by Simon Raven
‘Now just stop there,’ said Ivan Barraclough. ‘All this is the purest speculation, based on nothing whatever.’
‘It is indeed somewhat conjectural,’ replied Ptolemaeos, ‘but it is a plausible introduction to what is coming next, and that I can prove absolutely.’
‘Then kindly do so,’ said Ivan. ‘I don’t think you are entitled to go a step further with this rigmarole without offering concrete evidence.’
‘Very well,’ said Ptolemaeos. ‘Madame la Princesse d’Héricourt, we hang upon your lips. Madame.’
‘A mile or two from the little town of Cany-Barville in Normandy,’ the Princess said, ‘stands the house in which I live with M’sieur mon frère. Five minutes’ walk from that house, over a meadow and at the junction of two little rivers, stands our Chapel, which is generally known as the Église of Barville. Just opposite the south door of this chapel is a small house, in which lives our – er – dependant, who is called Claudine de la Cochonerie. She is cleaner and caretaker of the chapel, and is charged to ensure that the wrong sort of person does not get inside it.’
‘The wrong sort of person?’ queried Tom Llewyllyn, the residual socialist.
‘People who would not appreciate it, M’sieur.’
‘And how does Claudine tell?’
‘She has developed a nose over the years, as sutlers develop a nose for corked wine. There are, you see, certain curiosities about this chapel which we would not wish to be tampered with. It is now mainly of the fifteenth century, though the chancel is much earlier (of brick, which is rare for the region) and goes back to the thirteenth. In the chancel there is a set of fourteenth-century misericords under some of the seats in the choir stalls. The most famous is that of a lady, who is flagrantly amusing herself on the rampart of a Castle. It is popularly supposed, though the misericord was carved over a century after the death of the Lady Xanthippe, that the sculptor had the Lady in mind, for there was considerable local lore about her.
‘Now the other day, despite the vigilance of Claudine, this misericord was damaged by two of the wrong sort of person, and we had to call in Jean-Marie Guiscard to treat it. N’est-ce pas, Jean-Marie?’
‘Mais oui, Madame.’
‘While he was there, he also gave treatment to the other misericords, which for sixty years have been obscure to look upon and the more obscure as the chancel of our chapel has one great peculiarity – there is no east window.2
Now, however, in honour of this good young man’s clever work, lanterns and torches were brought to the chancel, and the misericords, which we had all but forgotten, my brother and I, were all looked upon with great interest and esteem. Next to Xanthippe, and east of her, was one of a sea-monster ridden by two mermaids; then one of a man and a woman, who are attending a dead or sleeping body; another one of the sea-monster, who is this time devouring the mermaids head first; and one of three small crowns, which exactly resemble the three crowns carven on the stone shield in the exterior wall just above the south door.3 Another matter of interest was that the mermaids with the monster were executed in very much the same style as two mermaids that are carved on another stone over the south door,4 flanking a Baron’s helm beneath which appears the motto of the Martels of Longueil and (later) of Des Veules-les-Roses, Mihi Placet (I Decree). The chief point of resemblance between the mermaids carved in wood and those carved in stone lay in the tails, which were crustacean rather than piscine, the inference being (as from the resemblance between the two sets of crowns) that the same man who had carved the misericords also carved the exterior tablets.
‘None of which you may consider much to our present purpose, or indeed to any purpose. But the matter fascinated Claudine, who is of surly and obstinate temperament, very persistent when her concern or curiosity is aroused. Who were these mermaids, she wanted to know, and what were the crowns? The answers which we proposed to keep her happy were that the mermaids were there for the fun of the thing, a sport of the mason who had carved them, and that the three crowns were those of the Three Kings who came to adore our Infant Saviour on the Twelfth Night – for so my brother and I had always been told as children, and had continued to believe (as one does, if firmly instructed in the tender years) for all our lives thereafter. By why, she urged, were the mermaids in control of the monster on one misericord but being eaten by it on a later one? Because, we said (as our nursemaid had instructed us), they had gone too far: not content with riding on the monster’s back, they had made injurious remarks about its personal appearance.
‘Claudine accepted these answers pro tempore and went away to mull them over. Four days later she appeared with a very peculiar look on her face, compounded of insolence, apprehension, self-applause and something like awe, and invited us to the chapel to be given a true interpretation of the carvings. Tomorrow, we said; but she was exigent: a duty was owed, she told us, that could not wait. When we still demurred, she became very insulting’ – the Princess exchanged a wry look with her brother – ‘as only she knows how to be, and when this threatened to become intolerable, we put on our walking-clothes and went with her to the chapel.
‘First she halted us by the south door. Three crowns, she said: the sign of the Three Kings, as if to say that there is something within which is worthy of adoration or amazement.
‘Mermaids, associated with the baronial helm of the early Martels, she said, must mean creatures of an extraordinary kind somehow connected with the fortunes of the house, probably creatures who had come from afar by sea.
‘Then she led us inside, and took us through the misericords from west to east.
‘First, the rude picture of the Lady from Greece, she said: we all know that story. The two mermaids riding the sea-monster: this must betoken some monstrously evil action on the part of the two creatures who had come from afar and were somehow connected with the fortunes of the Martel family. Claudine did not pretend to know who they were or what, precisely, they did, only that the misericord proclaimed evil intention. Next, a man and a woman standing over a body. The man and the woman were probably the evil creatures symbolized by the mermaids, and here they were, either having killed or being about to kill a fellow human being. Next: the two creatures being devoured by the sea-monster – clearly, announced Claudine, their evil actions are now destroying them. They have come – how you say? – unstuck. And finally, the three crowns again. These must indicate the proximity of whatever there was to adore or wonder at, a prior advertisement for which had already appeared over the south door. Well, we said, what was there to adore or wonder at?
‘A saint, she said: she had found a saint.’
And then Claudine had led the Princess and the Marquis to the blank, the windowless east wall, only a few feet from the easternmost choir stall, the one which housed the misericord of the crowns. She flashed her torch on the wall just behind and above the altar; a very faint mural depiction of three crowns appeared. Claudine moved between altar and wall, put her hand out to the three crowns, which were about chin height, and removed a block of bricks.
‘Mama, Papa, regardez,’ she had said in a spiteful triumph (though the Princess, in telling the tale to Ptolemaeos and his guests, emended the mode of address).
‘And now,’ said Ptolemaeos, ‘after a further service of coffee and the rest, we shall be further enlightened by M’sieur le Marquis.’
‘I do hope,’ said Canteloupe to Jo-Jo while the ancient twins brought fresh cups of coffee, ‘that you’re not going to throw Baby over altogether.’
‘Of course not,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘It’s just that I don’t need her like that any more.’
‘She might need you.’
‘No. Not after what happened in the donjon. It had to end there.’
‘But what’s Baby going to do?’ said Canteloupe miserably. ‘Len,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘He’s great fun, is Len. I had a nice try-out with him, so I know. I’ve already given both of them the tip.’
‘Thank you,’ Canteloupe said.
‘The tr
ouble is, Len says, that Tom won’t like it. Tom’s very keen on Len, he’s made him his Private Advisor and all that in Lancaster, but if Len should so much as touch Baby Tom will tear him to pieces. You see, the one thing which Tom can’t stand is that Baby, his daughter, should have it away with any man except her husband. He doesn’t mind me because girls don’t count. Remember that business of Diana and her band of maidens? Though they fingered each other until they turned somersaults, they were still considered chaste. That’s pretty much how Tom sees it: anything goes, so long as there’s not a prick on the scene – unless of course, it’s yours, and I think he’s a bit tetchy even about that.’
‘What does Baby say about all this?’
‘Baby says it’s absolutely splendid. In order not to hurt her Daddy’s feelings she and Len will have to go right away from Tom whenever they want to do it. Since Len is Tom’s Private Advisor and whatnot, that will be quite difficult to arrange, so they’ll only be able to do it very occasionally, which means, on Ptolemaeos’ theory, that love will last much longer and lust, when it happens, will be fifty times as much fun.’
‘A very sensible solution of the whole matter,’ said Canteloupe. ‘As I have always said, there is nothing like being together to drive two lovers apart.’
‘A skeleton in nun’s habit,’ said M. le Marquis des Veules-les-Roses, ‘walled up. Wrapped in the folds of the habit, that object.’ He pointed to the Écrevisse which flashed and shimmered in the candlelight that had replaced the electric after the second service of coffee. ‘“A Saint,” said Claudine; and then, when she saw the Écrevisse, “What a pretty reliquary. Can I have it?” “No,” I said; “it’s too holy; I shall have to take it to the Pharaoh.” “The Pharaoh?” “I mean, of course, the Pope. Meanwhile, Claudine, you must swear to keep all this a secret.” “If I swear, can I keep the beautiful reliquary in my house, until you take it to the Pope?” “Yes,” I said. After all, I thought, who would look for such a thing in Claudine’s home?
‘So Claudine bore away the Écrevisse while my sister and I got down to work. First we dismantled the rest of the wall behind which the nun had been immured. Then we examined the little chamber in which she had died. Clearly it had once been an alcove with canopied sedilia of Caen stone. The nun was sitting at one end of the sedilia; all over the rest of it (seat, front and sides) were crudely scratched letters, possibly done with the jewelled claws or antennae of the Écrevisse, in any case quite indecipherable – until we realized that they were Greek.
EΓΩ ΛΑΛΑΓΗ ΤΟΥ ΙΛΥΣΣΟΥ
ΓΠΑΦΩ ΤΕΙΧΟΣ ΠΟΙΟΥΣΙΝ
I LALAGE FROM ILYSSOS WRITE THEY BUILD
THE WALL I SHALL HAVE ONLY CANDLES SHE
HAD GODS SUN ALSO BUT SHE HAD NOT SINNED
TO HUBERT I SAID WITH THE LEAF THE FISH-
TOY CAN BE OURS.
‘That was the starting point,’ said des Veules-les-Roses. ‘Lalage’s original idea had been that somehow they could co-operate to exploit Aristarchos’ leaf in order to possess themselves of the “Fish-toy”, the Écrevisse, which was hidden away in Xanthippe’s dowry chest. The early stages should not be difficult, once they had dealt with Hero. The difficulty would be to silence the rest of the hand-maidens and such other servants as might know what was doing, and subsequently to dispose of or disperse the ingredient materials with the maximum profit and without incurring suspicion. It was Lalage, of course, who knew of the Écrevisse. Hubert, though he knew of the dowry chest, had no idea that anything of such immense value was inside it, and was not properly convinced of it until Lalage, having briefly purloined the inventory from Hero, showed him the entry on the list. At first Hubert was reluctant to join forces with Lalage (for quite apart from anything else he had been very fond of Xanthippe); but eventually he was won over by the thought of the sum of ready money he was going to need to bribe the Bishop of Sens –’
‘Who, let us remember, is sheer conjecture,’ said Ivan.
‘– Who represents, for the sake of argument, Hubert’s unknown motive. Some such case there must have been, to make Hubert act as he did. Lalage is not precise – she had neither the time nor the space, only a surface of Caen stone and a few candles. So she simply records that Hubert was badly in need of ready money and at last consented to assist her in this theft. Piecing together Lalage’s crude and scattered phrases – higgledy-piggledy, all over the sedilia and some of the canopy – the subsequent series of events would seem to have been in thiswise:
‘Lalage, knowing that Xanthippe kept the herb in her little onyx box, purloined some of it. She then administered it to Xanthippe, in her food and drink, and instructed her to believe that her epileptic fits were in fact visitations from a daemon named Masullaoh. Long before they even reached Rouen, Lalage had contrived to establish, in Xanthippe’s mind, a whole paraphernalia of spirits and supernatural emissaries and celestial fields and satanic coasts. Hero, worried by this sinister and (to her) inexplicable turn in events, kept getting more and more valuable and decorative objects out of the chest to keep the fractious Xanthippe happy, but would not play when asked by Xanthippe (on Lalage’s instructions) to release the Écrevisse. Meanwhile Xanthippe herself now became intermittently miserable about the manner in which her whole being was dominated (so she thought under the influence of the herb) by Massullaoh and his associates; and in desperation she decided to take some of the herb on her own account (not knowing that she was being fed it already) and to try to stir up her soul, dead as it might be on the Ilyssan theory, in order to resist Masullaoh. This plan suited nobody. It outraged Hero, who disapproved of the herb and thought it was blasphemous to attempt to rouse the soul prematurely; and it disarranged Lalage and Hubert, because the good God alone knew what would happen if Xanthippe voluntarily took a dose of the herb in addition to what had already been put, so to speak, in her soup. As fortune would have it, however, a fit was now imminent and Lalage and Hubert decided to take their chance. This time they instructed Xanthippe to kill Hero (by tearing out her throat) while the fit was on her. They took the keys to the chest off the dead Hero, removed the Écrevisse, and placed it by the comatose Xanthippe, for her to find when she awoke; and then they began to consider the last and far the most embarrassing problem, which was how to get the Écrevisse into their own keeping (for subsequent disposal) without being denounced by Lalage’s four remaining colleagues or any such senior servants as might also have cause for disquiet.
‘At this stage Xanthippe awoke and was boulversée by what she had done. She had assassinated her old friend and attendant (whose body was later consigned to the moat) and she had had (influenced by Lalage again) the most unsettling dream, wherein she had beheld the aboriginal Devil. She was also (at first) horrified by the Écrevisse and its petit chanson, although she had craved for it earlier, because she now believed that it was a dream-gift from the Realms of Lucifer. She was now determined, she said, to sample Aristarchos’ herb and to command her soul (dead or not) to resist and reject Masullaoh. But hélas, the onyx box has disappeared, apparently appropriated by Masullaoh…who is displeased, she hears, by Xanthippe’s rebellious attitude. Xanthippe is commanded to yield to Masullaoh’s will and to reconcile herself to adoration of the Écrevisse. So Xanthippe is put down and becomes docile once more; all is for the moment quiet…when Hubert conceives a really hellish notion which, he tells Lalage, will solve the knotty problem of finally securing the scaly treasure.
‘Let them injure Xanthippe, using the claws of the Écrevisse, in her sleep; and then, when she awakes, let them persuade her (having administered a very powerful dose of the herb) that she is in fact dead, killed by the Écrevisse as agent of Masullaoh, and that her soul, having duly awoken at the death of her body, nevertheless continues to be imprisoned in that body – this on the orders of Masullaoh who has been most mightily offended by Xanthippe’s thoughts of rebellion. In his wisdom and his anger (let her be told) Masullaoh has appointed the soul of Hero to be jailer to Xanthippe’s,
which is now condemned to remain for eternity confined to her cadaver. If they once establish this strongly enough in Xanthippe’s drugged and helpless mind, Xanthippe will make her situation known, out of sheer despair, to all those around her; and then they, Hubert her Guardian and Lalage her chief maiden, will have an absolute excuse for putting her away, in special circumstances, and also, at her piteous request, for putting the Écrevisse (the murderous but beloved gift and token of Masulloah) safely away with her. Had she merely died, this would not have been possible without arousing suspicion. But as it is to be, no hand-maiden or servant will question the procedure. Their mistress, they will realize, must be disposed of before her flesh begins to decay, but since she is still in a sense alive she must have something to comfort her – if any comfort be possible in her hideous predicament. What is more, Hubert tells Lalage, all concerned can be bound on oath to secrecy, lest the House of Ilyssos be shamed by such a tale of one of its daughters; and then the Écrevisse can be sealed away beyond the world’s knowledge or anybody’s reach (except that of the conspirators) for an indefinite period – for as long as suits their convenience.’
‘What got into that nice Hubert?’ said Jo-Jo.
‘Fear and desperation,’ said M. le Marquis. ‘Also, the more doped and feeble, the more wan and whining, the little Xanthippe became, the more she would have aroused his irritation and disgust, until finally he would have become indifferent to her claims as a fellow being and thought of her merely as a pile of rubbish to be removed as soon as possible.’
‘Well yes…I can understand that Hubert wasn’t quite himself by now, what with the Bishop or whatever breathing brimstone down his neck. But to condemn a girl he had once loved to die inch by painful inch, lonely and immured…thinking herself to be a rotting corpse from which she could never escape for all eternity… It takes a lot of fear and desperation on Hubert’s part to excuse that,’ said Baby Canteloupe.
‘Excusable or not,’ said des Veules-les-Roses, ‘it is nevertheless the case – unless Lalage was scratching lies on the Caen stone sedilia, which is very unlikely, as she was there causing herself to be bricked up alive as a penitence for her part in the affair. But this is to anticipate…
