The Angel of the West Window Read online

  Then he and his henchmen stamped out of the cell, followed by the mocking echo of Bartlett Greene’s laughter. They left a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water.

  For a while all was quiet.

  As the light grew stronger I could see the features of my fellow prisoner more clearly. His right eye was a pale, milky-white disc which seemed to follow you with a fixed glare of infinite spite. It was the eye of a dead man who had seen some horrible sight as he died. The white eye was blind.

  This is the first of a number of pages that have been damaged by fire. The text becomes more and more deficient, but the general sense is clear.

  “Water? That’s malmsey, that is,” roared Greene, clamped the pitcher between his wrists – his hands hung down useless – and took such a great swig that I feared my portion, too, would run down his throat, for I was was parched. “To my twisted body it is like wine – glug – I never feel any pain – glug – nor fear! Fear and pain are twin weaknesses. I will tell you something, Master Dee, that none of your scholars know, for all their book-learning – glug – I will be truly free when I have cast off this mortal flesh – glug – I am proof against what they call death until I have completed my thirty-third year. – glug – On the first of May, when the witches dedicate their cats to the Black Mother, my time will be over. O that my mother had kept me one month longer in her belly, my stench would be none the worse for it and I would have time to show the Bloody Bishop, that novice, that bungler, how a real master carries out torture. You will find the Bishop – – –” (scorch marks)

  – – – Greene tapped me with his finger below the neck – my jerkin had been torn by the guards and my chest was naked; he touched my collar bone and said, “That is the mystical bone I am talking about. It is called the corvine appendix – the Raven’s tail. It contains the mystical salt of life that does not decay in the earth. From this comes the Jews’ talk of the resurrection of the body at the last judgment – – – but they misunderstand; – – – we who are initiated into the secret of the new moon – glug – rose again long ago. And what is the sign by which I know this, Doctor Dee? In spite of your Latin and all your learning, you seem not to have made much progress in the Art. I will tell you, then: because the bone shines with a light that the others cannot see – – –” (scorch marks)

  – – – understand.” These words from the outlaw made my scalp crawl with fear and I had great difficulty in keeping my voice steady as I asked, “So for my whole life I have borne a sign which has not been revealed to me?” To which Bartlett Greene replied with great earnestness, “Yes, Master, you are marked with the sign of the Living Lord, the High One, the Invisible One, The Keeper of the Chain, which none ever enter because none ever leave it who are born to it; one from outside would never find the entrance before the end of the days of the blood. – Be of good cheer, Master Dee, even though you may be of the other stone and part of the contrary circle, yet I will never betray you to the vermin that is beneath us both. We are raised above the common herd, that sees but the outer show and will be lukewarm for ever and ever! – – –” (scorch marks)

  – – – confess that I heard these words with an inner sigh of relief, even if secretly I began to feel ashamed of my fear of this simple giant, who bore his torture with such a light heart; a most fearful martyrdom awaited him as a reward for the silence he had promised me.

  “– – – was a priest”, continued Bartlett Greene, “and my mother a lady of rank. Lady Tenderloin she was called. I still do not know where she came from, nor where she went. A fine figure of a woman she must have been; she was called Mary – until my father made a whore of her.” At this Greene let out his strange, unfeeling laugh, paused and then went on, “My father was the most fanatical, cruel, and at the same time most cowardly priest I ever met. He told me he had taken me in out of pity, so that I might do penance for the sins of my unknown father – he was unaware that I had secretly discovered that he was my father. – – –

  “– – – ordered me to do penance and forced me to stand on the stone flags in the church in my nightshirt for hours on end, praying all the while that the sins of my “father” might be forgiven. And when I fainted with exhaustion and lack of sleep he took his whip and beat me till the blood ran. My heart was filled with black hatred of Him who hung there on the cross above the altar. And then, I know not how it came about, I found that the litany I was forced to repeat had turned itself round in my brain and came out of my mouth the wrong way round – I was saying the prayers backwards and it was balm to my soul. It was a long time before my father noticed, since I murmured the words to myself, but when he did he roared out in fury and terror, cursed my mother’s name, crossed himself and ran to fetch the axe to strike me down. But I was quicker and I split his skull from scalp to chin; one eye fell out and stared up at me from the stone slabs. And I knew that my widdershins prayers had gone down to the centre of Mother Earth, instead of rising to heaven, as the Jews claim the singsong whinings of their holy men do. – – –

  “I have forgotten to tell you, Brother Dee, that one night my right eye was blinded by a great light that suddenly appeared to me – it could also be that it was struck from behind by a whip lash from my father, I cannot tell. Perhaps when I split his skull it was the fulfilment of the law that says “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. – Yes, my friend, I can truly say that this wall-eye, that fills the rabble with fear, is the fruit of long nights of prayer.

  “– – – fourteenth year when I left my father lying on the altar with a double head and fled by devious routes to Scotland. There I was bound apprentice to a butcher, for I thought I would find it easy to strike the bulls and calves with the cleaver, I who had hit my father clean through his tonsure; but it was not to be, for, whenever I raised the cleaver, the scene in the darkened church rose before my inner eye and I was loath to desecrate the fair memory with the murder of an innocent animal. So I left and for many months wandered around the Highland where I played wailing pibrochs to the crofters and villagers on a set of bagpipes I had stolen. Whenever they heard my music, it made their blood run cold, though they could not say why. But I knew full well that the tunes followed the text of the litany which I had been compelled to repeat before the altar; they still sounded within me, still the wrong way round, still back to front. And I played the goatskin pipes at night when I strode over the darkened moors alone. Especially when the moon was full I felt a longing to hear the music of the backwards prayers, and it was as if each note ran down my spine to my feet as they walked, and from there into the womb of the earth. And once, at midnight – the first of May, the night of the Druids’ feast, and the moon was on the wane – an invisible hand rose from the ground and held me fast by the foot, that I could not move forward nor back. Straightway I stopped my piping and stood as if rooted to the spot. An icy blast – from a chasm in the earth before me, so it seemed – blew over me and froze me from head to toe; and as I also felt it on my neck I turned round and saw standing behind me One in the garb of a shepherd, with a crook in his hand that was forked at the top like the letter Y. He was followed by a herd of black sheep. But on my way there I had seen neither sheep nor shepherd, so that I thought I must have walked past him with my eyes closed and half asleep, for he was not like an apparition, as one might think, but of flesh and blood; so too were his sheep, as I could tell from the smell of damp wool their coats gave off – – – (scorch marks) – – – He pointed to my wall-eye and said, ‘Because thou art called’. – – –” (scorch marks).

  This must be a description of some deep esoteric mystery, for written in red ink by another hand at the top of the half-burnt page was:

  If Thy Heart be faint, read not on! If Thou trust not in Thy Soul’s strength, choose now: ignorance and peace, or Lust for knowledge and damnation!

  There follow pages that are utterly ruined. The fragments of script that are still legible suggest that the shepherd revealed to Greene mysteries that seem to be
connected with the cult of a dark goddess of antiquity and the magical influences of the moon; there appears to be reference to that terrible rite that is still known in Scotland today as the Taghairm. It further appears that at the time of his imprisonment in the Tower Bartlett Greene was still a virgin, which is all the more remarkable as chastity is not a quality one normally associates with brigands. The text is too fragmentary to tell whether this was from deliberate choice or from an inborn aversion to women. From then on the text is relatively undamaged:

  “– – – only understood the half – but at that time I was only a ‘halfling’ in such matters – of what the shepherd told me of the gift that Black Isaïs would give me, for how could it be that a tangible object should come from the incorporeal realm. When I asked him how I would recognise that the time had come, he said, ‘Thou shalt hear the cock crow.’ That made no sense to me – the cocks crow every morning in the village. Nor could I see that it should be a special boon not to know fear or pain on earth; it seemed of little account to me, that thought myself bold and fearless enough. But the fruit ripens on the bough, and when its season came I heard the cockcrow the shepherd talked of, but within me. Until that time I had not known that everything must first come to pass in the blood before it can take on corporeal shape. Then I received the gift from Isaïs – the ‘Silver Shoe’. In the long years of waiting I was subject to strange visions and visitations: damp, invisible fingers touched me; I felt a bitter taste on my tongue, a burning sensation on my head – as if a hot iron was branding me with a tonsure – and stabbing, shooting pains on the palms of my hands and soles of my feet; I could hear a sound as of a cat crying in my ear. Strange characters, which I could not read, but which looked like those in Jewish manuscripts, appeared like a rash on my skin, but vanished as soon as the sun shone on them. Sometimes I was hot with desire for a woman, which then did seem strange to me, since I had ever felt disgust at the daughters of Eve and their lewd dealings with men. – – –

  “Then, when I felt the cock-crow rise up my spine and, as had been foretold, a cool shower sprinkled my head in baptism, although there was no cloud to be seen in the sky, I went on the first of May, the night of the druid’s ceremonies, to and fro across the moor; I sought not, but I found, of a sudden, a chasm opened up in the ground before me. – – – (scorch mark) – – – drawing the cart with the fifty cats, as the shepherd had ordained. I made a fire and carried out the rite of the cursing of the full moon – the horror of it sat deep in my heart and my blood was like icy needles coursing through my veins. Then I took out the first cat, impaled it on the spit and began the ‘Taghairm’ by slowly roasting it over the fire. Its dreadful screaming pierced my ears for many minutes – they seemed like days to me and time itself seemed to stretch until it was nigh unbearable. How could I bear the same horror repeated fifty-fold? For I knew that I must not stop until the last cat was roasted and I knew that I must not let the screaming be interrupted. Soon those still in the cage lent their voices to the chorus and I felt the spirits of madness, that slumber in every man, begin to stir and tear my soul to shreds. However, they did not stay inside me, but poured out of my mouth like breath in the cold air and flew up to the moon and wreathed it in swirling mist. The shepherd had told me that the goal of the ‘Taghairm’ was to transfer, by the torment of the ceremony, the deep roots of fear and pain that were within me to the black cats that had been dedicated to the Goddess; of such roots of fear and pain there were fifty. And when the ‘Taghairm’ had drawn all fear and pain out of my blood and they had been absorbed in the moon-world whence they came, then would my true being appear and death and his minions would be overcome for ever. And when this came to pass, I would forget who I had been and lose all consciousness of myself. ‘When its time is come’, he had also said, ‘then shall your body be devoured by flames, as the cats were, for the law of the earth must be satisfied, but what is that to you!’ – – Two nights and one day the ‘Taghairm’ lasted, and I lost all feeling for time and all around, as far as my eye could see, the heather was black with the dreadful suffering. But during the first night my inner senses were made manifest. The first thing I noticed was that I could distinguish each individual voice in the cats’ screeching chorus of terror. The voices plucked at my heart-strings till each one snapped. Then my ear awoke to the music of the abyss and since then I know the real meaning of ‘hearing’ – you can take your fists out of your ears, Brother Dee, I have finished with the cats. They are beyond pain now, perhaps they’re in heaven playing cat and mouse with the souls of fat priests.

  “The full moon was high in the sky and the fire was extinguished. My legs trembled so that I swayed like a reed in the wind. For a while it seemed as if the earth itself were staggering through the sky, for I saw the moon flutter hither and thither until it was drowned in blackness. Then I knew that I was blind in my other eye, since I could no longer see the woods or hills around me, only darkness and silence. I know not how, but of a sudden I could see with the wall-eye that had been blind before; and I saw a strange world where blue birds with bearded faces like men hovered in the air, stars with long spider’s legs ran across the sky, stone trees walked about and fishes signalled to each other with their hands in dumb show. There were many other curious things, and all seemed strange to me and yet also familiar, as if I had been there from the very start of memory but had just forgotten it. And ‘before’ and ‘after’ had a different sense for me, as if time had slipped sideways – – – (scorch marks) – – – the distance a black pall of smoke rose from the earth and spread out as flat as a board, widening at one end until it stretched like a dark triangle pointing down out of the sky; then it burst and a fiery red gap split it from top to bottom and within was an enormous spindle whirling round – – – (scorch marks) – – – saw the dreadful figure of the Black Mother, Isaïs, plucking human flesh from the distaff to spin it with her thousand hands – – – blood dribbling down from the gap – – – some drops splashed up from the ground, sprinkling my body, like one that has the red plague, which must have been the mysterious baptism of the blood – – – (scorch mark) – – – the Great Mother called and woke her daughter, that had slept within me like a seed-grain, by which I came to Life Eternal, ever conjoined with her in dual being. – Even before that time I had never been subject to the lusts of the flesh, but since then I was proof against them for all time, for how could a man be gripped by the Curse who had found his own womanly nature within himself? – Then, when I could once more see with my human eye, a hand appeared from the chasm in the moor bearing something that gleamed dully like silver. I could not grasp it with my mortal fingers, but Isaïs’ daughter within me stretched out a cat’s paw and gave me the shoe – the ‘Silver Shoe’ which takes away all fear from him that wears – – – (scorch marks) – – – joined a troupe of strolling players as a tightrope walker and animal tamer; the tigers, leopards and panthers hissed and spat and drew back from me in terror when I turnd my wall-eye on them, and I found I could walk on the high wire, although I had never been taught to. Since I had been wearing the Silver Shoe, all fear had left me and my ‘bride’ within me drew all the heaviness from my body so that giddiness and falling were impossible. – I see by your face, Brother Dee, that you are asking yourself, ‘With all these gifts, why did Bartlett Greene remain an outlaw and a mountebank?’ I will tell you: the baptism of fire and the ‘Taghairm’ released my strength that I might become Captain of the Ravenheads that go unseen and that I might pipe a pibroch to the Papists from over the water that their ears would ring with it for centuries to come. Let them draw up their cannon and fire – boom! – they will not harm me. – Do you doubt that I wear the Silver Shoe, learned Master Dee? See here, o you of little faith” – and Bartlett Greene placed his right foot against the heel of his left shoe, in order to push it off then suddenly paused, drew his nostrils open like some beast of prey, sniffed the air and bared his sharp teeth. I heard his mocking voice say, “Can you sm
ell it, Brother Dee? The panther comes!” – I held my breath and it seemed that there was indeed a stench of panther in the air. Straightway I heard a footstep outside the cell door and a moment later the heavy iron bolts creaked open.

  Here the account of my ancestor, John Dee, broke off and I abandoned myself to brooding thoughts.

  A stench of panther!

  I have read somewhere that old things can be charged with a spell, a charm or a curse, which is passed on to anyone who brings such stuff into his house and occupies himself with it. You never know what you are letting yourself in for when you whistle to a stray poodle that happens to cross your path in the twilight. You feel sorry for it and bring it into the warm and before you know where you are, the devil is eyeing you from under the black, curly coat.

  Is the same happening to me, the descendant of John Dee, as happened to Doctor Faust? Has John Roger’s legacy brought me within the ambit of an old enchantment. Have I awakened nameless powers that are lodged in these musty papers like beetle larvae in wood?

  I am going to interrupt my work on John Dee’s morocco-bound notebook to examine what is happening to me. I must admit that I do so almost unwillingly. I am in the grip of a strange curiosity, a compulsion to continue reading my ancestor’s account of his experiences in prison. It is as if I were reading a novel: I am eager to read on and find out what Bloody Bishop Bonner did to his heretics and what Bartlett Greene meant when he shouted, “The panther comes!”

  And yet for days I have had the feeling that in everything that concerns my cousin’s legacy I am – to put it bluntly – obeying a command. I am physically aware of my decision not to impose an order of my own on the strange life story of my English ancestor, right down to the tips of my fingers. As the Janus-head or, if you insist, “Baphomet” commanded me in my dream: I read and write whilst “he guides”. I hardly dare ask myself whether what happened a few moments ago is part of the “guidance”.