The Endless Knot

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “Put this on,” Susannah was saying, “or you’ll catch your death.” She draped her long coat across my shoulders. “I’ve got a car—it’s on the road up the hill. We’ll have to walk, I’m afraid. Nettles didn’t tell me to bring any clothes, but I’ve got some blankets. Can you make it?”

  I opened my mouth, but the words would not come. Very likely, there were no words for what I felt. So I simply nodded instead. Susannah, one arm around my shoulders, put my arm around her neck and began leading me away from the cairn. We walked through long grass up a snow-frosted hill to a gate, which was open. A small green automobile waited on the road, its windows steamed over.

  Susannah led me to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. “Just stay there,” she said. “Let me get a blanket.” I stood staring at the world I had come to, trying to work out what had happened to me, grief powerful as pain aching in my hollow heart.

  Spreading one blanket over the seat, she swathed another over me, taking back her coat as she did so. Then Susannah helped me into the car and shut the door. The engine complained, but caught and started purring. Susannah put on the heater and defroster fan full blast. “It’ll warm up in a minute,” she said.

  I nodded and looked out through the foggy windshield. It took all the concentration I could muster, but I asked, “Where are we?” The words were clumsy and awkward in my mouth, my tongue a lump of wood.

  “God knows,” she replied above the whir of the fan. “In Scotland somewhere. Not far from Peebles.”

  The defroster soon cleared a patch of windshield, which Susannah enlarged with the side of her hand. She shifted the car into gear and pulled out onto the road. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Just sit back and relax. If you’re hungry, I’ve got sandwiches, and there’s coffee in the flask. We’re lucky it’s a holiday and traffic will be light.”

  We drove through the day, stopping only a couple of times for fuel. I watched the countryside rush by the windows and said nothing. Susannah kept clearing her throat and glancing at me as if she was afraid I might suddenly disappear—but she held her tongue and did not press me. For that, I was profoundly grateful.

  It was late when we reached Oxford, and I was exhausted from the drive. I sat in my blankets and stared numbly at the lights of the city from the ring road and felt utterly devastated. How could this have happened to me? What did it mean?

  I did not know where I would go. But Susannah had it all worked out. She eased the car through virtually empty streets and stopped at last somewhere in the rabbit warren of Oxford city center. She helped me from the car and I saw that we stood outside a low door. A brass plaque next to the door read D. M. Campbell, Tutor. Susannah pulled a set of keys from her pocket, put a key in the lock, and turned it.

  The door swung open and she went before me, snapping on lights. I stepped into the room and recognized it. How many lifetimes had passed since I last stood in this room?

  “Professor Nettleton told me to give these to you,” Susannah said. She pressed the keys into my hands. “He isn’t here—” she began, faltered, and added, “but I suppose you know that.”

  “Yes,” I told her. Nettles, I suspected, would never return. But why had I come back? Why me? Why here?

  “Anyway,” she said, her keen, dark eyes searching my face for the slightest flicker of interest, “there’s food in the larder and milk in the fridge. I didn’t know who or how many to stock up for, so there’s a bit of everything. But if you need anything else, I’ve left my number by the phone, and—”

  “Thanks,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m sure it’s . . .”Words escaped me. “It’s fine.”

  She gazed at me intently, the questions burning on her tongue. But she turned toward the door instead. “Sure. Ummm . . . well.” She put her hand on the doorknob and pulled the door open. She hesitated, waiting for me to stop her. “I’ll look in on you tomorrow.”

  “Please, you needn’t bother,” I said, my mouth resisting the familiar language.

  “It’s no bother,” Susannah replied quickly. “Bye.” She was out of the door and gone before I could discourage her further.

  How long I stood, wrapped like a cigar-store Indian in my blanket, I could not say. I spent a long time just listening to the sounds of Oxford, a crashing din that the heavy wooden door and thick stone walls of the professor’s house did little to shut out. I felt numb inside, empty, scooped hollow. I kept thinking: I am dead and this is hell.

  At some point I must have collapsed in one of Nettle’s overstuffed chairs, because I heard a scratch at the door and opened my eyes to see Susannah bustling into the room, her arms laden with parcels. She was trying to be quiet, thinking me asleep in bed. But she saw me sitting in the chair as she turned to pile the packages on the table.

  “Oh! Good morning,” she said. Her smile was quick and cheerful. Her cheeks were red from the cold, and she rubbed her hands to warm them. “Tell me you didn’t sleep in that chair all night.”

  “I guess I did,” I replied slowly. It was difficult to think of the words, and my tongue still would not move properly.

  “I’ve been up since dawn,” she announced proudly. “I bought you some clothes.”

  “Susannah,” I said, “you didn’t have to do that. Really, 1—”

  “No trouble.” She breezed past me on the way to the kitchen. “I’ll get some breakfast started, and then I’ll show you what I bought. You can thank me later.”

  I sat in the chair without the strength of will to get up. Susannah reappeared a few moments later and began shifting parcels around the table. “Okay,” she said, pulling a dark blue something out of a bag, “close your eyes.”

  I stared at her. Why was she doing this? Why didn’t she just leave me alone? Couldn’t she see I was in pain?

  “What’s the matter, Lewis?” she asked.

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “I can’t do this, Susannah!” I snapped. “Don’t you understand?”

  Of course she didn’t understand. How could she? How could anyone ever understand even the smallest, most minute part of all I had experienced? I had been a king in Albion! I had fought battles and slain enemies, and had, in turn, been killed. Only, instead of going on to another world, I had been returned to the one I had left. Nothing had changed. It was as if nothing had happened at all. All I had done, all I had experienced meant nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” Susannah said, with genuine sympathy. “I was only trying to help.” She bit her lip.

  “It’s not your fault,” I told her. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

  She came to me and knelt beside the chair. “I want to understand, Lewis. Honestly. I know it must be difficult.”

  When I did not answer, she said, “Nettles told me a lot about what was happening. I didn’t believe him at first. I’m still not sure I believe it. But he told me to look for some things—Signs of the Times, he called them—and if I saw them, I was to go to that place—he even gave me a map—and wait there for someone to show up.” She paused, thoughtfully. “I didn’t know it would be you.”

  The silence grew between us. She was waiting for me to say something. “Listen,” I said at last, “I appreciate what you’ve done. But I need . . .” I was almost sweating with the effort, “I just need some time to work things out.”

  She gave me a wounded look and stood up. “I can understand that. But I want to help.” She paused and looked away. When she looked back, it was with a somewhat forlorn smile. She was trying. “I’ll leave you alone now. But call me later, okay? Promise?”

  I nodded, sinking back into the all-enfolding chair, back into my grief and pain. She left.

  But she was back early the next morning. Susannah took one look at me and one look at the room and, like a rocket blasting off, she lit up. “Get up, Lewis. You’re coming with me.”

  I had no will of my own anymore, and hers seemed powerful enough for any two people, so I obeyed. She rummaged through the
untouched packages on the table. “Here,” she said, thrusting a pair of boxer shorts into my hand. “Put these on, for starters.”

  I stood, the blanket still hanging from my shoulders like a cloak. “What are you doing?”

  “You’ve got to get out of here,” Susannah replied tartly. “It’s Sunday. I’m taking you to church.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  She shrugged and shook out a new shirt, cocking her head to one side as she held it up to me. “Put this on,” she ordered.

  She dressed me with ruthless efficiency: trousers, socks, shoes, and belt—and then professed herself pleased with the result. “You could shave,” she said, frowning. “But we’ll let that go for now. Ready?”

  “I’m not going with you, Susannah.”

  She smiled with sweet insincerity and took my arm in hers. Her hands were warm. “But you are! I’m not leaving you here to languish all day like a dying vulture. After church I’ll let you take me out to lunch.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do, Susannah. But I don’t want to go.”

  The church was absolutely packed. In all the time I’d lived in Oxford, I’d never seen so many people at a church service. There were a thousand at least. People were crammed into pews and lined up in the wide windowsills all around the sanctuary. Extra chairs were crowded into the back in every available space. The kneeling-benches had been pulled out and placed in the aisle to accommodate the overflow. When that did not suffice, they opened the doors so the people standing outside could hear.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, bewildered by the noise and hubbub. “What’s all this?”

  “Just church,” Susannah said, puzzled by my question.

  The service went by me in a fog. I could not concentrate for more than a second or two at a time. My mind—my heart, my soul, my life!—was in Albion, and I was dead to that world. I was cut off and could never go back.

  Susannah nudged me. I looked around. Everyone was kneeling, and the minister—or priest, or whatever—was holding a loaf of bread and saying, “This is my body, broken for you . . .”

  I heard the words—I’d heard them before, many times; I’d grown up hearing them and had never given them a thought beyond the church sanctuary.

  This is my body, broken for you . . .

  Ancient words, words from beyond the creation of the world. Words to explain all that had happened to me. Like a star exploding in the frigid void of space, understanding detonated in my brain. I knew, knew, what it meant!

  I felt weak and dizzy; my head swam. I was seized by a rapture of joy so strong I feared I might faint. I looked at the faces around me: eager in genuine devotion. Yes! Yes! They were not the same; they had changed. Of course they had. How could they not change?

  Albion had been transformed—and this world was no longer the same either. Though not as obviously manifest, the great change had already taken place. And I would find it hidden in a million places: subtle as yeast, working away quietly, unseen and unknown, yet gently, powerfully, altering everything radically. I knew, as I knew the meaning of the Eucharistic words of Holy Kingship, that the rebirth of Albion and the renewal of this world were one. The Hero Feat had been performed.

  The rest of the service passed in a blur. My mind raced ahead; I could not wait to get outside and bolted from the church as soon as the benediction was pronounced. Susannah caught me by the arm and spun me around. “You worm! You could at least have pretended to pay attention.”

  “Sorry, it’s just that I—”

  “I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life. Really, Lewis, you—”

  “Susannah!”

  That stopped her. I took her by the shoulders and turned her to face me squarely. “Listen, Susannah. I have to talk to you. Now. It’s important.” Having begun, the words came rolling out of my mouth in a giddy rush. “I didn’t understand before. But I do now. It’s incredible! I know what happened. I know what it’s all about. It’s—”

  “What what is all about?” she asked, clutching my arm and eyeing me carefully.

  “I was a king in Albion!” I shouted. “Do you know what that means, Susannah? Do you have any idea?”

  A few nearby heads swiveled in our direction. Susannah regarded me with faint alarm, biting her lower lip.

  “Look,” I said, trying a different approach, “would you mind if we didn’t go out? We could go back to Nettles’s place and talk. I have to tell somebody. Would you mind?”

  Overcome with relief, she smiled and looped her arm through mine. “I’d love to. I’ll fix lunch for us there, and you can tell me everything.”

  We talked all the way home, and all during lunch. I put food in my mouth, but I did not taste a single bite. I burned with the certainty of the truth I had glimpsed. I had swallowed the sun and now it was leaking out through every pore and follicle. I talked like a crazy man, filling hour after hour with words and words and more words, yet never coming near to describing the merest fragment of what I had experienced.

  Susannah listened to it all, and after lunch even suggested that we walk by the river so that she could stay awake and hear some more. We walked until the sun began to sink into a crisp, spring twilight. The sky glowed a bright burnished blue, red-gold clouds drifted over emerald hills and fields of glowing green. Couples and families ambled peacefully along the path, and swans plied the river like feathered galleons. Everywhere I looked, I saw tranquility made visible—a true Sabbath rest.

  “You were right,” she said when I at last ran out of breath. “It is incredible.” There was more, much more to say, but my jaw ached and my throat was dry. “Simply incredible.” She snuggled close and put her head on my shoulder as we turned our steps toward home.

  “Yes, it is. But you’re the only one who will ever know.”

  She stopped and turned to me. “But you’ve got to tell people, Lewis. It’s important.” I opened my mouth to object and she saw it coming. “I mean it, Lewis,” she insisted. “You can’t keep something like this to yourself. You must let people know—it’s your duty.”

  Just thinking of the newspapers made me cringe. Reporters thrusting microphones and clicking cameras in my face, television, radio— an endless progression of skeptics, cranks, and hectoring unbelievers, . . . Never.

  “Who would believe me?” I asked hopelessly. “If I told this to anyone else, it would be a one-way ticket to the loony bin for yours truly.”

  “Maybe,” she allowed, “but you wouldn’t actually have to tell them.”

  “No?”

  “You could write it down. You know your way around a keyboard,” Susannah pointed out, warming to her own idea. “You could live in Nettles’s flat, and I could help: We could do it together.” Her eyebrows arched in challenge and her lips curled with mischief. “C’mon, what do you say?”

  Which is how I came to be sitting at Nettles’s desk in front of a testy old typewriter with a ream of fresh white paper, with Susannah clattering around in the kitchen making tea and sandwiches. I slipped a sheet of paper under the bail and stretched my fingers over the keys.

  Nothing came. Where does one begin to tell such a tale?

  Glancing across the desktop, my eye caught a corner of a scrap of paper with a bit of colored ink on it. I picked up the scrap. It was a Celtic knotwork pattern—the one Professor Nettleton had shown me. I stared at the dizzy, eye-bending design: two lines interwoven, all elements balanced, spinning forever in perfect harmony. The Endless Knot.

  Instantly, the words began to flow and I began to type:

  It all began with the aurochs . . .

  INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR

  Publisher Allen Arnold read the Song of Albion books when they were first published fifteen years ago. He has re-read them a few times since, and recently was able to ask Stephen Lawhead some questions about this exceptional trilogy and the world of Albion.

  Arnold: What is an ‘endless knot’?

  Lawhead: I use this term to describe the inter
connected nature of the spiritual and material world–or, within the context of these books, the manifest world and Otherworld— as expressed in Celtic knot-work patterns. There is a classic knotwork patterns on the cover of these editions, and a smaller triquetra (three-fold knot) within the body of the text.

  At first glance, these may appear to be simply pleasing swirls or interlaced lines. A closer examination will reveal that all the lines are continuous, that they follow a strict over-and-under path, and that eventually they return to themselves–an endless knot.

  There is much conjecture by historians and artists about the meaning of the various traditional patterns. At the very least though, we see in these a harmony, symmetry, and whimsy that sits beautifully with strong lines and rigorous organisation of the design.

  But if one of the lines were to get out of the pattern, if the knot were to unravel in some way . . .

  A: Some characters don’t make it through to the end of the trilogy, and it comes as a shock to the reader.

  L : Sometimes it’s a shock to the writer, too. Believe it or not, I never want them to die—but sometimes it does happen. I certainly don’t kill them off in order to heighten interest or because I’m bored with them. They died, or they get killed, because of natural consequences—within the sub-created world—or because death is inescapably a part of life, in fiction as well as the real world. At that point, my job is simply to report what happened.

  A: Simon is a classic villain in the sense that readers absolutely hate him. Did he evolve as a character, and how do you feel about Simon?

  L: In Simon we see where cynicism, egotism, and rebellion lead, once the humour is gone. When we first meet him in The Paradise War, he is an amusing guy whose jaundiced view of the world is quite entertaining. We all know people like that. But at some point, the stakes get higher, and the question is: how will this person respond? They’re good at identifying and satirising what is bad in the world, but do they have a positive vision of how the world should be—and are they willing to make it happen?

  By the time Simon has used Albion to feed his own ego, and especially at the point that he begins imposing his own twisted worldview on Otherworld, he is well and truly the villain of the piece. His wilful refusal to return to the manifest world—thereby disobeying the Rule One, which is that it is forbidden for a mortal to remain in the Otherworld—sows the seeds of his own downfall.