by Nick Brown
He pulled the cover from the painting. I recognised it: “The Flaying of Marysas”, smaller and not the original of course. As if he read my thoughts he said,
“It is Titian! A genuine Titian but not one you will ever have read about. It’s been kept away from those who should not know of such things, those who do not possess that particular cultivated taste required to appreciate the ecstasy. But look closely, it’s not like the version of Marysas that you know. However this is the one you will never forget. This is the one which will change your perception.”
I looked: he was right, it was different; the original is sufficiently disturbing but this, this was a perversion. I can’t even write about it now, the things staring from its fringes should never even have been imagined, they inverted any sense of goodness, it looked beyond morality into darkness and its vision contaminated everything.
I turned and as I ran I heard him call, “Look to see me in the Palais Lascaris.” Outside, I threw up in the road then ran on; people out for a walk on that beautiful day scattered as I approached.
The next day I flew home, but I knew that although I could leave Venice I couldn’t escape and so it has proved. Back home I threw myself into my work but I was never comfortable, never easy. I even wished that you and Giles were still there, but then you had gone through your breakdown, taken to drink and abused even Jan’s patience, and Giles took six months unpaid leave; it was either that or be suspended from his post.
So, I was alone. Living for your work and living alone makes you vulnerable, not that you would ever understand that. Bit by bit the thought of the code wormed its way into my troubled mind. I knew I should leave it well alone, but it whispered to me at night as I tossed and turned, sleepless in bed. It was there as I ate my lonely meals or went for walks along the river.
Then, out of the blue, I was called out to Skendleby. The new owner of the Hall, Carver, a vicious piece of work, had tried to build an extension for a swimming pool without planning permission. Several of the locals reported him to the council and as part of his retrospective application I was asked to assess the likelihood of damage to the historic landscape.
A good thing too, his plan required the demolition of the medieval Davenport chapel. Carver was eager to demolish it; I sensed it frightened him. He turned quite nasty with me after understanding I couldn’t be bribed to turn a blind eye. He threatened me which increased my determination to present a strong case against him.
That’s when I took the final wrong decision that’s led me here. Once I started to research the evidence I realised there were documents missing: deliberately lost or even destroyed. I began to consider that there might be a link with the coded document. Even from the surviving evidence, it was clear that the Davenports associated the chapel with some type of malevolent legacy as local folk lore has always maintained; but of course you know all about that, don’t you, Steve?
I interviewed the last Davenport, Sir Nigel, a decent old boy recovering from some kind of stroke. He sent you his regards. I found that odd, I couldn’t see you and him having much in common, or is that something else you kept quiet?
Any way I digress, it’s getting late. What I found really odd about Davenport was that he seemed relieved that the Hall was no longer his responsibility. In fact he seemed genuinely pleased he’d sold it on to Carver, and that in some way Carver deserved it and had been tricked into it like Karswell was in the M. R James ghost story The Casting Of The Runes.
I think Davenport was right about Carver deserving it, but giving up the family legacy seems a bit extreme just to get at him. That’s what hooked me; because, if after all the centuries, his family had struggled to keep it, he was happy to be out of it, there must be some good reason and that brought me back to the code. Now, looking back, I see I was led back to that cursed document: I’d been strung along, played. Well, I found out why the Davenports feared the place alright.
The code was crude; not difficult, once you recognised the simple pattern and re-positioned the letters, even though the writing was poor and crabbed. I’ve always been good with puzzles and had plenty of time to do them. Yet I thought this had defeated me because I found it hard to credit what I was reading. You don’t expect to read about demons in historical family documents and if, or when, you do, you laugh.
I don’t think anyone would laugh after reading this. I won’t read it again, I thought of burning it but something stopped me; perhaps my training as an archivist. I’ve hidden it away where no one can read it, but if in desperate times you need it look in my reading record in Ryland’s. It’s another code, crack it and you’ll find the thing and if you ever come to that I pity you.
Sorry, I’m starting to ramble again: back to the point. I’m not going to tell you much; it would stop your sleep. The fragment of code was written by Sir Hugh Davenport, if that’s what he still was. But I will tell you why this gruesome story should be of interest to you, Steve.
In November 1387 Davenport betrayed his master Sir Thomas Molyneux in a skirmish at Radcot Bridge. He then disappears from the record until 1392 when we find him in the service of Henry of Lancaster on his progression to the crusade in Lithuania. But as we know, the war ended before they arrived, leaving them at a loose end; so Henry decided to proceed across Europe and visit Jerusalem. In November they reached Venice. Davenport’s journal becomes very strange on the subject of his arrival in Venice; it talks of a man or thing that follows them. The text is unclear.
What is clear is that he is the only one who can see it. He travels no further with Henry, perhaps he is dismissed or perhaps he betrays Henry as he did Molyneux. Henry’s journal notes his relief at the absence of “that which did till of late greatly disturb us.”
Davenport lives in Venice for a time and sets himself up as a magus or sorcerer; a type of English Pico della Mirandola. He spends his time “attempting to see things as they truly are, not as people see them”. The way he describes what is true I cannot bring myself to write about, except that it’s what I saw at the edges of that hideous painting in Venice and I know I will never feel clean again. If I’d not seen it myself I’d say he made it up because his mind was destroyed, and perhaps it was. He spread evil and pollution then moved on to Nice.
Nice, where I sit in my hotel room as the shadows grow and lengthen while I write this. “Look to see me at the Palais Lascaris,” that thing had shouted to me in Venice, and here I am. I never meant to come here, I tried to fight it.
Here, although it’s high summer, I feel chilled. I hear whispering but there’s no one there when I look, like the footsteps in Venice. Today I went to the Palais Lascaris. It’s a dark tall narrow building in the warren of filthy alleys in the old town. On each dark floor there are pictures and tapestries, musty with age and strange. Yet when you have learnt to “see things differently” they are truly terrible, not only at the margins, but all the way through; be very glad you can’t see them.
He was there. I didn’t see him. Every time I looked he’d gone but I knew he was there, waiting for me. The worst thing there is a picture “Ruines Avec Obelisque”, distorted, black at the heart. I had followed the Davenport trail, you can see him in the pictures and you can see where he went from here. And do you know where he went, Steve? I think you are beginning to guess, perhaps you are beginning to sweat a bit, I hope so.
He went to Samos, where you are, where you went to escape. Soon you will see him. I don’t think you’ll want to laugh at me or anyone else ever again.
The shadows are moving; they taunt me. I will finish this now. All my life I have written, I think these are the last words I shall ever write.
Dr T. Thompson.
Tim Thompson sealed the envelope and walked through the shadows to the door. Outside it was dark. He posted the letter in an alley leading from Place Massena to the sea. On the other side of the alley was a restaurant called El Vino. He knew there was little time. He was calm now, and hungry, so took a table outside under the street light
and treated himself; the credit card bill was irrelevant. He ordered foie gras with apricot compote, the house speciality, steak in sauce and the most expensive Bordeaux on the list. The service was attentive.
Then he walked back along the alley towards the steps leading up to Place Massena. In the shadows at the foot of the steps he made his appointment. He recognised the dark coat and hat, the pale bearded face, the red pustules. One disfigured hand held his shoulder, almost tenderly; he felt a line of freezing cold across his throat, he felt a warm sticky flow soaking his chest.
Then he felt nothing.
Chapter 2:
Better to Let Him Die
The light in the square dazzled, flashing back off the marble paving, too bright even under the large parasol advertising Samian ouzo shading his table. Steve stuffed the letter back in its envelope and concentrated on rinsing the fine coffee grains out of his mouth with the by now tepid water from the accompanying glass. He’d swallowed the sludgy grounds: an involuntary action of surprise at recognising the spidery handwriting. He swilled the water round his mouth, then spat it onto the paving where it instantly evaporated.
It was before nine but he felt the beginning of the day’s sweat staining the creased cotton of the shirt under his armpits. He was surprised to get the letter, hadn’t thought Thompson knew where he was, and the postal service here was irregular at the best of times, which these were not. He didn’t want to read it here and besides, it was so long, more like an essay than a letter. But his real reason was that he feared its contents. He wanted no reminding of his Skendleby ordeal, he’d come here to escape.
He had been taking his usual full Samiot breakfast of Greek coffee, water and a small glass of raki in the old triangular square in Karlovasi when Mandrocles, one of his students who earned some extra money as an assistant janitor, brought him the letter. He owed his temporary post at the University of The Aegean to a previous postgrad student with whom he’d had a brief affair during an excavation on Cyprus some years ago. Unusually after his liaisons, they’d stayed on good terms. Lucky, because her father was well connected in the Greek higher education bureaucracy. In his desperation to get work away from Britain, Steve had tried all his contacts, and she’d produced a result.
It helped that he had a solid reputation in Europe as a fine field archaeologist, if unreliable and careless as an administrator, or lover for that matter. There wasn’t much for him to do at the university, about which the most imposing thing was the name, but Steve was grateful to be there. He spoke reasonably fluent if ungrammatical Greek, even though everyone immediately switched to English when he was around. He liked the lifestyle; he had no personal responsibility and little in his work. In fact, he’d had to hustle to become involved with a survey of Neolithic and Pre-Neolithic activity on the island and with the new archaeological museum in Pythagoreio. This suited him; he could move around the island and work almost entirely without supervision. The bi-weekly change of the island’s tourist population brought him a regular supply of short-term partners and no obligation or responsibility. He still had nightmares and his hair remained white; but he felt he was beginning to rebuild his life and, more important, to feel safe.
He liked Karlovasi, its faded prosperity, the disused and dilapidated warehouses and merchant’s houses that fringed the sea contrasting with the restless and lively student quarter. He liked the shabby little university and the cafes; but this time he was not going to get involved with any of his students. The consequences of that in a Greek community were too serious. So, he lived on the other side of the island in a small fishing village that doubled up with tourism to make ends meet. He had taken a long-term letting of an apartment overlooking the sea from a Dutch woman married to a Greek boat captain.
He loved the murmur of the sea brushing the shingle below his window, the infinite view over the constantly changing water where on clear days he could see Patmos. Loved the brooding presence of Mount Kerkis, either baked by heat or obscured by cloud. The place calmed him, soothed his fears, his relationships in the village were casual with no obligation beyond a polite friendliness on either side which suited him just fine.
Suited him so well that one night drinking ouzo with Captain Michales under the stars, watching the green and red harbour lights flashing on and off, he mentioned that he wanted to stay permanently and become Greek. Michales made the facial gesture of incomprehension at the strangeness of foreigners that’s part of the Greek DNA, then, rearranging his craggy face into an even more intimidating expression, he leaned forwards and delivered the longest speech Steve had heard from him.
“Listen, Dr Steve, you could live here amongst us for a hundred years, two hundred years even, and you would still not be accepted as one us, would never be treated as one of us.”
He’d leaned back and favoured Steve with one of his surprisingly warm, if rare, smiles before continuing.
“But for you, I think, that is not so bad. Have you seen how we treat each other? Especially in winter, after the tourists go home and we are tired of being polite and having to speak English or German all day and all night. When the seas are too rough to fish and everything is shut down and the only place to go is Lekatis bar to drink. See how we are then, look, see over there Ephialtes who you say you like so much. Well, last year he broke a chair over the head of Stefanes, his friend, just because he had thrown a scrap of meat to a dog and Antonis did not like that one dog. Since then they not speak and that is what is like. No, you could not become one of us.”
He paused, deep in thought.
“But maybe you just stay and be treated like now, like honoured guest, not part of family or one of us. Believe me, that is much better for you. No feuds, no lawyers, no hitting, we keep you out from all that: for you just laughter and drink. Now I have arranged your life, so you will buy me one ouzo, then we go home.”
Afterwards they’d finished the ouzo and gazed at the headland across the bay to the east, where the sky was imperceptibly beginning to lighten and the pre-dawn breeze was ruffling the surface of the waters. Steve stumbled the few short yards home, banging into parked cars and scooters, then fumbled for what seemed ages to get his key into the lock before falling, fully clothed, onto the bed. He woke next day with a foul taste in his mouth and a splitting headache, but without the feeling of anxiety that was his usual waking companion; he didn’t exactly feel good, but didn’t feel frightened either and since the horror of the Skendleby excavation that was as good as it got.
Pulling out of the memory, Steve left some euros with the bill on the saucer and walked across to the periptero to buy some cigarettes. Like at most Greek street kiosks, there was an animated conversation taking place between the owner and the customer at the counter. The voices were raised and a fine range of shrugs, facial grimaces and expansive hand gestures were on display. In England it would have looked like the last stage in a verbal exchange before the first punch was thrown, but in Greece it was a normal transaction and probably between long standing friends. To Steve it was now routine, and he passed the time while the conversation gradually petered out in trying to improve his knowledge of written Greek by reading the headlines of the national and local Greek newspapers on display on the carousel.
The news was grimly familiar, the same two topics spread across each front page: the economic crisis and the alarming spread of wild fires. This latter was seen as a symptom of dramatic change in world climate, which had caused the unusually dry winter and the intense heat of early summer accompanied by gale force winds. Each of the papers took an apocalyptical tone; wherever Steve looked he saw scare stories, and according to his Greek acquaintances, this wasn’t alarmist journalism: there was plenty to be scared about. The global financial crisis hit Greece particularly hard, and in a land of sharp divisions, with a recent history of civil war, the fear of anarchy loomed large. Although there were some, particularly the young, who welcomed the prospect of rapid and violent change.
He knew this from a conv
ersation he’d had back in the village. The elder son of one of the fishermen home from university in Athens for the summer was helping out as a waiter. When business was slack, he’d sit and talk with Steve. He’d been involved in the demonstration in the capital that degenerated into a riot. He, like all his friends, was angry and looked forward to the autumn when he predicted the increase in direct action would topple the government. But, as always, there was no commonly held opinion on who to blame and the arguments split the community. Some blamed the Americans, some the communists; the only real consensus was that the bankers and the Euro played a major role.
The panic caused by the fires was worse. The island was heavily forested and dry as tinder; there were rumours that some of the fires had been started deliberately and in a fire near Vathia two goat herders, arrested on suspicion of arson, had been almost torn apart by a small mob of locals as the police tried to take them away. The island was divided and tension was rising with the thermometer.
However, there was something else, only covered in the island papers, which Steve found morbidly disturbing: a body had been fished out of the water near Aghios Spiridos. A body marked in a particular way that the police would not disclose, but which the papers linked with unsolved murders earlier in the year. The reports stated that the local police were now under the direction of a senior homicide detective from Athens but were no nearer to closing the case.
Under the headline “Devil strikes again in Island horror”, the piece suggested that the killings bore the marks of satanic ritual and that perhaps ancient traditions, rather than the police, might be the only answer. Steve felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, but before he could read more the conversation in front of him abruptly ended and the heavily moustached man behind the counter asked him what he wanted. He bought the smokes and, as an afterthought, the paper which he put into his sack alongside the unread and toxic letter from Tim Thompson.
