Link Arms with Toads!

by Hughes, Rhys

  What next happened to the architect must be envisaged with less precision, for now he found himself among vaults of peculiar shape and ventilation shafts that wormed through the earth in such convoluted figures that the breath which they issued in horrible gasps and sighs was at least one week stale. These vaults led to others or to passages and stairways until a labyrinth was born through the simple act of stumbling onward. Many of these routes led to dooms or frustrations and all were completely dark. Nor would it have been helpful to take the candles with him, for inflammable gas had leaked down from sewers and the deep coal bunkers and settled in pockets; and a naked flame was likely to ignite them and collapse the roof fatally on his bid for freedom.

  First the vaults would be empty, but in time the occasional object might appear to stumble against, a lonely barrel or wheelbarrow, then items at more frequent intervals and doors between the connecting chambers, and a general feeling of moving closer to the level of real life, a slackening of oppression, a lessening of imagined weight. Then the first faint glimmer of natural light, painful to eyes nourished for so long on shadows, and the first taste of fresh air in the nostrils, still clogged with dried blood, and cobwebs in corners and footprints in the thick dust, ancient but human. Now coffins on strong shelves of stone and the ornate sculpture of a crypt for the wealthy. Shreds of rotting tapestry and more vaults beyond. This channel: a crack through the sundry worlds of the underground city.

  Numerous wine cellars, dull bottles full of untasted, strange sediments nestled in mouldy racks from floor to ceiling. After these, a room with glass walls containing dead plants in terracotta pots, but choked on the outside by gigantic weeds; a long forgotten hothouse which has subsided into the earth. Then flooded rooms and stairs which sag with every step, the light growing brighter and brighter. Finally the ground floor of an abandoned house near the edge of the city; and out into the streets and the dawn. But whether the architect departed Toledo or remained, survived and flourished, or was destroyed by bad luck or arrogance, perhaps stabbed by a robber before the sun fully rose, is unknown. The Inquisition was not responsible for his demise: that is all we may safely conclude.

  How many other victims followed his full destiny is also a mystery. There might have been a dozen or twice that. The dungeon with the pit was used once a decade on average, for such was the frequency of special heretics in Toledo during those vile centuries. As for the lesser heretics, they were still merely crisped at the stake in a public square at the rate of one a week. A swallowing by the abominable hole, whether by stumble or closing walls, was always an experience reserved for an elite of spiritual villains; and yet there must have been some. The net came as no surprise to the architect but to them it was probably the most astonishing event of their lives. Yet they did not panic. They found the arch and the candles and the book and read the story within. They followed its instructions and climbed the ladder and crawled down that other tunnel and passed into the labyrinth of vaults. Many probably chose the wrong route here and perished in ways beyond conjecture, but a few surely made it to the surface again.

  Then came a dark age over Toledo, but it was the kind that is welcome to ordinary men and women, for it was a temporary lull in the power of the Inquisition, an eclipse of darkness, a veiling of horror, which though not as wholesome as the creation of light is yet a relief to threatened hearts and brains. The Inquisition did not lose authority or influence, nor was there a lack of funds or recruits, nor a reduction in political support from ambitious merchants and cardinals. It was a stifling of will, as if a black cloak was cast over a black flame. The Inquisitors grew decadent, interested in material pleasures, men of the flesh. They turned corpulent, indolent. They cared less about punishing blasphemy and more about consuming food and wine. The torture implements were employed infrequently; burnings became rare. And the dungeon for special heretics with its pit, pendulum and trickery was forgotten. It lay neglected beneath the other cells, the narrow passage which twisted down to it blocked by an enormous scarlet clock, a gift from a corrupt prince or duke.

  The centuries passed and the horror was diminished, if not extinguished, and the lowest dungeon, always unknown to most, became unguessed by all, though some dim memory was passed on as whispered rumour among the highest levels of the order, but doubted to the point of disbelief. Then there was political upheaval in a foreign land. Europe was shaken by one man and a vast army was baptised in the blood of revolution. The old regimes were threatened and the Inquisition feared for its existence. First nervous about the future, then deeply insecure, finally hysterical, it clung to life by reawakening its traditions. Burnings suddenly increased, albeit in private courtyards rather than public squares; and the renewed demand for victims was almost insatiable. Rust was scraped off the implements, the boots and screws and claws, and the red mist of blood boiled into steam by pokers drifted up the alleyways at nights and condensed on misshapen windows.

  How it was that the passage to the lowest dungeon was rediscovered and the pendulum polished and sharpened, and the clockwork mechanism wound tight, and the braziers loaded with coal, has not been documented. Nor was it revealed to me at my trial. I was condemned for voicing my belief that all men are equal, the doctrine of the enemy power. I could not protest, for I was guilty. At political meetings I wore the cockade, the badge of dissent or treason, depending on your perspective; but I defied my judges to the last. I cried out that even the angels of heaven should be overthrown, for they too were aristocrats! My tormentors in their musty robes, no longer white but stained dark grey by soot and sweat, trembled visibly at this outburst. Yes, they labelled me a special heretic. So I was carried past the toppled red clock and into the subworld of grander and more horrible cogs and springs and slow motions to measure moments.

  There is no need to detail my sufferings. They were the same as yours. I avoided the pit, escaped the pendulum and finally endured the closing, stifling walls. Into the pit I plunged. I did not shriek: I was beyond expression. I was no longer Juan Segismundo Rubín, if indeed I had ever been, but a limp puppet liberated from a cruel play by a twist of vicious mischief. I fell with the ruddy glow above me, anticipating a long drop. Then I passed the mirror and landed on the net. Because I am quick of brain I guessed much at once. I realised this was not another ruse of the Inquisitors but something opposed to them. The bells on the circumference of the net had been cunningly tuned to mimic the sound of splashing water. I did not lie there for long but jumped to the floor of the pit. I discovered the arch, the sanctuary, curtain, desk, candles and book. I read and understood all. I waited for the lowering of the lantern and its withdrawal. Then I groped my way to the bottom of the ladder.

  But now my hope was taken away again, for my fingers touched only the stubs of the lowest iron rung. The secret ladder was gone! It had turned to rust and flaked away over the damp centuries. My only route to freedom now existed as powder around my feet. I gnashed my teeth and wailed. I shook the bells violently in my frustration and the lantern came down a second time. This brought me to my senses and I crouched very still and waited with shallow breath. A full hour passed before the light was drawn back up. I inched my aching body across the floor to the sanctuary. Here I collapsed on the chair and wept quietly. Then I began laughing, for I was not insensitive to the irony of the situation. Eventually I exhausted myself with these exertions of despair and fell asleep.

  Strangely I awoke refreshed and determined to survive. I remembered that a few lumps of mouldy bread and meat had also been caught by the net, like deformed insects on a giant spider’s web. The previous prisoners of the dungeon above had been fed by their captors and clearly some of these morsels always found their way into the pit, perhaps hurled there in disgust by the victim, for the bread was extremely poor quality and the meat was heavily seasoned almost to the point of inedibility, doubtless to inspire a raging thirst as part of the torture; or else they had been kicked accidentally into the hole by the prisoner while he roamed free in t
he darkness at the beginning of his incarceration. But this food was my own, for I had no immediate predecessors, and the closing walls had pushed it into the pit, cooking the meat and charring the bread to toast in the process. I crept back out, retrieved these leftovers and treated myself to a loathsome feast.

  Driven to extremes by my situation I reserved a few crumbs of food as bait for the rats. They came and I caught one. I hesitate to confess how I consumed it. Raw meat is not a delicacy in my culture. I reserved a fragment of this supper to entice yet more rats, and so on. By pressing my tongue to the inner walls of the pit I drank more than enough water to satisfy my needs. My health was by no means perfect and I developed a fungal infection that irritated my skin with excessive intensity, but I welcomed this as a distraction from the monotony of my furtive existence. Whole days were passed in scratching myself from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head, though there were always regions beyond my reach. As if by instinct I saved the candles and dwelled in thick gloom. Probably I feared to inspect what lay under my fingernails.

  I now believe I dwelled in this abominable but somehow heroic manner for a few weeks at most, though at the time it seemed a span closer to years, before I was given the opportunity to play the host to an unexpected guest. I heard a demented screaming from above and it was familiar because an identical sound had once issued from my own lips. A secret door opened in the walls of the dungeon and a new prisoner was cast inside. The door closed with a groan. I wanted to call up to this latest victim but it was very risky to reveal my presence too early. Ears may be pressed to peepholes as well as eyes. The fellow wandered about and avoided falling into the pit. When he fell asleep they came again with drugged food. He awoke and consumed this and fell into a stupor. When he recovered he discovered himself strapped directly below the pendulum. This he also avoided and so they closed the walls together. The familiar pattern.

  He plunged into the pit, struck the net and settled there. I emerged from my sanctuary, reached up and pressed the palm of my hand over his mouth. Then I helped him down and led him into the extra chamber. The tinkling of the bells finally ceased and it sounded as if a pool of agitated water was calm again. While we waited for the dungeon to be expanded back to its maximum size and for the lantern to descend, I shared the secrets of the architect with my new friend. I explained the design of the pit. Its true depth was fifty feet but its apparent depth was closer to three hundred. Just under one third of the distance from the lip to its base, fifteen feet down, lay the mirror and the mouth of the horizontal tunnel, the passage unknown to the Inquisitors. It was the length of this tunnel that gave the impression of a dizzying vertical distance to any observer from above, because they were really looking into the mirror, which reflected the interior of the supplementary passage at right angles. The arrangement of the peepholes in the ceiling was not absolutely symmetrical. The one above the mouth of the pit was slightly offset. Thus while it appeared to any Inquisitor that his line of sight was perpendicular to the shaft, he was actually able to stare only into the mirror, and that in relative darkness; and this optical trick was sufficient to satisfy the entire order that the pit was absolutely lethal.

  We remained together in the sanctuary, eating rats and scratching each other, in an intimate but chaste fashion, until we were joined by a third victim. Because of the political situation in the upper world, the Inquisition was growing frantic. It was more eager than ever to blame its troubles on men with ideas. There was a glut of special heretics. Again the secret door in the dungeon was opened. Stumble, pendulum, hot walls. He was a big fellow and I thought the bells on the net might jingle themselves longer and louder than any water could. But the lantern was lowered and raised in short order. Our new companion was strong and his intake of rats was enormous. Feeling the power in his shoulders I began to toy with an astounding notion. I shared this idea reluctantly, fearing it would be greeted with derision, but it was received with cautious enthusiasm. It was an authentic chance. We had hope again.

  There are certain fiestas in this land of Spain, which is a kingdom of performers and acrobats, which involve men making towers and pyramids with their bodies. They stand on each other’s shoulders. There is skill and stamina and determination to succeed; and these displays take place in town squares or in wide courtyards. Never in a pit. But there is no rule to prohibit prisoners from balancing in a like manner until the highest man may reach up and grip the lip of the horizontal tunnel and pull himself into it. And even if such a rule existed, who better to break it than a troupe of special heretics, acrobats of the intellect? I had already contemplated taking down the net and turning it into a rope, but what was there to cast at? The mirror would not support my weight and the mouth of the escape tunnel was free from projections. The rope could not catch on anything. No, the only way was to send up a man first and have him lower it down for the others. The lightest would be first; and as more joined him in the tunnel, so more arms might be employed to pull up the heavier men.

  This plan became the guiding principle of our lives. The distance from the base of the pit to the mouth of the tunnel, as may be calculated from the measurements I quoted earlier, was approximately thirty-five feet. Seven men were enough to reach that height. We had three; soon we were four. We prayed for others. The rate of executions increased. Special heretics almost became common. Not every prisoner cast into this dungeon took his place as one of our number. Several did not escape the swinging blade. Then we pitied the pendulum less, because it wept tears for itself, saving us the bother, and these tears were of blood; or so we supposed. The hunks of bisected torso were reclaimed by the Inquisition and the crescent of steel was hastily blessed, then drawn up. We remained profoundly silent at these times, though not once did anyone peer over the edge of the pit, or even approach it within a dozen steps.

  We continued to dine exclusively on rats, but some of us deliberately ate less than others. We wanted a gradation of strength in our human tower. The fellow at the bottom would be expected to bear an enormous amount of weight without buckling. He gorged himself while the rest of us ate in relative moderation or starved ourselves to varying degrees. A fifth and then sixth recruit was added to our company. This last was an inhabitant of Corsica who brought us news of the situation in Europe. The man who was rampaging across the continent, overthrowing regimes and looting museums, was one of his countrymen. Even Toledo was threatened with invasion. We rejoiced at the thought of the destruction of the Inquisition and also at the realisation that one more prisoner was all we required to make good our escape.

  When he came, we would lose no time. Turning a net into a rope is easy. So too the rest of the plan. The strongest man lifts the next strongest onto his shoulders, while the third climbs up them and takes his own position, ready to receive the fourth, who has higher to climb to reach his shoulders and wait for the fifth. The sixth was myself. The newcomer, rope looped about his shoulder, persuaded of the excellence of our scheme and wishing to contribute to our fiesta of liberation, climbs up all of us, one at a time, his fingers jabbing our uncomplaining throats and mouths, to my shoulders. Here, stretching up, the lip of the tunnel is just within his reach. With a mighty effort he pulls himself up and enters the mouth of the passage, then turns and lowers the rope to me. Joining him I help anchor the rope for the next man down, and he helps for the next, and so on, until all seven of us are inside the tunnel.

  Along it we must crawl to the circular blue curtain that gives the appearance of being a pool of water from a distance, especially when it ripples in a breeze from one of the ventilation shafts behind it. As we pass under it we may discern that the cloth is really double; that there is a second curtain which might briefly reveal itself if the first parts in too strong a current of air, and that on this other drapery is painted, with formidable skill, a few broken spars and bursting bubbles. Beyond this the labyrinth of vaults and passages and stairways, and if luck is with us, emergence in the ruined house and the clean air of Toled
o, on the Paseo de la Ronda, at the edge of the city, beyond the smokes, and a short walk across the bridge of Saint Martin over the River Tajo, and freedom and open country and wayside inns and wine and music and señoritas, all the best things we have missed, and sunlight and the stars and friendship and the celebration of natural and simple pleasures.

  Yes, we waited for the man who would make all this possible. We waited; and then you arrived. You were the seventh, our saviour. You were silent when they deposited you in the dungeon. Clearly you had swooned during your trial, perhaps as the sentence was uttered. Your body was carried down the obscure passage and abandoned in this miniature hell. The robes of the Inquisitors were no longer white. Too much exposure to coal dust, soot, blood and sulphur had stained them the colour of a cesspit. With the wars raging around the city, the hysteria of the order had reached its peak. Like a fever it was due to break, but in the meantime the sheer number of heretics to be dealt with, both normal and special, left no time to clean their garments. When you awoke you wandered about. What else might you do?

  First you completed two circuits of the dungeon, going one way and then the other. I suspect you felt a strange relief you were not within a tomb. Next you lurched directly across the middle of the chamber. We reasoned this from your footsteps and prayed for you to fall into the pit, but you stumbled just before the edge and discovered it. We dared not call up. Then you did something that nobody before you had ever attempted. You dislodged a piece of masonry from the inside of the pit and let it drop. The stone bounced and rattled between the walls, making the hole sound deeper than it was. It struck the net and set in motion the bells that chime like water. A trapdoor opened in the ceiling and the beam of a lantern flashed down. The Inquisition wanted to check if you had fallen. You had not. The trapdoor was closed.