘I would go with you to confront the darkness. To do battle with the Devil. I see now it is what God demands of me.’

Cadroc’s eyes bulged at me in a look of astonishment, then his expression turned to one of scorn.

‘Go back to your refuge, Brother,’ he answered. ‘And the secure drudgery of your lonely prayers. You do not have the look of a holy warrior to me.’

‘We are all the warriors of Christ!’ I protested. ‘I can assist you… I can be of service.’

‘Your ardour is admirable. But I fear I have failed to impress upon you the great danger…’

‘I understand, yet I believe the danger is sent to test me – to prove my faith. That it is sent by God in answer to my prayers.’ Now I fell to my knees before him, as if I would make my confession, and the words poured from me in a frantic whisper. ‘The darkness is always with me. I am in torment because I do not know finally if I am a man of God or else one of the wretched damned. I only know that
I do not know!
And I came out here alone so that I might cast this pernicious doubt from my heart, but shadow-like it eludes me and defeats me, driving me forever back into hopelessness and despair. But now my darkness has become a thing of solid form, an enemy I may pursue and fight and – with God’s help and yours – overcome. You, Brother, are too resolute in your faith to understand this – a thing that fills me with the sinful impulse of envy – yet I hope that within you pity may take the place of understanding. I beg you to grant me what I ask.’

His dark eyes studied me closely for long moments, and I believed that beneath his stern look I saw something there to encourage me – some sign of inner hesitation or uncertainty. But this was only momentary, before he turned from me, saying:

‘Go home, Brother. Mine is not a pleasant pilgrimage. I have no place for passengers.’

He strode off after his companion, and I stood dejectedly as I watched him depart. But my heart was filled at once with the overpowering conviction that my words were absolute truth, and with sudden unshakeable determination I started to follow them.

We walked throughout the morning, and I followed precisely their arduous path through the mud and bulrushes as we circled the borders of the deeper marshes where men dare not tread, while a thin mist rose up, making it difficult for me to mark time. Occasionally Cadroc would look around and I heard his voice boom out over the open wetlands, commanding me to turn back, yet I kept moving doggedly onward, keeping them always in my sight. After a time I began to study my surroundings: the eerie, silent miles of dull grey reeds and steaming swamps. We encountered not another soul as we went, and I was struck once more by the sheer size and emptiness of this land, whose twisting tortuous pathways might turn the journey of an hour into a day and where a man feels he is led ever farther from the sight of God. It chilled me to my bones.

It was probably around noon that I felt the ground sink as I followed them into a kind of hollow, and the mist grew thicker as it swirled up to surround us. Soon I saw that a wide lake stretched before us. We skirted its edge, until a small collection of rotting huts appeared up ahead. As Cadroc and Aelfric approached them I saw dimly that an old man sat outside the door to one of these, his attention fixed upon the repair of a fishing net.

‘Greetings,’ Aelfric called to him. ‘We come here in peace.’

Suddenly aware of their presence, the old fellow cried out in fear and jumped to his feet, snatching up a spear from the ground beside him, straining with rheumy eyes to peer at them through the mist as he began to yell out at the top of his voice.

‘Good man, be calm,’ I heard Cadroc say. ‘Be assured that we mean you no harm.’ But the old man continued with his caterwauling, shouting out desperate threats as his spear remained defiantly raised. Then another, younger man appeared behind him, his own spear pointed at them, and he too began to yell and bluster, excited by the older man’s panic. Now Cadroc’s voice thundered out at them.

‘Fools! We are here upon God’s work. Do not dare to obstruct us, or you will suffer His wrath!’ He stepped forward and raised his arm, his finger pointing at them, then he swept it down in a masterful gesture as he cried out: ‘Lay down your spears!’

Their weapons fell to the ground, as if forcibly torn from their hands, and they quailed visibly before Cadroc’s words, until the younger one fell to his knees and I heard him hiss:

‘Father! Be still. It is Aelfric. He comes with a holy man! Forgive father,’ he implored. ‘He is old… your coming alarmed him… his sight and hearing are poor… he did not recognise you in the mist. You come to us in bad times. There is much fear everywhere.’

‘That is all right, Alfhere,’ Aelfric said cheerfully, and clapped a hand onto his shoulder. ‘Now get up. We need you to take us across the water.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Alfhere nodded eagerly. ‘But first you will eat and drink with us?’

‘No time,’ Aelfric shook his head. ‘Our mission is urgent.’

‘Then come,’ Alfhere replied. I approached as he led the others along the lake’s shore to where a coracle lay upon the mud. And as he dragged it into the water I knew with a sense of desperation that we had reached the point where I could follow Cadroc no further, and that I would be left here, many perilous miles from home, stranded in this desolate, hostile place. I moved to the side of the boat, waiting silently as Cadroc and Aelfric clambered into it, my gaze simply fixed upon them. Alfhere, assuming me to be their companion, looked up at me and said: ‘Do you seek passage?’

I did not answer him but only looked to Brother Cadroc. His eyes would not meet mine, but now Aelfric shot me an angry stare, which in moments changed into a look of amusement; then he began to laugh as he whispered something to Cadroc. Now the monk turned to glare at me indignantly, but I must have looked like the proverbial lost lamb, as once more I received the impression that something within the man was uncertain and divided, for after a moment his anger subsided, and he appeared to relent.

‘Come then,’ he said, and shifted to make a space in the boat beside him. ‘For now, at least.’

‘Thank you, truly,’ I said to him as I climbed in, feeling a flood of incredible relief.

‘And I say truly that you should not thank me,’ he muttered. ‘You would be safer abandoned on the marsh, Brother.’

But I also turned to give Aelfric my thanks, for I felt his words to Cadroc had perhaps been instrumental in my acceptance into their company. In that moment I came to regard Aelfric as a friend.

As Alfhere rowed us over the lake, and I felt the sudden exhilaration of freedom and the cool wet breeze on my face, it came to me that by embarking on this voyage across the water I had passed over a boundary from which I could not turn back. Whatever might lie ahead, it had now become my fixed path into a strange and mysterious world of darkness and great danger. But I was convinced that here burned the fire that would temper my soul: a chance to serve as a companion and perhaps even an apprentice to an exorcist monk and learn the secret ways of battling with the Dark One. I prayed my courage would prove equal to the task. But then I thought of Ailisa, and I questioned whether what had prompted my actions was courage at all. I wondered if, in my coward’s heart, I might have run away anywhere to escape my responsibility to her, to place some distance between us and make our parting easier.

When we had crossed the lake, to the point where the beds of reeds grew too thick for the coracle to go further, we climbed ashore, and Aelfric said:

‘Now we must continue north. This will bring us to the settlement called Meretun where we will find welcome and lodging tonight.’

We walked for hours on snaking pathways across a series of small islets which rose and fell out of the marshes, following tracks over thin ridges of firm ground which formed a connection of narrow causeways between them, while gulls soared and cried above us. But all else was deathly quiet and still except for the wails and shrieks of the marsh birds which sometimes rose, like the unearthly sobbing of lost damned souls upon the sharp salt winds that blew in from the distant sea and merged with the pervading stench of rotting slime, which drifted everywhere in clouds of vapour from out of the oozing depths of the mud. At first Cadroc did not speak but only trudged onward as his eyes held a faraway look, which made it seem that as he travelled he simultaneously traversed some inward realm of his own, and I sensed how heavily the burden of his responsibility must lay upon him. Eventually I began to converse quietly with Aelfric as he strode in front and held his spear, pausing occasionally to test with the blunt end of its wooden shaft the firmness of the ground ahead, saying to him:

‘Are you not afraid to journey through the fens on the trail of this killer?’

He smiled and raised his spear with both hands as he answered.

‘I do not fear. The Fenland is my home. And life spent in fear is no life.’

‘But you must have confidence in Brother Cadroc’s powers. Are you a Christian man?’

‘I have made worship to the Christ-god,’ he said briefly. I understood his meaning. Most of the fen-men respected our faith, but to them the Christian god remained only one among many. As Cadroc had confided to me, it was by his mission here that he intended to change that situation. But it was also clear to me that he had other motivations beyond this, and these I determined to discover.

My thoughts distracted me, and my muscles had grown tired and aching from my long travail. It was now, as I followed Aelfric down an uneven slope from an islet onto the marsh, that I lost my footing and tripped, then lurched to one side, stumbling away from our path. The ground there looked firm, and no different to me from where I had walked before, but as I stepped onto it my legs sank instantly down to my knees in soft viscous mud. I shifted my weight and fell onto my backside to stop myself from sinking further, then slipped and scrabbled as I tried to free myself, but my hands found nothing solid to grip beneath me, and a sense of panic came over me as I realised I was hopelessly stuck.

‘Keep still!’ Aelfric called out, as he began to approach me, making his way forward with infinite care. Then he lay down flat on his stomach, stretching out across the ground behind me to spread his weight there evenly, and reached out his arm towards me. Slowly I twisted around to clutch at his outstretched hand, but my own fingers were slippery with mud and at first I could not gain a firm grip. Finally we managed to grasp each other about our wrists, then I clung to him with both hands as he began to crawl backwards, pulling me with him while I squirmed and kicked, my body sweating with fear and exertion until slowly I felt myself torn loose from the mire’s deadly grip. Then a loud squelching noise came out from the mud, as if it protested to be robbed of its prey.