The Parchment (The Memory of Blood)

by Sylvie Brisset

  Silvo thanked him and replied in a brief message, assuring him that he was following the investigation in France and would keep him informed of his progress. Media could quickly take over the case, so he explained that he had taken away Delatour for now, but that the killers were most probably on French territory.

  As Mystie was slow in coming, he went to buy snacks at the candy distributor. On his return the young woman was waiting near his desk, deep in discussion with the analyst. Upon his arrival, they went silent. Silvo raised an as interrogator a perplexed eyebrow, seeing their attitude. The analyst seemed even more uncomfortable and danced from one foot to the other, crumpling the papers she was holding in her clenched hand. She dared not look Silvo in the face. Mystie came to her rescue.

  "We spoke about the translation we were waiting for," Mystie said, insisting on the "we".

  Silvo then understood. Mystie was not part of staff. The analyst had to wonder whether she had not made a huge mistake by revealing the contents of the document. Fine! Hope this would be a lesson to her. But he did not have the heart to torture her any longer. He sat comfortably and beckoned the women to do the same.

  "We will listen to you. Have you translated it?"

  The analyst seemed to regain confidence, and completely forgot her concerns by burying herself with passion in the subject of her research.

  "Yes. The code was simple. We only had to associate letters in the order by counting them to set every time the ninth following one. A letter, then the ninth, then the eighteenth and so on. And do so several times throughout the text until you reach, by following this selection, to the last letter of the document. I spent more time on the translation rather than on the decryption itself. The author had a Latin, let's say, very personal."

  "Really! The ninth, why that number?"

  "The nine figure has often a special meaning. For some it is the figure of the devil. In other civilizations, like China, it brings good luck. This is why the Forbidden City has nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine rooms. So go figure."

  "Do not make me languish any longer. What is it about?"

  "These are the minutes of a trial, or what gets close to it. That of a woman convicted of witchcraft in England. The manuscript is incomplete, as you can see."

  The analyst handed a folder to Silvo, which he took eagerly. Mystie came near him to read over his shoulder.

  He began to read aloud and his face took a chalky tint as he progressed.

  "My God! What a bunch of nonsense! A man claimed, under oath, that the accused prevented him from bashing his wife as he was leaving a tavern. And for being able to stop him, she had to have supernatural physical strength. A woman accused her of having brought hail and destroyed her harvest, another to have killed her donkey by touching it.

  "Continue. This is not the worst."

  "Lord! We have heard tell that she had made a pact with the devil to get rid of her husband. We have heard tell that she was dancing naked around a bonfire during full moon night, and she had sex with a pig skin...!"

  "I do not know if it was supposed to be a pig skin or if she did it with a pig. Translation is difficult but it is just as delirious anyway," the analyst specified. "A little further, this time she is accused of having had sex with her son."

  "But what did she answer to those heard telling? How could anyone conclude anything on innuendo even if they are credible? Which of course is far from being the case."

  "It was long time ago, Silvo," Mystie reminded him. 'Do not forget it. And anyway, no defense was possible. Denial confirmed only that the accused was a liar. One more sin. And under torture, anyone would confess anything. It was hopeless. A person accused of witchcraft could only be crushed by the system."

  "Then she could do nothing. There was not something about God's judgment?"

  "Yes. Read more."

  He quickly resumed his reading, and stopped again, raising his bulging eyes to the two women.

  "To prove that she was a witch, they tortured her and drowned her!"

  "It was a common practice, unfortunately," Mystie commented sadly. "Some of my female ancestors went through that. Painfully by fire or by water. Women were always considered as trading with the demons. In the related torture, the woman was held under water. If she survived the test, it could not be achieved without the support of demonic forces and she was burned alive."

  "And if she die, being declared as innocent does not bring her much," Silvo completed.

  Mystie nodded sadly.

  "In the best scenario, it saved her family."

  "But why did the villagers participate in such a parody of justice. Yet they had to know her. How could they have let this woman be tortured and then drown in front of them? There must be at least one who defended her! Who protested these aberrant charges!"

  "Silvo, place yourself several centuries ago. The Church was all powerful. Women were only good for making male children. Education was scarce. By coming to testify, these people put themselves on the side of the powerful, those who had knowledge or were supposed to have. In addition it gave them an explanation of mysterious plagues, such as illness or weather. Destroying the source gave them the illusion that it would not return."

  "But the judges, at least, must have a minimum education, right?"

  "Religious fanatics or those greedy and envious of wealth and power. Of course all were not stupid. Did you heard about the trial of Adrienne Heur in sixteen hundred and forty six? She was asked if she believed in wizards. If she had answered yes, they would have asked her from where came this certainty and she would have been accused of frequenting them. If she had said no, then she would have been accused of not believing in the devil and therefore not to believe the Holy Scriptures."

  "What did she answer?"

  "That she believed in wizards because the Bible spoke about it."

  "Whew, at least she succeeded to get out of trouble."

  "She finished at the stake. In this case, the woman seemed to be, like Adrienne Heur, a noble. This is probably the reason of the transcript of her trial. But that's not all from what I was told. Miss, shall we continue?"

  "I fear the worst," Silvo grumbled, while taking back the sheets.

  Mystie read aloud a sentence while sliding her finger on the line.

  "The witch had a son, a young officer in the army."

  "Delatour."

  "It is probable indeed."

  The analyst no longer kept still, unable not to comment, too, on what she had discovered.

  "According to the parchment, he arrived after the condemnation, too late to intervene. Having discovered what happened, he hunted down his mother's accusers and brutally killed them all. Among the victims were clergymen. He slaughtered them all with his sword."

  "It's hard to criticize when you read these horrors. And yet I am not a fan of self justice."

  "Yes. But revenge extended to the whole village."

  "The whole village? You mean not only those who have accused her mother?"

  "If the transcript is correct, yes."

  "Including women and children?"

  "Yes. This type of trial was public. One can imagine that the whole village had attended the trial and not only the witnesses."

  "Lord!"

  "According to the author of these texts, the officer also fell under the influence of the devil. Which, in revenge for the loss of its servant, had rallied him to its cause to destroy fair people."

  "But the woman was drowned. According to their travesty of justice, she was innocent."

  "She went from daughter of the devil, to mother of a demon. That's all," Mystie commented sadly.

  Bewildered, Silvo sank back again in his chair. Mystie took the cereal bar he had forgotten near his keyboard and ate it furiously. She wanted to bite. Due to her particular memory, she knew too well the conduct of these trials. One of her ancestors had attended the one of her own mother! They had obliged a child to attend this parody of justice, the tortures to which they
had submitted her mother. The mother and daughter did not dare to look at each other.

  The first, shameful to suffer these humiliations. Not wanting her daughter to intervene and put herself in danger by trying to defend her. Or simply fearing that if they caught a tender glance to her daughter, the kid would be accused, too, of doing business with the devil. The mother had to pretend to ignore her, go without seeing this only loving face.

  The second, terrified to hear her mother screaming her pain. Hoping confusedly that what she did not see did not exist. Ready to say or do anything to stop hearing the screams of agony, and for not suffering the same indignities. Shameful not to intervene. The monk telling her that shame was due to the fact that she had not followed the precepts of the Bible but that her fault could still be repaired. And she almost ended up believing it. If this could free her suffering...She was not either in age or in state to think about these topics. Lost, seeing her mother turning away from her. She had no one in whom to confide. All those that she believed to be friends, neighbors, all had accused her mother, while a few days earlier, they still came to see her, begging for her services as healer. One day playfellows, the day after pointing at her, calling her the witch's daughter and throwing stones at her.

  Delatour had not attended the trial. He had neither heard the vile accusations, nor heard his mother scream in pain. Had he been there, he would surely be dead for trying to protect her. But knowing him, he had probably felt guilty, just not to have been there to try everything.

  "And then?" Silvo asked, rejecting the folder on his desk in disgust. It was ridiculous, he knew it, but he did not want to hold it in hand anymore.

  Mystie jumped, reconnecting with present time.

  "According to our writer, the demon fell in an ambush, and was stoned to death. No one dared approach his corpse. When they returned in force to burn him, he had mysteriously disappeared, which confirmed that he was demonic. To prevent his younger sister to join him..."

  "What? He had a sister? What age?" Mystie asked abruptly. She was dizzy, thinking of what mother and daughter had endured.

  "Difficult to say. Given the description, and customs of that time, probably seven or eight years. I thought you knew it," the analyst added, confused.

  Mystie shook her head. She took a deep breath so her voice would not tremble.

  "What did they do to her?"

  The analyst hesitated, now frightened of the consequences of what she would say. All the pain, frustration and anger of Mystie appeared on her face.

  "She was burned with her mother’s body. But it seems she committed suicide before they caught her," she added hastily. "They did not burn her alive as they had intended."

  Mystie hid her face in her hands so as not to show her tears. She had heard enough.

  "But who are those who have attacked Delatour and her younger sister if he had destroyed the whole village?" Silvo asked, unconscious of Mystie’s reaction as she stood behind him.

  "A few survivors of the massacre alerted the nearby villages."

  "What surprises me is that Delatour did not intervene to save his sister."

  "Perhaps he believed she was in security. Or she was already dead."

  "What a sinister fate. I wondered why Delatour was a black soul. Now, I wonder rather how he managed to survive with all these horrors in memory. I guess it's not the end of the parchment. Otherwise it would present no real interest for our kidnappers."

  "No. The author of the parchment found his track some twenty years later in France. He had changed his last name, by translating it in French, and had become the manager of a baron."

  "And that name is..."

  "You guessed it. The French translation of Philip Tower gave Philippe Delatour.”

  "Then?"

  "The information is more and more succinct. He became a horse breeder, printer, apothecary...He seems to have also traveled extensively. The manuscript stops in mid-sentence, which proves that pages are missing. It is in this part, however, that the author mentions that according to the rules of the Order, he did not intervene, but he respectfully suggests to take this burden for his own and eliminate the fiend of Satan."

  "But who could be this writer? Why this obsession for Delatour?"

  "His name is Childeric. Since he transcribed the trial, he was probably a cleric member of the Inquisition. He repeatedly refers to that famous order. But I have not discovered which one."

  "Vampire hunters?"

  "Possible. Because strangely, if the description of the trial is punctuated by superlatives, discovery of an undead does not seem to surprise him. He simply states the facts as a biographer or a researcher who would describe his observations, without emotion. Except of course the fact that he always names him the fiend of Satan."

  "The documents may not be of the same author."

  "Difficult to say with certainty," the analyst answered. "There are differences, but the letters’ structure is identical. It is also true, that the shape of Gothic letters leaves less room for writing personalization. The writing is slower, more cut. I think reasonable to assume that the first scrolls, those relating to trial and the revenge of Delatour, are of the same author, but the similarities diminish with the advance in time."

  "That does not explain the other documents that were with the parchment," Mystie added.

  "It means that someone took over and continued the monitoring. Somebody of the same family as Childeric perhaps?"

  "Do we know how old this parchment is?"

  "No. Trial date is not mentioned in the pages we have."

  "I guess it's not a fake."

  "It is indeed unlikely. Even if only the analysis of the original would make it sure."

  "I wonder for whom could be intended those pages? What role plays this order?" Mystie asked, to resume the conversation and try to erase the images that haunted her. She needed to focus her anger on something.

  "Anything is possible," Silvo said. "But something tells me they were not content to do a census as we do ourselves. His proposal to take over the burden lets everything imaginable."

  "I knew this horrifying past, although not in detail. But having to face such a document is chilling," the analyst commented. "If what we know about vampires came to be known by public, don't you think that such a witch hunt could again see daylight?"

  "We can fear it. That's why our business and what we are witnessing must be secret and remain so. Thank you for your help."

  The analyst understood the message and withdrew after a goodbye.

  "She is not wrong, you know, Silvo. The witch hunt was particularly deadly in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. But when you think that in England it was only recently that the law that condemned meteorologists to the stake was repealed…Of course, it was not applied any more. But I mean that this past is not so distant."

  "I know. Today we still condemn to death for witchcraft. If you knew what I read in some reports, you would doubtless wonder in which century we live. We have to find those who kidnapped Delatour. We do not know what documents they have, perhaps more than us. This parchment, maybe, came only to complete previous pages they already hold.”

  "You think that these men could prove the existence of vampires? That it was the reason why Delatour let them kidnap him?"

  "I do not know. But it should be considered. And if it is for that, Delatour is really stupid. This document does not prove much. But it raises curiosity about his family and Delatour himself of course."

  "Why do you say it proves nothing? It describes clearly that he is a living dead. It even explains why he became what he is."

  "Mystie. At the risk of plagiarizing Casper, I'd say it's because you know it. Even if they could, by producing the original, demonstrate that this parchment is authentic, it does not, in any way, imply that what is written in it is true."

  "But why did Delatour let them kidnap him? He doesn't even know what's in the parchment!"

  "He knows that it concerns him. This is doubtle
ss enough for his wanting to get it."

  Mystie nodded. "Yes. I guess I'd have reacted the same way. Seeing your face, you’re thinking of something serious. And that goes far beyond what we just discussed."

  "Mystie, think about it," Silvo replied calmly. "Until further notice, these men hold Delatour. Having a specimen is another story than a manuscript written by a hysterical monk."

  "You think they could do experiments on him?" Mystie asked in horror.

  "Calm down! He is not a helpless child. Do not underestimate him either. But he may well be a scientist, I'm not sure that he has in mind the variety of technical means that are available to anyone nowadays. And I am a little afraid of the reactions of his community if they learn about his abduction. Should it please Delatour or not, this story also concerns national security. He was wrong wanting to play the lonesome righter of wrongs. We are no longer in the fifteenth century! And we see where it led him at that time!"

  Mystie did not reply, and looked through the large window at the busy street without really seeing it. She drew a circle with her fingertip on the vapor that covered the window and wiped it once with a raging palm.

  She felt Silvo’s distrust towards Delatour and had no desire to hear once more his doubts.

  Where could he be? The city was so big. And he could have already left it. To know more about Delatour, even if it was a dark past, made her feel closer to him. He had had a reaction that was destructive, wrong and...human.

  If Casper had been there, he would have surely made a remark in reference to Darth Vader or any other dark protagonist of cinema. She had always liked the character of the Jedi who switched to the dark side, even though he was one of the villains in the Star Wars saga.

  Was it due to the demonic imprint she carried in her or simply an attraction to those who demonstrate weaknesses? She did not know and had no desire to engage in an analysis. She was so sad for Delatour. It was not pity. She just wanted to comfort him, to reconcile him with human life. Tell him he was not alone. Help him to forget the horrors he had in mind for more than five hundred years. But for that, they first had to find him.