The Two Confessions

by John Whitbourn

  That night, though it was late and he was drained, he celebrated in his usual manner since coming into both London and money. Selecting two choice painted whores from Seething Lane, he had them in the factory office, monstering their privy parts with especial zeal and zest. Then, afterwards, his secret gladness inspired him to tip them lavishly for their time and trouble and soreness, so that even they should - unknowingly - share his joy.

  ************

  From: 'THE LEWES TIMES & PIOUS INTELLIGENCER'.

  The 22nd of April 1994 AD.

  '... Mr and Mrs Melville FARNCOMBE are pleased to announce the commencement of banns of marriage between their only daughter, MELISSA FAITH, spinster of the Parish of St Michael-in-Lewes; and SAMUEL MELCHIZEDEK TREVAN, late of Cliffe, Lewes; bachelor of the Parish of St Simon-the-zealot, Whitechapel, London, in the County of Middlesex.

  Deo volente, a High Mass and ceremony of marriage will be celebrated at St Michael-in-Lewes at midday, the 20th May 1994 concelebrated by Fr. Oliver Rounday, incumbent of St Michael's and Fr. Omar Ibn J'nna, of Cliffe and the Jerusalem Citadel.

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  cHAPTER 11

  Samuel passed by his factory - the factory he used to own - at just the wrong moment. A priest was sealing the great iron gates with a flimsy papal ribbon, sealing the knot with papal-red wax. The nameplate - his nameplate - that used to be there had been roughly torn off. He could see the corners of it still screwed in place.

  Samuel wanted to cross over to the priest and smash his face in – then tear the man to bits like they had his sign. It would have been so lovely. However, there was a papal dragoon dancing in attendance. Foresight had been shown, putting the delicious indulgence out of the question. The foreigner would be no toy soldier, and all too keen to do his duty.

  The dragoon looked bored, staring lazily down from his horse. To him it was just a mild holiday from routine, a trip out from the grim Westminster Citadel. To Samuel Trevan he was nemesis.

  Samuel walked on and neither priest nor soldier knew he'd passed.

  Whitechapel natives and peddlers out from the Ghetto alike made way for him, but still received the evil eye. Nothing and no one could do right. Even the smile on the bronze Pepys, 'England's Neptune', outside Trinity House, hitherto humane, today mocked the fallen Trevan. The world scowled and he replied in kind.

  How had it come to this? He'd been fairly sprinting up the mountain; never dreaming you could overshoot the summit and plummet down the other side. That was the only way Samuel could describe it to himself. He'd thought himself a comet, an adornment to the sky, getting brighter and brighter till the time came to move on to a new life out in the dark. However, it turned out he was just a firework, a momentary flash of glory and then nothing. No - worse than nothing: a piece of rubbish falling back to earth where it belonged.

  He couldn't work out what Providence was playing at. Up to now he'd trusted - as he'd been told to - and never doubted. For all that life dealt him a rough first hand he hadn't whinged or borne a grudge. He'd got on with things and this was the thanks he got. Well, it wouldn’t do. It wasn't plain dealing!

  Brick by brick, Samuel had built himself a cathedral of achievement. It had looked as solid as the stone sort which graced London. He'd assumed it would be there for future generations to look at. And yet, and yet... just one or two surprise visitors and it all came tumbling down. Because they didn't like his building methods. Never mind the grandeur of the sight, the pains taken or exalted vision: no, they just didn't care for the masons' hours. Yeah, right…. Had St Paul's or St Guy's - or St Peter's Basilica - been raised to strict Trade Guild rules? The hypocrites!

  Samuel brooded on the power of unexpected visitors all the way back to his lodgings. There he found another one - the last and worst - waiting for him. The one illusion he had left to be ripped away was that fate wouldn't demand abject surrender. He'd blithely assumed that at least his cathedral's foundations would be left intact.

  Wrong again.

  ************

  Father Omar had let himself in. He'd always had a facility with locks and bolts, so there was no mystery to it.

  ‘Your forgiveness, Samuel-of-the-disgrace, I did not relish waiting on the landing.’

  Samuel threw his topcoat on the bed. The place was in disorder, the result of several abandoned bouts of packing.

  ‘Don't mention,’ he said. ‘My home's been liberty hall to lots of churchmen lately.’ He grimaced, hating it when his brimful pail of bitterness slopped over to splash the undeserving. ‘Anyway, it's good to see you....’

  The horsehair seat, fine for normal frames, was far too close a fit for the priest. He shifted round seeking elusive comfort. Perhaps it was that that put edge on his bass tones.

  ‘I shall not let you linger in that opinion, child. Matthew 10, 34: 'I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ A sword thrust cannot be made palatable with platitudes or prevarication.’

  ‘‘Et tu, Brute’?’ said Samuel.

  Omar smiled, displaying brown peg teeth. Along with the Church he belonged to, he'd always venerated the Saint from Stratford who had done so much to re-convert England. It was news however that any line from that sublime pen had lodged in this pupil.

  ‘No, not I, Samuel-of-the-telling-quote. 'Et tu, Farncombe', you should rather say. Here.’ Omar retrieved and held out an ominously thin letter. ‘There is no honey that may be poured on it. Take and read.’

  Samuel balanced the missive on three spread fingertips, killing it with a look.

  ‘No need,’ he said. ‘I can guess.’ He flicked it into an inaccessible corner.

  Father Omar watched it go: a welcome pause in distasteful duties.

  ‘Neither does Lewes wish you back,’ he said eventually. ‘Mine was the sole dissenting voice on the Town panel. Exile is your lot and the Town Governor, who is a pious man - so he repeatedly assured us - thirsts to enforce the ban against you. Should I say at this juncture that I am sorry?’

  Samuel crossed to the bed, evicted his coat, and lay down, hands behind his head.

  ‘If you like; yes please.’

  Omar obliged. ‘Then know that I am a vessel of regrets; for my failures and for yours - and for their mean spirits.’

  Samuel signalled he’d heard.

  ‘So, where am I to go then? Is Beachy Head what they're hinting at?’

  ‘Perhaps - but that is not my sentiment. I have come this weary and unpleasant distance precisely to command the contrary.’

  Samuel expelled a sigh through his teeth.

  ‘Well, I’ve been getting a fair number of commands just lately, Father - as you may know. Arguably, a sickening amount….’

  Omar nodded.

  ‘I have been in London a full day before I came to you, Samuel-of-despair. Not being entirely deprived of what are called 'contacts', I have spent my time exploring the extent of sanctions against you. Accordingly, my commands - my council, if that probes your wounds less roughly - are well informed. When we first met, I could - and did - hold you in the crook of one arm. That is no longer possible, but my wishes remain equally protective.’

  Trevan wearily turned his head.

  ‘Proof against the hardening of the heart are you? Wish you'd tell me your secret.’

  In a trice, Omar's voice was all harshness and reproof.

  ‘I never ceased to expound it in every lesson and conversation, my boy. It is you who have chosen to forget: just as you chose to spend my life savings on... rifles.’

  That struck home, though Samuel strived not to show it. He was glad the priest's chair wasn't in direct line of sight.

  ‘But you didn't forbid it either. So why not now tell me plain: how was what I did so bad?’

  Omar had always been a patient teacher; patient to a fault. Remaining so was now a visible trial.

  ‘You were temptation, Samuel-out-of-depth, to others who could not resist. A cold-eyed man out of Rome clearly expounded your sins during my appointment in the West
minster Citadel. He was gracious enough to receive me because I bore a bishop's recommendation, and because I had been in the Holy Land, as had he. By the by, I suspect his time there was less innocent than mine, even though I had occasion to fight at Aleppo and in the Druze Country. I admit that I was frightened of him: I who have no fear of death! But even that was eclipsed by learning of your oh-so narrow escape.’

  As with Farncombe's letter, Samuel could guess. Roman visitors often arrived in nations to deal in deaths - of people and places and institutions. The thought of insignificant him attracting their fish-like stare was a real bowel-churner.

  ‘I see...,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, how I doubt that, Trevan-of-fools-rushing-in. Your money-lust, which I concede was driven by another, more laudable, lust - if such a thing can be – was making waves in much bigger pools. Seas and oceans even. Listen and learn, foolish child: learn that cheaper and better and more abundant... rifles may well earn the pennies of generals and Kings, but, thank God, they are not to every taste. The Roman said you may have ended as a Duke or Earl, if permitted to continue. But by then England would be well-armed and expansive; and Scotland and Ireland and France would have to take heed. Shortly, the Empire would require rifle armies - and so therefore would the Turks and Mamelukes - and thus the Benin Horse-tribes and Zimbabwe and Cathay and… eventually everyone. You had become Mars’ ambassador on Earth! Can you believe it, Samuel? A midget horseman of the Apocalypse riding out of Lewes! And the Archbishop of London, perhaps even the Holy Father himself, has heard your name!’

  With that charge sheet there was no point in pretending unconcern. Samuel had to search around for words.

  ‘I... thought it was the Trade Guilds - and the Church commercial rules, that... you know….’

  ‘Them as well, Samuel; though I presume you bought off the first and hid from the second. No, they merely served as pretext to bring you down. If you had selected another trade in which to prosper, perchance you might have continued much longer in your exploitations. Not for ever, naturally, but long enough for your one great need.’

  Samuel reeled that in and, overcoming his repulsion, dined on it. It tasted bitter and he doubted the flavour would ever leave his mouth. He got up. It wasn't clear to him how long the pause in conversation had lasted.

  ‘Oh well,’ he said (though it was just something to say), ‘thanks for that. Now at least I know….’

  ‘And from knowledge I pray there may grow wisdom. Your life is spared, Samuel; there will even be a small pension to sustain it, but – and mark this well - no more business. No more employment. And, I shudder to say, no more freedom.’

  Trevan was still digesting the discovery that there was an order of magnitude above catastrophe, and depths to fall into below the abyss. It was a wider, more grown-up, world than he'd credited.

  Omar hammered the point home.

  ‘You will always be under scrutiny, always suspect. Tread with care, Samuel; take the one route mercifully left open to you.’

  ‘Right. Which is to where, incidentally?’

  ‘Where you first came from, in the far West. Here is your file, child.’

  Omar retrieved another item from his scrip, a slim, faded, paper folder tied with a grey band. Trevan didn't move to accept it.

  ‘You did not need it before, Samuel; all your mind was on the future, not the past. Also, there is little enough within, alas. However, the Church required of me a place where you might find sanctuary and merit forgiveness. Since Lewes will not have you, I could think of no other. I shall pray that there are people there who still recall you.’

  ‘Well, you do that, Father.’ Samuel was grim faced and took the file in a grip which flaked its dry paper. ‘But I'm none too sure I want people right now.’

  Father Omar shrugged. ‘I had hoped there might be at least one person you would stay constant to - two if you include myself. But let that pass. Your present condition reminds me of my other purpose here and the remaining obligation on you.’

  ‘They want more flesh?’

  ‘No, not flesh but spirit, Samuel. It is required that you obtain absolution after full confession. If that is not confirmed to the Archbishop's staff they will not release you. What your fate would be then I cannot say. Save that it would not be good. I and Lewes and England would not see you again I think. Therefore ponder hard on it, I beseech. As you are at present, knowing your stubborn resolve, where would you find a priest lax enough to absolve you? Whereas only I in all this mighty City knows the real Samuel Trevan and that he would not truly persevere in evil.’

  Samuel briefly glanced within and saw it was so. Yet he still couldn't control his sense of betrayal for longer than two words.

  ‘Whereas you alone,’ he half-accused the only parent he'd ever known, ‘would absolve my insincere confession.’

  ‘That choice of phrase is yours, Samuel. I see things differently. Take the opportunity offered.’

  Trevan's face was set. He had come to the very end of (open) rebellion against fate.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry: I shall,’ he said - and straightaway knelt down on the threadbare carpet.

  ‘Forgive me, Father,’ he recited through gritted teeth, ‘for I have sinned: thorough my fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault....’

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  cHAPTER 12

  '... your gross deceptions as to your true character, which have brought such embarrassment to this family, render you unfit to bear the name of a Christian, let alone a Christian gentleman. The last service that you may render to me and mine, and the very least that is owed to us, is that you obliterate any recollection or trace of this most regrettable association. To think that my dearest daughter....

  …

  ... any attempt to renew our lamentable acquaintance will be met by the severest consequences that Temporal and Spiritual law permit.

  I am, sir,

  Mr M Farncombe'

  Samuel crumbled the single sheet such that, though compressed, it made not the slightest show of straightening out. He noticed Farncombe had used the cheapest of his two types of stationary.

  The envelope would have gone the same way but for an anomalous red circle around one corner of the reverse. It struck a chord, being of the exact shade ink that Father Omar used to mark the orphanage's schoolbooks. He examined closer.

  It proved to contain some minute writing, a mere couple of words to look at, but whole volumes of meaning to Samuel Trevan. He recognised that crabbed feminine script. 'Acts, 18, 21' it said, in as small as space as possible.

  Samuel had to rush out and borrow a Bible because he'd flung his own into the Thames.

  ************

  'The Acts of the Apostles'. Chapter 18, verse 21:

  '... but I will return again unto you, if God will.'

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  cHAPTER 13

  For a generation now, the power had been blessing them more frequently, visiting the world two or three times a year. Occasionally it even spoke in a tongue they could understand and then prophesied to them. At other times, losing control or in an act of chastisement, gobbets of flame spat from the portal like an ejaculation. Many devotees were grievously burned - but thought themselves fortunate to intercept the god-seed.

  As the process accelerated and the unknown climax drew near, so the sacrifices were increased, to show proper gratitude and force the pace. Dozens of the lost and abducted went down into the unnatural light. Even one elderly member of the inner council volunteered to end one life and start the next in that way. Perhaps it was this great gift that so pleased the power.

  Whatever the reason, soon after the signs were manifested with especial vigour. It seemed clear something spectacular was in train. Accordingly, the sisters and brethren made extra effort to ensure the next gathering would be a fitting response.

  They took a priest, stolen from sufficiently far away to shake off suspicion or pursuit. He was ferried down from his Cumbrian parish, blindfolded a
nd befuddled with drugs, from isolated farm to farm, and barn to barn, along the chain of believers.

  The appointed night came and he was roused and made sensible with counter-potions. A flurry of grey-shrouded guards conveyed him underground. Then, after the customary 'degradations' and 'educations', when his vows were broken and his faith flayed - that is to say much later - he was offered to the power.

  And yet he was not taken straight away, as had always been the case before, time out of mind. Instead, he was held on the portal's lip and possessed. It was a signal honour both to him and those who gave him. The devotees shrieked with joy.

  Whether it was still him or not they could not say, but the human resemblance remained as he turned back to the throng and spoke with the power's voice.

  ‘He comes!’ said the thunderstorm tones, ravaging the inadequate-to-the-task human vocal chords. ‘He comes! The promise is true!’

  And at that news, if there had been frenzy before, it was as nothing to the abandon shown after.

  At the very end, some snippet of knowledge was drawn aloud from the dying mind. Or perhaps the priest's intellect, feeling itself devoured, rallied at the last. He or the power spoke again.

  ‘Verily I say unto you,’ said the wavering puppet, quoting from scripture, ‘this generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled!’

  Then he was sucked away into the tunnel, to his unguessable fate.

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  cHAPTER 14

  ‘Meea navidna cowza sawsneck.’

  Samuel nodded sadly - and then employed his strong right arm to lift the man right out of his seat. He was carried thus across the bar-room and pinned by the throat against the wall. The rough arrival there knocked the breath out of him, with no prospect of re-supply.