Angels in the Architecture

by Sue Fitzmaurice

  The picture of the boy’s mother and young brother stayed in Hugh’s mind’s eye and would not leave. He wanted to do something for this child, whose small soul shone so simply at him. There was a weaving together of the King’s mission and this small boy’s plight that reeled querulously about his brain, but its import eluded him. He felt at the turning point of an uncertain future, the unfolding of which lay just beyond his grasp, but nevertheless upon his shoulders.

  Returning to the path along the Lincoln pool, he hoped his winged confidante might return to listen to his ramblings and accompany his mind’s walk through these complex demands. He thought her loyal presence might provide him a mirror with the sum of his cogitations, an answer, a direction. But, alas, the pen did not find him there, if indeed she still looked for him.

  At his return to Torksey the day before, he and the priest were greeted with more fearful tidings that another swan had been found slaughtered in the Thane’s woods. No culprit had been found, although an earlier poacher’s life now hung in the balance as it was thought he must inhabit a web of hunters who preyed upon the Thane’s lands. Was this his own great bird, his own confidante? He felt sure it could not be. But the finding was some omen for him now, not any longer just for the gossips and doomsayers of around about.

  Hugh turned back along the path again, back towards the dealings and industry of the wharf. He passed quickly by the dockworkers, acknowledging the customary courtesies offered him, as befitted both himself and those who noticed him. Any thought of revelling once more in their labours was past him now. And indeed the physical tasks before him, of rebuilding, were smaller. The moral tasks, to encourage a people and priesthood, were greater. But greatest of all was to understand God’s will, and it seemed that this was to be found in the grace of a bird, the simplicity of a child and even the light glistening on the water, if one had just the right view to see and hear.

  The dust and the clatter of the movement about him whispered to him the sincerity of the deed, and he slowed his pace and looked up to a workman ahead of him, intent on his task to carefully lower a pallet of goods to the wharf. Hugh watched the man’s face, focused on his duty, observing and acknowledging others’ shouts to him, mindful of other movement about him that may disturb him in his goal. He was an ordinary-looking man, no different from others about him. Most likely he had a wife and children. Most likely he feared God and mostly observed His laws. Perhaps he would get drunk at times or beat his wife. But for now, this man’s purest thought focused on the job before him.

  As Hugh came closer and was about to walk by, the man turned his head and nodded to the Bishop, without for a moment withdrawing his awareness of the undertaking at his hands.

  Hugh understood there was no greater obligation then, than to complete whatever lay before him, great or small, with purity, with sincerity, and with an eye to perfection. To ease the plight of a stricken child was no lesser accomplishment for himself, for the world or for God, than it would be to secure Henry’s promise to take up the call to crusade. To protect the innocent and support even the wayward and foolish to come to God; whatever his task, it would be accomplished with purity and thankfulness.

  Hugh continued on past the boats and their workmen, the sun beating hard on them. A carriage stood a short distance away to convey him back up to the cathedral, a patient Brother Peter waiting at its door..

  ‘No, Peter, I will walk. I have much to occupy my thoughts.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’ Peter motioned the driver on and remained to walk with his Master.

  ‘My dear young man, there is no need really.’

  ‘I could not in conscience leave you to walk here alone, sir. It isn’t safe.’

  ‘There is no one about who would harm a Bishop I feel, Peter. More likely they would run away when they see me.’

  ‘Then even so, Your Grace, I could certainly not ride when you walk. It would not be right.’

  ‘It’s entirely right, Peter, if you should get to the top of the hill and have not the breath to go fetch me some water.’

  ‘I will have all the breath I need, my Bishop. I promise.’

  Hugh looked in the young priest’s eyes, which were instantly lowered in a bowed head.

  ‘Then you will walk with me, Peter.’

  Hugh set off. Peter fell into step behind him, as Hugh knew he would. Smiling, Hugh halted after a few yards, and Peter, looking down, walked to his side and stopped.

  ‘With me, Peter.’

  He set off again, with Peter almost by his side.

  Some things are difficult to change.

  A cart drew along near them, an old Jew and a younger man pulling a long handle each, their heads bowed and the long curls from their sideburns covering most of the view of their faces. The old man struggled and his companion, perhaps his son, looked with concern.

  Hugh stopped. ‘Peter, help that old man.’

  Peter stopped and took a moment to take in the instruction. The Bishop clearly gazed on the old Jew nearby.

  Hugh turned his head and smiled at Peter. ‘Please.’

  Peter bowed and walked briskly to the old man. The cart stopped, and with a small exchange and looks of both puzzlement and gratitude towards the Bishop, the exchange took place, and the cart moved away with the two younger men pulling more efficiently now. The old man looked around for a place to sit, and finding a low wall, propped himself upon it, hands on knees and concentrating on easing his own breathing. He looked up at the Bishop, nodding. Hugh smiled in acknowledgement and rejoined his own path to the top of the hill. Not a few passers-by had witnessed this small mercy.

  The People of the Book who inhabited these parts were the topic of moanings and grumblings of many a villager and lowly priest. Laws were enacted at times by local priests and aldermen that had ignorance and prejudice at their base. Hugh would make himself an advocate for the plight and innocence of these peaceful and unassuming peoples and their families.

  Hugh looked up the hill and towards the steeple towers that should have been in his view. Would he be remembered for some excess in their rebuilding? He railed against the weakness of such ego, seeking to replace its drive with an equal ambition to relinquish his own immortality for the creation of a greater strength of human heart. It all fit together.

  13

  Timothy Watson swam in light. More light than he’d ever been in. This day though, the light didn’t come from outside of him, towards him. It came from him. It was Tim’s light. He had been learning how to make it and to project it, and today was his best light day yet.

  He had worked out how he could take a little bit of white gold and make it into a lot more white gold, an ancient alchemy. The Holy Grail. The Philosopher’s Stone. Tim had calculated it out completely. Tim.

  When one little bit of whiteness came, he could take it into his body, via his heart, up through a space behind his forehead and down into his belly, and then from there it fanned out all through him. And as it went through his cells, it multiplied. Because light prefers to grow, not diminish.

  It was very important that the first bit of white that started off the propagation was a really good bit of white. Tim had had trouble with this bit sometimes. Some of the white he’d seen lately was faded or stained, and this white did not, as it turned out, produce a quality spawn. In fact, it wouldn’t produce any spawn at all often, which was why it had taken Timmy a while to figure out that he could make light himself.

  He had learnt that the best light came from light itself, from the light that so often spoke to him. But living things also had light, and there had been a few people and one animal that had given him good light. One person he spent most of his time with sometimes had good light and sometimes not, but lately it was consistently better, and this had helped. This came from Tim’s father. Tim knew his father was his father because anyway he just understood more than his father thought he did. His sister had very pure golden light, but he wasn’t supposed to borrow from her light because she
had to use it herself, even though when you take from other people’s light, it doesn’t diminish how much they have left themselves. In fact, the opposite is the case, and the more people give their light away, the more light they have. This was a type of mathematics that Timmy understood very well. He had been experimenting with this mathematics and found he was quite good at it.

  Today was Tuesday. Tim knew that too. He knew all the days of the week, and he knew today was Tuesday. He had not yet been able to tell anyone that he knew this, but that didn’t matter to him. He hadn’t noticed whether it mattered to anyone else and so that didn’t matter either. Other things Tim knew were people’s names, and what they looked like, and how they liked to live. Tim lived differently because he had to deal with all the things he saw that other people didn’t see. They all thought he didn’t really see anything, but he saw a thousand times what anyone else did, and sometimes he thought his brain was going to explode with all that information and then he’d jump up and down and wave his arms around because that would settle it all down quite a lot. He could throw all the data around in his body, and when he stopped moving, it was more inclined to settle down into some sense. Sometimes he’d have to move around like this for quite a long time before things calmed down in his head.

  Tim had been working on his light experiments because he knew more light had to go out into the world, and if he knew how to do that, then he’d be able to help. Some of the light told him this. It didn’t come in messages like words or sentences, but it was as though he could hear it and see it and so it might as well have come that way. He could understand it if he lined himself up just right and didn’t look directly at the light. If he looked directly at it, then it would move just out of his sight, so he had to observe it out of the corner of his eye, in a kind of sneaky way that meant he was both looking at it and not looking at it. It was very scientific.

  Tim had an idea that he’d missed a few opportunities to make a useful contribution in this way already. He had taken longer to learn what he needed to and that was a bit disappointing for him now. When he got disappointed he would lose sight of the little impressions the light would leave in the space around him, and he wouldn’t be able to pick up the trail, and consequently, also, not the source. And then he’d get more disappointed. And then he’d do all sorts of weird stuff to try and pick up the whiff of it again: straight lines were his main strategy. Light travels in straight lines. So he’d look around for some straight lines. Or he’d make his own. You could make your own lines to the light; you didn’t just have to find ones that were already there. He realised also that it was not useful to stay disappointed, or even to get disappointed at all. That got in the way. He’d figured out now pretty much all the things that got in the way, and getting angry was one of the worst. Tim never really got angry, but other people did and they’d block out his light if he let them. So he tried not to let them, but that was fairly hard to do too.

  When the light was especially straight and wide, Tim could see how it changed things. He even knew he could change things for the future and maybe even for the past. He thought some light from the past had helped him make light for the future. Time had a hold on this experiment in his mind as well. Someone else more famous than Tim would write that experiment up into a scientific paper and become even more famous for that, and it would cause a lot of interested fuss in the world, and some not very interested fuss too. But Tim wasn’t concerned about that. He was concerned about how to use his experiments to make other kinds of interesting things happen, other than scientific papers that could make you famous.

  Tim’s main experiment now involved him reflecting light. If he caught it at the right angle and reflected it back along the right trajectory in a certain way, then it would have a major impact. The new light, once transformed and reflected, grew so much bigger, and it could change the way people thought, and it could change their actions, and it could change the impact of their actions.

  Tim didn’t really see this power as the amazing thing that it was. He just knew he had to be really good at it, and he felt a very strong urge to get it right today. He did understand that the implications were enormous – he wasn’t sure what, just that it was a very big deal – and he didn’t want to let anyone down.

  He had to get it just right. And he was focusing very hard on this; at the same time as he was not focusing because if he focused too hard, his head got filled up with stones and fuzzy darkness and then that stopped the light going anywhere at all, plus it gave him a headache.

  14

  Khalid had a dream. He would be a martyr, a son of Ibraham, a child of God. He would wake to Golden Light, the reward of infinite glory and the praise of his people forever. The angel Jibril,[1] stern and foreboding, held his arms open to Khalid Islambouli and beckoned him into his enfolding wings. Khalid Islambouli knew a supreme protection. He would become a modern Shahid.[2]

  Khalid had become ashamed of the once-proud status of his beloved Egypt. Its ancient and noble history had been besmirched now for too many years by the actions of the country’s biggest traitor. His Arab brothers and sisters were all betrayed. He, and others, would change it. They had heard the call of Abdel-Rahman to take the traitor’s life.

  Although he did not hear Jibril speak aloud, he knew in his heart and mind and soul the words of His bidding as they had been spoken by Abdel-Rahman, and he knew he would obey. There was a great fire in him now. He had been angry at the arrest of his young brother, Mohamed Ahmed, and he saw now how he might avenge him.

  When he woke in his barracks each morning, he prepared his soul in prayer, as indeed he heard the call to prayer throughout every day. When he spoke with the men he knew would become his brothers, his eyes blazed and it lighted a fierce passion in them so that they made him their leader. Their brotherhood remained known only to them – not from any secret they harboured or any fear of exposure, but because the great love they shared for each other and for their mission was bounded and safeguarded by their strength alone, and any other’s would surely desecrate and dishonour that strength.

  He had not been chosen initially for the Parade, but his brothers had made sure another would not be able to attend and manoeuvred for Khalid’s placement. When a few days later he was chosen, he knew Jibril was really with him, and he knew his destiny.

  When 6 October came, a Tuesday, Lieutenant Islambouli rose to morning prayer, completed all the normal duties of his morning, and then set about preparing his unit for their part in the Parade. Their uniforms were perfect – clean and starched – although they all knew the sweat that would invade them as they waited in the hot sun. There was always waiting to be done in the military and always in uniform and always in formation, and with no leniency to the heat or an insect or an itch settling one one’s face. None of this came within Khalid’s orbit on this day though. His mind held only one thought, and he felt the strength of that focus bonding him with his brothers around him. They were one mind, and they acted with a single disciplined force.

  The march past was long and slow – their Egyptian leaders showed off their force to the world, and this at least made Khalid proud. Eventually, the grandstand came into view and Khalid’s heart raced, but he was not frightened. He knew he would probably be killed. He was aware of every part of his body and felt only that there was himself in the world, and his brothers sitting in the back of the truck with him – and their target. Every motion forward was made up of a million tiny movements, and Khalid registered every one. They went by him slowly, and he saw precisely the detail of them all unfold. He was patient with it, and he felt complete control over each millisecond, and each scene within that brief moment.

  Their weapons were prepared, and more importantly their spirits and their resolve. They had rehearsed at the rear of a deserted barracks; each knew his part. Ammunition had been prohibited and their rifles had been checked before they got into the truck. But their planning was meticulous, and they had made sure to have what they n
eeded about them.

  Their truck eventually came alongside the President’s platform, which sat in fact quite a long way back from the route of the cavalcade. There were four rows of guards surrounding the President and his platform, and the President himself was standing, with many other dignitaries about him. Khalid recognised some American military uniforms and an orthodox Christian clergyman of some sort. Come to pay homage to a false leader, a traitor to the Prophet. He was ashamed that the President wore a uniform; he had no right.

  Khalid heard the sound of jets flying towards their location. The dignitaries and the crowds turned away from the oncoming parade just as the truck carrying Khalid and his brothers halted before the presidential stand.

  ‘Now,’ he said firmly.

  Lieutenant Islambouli leapt down from the truck and marched in a straight line towards the platform. Three others followed behind him.

  President Anwar Sadat turned to see the men.

  The men halted.

  Sadat waited on their salute.

  Islambouli lobbed three grenades into the stand, the others with him emptying their assault rifles, while others still leapt from the truck and ran towards the rows of dignitaries as they fell, scurried, and hastened to protect the fallen President.

  Khalid knew at any moment he would be stopped, perhaps with a bullet, perhaps by guards who might run right at him, but neither of these came quite so soon as he thought, and so he kept running forward.

  Hours seemed to pass. Why was there no response? He could stand here forever and kill all the traitors. He could see Americans in the stand, and others who supported Sadat. They all deserved to die. The movement of every piece of the tableau was mapped out in front of him like a complex alignment of a zillion stars, and he had power over each movement. It was all so easy.