The Printer's Devil (15 page)

A day later a very horrid thing to relate, Nate Mundy is murdered, they found his corpse in Clerken-well; like unto the other man, drained of substance like some Vessel emptied and blue in the face. And though Nate was but a smell-smock kind of man, yet it is a waste that he be dead so youthful, at the age of but twenty years.

There was a pamphlet circulating ere long that said that Nate and Humphrey Hope (which was the other man that was killed the same way) were not murdered at all but stricken down by God for excessive whoring, the which is just the kind of thing I expect the snot-nosed Faithful-brethren to say and an they believe such nice falsehoods will put an end to fornication then ’tis high time England had a King again to put an end to such foolishness and sit down upon these damned Parliamentarians.

I had but xvii years of age when they did cut off the head of king Charles and my father so distressed that he did fast for three days nor took aught but water to drink all that time. But now they are fond bedfellows, the which doth show that not the least among men but hath given up his principles for the sake of an easy life. Beshrew me an ever I do the same.

That night I did dream another strange dream, nor did I know that I dreamt, for ’twas so real that I believed I was in my chamber having lately returned for the night. And the ache of my wound keeping me waking there came a knocking at the casement so Insistent that at last I arose from my bed and went to look out at it; and outside, sitting on the air, was a woman all white and her countenance masked; and I fell to panting as if ’twere (this thought came to me in the dream, and I did remember it in the morning) the breath in my body was calling to this creature.

I laid my hand on the window-catch ere I knew what I did; when that I saw’t I moved my hand away and without the figure tapped on the glass again, opening her mouth below the mask to bare her wolf’s teeth, all sharp and fangy. But then the pain of my wound came on so sharp I bent over double with the hurt of it; and when the ache had died down, she was gone and I resumed my bed.

However day by day my flesh healed, aided by the herbal specifics of Nicholas Griffin that had warned me to abjure magic. And indeed in spite of Roger’s incantation I had received no warning of Hawkin Kemp’s presence; Of whose demise his mother my master’s sister had been apprehended so that she took to wearing a black veil atop her widow’s weeds, the which did call to my mind the creature of Roger southwell when soever I did see her.

I half expected questions of Master Pakeman, but an he knew Kemp died that day I went to Richmond-town he did not connect the two occurrences. And indeed why should he so; knowing neither that I do possess a sword nor that I have skill enough to use it. Nor do I think him like to see a prentice of his acting such a part.

In my mind there are matters spinning that I feel certain are connected, and could I but make those connections I might discover some momentous thing. Is there a link betwixt Roger’s creature and the dead men? Or betwixt my dream and they? I could wish I knew what Roger is doing at this time, as he works towards his cunning scheme to counter her, what soever that may be.

It was Catherine that did point my mind in the right direction, after we had been to ring the first time since I was stabbed. The stretching did pain me a whit, but it was not the sharp pain that ate me the days after that it was done, more like unto an ache, and then an itch in the flesh. So we made haste back to my lodging, for I could not go arm-in-arm with her when she was dressed as a boy; she was not so merry as her wont and she sat on the bed and clasped her arms around herself.

-What is’t? I said, does aught ail thee?

She shook her head; and I came to put my arms about her and found her as rigid as a piece of wood. I set to rubbing her back, and she put her head upon my shoulder. So my thoughts had taken another direction, which is to say the usual one, when she did say very quiet, -I have such horrid dreams these last nights I am almost afeard to sleep.

-What manner of dreams, I said; tell me one.

-I durst not, she replied, which was not the words of my Catherine.

-Listen to me now, I said to her, I have bad dreams also; I will tell thee mine, that I did have not such a long time since, and the which was most horrid, do you but tell me thine.

-Do we dream real things, Fabian? she asked.

-I know not, said I honestly; But perchance we can riddle them.

-I dreamt, said Catherine then, three times now have I dreamt it, and they do say that three times is the charm, that I had me a desire to drink of the breath of living men. And I did turn cold myself.

-What is’t? she asked of me.    ~

-I’ll tell thee by and by; tell thy tale.

She said, -I seemed to be drifting through the air, having no body of mine own; I floated hither and yon, seeking for nourishment. And two times I did feed but not the third, though the third I desired most urgently. I know not what manner of creature I was; not human, nothing possessed of a soul; but each time I woke, I felt not human even then.

I held her close then, my thoughts a-roiling. It was Roger’s creature Lilu, in a new disguise, that was walking the night and sucking out the breath and the life from men, and Catherine dreaming her because Lilu was made from her; and I could not tell her that.

-What did you dream then, Fabian, she asked me, and I told her of the white woman that drifted outside my casement; she looked fearfully at it.

-We dreamt the same thing then, she said, but from opposite sides.

-They are dreams, only dreams, I said, and I held her until we both forgot them.

In the morning I awoke betimes and lay without moving, knowing that something was very wrong; I opened my eyes and knew; for Catherine was yet there in my arms; we two had fallen asleep and slept the whole night through, and just now her servant or her father would be finding her own bed not slept in. Catherine must have felt me move as I wakened, for she opened her eyes also.

-O Fabian, she said, what have we done?

-Hush, I said, ’twill be well, I’ll wed you today and Master Pakeman can go whistle for a prentice.

-What will my father say? she cried.

And I said, -He will say what he will, and we will discover’t soon enough, but just now we are here two together, and what shall we do about that? And therefore we did the only thing we could do.

-Not until that we were dressed, she in her own proper clothes and I eschewing working-dress, did she say, I dreamed again.

-The same? I asked her.

-Ay, the same.

-Well, said I, there’s no help on’t for now, we must needs go speak with thy father. (I durst not even contemplate mine own father; I have seen him in a rage, I was sore affrighted of him as a child and did oft-times feel his belt and more than his belt for small petty things that were offences in his eyes; I did not wish to occasion his wrath as a man grown.)

’Twas not so great a distance from my lodging to the house of Catherine’s father, the which was also his shop and smaller by as much as half than that of Master Pakeman.

-Something is wrong, Catherine said to me as we approached; there was a mess of folk in the street and all milling about like unto pismires in an ant-nest stirred up with a stick; I am afeard, she said.

And in truth I was concerned also for that the crowd did seem to centre upon Master Alsop’s.

-What’s the moil, I asked a man that was standing by; he knew not; but another turned and said, -’Tis Master Alsop the printer; they say he’s murdered.

And Catherine cried out, -No, no, no.

I caught her hand to hold her from running, saying, -Wait, we’ll go together; and she was white like unto chalk; I could not stay her.    
₇₃

I would have staid her from beholding the body an I could, but she was not to be held back, nor spared the sight, the sight I had more than half expected. Her father’s corpse was blue in colour, dry like unto an husk, tumbled like a bottle of cloth in a corner of his small chamber; the knuckle of his right hand was bloody, an he had been in a brawl, and there were blood-stains and smears by the door-jamb, the which made me think on some thing I could not quite recall. And after a time they bore the body away for burying in Pulcher’s bone-yard.

Then passed many days mightily confused and I cannot order their events in my mind, but I do recall that at one time I stood in Master Alsop’s bed-chamber where his cadaver was found and looked on the bloody marks by the door; And then there returned to me that fancy that I had entertained a long time since, and which I did write down then, anent the patterns on our finger-ends; and I looked close at the marks and indeed that was what they were, smeared and not clear but quite plain did a man but know what to look for.

An I could discover whose fingermarks these were, they might point their fingers towards the assassin. But I said nothing of these thoughts for I was greatly frighted that they would be the same as Catherine’s, an my suppositions were correct.

And Catherine being at work that Whitsuntide on her fathers affairs and accounts, he having no heir but she and no kin, I did find ink-prints of her own fingers on a torn paper, the which I took in secret to the others to compare; ’twas as I had feared. ’twas in truth Roger’s creature, that was Catherine’s dark twin, was murdering men yet at large in the city: there had she left her mark.

‘And then, abruptly, once more I thought I heard the sound of the huge, soft tread on the aisle, and this time closer to me. There was an awful little silence, during which I had the feeling that something enormous was bending towards me, from the aisle..And then, through the booming of blood in my ears, there came a slight sound from the place where my camera stood - a disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and then a sharp tap. I had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now I snapped it on, desperately, and shone it straight above me, for I had a conviction that there was something there.’

William Hope Hodgson,
The Thing Invisible

Kim awoke with a crick in her neck and stared into darkness, which disoriented her. She slid off the sofa with a groan and when her eyes adjusted to the cat light she squinted at the clock-counter on the video: 22:03, it said.

‘Damn,’ she muttered irritably, turning on the nearest lamp. She rubbed her eyes, rolling gritty particles between thumb and forefinger, then stamped grumpily into the kitchen to brew some coffee. Prowling uneasily around the downstairs while it filtered, she nearly tripped over her camera case, which had been dumped in the hall with the rest of her gear.

‘Bloody hell,’ she growled. What was Alan up to? He’d never failed to stow her gear away before, sometimes even when she didn’t want it put away. She padded up the stairs, treading carefully on the ones which creaked so as not to make any noise.

Light crept under the ill-fitting door of Alan’s office, so she eased it open carefully and peered round it. Alan was pillowed on his arms, snoring gently. Pieces of paper covered in his untidy writing spilled out from beneath him; the screen of the word-processor glowed blue by his side. Kim reached over to turn it off, then blinked in surprise: the text displayed was in Latin. She stared at it uncomprehendingly.

‘Magia naturalis licita est, &
non prohibita.

‘Miraculum magnum a Trismegisto appellabitur homo, qui in deum transeat quasi ipse sit deus, qui conatur omnia fierei, sicut deus est omnia; ad objectum sine fine contendit, sicut infinitus est deus, immensus, ubique totus.’

The cursor was pulsing after
totus.
Kim stared at the keyboard for a moment as if that would unravel the mystery of how to use the machine, but it didn’t. Unwilling to turn it off, perhaps losing hours of work, she drew back.

Possibly woken by the sense of a presence in the room, Alan stirred and opened a bleary eye. ‘Wha’s time?’

‘Quarter past eleven.’

‘Christ, I must have nodded off.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Kim without irony, ‘you must have. What’s with all that Latin?’

Alan looked at the screen and turned red, like a child caught out. ‘Just something I was writing.’

‘Prize Draws in Latin, now?’

‘It’s... to do with Roger Southwell,” said Alan, pressing keys. The screen flashed up the words STORING TEXT.

‘Oh,’ said Kim.

Kim frequently remembered her dreams - sometimes three or four or even more on a restless night, if her intermittent insomnia struck. Sometimes they were mere snatches, sometimes full-blown dramas. She was apt to amuse herself by analysing them, but that night she dreamed a really baffling one.

She found herself in a dim street, the buildings to either side obscured and difficult to see: a sense of menace hung over everything.

Adocentyn,
said a voice from nowhere, which meant nothing at all to Kim.

Cautiously, she walked down the street, avoiding deep ruts filled with a substance like the grey mud which boils in thermal springs. As she walked, the buildings on either side drew closer together, their upper stories practically touching over Kim’s head. She halted at a corner; peered round it.

Something lying in the gutter made her heart jump illogically, the way an unexpected wino in a doorway does. Looking closer, she found that it was a bundle of sacking, coarse and stained. Curiously, she poked it with her foot. It felt - loose. Surrendering to curiosity, she squatted beside it, untying the wet cords which bound the sack, and peeled the damp fabric back. The next second she jumped back with an exclamation of disgust, her heart hammering, for the sack contained a corpse which had been dead a long time: it was a little like old bones and leather, with a straggly mass of hair just visible. Kim stood up, grimacing - and then the body began to move, feebly, and a great rush of blood burst out from it.

‘Shit!’ said Kim, trying to avoid the flow - and woke up. The moon was looking in through the window with its pale expressionless face (although she could have sworn she’d closed the curtains).