The Angel of the West Window Read online

  I think I can hear you object that you would never find such considerate behaviour in Russia, neither today nor in the past. It is true that of course one maltreats people of no spiritual worth; but beautiful old objects are sensitive.

  By the way, as I’m sure you know, the Chinese wave pattern on the Tula-ware box is the old Taoist symbol of infinity, in certain cases of eternity, even. That was just an idle thought that crossed my mind.

  Your devoted servant,

  Lipotin.

  I threw Lipotin’s letter into the waste-paper basket. – –

  Hmm. This “present” from the dying Baron Stroganoff is beginning to be a nuisance. I’ll have to dig out my compass and go to the trouble of determining the line of the meridian. I knew it! My desk is at an angle to the line. Respectable antique that it is, my desk has never been so presumptuous as to claim that it only feels comfortable standing along the line of the meridian.

  How arrogant is everything that comes from the East. However, there it is, I have placed the Tula box along the meridian. So much for those who would claim that man is master of his fate! And what is the result of my compliance? Everything on my desk, the desk itself, indeed, the whole room with its familiar order – it all now feels lopsided. It seems that it is no longer I but this charming meridian that is in control – or the Tula-ware box. Everything is lopsided in relation to this blasted objet d’art from Asia! I sit lopsidedly at my lopsided desk and what do I see out of the window? The whole district has become “lopsided”.

  It can’t go on like this; lack of order disturbs me. Either the box must disappear from my desk or – – – for goodness sake, I can’t rearrange my whole room just to bring it into line with this thing and its meridian!

  I sit here staring at the silver sprite from Tula, and I sigh. By St. Patrick’s Purgatory, there is nothing for it; the box is “right”, it has “orientation”, whilst my desk, my room, my whole existence is haphazard, completely without any meaningful arrangement – and I had no idea until today! – – – But why do I torment myself like this?

  I am becoming obsessed by the notion that I must immediately “reorientate” my whole flat around my desk. To escape it I quickly grasp the first of John Roger’s papers that comes to hand.

  It is a set of notes and excerpts in his angular handwriting, entitled:

  “St. Patrick’s Purgatory.”

  What on earth is going on inside me that I should have used that oath – which I have never heard before – only a few minutes ago? It appeared on my lips without my having the slightest idea where it came from! But wait! A thought has just struck me; it was ... it is ... I flick furiously back through the manuscript on my desk: it’s there in John Dee’s diary, “John, I beseech thee by St. Patrick’s Purgatory, examine thy soul. Thou must repent thy ways, thou must be reborn in the spirit if thou value my companionship” – that was what John Dee said to his mirror image, “by St. Patrick’s Purgatory, examine thy soul!”

  Strange. More than strange. Am I then John Dee’s mirror image? Or my own, even, gazing back at myself, neglected, grimy, befuddled with drink? Is one inebriated if – if one’s house is not – is not aligned to the meridian? I must be dreaming in broad daylight! The musty odour from John Roger’s bundle of papers must have befuddled my senses.

  What is this St. Patrick’s Purgatory, then? I pick out a paper at random and – a shiver runs down my spine – in my hand I have the explanation. My cousin, John Roger, had copied out an old legend:

  Before he set out on a journey from Scotland to Ireland the holy Bishop Patrick climbed a mountain to fast and to pray. He saw the land around and he saw that it was full of snakes and like poisonous creatures. And he raised his staff and commanded the vipers and creeping things that they withdraw, and they did so. Then came some men to mock him, and he preached to them and his words fell upon deaf ears. So St. Patrick called upon God for a sign that the men might fear Him. And he struck the rock on which he stood with his staff and the rock split apart and there appeared a chasm from which issued smoke and flames. And the chasm reached even unto the depths of Hell and they could hear the cursing of the damned souls rising up from the chasm. And those who saw this were struck with terror and knew that St. Patrick had revealed to them the fires of Hell.

  And St. Patrick spake: whosoever shall descend into the chasm shall be freed from any other penance and he whose soul is of true gold shall come forth purified the next morning. And many went down into the Chasm but few returned. For the fiery furnace consumes or purifies each according to the nature of his soul.

  And that is St. Patrick’s Purgatory in which any man may test the temper of his soul to see if he will pass through the Devil’s Baptism in the life to come.

  To this day it is said among the common people that the chasm is still open. But it is invisible except for one who is the son of a witch or a whore and born on the First of May. And if the black disc of the new moon should stand direct above the chasm, then the curses of the damned will rise up to it from the depths of the earth like the prayers of the Black Mass and fall upon the earth beneath in drops; and wherever it touches the soil there appear black cats that shall be witches’ familiars.

  Meridian – wave pattern – a Chinese symbol for eternity – my lopsided room – St. Patrick’s Purgatory – a warning from my ancestor, John Dee, to his Jack i’ the mirror if he valued his future friendship – “And many went down into the Chasm but few returned!” – black cats, witches’ familiars: my mind is awash with a meaningless jumble of images. And yet: now and then I glimpse some design, some purpose in them, suddenly shooting out in an almost painful shaft of light, like a ray of sunshine through racing clouds. But when I try to hold on to it, my mind goes numb and I have to let it go. – –

  All right, yes, yes, I give in. Tomorrow I will “align my room to the meridian” if that is what I must do to get some peace.

  I’ll have to waste the whole day shifting furniture – blast that Tula-ware box!

  I have been rummaging around in the papers again. On the desk in front of me is a slim volume bound in bilious green morocco. The binding dates from the late seventeenth century at the earliest and the manuscript text must be by John Dee himself – the flow and shape of the letters corresponds to the diary. The tome shows signs of having been burnt, parts of the text have been destroyed.

  There is an inscription in tiny letters on the fly leaf, and in a strange hand! It reads:

  “To be burned if the eye of Black Isaïs should appear in the waning moon. If thou ever hope to be saved: burn it!”

  Some later, unknown (!) owner of the book must have taken the warning to heart. Perhaps he sensed “Black Isaïs” was observing him from the waning moon and threw the book into the fire to be rid of it. That would explain the burnt pages. But who was he who felt it come alive in his hands? And who can have recovered it from the fire before it dissolved into ashes?

  There is nothing to tell me that.

  What is certain is that the warning is not in John Dee’s own hand. One of his descendants must have inserted it after some terrifying experience.

  I append such portions of the morocco-bound volume as are still legible:

  Notebook of John Dee, dated 1553, that is, 4 years after the

  “Diary”.

  The Silver Shoe of Bartlett Greene

  These notes have been written down by me, Master John Dee – vain, bungling fool that I was – after many days of torment, to be a memorial and a glass wherein I may look on my soul. And may it serve as a warning to those of my blood who may come after me. They shall wear the promised crown, of that I am more certain today than ever before. But the crown will grind them into the dust – just as I have been cast down to the ground – if they let their folly and their pride blind them to the Enemy that every hour lurks in wait, that he might encompass our destruction.

  The higher the Crown,

  The farther the Devil can pull us down.

  The f
ollowing is an account of what God allowed to happen to me on the day after Easter Monday, in the year 1549:

  On the evening of the day when my uncertainty and torment about my future fate had reached its peak, Captain Perkins and the armed guards of the Bloody Bishop – as people justly call that monster in human form that sits in his lair in London under the name of Bishop Bonner – forced their way into my house and arrested me in the name of the King: in the name of that consumptive child, Edward! My mocking laughter only served further to enrage the guards and it was with difficulty that I escaped physical violence.

  I had managed to gather up the papers to which I had just committed all my doubts before the soldiers came crashing through the door, and I concealed them in a safe place in the wall where, fortunately, anything that might betray me was already hidden. It was fortunate, too, that I had long ago thrown Mascee’s ivory spheres out of the window, for I deduced from one of Captain Perkins’ clumsy questions that they were particularly interested in those spheres. There must be something about those “wondrous objects from Asia”; the lesson to be drawn from that is not to trust the Muscovite at all.

  The escort of brutish soldiers rode hard through the damp night and the early morning saw us in Warwick already. But there is no point describing the nights spent in the saddle and the days in guardrooms and towers until we finally reached London and Captain Perkins thrust me into a cell below the ground. From all these and other measures that were taken I could tell that secrecy was paramount and that they went constantly in fear of an attempt to free me by force – though I cannot think who would have undertaken it.

  It was the Captain himself who did me the honour of pushing me down the steps of my cell. When the last bolt had thundered shut I found myself in silent, pitch-black darkness; my senses were dazed and my cautious foot slipped on damp, decaying matter.

  I would never have imagined how complete a sense of desolation can overtake one after only a few minutes in such a dungeon. The pounding of blood in my ears had previously gone unnoticed; now it overwhelmed me like the crashing of breakers on a deserted shore.

  All at once I was startled to hear a fearless mocking voice reverberating round the cell; like a greeting from the depths of darkness, it seemed to come from an invisible wall opposite me:

  “Welcome, Master Dee, welcome to the dark realm of the lower gods. That was a pretty trip you took down those steps, my Lord of Gladhill.”

  This scoffing welcome was followed by a peal of laughter; at the same time there was the rumble of an approaching storm outside, and straightway the eerie laughter was drowned by a deafening clap of thunder. Immediately the darkness of the cell was lit by a flash of lightning; the brief glimpse afforded by the sulphurous glare sent icy needles round my scalp and down my spine: I was not alone in the dungeon; a man was fastened to the massive blocks of the wall opposite the door through which I had been pushed; heavy shackles kept his arms and legs spread wide apart, like some human St. Andrew’s cross.

  Was he really there? I had seen him in the glare of the lightning – the length of a heartbeat and then he was swallowed up by the blackness again. Had I imagined it? Behind my eyelid, burnt onto the retina, I could see the fearful image, as if it had no existence outside myself, as if it had been produced from within my brain, as if it emanated from the depths of my soul and had no corporeal reality. How could a sentient being be stretched out in the awful torture of that cross and still talk calmly, mockingly, and still let his scornful laughter ring out?

  Again the lightning flickered; the flashes followed in such quick succession that the dungeon was lit by quivering waves of pallid light. By Our Saviour! there was a man hanging there, there was no doubt of it: a giant of a man, with flowing locks of ginger hair almost concealing his face; above the tangled beard the thin-lipped mouth hung half open, as if he were about to let out another roar of laughter. His features showed no sign of suffering in spite of the excruciating pain the heavy iron rings, into which his wrists and ankles had been forced, must have caused. At the sight of him I could only stammer a few words, “Who are you, hanging on the wall?” when a thunderclap drowned the rest. “You should have recognised me in the dark, my dear Doctor!” came the mocking reply. “It is said that one who has lent money can recognise his debtor from the smell alone.” A dart of icy terror constricted my heart. “Does that mean you are ...?”

  “Yes: Bartlett Greene, chief raven of the Ravenheads, Protector of the Faithless at Brederock, victor over St. Dunstan’s empty boast and now mine host here at the Sign of the Iron Ring, ready to receive a benighted traveller such as your Honour, O mighty Patron of the Reformers.”

  The mocking speech ended with a wild burst of laughter which, miraculous though it seemed, made his whole, crucified body shake without appearing to feel the slightest pain.

  “Then I am lost,” I muttered, and collapsed onto the worm-eaten wooden stool that I now noticed.

  The storm reached its thunderous peak. Even if I had wanted to converse with him, the raging elements would have made question and answer inaudible; as it was, I did not feel much like speaking. My death seemed inevitable and in my imagination I saw that it would not be an easy death. Clearly it was public knowledge that I was the wire-puller behind the Ravenheads. I was only too aware of the nature of the measures the Bloody Bishop thought essential “to bring the fallen sinner to a state of penitence, that he might glimpse paradise from afar.”

  Fear clawed at my throat. It was not fear of death, of a clean death befitting a gentleman; the fear that unmanned me and left my senses in turmoil was the fear of the slow approach of the inevitable torture, the fear of the fumbling fingers of the executioner as he drew out my lingering death. It is fear of the pain that precedes death that traps us in the net of earthly life; were it not for that pain, man would live free of fear.

  The storm raged, but I heard it not. From time to time a shout or a rumble of laughter would reach me from the blackness of the wall opposite; I heeded neither. Terror and reckless plans for my impossible escape were all my mind had room for.

  Not for one moment did it occur to me to pray.

  After the storm had abated – when, I do not know, it may have been hours later – my thoughts, too, became calmer, more collected, more cunning. The first thing I recognised as certain, was that I was in Bartlett Greene’s power, assuming he had not already confessed and betrayed me. My fate depended on his silence alone.

  I had just come to the decision that I should cautiously try to work on Bartlett Greene to get him to see that he was doomed and therefore had nothing more to lose in keeping silent about my part in the affair, when I was startled by something so unbelievable and terrifying that I forgot all my plans and artifices, even all my hopes: Bartlett Greene had set his huge body swaying from the iron chains, as if he were dancing. As the first light of a May morning filtered into the cell, the crucified outlaw swung higher and higher, and with a lithe gracefulness, as if he were enjoying the motion of a hammock slung between two silver birches. And all the while his joints and sinews crunched and cracked as if he were stretched on the rack.

  And then Bartlett Greene began to sing! At first his voice was almost melodious, but it soon took on the screech of the bagpipes as he ground out a hoarse hymn to earthy pleasures:

  Heave ho! Heave ho!

  The blossom hangs on the bough

  After the moult of May.

  Heave ho!

  Miaow, Tom Kitten, miaow

  Sing your roundelay.

  Heave ho!

  Heave ho! Heave ho!

  Tom shall go seeking his Kitty

  After the moult of May.

  Heave ho!

  Come follow me, my pretty,

  On the green grass we will play.

  Heave ho!

  Heave ho! Heave ho!

  All night Tom plays on his fiddle

  After the moult of May.

  Heave ho!

  While Kitty sings hey diddle did
dle

  To the moon and Black Isaye.

  Heave ho!

  I cannot describe the fit of horror that shook me as I listened to the wild chanting of the leader of the Ravenheads; I thought the torture had suddenly driven him mad. Even today, as I write it down, my blood runs cold.

  Then there was a rattle of the bolts of the iron-clad door and a warder came in with two underlings. They released the crucified Greene from the wall and let him tumble to the ground like a toad caught by a harvester’s scythe. “That’s another six hours over Mister Greene,” one of the turnkeys mocked. “I reckon you’ll soon have outswung any other prisoner on that wall. If you’re lucky you might be allowed another go at it; and if Satan turns the pain to pleasure, then there’ll be a fiery chariot calling for you like Elijah; but it won’t take you up to heaven, oh no, I reckon it’ll head straight for St. Patrick’s Purgatory and that’ll be the last we’ll see of you.”

  Bartlett Greene gave a satisfied grunt and dragged his stretched limbs to a heap of straw. Then he turned his blasphemous fury on the turnkey:

  “Verily, I say unto thee, David, thou holy turd of a goaler, today thou wouldst be with me in paradise – if I had a mind to go there. But I would not raise thy hopes, thou’ll end up in a different place than thou thinkst, papistical scum. Or shall I spit on thy forehead and baptise thee in the name of the Lord, my son?”

  I saw the rough soldiers cross themselves in fear. The goaler drew back in superstitous awe and made with his hand the sign the Irish use to ward off the evil eye. He screamed at Greene:

  “Look not at me with thy wall-eye, thou first-born of hell! St. David of Wales, that has watched over me ever since I sucked at my mother’s breast, will shield me against thy curses.”