Legion

Legion - Chapter 3

Michael turned and placed his finger over his lips to signal silence. Roma held fast to his hand and stepped gingerly through the ground litter and around stunted shrubs. A thrilling ripple of anticipation coursed through her, like a child being led to a birthday celebration.
Earlier, as they had made their way in the carriage toward the hitherto unknown destination, Roma had been unable to coax the taciturn coachman to reveal the nature, or even the location, of the ‘something special' to which he had alluded. He would not be drawn. Neither bribe nor negotiation, pleading nor exasperation, had moved him to disclosure. In the end she had simply leant against him in the driver's seat and enjoyed the comforting security of his arm draped about her shoulder. His smile was impish and she elbowed him upon realizing he took pleasure in watching her writhe in expectancy.
         They traveled neither to New Forest or Roydon Woods but instead away from the coastline into the sporadically wooded valley country within which lay his own home. They journeyed past the picturesque cottage and on some miles further until they came upon a small thicket of tall trees in the higher country, more a large stand of birch and fir than a woodland, no more than a square mile in diameter.
         Leaving his reliable gelding unyoked but tethered near a lush tuft of wild grass, Michael took Roma's hand, assisted her from the open carriage, and led her deep into the heart of the woods. Though neither marker nor path delineated their route, Michael moved through the trees as one who could navigate their trail blind.
         Roma lapsed into silence on his cue and he ducked under several low lying branches, leading her gently through a congestion of trees to a glade. Roma stood upright inside the clearing and gasped. Michael's beaming smile betrayed his delight at her reaction.
         In the center of the clearing lay a patchwork blanket atop which sat a picnic of breads, cheeses, dried fruits, sweetmeats, ceramic goblets and a flagon of mulled wine. Though the coachman could ill afford the cost of the modest meal, putting aside a coin here and a coin there, to Roma the spread was a banquet and he her prince.
         "Oh Michael," she whispered breathlessly, wonderstruck by the preparation and effort undertaken to arrange their romantic Sunday assignation.
         "Step where I step," he instructed softly as he picked a careful path towards the rug. Roma complied silently. She felt transported to a magical age devoid of impossibility and constriction as she looked past him into the clearing. Broad shafts of light shone brilliantly upon the clearing from breaches in the canopy high above. Dust motes and tiny winged insects danced in the air. A wafting zephyr tugged playfully at every leaf. Small birds, no larger than an egg yoke and almost as round, flittered between the burgeoning bushels of tall grass. The earth was awash with pale lilac and periwinkle, for a thick ground cover of delicate flowers blanketed their surrounds. Crickets sang joyfully, the smallest among them hopping exuberantly ahead of their route to avoid being stepped upon. The scene before her was as much a feast for the eyes as the repast that awaited them.
         Michael invited Roma to sit upon the rug and she observed the relaxed silence into which they had slid. Michael sat behind her, one strong arm encircling her waist to pull her back until she nestled snuggly against his chest. Reaching into his pocket he removed a handful of rice grains. Roma was puzzled only momentarily before he flung it about them in a wide arc.
         An eruption of white exploded from the dense ground cover as thousands of tiny butterflies, no larger than a thumbnail, fluttered up into the air. For the second time in as many minutes, Roma gasped at the glorious spectacle. Startled only briefly by the rice shower, the butterflies, their wings of a finer film even than the flower petals, hovered in the air above and around them like snowflakes suspended in time. Roma sank further back into Michael, her hands resting upon his arms as they encircled her waist.
         "Magnificent, isn't it?" his voice was but a murmur.
         "That does not begin to describe it," she replied, captivated by the dreamlike splendor of the moment.
         For several moments longer they enjoyed the confetti of twinkling wings in the air around them before Michael lay back on the blanket, looking up wistfully into the cloud smudged sky overhead. Roma lay on her stomach, her chin propped on the heel of one hand. Her other hand found his and their fingers entwined.
         "I've been wanting to ask you something for the longest time," she confessed and his eyes darted to hers, his attention engaged, "We know almost everything about each other so I know of the blows you have taken in life. How is it that you have not become embittered? And not just free from resentment and cynicism, but content and reconciled with life as it has treated you?"
         His gaze returned to the sky and for a long time he pondered his response before rolling onto his side, supporting his head with his hand as he regarded his beautiful companion.
         "Because I knew someday you were coming," he replied pointedly. Her frowning smile revealed her confusion.
         "I don't understand," she replied, "You were thirteen when it happened which means I was three. How could you have foreseen something so distant and remote from your experience and understanding?" she asked, missing his point entirely.
         Reaching beyond the rug, he plucked a small flower upon which the tiny wings of a butterfly winked rhythmically. He held it between them, considering it a moment.
         "Of all the flowers and all the butterflies that have come before these two and which will come after in the centuries to come long after they perish, no two will ever be like these," he began, "All the mysteries of the world and life itself can be perceived in this flower and this butterfly because there will never come another exactly like them. What else but the hand of God could actuate such a thing, which means that if such be the case then there is a God who cares enough to sculpt every butterfly individually, to mould every petal of every flower by hand. And if He so lovingly tends so small a piece of Creation with such attentiveness and so nurturing a concern, how much more so must He care about us? God was never punishing me or even testing me. He was simply putting choices before me. All I did was choose to live as He would have me, rather than commit myself to despair and self pity," he explained, offering the flower to Roma, closing his hand around hers as she held the fragile stem between her fingers, "This butterfly and this flower, their like will never be replicated until the end of time. They are utterly unique unto themselves. So it is with people, each one entirely inimitable. No two people will ever have the same thoughts in the same sequence. No two will ever perceive God in the same way. No two will love or experience love in the same way. And though the knowledge of this mortal coil will be plumbed to its enth degree, no one now or in the future of Creation will ever be able to categorize or quantify the soul, the very essence of Man. It is an intangible article in a corporal world that breathes life into and animates the flesh but cannot be physically located, identified or described. It is the very mystery of life that gives life focus and purpose, and it is the recognition of God in everything in and around us that gives it direction," he concluded and Roma was resigned to silence, struck mute by his cohesive, profound explanation.
         "You are unlike anyone I have ever met," she replied, agog with amazement. He smiled.
         "Everyone you have ever met is unlike anyone you have ever met," he surmised his entire account in that single clarification and she understood fully how it was that he had remained so vital in spirit, so optimistic in outlook throughout his life. She knew also then that when he had disclosed his knowledge of her entry into his life, he had not been literal. He had meant that everything in his life had led him to believe that some day something better awaited him, something he would recognize as his destiny when he happened upon it. That something, he was telling her, was her.
         "I need to tell you something," Roma replied, after a long and comfortable silence had lapsed between them. She placed the flower down upon the rug between them and the butterfly flittered away, "But I want you first to know a few things. I need you to know that no one has ever affected me the way you do. You have shaped my view of the world, opened it up, allowed so much more in than I could have achieved on my own. But more than this, you are everywhere I am. I carry you with me, inside and out. You are in my head, in and around my every thought. You're in my heart. I cannot get you out of my mind. You even come into my dreams in ways I could never find words to describe," she blushed and averted her gaze. Finally she stole herself and her resolve emerged once more, "I have reached a point where secrets I have had to keep out of necessity in the past can be kept secret no more, at least not to you. They feel like a lie of omission, like I am not being truthful to you and to what I feel for you." He took her hand, his silence and the attentiveness of his gaze gently urging her to continue.
         Taking a deep breath Roma divulged a most extraordinary truth to the coachman. Her enlightening narrative took her the better part of an hour to disclose and when she concluded her remarkable tale, she held her breath, awaiting his reaction.
         "How many people know this?" he asked, his brow furrowed with concern.
         "Roland, Mother Benedicta my former Abbess, the Holy See, and now you," she replied, a fist of apprehension clenching her stomach. He took a deep breath and sighed with relief.
         "Good," he replied, satisfied that her incredible secret lay lodged in the impregnable fortress of obligatory clergy confidentiality.
         "It does not alter what you think of me?" she ventured warily. His smile conveyed such empathy and compassion as she had never witnessed in another human being. He reached out to touch her face.
         "Nothing could ever change how I think of you, what I feel for you," he replied softly, "Nothing." he reiterated. Roma blinked. She had hoped with a desperation she had never thought possible for this very response but part of her had doubted. All her life it had been impressed upon her, first by the Abbess and Roland, and finally by Pope Hadrian VI, that her total discretion in the matter disclosed must be observed with the same prudence as holy vows. Michael had been the first person of a non-pastoral denomination she had ever told. And in her estimation she had more to lose in that singular confession to one man if it had revised his judgment of her than if she had made a declaration of it to the entire world.
         She was about to speak when Michael bristled suddenly. His hand stiffened and his entire body became rigid with alertness. She noted that he was looking beyond her, his eyes roaming in a sweep amongst the trees as though he had detected something - something threatening. His pose was one of readiness, as one having sensed the presence of a predator. Slowly he sat up and Roma did the same.
         His eyes fixed on something far beyond Roma, a long way off in the woodlands behind her. She was about to turn to follow his gaze when he took her face in both his hands, the intensity of his gaze disconcertingly piercing. He took in a shuddered breath and composed himself, his shoulders braced as though for a blow.
         "Do you trust me?" he asked suddenly, the urgency of his voice at once disquieting and controlled. Something was terribly wrong and she knew immediately that he had sensed it whilst she had not. Not yet. He was shielding her from something. She looked deep into his pale blue eyes and delivered her answer without hesitation.
         "Absolutely," she asserted.
         When he kissed her suddenly, with more passion and intensity than any she had ever known, she was at first stunned and bewildered, if but overjoyed.
         Then she heard it. The pit of her stomach hollowed to a cavern of fear.
         The rapid, irregular clicking, the drawn out wheeze, the sense of death close by - it was all but upon her in the very moment Michael had kissed her. He pulled her to him and he kissed her over and again, each time with greater fervor. His zeal augmented her response and in spite of a distant awareness that she should be frightened for her life, she gave herself over to his ardor and responded in kind. Her fingers sunk into his hair and her body molded to his as she released her inhibitions, surrendering to the abandon of ecstasy.
         She heard a scream which receded to some distance away and knew that the creature had been flung far from them by their explicit expression of adoration for one another. What she did not, could not, see was that this powerful and unrestrained demonstration of their previously contained love had created a tremendous wall of heat around them from which ignited a spiritual fire no malice or malevolence could penetrate.
         The Smiling Man had flung itself at them, only to be both repelled and physically scorched by the unseen fire. A terrible burn seared the grey, lesion pocked skin of its arm to blackness, a rank steam rising from the wound. Screaming, it retreated with an unnatural swiftness to the low hanging branches of a tree a hundred yards distant. Craning its neck down towards them, it hissed with primeval rage.
         Once again it thundered towards them with the appalling purpose of a charging gorilla. Michael drove Roma into the rug on her back and redoubled the fervency with which his desire took expression. His motives originated in his instinct to shield her bodily from the menace at hand as much as to impress upon her the potency of his passion. Every yearning, every longing he had harbored for the beautiful scribe found deliverance in his kiss and her enthusiastic response drove him wild with rapture. Her kiss demanded gratification and she yielded to him with euphoric elation.
         On the surface they had taken the most prudent and instantly effective course of action to deter to the undead abomination, but neither could deny they were not taking full advantage of the excuse to voice what had for so long been an unacknowledged libidinous hunger. Though their love had matured from a mere emotional attachment to an abiding spiritual bond, they each had been tormented by an escalating need for raw contact. It was a need that had evolved from mere whimsical longing to an acute aching that lingered in the absence of one another.
         Time and again the Smiling Man rushed at them like an enraged bull, thrashing wildly and drawing back grim, lifeless lips to expose filed teeth dripping saliva. It coursed through the boughs and branches of the trees around them with the acrobatic agility of a puma. Over and again it flung itself at them, prepared to rend them both apart to ensure it reached its target. Each time it was pitched backwards hundreds of yards as though snagged by an unseen snare and lobbed away from them. Each time it received a new ‘burn' for its troubles. Maddened by the pain of the ethereal fire, it renewed its efforts and was soon recklessly hurling itself at them without heed for the injuries it sustained. Michael, gifted with a sight that engaged more than just the solidity of the corporeal world, opened his eyes to locate their attacker and witnessed the flaring of the otherwise unseen dome of fire protecting them. He beheld the repellent effect it had upon the resolute predator. Astonished, he perceived the great fire that engulfed them, whirling about them in a wide vortex. Though the flame was colorless, he discriminated its form by peering through the rippling effect of heat distortion on their surroundings.
         He had been told long ago that this sight would come upon him and that he would ‘see things rarely even privileged to angels'. He had never been told when, only that it would be unmistakable, for the sight would allow him to perceive all things of the hitherto visually impenetrable metaphysical world - a world of angels, demons and spiritual warfare - juxtaposed upon the mortal plane.
         Incensed by the Smiling Man's unremitting assault, Michael took Roma's face in his hands and into one excruciatingly gentle kiss poured every unspoken longing, every undeclared promise of devotion, every unexecuted expression of desire. So powerful was its effect upon Roma that she shuddered for sheer, pure felicity. In the instant that they lost themselves to their adoration for one another, they forgot - for only a singular moment in time - that the Smiling Man was in their midst. It had the astounding effect of casting the cadaverous marauder so far from them in body that it would be weeks before it would find them again. It was an indwelling spirit bound to a lifeless earthly anchor, and though it could appear at will when physically close by and move with incomprehensible speed, it could not traverse vast distances in this fashion without taxing its earthly limitations beyond its imperfect regenerative abilities.
         The link was dramatically weakened and Roma realized she could no longer detect the presence of the predator, which almost always meant that it was gone, at least for the time being. Michael drew back, his face inches from hers. In his eyes she saw every exposed desire, every bared longing.
         "It's gone," he whispered, his own rapidly diminishing sense of the menacing aberration assuring him of its expulsion.
         "I know," she replied, pulling his face towards hers to kiss him again. He quaked with yearning, yielding immediately. The excuse for their passionate exploit had departed, leaving no reason for her to kiss him other than love alone.
         As they lay entangled in one another, a valve of self restraint that had always existed between them in spite of their growing love dissolved and they melted into the bliss of incontestably avowed fidelity. They were a merged soul, of a singular spiritually unified cohesion. Michael felt, as surely as he knew death and judgment awaited all, that never again would he be disconnected from Roma, for he was ingrained in her in heart and mind so deeply that no distinction of his end and her beginning remained. Roma had thought herself emotionally and intellectually close to several others in her life but never had she experienced the unparalleled intimacy of spirit she hence knew with Michael.
         The fire continued to rush around them in their embrace but they were engulfed in a heat of their own that had remained latent too long.









The ginger cat stirred as the priest groaned in his sleep. It was a groan of resigned exasperation. The dream had come again.
First he faced the weary frustration borne of his inability to communicate with the deluded souls in the field beseeching a sign from Heaven.
Then he experienced the seething fury of watching charlatan priests not only mislead a small gathering of destitute believers with their impious hoax but take their meager coin. Again the small girl conversed with the Blessed Virgin Mary and Roland was excluded from their exchange.
Finally he trudged the streets of the dead city, climbed the mountain he had ascended so many times before, and felt dispirited and empty when unable to marvel at the angel who bore him onto the ledge.
         The angel made as if to speak and disappeared. An inward ache filled the spiritually barren priest and he witnessed a future in which his hand - the hand touched by the angel - lay preserved in a glass box in an edifice housing objects from the past, all similarly encased, for the viewing pleasure of the curious multitudes.
         Peering intensely at the hand he knew to be his own, again he willed with all of his strength to open the clenched fist, for within lay the parchment upon which something had been written. Slowly the fingers began to relax. He concentrated harder. The index finger straightened slightly. He poured every ounce of his determination into willing the fingers to slacken just a little more. This time the thumb moved and peeled away from the parchment. He perceived the script. With all of his might he strove to discern even one letter of the text. The parchment began to unfurl. The exertion of concentration produced a piercing pain in his head. The stiff material flexed almost imperceptibly.
         A word! He could read a word.
         Know-
         Roland awoke and found himself sitting upright in his bed, his hair and clothing sodden with perspiration. He drew in shuddered, racked gulps of air and gagged, coughing violently until he could steady his breathing.
         As ever, the cat purred and flexed its front claws on the soft, yielding blanket upon which it lay, its eyes glazed in the bliss of contentment. He concentrated on the resonant purring that rumbled from beneath the plump feline's quivering throat until his breathing had slowed.
         He suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. A tightening of his scalp confirmed the immensity of his realization. He had discerned a word this time.
         Know-
         That was all he had managed to read but the small obscured markings beside it revealed that another word followed. And perhaps another. And who knew how many more. Still, it was more than he had ever managed to see before. More than ever he felt there was a message there for him. A message of hope.
         As much as he dreaded the triptych dream, he was driven by it, compelled now to complete it. Always he had awoken with the sense that he had not dreamed the whole dream. He knew now with certainty that there was more to the dream, some hope of explanation, of finality.
         All he could do was wait until it returned.








One of the advantages of living in the small apartment above the forge was warm floorboards underfoot on cold nights. Tom Borland groaned with fatigue as he doffed his heavy, iron-plated leather apron. The large, interlocking metal scales of the apron had saved him from sustaining nasty steam, spark and liquid metal burns to his chest and legs. His soot smeared, bare arms bore many a scorch mark, from slight pigmentation alteration to deep, recessed burns but a forge master required unhindered mobility of his arms to execute his work.
         At the end of a long day, however, the heat generated by the forge furnaces rendered his small abode toasty and inviting. Having eaten his evening meal at the Seaspray, the smithy longed only to slough the grime from his heavily muscled frame and retire to his bed for the night.
         Strangely, though his toes registered the heat generating from the floor boards beneath, Tom Borland shivered. Turning to the window at the opposite end of the room, he found it to be locked shut, just as he had left it that morning. Dropping to one knee before his closed door, he licked his finger and placed it in front of the inch thick gap between floor and door. No draft there.
         Too weary to give it another thought, he arose, cursing his rheumatoid-ridden joints as he warmed an iron kettle over the roaring pot belly stove. He removed his soft woolen undershirt and reached for a cloth to begin the lengthy process of sluicing away the soot and ash that he was sure was ingrained in his flesh down to the bone.
         Dipping the cloth into the invitingly warm water and taking up a crude bar of soap, the leviathan smithy, his clothing now peeled to the waist, began to wash as he hummed a brisk tune, the unsung lyrics of which would have caused even the most bawdy of sailors to blush.
         His shoulder jerked forward abruptly as though he had been shoved. Again he noticed the chill in the air. He quickly dismissed the shove as a spasm. They occurred sometimes, especially after a particularly long day in the forge when he had taxed his body to its limits. They were infrequent but involuntary and he had long since learned that they were his body's unique way of disentangling knots and kinks in his enormous musculature.
         He felt another shove, harder this time, between his shoulder blades. This was no spasm. He had felt a point of impact, like a huge hand had roughly pushed him. He turned slowly. He was alone in his apartment. Only the soft bubbling of the kettle behind him and the muted din of the waning dockside activity outside breached his domicile. It was then that he noticed his breath had turned to vapour, as though he were exposed to the frigid night air.
         The wiry hairs on the backs of his arms prickled. An uneasiness settled over the large man as the distinct sensation he was not alone in his apartment sank into him. He felt a pressure upon his chest and looked down to see a depression forming in the skin over his pronounced pectoral muscles. It took the shape of an invisible hand but it was of a shape and size he had never seen before.
         He stepped back and the pressure abated. Carefully he dropped his cloth and soap. Tom Borland had never known fear. He was yet to meet a man to match his powerful frame and burly build. He knew he faced no man but his was a mettle of mightier steel than most.
         "So, you've come to the home of old Tom Borland to make your mischief, have you?" he challenged his unseen foe with confidence and resolve, "Why not make of it an even match and reveal yourself. We could have ourselves a time," he goaded coolly, his muscles stiffening in anticipation of confrontation.
         A sharp blow to his jaw rocked the big man but he braced himself with one foot to prevent from staggering. A small rivulet of blood trickled from the side of his mouth.
         "Takes a coward to land a blow from the safety of concealment," he taunted, assuming a fighting stance.
         Another blow, this time bone-jarring, clipped him on the cheek, splitting the skin over the bone. He staggered but righted himself immediately, controlling a rising, seething rage.
         Darting forward with a speed not generally attributed to men of his bulk, Tom Borland swung one great club of an arm in a practiced, brawling arc. It whistled through air, contacting nothing.
         A powerful punch to his gut forced a grunt from him but he reacted swiftly, hoping to make contact with his silent, invisible opponent in the moment it had closed the space between them to assault him. Again, he swung out. His defense met once again with the air before him.
         "'Tis my experience that only girls and effeminate lads hit like that. You some kind of a girlie wraith, then?" he taunted.
         He felt a vice like grip close over his neck with crushing exactitude as another mercilessly grabbed his crotch. The colossal man was lifted into the air and hurled across the room, the velocity of his impact shattering his pallet bed. He had barely recovered from the attack when a barrage of pummeling blows rained down upon him from above.
         This time Tom Borland could do little more than shield his head with his arms as he struggled to his feet amongst the debris. He stumbled beneath the relentless volley of punches that battered him, edging his way towards the stove. He could think of only two avenues of action.
         His body jerked back again and again as the assault intensified and a cracking blow to the head dizzied him momentarily. He staggered and immediately regretted catching himself on the stove as the searing plate bite deep into his elbow and forearm, burning through many layers of skin before he could right himself. He screamed out in pain and rage.
         Heedless of the heat generated by the boiling kettle, he grasped the blisteringly hot copper handle and flung it in front of him. Boiling water sung through the air in a liquid sheet. The swiftness of his action forcibly uncorked the nozzle stopper and a spray of steam sheared out.
         Time slowed but a moment for Tom Borland. As the steam briefly filled the air, for a short time it took form. As though colliding with an invisible barrier, for an instant it outlined the appearance of a figure - a monstrous, inhuman thing. Then it dissipated and the brief manifestation that had appeared before the massive smithy dissolved into obscurity once again.
         Tom Borland had witnessed many a strange phenomena in his time but nothing like this. Its size eclipsed his own more than twice. Its face was an elongated mutilation of damaged flesh terminating in a protruding maw housing a jaw that appeared part oxen, part bear. Its frame bore a close resemblance to that of a wolf, lean-waisted but with broad, powerful shoulders. However, it stood upright on hind legs, like a biped. The flash of visibility illuminated by the steam had been brief but the appalling clarity of the beast would remain with Tom Borland the rest of his life.
         He forgot his pain. For the first time in his sixty two years, Tom Borland knew fear. A shrewd, canny man, he also knew when to flee.
         With a roar of resolve, he barreled towards his closed door, the rain of blows brutally smashing into him, and shoulder barged the massive wood panel. It broke from its hinges and the brawny blacksmith crashed down the stairs atop the dislodged door and into the forge below. He rolled onto his back, his eyes affixed to the open entryway above as he struggled to retrieve the breath knocked from his lungs.
         His body throbbed as the boring ache of the assault set in and his arm felt aflame. Wincing, he dragged himself to his feet and staggered backwards in the dim forge towards the exit.
         In his quarters above he heard a riotous din as his possessions were hurled about the room. A small chest containing a modest amount of coin flew across the doorway. He heard it hit the opposite wall with so great an impact he knew it to be embedded there. He heard the splintering of wood as his window shutters were ripped from their hinges. The groan and buckle of pounded metal reached his ears and he knew that his stove had been all but crushed.
         He lingered not a moment longer.
         Staggering into the street, half naked and bleeding, the badly beaten blacksmith made the long trek towards High Street. Behind him he could hear the clamorous destruction of his home continuing on into the night and he focused on the singular thought of taking refuge in the one place he prayed his attacker could not follow him.









Following the latest revelation his dream had bestowed upon him, Roland rolled back the covers and pulled his legs over the side of the bed. Sleep would evade him until morning. A tiny spark of hope had fought its way beyond the tiring, repetitive drudgery of the recurring dream and his mind had flared to life with endless speculation as to the miasma of ways in which it might evolve.
         The cat desisted its hypnotic paw flexing and quietly joined him in the kitchen where he prepared a cup of mint tea to revive his senses. He leant against the bench, enjoying the silence and stillness of the hour as the cat curled about his feet.
         A violent pounding at his door jolted him from his reverie and he cursed in his native Gaelic as the scalding liquid spilled onto his hands, causing him to drop his cup. The cat growled and puffed up to twice its size before slinking off to his sleeping quarters to skulk beneath the bed.
         "She couldn't have rescued a mastiff from abandonment," he muttered, "Had to save a big, orange ball of lard, didn't she," he cast a stern glance in the direction he had last seen the animal disappear. He wished at this moment for the protection of a large dog but dismissed it as the pounding continued. It sounded more urgent than aggressive. He hastened his step.
         He had no sooner unlatched the door and opened it when Tom Borland, shivering and gripping his arm with knuckles white to the bone, burst through and into his home.
         The sight that greeted the dazed young priest baffled him but he balked only a moment when he took in the extent of the older smithy's terrible injuries. The skin of his exposed torso and arms was an ugly collage of flowering purple bruises and his left arm was severely burned from elbow to wrist.
         "Mother of God, man, what happened?" Roland asked as he eased the shaken blacksmith into a chair in his kitchen. Hastily he fetched his medical kit and a blanket which he threw over the robust forge master's broad shoulders. Setting his jaw to force his teeth to cease chattering, the blacksmith did not miss a beat in his response. His fear now suspended, he found his curiosity indelibly aroused.
         "I think you best be telling me what it is you and the lass are really investigating, Father," he intoned in a voice both authoritative and inquisitive, "for I've just this very hour been visited in my home by a thing most aggravated in its disposition," he revealed, raising a knowing eyebrow to the startled priest. Roland took a deep breath as he applied a thick salve to the blacksmith's burn to numb the pain until medical help arrived.
         He stood and approached a cord seemingly inset in the wall and pulled upon it three times. In the distance the blacksmith heard a small bell ring. Roland began to fix the enormous forge master a hot cup of tea to warm him through and then thought better of it, reaching instead for a large flagon of fine quality whisky from which he poured the man a generous draught. He downed it in a single swallow.
         "Now that's a remedy to take the sting out of this little singe," Tom Borland quipped, as though his dreadful burn were little more than an annoying inconvenience.
         A sleepy, slightly bedraggled young man, the parish deacon in residence, appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. Roland handed him a roughly scrawled note.
         "Take this to Doctor Hannan. Ask him to come at once," was all he said and the young man took the note, nodded and obediently departed. Moments later, the sound of hooves striking the cobbled street beyond rung out into the night.
         "I appreciate your hospitality, Father, but you've not answered my question yet," the smithy gently reminded his companion, pushing his glass towards the flagon to prompt the priest to refill his cup.
         "There's someone you need to speak to first," Roland replied genially as he deftly inspected the older man's wounds and performed a preliminary examination of his battered body before the venerable physician arrived, "Until then, you're welcome to as much of my fine Irish reserve as pleases you."
         This offer stemmed the blacksmith's torrent of questions until, more than an hour later, the elderly Ichabod Hannan arrived, whereupon he found that his patient had been kindly cleaned up.
         "Evening, gentlemen," he proffered, seating himself opposite the injured blacksmith and ministering to his wounds immediately, "You've done a fine job, Father," the aged doctor commented favorably upon appraising the priest's handiwork, "So, Thomas, what manner of man or should I say men, for no one man could inflict injuries to this extent, exists that could exact such a punishment upon your person?" he inquired as he applied stitches to the grizzled old smithy's split cheek. The barrel chested blacksmith rested his good elbow upon his knee and leant towards the old doctor, his eyebrow cocked.
         "'Twas no man, Ichabod," he replied assuredly, "'Twas not of this world," he expanded.
         He expounded the details of the attack in astonishing clarity and Roland could not help but admire the man. He might well have been discussing a tavern brawl as much as an encounter with an otherworldly entity, for neither fear nor bragging entered into his account. The hawk like eyes of the elderly physician flashed to meet his when he recounted the curious chill in the air that had turned his breath to steam in spite of the warmth emanating from the forge below.
         The conclusion of the blacksmith's account coincided with the completion of the physician's treatment. Ichabod Hannan succinctly imparted brief instructions for the ongoing self-administered maintenance that would safeguard against infection. Partaking of a small nip of the priest's fine whiskey himself, the venerable doctor sat back and related to the blacksmith the details of his own unerring encounter with forces from another world. If the portent of his tale unsettled the immense smithy, it did not register upon his granite hard features. From there the fatigued young priest disclosed to his older companions the true nature of his investigation, divulging even that it was Roma who spearheaded their exploration of the increasing incidents of preternatural assault.
         "I think you should hear this from her," he concluded, "Her experience in dealing with these kinds of...intrusions...into our plane of existence spans years and there is nothing you can tell her that she's not already encountered," he explained as he rose, excusing himself to fetch Roma from the rectory.
         Several minutes later, Roland returned with the bleary-eyed scribe whose expression brightened upon seeing the esteemed physician.
         "Good evening, my dear," he greeted her warmly, taking her hand and offering his seat which she gratefully accepted.
         "Good evening, Ichabod," she replied affectionately, patting his hand as she eased her tired frame into the hard wooden chair. The atmosphere of the room was heavy, sober. Roma's gaze drifted over to Tom Borland and she sat upright, rigid.
         "Oh my Lord, Tom, what happened?" she asked, leaning forward to examine his wounds. At first she thought he must have fallen from a great height for he was badly bruised and sported several flesh wounds, but he bore the countenance of a man recovering from battle, not a victim convalescing after an accident.
         "I was about to ask you the same thing," he replied frankly, "Seeing as though it would appear you're some kind of authority on afflictions of this nature." He shot her a knowing look and her gaze drifted to Roland. He nodded almost indiscernibly.
         "Did you get a look at it?" she asked, dropping any guise of incomprehension. He blanched. In the time she had known him, she had never known him to pale at the mention of anything. This, she knew, was dire.
         "It was like some kind of a hound that walked upright. It had a head that looked like the heads of a man, an ox and a bear all mashed into one," he replied, no trace of fear evident in his tone. He elaborated upon the encounter and fell silent, allowing the young woman to ponder possible reasons for the attack and wonder at the identity of his assailant. She shook her head, her brow furrowed deeply in consternation.
         "Leave it with me," she sighed, "I have a lot of other material I need to compare it to but, just like the other encounters, there is nothing about this one that ties it directly to another. It's like-," she cut herself short, her expression blossoming into realization.
         Roland stiffened. In that moment he knew she had come into an understanding. Her eyes shot to him and he responded though she had said nothing.
         "It's alright," he assured her, "I think we can expand our core fount of knowledge to include others whose age, experience and demonstrated discretion are beyond questioning."
         She took a moment to consider her speculation. Something about it felt acutely right, as though she had precisely identified the one common thread that had eluded her from the outset.
         "It's like they are entirely dissimilar to one another so that the search for a common thread binding them all distracts us from the real agenda of whatever is causing these occurrences," she disclosed solemnly.
         "Come again?" Tom Borland asked, confused.
         "Imagine that there is something here. Now. And it is here from some other place, some other world, with a very specific goal in mind. It has enemies, specifically the Church, more broadly anyone of an official or even lay association with the House of God. In war, how does any invading general defeat a defending army in its own territory?" she posed, clearly animated now by the ramifications of her conjecture, "He harries his opponent with guerilla skirmishes on multiple fronts, but these are little more than clever diversions to draw attention away from an impending sneak attack by the main force coming in from a blind side," she revealed, leaning back into her chair. Her companions were clearly lost, although Roland's expression betrayed that he loosely followed her line of thought.
         "Continue," Ichabod courteously prompted.
         "All this time I have been trawling over every incidence of unnatural activity afflicting this province, striving to unearth a common link between them and now I finally see what it is," she replied, invigorated by her discovery, "There is none."
         She met with expressions of uncertainty.
         "What do you mean?" Roland attempted to keep things progressing.
         "That's the commonality," Roma exclaimed, "They are utterly unlike one another. They are a distraction. Something else is at work here and it is working exceedingly hard to ensure that we - me, specifically - are kept busy trying to forge non-existent connections and make sense of seemingly disparate events in order to shield its activities - its real purpose - from anyone or anything it perceives to be a threat."
         "Exactly what is it you think this ‘something' is?" Tom Borland put forth, not the least unnerved by her disturbing disclosure.
         "I do not know," she attested, crestfallen, "But before I start speculating about what it is we are facing, I think you gentlemen should know a little of what I do and what I have experienced these past years to give you a better insight into the nature of what it is I deal with," she paused to take in their conflicting expressions, "And why I am really here," she took a deep breath and all present remained respectfully silent as she embarked upon the account of her extraordinary vocation. She outlined her upbringing in a small Carmelite Abbey in Florence, her departure from the order, her ensuing proclivity for exposing episodes of paranormal disorder, and her recent years in the employ of the Church as an investigator. Prudently she omitted to divulge her identity and subsequent family history. Nor did she burden them with her struggle to evade the predatory Smiling Man. However, when the image of her tormentor sprung to mind she could not shake the inextricable sense that somehow her discovery and her vexation were indissolubly bound.
         "So where does that leave us?" Roland pitched curiously.
         "Again, I do not know," Roma acquiesced, "But I do know where it doesn't leave us - squandering in confused indecision and misdirection in our quest for answers," she attested confidently, "There is something in this shire, something throwing up one almighty smoke screen to divert us down the wrong path time and again. Now that I know that something is behind all of these incidents and that they have occurred to throw me off course, I can redirect my efforts elsewhere," her brow creased in concerted thought before she turned to the priest, "Of all the known locations where these incidents have occurred, which ones have demonstrated the most evident manifestation of other world interference?" she asked.
         He thought for a moment.
         "If by that you mean where did these...intruders...take form, become visible to others," he began," then that would be the forests - New Forest and Roydon Woods." Realization registered across her features once again.
         "Precisely," she concurred, "The specter the children saw, the enormous dog that pursued Wally Barlen, the disappearance of the savant boy," she turned to the attentive physician, "Your estate, Ichabod, comprises part of the very fringe of New Forest, as does the Drixon holding where by far the worst incidence of this kind originated," she felt her chest tighten with apprehension," There is something in those woods and what ever disruption it has thus far caused, I cannot help but feel that its true purpose is much darker, much more calamitous than these diversionary outbreaks of late."
         "What exactly do you propose we do?" Tom Borland asked plaintively.
         "For the time being, nothing," Roma replied, "For now, it is enough that you know. For a time may come when in my hour of need I may call upon you both, each in your own way, for help." The mammoth blacksmith appeared horrified.
         "You're not reckoning on pursuing this line of inquiry on your own, are you, lass?" his tone betrayed he could scarcely entertain the thought, if his physical condition was anything by which to judge this unknown adversary.
         "Don't be misled, Tom, by diminished physical capability," Roma reassured the brawny smithy, "Physical bearing is of virtually no consequence in my scope of experience. Spiritual fortitude and conviction of faith are the only armament of value in the kind of warfare I am trained in."
         "Diminished physical capability, as you put it, lass, would have availed you naught had it been you and not I above the forge tonight," he reminded her.
         "But then I would not have attempted to defend myself physically," Roma swiftly responded, "And I can assure you that I would have emerged with far fewer abrasions than you presently sport." Her reply astounded the blacksmith. The physician, however, remained silent, having learned long ago that the beautiful young scribe never testified to anything to which she was unfamiliar or unconvinced.
         "Are you telling me that you think you could have ‘prayed' that thing away?" he bellowed in bewilderment, his expression instantly apologetic following his outburst. Roma exhaled slowly.
         "Something like that," she replied softly, articulation briefly eluding her, "It is not quite that simple. All I am saying is that although I do not yet know what I am facing, I know from whence it came and knowledge of that arms me with certain defenses against the kind of assault that manifestations of this nature bring into play."
         "You fight fire with fire," Ichabod Hannan interjected poignantly. All eyes turned to him, "It is perfectly clear, really. A man comes at you, sword aloft; you defend yourself with a sword. The physical battles the physical. A dark spirit, a malevolence of a world without form, assails you - you do not bring your sword to bear. It has no material substance, even though it can assault the corporal world and all in it. You fight an unholy belligerence with spiritual grit. Your sword is the conviction of your faith. Your spear is the strength of your allegiance to Christ Himself. Your armor is your unwavering trust in the truth of Scripture. Spiritual warfare is not unlike physical war - it merely brings differing weapons onto the battlefield."
         With an eloquence Roma envied, the elderly physician had succinctly explicated her rather crude explanation. One and all understood what she had struggled to express. She placed her hand over his and offered him a smile of gratitude.
         "I could not have said it better myself," Roma certified.
         "Still don't feel any better about the idea of you going into those woods alone," Tom Borland grumbled.
         "I won't be alone," Roma affirmed, her gaze returning to the priest, "Father Roland will be accompanying me." Ichabod nodded in assent, recognizing that a man of his spiritual caliber was precisely what an unknown threat called for.
         "Hmph," Tom Borland grunted. Having taken the beating of his life, he experienced an acute internal turmoil as he attempted to reconcile their ability to ward off a terrible foe capable of physical assault with faith in God alone when a lesser man than he might well be dead now had he faced the same enemy. Though a follower of the Word himself, the strapping blacksmith balked at the idea they could defend themselves with prayer, Scripture quotes and whatever exorcistic rites and rituals they incanted.
         "I'll be taking Michael too," she added.
         "Now that I can live with," Tom Borland propounded emphatically, evidently relieved she had demonstrated the good sense to include the tall coachman. Michael was broad of shoulder and strong. He had disbanded more than one scrap at the Seaspray and over the years had taken to task numerous of Mother's clients who had slapped around her girls. No one ever to have been at the receiving end of Michael's retribution returned for more.
         Roma's thought drifted to the handsome carriage driver and she smiled inwardly. In the days that had passed since he had taken her to the glade she had struggled to keep her mind on either her official or unofficial duties. Their respective work obligations had severely curtailed their ability to meet and they had barely managed to snatch even the briefest of moments on the hop. However a smile, a quick word, and a lingering kiss often sustained them for hours at a time, even days. They had all but forgotten the intrusion of the Smiling Man upon their tryst, favoring instead the recollection of the new, bold step forward they had taken in their relationship. He would be asleep at this hour. She offered up a small prayer that his slumber would be content, undisturbed and restful. Hers, on the other hand, had been restive since the day she had met him but the sleepless nights did not perturb her, for she whiled away many an hour daydreaming of his pale, penetrating eyes, his soft, confident touch and now his powerful, urgent kiss. She felt the color rise to her cheeks and pushed her amorous thoughts aside. Now more than ever she needed to launder her thoughts, cleanse her spirit, and scour her mind of all notions save communion with the Holy Spirit. Soon she would enter a period of prayer and fasting to prepare herself in spirit, mind and body for the coming supernatural conflict she knew awaited her.
         She had finally excavated the underlying current of commonality that had evaded her investigation until now. How ironic, she mused, that the binding element of each case of supernatural activity was their utter dissimilarity to one another. Though Tom Borland had assumed, and rightly so in small part, that Michael constituted a considerable degree of physical protection, Roma had included him for reasons entirely different. In recent months she had witnessed Roland's spiritual decline. He had begun to exhibit signs of not only physical exhaustion but of spiritual fatigue. Though he valiantly attempted to shield her from the depth of his religious torpidity, she had known him too long to be fooled by his heroic pretence. It was not merely the yoke of Church politics and policy, nor the scope and volume of his workload under which he buckled. It was an internal oppression that besieged him. His eyes reflected an inner battle - doubts, fears, questions - that stole not only rest from his sleep but peace from his mind. He had not yet come to her. He was not ready. Years of close filial bond had taught her patience. He always came to her eventually. Sometimes as a friend, at other times as a colleague in Christ, but ever in complete trust.
         Michael, on the other hand, was unfettered by fiscal or clerical responsibility, fortified of spirit, of immutable faith and as close a person to God as she had ever encountered. In the softly spoken coachman she perceived a uniquely rare equilibrium of near perfect faith and profound understanding of the nature of the Trinity. His trust in the power and presence of the Lord was as incontrovertible as his trust in the solidity of the very earth beneath his feet. It was his faith and his spiritual magnitude, as well as her own, on which she would primarily rely as defense against whatever diabolical numen they may encounter. Roland possessed a breadth of knowledge relating to the dark forces working in opposition to God far surpassing even her own, in spite of the fact that her personal experience of those very forces eclipsed his. In this regard they complimented one another perfectly. His area of expertise for the time being would be to propose the best practical course of action pending their findings when they entered the woods. He was a master strategist, especially in the arena of holy warfare. He was, however, spiritually fragile at present. That much she had deduced. His hooded eyes could not fully cloak the torment suspended there.
         She could not wait for him to resolve his inner unrest and neither could she entirely rely on his spiritual conviction given his present tumult. For now his superior mind would be the spear in her left hand whilst Michael's unconquerable faith would be the sword in her right.









The following day Tom Borland returned to his demolished apartment. His new apprentice, Oliver Baltimore, was far too green a smithy to entrust the running of such a large and lucrative forge. It being a Saturday, Michael's scheduled runs were few and infrequent. Between services, he tended the forge in the big man's stead, for to no other man would Tom Borland assign his unabridged trust. Michael had worked in the forge periodically over the years when Tom had been reluctant to turn away business in times of high demand. The burly blacksmith had gained first hand experience of the young man's deft expertise with hammer and anvil.
         It took the forge master the better part of the day to restore his abode to a passing semblance of its former glory. When Michael refused to accept payment for his work in the forge, Tom at least managed to reach agreement with him on settling his account in another form. Camilla's cottage roof had sprung several leaks through which the late spring drizzle was penetrating, allowing a bone-frosting chill to seep in. Even the large hearth struggled to repel it. Additionally, several other minor repairs required attention around the picturesque cottage. Leaving Michael to continue working in the forge, he packed his day cart with necessary supplies and made his way to the cozy dwelling.
         The day was bright and clear and, as always, Tom Borland's heart skipped a beat when the cottage came into view. Ritualistically, he checked his breath and sniffed his arm pits to ensure that no noxious odours or offensive aromas escaped his person. Satisfied with this cursory inspection, he pulled up his cart just outside Camilla's fenced yard. She had been sweeping her planked verandah when he arrived and greeted him with a terse glare and a defiant fist upon her hip, her broom held in her free hand like a bo staff. He grinned incorrigibly. He was up for quite the lively exchange this day if he guessed aright.
         "I've no broken door, no busted axle for you to mend, Thomas Borland, so if you've come a-calling in anticipation of tea and some scintillating conversation, I've naught but an interminable headache and the prickly end of my broom to offer you," she rasped hotly.
         Ignoring the tangle of interconnecting muscular discomfort that lay siege to him, he jumped down from the cart and stepped over the fence without invitation.
         "Aye, but you've a sieve for a roof, that belfry weed is threatening to overrun your berry patch, the back left corner of your herb stand needs leveling to stop the rain water pooling and rotting the roots and if I'm not mistaken you've a rodent of some description with a disagreeable disposition getting twixt your thatch and your roof beams at night causing something of a raucous," he countered fluently, "And I'm just the man to fix them. Unless of course you're fixing to hitch up your apron and scamper up onto the roof yourself," he interlocked his fingers, palms facing upwards and stooped forward, "Come on, I'll give you a leg up," he winked at her, "I'll even promise not to look up your skirt." Camilla was rendered gobsmacked but a moment.
         "I need to teach that boy to hush his mouth," she muttered, unable to contest him further, for she was in desperate need of his handiwork as Michael's obligations prohibited him from attending to many of the small subsistence farm's needs.
         "That ‘boy', I'll have you know, has worked his knuckles to the bone tending my forge and driving those cabs so that I can come out here and look after you, so I'll entertain no more disparagement of his disclosures from you, woman," he fired back, eager to embark on their latest fiery debate.
         "I'm surprised he has the time now that he has assumed the added responsibility of courting that eccentric foreign woman from town," she sighed in confounded exasperation, "I do hope he gets her out of his system soon. His pie-eyed fascination with her is becoming an embarrassment," she scoffed, her tone loaded with condescension and disgust.
         "You'll be taking that hope to your grave, my love," Tom Borland replied matter-of-factly as he began to transport tools from his cart to the yard, "The lad's not infatuated. He's in love. I suggest you get used to the idea of that girl in your life because he's not about to let her slip away." She shook her head in bewildered annoyance.
         "I do not know what he sees in her," she remarked, bemused.
         "You've not even met the lass," Tom Borland shot back, cocking a knowing eyebrow at her, "Mark my words, woman, she's of a wit and steel to match her beauty. She's no fool and of tougher grit than you might expect. Now here's a thought. If you got to know her, you might even like her," he quipped with theatrical enthusiasm. She glowered at him.
         "I imagine I'd sooner take a liking to that filthy vermin in my roof than sup civilly with that peculiar girl," she replied curtly.
         "Suit yourself," Tom Borland shrugged, "But t'would be your loss alone," he concluded as he ascended the sturdy ladder he had leant against her eave. Climbing up, he could not completely conceal his discomfort, "Oh I see the problem," he called out from above, "But the good news is that the main source of your leak is also the main entrance into your roof cavity through which your furry little friend has invited himself. I can take care of both at once," he explained as he made his way down the scaffold. Three rungs from the bottom his foot slipped and he landed hard on the rung below. His jerkin snagged on a barb in the wood and was pulled up over his ribs, exposing the mottled flesh beneath.
         He grunted as he braced himself on the reliable ladder and unhooked his cinched jerkin, but not before Camilla spied an ugly black bruise the size of a dinner plate on his side. Dropping her broom, she rushed to him, pulling the jerkin back up despite his protests.
         "Hush, man," she snapped dourly. As he stepped back onto flat ground, she adroitly pulled off his jerkin and lifted his undershirt, visibly quaking at the sight of his brutally battered torso, "God almighty, man, who did this to you?" she murmured, the concern in her eyes genuine, her anxiety at his condition sincere.
         "Not who," he corrected, "What." She frowned in confusion.
         Briefly he related the events of the previous night but fell short of divulging Roma's central importance in combating their unknown foe, save to allude that there was immeasurably more to the audacious scribe than met the eye. He neglected to inform her of Michael's involvement in the investigation out of concern for her heart condition.
         "When the day of reckoning comes, and it will come, and this town faces its darkest foe," he warned, his tone broaching no refutation, "It won't be the mayor, a military force or even his holy Father that will stand between you and I and whatever it is that has come to steal our peace of mind and our very security from us. It will be that young woman. She's on a holy commission to rid us of our vexation and you should be aware that it is a commission for which she is prepared to put herself in very real peril to discharge. You think your life has dealt you some terrible blows? This young woman's vocation pivots on placing herself on the path between us and everything we have very real reasons to fear, things we refrain to even speak of. You think on that next time you think to judge or deride her, Camilla," Tom Borland enumerated gravely.
         Camilla lapsed into silence. Never had the burly smithy spoken to her in so authoritative and sober a tone. She could not imagine what he meant by the foreigner's ‘holy commission' or her ‘vocation' but he had spoken of her with such resolute admiration and respect that she was forced to reconsider her contempt for the woman who had enchanted so many. Camilla Rhys-Huntington was not a stupid woman, by even the loosest interpretation of the word. If Tom Borland had vouched for her, perhaps her notion of the scribe was worth revisiting, she surmised, though she would never admit as much to him.
         Returning her attention to Tom's injuries, she took his elbow.
         "Come, let me take a look at these," she instructed sharply. Tom's impish grin returned, the cloud of solemnity diffusing from his gaze.
         "Say, the village dance is but weeks away now," he reminded her, "You'd make a humble blacksmith happy were he to escort such a lady as yourself to our town's finest affair," he hinted as she settled him comfortably onto the porch setee.
         Her mood darkened; it was not the invitation that blackened her disposition, but rather the cruel reminder that the Spring Ball was almost upon them again. Back in the heady days of her youth and the early years of her marriage, Camilla's reputation as the most beautiful woman at any gala event was uncontested. How she had loved the soft light of the ballroom chandeliers, the lilting music of the string orchestra, the melodic swish of silk and tweed, the glinting of the jewels and the sensation of flying that she experienced with every dance.
         The village dance, which coincided each year with the night of the Ball, was in her opinion a bawdy and vulgar affair. Fiddles screeched out their discordant shrieks to the thumping of feet and slapping of hands, an entirely crude and inferior mockery of the gloss and refinement the Ball embodied. Villagers, young and old alike, participated in grouped and paired gyrations they called ‘dancing', visiting the ‘banquet' table as required to replenish their spent energies, and partaking of the foul-smelling ale she had the displeasure of detecting with particular pungency on each Market Day.
         The village dance was in fact a celebration of the village's survival of the harsh winters that visited their shores each year. The Church paid for the food, the local taverns donated generous amounts of largely watered down, inferior quality liquor and the musicians gave freely of their skills and their time. It was an opportunity for the townsfolk to toast their own resilience, the great majority of which worked from dawn until dusk every day of the year save Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation just to put food in their mouths and shelter over their heads. It was a chance to let their hair down, to eat, drink and dance with abandon. Aside from the odd outburst or clash, no village dance in fifty years had been ruined due to excessive drinking or brawling.
         But Camilla Rhys-Huntington had seen how the other half lived and no affair, however respectable or sophisticated, would ever compare to the splendor and the grandeur of the Spring Ball.
         "Nothing but a bunch of inebriated hooligans thrashing about to squealing pipes and whistles, while half-wit fiddlers with as much talent as rhythm scratch out the last dying wails from their tuneless strings," she retorted, gently examining and testing each of the burly smithy's inflamed bruises, her touch instantly lightening as he flinched.
         She swept past him into the cottage, returning with a steaming cup of tea strongly scented with pulverized opiates to dull the pain.
         "So is that a yes?" he ventured hopefully. She eyed him cryptically.
         "If by yes you mean no, then yes," she shot back in annoyance.
         "Right, then!" he quipped light heartedly, ignoring her rebuff, "I'll be here at seven sharp to accompany you to a fine evening of good wine, great food, superb music and even better companionship."
         She ignored his confirmation.
They argued long into the afternoon as he set about tending to her immediate needs but Tom Borland could not help but notice, with considerable delight, that Camilla hovered about the brawny blacksmith, rebuking him constantly for not heeding his injuries more carefully in the discharge of his chores. Each reprimand was greater verification of the true nature of her feelings for him.
Camilla chided herself for fussing over him so, but the cumbersome oaf was likely to inflict more damage to his person were it not for her constant badgering. Or so she tried feebly to convince herself.
         Tom Borland mused that had he known his injured state would inspire so profound an effect on the disagreeable woman, he might seriously have entertained the notion of throwing himself around his apartment some twenty years earlier.









"Dairmid!" Sophia shook his shoulders, rousing the moaning boy from a deep and troubled sleep.
         "Huh!" he awoke with a start. His cousin winced even as his vice like grip of her wrist slowly relented. She gave him a moment to orient himself before addressing him.
         Only a single candle lit the small room. The muted din from the Seaspray drifted up from below through thick floor boards. The evening of Market Day, especially when it coincided with the return to dock of a cluster of merchant vessels, always saw the reputable tavern trading well into the night. It was almost four o'clock in the morning and the bustling inn was enjoying the kind of patronage many of its competitors only experienced during the lunch rush. The smell of foaming beer and the pungent aromas of spiced meals replaced the boy's previous uneasiness with soothing familiarity.
         The portly boy sat up in the makeshift pallet bed on the floor, rubbing his eyes. His cousin sat atop the bed hugging her knees to her chest.
         "See?" she urged, "I told you it would happen," she shrilled, her tone calming minimally, "What did you dream?" she ventured cautiously. This was the test. For her it had been the same thing every night. If he dreamt the same thing, or similar, she would know without misgiving that the doll indeed caused her nightmares.
         "It's a bit fuzzy now," he murmured, his unlined brow crinkling in the effort of recollection before his eyes widened, "I remember now! I was in the woods at night and I remember thinking ‘What in the heck am I doing in the woods at this time of night? Where in the woods am I?' and then I got to thinking about the Pacematcher and I began to run. As soon as I started running I heard something behind me and I stopped and looked back but I couldn't see very far behind me. I called out but no one answered. Actually, it seemed as though everything got quieter the harder I listened to hear who was back there. So I began running again and then I heard it clearer - like footsteps behind me. Close, but just far enough back that I couldn't see who was there. I remember being scared it was the Pacematcher but then thinking it couldn't be because he always keeps his distance parallel, he doesn't chase anyone from behind, and he glides, he doesn't run. But then since I knew it wasn't him and I didn't know else who it could be and no one was answering me when I called out, I just ran harder and faster. I heard cracking and crunching like whatever was following me was so strong that trees and shrubs were getting torn up from the ground as it ploughed through. I ran into a clearing and I wasn't quite at the other side when I heard it break the tree line. The moonlight was coming down through the gap in the trees above and I looked back," he paled appreciably, the loss of color from his complexion radical even in the dim candle light. His cousin leant closer, her face ashen.
         "You saw it, didn't you," she whispered, her eyes darting ever so fleetingly towards the menace atop the left hand corner of the bookshelf across the room. Barely an inert outline in the flickering glow, its face was a silhouette but she could feel its tiny eyes, like splinters of malice, boring into her, pouring forth its hate and belligerence.
         "Uh huh," he confirmed, licking dry, chapped lips and swallowing with difficulty, "It was the clown. But it was bigger, like ten feet tall. And huge. Even beneath its big billowing clown suit, I could tell it was strong and fast. And its colors weren't bright and happy. They were more like browns and greys. It was coming at me with its shoulders forward, like it was going to tackle me or something. And its face was angry," he blinked several times, "Soph, Ma has been real cut with me lots of times for lots of really bad things - like sneaking lemon tarts from the larder at night and tipping her best flour out onto the awnings in summertime to make fake snow like in winter. I've seen her face when I think she might never forgive me. It was nothing like this. It was like this thing wanted me dead, real fast. Like I'd killed its cat or something. I'm just a little kid but it was looking at me kind of like it's hated me my whole life - longer even!" he shivered, "I don't ever want to see it look at me like that ever again. I felt real cold, right down into my bones."
         The small slip of a girl hugged her legs even closer to her, resting her chin on her knees.
         "I know, that's how it looked at me too," she replied in a shaky voice. Neither would venture a glance at the small, limp doll in the corner, but both felt a chilling hostility flooding the room from its direction, as though it radiated loathing.
         Sophia, ever the more decisive of them, took her cousin's hand, not at all shocked by the coolness of his skin, for with each dream she had awoken shivering and icy to the touch. She led him from the room and shut the door behind them. The hearth was warmly lit and several lamps filled the living room with a drowse-inducing glow that seemed to banish their disquiet. Unlike most cats, Scram did not curl up before the crackling fire in a neat, orange ball, but instead preferred to sleep on his back, legs splayed, head thrown back, tail draped languidly over one leg as though to expose as much self to the heat as was possible. His total, torpid lethargy dispelled the last fading, anxious thoughts from their unsettled minds, for surely the cat would be bristling and growling were the doll able to project its menace beyond its immediate vicinity.
         Like mindedly, they chose to settle themselves close to the cat whom they were certain would react immediately in the presence of approaching danger. Taking several throw coverlets and cushions from the worn divan close by, they bunked down on the thick pile of the hearth rug, burying themselves beneath the perceived shield of their bedding. Facing one another from the sanctuary of their cozy little nests, they were but timid eyes peering out from within secure confines.
         "I'm sorry you had the nightmare, Dairm," Sophia whispered, her voice blending almost melodically with the soft licking of the fire toasting their feet, "But when they started I thought I must be going insane. I needed to know if it was me or the doll." Her gaze was crestfallen and apologetic but also relieved.
         "We're getting rid of that thing tomorrow," he whispered back, his squinting eyes the only indicator of the reassuring smile hidden beneath his mask of coverlets.
         Though more reliably the most stalwart of the two, the girl shifted and wriggled for more than an hour, sleep eluding her in spite of a gnawing fatigue that bore into her core. Still, it was her cousin who remained awake until she eventually drifted off. Since infancy, she had found it uniquely comforting to know that he was still awake after she fell asleep. She had always felt so utterly alone on the rare occasion that sleep had found him first. An odd thing, she thought, to feel so isolated by being the last awake. But it was a sensation she had never escaped, as though if anything sinister or of baleful intent were to slip into her home in the cloaking darkness of night it would be aware of her wakefulness and come for her. Strangely, she had always felt that to be asleep was to be protected, armored somehow, against a potential nightly attack by forces unseen and harmful of purpose.

         The following day, both children roused late. Dairmid's mother had closed the tavern less than an hour after they had bunked in the living room and reopened her establishment only five hours later. She had left them both apple dumplings for breakfast and a generous helping of cinnamon spiced apricot porridge bubbling over the hearth fire.
Maude acquiesced often to her son's requests for the company of his cousin overnight on evenings she worked late for her absences made for long, lonely stretches of night for the boy. Though she knew they prattled, fought and bickered into the early hours, she understood that they much preferred squabbling together than sulking alone. And her niece was so headstrong and stubborn a child that there was precious little mischief her son would get into for fear of being tattled on. This perpetuated a happy balance between mutual companionship and supervision.
         They ate their breakfast in silence, less out of nervousness than due to Dairmid's uninterruptible reverence for and devotion to the act of devouring the first meal of the day as though it would be his last. This done, they washed their hands and faces, doffed their bedclothes and slipped into day wear before standing apprehensively before the chubby boy's closed bedroom door. He took a deep, rattled breath.
         "Ma always says there's no putting off til tomorrow what needs doing today," he attempted to bolster his courage with the words of those wiser than he. Still the pit of his stomach quivered and his skin prickled as each hair follicle on his body bristled. In the sterile light of day which exiled every impenetrable shadow and exposed every potential hiding place, they felt less disturbed about their task, though neither could completely escape the fear of facing the doll again.
         It had all started three weeks earlier when the children's wealthy great aunt living in Germany had sent Sophia the doll, a miniature clown, as a gift to commemorate her recent trip to the Slavic regions. She had picked it up in a little known country called Kyrgysztan from a peddler who claimed it was gifted with animation. Thinking his superstitious tale of the ‘living doll' quaint, she had purchased it for far more than her astute eye knew it to be worth, for the tale of the doll's apparent sordid history had been more than worth the generous amount of coin with which she had parted.
         From the moment it had arrived in her house, Sophia had felt ill at ease in the presence of the doll, especially when alone with it. It was something adults seemed immune to, for when she gave voice to her anxiety, neither her parents nor any other grown up shared her misgivings about the doll. It was the eyes mostly. They seemed to follow her as she moved about her room playing with her toys. However, it was more than the furtive imaginings of a small child. In fact, Sophia was perhaps the least fickle or dramatically inclined girl of her age in the entire port town. The clown's eyes seemed alive, to be looking at her, as though something distinctly extant - an entity both intelligent and callous - regarded her. In her peripheral vision she had thought she perceived movement, slight but irrefutable. Yet to look back upon it, it was as limp and lifeless as her other dolls. Its painted on smile and high, arched brows imbued its impassive features with an even darker undertone. This apparent ‘movement' was the very thing that had led her to believe she was in fact becoming unhinged. Still, in a demonstration of sheer pluck, the canny girl drew a chalk outline around the doll where it sat upon her bookshelf one morning. Any motion would register. Even if the doll shifted back into position after stirring, the smudge in the chalk would betray its realignment. It was with dread that she had discovered the chalk had been smeared upon later investigation.
         And then the nightmares had begun. Always the same. Pursuit in the dark through the woods by a giant, the exact likeness of the doll, only its hatred was palpable, its malice evident. She always awoke just as it was upon her, and always frigid with cold, unable to thaw her frozen body even after spending hours in front of the fireplace.
         When the door was opened, the children immediately felt an oppressive wall of hostility pressing in on them. Though neither could substantiate it, they both sensed that the doll's eyes had rested elsewhere but had flicked to them in the instant they appeared in the doorway. Ever baleful, the eyes seemed to challenge them, to taunt them, to repudiate them. Hesitantly they advanced toward the small doll with the caution they might exercise approaching a frightened cat, as though it might suddenly feel cornered and launch itself at them without warning.
         Sophia balked, her features grey and waxen. Dairmid stepped forward, idly picking up a small blanket from the end of his bed.
         "It's alright," he whispered in a barely audible voice, his eyes grimly fixed upon the malevolent form before them, "Stay here. I'll throw this blanket over it, quickly roll it up and throw it in the box. We'll take it to docks and throw it into the sea," his tone warbled slightly, his nervousness cracking the already brittle façade of his calm, purposeful exterior.
         As he approached the doll he felt almost as though its gaze withdrew from his cousin to focus solely upon him. He shook his head imperceptibly. It was not possible. It could not have heard what he had said and shifted its attention to him. And yet it seemed to look right into his eyes, threatening retribution in the face of his stated intention.
         Steeling himself for the last few moments of courage he would need to complete his task, he raised the blanket ahead of him like a hunter's snare and braced his feet apart, poised to entrap his quarry.
         The previous motionless doll suddenly sat erect, its head cocking to one side. Its blank expression distorted into an open mouthed grimace as though releasing a silent scream of rage. Sophia screamed and Dairmid whimpered involuntarily as he lunged forward, casting the blanket over the doll and sweeping the bundled object into the small crate at the foot of the bookshelf. With his last, fast dissolving shreds of audacity, he slammed the fitted lid over the opening with trembling hands and hastily stacked several heavy books upon the paneled top. Staggering back, drawing in racked gulps of shuddered breath, he collided with his rigid cousin and they grabbed at each other in fright, their haunted eyes fixed upon the motionless box before them.
         It did not move nor could they hear movement from within but it took several minutes before they could either steady their breathing or rally the nerve to approach the imprisoned doll. Neither could they shake the eerie sensation that in spite of the doll's confinement, it continued to watch them.
         Iniquity seemed to radiate in waves from the core of the box and this was the very prompt that urged the terrorized children into action. Without another moment of hesitation, they each took a side of the box, swept the books aside, placed a hand atop the lid, and scuttled from the expansive overhead apartment. They slipped unnoticed through the throngs teeming within the lucrative tavern below and melted into the crowds surging with activity across the docks.
         No one paid attention to two small children tossing a seemingly innocuous old box into the choppy waters of the open sea on that late spring morning as dark, bunched clouds bustled overhead. It disappeared into the bitumen depths and was lost to the treacherous current. They melted back into the crowd, cutting a direct path to the church to find their uncle.








Michael drifted into a distant awareness of the idle prattle behind him as the carriage pulled into High Street beside the premises of the village seamstress, Abigail Bledsoe's Tailoring and Upholstery Emporium. Of late, Christabel Hannan and her daughter, Eugenie, were more frequently gracing the doorstep of the small boutique as the Spring Ball grew closer. Last minute fittings, small alterations, a dart here and a lace embellishment there signified the near completion of their lustrous gowns. Abigail Bledsoe's quaint shop drew both rich and poor alike for she charged pro rata. This incensed her wealthy customers, for where they paid more than handsomely for her services, she accepted wild game, fresh herbs, cured fish and even firewood from those of depleted means. She was never without work, however, for she had been trained in Paris and her skill and speed were without parallel. She was by far the finest tradeswoman of her guild in no less than seventeen surrounding shires. Ichabod Hannan had once confided to Michael on one of their many sojourns that he believed it was not her pro rata system of fee negotiation that galled his contemporaries. Rather, he felt that it was the generosity and humanity of spirit behind this ethic that rattled them, for it starkly illuminated their own pitilessness for the poor, insensitivity to the needy and corroded, porous piety.
         Christabel Hannan and her daughter chatted cheerfully about chiffon gloves, jeweled tiaras, beaded, heeled shoes and embroidered wrist purses until the coach drew to a slow, gentle halt. Christabel Hannan's venomous attention returned to her driver whom, she reflected with seething guile, she would remind of her wounded pride like a thorn pressed to his side all the days of her life and beyond if the opportunity presented itself.
         "Wait here while we inspect our gowns, if you please," she hissed with unconcealed conceit, "Spring Ball is barely a week away and these last minute fittings are so tedious and yet so necessary, and then there is the matter of selecting just the right accoutrements to compliment an ensemble, but then you already know-," she paused for dramatic effect, raising her hand to her mouth in feigned embarrassment, gasping theatrically, "Oh, my mistake," she whimsically reprimanded herself, "Of course you wouldn't know. You attended but one ball before your family's wealth diminished to less than that of the cost of Eugenie's silk kerchief," she remarked, snide contempt seeping back into her tone, "Just as well, I suppose. Imagine attending successive years' Spring Balls only to have it all taken away once you had acquired a taste for such events," she rose with the grace of a swan as Michael lightly stepped from the driver's seat. With gentlemanly good grace he not only refrained from response, for none had been invited and it was not in his nature to return barb for barb, but offered his hand to his employer to assist her down the lowered iron steps of the resplendent carriage. Before she could accept, fate and irony colluded to snap the mast of her ship of spite before it could keel-haul her victim.
         Across the street, the vengeful estate woman's ruthless assault was witnessed by one who had recently emerged to contend the coachman's previously uncontested position as favored enemy. Roma had stepped out into the busy street from general store where she had purchased salt, yeast, flour, sugar and a skin of oil to replenish the larder of Michael's briar choked cottage where they more frequently ate of late. Christabel Hannan's shrill, banshee-like screech pierced even the cacophonic throng of the bustling street, for it was her habit to ensure that as many folk as possible were privy to her driver's humiliating derision. The beautiful scribe was of too self-possessed and imperturbable a disposition to be incensed by a bitter woman's rantings but she had learned that fighting fire with fire was not always the most effective approach to smothering a stubborn flame. Often it had the opposite effect and instead fed a conflagration. She knew that the tiny flame of Christabel Hannan's acidic pettiness needed not a mere dousing of reproach but rather to be obliterated by a tidal surge of intelligent reprisal that would leave the astringent woman in no doubt that the foreigner was her superior in every respect - not merely in grace and acumen but in wealth and power, seemingly the only two qualities of any importance or bearing on the acrimonious socialite.
         Skipping lithely between coach and foot traffic powering up and down the broad, cobbled street, Roma weaved toward the handsome coachman. When he spotted her, a beaming smile lit up her already intoxicating beauty. The expressions of loathing and disdain worn by the carriage occupants barely concealed their envy of her unrivaled beauty and pulsed from them in fetid waves of hostility. She ignored them utterly and when she reached the now smiling driver, she stood on tip-toe to kiss him, briefly but with enough zest to arrest the full attention of her targets and to remove any lingering question as to the breadth of their passion and devotion to one another. Christabel Hannan gasped, for once in earnest, at Roma's barefaced demonstration of arduous intimacy, an unflattering beet blotch staining each porcelain cheek.
         "I've just discovered there is a dance being held in the village this Saturday night," she enthused breathlessly, "Take me," she urged with unconcealed delight. It was just the prompt she had been relying on to occasion Christabel Hannan's swift recovery and subsequent retaliation.
         "I'm afraid you will simply have to find yourself another...partner," she eyed the scribe with critical distaste, "...for your tawdry little dockside dance. Saturday is the night of the Spring Ball and Dr Hannan and I will be retaining Michael's services as our coachman for the entire evening."
         Roma recognized the falsehood immediately and had been expecting it. The Spring Ball was far too elite an occasion to utilize the services of a day coachman, regardless of the magnificence of his enclosed carriage. Professional drivers and footmen were brought in from London, for all aspects of the Spring Ball, right down to the quality of the transport, were scrutinized under the microscope of social appropriateness by the scorpions of high society whose privilege it was to elevate or ruin the reputation of the affluent and well positioned.
         Roma reached into a worn leather purse that looked to be older than time and removed a handful of coins. She flung ten ducats into the open coach. The gold coins rattled on the polished boards at their feet, causing the occupants to jump with ungainly gracelessness. Neither the cultured Christabel Hannan nor her pretentious daughter could conceal their stunned astonishment, their eyes widening in awe.
"Find another coachman," Roma replied with cool courtesy, "This one is otherwise spoken for." She did not for one moment take her eyes from her handsome suitor's face.
The coins glinting in the diffuse sunlight of the overcast day amounted to more than a year's wage for a humble coachman and though Christabel Hannan was a wealthy woman, ten ducats was more than twice what she could afford to glibly toss about like so many stale breadcrumbs. Roma might well have tossed diamonds into the carriage and received no less a reaction of bewildered surprise.
         Christabel Hannan had been bested in wit, wealth and wiliness in the course of just a few short remarks and gestures but the best was yet to come.
         "I have to run," the lovely foreigner murmured, stealing one last kiss from her swain and flashing him an unforgettable smile, "Mother is making me a dress that she has assured me will generate a little heat under your collar," she winked mischievously and his grin broadened.
         Roma turned her gaze up towards Christabel Hannan and, though at street level she stood more than two feet below the middle aged woman, her puissance towered over her combatant like a guillotine blade hovering above her head. Behind her polite smile lay an incalculably expansive intellect, the equal of which would never be met by the occupants of the open carriage.
         "Do give my regards to your husband, Mrs Hannan," she stated with an affection for the elderly doctor so evident it caused the older woman to shift uncomfortably, "I cannot tell you how much I enjoy our weekly meetings. He is both a joy and a marvel to converse with, and I look forward with relish each and every week to our get-togethers. Would you pass on for me my appreciation of his generous offer to enjoy the many delights of his impressive library and that I have nearly completed reading Sallust's Jugurthine War and Pliny's extraordinary account of the devastation of Pompeii," she waxed lyrical, conservatively imparting a small insight into the profundity of her intelligence and latitude of her education via the mention of the two noted works of Classical antiquity.
         Before awaiting a response or even a reaction, she nimbly darted back into the teeming traffic of High Street and disappeared in the direction of the rectory. Christabel Hannan turned a caustic glance towards Michael.
         "I hope you don't expect to be remunerated for today's transfers," she spat virulently, "I don't pay you to indulge your gaudy rendezvous' in the street, and that vulgar woman's interference has delayed us in punctually meeting our next appointment. I won't suffer any disparagement of reputation by being seen in the company of miscreants and reprobates, especially so close to the Spring Ball. Kindly inform your...friend...to refrain from consorting with you while you are in the course of discharging your duties or I will be forced to seek the services of a more discreet, judicious driver," she took his offered hand and stepped gingerly onto the sidewalk.
         "Of course," Michael replied with polished diplomacy.
         Christabel and Eugenie Hannan disappeared into the emporium and with them all recollection of his repudiation evaporated. Nothing other than the memory of a kiss and the mention of a dress of some considerable notoriety claimed his thoughts.









"Stop wriggling, child," Mother hushed her slender companion's protests. She removed one of several dressmaking pins from between clenched lips to perfectly position the dart that would mould to the curve of the scribe's waist.
         "Ooww!" Roma jerked to one side, "You are turning me into a sieve," she objected, rubbing at the latest prick she had earned due to her incessant squirming.
         "I swear, child, I'm about to give thee a whooping upside the head the likes of which I daresay not even the Abbess ever granted you," the dark skinned madam warned in a maternally strict tone as diligent fingers gracefully slid over the soft linen of the unfinished dress. Such sparring spoke of a familiarity and affection rarely observed outside the bonds of immediate family. Both women had precious little of that and what there was of it lay in distant lands beyond all hope of reconciliation.
         Several of Mother's girls fluttered around the skilled seamstress bearing handfuls of spooled thread, gleaming needles, polished beads crafted from sea shells and wound ribbon. It was early morning. Business was slow before midday and afforded the women a well-earned rest that would nowhere near compensate for their grueling labors. They had gathered, however, not so much to assist in the creation of the scribe's understated but elegant dress as to participate in an as yet unspoken conversation hovering between the dignified brothel proprietor and her young friend. Roma had not had the advantage of the wisdom, experience and companionship of an older woman since leaving the Abbey. Outside the cloister she had soon learned that her beauty intimidated and repelled would be friendships with other women, whose insecurities emerged in the face of her unmatched loveliness. She had grown to cherish the familial bond she had struck up with the older African woman. Her weekly prayer meetings had evolved into more frequent visits in the late evening which saw the unlikely friends share many hours of companionable conversation over several snifters of fine Parisian liqueur and even the odd imported cigarette. Roma had begun to think of Mother as precisely that - a mother - and not merely a name assumed to provide anonymity of identity to the voluptuous madam.
         "Alright, take it off, I can take care of the stitching from here," the buxom madam sighed, her resonant tone suffused with patience and resignation.
         Finally, the hammer fell towards the anvil and Roma spoke of what they were all thinking.
         "Mother, can I ask you something?" Roma asked, caution evident in her voice; she wriggled out of the form fitting slip and began to dress, "Something about men?" she elaborated. All eyes were fixed upon the stunning scribe. Mother kept hers dutifully directed towards her appointed task.
         "Don't you mean about one man in particular?" she corrected gently. Roma blushed. She drew up a stool before her older friend and Mother's girls huddled closer. Mother continued to rhythmically stitch the hem of the elegant dress. Roma took a deep breath.
         "I have no experience with men," she began softly, uncharacteristically shy, her gaze shifting rapidly, settling nowhere. Though she did not look up, a broad grin swept across Mother's face and she knew that the young scribe had indeed come to the right place, "I do not want him to find that I am completely inept. I have no practical experience...pleasuring...a man," she blushed, "I could use some guidance."
         "You know, aside from men of the cloth - and believe me, not even all of them are as chaste as they have vowed to be - there's not a man alive whose eyes wouldn't roll back in his head at the thought of ‘educating' one such as yourself, unschooled in the carnal arts as you are," replied Lydia, one of Mother's older and more experienced girls. Roma smiled uncomfortably for she had never conversed with anyone on their current subject much less had any hands on knowledge of their topic of discussion.
         "Trust me, it is a man's greatest desire to be the first," Sascha interjected. She was a rail thin red haired young woman with a slight limp that was entirely eclipsed by her enchanting beauty.
         "When a man is the first to introduce you to the pleasures of the flesh, he rests easy in the knowledge that no other has come before him - no other to whom his ‘performance' might be compared," added Deidre, a handsome, robust woman with an ample bosom, a narrow waist and broad hips.
         "And a man knows how he likes to make love," commented Polly, a tall, athletic blonde whose imposing stature and voluptuousness reminded Roma of the Amazons she had read of in Greek lore, "It gives him an opportunity to teach a woman to make love in a way that perfectly compliments his unique technique. He can not only school her in the art but teach her how to touch him, how to arouse him, how to anticipate him in every way to purify and amplify his gratification."
         It struck Roma that for traders in what was arguably the world's oldest profession, these women were succinct, articulate and exceedingly well spoken. But then an advanced knowledge of etiquette, the ability to speak knowledgably on almost all topics of general interest to men - art, politics, war, science, even religion - and unfaltering confidence in applying themselves to all things of intellectual importance, were paramount to the success and longevity of prostitution. It was not enough for most clients to satisfy their hunger for carnal indulgence. The men who counted themselves among Mother's regular clients often came from extremely high social stations, with advanced educations and lofty positions in highly specialized professions. They also craved the intellectual interaction - even sparring - their socially appropriate but incompatible wives could neither hope to offer them or indeed had any slight interest in.
They were truly among some of the most remarkable women Roma had ever encountered in all her life. Loathed by all on principle, exploited by many, abused by most, and yet she counted them among some of the most interesting, honest, open-minded and accommodating women she had ever met. Whilst condemned, reviled and rejected outright by so many for their profession, one into which all of them had been forced by circumstance and mistreatment, they were unconditionally accepting of all others - flaws, faults, failings, fallibilities and all. She wondered how Christ would view those who had so heinously misused, dismissed and discarded these wonderfully warm, compassionate and kindhearted souls who had not returned injury for injury and had suffered the very worst of abuses and neglect.
         Mother looked up, having composed her thoughts, and her eyes held in them a gentleness that her trade and difficult life had never quite managed to oppress.
         "What you need to know is how to touch him," she began with the methodical assertiveness and authority of one to whom no erotic skill was unknown; an impish glint twinkled in her eye, "For starters, sheer closeness of proximity sets the ball in motion. It is the subtle things - the scent of your skin, your hair brushing against his face, the heat radiated by your body," she placed her stitching in her lap to give her young friend her full attention, "Sit close to him but without touching him, it is an almost unbearable imminence and yet for all your nearness, the distance remains a chasm. Place your hand on his knee and run it up the inside of his leg - slowly. Stop just a hairs width from his groin," she instructed. Roma's eyes widened. She could not imagine possessing the boldness to systematically carry out Mother's erudite directives. It was one thing to be swept away in a moment of spontaneity and passion, as had been the case when Michael had fearlessly embraced her in the glade, but it was entirely another to carry out a calculated seduction. She was unsure she even had the nerve.
         Mother continued.
         "When your lips are excruciatingly close to his and he is certain you are going to kiss him, gently tilt his head away from you and instead kiss his neck, just below the jaw, a soft, lingering kiss. With your free hand, sink your fingers into his hair. By the time you have worked your way up and finally kiss him on the mouth, believe me child, you will have already very nearly caused him to suffer a stroke," she sat back and winked assuredly, "The key to foreplay is to draw it out, to go slowly, almost so slowly that a man will physically hurt for the wanting. Take my word for it, if you take your time and measure your actions to a slower pace than the urgency of the moment begs, everything that comes after will be the sweeter for it."
         "I fear I don't have the steel to carry out something so daring," Roma replied uncertainly.
         "That is why they call it a leap of faith, child," Mother replied knowingly, "If you could foresee or guarantee his reaction or anything that is to follow thereafter, it would not be nearly as spine tingling. And besides, your young beau is a gentleman. The outcome of your passion is no foregone conclusion - you are under no obligation to bed the man. And I know him well enough to know he would never advance beyond boundaries you were not yet ready to cross."
         "A gentleman he may be," Sascha remarked, "but you can see it by just looking at him that there's something beneath that quiet, genteel restraint. Like a tiger pacing the cage. You unleash the animal in him and I'm willing to bet that any boundaries and reluctance you thought you harbored won't even factor into the equation."
         The women laughed and Roma, who have never participated in so open and ribald a conversation, again blushed, smiled and knew not where to look. She felt exposed at the most intimate level and yet completely at ease in the company of her companions.
         "Just remember, the perfect impassioned encounter is part preparation and part gamble. Just trust to your instincts and leave that keen-edged analytical mind of yours back in your lodging," Mother advised sensitively and Roma shot her a glance of gratitude.
         She felt somewhat overwhelmed. She had never known that expressing herself physically to a man was such a science and prayed she would not prove herself hopelessly - nay laughably! - incompetent. Though she harbored no doubt whatsoever that her handsome coachman adored and desired her, she wanted to ensure that their eventual - inevitable - surrender to intimacy matched the potency and perfection of their spiritual and emotional bond.
         Trepidation and anticipation set the fine hairs on her arms to bristling and for a moment she allowed herself to dare imagine the magnitude of the moment that passed between regulated, restrained courting and abandonment to uninhibited passionate surrender.









When Michael turned up in the bordello foyer with no wounds to tend and no violence to quell, the astute proprietor immediately knew what had effected his impromptu visit. Ordinarily at ease within the lavish establishment and relaxed around the girls, Michael shifted nervously, his hands jammed into his pockets, his eyes settling on no fixed point.
         Mother had heard the bell ring from the floor above where she and her cherished girls had continued to sup tea and relish a well earned break even after Roma had departed not half an hour earlier. Hefting her ample frame and even more fulsome attire down the polished oak staircase, she nodded and smiled as though confirming a long held suspicion.
         "You look like you could use a lug or two of something strong and fiery," she commented as she approached him with maternal amiability. Cocking her head to one side, she slid her hand into the crock of his arm.
         "Do you have a minute?" he inquired politely and she grinned rascally.
         "Honey, for you I have a whole mess of eternities to spare," she replied frankly before bursting into hearty laughter and drawing him towards the stair way, "Come on, I have a feeling I know what brings you to my house of ill repute this fine day, and I have just what you need to ease your mind," she teased incorrigibly.
         Several minutes later Michael sat amongst Mother and her under-dressed charges, none of whom demonstrated the least discomfiture in his presence in spite of their exposure. For as long as he had been their Savior they had regarded him with mere platonic affection, like an older brother of sorts upon whom they could unwaveringly rely. It had been a long running jest of theirs to tease him by asking him when he would be calling upon one of them and promising that his looks alone would earn him more than reasonable rates. Ordinarily their apparel, or lack thereof, went unnoticed, except that on this day he wished to address something of a nature of which each of the women before him were intimately familiar. Presently he appeared as shy as a virginal schoolboy and they ribbed him mercilessly.
         "Your visit wouldn't happen to have something to do with a certain Italian beauty, would it?" Sascha feigned ignorance, eyeballing him curiously.
         "You know, she's been as good to us as you, if not moreso," Deidre intoned, a hint of mock caution in her voice, "So we've assumed the duty, so to speak, of ensuring she's not taken advantage of or exploited in any way," she paused for dramatic effect, "being as she's virginal and untouched and all." A slight color rose to Michael's cheeks and he smiled congenially, remaining silent whilst they indulged in their fun.
         "That's right," Polly agreed, "Can't have just any man touching her in those places that will set her to quivering."
         "She needs a man who will treat her with appropriate respect as well as some good old fashioned raw, animal lust," Lydia added, running her tongue across her top lip in ersatz solicitation, bursting into laughter when she could continue the charade no longer without smiling.
         "I think what my girls are trying to tell you," Mother affirmed, her deep, resounding accent commanding their full attention in spite of the fact that she never once lifted her eyes from her stitching, "is that we are all waiting for you to work up the mettle to consummate your romance with our Roma."
         "The suspense is driving us all insane!" Polly exclaimed to another round of ringing laughter.
         "You've come here to glean some practical tips for reducing your lover's inhibitions to ashes and to ignite the cinders of your fledgling courtship into an incinerating conflagration," the exceptionally well spoken African bordello madam summarized succinctly. Her laconic encapsulation of his intent took him by surprise.
         "In a word - yes," he replied with courtly courtesy, already aware that the stated nature of his intentions would rouse another round of ribbing and feigned petitions for trysts.
         "I can't believe a man of your obvious...assets...and availability hasn't until now tasted of the forbidden fruit of the tree of carnal knowledge," Sascha goaded playfully, her brazen gaze taking in every inch of a form that was in plain sight marvelously sculpted by years of manual toil.
         "Say, didn't you have something of a fleeting courtship with several of our local lasses some years back?" Polly inquired, genuinely curious.
         "That was a long time ago and it was more out of..." he struggled to elucidate his explanation, "I don't know, inquisitiveness. When I hadn't felt romantically inclined towards anyone for quite a while, I kind of forced myself to actively pursue several possibilities. They all ended the same way. You can't force love. It all fizzled out in the end, in spite of my best efforts to make those relationships work." He shrugged, at a loss.
         "Sweetheart, you can't make yourself feel what isn't there," Lydia replied frankly, her glance sympathetic and comfortingly familial.
         "So it's not that you are unschooled in the physical aspects of romantic expression," Mother couched her observation gingerly, "But rather that you are inexperienced in physical intimacy with someone you love." He nodded.
         "I want to know how to know when she's ready for something more," he replied, his brow furrowed, his expression perplexed, "but I don't want to be so forthright or aggressive that she shies away from me completely," exasperation began to creep into his tone, "I guess what I'm trying to say is I need some help reading a woman's mind."
         Mother's booming laughter bounced and deflected off the polished, paneled walls of the tearoom and she finally laid her needlework in her lap.
         "Honey, Man has been trying to tap that elusive fountain of knowledge since Moses done shimmied up the mountain and had himself a conversation with a bush what caught itself on fire," she chuckled, the grammatical colloquialisms of her native Africa inflecting her delivery with emphasis and mirth. He sighed resignedly, patiently awaiting her sage advice which he knew would come only after she had finished plying her jokes at his expense.
         "You know what I mean," he reiterated, smiling with good-natured tolerance, "I don't want to go so fast that she backs away but I don't want to go so slowly that she thinks my interest is waning," he clarified.
         "I know, honey, I know," Mother replied warmly, refilling his small glass with her finest brandy, "Listen up," she instructed and her attentive crowd drew imperceptibly closer, their collective concentration riveted to the dark skinned woman, "See this dress?" she held it up for his consideration, "She asked me to make this for her to wear to the Spring Dance. For you," she eyed him knowingly, "Now a woman like that does not commission a dress like this to solicit the occasional compliment or flattering remark. Do you understand what I'm saying? Now I'm swearing you to absolute secrecy here, but she was in here just this hour asking me almost exactly the same thing you have come here to find out. She expressly asked me how she might go about leaving you in no doubt as to her readiness for, shall we say, a ‘deeper' connection," she cocked one eyebrow, leaving what had remained unsaid hanging in the air. Michael leant forward and rested his elbow upon his knee, clearly rapt in discovering the content of her undisclosed advice to the Florentine scribe.
         "What did you tell her?" he asked, utterly captivated by the myriad possibilities. Mother grinned unapologetically, a hint of amusement tingeing her smile.
         "Well, sugar, that's for me to know and for you to find out," she replied, her tone loaded with portent, "And believe me, you won't have to worry about coming across too strongly. I have armed that girl with so much guidance that you may well not live to see the dawning of a new day," she winked, "But rest assured, you will die with a smile on your face."
         Michael's face flushed red and he sat back, unable to say anything. This was not what he had been expecting but was certainly what he had longed to hear. He made as if to speak but Mother's erudite counsel continued.
         "But just to ensure you're evenly matched when the time comes for you to engage in a more earnest expression of your feelings, listen good," she instructed, giving him her undivided attention, "Regardless of the urgency of your need, don't go about groping blindly. Nothing arouses a woman more than the confident, restrained touch of a man who knows what he is doing. When she reads in your touch that you are prolonging every moment for her pleasure, her response will govern your rate of progress. Pull her close. Try running the tip of your finger along the outline of the underside of her breast. The conflict of such a bold action carried out with such self-control will wilt any reticence she may entertain. Wait for a ballad, something to which you can slow-dance with her. Gently stroke her neck as you kiss her shoulder. And tenderly massage her waist before drawing her even closer until your hips touch. Every touch, every move needs to be exacted with gentle but assertive confidence. It is the closest thing to making love with your clothes on," she attested with stanch certainty.
         "And then what?" he prompted. Mother grinned.
         "Honey, if I need to fill in the blanks from here on in, you're already out of your depth," she chuckled. He relaxed and smiled as he shook his head in resignation. Girlish giggling filled the room.
         "That's not what I meant," he replied.
         "I know, handsome, I'm just teasing. You're such a gentleman it makes you an easy target for our more lewd humor," she apologized, still chortling; she leaned forward and took his hand, engaging his gaze with maternal affection, "You've got to take a leap of faith, child," she declared, "There's no map and no astrolabe for love. You've got to entrust your actions to fate and instinct when you're plotting uncharted waters. She loves you and you clearly adore her - you'll work out the rest together. That's what it so scintillating about it. The very fact that you face the unknown together is what makes it so exhilarating," she reassured him.
         He slumped back into his chair, contemplating all she had said.
         "Thank you," he replied, leaning over to kiss her cheek with genuine fraternal affection.
         "Damn, if I'd known advice was repaid with that, I'd have said my piece long ago," Sascha exclaimed as her companions erupted into laughter.
         As they chatted excitedly amongst themselves, postulating over the more explicit details of Michael and Roma's next rendezvous, he drifted into hopeful contemplation. As he sat in companionable conviviality with the bordello whores and their protective employer, he could not have imagined how dramatically his relationship with Roma would change and evolve, setting into motion a future fraught with both delight and danger, the ripples of which would reverberate down through the years, generating consequences both joyful and horrendous.









Harriet Deckart loved the fresh Spring days preceding the village dance. There was something about the clarity of the cloudless sky, washed clean of winter's sooty grey coverage, and the lingering frigidity of early morning that enlivened and energized the young school teacher.
         She lived in a modest cottage she could proudly call her own only several minutes walk from Camilla Rhys-Huntington. She sighed as she lay her picnic basket down upon the neat, patched blanket beneath the towering elm. Its branches emerged high in the trunk and were splayed like umbrella spokes, horizontal and leafy, throwing a wide canopy of shade about the base of the tree.
She thought often of Michael. Their romance five years earlier had dwindled and perished, not for want of trying on her part. She had fallen hard for the debonair coachman but his reciprocated affections had always smacked of a forced perseverance, though he had tried valiantly to seek a chemistry between them. She had moved on and whilst her affections for Tiberius Rothschild, the young physician to whom Ichabod Hannan was handing the greater part of his practice, were growing, they fell woefully short of the passion she had felt for the handsome carriage driver.
She sighed once more as she began to unload the contents of her basket. Tiberius would be joining her soon, and torturing herself over lost love was not going to bring about a sudden change of heart in her former beau. Besides, she had only to recall the brief glance he had exchanged with the foreign woman during Sunday Mass a few days earlier to realize with gut wrenching finality that he was deeply in love with her.
         She chided herself. It was foolish, not to mention emotionally lacerating, to dwell on what would never come to pass. Tiberius was an honest, courteous and kind man. Not unpleasant to look at, though his appearance was nowhere near as dashing as Michael's, he would never turn heads the way her previous suitor had or set bosoms heaving or hearts aflutter as did those penetrating, pale blue eyes. And she was in no doubt that his intentions to court her were earnest and enthusiastic. Perhaps love would yet visit her heart once more, she pondered.
         She was still forcing the image of Michael's melting smile from her mind when a movement in her peripheral vision distracted her. Looking up towards the wide, corrugated trunk of the ancient elm, she thought she had seen the flicker of a cat's tail disappearing behind the opposite side.
         A cheerful miaow, one that she could never have mistaken, chirped from the sanctity of concealment. She froze. Her heart lurched in her chest and the convulsion caused her to steady herself with one hand on the ground. She drew in a painful gasp.
         It could not possibly be.
         A scruffy, tawny colored head popped around the other side of the trunk and once again a clearly recognizable ‘prowp' escaped the small cat's mouth as its ears pricked forward in happy acknowledgment of its companion.
         "Shadow?" Harriet Deckart murmured, her words suffocated by disbelief. She squinted, trying to identify the cat with greater certainty in the dim shade. Brightly backlit, the cat's face was all but a silhouette.
         It ventured out, its ropey tail gaily flicking from side to side as it minced over to the stunned woman. And then she saw it. One green eye, one blue. There was no mistaking the precocious feline for a similarly dappled doppelganger. It was her cat.
         Delight and powerful relief were soon swamped with dread and an eerie sense of unease. She would have given almost anything to have lost herself in the tearful joy of reunion had the plain impossibility of it not been so overwhelming an element.
         The little cat delicately tip toed to the edge of the rug but would not venture onto it.
         "Come on, Shadow, it's alright," Harriet Deckart coaxed the hesitant animal, and though its ears flicked forward in hopeful expectancy and its back humped in gleeful anticipation of a stroking, it would not set paw upon the blanket.
         Harriet Deckart snapped her fingers. This simple beckoning had never failed to summon the cat. It appeared torn, its desire to be reunited with its beloved owner evident but its refusal to step onto the rug more deterrent. Eventually it settled for skirting the blanket but when it had almost reached the school teacher it darted several feet away, calling back to her with a brisk miaow. She arose. Approaching the tentative feline with a relaxed pose that defied her shuddering anxiety, Harriet Deckart had almost touched her cherished cat when it darted away several yards further, stopping and turning as though to beckon her to follow.
         Harriet was several yards from her picnic rug and almost at the outer most perimeter of the cool shade when she heard a crack behind her, like the splitting of timber.
         Turning, she caught a movement high in the dim branches of the mighty tree. The crash of falling wood and slashed foliage followed. Moments later a great bough, almost two feet in diameter, plunged to the ground, crushing the picnic basket and littering the area with fallen vegetation and broken branches. The weight of the fallen bough obliterated the picnic site.
         Realization struck Harriet Deckart like a bolt of lightning. Had she remained upon the blanket, she would surely have died. Her gaze shot back to the frisky feline.
         The cat was gone. The elm stood alone atop a shallow rise in the sparsely vegetated valley region beyond the township. The cat could not have fled to concealment without her at least seeing the direction in which it escaped. It was simply no longer there. She could not escape the sensation that the small cat had lured her from the site of her now devastated picnic - to save her. She knew, deep in the pit of her quivering stomach, that the cat was gone. She wondered if she had even seen it at all or if the strength of her bond with the lost pet was still so strong that she had hallucinated it - for Harriet Deckart's treasured cat had died three years earlier.
         In the ringing silence of the aftermath, Harriet Deckart perceived a curious sound, like droplets of water falling from a great height and smacking emphatically upon a hard surface. The droplets, however, sounded heavier than water; denser. She turned and walked back to the dismembered bough. Heavy splatters of fluid dropped onto the topside of the bough from high up in the branches of the elm.
         Her eyes struggled to readjust to the diffuse shade of the tree and she squinted at the prone bough. The droplets splattering the timber were dark and thick. Venturing closer, the smell of putrescence assaulted her senses. She recoiled from the bough as visual and redolent confirmation collided. Horror struck her with as much force as the mephitic reek.
         Another movement above drew her attention and a sickening sloshing sound preceded the plummeting of another form from high within the tree.
         Harriet Deckart dived out of its trajectory instinctively as the mass crumpled onto the exposed bough. Sitting up and returning her gaze to the heinous scene before her, she released an ear splitting scream.
Atop the fallen bough lay the ruined vestiges of what was once a carcass. The skull, along with the bones of both arms and one leg were missing. But it was the shape of the hollowed out rib cavity and pelvis that left her in no doubt that the corpse had once been human. The skin, all organs and most of the flesh had been stripped from the cadaver. Bloody ribbons of brown, decaying flesh hung in grisly tatters from the decimated skeleton.
         Whatever had killed the unidentified victim had done so swiftly and with a savagery so primal it defied even remote likening to any animal attack known to Man.
         And no animal alive devoured its kill before hoisting the carcass high into a tree.