In The Image of God

by Simon Raven

  ‘I see,’ said Carmilla, as she looked again at the illustration of the Tower of Constance. ‘So what began as the story of Hubertus Nivalis Narbonnensis ends in the story of the petty nobleman, Cludes-Claudius, on the Isle of Palus Dei.’

  ‘The story ends,’ said Gagneac, ‘not with Cludes-Claudius in the intestines of the sea birds but with the carvings he made on the exterior of what he intended as his sepulchre. The carvings are still there, you know…a little worn after more than six hundred years, but easily discernible.’

  ‘Is the Island approachable?’ asked Fielding Gray.

  ‘Very easily, these days. It is now in the centre of a small lagoon, which one crosses on a causeway.’

  ‘A tourist attraction, one supposes?’ said Jeremy.

  ‘No,’ said Gagneac. ‘The indigenous inhabitants of Palus Dei, who still make a livelihood, a very wretched one, from fishing, are as hostile to strangers now as they were six hundred years ago. Now as then they still profess the faith of White Cathars (several of them being “perfects”). Since the population is by now the result of incestuous unions, there is a high level of insanity, which reveals itself in a fanatical adherence to their faith, the centre of which is Cludes-Claudius’ monument to its Cosmology. The tomb is so zealously guarded that even if a stranger made his way safely over the causeway he would be expelled – or worse – long before he came within sight of the chapel. You should understand,’ said Gagneac, ‘that the Island is totally beyond the administration and without the law. The bureaucracy and the police have simply agreed to leave it alone, to thrive or perish as it will. Since it is extremely remote – the causeway which leads to it begins in the middle of a wilderness of giant reeds and sea-grasses, which in turn can only be approached through a marsh by a secret track two miles long – it is not likely to be discovered.’

  ‘How do they live, these islanders?’ enquired Piero.

  ‘By the fish which they catch. They ceased to sell any of it “on the mainland” a good hundred and fifty years ago, when the Gendarmerie first began to show an interest (since abandoned, as I say) in Palus Dei. Their diet of fish is supplemented by various roots and flora found in the mire at the centre of the Island. For the rest, well, they have few needs, and these are catered for by the household articles pillaged from the Donjon when the Seigneurial family died out in the nineteenth century.’

  ‘When one considers the condition and situation of Palus Dei,’ said Carmilla, ‘one is surprised that you appear to know so much about it.’

  ‘There is an English student of these affairs,’ said Jacques-Emile Gagneac, ‘a scholar called Conyngham. His main interest is in scattered examples of the survival of Black Cathars, but he is also interested in the White, who are far rarer. He has access to Palus Dei because he has shown, to the satisfaction of the fishermen, that his ancestors were related to the Seigneurs of Les Oiseaux. Since the islanders are loyal to their former lords, they are disposed, besides making use of their furniture and other effects which they left, to be civil to their kin. M. Conyngham, with whom I have the honour to be slightly acquainted, visits Palus Dei from time to time and engages in a close study of the Cludes-Claudius monument.’

  ‘Surely,’ said Jeremy, ‘there is a limit to the amount of “study” which these carvings will justify?’

  ‘There is a mystery,’ said Gagneac, ‘which has never been solved. Next to the carvings, at the far end of them, which illustrated the defeat of the Devil, is a panel which guards the entrance to the hollow interior, which was originally intended for the dead body of Cludes-Claudius.’

  ‘And now contains what is left, if anything, of the ashes of his murderers?’

  ‘Correct,’ said the curator. ‘On this panel is engraved a small Maltese Cross. At first M. Conyngham thought that this had been carved by Cludes-Claudius to signify the descent of the Seigneurs, and so of himself, from noblemen of Malta. Then he realized that any such reference would have been made by a representation of quarterings or some other heraldic insignia, such as a crest. And then he also realized, on close examination, that the Cross was of a far later period than the carvings made by Cludes-Claudius.’

  ‘Perhaps the carving of the Cross was made by another member of the family?’ suggested Fielding Gray.

  ‘No. Close inspection shows that this carving, though contrived to look ancient, was in fact made after, long after, the demise of the last Seigneur and the cessation of the family.’

  ‘Exactly when?’ said Carmilla.

  ‘That is what M. Conyngham is trying to determine. Unfortunately he is not expert in matters of sculpture.’

  ‘But you yourself?’ said Jeremy, gesturing beyond the screen to indicate the museum at large, full of carven and engraved stone. ‘You yourself would surely be able to date such work?’

  ‘I am an expert in ancient sculpture. This Maltese Cross would appear to be modern. But I might be of help, if I could see the work and examine it. And at last, M. Conyngham writes from England, he has thought of a way for me…and others…to gain access to the Island. You have seen the little tablet in the Sarcophagus of Hubert Nivale?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We do not know when his coffin was put into the sarcophagus, but we may assume that the tablet was put there at the same time. Whoever placed the coffin there must have done so because it was in bad repair, and he would therefore have been able to notice that there was no little black figure at the inside head of it – an omission almost certainly insisted on by the White Cathar, Cludes-Claudius, who had administered the “consolamentum” to Hubert. Besides, records kept by the Black Cathars probably helped Hubert’s benefactor to realize what was to be expected of Hubert’s coffin. And so, knowing that Hubert was in fact a Black Cathar but had been nagged into accepting the rites of the White, our man doubtless caused a tablet to be carved with Hubert’s name, a suitable inscription and the little black figure, and placed it in the sarcophagus with the coffin.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Carmilla. ‘What has this to do with gaining safe access to Palus Dei?’

  ‘First of all,’ said Gagneac, ‘one must know the route. Of this I have a map made by M. Conyngham.’

  ‘And what of your reception when you arrived?’

  ‘If one took with one a similar tablet to that which commemorates Hubert, and on it one had carved the name of one of the very early Seigneurs of Les Oiseaux, who in fact died away from the islands, in St-Gilles, say, on one of the commercial expeditions there, and if one also carved on it an inscription and, in this case, a tiny upright figure, inlaid in white, of a White Cathar at prayer, then it is at least possible that those who came bearing such a memorial and a plausible tale to explain it might be admitted on to the Island. The islanders are very proud of being White Cathars and of having a line of rulers (albeit now defunct) who had been Cathars from the time of the origin of the heresy – to them, of course, the true faith. Such a gift would call for a reward, and if the reward one asked was to be allowed to visit the great Tomb carved by Cludes-Claudius, it could hardly be refused.’

  ‘And then,’ said Carmilla, ‘one could examine this mysterious and apparently modern Maltese Cross and perhaps deduce its provenance?’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Jacques-Emile Gagneac.

  ‘The trouble is,’ said Carmilla, ‘that one is not knowledgeable in this field. You are not, as you admit; and I am not; and these gentlemen are not.’

  ‘Five pairs of eyes, looking with a fresh gaze, might perceive something,’ said Gagneac.

  ‘The faked tablet of which you speak –’

  ‘– I have one in my office –’

  ‘– would be an adequate laissez-passer for all five of us?’

  ‘I am prepared to chance it if you are. To look at this remarkable Tomb – that would be a privilege,’ said Gagneac. ‘And to deduce something about this mysterious modern Cross would be a minor triumph of scholarship. I think all of us here have the spirit of scholars. I think so simply because we
are here.’

  ‘I should certainly like to see that sepulchre,’ said Piero Caspar.

  ‘I should certainly like to get to that Island,’ said Fielding Gray.

  ‘A new and unknown world,’ said Jeremy Morrison.

  ‘An old and unknown world,’ corrected Carmilla Salinger.

  Raisley Conyngham and Milo Hedley sat in Le Jardin de la Fountain at Nîmes. Pines and cedars gave them shade and shelter (both most grateful, for it was one of the occasional hot and windy winter days in the city), lawns and terraces and balustrades gave them repose and delight of the spirit, and a noble swan, whose constant efforts to take off into the air from a pond below a cascade were constantly frustrated by the cruel debility of his clipped wings, provided Raisley with matter for moralizing.

  ‘That poor bird,’ he said, ‘does not understand what has been done to it nor that it can never fly again. So it will keep trying, quite in vain, for the rest of its life. Similarly, Carmilla and her cronies do not understand the limitations imposed by a rational education upon their mind and mood of thought. They will never be able to conceive of a world that is not governed by Newtonian notions of cause and effect. They do not belong to the age of Relativity and the Quantum Theory. They know about them of course, but they conceive of them only in three-dimensional and mechanical terms. The metaphysical and supernatural implications are beyond them.’

  ‘Piero Caspar,’ said Milo, ‘has not been maimed and limited by a rational education. His childhood in Sicily taught him all about the supernatural, or so Provost Llewyllyn told me when I stayed with him last summer,’

  ‘Piero has had his share of rational education since he commenced as an undergraduate at Lancaster. During all that time his old instinctive knowledge of the pagan gods, whether oppidan or silvan, has been eroded. Like Carmilla, Major Gray and your erstwhile catamite, Jeremy Morrison, Piero Caspar (not for nothing promoted Fellow of his college) expects everything to be explicable in the terms of classical statics and dynamics…though of course he may retain some residual tags of his old knowledge. But like the rest of them, Piero is now propelled by two motives: first by curiosity, not so much to discover a solution to a problem or a mystery, but to see in what manner that solution ultimately fits in, however eerie or non-worldly the circumstances, with his strictly rational preconceptions; and second by vanity, the self-satisfaction derived from being clever enough to solve a mystery and from finding that the answer, as he has always maintained it would be, is rendered in a logical and natural frame. You see, Milo, whatever the true answer is, such people will always remodel it till it appears to accord with such a frame.’

  ‘So to curiosity and vanity we add intellectual dishonesty?’

  ‘We can do so if we wish. But curiosity and vanity, Milo, will be quite enough to serve our turn. Now then. Carmilla & Co. have been invited to accompany an old ally of mine on a visit to an obscure island in the Camargue on which is situated rather a remarkable tomb. They have been told there is a mystery about the tomb – a mystery that can be cleared up by the application of their knowledge, culture and intelligence. Inevitably, the appeal to curiosity and vanity has led them to accept the invitation. But suppose, Milo, just suppose, that the mystery turns out, after all, to have a supernatural or larval solution? Or at any rate to appear, beyond confutation, to have one?’

  ‘If they are convinced, they will be very put out.’

  ‘Precisely. So put out, that from now on they may make themselves scarce and mind their own business, in this and indeed in all other matters.’

  ‘It will certainly throw them off their stroke, sir,’ Milo said.

  ‘I hope so. I am getting very bored with their interference. You will accompany me to see what happens when they are confronted by…by whatever will confront them?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to miss it, sir.’

  ‘Good. Now we shall return to Sète to rest before this adventure. You have brought some really warm clothes with you?’

  ‘Warmish. Nothing for the Arctic.’

  ‘The damp cold of the marshes is more treacherous if not so savage as that of the Arctic. We shall buy you something appropriate before we leave Nîmes.’

  ‘Something in fur, sir?’

  ‘Something drab but effective from French Army surplus, if we can find the right shop.’ Raisley rose. ‘The military do things very well, Milo, when they turn their minds to them. Almost anything. For example, these beautiful gardens. Few people realize that they were the creation of an eighteenth-century Army engineer.’

  ‘It does say so, sir, here in the Green Michelin.’

  ‘Yes. But the artist gets a brief phrase, where Capability Brown would get a paragraph, and he is not named. That is because the kind of people who write guide books, Milo, hate the military and virulently grudge them credit. They do not willingly acknowledge even that soldiers fight on their behalf during wars. Still less do they give proper praise to a soldier for an endeavour – look around you, Milo – that belongs (they think) only to their own kind. When confronted with such a phenomenon, they become truculent and evasive. In rather the same way, Carmilla and her chums will become truculent and evasive when confronted with an instance of the supernatural. They will be shamed into silence.’

  ‘I don’t think that any of them,’ said Milo, ‘was ever shamed into anything.’

  ‘They will be frightened into silence.’

  ‘That lot don’t scare easily.’

  ‘Then they will be,’ said Raisley Conyngham, ‘compelled into silence.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Milo: ‘there, sir, speaks my Master.’

  ‘Since we are complete strangers to the islanders,’ Carmilla Salinger said to Jacques-Emile Gagneac, ‘is it altogether sensible to arrive after dusk?’

  ‘The men are out all day fishing,’ said Gagneac: ‘the women are even more ferocious and even less literate than the males. A stranger’s best chance of being properly understood lies in his presenting himself to the Head Man of the hamlet. Or so I am instructed by M. Conyngham from England.’

  ‘With this tablet,’ said Carmilla, examining it, ‘I see you have made a very distinctive job of the praying white figure; and I also see you have chosen a very apposite epitaph for the Seigneur: “Animae Sanctorum sunt in manu Doi.” “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God.” Let us hope the Head Man speaks Latin.’

  ‘Heretics, like true Catholics, used to pray in Dog Latin,’ said Jacques-Emile; ‘the modern mode of using the vernacular will not yet have disturbed Palus Dei.’

  ‘Here are the sedilia,’ said Raisley Conyngham to Milo Hedley; ‘and this is the tomb which was carved for himself by the priest and White Cathar, Cludes-Claudius – the tomb which, as I explained to you on the way here, is in fact occupied by the ashes of his murderers, the body of Cludes himself having been thrown piecemeal to les oiseaux of Les Oiseaux. There is the panel that conceals the hollow space within, intended to contain a cadaver; and there’ – he carried his torch closer to the panel – ‘is the Maltese Cross, which Carmilla and her group are coming to investigate.’

  ‘The Cross which looks old?’

  ‘As you can see,’ said Raisley.

  ‘But was in fact carved pretty recently.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘What do we do now, sir?’

  ‘Sedilia, as even a Trinity man knows, are for sitting on. So we shall sit on them and wait. We are here, by design, a good hour before Gagneac will arrive with our opponents. I shall switch off the torch to save the battery. You do not mind waiting in the dark?’

  ‘Not with you, sir, for you are a Lord of it.’

  ‘Do I detect a hint of irony, Milo? Have a care, boy, have a care. So. Here we are, comfortably settled on the sedilia. I extinguish the torch – thus – and now I shall a tale unfold to beguile you while we wait.’

  ‘Another tale, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Milo. Another. I trust you will not find it tedious. I have told you how the priest/Cathar
Cludes-Claudius administered the “consolamentum” to Hubert Nivale, how Hubert, taking too long to die his agonizing death, was suffocated by his friends, how these friends were arrested on their return from Hubert’s funeral, and how Cludes-Claudius, scenting trouble, deserted them on their way back to the ostal, and escaped to this Island. All this, of course, has also been told to Carmilla and her boys by Gagnea…who is bringing them here, pretending they need a false token to satisfy the islanders (to make the matter more circumstantially complicated and thus more convincing to the rational mind), not having told them that all the islanders have long since died or departed, and that the place is deserted. Now, what Gagneac has not told the gang of four, and what I have not yet told you, is what happened to the corporal remains of Hubert Nivale. They know and you know that his coffin was hurriedly buried. They know and you know that at some stage a well-wisher placed the rotting coffin inside a magnificent pagan sarcophagus, together with a tablet to identify the coffin’s occupant. But what neither they know or you know is what has become of that occupant.’