Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 2)

Again I spied one of those tiny twisted creatures, garbed and hooded in black, and running very fast through the field towards me and then away. It seemed the others saw him, and drew together, whispering, but then followed me on down the road.

Out in the fields, I saw men dancing. By the light of torches, and dark against the sky, I saw them with the horns and the skins! They had begun their old pagan Yuletide revelry. I must make the Procession, and take them to the Baby Jesus. There was no doubt.

By the time I reached the gates of the town there was a multitude. I went to the Cathedral and bade them wait. I went into the sacristy, where two elderly priests stood together, looking at me fearfully.

"Give me robes, give me vestments," said I. "I would bring the valley together. I must at least have my cassock to begin and a white surplice. Do as I say."

At once they hurried to help me dress. Several young acolytes appeared, and put on their surplices and their gowns.

"Come on, Fathers," I said to the frightened priests. "See, the boys are braver than you are. What is the hour? We must make the Procession. The Mass must be said at the stroke of twelve! Protestant, Catholic, pagan. I cannot save them all, nor bring them together. But I can bring Christ down upon the altar in the Transubstantiation. And Christ will be born tonight in this valley as He has always been!"

I stepped out of the sacristy and to the crowd, I raised my voice.

"Prepare for the Christmas Procession," I declared. "Who would be Joseph and who would be our Blessed Mother, and what child have we in this village that I may place in the manger before I step to the Altar of God to say the Mass? Let the Holy Family be flesh and blood tonight, let them be of the valley. And all of you who would take the shape and skins of animals, walk in the Procession to the manger and kneel there as did the ox and the lamb and donkey before the little Christ. Come forward, my faithful ones. It is almost time."

Everywhere I saw rapt faces; I saw the grace of God in every expression. And only a glimpse of a small deformed woman, peering at me from beneath a heavy wrap of coarse cloth. I saw her bright eye, I saw her toothless smile, and then she had vanished, and the crowd closed around her as if, among the press of the tall ones, she had gone unseen. Only a common thing, I thought. And if there be little people, then they are of the Devil, and the Light of Christ must come and drive them out.

I closed my eyes, folded my hands together so that they would make a small church of their own, very narrow and high, and I began in a soft voice to sing the plaintive beautiful Advent hymn:

Oh come, Oh come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear...

Voices joined me, voices and the melancholy sound of flutes, and the tapping of tambourines, and even of soft drums:

Rejoice

Rejoice

Emmanuel

Shall come to thee

O Israel!

High in the tower, the bell began its ringing, too rapid for the Devil's Knell, but more the clarion to call all the faithful from mountain and valley and shore.

There were a few cries of "The Protestants will hear the bell! They will destroy us." But more and lustier cries of "Ashlar, St. Ashlar, Father Ashlar. It is our saint returned."

"Let the Devil's Knell be sounded!" I declared. "Drive the witches and the evil ones from the valley! Drive out the Protestants, for surely they will hear the Devil's Knell too."

There were cheers of approbation.

And then a thousand voices were raised in the Advent hymn and I retired into the sacristy to put on my full raiment, my Christmas chasuble and vestments of bright green-gold, for the town had them, yes, the town had them as beautiful and embroidered and rich as any I had ever seen in wealthy Florence, and I was soon dressed as a priest should be in the finest linen and gold-threaded robes. The other priests dressed hastily. The acolytes ran to distribute the blessed candles for the Procession, and from all the country round, I was told, the faithful were coming, and the faithful, who had been afraid to do it before, were bringing the Christmas greens.

"Father," I said my prayer, "if I die this night, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

It was nearly midnight, but still too soon to go out, and as I stood there, deep in prayer, seeking to fortify myself, calling on Francis to give me courage, I looked up and saw that my sister had come to the door of the sacristy, in a dark green hood and cloak, and was motioning for me with one thin white hand, to come into the adjacent room.

This was a dark-paneled chamber, with heavy oak furnishings, and shelves of books built into the walls. A place for a priest to hold conferences in quiet, perhaps, or a study. Not a room I had seen before. I saw Latin texts which I knew; I saw the statue of our founder, St. Francis, and my heart was filled with happiness, though no plaster or marble Francis had ever been the radiant being I saw in my mind's eye.

My soul was quiet. I didn't want to talk to my sister. I wanted only to pray. The scent made me restless.

She led me inside. Several candles burnt along the wall. Nothing was visible through the tiny diamond-paned windows except the snow falling, and I was stunned to see the Dutchman from Amsterdam seated at the table and motioning for me to sit down. He had taken off his clumsy Dutch hat, and looked at me eagerly as I took the opposite chair.

The strange enticing scent came strongly from my sister, and once again it made me hunger for something, but I did not know for what. If it was an erotic hunger, I did not intend to find out.

I was fully dressed for High Mass. I seated myself carefully and folded my hands on the table.

"What is it you want?" I looked from my sister to the Dutchman. "Do you come

to go to confession so that you can receive the Body and Blood of Christ tonight?"

"Save yourself," said my sister. "Leave now."

"And forsake these good people and this cause? You are mad."

"Listen to me, Ashlar," said the man from Amsterdam. "I'm offering you my protection again. I can take you from the valley tonight, secretly. Let the cowardly priests here gather their courage on their own."

"Into a Protestant country? For what?"

It was my sister who answered: "Ashlar, in the dim days of legends before the Romans and the Picts came to this land, your breed lived on an island, naked and mad as apes of the wild--born knowing, yes, but knowing at birth all that they would ever know!

"At first the Romans sought to breed with them, as had others. For if they could father sons who grew to manhood within hours, what a powerful people they would become. But they could not breed the Taltos, save once in a thousand times. And as the women died from the seed of the Taltos males, and the Taltos females led the men to endless and fruitless licentiousness, it was decided that they must wipe the Taltos from the earth.

"But in the islands and in the Highlands, the breed survived, for it could multiply like rats. And finally when the Christian faith was brought to this country, when the Irish monks came in the name of St. Patrick, it was Ashlar the leader of the Taltos who knelt to the image of the Crucified Christ and declared that all his kind should be murdered, for they had no souls! There was a reason behind it, Ashlar! For he knew that if the Taltos really learnt the ways of civilization, in their childishness, and idiocy, and penchant to breed, they could never be stopped.

"Ashlar was no longer of his people. He was of the Christians. He had been to Rome. He had spoken to Gregory the Great.

"So he condemned his fellow Taltos! He turned on them. The people made it a ritual, an offering, as cruel a pagan slaughter as ever was known.

"But down through the years, in the blood, the seed travels, to throw up these slender giants, born knowing, these strange creatures whom God has given the cleverness of mimicry, and singing, but no true capacity to be serious or firm."