Authors: Keith Roberts
His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Londinium sighed heavily, rubbed his chin, yawned, and took a turn up and down the office from his desk to the windows that looked down on the grounds of the Episcopal Palace. He stood at the windows awhile, hands clasped behind him, chin sunk on his chest. The gardens were alive with colour now, with lilies and delphiniums and the newest McCredy roses; His Eminence was a gourmet in all things temporal. His eyes saw the display vaguely, and the fishponds beyond where aged carp rose to the tinkling of a handbell. Beyond the ponds again, beyond the herb gardens with their twisting paved walks, was the outer wall. Over it, gloomily, rose the slab side and lines of windows of the prison-like College of Signallers. Noises from Londinium's maze of streets reached the study faintly; cries of hawkers, rumble and crash of waggon wheels, from somewhere the pealing of bells. The mind of His Eminence noted the sounds automatically; he pursed his lips, following his own tortuous and none too pleasant train of thought. He returned slowly to his desk. On it, an open file disgorged a small flood of papers. He picked one up, frowning. Under the formal heading and more formal speech the rage of a pious and honest man was very plain.
My Lord,
May I crave the indulgence of Your Eminence to bring to your notice a matter of the most heinous and appalling nature; the torture, the agony, the foul indignities visited, in the name of the Christos, on the people of this my diocese. On the poor and the infirm, the aged and the simple of mind... on children and old men in their dotage, on mothers big with child... on parents by their daughters and sons, on husbands by their wives; I can, My Lord, hold peace no longer in the face of iniquity, of horror - His Eminence detected an error in the rush of Latin; his red fountain pen, irritably and automatically, made an erasure. - horror such as has been perpetrated on us in this loyal, this ancient, and this blameless town. On the innocent and the foolish, on the helpless subjects of a Church and of a God professing love, and charity, and enlightenment... This madman, this desecrator of decency, and his so-called Spiritual Court...
The Cardinal flicked the pages to the signature and shook his head. Bishop Loudain of Dubris was a bold man but a foolish one; the letter alone, placed in the proper hands, would have secured for His Grace an interlude with those very grSsillons of which he so ardently complained. The thing reeked of heresy... The Cardinal lifted the document carefully with his fingertips and redeposited it in its file. He picked up another, terser and to the point, from the commander of the garrison stationed at Durnovaria. ... the renegade known to the people as Brother John continues to evade our forces. Riots stemming directly from the teaching of him and of his followers have lately broken out in Sherborne, Sturminster, Newton, Shaftesbury, Blandford, and Durnovaria itself. The people, attributing his escapes from our troops to miraculous intervention, become daily more difficult to control. I most earnestly request the release of a further troop of horse with a minimum of four hundred infantry and appropriate arms and stores, for the purpose of searching the region from Beaminster to Yeovil where it is currently believed the insurgents are quartered. Their strength is now estimated at between fifty and a hundred; they are well armed, and have an intimate knowledge'of the local terrain. Attempts to run them down employing normal methods of approach have repeatedly proved useless... His Eminence dropped the letter impatiently. That and a dozen more like it had prompted his own formal document of excommunication. Sentence had been passed on Brother John six months ago; but it would seem the disavowal of the Church and the consequent damnation of his soul had had little effect. His followers had in fact been fired to greater excesses; a detachment of two dozen horse pulled down and massacred in broad daylight, their arms and equipment stolen; a Captain of the Roman Dragoons set on and beaten, sent cantering into Durnovaria with insulting messages pinned to his tunic; the Pope burned in effigy at Woodhenge and Badbury Rings. The Cardinal was only too uncomfortably aware of the dangers inherent in martyrdom; he would have preferred to ignore John altogether, let the whole wretched business die a natural death, but his hand was being forced. He turned to the brief account of the rebel's life and accomplishments, brought to Londinium at his request by an unusually subdued Adhelmian whose ears His Eminence would very much have liked to send back to Father Meredith on a plate for letting his confounded people get so far out of hand in the first place. The Adhelmians, admittedly through no fault of their own, were rapidly becoming the leitmotif of a. new and disquieting popular movement. The resurging power of Anglicanism fed on such relics of ancient worship; for had not Saint Adhelm himself converted vast stretches of the country to the Faith centuries before the clergy flocking in at the heels of the conquering Normans restored Britain to the rule of Rome? The Anglican Communion had been a historic fact, however strenuously the Church tried to deny it, and the case for it could still be made out. Many years had elapsed too between Henry's abolition of Papal rule and the excommunication of Elizabeth, years in which the English Church had presumably co-existed in a state of Grace. Greasy apologetics maybe, but dangerous ideas to let loose among a population lacking in general the fine points of theological instruction. The old cry of the Church, to submit and to adore, was no longer enough; the people were. being tempted once more to set up their own spiritual hierarchy, and John or some such figure was tailor-made to head it. The renegade then had attended the last sitting of the Court of Spiritual Welfare; that, thought His Eminence as he reread facts already learned by heart, was clearly the beginning of the whole ridiculous affair. He shook his head. How explain? How quiet the rage of a man like Loudain with figures and facts, political argument? His Eminence shrugged tiredly. In the history of the world, there had been no power like the power of the second Rome. To hold half a planet in the cup of your hands; to juggle, to balance one against the next forces nearly beyond the mind of man to grasp... The rage of nations was like the anger of the sea, not to be contained with straws. Anglicanism had torn the country once, the history of it was all there in the great books that lined the study walls. Then, England had glowed from her Cornish toe to her Pennine spine with the light of the auto-da-fe. Against that set a little pain, a little blood, soon gone and nearly as soon forgotten; that, and the mighty wisdom of the Church. Once too often, mused the Cardinal; the goad, the threat of hellfire, applied instead of the lure of the Kingdom of Love... Father Hieronymous, mad as he undoubtedly was, had been useful in the past; but this time his gory circus had triggered an uproar that could easily involve all England. Uncharitable and surprising thoughts whirled through the head of the Archbishop of Londinium. He rose again to stand brooding, looking down on the gardens that were his chief delight. He seemed to see the roses smashed by irreverent feet, the lilies trodden into a bloody soil; his house destroyed and burning, its wine cellars desecrated, its pantries and kitchens, its studies and libraries in flames. So blast Father Hieronymous, and blast the Adhelmians, and above all blast Brother John... His Eminence by nature of his position was economist and politician as much as churchman; in his more cynical moods he seemed to see the whole vast fabric of the Church stretched like a glittering blanket, a counterpane of cloth of gold, across the body of a giant. At times like this the giant moved and grumbled, turned in a restless sleep. Soon, he would wake. He resolutely put the idea aside, returned to his bureau, slid out from a drawer the formal document he had spent most of yesterday morning dictating to his clerk. Whereas the heretic known as Brother John, ex of the Order of the Adhelmians, whose body we have pronounced excommunicate and whose soul we cast down to the Fire that is eternal, continues to flout the Will of God and of His true Church in this land, it is our duty to convey this solemn Notice and Warning: Any person harbouring the heretic or any of his band; any person supplying it with food, drink, arms, shot and powder or any like victuals; Any person found in possession of letters, proclamations or other matter originated by Brother John or any of his band, or contriving the distribution of such pamphlets to further the cause of Satan against the glory of God; Any person concealing information as to the whereabouts of the said heretic or any of his band; any person attending any meeting, orgy, or like exhibition held by them who shall not declare the same, with all he may know touching the same, to a priest, a garrison commander, or a Serjeant of law within one day of the offence; Shall be declared excommunicate, and heinous in the sight of God; and on conviction before any Justice of the Peace or any Clerical Court, shall be hung and drawn, and his quarters salted and tarred, and displayed in such manner as be deemed fitting for the warning and education of other heretics or traitors to God and the cause of His Church. Further it is our duty to proclaim the following rewards: For information leading to the capture, alive or dead, of Brother John or any of his band, twenty-five pounds in gold. For the capture, alive or dead, of any of the band of Brother John, fifty pounds in gold. For the capture alive or dead, of Brother John himself, two hundred pounds in gold; to be paid at our Episcopal Palace of Lambeth on receipt of the body of the heretic, or of good and sufficient evidence of its destruction. Given under our hand this twenty-first day of June, Year of Our Lord one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-five. The Cardinal nodded his head finally with gloomy approval. The Church stood in grave need of a well-disciplined Saint or Two; John was a first-rate man going to waste. His Eminence shrugged and called for a secretary to bring his private seal.
At the head of the coomb the infantry had deployed in a half circle. Other soldiers, the blue of their uniforms showing clearly, lined the rocks of the gully, beneath the brow of which were the mouths of several caves. Sporadic bursts of smoke blew from them as the defenders, outnumbered and surrounded, fought on pointlessly. Two hundred yards from the stronghold a demiculverin was being trained. The piece had been protected by a hastily built demilune of rocks; behind the breastwork sweating men applied levers to the wheels of the carriage. Baulks of timber thrust beneath their rims were raising the gun by degrees but the elevation was impossibly high; on its first discharge its captain confidently expected the trail to smash, driven back by the recoil into the ground on which it rested. Near the gun a shakoed major, sword unsheathed, sat a fretting horse and tongue-lashed the men into greater efforts. Frontal attacks had already proved costly; further up the coomb scraps of blue cloth showed where the heretics had taken their toll of the infantry. The major, not a man to risk troops uselessly, swore and waved the sword at the stronghold. A puff of smoke answered him, the ball splitting a rock twenty feet to his left and singing off into distance. A ragged volley from the troops sheltering in the gully drove the defenders back; the major thought he heard, mixed with the echoes of the shots, the noise of a scream. The first round from the great gun sent stone chips whining from the ledge a yard below the cave mouths; the second started a small landslip above and to the right. The third discharge knocked the piece from its crudely built platform, smashing the legs of a gunner. The captain swore, wishing for a pot-mortar, but there was no mortar to be had. The barrel was remounted and elevated more securely; the Papists settled down to batter the rebel position to fragments. The small figure in the dark crimson robe was twenty yards from the fissures, scuttling over the rocks of a goat path, before the first piece was brought to bear. Puffs of dust rose from the rock face around and above the fugitive; the major, yelling, rode across the line of sight of his men, forcing them to aim. The renegade, brought down within twenty feet of the top of the cliff, slithered a great distance before coming to rest; but he still had life enough in him to aim a pistol, blowing off the kneecap of a man on the major's right as the infantry charged home. The major grunted, stooped to pull aside the cowl of the Adhelmian. Tumbling fair hair was disclosed; the boy grinned up at him in pain, blood showing round his teeth. At the major's side his aide said disgustedly, 'Discipulus...' 'Catamite more likely,' growled the other. He seized the hair and shook. 'Well, you nasty little fellow,' he said. 'Where's your ass-chafing master?' No answer. Another shaking. Brother Joseph half raised himself, spat redness at the face above him. The aide shook his head. 'They won't talk, sir. None of the Bulgarians...' 'Of that,' said the major crushingly, 'I was in fact aware. Stretcher-bearers here, Serjeant...' The soldier doubled back down the hill. The boy panted, lifted himself again, proffered before collapsing a stained fist. The major knelt, delicately avoiding the seeping blood, to prise the fingers apart. He straightened up turning over in his palm the tiny medallion with the crossing crablines. 'This,' he said softly, 'is all we needed...' He thrust the fairy mark into his uniform pocket, before his aide could see. The cave, searched, yielded a mass of trophies. Six bodies, three of them intact, enough of the rest remaining to satisfy even a suspicious Papal clerk. The price had risen now to a hundred and fifty pounds a rebel; that made nine hundred quid's worth, over a thousand altogether. A nice little haul for the battalion. In addition there were supplies of food and arms, books and heretical documents, stacks of leaflets waiting distribution. These the major ordered burned. At the back of the chamber, fairly well knocked about by the cannonade, lay the remains of an ancient Albion press and scattered cases of type. The major sent for sledgehammers and stirred the mess of leaflets with a booted toe. 'Well at least,' he remarked philosophically to his aide, 'there'll be less of this bumph floating about in the future...' But the manoeuvre had failed in its main objective. Once again, Brother John had escaped.
Over the weeks the rumours grew. John was here, he was there; troops rode hurriedly by night, villages were ransacked, rewards were claimed a score of times but never paid. A tale arose that John, in league with the People of the Heath, could be transported by magically swift means away from danger. 'Transvestism,' snarled Rome, and doubled the head money. Informers flourished; cottages were burned, whole towns fined. Bodies swayed at crossroads, gruesome in their chains, foci for black towers of birds. The giant grumbled and tossed, restlessly. Wells Cathedral was desecrated; though the desecration didn't in fact amount to very much. There was no indication that the High Altar had been approached with aught save deep respect but placed on it, in full and hideous view, was a placard carrying certain writing. The document was seized of course and instantly burned but the rumour went out that the words had been a text from Scripture, heretically translated into Middle and Modern English. 'My house shall be called a house of God, but ye have made it a den of robbers'... The same thing happened at Aquae Sulis ('Give all that ye have to the poof) and at the residence of the Bishop of Dorset himself. ('It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.') But such foibles were the work of disciples, declared or secret; John himself travelled continuously, teaching and praying. Sometimes the visions tormented him so that he rolled and frothed, beating his fists bloody on the ground, tearing at clothes and skin till his followers huddled back in frowning fear. Maybe the phantoms, the drumming and screaming, the hacked hands and limbs, followed him still across the gorse deserts of the West; maybe the Old Ones did meet him and comfort, sit and talk their ancient faith by the stones of temples old before the Romans came, under the wheeling clouds and the spinning fantasies of moon and sun. John gave away his shoes and cloak, his staff; some whispered it was struck into the ground and flowered, like the staff of the blessed Joseph at Glastonbury. If the rumour reached John's ears he gave no sign. He moved like a ghost, lips mumbling, eyes unseeing, the rain gusting round him and the wind; and somehow the people hid him and kept him fed while the soldiers of the Blue quartered Dorset wearily from Sherborne to Corvesgeat, from Sarum Rings to the Valley of the Giant at Cerne. John's nuisance value rose steadily; from five hundred pounds to a thousand, from a thousand to fifteen hundred, and from that to an incredible two thousand pounds, chargeable against the accounts of the Episcopal Palace of Londinium. But of the man himself there was no sign. The rumours flew again. Some claimed he was planning a revolt against Rome, that he was lying low till he had raised a sufficient army; others said he was sick, or injured, or had fled the country; and finally, the whisper went out that he was dead. His followers, and by this time they numbered thousands, waited and mourned. But John wasn't dead; he had moved back into ' the hills, following the lepers now, tracking them by their lonely, angry bells.