The Wanderer (12 page)

(William had strayed, or so we thought; I remember bemused grimaces round the table. It almost seemed like he was taunting, mocking us. It was boring. Rashmi even took the gossip magazine from of her bag again, began openly to read it.

‘Was the butcher Carol?’ Jane asked. ‘You recognized him then?’

William shook his head. ‘No.’ Surly.

Duncan tutted.

William glared.

‘It was so lucid. And it’s part of my tale, picked up later. You’ll see.’

The Scotsman shrugged.

‘I swear! My horror was eerily fitted to me.’

William drew deep on his cigarette, seemed near to tears. Duncan looked away, down at the table, drummed with his fingers on it.

I urged William to go on.

He sniffed, put out his cigarette, resumed.

‘I was lost a moment, and, when I came back to myself, saw the butcher looking oddly at me. I asked him again what he was on about, and he narrowed his eyes, seemed, of a sudden, cagey…’)

‘We’re forbidden from revealing the secrets of our order.’

On hearing the trite stock phrase, William sneered.

(Reflecting on this cagey response of that butcher’s now, I wonder if it was the exploitation of the human desire to be privileged with secret lore that lay behind the power of culture’s institutions. Faith exacted as the price of aped disclosure; mysteries like will-o’-the-wisps enticing the unwary.

When the recondite knowledge was held true by the powerful, as in times of superstition, this was bad enough. But when, as in so-called Enlightened eras, the secrets were fictions thought up solely to compel belief, and the elect, having concocted the age’s truths, scorned them, void and meaninglessness pullulated.)

‘Since I’m here under duress, you know, against my will, the least you could do is tell me what’s going on.’

The butcher frowned.

‘I don’t know any more than you. Some evil thing is loose, and we must kill it.’

The pack, now climbing a hill, had slowed. Breathing a little easier, and headache eased, William felt a throb of sympathy.

‘What are you lot anyway? A cult?’

By way of answer, the butcher gave his name, ‘Thaul’, Saul, told his story.

He’d been a thief, a burglar. Was limber, could swarm up a pipe, climb a trellis, wriggle through a small window, even a dogflap, was, though lowly in the gang, prized by his mates. One day, the gang were tipped off, by their fence, about a haul to be had at a certain church in north London: solid-silver, gemstone studded chalice, paten, crucifixes. They went to break in, on a moonless night. Spotting a lattice window ajar high above, the gang sent Saul shinning up a drainpipe. He’d nearly reached the open casement when the pipe’s rusted bolts sheared. Falling, Saul grabbed at a gargoyle, but the mossy stone was slick. He struck down on a marble slab, a Victorian philanthropist’s stone. With a wet thud and crack. A few months before, he’d dropped a sack, holding a fur coat, a stoneware ewer, and several bottles of wine, onto a patio. The same noise. Blood and matter spattered his pals.

‘Lads, I’m done,’ he tried to say, but he couldn’t speak.

His mates scarpered. Staring up at the night sky, he lay there, a long while, unable to move, in agony, seeking solace in the
constellations. They offered none, those faint gleams. Then the pain ebbed, and he knew he didn’t have long. He was very cold.

But then, as the first daylight gilded the spire looming above him, a gaunt figure, dressed like a monk, wearing a habit, face sunk in the gloomy folds of a cowl, approached, knelt down by him. Reaching out, this stranger laid a cold hand on Saul’s forehead, and, in a deep, hoarse voice, urged him to confess. Though he thought the stranger a figment, born of his dying brain, Saul, who’d been brought up Catholic, finding he could talk again, got his sins off his chest. Signing the cross, the stranger absolved him, and warmth and feeling returned to his frame. He got to his feet.

The stranger clasped Saul’s shoulder, asked him his name. On learning it – there was only a little confusion due to Saul’s lisp – the stranger pronounced it a sign. He went on to tell of a fellowship of men and women pledged to ridding London of fiends. Saul butted in, said that, though he’d not return to crime, neither would he turn on old friends.

‘My son. They left you here to die. But, in any case, you misdeem my sense. I do not mean human wrongdoers, but true abominations of the foul Pit.’

‘What?’

‘Demons, son.’

Saul scoffed.

‘But,’ the stranger pressed, ‘you now know the healing power of God’s forgiveness. The malignance of the Enemy does not equal it, but is strong and must be resisted.’

Finally, Saul caved, agreed to attend the next gathering of the defenders.

‘I was convinced by what I saw that night,’ Saul then said. ‘Everyone here has a similar tale.’

Shrugging, William turned away, peered ahead. The rabble had entered a thicket of firs, bracken, brambles, had to pick their way. Underfoot was spongy moss. Small creatures scurried out of
their path, and they crossed trampled tracks, signs of larger animals, perhaps badgers and foxes. Now in the van, the riders hacked at the underbrush with their swords.

William didn’t know exactly where they were, but thought probably not far from Kenwood House. He recalled then, with a shudder, the false bridge in grounds of the house, painted wood shamming engraved stone. As a child, he’d often thought there must be a fantastic realm lying on the other side of that bridge, that, if the magic words were said, it’d become solid, and he’d be able to go there.

Saul, angry William was again lost in reverie, prodded his shoulder.

‘The order has had a long, hidden, but lofty history. Its knights have waged war on evil for centuries. This place would’ve long since yielded to darkness if it weren’t for their vigilance.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘You’ll see.’

Just then, the mob entered a glade. One of the knights gave a cry, mingling revulsion and triumph, dismounted.

‘Mark this!’

All gathered round. Two bodies sprawled side by side on the grass. William recognized the lovers he’d come across earlier. The place reeked of slaughter. The man’s clothes had been torn from him, his belly had been slashed, entrails worried, and his hand, pale, tallow, had been torn from his wrist, lay on the grass a short distance off. The woman, aside from the mortal wound, her throat torn out, was untouched. It seemed the kill was fresh, that they’d disturbed the beast, run it off, but William couldn’t shake the feeling it’d simply lost interest, wandered away.

The knights cast about, seeking spoor; one, sighting a print, crowed.

‘Clear sign!’

Then the paladin in black turned to address the pack. At first
he couldn’t be heard over the ruckus, the panic, but a cry of, ‘the Black Knight wishes to speak,’ went round, and all fell silent.

‘The demon, knowing it’s hunted, will have gone to ground,’ he said. ‘If we do not tarry, we can track it to its lair.’

The other horsemen circled behind, began to drive the mob forward once more, but the Black Knight rode on ahead. At first, William kept glancing down at the ground as he ran, looking for the trail the hunt followed, but he’d fallen to the rear, couldn’t make anything out amid the welter of prints of those before him. They came out into the open once more, charged across a swathe of grassland, then came to a halt in a hollow before a low granite escarpment, a miry place. William, done in, went down on hunkers.

‘There!’ the leader bellowed, pointing to a crevice in the rock.

William saw a sallow pitted skull, human, lying, canted, in the mud before it, a hole smashed in the brain pan. The Black Knight ranted. Weary, filled with dread, William paid scant attention, but grasped the pith – the demon would be cowering, afraid, a brave stealthy man or woman might steal up, volunteers were urged to speak up, there was glory in it. There was a clamouring, pleading, many wished to be selected. Saul was chosen, and a sigh went up from those disappointed.

The butcher was handed a short dagger by the Black Knight, sent into the tunnel. At the mouth, he paused a moment, breathed deep, then went in.

An uneasy hush fell.

A crow came wheeling out of the darkness, alighted on the skull, and perched there, hopping foot to foot. Nothing stirred else. Then, just when William thought he couldn’t endure the racking tension longer, there came a moan and a wild, gleeful howl. The whimper was soon choked, but the yawping went on and on, before faltering, stifled by sobs, as if the revel had been soured by regret, as if two tempers warred in one frame. The hunt stood, hushed. Then there was cracking and rending, a wet
crunch, slurping. A gory gobbet was tossed from the lair. Saul’s head. By some vagary of fate, it came to rest bloodied stump down, so it seemed the butcher was entire, just buried to the neck. The eyes held a look which mingled appeal and reproach. William felt it was directed at him.

The stars stared down, unblinking, entranced.

Grisly noises came from the lair; William retched. The Black Knight crossed over to the severed head, leant down from the saddle, snatched it up by the hair. Turning it over in his hands, he peered at it. The cranium had been staved. A little matter glooped from the ragged hole. Then the knight addressed the hunt.

‘Saul was a good, courageous man. His death must be avenged. We will dye this quag red with demon’s blood before this night is out.’

Quelling nerves, William spoke up, ‘But you sent him in there, to his death.’

The pack turned to glower.

‘Yes,’ came the Black Knight’s response. ‘A glorious death, he was well prepared for and sought.’

‘Glorious? Death? Absurd.’

‘The Lord has a place thet by at hith right hand on high for thothe who fall fighting in hith name.’

It was subtle, but the knight was lisping, mocking.

William raged. ‘You fucker! Why did you send him? Not go yourself? Fucking coward!’

Those standing nearest William shied away, and the Black Knight drew his sword, levelled it at him.

‘No Knight of the Order should be exposed to such contumely! Smite him!’

Forcing a path through the crowd, one of the other knights ambled his charger over to William, thumped him with a gauntleted fist. He fell to his knees, blood running from a gash to his brow, head pounding.

During William’s stand, a large black cat had come prowling from the cave mouth, then, sighting the crow perched on the skull, slunk towards it, dragging its belly in the mud. Just as the horseman raised his fist to strike William again, the Black Knight’s mount, skittishly backing, trod on the cat’s tail. Hissing, the cat arched its back, then dug its claws into the horse’s fetlock. Rearing, the charger threw its rider.

The Black Knight landed hard on his back; Saul’s head flew from his grasp and rolled into a nearby bramble thicket.

Mewling, the cat ran back into the tunnel.

The mob looked on silent, aghast. William’s beating was stayed; the other knights went to their leader’s aid. He lay whining. ‘Ah, fuck, that hurt. Stupid fucking cat.’

He lay, weighed down by cumbersome plate, flailing his arms and legs, like a beetle turned on its back. His two companions dismounted to help, grabbed him under his arms, lifted him. Once on his feet, it was still a little while before he could stand on his own, needed the other knights to hold him, prop him up for a bit. Then, when he was recovered, he clambering back into the saddle, gestured toward the dark fissure.

‘We must smoke out the monster. Go, collect wood, bring it back. Bring greenwood, which we need for its reek, as well as dry.’

The pack split up, dispersed. William, bloodied, still reeling, cowed, did not baulk, but went along with one of the parties, made up of the hens, as it turned out. They went into a small copse of spruce, beech, elm. A knight rode hither and yon nearby, keeping vigilance. One of the young women, taking a large clasp knife from her handbag, set about hacking limbs from the living firs. The woman who’d earlier jibed William, pinched his arse, winked at him, was vexed when he didn’t even flinch, spat, slapped him, setting his head throbbing again. Then she turned to her friend who was hewing the pines, asked what she was doing.

‘The needles are really smoky when you burn them,’ came the reply, followed by a snort of laughter. ‘I once set fire to me mum’s Xmas tree with a fag.’

She glared at William.

‘What you looking at, dozy fucker? Why don’t you take these,’ she pointed at the branches already cut down, ‘back over?’

William did so, without a murmur.

When enough wood had been gathered, it was heaped before the crevice, and a teenager, wearing a hooded top with a band name, ‘Swine Grinder’, printed on it in a Gothic font, came forward to kindle the tinder with his cigarette lighter. It caught, then the logs went up. The fire limned the leering faces of the mob with a hell light. They revelled, and the spindly shadows they threw cavorted jerkily behind them, a rabble of charred wraiths lured, by the flames, to cross into this world from some dread other place, a place of ash. The fire smoked, and the light wind blew the billows into the cave mouth.

The pack gathered round the blaze, sat on coats spread on the damp ground, or squatted on haunches, bided awhile. Sandwiches, flasks of tea, whisky, or brandy, packets of cigarettes, a pipe or two, were taken from satchels, rucksacks, pockets. But they’d barely got settled, taken only one or two bites, sips, puffs, before the waiting was at an end.

A monster writhed from out of the roiling smoke. A big serpent, withered arms, brimstone eyes, needle teeth, set askew in perished rubber gums, wings, ragged, like broken umbrellas, flapping frantic. It gyred in the dirt, opening and closing its mouth, but was penned. A groan of disgust, horror went up. William retched, turned away. Riding over, the Black Knight drove his brand into the demon’s face. Wailing, it cringed back. One of the other knights crept up behind it, pinned its tail with his blade. Shuddering, it heaved, brought up a mess of offal.

The serpent squirmed, impaled, unable, it seemed, to shed its
tail and flee, as some lizards can.