A Dusk of Demons

by John Christopher

  “The Master is well, I hope?”

  The tone was solicitous, but I didn’t believe the hope was honest. I had once observed him in conversation with the Master, and though I could not distinguish their words, there had been contempt in the Master’s voice, wheedling unease in the Sheriff’s.

  I said, “He is well, sir.”

  “Respect him, boy. He is a great man.”

  “Indeed he is!”

  I spoke warmly and thought his eyes narrowed behind the rimless lenses, but he smiled still more widely and patted my head to send me on my way.

  • • •

  Although I would not have preferred to live there, I found Sheriff’s an exciting place. Apart from ruinous mounds from the days of the Madness, fascinating forbidden territory, there was the bustle of people, and there were shops. The Hesperus, which took produce to the mainland and brought back other goods, had recently returned. Paddy and I found mainland sweets tastier than the Widow Barnes’s fudge, and with hoarded pennies we bought sticks of toffee studded with hazelnuts. We munched our way happily to the quay, where Joe was waiting for us.

  I began to rattle off an account of the day, but Paddy interrupted.

  “What is it, Joe? What’s wrong?”

  When I looked, his expression was troubled. He turned his head away.

  “Nothing that won’t wait. We’ve a tide to catch.”

  She grasped his arm. “Tell us now.”

  I envied her manner of commanding him. He stared unhappily. “Well, you’ll have to know. It’s the Master.”

  “What about him?” I asked.

  But Paddy had read Joe’s face. “Not dead?”

  “No,” I said. “That can’t be!”

  Yet now I could read his grimness too, and knew it was.

  2

  WE WERE SUBDUED ON THE journey back to Old Isle. Halfway there, Joe was hailed by a ferryman from January.

  “Is it true, then?”

  Joe merely nodded across the slop of waves and did not heave to; normally in midchannel encounters boats grappled for five or ten minutes’ gossip. We remained silent as the island loomed, the house outlined against a cloudy sunset. No smoke rose from the big chimney.

  Mother Ryan, on the other hand, was voluble, scolding Paddy for a stain on her dress. I supposed she would round on me too, because I had a bigger one on my shirt and fingertips inked blue, but she did not. Her voice seemed shriller than usual.

  I’d thought Paddy might suggest going to see the kittens, but she disappeared upstairs. I considered visiting the old pigsty on my own but couldn’t make up my mind to it, to anything. I felt unsettled and uncertain. Memory summoned a picture from one of the books at school: of Death in a black cowl, brandishing a reaping hook at cowering mortals. I could not imagine the Master cowering, but he was dead.

  My teacher had set work for the weekend, but I didn’t feel like tackling that either. Would we be going to school on Monday, anyway? I drifted aimlessly; it seemed a long time before we were called to supper. As I came from the washhouse, Andy was approaching, spade in hand. At the far end of the garden, a little space behind a hedge of yews, enclosed by a knee-high wooden fence, was the island’s graveyard. It held three headstones and half a dozen wooden markers. Andy wiped the spade clean and put it in the woodshed, but did not speak.

  We took our places around the kitchen table, Antonia arriving last, paler than ever and walking as though each step was an effort. It was getting dark; the oil lamp on the sideboard had already been lit and Paddy brought one for the table as Mother Ryan carried in the soup tureen. I saw the faces etched in the yellow glow and wondered if my own looked as strange.

  I had a feeling it might not be proper to eat heartily, but nonetheless cleaned my plate of both soup and the stew that followed. Mother Ryan had fallen silent, and it was a quiet meal. When Joe, always the last to finish, put down his knife and fork, I looked across at Paddy.

  It was established practice that she and I cleared away the dishes, and washed and dried them. At that time also Mother Ryan and Antonia would leave the table, one to prepare the tray with the Master’s meal (including a silver jug of wine instead of Joe’s and Andy’s pots of ale), the other to carry it to his quarters. Tonight they sat on in silence, Mother Ryan staring at the lamp where a moth fluttered, Antonia looking into her lap.

  At last Mother Ryan turned to Paddy. “The dishes . . .” I got to my feet. “Not you, Ben. Paddy will see to them.”

  I sat down again. Paddy said, “Why? Why not Ben?”

  “Do as I say.”

  “But it’s not fair—”

  “Patricia!”

  Mother Ryan was plump and not tall, so it wasn’t easy for her to look imposing, but when her voice took on its present note she was not to be trifled with. Nor when she called Paddy “Patricia.” (Antonia was always Antonia; one could not imagine her with a nickname.)

  Paddy rose reluctantly, and I followed suit. Whatever was going on, I preferred sharing the chore to incurring Paddy’s resentment. I said, “I don’t mind helping.”

  Mother Ryan shook her head. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  That made no sense. Joe and Andy drained their pots. It was Antonia who spoke.

  “I don’t see why he shouldn’t.”

  Their looks met, Mother Ryan’s face not angry now but troubled.

  “You know—that there’s a difference to be taken account of, matters to be explained.”

  “Explain them, then. But until you do, nothing’s changed. Let him help clear.”

  Joe stood up, towering over us. “All that which is necessary—has it been done?”

  “Yes.” Mother Ryan’s voice was steadier. “I have seen to it myself.”

  “Then I will pay respects.” He made for the hall, Andy following.

  Mother Ryan said, “We should all pay respects. Leave the dishes for now, Paddy. Come, Ben.”

  The kitchen hall opened into a corridor that linked the two parts of the house. This end was lit by the lamps behind us; at the far end a wall lamp shone on the heavy oak door through which I had rarely dared venture. The corridor was hung with pictures of ships. Some displayed sails, billowing white against blue skies or reefed under stormy skies. Others were engined, but far more impressive than the Hesperus. One was a two-funneled vessel of such a size—if those dots on the deck were people—that a score of ships like the Hesperus would fit inside it.

  Joe pushed open the door. Here another hall, bigger and more elegant than ours, had lamps suspended behind crystal fingers which multiplied their light. In a high window to the right, colored glass portrayed another sailing ship against a crimson sunset.

  A second door led to the Master’s dining room, whose central feature was a long mahogany table which would normally have been covered by a damask tablecloth. Now the polished wood bore an open coffin, on which a lamp shone down.

  The Master lay in his shroud, hands folded across his chest. His long white face looked as if it were of wrinkled paper rather than flesh. There were pennies on his eyes, gold coins atop the pennies. I stared at the folded hands. I had always marveled at the immaculateness of his nails, my own being short and usually ingrained with dirt. In death they looked still longer and finer.

  Standing before the coffin, head bowed, Joe spoke in a clear voice. “Duties and respects, Master. God be wi’ ye, and all Demons absent.”

  He bowed deeper and turned away. Andy repeated the ceremony, as did the others. Antonia’s voice broke, and she could not finish. When Paddy had done, I whispered, “Shall I go?”

  Mother Ryan nodded. “Yes, Ben. It’s your turn.”

  I stared at the Master’s body, finding nothing fearful but nothing which made me want to linger over the looking. I spoke, gabbling, “Duties and respects, Master. God be with you and all Demons absent.” I turned to go, but Mother Ryan’s voice halted me.

  “There’s more, Ben. From you.”

  “More?”

  “The duty
of a son.” She looked flustered, and all their eyes were on me. “Kiss your father.”

  “What?” I stepped back from the coffin. “That is the Master.”

  Mother Ryan came forward but stopped before she reached me. She stood with folded hands, as I had seen her stand in the Master’s presence.

  “He was but is no longer. Kiss your father, Ben.”

  • • •

  That night the weather was wild, waking me to a rattle of windows, but it was a spring storm which pummeled the islands and moved quickly on. The Sheriff had sent word the funeral was not to be delayed, and late in the morning the sun shone as Andy and Joe bore the coffin to the grave, with raindrops still scattering from the branches of trees under which they passed. Sheriff Wilson wore a black cloak instead of the crimson one which was his normal badge of office. The gaunt face of Mr. Hawkins, the Summoner, looked even thinner and more miserable under a black pointed hat.

  Seabirds wheeled and shrieked overhead as the Summoner sought mercy from the Dark One for the Master’s soul, and adjured all Demons that might hinder its passage to keep their distance. Paddy twisted a button of her dress, and Antonia stared at the rawly gashed earth as though hoping it might swallow her up too. She was not crying, but she never did. At her side, Mother Ryan wept enough for both.

  After I had cast the first clod we trudged back to the house, leaving Andy and Joe to fill the grave. Mother Ryan was quiet now, though red-eyed. She and the girls had been up since dawn preparing the funeral meal, and there was hot punch laced with brandy for the men. Sheriff Wilson raised no objection when she poured an extra measure of spirits into his cup. Pushing up his spectacles, he looked searchingly at me but spoke to her.

  “You are sure the boy inherits? His parentage is certain?”

  “I am sure.”

  “Yet nothing was ever said of this. The Master did not speak of it to me.”

  “It was his wish it should not be spoken of, even to the boy. Those of us who came here with him knew of it.”

  He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “There should be documents.”

  “As indeed there are, Your Honor.”

  She fetched a blue-and-white vase from the sideboard and shook out papers, which she handed to the Sheriff.

  “He bade me take care of them. There are marriage lines, and his will. I witnessed that myself.”

  “Yet the boy knew nothing?”

  He looked at me fiercely. I thought again of the good reports that were made of him, and believed them even less. I would not care to be at his mercy. His voice was incredulous too, but I could scarcely blame him for that. Since the previous evening I had thought of little else, but still could scarcely believe what I had been told. He examined the papers closely.

  “The marriage took place in Ireland?”

  “It did, and I was present at it.”

  He said, very reluctantly, “They seem to be in order.”

  “All things concerning the Master were in order.”

  He put the papers down and turned to me. Now he was smiling, but I didn’t trust the smile.

  “So, Ben. This is a considerable inheritance, especially for a boy still at school. You will need guidance.”

  I said, “Yes, sir,” obediently, without meaning it. Though hard to credit, the knowledge that Old Isle belonged to me was something to hug close. And while I would not have wished him dead to gain it, the Master had done little to make me mourn him. Receiving none, I had felt neither love nor even affection for him. Respect, yes, but that induced no sense of loss. As for my undreamed-of inheritance, I had not yet had time to think what to do with it but was determined it would be in my own way. For the present, for some years even, I might have to defer to the Sheriff, but wishes were horses now. I would school mine privately.

  • • •

  “How did he come to die—” I hesitated before uttering the word “—my father?”

  The Sheriff’s party had gone back, after the Sheriff had firmly told us it would be school as usual on Monday, and Andy and Joe had returned to their everyday business. Antonia, once the clearing was done, had retired to her room; I didn’t know where Paddy was. I sat on the shiny black horsehair sofa in Mother Ryan’s parlor, beneath the ponderously ticking wall clock, watching her darn socks. She had finished mending the heel of one of mine and picked up another, only to drop it. It had been the Master’s, woven not of wool but soft silk. Would I wear such, I wondered?

  “It began with a pain in his head.” She found another sock and held it to the light. “He spoke of it when I took him his morning tea. I knew it could be no trivial matter, for he was not a man to complain of aches. I said he should get Joe to take him to the physician on Sheriff’s, but he would have none of it. After you’d gone to school, it worsened. Soon he knew he was going, and spoke of you and what needed to be done. He died just on noon.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Things I mostly didn’t understand . . . of people and places that signified nothing to me. The misery in his head likely made him ramble.” She paused. “And he spoke of your mother.”

  “What of her?”

  “Only such as would have no meaning to you—to anyone living but me.”

  I sensed reluctance and pressed her. “Tell me about her.”

  She hesitated. “You’ll not understand the way it was. She and I were girls together, as close as two could be till I was married. And still close after that. Then the Master came to our village, a tiny place with no town nearer than ten miles. We knew nought of him, except he was old and had money. He bought the castle that stood above the village, and the both of us went in service to him there.

  “He was a man on his own—and lonely. That was the reason for him marrying your mother: being alone and in need of a wife. She knew the way it was. Her father was keen on her marrying this rich old foreigner, and she did as she was bid. It was out of duty, not fondness.

  “The fondness did not come till after, with both of them, but ah, it was strong! Even more on his side than hers—he lived for the sight and sound of her. She could never fathom the reason—she being a country girl and him a grandee from no one knew where—but it was not to be doubted. And then she loved him back with all her heart, especially after you were born.”

  It was troubling to listen to such a story and know it was a part of my own. Mother Ryan fell silent. I asked, “How did she die?”

  “It’s all over and done with, long since.” The reluctance was plain again. “It’s enough having the day’s sorrows to endure, without calling back yesterday’s.”

  “I want to know.”

  “It can do no good.”

  “I’m entitled to know.” I was almost angry with her. “Tell me.”

  She shook her head but said, “It was a sad, bad business. At the Summonings, things were said: that the castle was an unholy place, the Master himself a cause of offense to the Dark One. He laughed when he was told of it, saying he had no fear of Demons—mocking them.

  “Even for him, it was folly. At the next Summoning, a curse was put on him. That night the Demons danced, and people came up from the village, and there was shouting at the castle gate. He had no fear still but went out to them, defying them and Demons both, and they durstn’t assail him to his face. But while he was rebuking their insolence, some sneaked round the back with faggots and put a torch to the building.

  “The castle was an old place, mostly wood, and that was a dry summer. It flared in minutes, and the sky was lit with the flames. Your mother died that night, and so did the father of Antonia and Paddy, trying to save her. The Master managed to get to you in your cot and bring you out. It took three men to hold him from going back into the fire for her, though the flames were leaping higher than the tower.”

  My initial questioning had been provoked by the death of a man I had feared and respected but never known, and had produced a predictable answer—that he had died in a way old men might reckon to die. My mother h
ad never been more than a shadowy figure, arousing no curiosity: In every way that mattered Mother Ryan had been my mother. Now, shockingly, my natural mother had gained identity, an identity lit by romance but shadowed with horror. To die in such a way . . .

  “After it, he could not abide staying there,” Mother Ryan said. “And I was left with two small children and no man. The Master brought us all here, to the islands. For above two years he did not look at you, and afterwards was distant, bidding me keep you as my own.” She shook her head, smiling. “That was no hard thing. But it was not through want of love, you understand—had he not carried you out of the fire, with burning timbers falling around him? Maybe it was through too much. He saw her again in you, and scarce could bear it.”

  I realized she was trying to soften things for me, but it did not help. Yet it was I who had insisted on an answer, and no one’s fault if I had been given more than I bargained for. The clock ticked heavily, the kettle whistled softly on the hob, and in my mind flames roared. I stood up.

  “The kettle’s on the boil,” Mother Ryan said. “I’ll brew us some tea.”

  I shook my head; even the grate’s tame fire repelled me. “I’m going out.”

  “Before you do . . . there’s a thing he had. I don’t know what it is, or where it came from, but he wore it next to his skin. I took it from him when I laid him out.”

  She went to a drawer in the sideboard which housed her treasures: old letters tied with faded green ribbon, a drawing of a young man smiling, a tortoiseshell comb. She returned carrying a gold chain which bore a medallion. I wondered, as I took it from her, if it might be a locket with a picture of my mother.

  But if it was a locket, I could see no way of opening it. The medallion was a disk of smooth gray material, with a silvery design worked into the surface. It was plainly very hard, the design complex and meaningless, full of curves and squiggles. I did not think it had anything to do with my mother; more likely it was something left over from the Master’s unknown life before he met her. Unknown, and now forever unknowable.

  I felt I had had enough of mysteries, and questions. I was tempted to hand it back to her, but that would have been ungracious. Her eyes were on me, pleased with having saved it for me.