The Knights of the Bloody Abbot
_
I ordered four whiskeys. One for each month I’d been here. The barman gave me that look. Deep northern mystic fucking stoicism. Looked damn well through me. They all have that look here. Wondering why I’m here. Why am I here?
No-one knows. No. Don’t let those thoughts in. Positive thinking… all that crap.
But it was true. I don’t think the people in charge even knew why they’d called me in. A series of gruesome murders, disappearances, every police report filled with conflicting details, strange images and odd sentence structures, like their official language had failed them, buckled under the strain, pulled itself apart… they shrugged their shoulders and called me in. It was as if the entire police force had been touched by madness and… infected. Contagion. They call me the doctor.
I’m a sociologist by trade, if you can call it that. Got my PhD studying Northern Ireland. “Religious Mysticism and the Terrorist Mindset” or something… I forget now. Come 9/11 I decided to go home, back to Lashkar Gar, Helmand Province, Afghanistan – thought I’d try out my theoretical model on the Jihadis. It needed tweaks of course, but that didn’t stop them rolling it out across the country, across Iraq… they’re probably citing it in the Iran invasion plans as we speak. Institutionalised ignorance, that’s what it is. That’s why I’m here though. Part of the reason. Keep telling yourself that.
Then I got the call. I was halfway through giving a lecture on The Golden Bough (no-one had done the reading, as per fucking usual) when in walks a copper. “Are you Dr Sahar?” Sar Har, he said, La Di Da, he was thinking… They spit on you these police… They spit on everyone. I’m off topic.
The reports, those that they let out, had been on the news. All around this small town: Avon Murray. Somewhere up north, buried deep in the Pennines. Murders, gruesome, ritualistic. The tabloids had cried Satanism on one page and made jokes about Midsomer Murders and The Wicker Man on another. Standard tasteless British fare. The police weren’t doing much better though. Not from the state of their reports anyway. Some of them were a breath away from “the horror, the horror, exterminate all the brutes”… Eventually they’d called in some expert. Probably some paranoid secret service nutcase. That or a lateral thinking, outside-the-boxer. Whoever they were, they called me in. Sold me some hokum about a potential Northern insurgency...
The madness of the official mind. The perversion of language. The speaking in tongues. The sort of people who group their foreign invasions under the collective name of “defence”.
Anyway, it got me here. Quite a welcome I had too. Nothing but distrust in hazy eyes - I’d seen the like before in nomadic tribespeople; a primal haze, an inability to focus, no past or future, a letting in of all the world at once… Here in Britain it seemed impossible though. I’d considered revising my whole theoretical position. Was I some kind of Orientalist without knowing it? Had I bought into the lie of the “primitive people” and found magic and ignorance where it wasn’t? Was my research worthless now? A symptom of western bourgeois prejudice? Needless to say, I couldn’t concentrate on the task at hand.
Then it hit me. I was looking backwards and trying to pull it all down when I should have been looking onwards, building on my work, on my theories. I gave up on treating them like humans, the rational individuals of Enlightenment myth. No more, the surveys and statistics. I went back to the dreamtime, the immemorial, the ancestral people – the folk.
I found what I’d been looking for almost immediately. It had been hiding in plain sight, there in the local bookshop –
Darlington, Josef A, ed. “The Knights of the Bloody Abbot”. Folklore of the Pennine Peoples. London: Blackscar Press, 1976. Print.
I had it there on the table before me, transcribed with footnotes. Sipping at my last whiskey I read over it again. In my head I could hear a voice crackling from an old movie, rattling round again and again, “I found the men, sir. God I wish I hadn’t…”
The Knights of the Bloody Abbot
We folk of Avon Murray are a proud folk with a long and noble history. We’ve carried our burden through many a terrible time and there’s no cause to think that this age of darkness shall be owt different. The people shall overcome, oh yes they shall, and peace shall reign proud once more.
Like all creatures of pure spirit, the folk of Avon Murray are brought into this world wearing their True Face. This True Face is their connection to the spirit world and without it they can’t bare to stand before God in the hereafter. Yet, as’s been the burden of the folk of Avon Murray for many a generation, this face is stolen from the young’uns some time around their second birthday. It’s at this age they begin to recognise their world-face in the mirror – the face they’re cursed to wear amongst their people until the curse of Old Nacky Umpteenguise is lifted.[1]
Old Nacky was once a servant in the dining halls of heaven. He were considered to be God’s favourite for his great humility and subservience. For Old Nacky had always as many faces as there were guests at the table of God and he would turn each away as he served out of respect for his betters. One day, however, a guest buttered his face.[2] For this, God cast Old Nacky’s many faces down into the world below for’t wander. Since then, he’s searched the world for them faces but, being a tricky spirit, he will meantime steal the True Faces of’t folk in hoping that he might fool God into returning him to his former position.
It’s for this reason that the people of Avon Murray must return Old Nacky’s faces to him so he might one day gi’back the True Faces that he’s stolen and the dead might gain entrance to God’s dining hall. When one of Old Nacky’s faces enters the valley of Avon Murray it thus falls upon folk to capture it. If no folk amongst them recognise the face then it must surely be one’t lost faces. Folk then build a fire on’t which to burn the body of the wandering face so’s it might get back to Old Nacky.[3]
Much obliged f’yon gradely deeds, Old Nacky withholds from stealing the True Faces of the unborn of Avon Murray – for tis only through them that he’ll have his own faces returned him, y’see. However, for’t newborns of Avon Murray to be recognised by him they must carry the mark of the Bloody Abbot[4]. During the ceremony, the lifeblood of the infant is collected in a golden chalice to be added to the ale stocks for’t following year. This way, their blood gets all mixed up wit blood of t’other Avon Murraians, granting them the blessing of Old Nacky so’s they might become attuned, like, to their True Faces afore he comes back to take them. It’s for this reason also that the womenfolk must drink deep of the blood-ale whilst with child, so’s to grant Nacky’s blessing in the womb.
For many a generation this’s gone on. Old Nacky were satisfied, as were the folk of Avon Murray, for both were getting closer to recovering their lost faces and gaining admittance to the dining halls of God. Then one day a Black Rider appeared afore the people. None had before seen his face and it was taken that this was the last of the faces of Old Nacky, such were its coal-black hue.[5] He was swiftly captured and burned, for’t release the face, and there were much gaddin about and gosterin for joy.
Tragically, this end were not to be, however. The next morning following on the great celebration, folk awoke to find that where they’d left the fire there were now a deep pool of butter and no sign of’t Rider’s remains. They soon realised this was not the final face of Old Nacky but rather a foul trick played by God’s Guest to get his own back for the buttering of Old Nacky’s face all them year ago. God, shocked by such a display of disobedience to His Guest, sent down the curse of the age of darkness upon the folk of Avon Murray in the form of a huge host of Black Riders.
It is these Black Riders that plague the land of Avon Murray to this day - forcing them to conduct the ceremony of the Bloody Abbot and the Nackfyre festivals in hiding for fear of getting into deep trouble. You see they’re thinking they can keep Old Nacky from his final face by breaking the people’s blood-pact with him. If this comes to be then the hope of returning the True Faces to the people of Avon Murray will be lost forever.
Now this is why the Knights of the Bloody Abbot fight to rid the land of the plague o’t’ Black Riders. Only once folk are freed from this menace can peace once more return, and wirrit, our crack at heaven.
[1] A similar tale is told by the Arkanati tribe of what is now called West Prescenta. In their version the malignant spirit goes by the name of “Akh-Tziz of the Many Faces” – see F.L. Hausier’s Collected Travels for more details.
[2]There is a pun here but its content is lost in translation from the dialect. “Face” and “bread” share a common meaning with that of “the sole of the shoe” – the licking of which is considered a deeply transgressive act.
[3]The “Nackfyre” festivals are usually accompanied by great orgies of drinking and fornication. After the victim has succumbed to the conflagration gangs of intoxicated youths, naked but for a daubing of gay colours, rove the town smashing all the mirrors they can find.
[4]The mark here referred to is the removal of the left nipple. The ritual is conducted some time within the child’s first year.
[5]Smithson has suggested that this element of the myth may date back to the era of Roman invasion when many of the legions’ forward trackers were of African origin. Tuskie, on the other hand, posits a theory that it may date back far earlier and refer to the “blacking-up” rituals of wandering Cornish warbands. See the “Myths in the Making: Digression and Dissent” volume of The Journal of British Folkdom for more details.
I ordered four whiskeys. One for each month I’d been here. The barman gave me that look. Deep northern mystic fucking stoicism. Looked damn well through me. They all have that look here. Wondering why I’m here. Why am I here?
No-one knows. No. Don’t let those thoughts in. Positive thinking… all that crap.
But it was true. I don’t think the people in charge even knew why they’d called me in. A series of gruesome murders, disappearances, every police report filled with conflicting details, strange images and odd sentence structures, like their official language had failed them, buckled under the strain, pulled itself apart… they shrugged their shoulders and called me in. It was as if the entire police force had been touched by madness and… infected. Contagion. They call me the doctor.
I’m a sociologist by trade, if you can call it that. Got my PhD studying Northern Ireland. “Religious Mysticism and the Terrorist Mindset” or something… I forget now. Come 9/11 I decided to go home, back to Lashkar Gar, Helmand Province, Afghanistan – thought I’d try out my theoretical model on the Jihadis. It needed tweaks of course, but that didn’t stop them rolling it out across the country, across Iraq… they’re probably citing it in the Iran invasion plans as we speak. Institutionalised ignorance, that’s what it is. That’s why I’m here though. Part of the reason. Keep telling yourself that.
Then I got the call. I was halfway through giving a lecture on The Golden Bough (no-one had done the reading, as per fucking usual) when in walks a copper. “Are you Dr Sahar?” Sar Har, he said, La Di Da, he was thinking… They spit on you these police… They spit on everyone. I’m off topic.
The reports, those that they let out, had been on the news. All around this small town: Avon Murray. Somewhere up north, buried deep in the Pennines. Murders, gruesome, ritualistic. The tabloids had cried Satanism on one page and made jokes about Midsomer Murders and The Wicker Man on another. Standard tasteless British fare. The police weren’t doing much better though. Not from the state of their reports anyway. Some of them were a breath away from “the horror, the horror, exterminate all the brutes”… Eventually they’d called in some expert. Probably some paranoid secret service nutcase. That or a lateral thinking, outside-the-boxer. Whoever they were, they called me in. Sold me some hokum about a potential Northern insurgency...
The madness of the official mind. The perversion of language. The speaking in tongues. The sort of people who group their foreign invasions under the collective name of “defence”.
Anyway, it got me here. Quite a welcome I had too. Nothing but distrust in hazy eyes - I’d seen the like before in nomadic tribespeople; a primal haze, an inability to focus, no past or future, a letting in of all the world at once… Here in Britain it seemed impossible though. I’d considered revising my whole theoretical position. Was I some kind of Orientalist without knowing it? Had I bought into the lie of the “primitive people” and found magic and ignorance where it wasn’t? Was my research worthless now? A symptom of western bourgeois prejudice? Needless to say, I couldn’t concentrate on the task at hand.
Then it hit me. I was looking backwards and trying to pull it all down when I should have been looking onwards, building on my work, on my theories. I gave up on treating them like humans, the rational individuals of Enlightenment myth. No more, the surveys and statistics. I went back to the dreamtime, the immemorial, the ancestral people – the folk.
I found what I’d been looking for almost immediately. It had been hiding in plain sight, there in the local bookshop –
Darlington, Josef A, ed. “The Knights of the Bloody Abbot”. Folklore of the Pennine Peoples. London: Blackscar Press, 1976. Print.
I had it there on the table before me, transcribed with footnotes. Sipping at my last whiskey I read over it again. In my head I could hear a voice crackling from an old movie, rattling round again and again, “I found the men, sir. God I wish I hadn’t…”
The Knights of the Bloody Abbot
We folk of Avon Murray are a proud folk with a long and noble history. We’ve carried our burden through many a terrible time and there’s no cause to think that this age of darkness shall be owt different. The people shall overcome, oh yes they shall, and peace shall reign proud once more.
Like all creatures of pure spirit, the folk of Avon Murray are brought into this world wearing their True Face. This True Face is their connection to the spirit world and without it they can’t bare to stand before God in the hereafter. Yet, as’s been the burden of the folk of Avon Murray for many a generation, this face is stolen from the young’uns some time around their second birthday. It’s at this age they begin to recognise their world-face in the mirror – the face they’re cursed to wear amongst their people until the curse of Old Nacky Umpteenguise is lifted.[1]
Old Nacky was once a servant in the dining halls of heaven. He were considered to be God’s favourite for his great humility and subservience. For Old Nacky had always as many faces as there were guests at the table of God and he would turn each away as he served out of respect for his betters. One day, however, a guest buttered his face.[2] For this, God cast Old Nacky’s many faces down into the world below for’t wander. Since then, he’s searched the world for them faces but, being a tricky spirit, he will meantime steal the True Faces of’t folk in hoping that he might fool God into returning him to his former position.
It’s for this reason that the people of Avon Murray must return Old Nacky’s faces to him so he might one day gi’back the True Faces that he’s stolen and the dead might gain entrance to God’s dining hall. When one of Old Nacky’s faces enters the valley of Avon Murray it thus falls upon folk to capture it. If no folk amongst them recognise the face then it must surely be one’t lost faces. Folk then build a fire on’t which to burn the body of the wandering face so’s it might get back to Old Nacky.[3]
Much obliged f’yon gradely deeds, Old Nacky withholds from stealing the True Faces of the unborn of Avon Murray – for tis only through them that he’ll have his own faces returned him, y’see. However, for’t newborns of Avon Murray to be recognised by him they must carry the mark of the Bloody Abbot[4]. During the ceremony, the lifeblood of the infant is collected in a golden chalice to be added to the ale stocks for’t following year. This way, their blood gets all mixed up wit blood of t’other Avon Murraians, granting them the blessing of Old Nacky so’s they might become attuned, like, to their True Faces afore he comes back to take them. It’s for this reason also that the womenfolk must drink deep of the blood-ale whilst with child, so’s to grant Nacky’s blessing in the womb.
For many a generation this’s gone on. Old Nacky were satisfied, as were the folk of Avon Murray, for both were getting closer to recovering their lost faces and gaining admittance to the dining halls of God. Then one day a Black Rider appeared afore the people. None had before seen his face and it was taken that this was the last of the faces of Old Nacky, such were its coal-black hue.[5] He was swiftly captured and burned, for’t release the face, and there were much gaddin about and gosterin for joy.
Tragically, this end were not to be, however. The next morning following on the great celebration, folk awoke to find that where they’d left the fire there were now a deep pool of butter and no sign of’t Rider’s remains. They soon realised this was not the final face of Old Nacky but rather a foul trick played by God’s Guest to get his own back for the buttering of Old Nacky’s face all them year ago. God, shocked by such a display of disobedience to His Guest, sent down the curse of the age of darkness upon the folk of Avon Murray in the form of a huge host of Black Riders.
It is these Black Riders that plague the land of Avon Murray to this day - forcing them to conduct the ceremony of the Bloody Abbot and the Nackfyre festivals in hiding for fear of getting into deep trouble. You see they’re thinking they can keep Old Nacky from his final face by breaking the people’s blood-pact with him. If this comes to be then the hope of returning the True Faces to the people of Avon Murray will be lost forever.
Now this is why the Knights of the Bloody Abbot fight to rid the land of the plague o’t’ Black Riders. Only once folk are freed from this menace can peace once more return, and wirrit, our crack at heaven.
[1] A similar tale is told by the Arkanati tribe of what is now called West Prescenta. In their version the malignant spirit goes by the name of “Akh-Tziz of the Many Faces” – see F.L. Hausier’s Collected Travels for more details.
[2]There is a pun here but its content is lost in translation from the dialect. “Face” and “bread” share a common meaning with that of “the sole of the shoe” – the licking of which is considered a deeply transgressive act.
[3]The “Nackfyre” festivals are usually accompanied by great orgies of drinking and fornication. After the victim has succumbed to the conflagration gangs of intoxicated youths, naked but for a daubing of gay colours, rove the town smashing all the mirrors they can find.
[4]The mark here referred to is the removal of the left nipple. The ritual is conducted some time within the child’s first year.
[5]Smithson has suggested that this element of the myth may date back to the era of Roman invasion when many of the legions’ forward trackers were of African origin. Tuskie, on the other hand, posits a theory that it may date back far earlier and refer to the “blacking-up” rituals of wandering Cornish warbands. See the “Myths in the Making: Digression and Dissent” volume of The Journal of British Folkdom for more details.
_
The story made no sense, but explained everything. Such is the magic of religion I suppose. Another whiskey and I’ll have to think what to do. Another one again maybe. Where to start? I had to get inside their minds. Not in any meaningful sense, just enough to predict their patterns of behaviour. Leave the solutions to the officials, the police, the secret service. Fight madness with madness. It’s funny how the circle of life goes on. Perhaps I’m too fatalistic, although I have every reason to be…
That’s when I noticed them looking at me. Those hazy eyes staring out above pints of red-brown ale. The last thing I remember is how the pub had not a single mirror – although this I only realised outside the door, as I plunged into the darkness. Behind me I could still hear the howls of the beast as he picked the shattered glass out from where I’d thrust it into his face.
Then I was in a river. Lying on the riverbed. Darkness and forest. Ancient evils roaming beyond eyesight and I was deep in the world’s womb…
When I awoke I was uncertain what was dream and what memory. From there I’d have to work out which was reality but the first obstacle itself seemed insurmountable. Dream/Memory/Memory/Dream – they floated in and out and around the room like… The room was simple - white walls hung with pictures of horses and cottages – ceiling oddly angled, suggesting a roof above of old design. There was a skylight that looked newly installed, into which poured the milky light of late autumn morning. The whole scene was unnervingly pleasant.
Then a knock at the door.
“Doctor? Are you up in there?”
Why not? “Yes. Come in.”
She walked in. I barely recognised her face. Was she an old dinner lady I’d had during the boarding school years? I couldn’t place her – maybe I’d only met her recently… in the dreamtime. She was large, powerful, northern. You could imagine her with a bespectacled doting husband half her size. Soft features telling of a character whose seriousness had been sandpapered away by a million disappointments. Hazel eyes like mothers.
“I hear you’ve been making all kinds of trouble for y’self, our Doctor. You’d best watch out round these parts. None’s hold a grudge but there’s such a thing a courtesy. It’s not like your big cities out’ere.”
She placed a tray over my legs. Tea, toast, eggs. My stomach turned at the stale, bland Englishry of it all. I ventured a question,
“I’m afraid I don’t remember so well what happened last night. I don’t suppose you’ve heard?”
She laughed, “It was a good session then, eh?! You don’t remember smashing that pint pot in young Sammle's mug? Well, from what I hear he was asking for it, daft bugger. He brought your book around this morning to apologise.” She indicated my volume of Folklore of the Pennine Peoples, now with what looked like a dried spray of blood across the once-green cover. I frowned at that. “Aye, it’s a touch mucky isn’t it. So were you though, last night I mean. You shouldn't go tramping out late o’night when you don’t know the area, sozzled an all! I don’t know, I really don’t.”
“So, he’s okay?” I was looking at the blood still. Stomach revolving, revolving – don’t look at the egg no matter what you do…
“Sammle? He’s fine. Happens a lot round here, specially with him. Dozy bugger. Anyway, long as you're reet. You rest up. I’ll be downstairs if you need owt, m’love.”
I met the clotting gaze of the soft boiled egg. Retched. She was heading out of the door. I decided to continue investigations. Just keep that bastard egg away from me,
“Just one more thing you might be able to help me with…” Still couldn’t remember her name… or why I was here… push on nevertheless, “You know why I’ve been sent here, correct?”
Her powerful frame paused in the doorway for a moment. Just long enough for me to tell I’d hit on something. When she came back in there was another motherly look on her face – not the one at a troublesome child but more a look of… what? Deep understanding and pity I guess. A mix of those with good humour mixed. Not motherly then, matronly or grandmotherly or auntily… something distant. She nodded with that face. She knew.
“Now, I’m an expert on certain mystic rituals and their modern day effects. I wouldn’t expect you to understand all the complexities of it but you may be able to help me by providing some information regarding the townspeople here.”
That knowing smile made my whole philosopher-in-bed schtick feel pretty pathetic.
“You see, I am of the opinion that these murders have been conducted by a secret sect comprised of some of the Avon Murray locals. They’re undertaking a campaign of ritualistic immolation and perhaps mutilation in order to appease their pagan God…”
“Teeheehee, God y’say? Why Old Nacky’s no more a God than Father Christmas!”
“Excuse me?” I stiffened. Out of lack of something to hold on to I’d begun crushing toast triangles between my hands.
“Why, it seems you’ve done your homework, young Doctor. But there’s a lot that book reading won’t prepare you for. It’s a matter of nowse, y’see, common sense, like. I suppose it’s best you leave it to us as what knows what we’re doing. There’s a lot of strange things in this world and we aren’t all supposed to know all of em.”
She patted my leg over the covers. She was in on it… was it… were they all… and? The memories returned in instant flashback – my academic brain now annotating the scenes as they flooded in. Building. Building back into a picture…
The red-brown ale they all drank at the pub – a mixing of the blood of the folk.
The lack of mirrors – a fear of reflections (the “world face” that denied them heaven)
The way they’d looked at me, whispered – it wasn’t plain old racism, no, to them I was a
Black Rider.
The breakfast, no butter on the toast. None anywhere in this town. Something about the feast in heaven. I couldn’t remember the footnote… it hadn’t made sense at the time…
Now it all did.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“An Avon Murraian, my dear?” She smiled that same old look. I felt young next to the witch woman… elder… mystic something… words left as she patted down my fringe, “Of course. I was born and raised here. I know of all the old ways of this land. Things you could only guess at, young Doctor. Things so bootiful you’d never know yourself after you seen em.”
Her hazel eyes wandered off into misty hilltops of green imaginings. Corners of her mouth twinged. Then, back in the room, the land of the living, “See.” She slowly undid her blouse, button by button. I was paralysed - situation unknown. Pulling the fabric back she lifted out her left breast, pulled back the bra.
Nothing there. No nipple.
“The Mark of the Bloody Abbot.”
She popped it back in, seeming rather pleased with herself. “Why, you are rather well learned for such a young man, aren’t you?”
“But… but… surely you know it’s all nonsense? I mean. These are real people. You’re killing them. Murdering real people. This… this is nonsense. Gibberish. Palpable gibberish…”
She reached out again and resumed smoothing down my hair, “Now, as I done said, there’s a lot of things on God’s green earth that don’t bear too much pondering over. Things’ll be as things’ll be. Just because you don’t understand them don’t make them something to be afeared of… and it’s certainly no reason to go calling people names.”
“But…”
She held me to her breast, rubbing my head. I was falling back into the netherworld of sleep. Soothing clouds of smooth images floated between my ears, “It’s nowt to get yourself worked up over, young Doctor. It’s just the way things are. You can’t argue with the wind. It’s blown from long before you were here and will blow on long after. You can pucker up, heave with all your might, but you're never going to blow it t'other way. It’s just too much for one little set of lungs like yours, clever tho’s they may be…”
As her voice rolled over me, so did that ancient wind. I could feel it passing through my head and sweeping away a lifetime’s commitment to truth, knowledge, all the empty pots that now rattled around in the wind of her whisperings. I felt the world turn dark and a ship pull away from a shore and it carried a thousand forests and there before them a fire and I rode a dark horse and wore a black cape and a rag across my face that I felt, tight, binding… and… and…
They could have me if they wanted me. They could have me.
Return to Short Stories
The story made no sense, but explained everything. Such is the magic of religion I suppose. Another whiskey and I’ll have to think what to do. Another one again maybe. Where to start? I had to get inside their minds. Not in any meaningful sense, just enough to predict their patterns of behaviour. Leave the solutions to the officials, the police, the secret service. Fight madness with madness. It’s funny how the circle of life goes on. Perhaps I’m too fatalistic, although I have every reason to be…
That’s when I noticed them looking at me. Those hazy eyes staring out above pints of red-brown ale. The last thing I remember is how the pub had not a single mirror – although this I only realised outside the door, as I plunged into the darkness. Behind me I could still hear the howls of the beast as he picked the shattered glass out from where I’d thrust it into his face.
Then I was in a river. Lying on the riverbed. Darkness and forest. Ancient evils roaming beyond eyesight and I was deep in the world’s womb…
When I awoke I was uncertain what was dream and what memory. From there I’d have to work out which was reality but the first obstacle itself seemed insurmountable. Dream/Memory/Memory/Dream – they floated in and out and around the room like… The room was simple - white walls hung with pictures of horses and cottages – ceiling oddly angled, suggesting a roof above of old design. There was a skylight that looked newly installed, into which poured the milky light of late autumn morning. The whole scene was unnervingly pleasant.
Then a knock at the door.
“Doctor? Are you up in there?”
Why not? “Yes. Come in.”
She walked in. I barely recognised her face. Was she an old dinner lady I’d had during the boarding school years? I couldn’t place her – maybe I’d only met her recently… in the dreamtime. She was large, powerful, northern. You could imagine her with a bespectacled doting husband half her size. Soft features telling of a character whose seriousness had been sandpapered away by a million disappointments. Hazel eyes like mothers.
“I hear you’ve been making all kinds of trouble for y’self, our Doctor. You’d best watch out round these parts. None’s hold a grudge but there’s such a thing a courtesy. It’s not like your big cities out’ere.”
She placed a tray over my legs. Tea, toast, eggs. My stomach turned at the stale, bland Englishry of it all. I ventured a question,
“I’m afraid I don’t remember so well what happened last night. I don’t suppose you’ve heard?”
She laughed, “It was a good session then, eh?! You don’t remember smashing that pint pot in young Sammle's mug? Well, from what I hear he was asking for it, daft bugger. He brought your book around this morning to apologise.” She indicated my volume of Folklore of the Pennine Peoples, now with what looked like a dried spray of blood across the once-green cover. I frowned at that. “Aye, it’s a touch mucky isn’t it. So were you though, last night I mean. You shouldn't go tramping out late o’night when you don’t know the area, sozzled an all! I don’t know, I really don’t.”
“So, he’s okay?” I was looking at the blood still. Stomach revolving, revolving – don’t look at the egg no matter what you do…
“Sammle? He’s fine. Happens a lot round here, specially with him. Dozy bugger. Anyway, long as you're reet. You rest up. I’ll be downstairs if you need owt, m’love.”
I met the clotting gaze of the soft boiled egg. Retched. She was heading out of the door. I decided to continue investigations. Just keep that bastard egg away from me,
“Just one more thing you might be able to help me with…” Still couldn’t remember her name… or why I was here… push on nevertheless, “You know why I’ve been sent here, correct?”
Her powerful frame paused in the doorway for a moment. Just long enough for me to tell I’d hit on something. When she came back in there was another motherly look on her face – not the one at a troublesome child but more a look of… what? Deep understanding and pity I guess. A mix of those with good humour mixed. Not motherly then, matronly or grandmotherly or auntily… something distant. She nodded with that face. She knew.
“Now, I’m an expert on certain mystic rituals and their modern day effects. I wouldn’t expect you to understand all the complexities of it but you may be able to help me by providing some information regarding the townspeople here.”
That knowing smile made my whole philosopher-in-bed schtick feel pretty pathetic.
“You see, I am of the opinion that these murders have been conducted by a secret sect comprised of some of the Avon Murray locals. They’re undertaking a campaign of ritualistic immolation and perhaps mutilation in order to appease their pagan God…”
“Teeheehee, God y’say? Why Old Nacky’s no more a God than Father Christmas!”
“Excuse me?” I stiffened. Out of lack of something to hold on to I’d begun crushing toast triangles between my hands.
“Why, it seems you’ve done your homework, young Doctor. But there’s a lot that book reading won’t prepare you for. It’s a matter of nowse, y’see, common sense, like. I suppose it’s best you leave it to us as what knows what we’re doing. There’s a lot of strange things in this world and we aren’t all supposed to know all of em.”
She patted my leg over the covers. She was in on it… was it… were they all… and? The memories returned in instant flashback – my academic brain now annotating the scenes as they flooded in. Building. Building back into a picture…
The red-brown ale they all drank at the pub – a mixing of the blood of the folk.
The lack of mirrors – a fear of reflections (the “world face” that denied them heaven)
The way they’d looked at me, whispered – it wasn’t plain old racism, no, to them I was a
Black Rider.
The breakfast, no butter on the toast. None anywhere in this town. Something about the feast in heaven. I couldn’t remember the footnote… it hadn’t made sense at the time…
Now it all did.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“An Avon Murraian, my dear?” She smiled that same old look. I felt young next to the witch woman… elder… mystic something… words left as she patted down my fringe, “Of course. I was born and raised here. I know of all the old ways of this land. Things you could only guess at, young Doctor. Things so bootiful you’d never know yourself after you seen em.”
Her hazel eyes wandered off into misty hilltops of green imaginings. Corners of her mouth twinged. Then, back in the room, the land of the living, “See.” She slowly undid her blouse, button by button. I was paralysed - situation unknown. Pulling the fabric back she lifted out her left breast, pulled back the bra.
Nothing there. No nipple.
“The Mark of the Bloody Abbot.”
She popped it back in, seeming rather pleased with herself. “Why, you are rather well learned for such a young man, aren’t you?”
“But… but… surely you know it’s all nonsense? I mean. These are real people. You’re killing them. Murdering real people. This… this is nonsense. Gibberish. Palpable gibberish…”
She reached out again and resumed smoothing down my hair, “Now, as I done said, there’s a lot of things on God’s green earth that don’t bear too much pondering over. Things’ll be as things’ll be. Just because you don’t understand them don’t make them something to be afeared of… and it’s certainly no reason to go calling people names.”
“But…”
She held me to her breast, rubbing my head. I was falling back into the netherworld of sleep. Soothing clouds of smooth images floated between my ears, “It’s nowt to get yourself worked up over, young Doctor. It’s just the way things are. You can’t argue with the wind. It’s blown from long before you were here and will blow on long after. You can pucker up, heave with all your might, but you're never going to blow it t'other way. It’s just too much for one little set of lungs like yours, clever tho’s they may be…”
As her voice rolled over me, so did that ancient wind. I could feel it passing through my head and sweeping away a lifetime’s commitment to truth, knowledge, all the empty pots that now rattled around in the wind of her whisperings. I felt the world turn dark and a ship pull away from a shore and it carried a thousand forests and there before them a fire and I rode a dark horse and wore a black cape and a rag across my face that I felt, tight, binding… and… and…
They could have me if they wanted me. They could have me.
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