The Bell Tower

by Sarah Rayne

  It’s a death song. ‘Thaisa’s Song’ is a dread lament that always brings a tragedy.

  Maeve laid the book down on the bed, her mind teeming with images.

  She had not understood quite a lot of what she had read, but what she had understood was that Andrew, whoever he had been, whenever he had lived, had been imprisoned in the bell tower – in the ringing chamber just off the stairway; the room where she had stood that very afternoon. People had nailed up the doorway to the room so he could not get out. Why? What had he done? Whatever it had been, it was dreadfully easy to visualize him huddled in that room, waiting for the sea to come in and drown him. Before he died had he managed to reach up and push his diary into the crevice behind the loose iron stave? Maeve tried to remember exactly where the book had been, and thought it had been quite high up, certainly above the water marks, although not far above them. Inside the ringing chamber or outside? She could not remember. Or had someone found the book after his death and left it there in his memory, like people left flowers at the roadside when somebody died in a car crash?

  She looked back at the pages, wondering how old Andrew had been. He sounded quite young. A monk. And a musician. He had not been able to break down the planks across the door and the stairs, but that was not because he was feeble. Maeve suddenly did not want him to be feeble. She would read just a very little bit more, then she would stop. She did not want to read Andrew’s fear and panic as death came to him. But just another two pages …

  A short while ago, the singing grew fainter, and I thought someone was moving around in the bell chamber overhead. That is impossible, but a little while ago I made a new attempt to get at the stairs. It was no use, of course, and this time I tore one of my hands on a nail. I’ve wrapped a fold of my sleeve around it to staunch the bleeding. It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter if I bled to death, and perhaps that would be a kinder death than the one that’s approaching …

  So now I’m back in the same corner, hunched on one of the ledges against the wall. The light is fading and I can’t be sure I’m writing as clearly as I would wish. I could have hoped for a few threads of moonlight at the very least. It will be hard to drown in the dark. But it’s a moonless night. And I’m more alone than I’ve ever been in my life – more alone than anyone has ever been, I think. As they brought me up here I thought there was a shiver of sound or movement from beneath the floor, and I fought them all over again. Nothing had moved, of course. What’s beneath those planks could not possibly have moved, and never will do – not now, not ever.

  I believe the madness I feared is with me now.

  It has come in three guises. No one tells you that madness can be splintered in such a way. But don’t all important things come in threes? The Wise Men, the Holy Trinity, the three gods of the Hindu pantheon … And let’s not forget Satan’s own trinity – the devil, the beast and the false prophet.

  All those threefold hierarchies are woven throughout myth and religion and life. But where does myth end and religion begin anyway? Oh, God, what if religion is all simply a myth and there’s nothing beyond death save black blankness, stretching out into an empty eternity …? What then, all you believers, all you philosophers, all you preachers and healers and prophets …?

  The first of the three harbingers of my madness is the singing – a voice singing that accursed ‘Thaisa’s Song’. The music I copied that night. If I could find those copies I would burn them – I would tear the words to unreadable shreds.

  There is not one voice singing now, but two. Or is it an echo? No, it’s a second voice, trying to join in.

  But it isn’t the only sound in here, for the second harbinger is at hand. It’s immediately above me, crouching in cold, silent darkness. The dead bell. The ancient bell that those long-ago monks used to sound as their call to prayer. They rendered it dumb many years ago, tearing out its tongue – I don’t know why they did that. It’s one of the things I always meant to try finding out. But now it’s too late.

  I can hear the bell stirring and I can feel it waking. There are little shivers of sound, and there’s the sensation of an old mechanism clawing its way into life again. It’s like the Brazen Head of myth – the sorcerous creation that once was supposed to encircle all England. The Head that spewed out those words about Time. ‘Time is … Time was … Time is past …’ It was benign and protective, that creature, but the Brazen Head that is above me tonight is malevolent and greedy.

  As for the third harbinger … I scarcely dare write of it, for it’s the maddest of all three.

  It’s the stone figure. This room is almost immediately opposite its window. As the villagers were nailing up the doorway, I could see the figure that clings to the tower’s side – it was in sharp relief against the night sky, the face black and forbidding and impossibly old. No, that’s the wrong word – it’s not old, that face, it’s timeless. And whatever age it is, its eyes moved. They moved. They swivelled round in their dead, cold sockets, and watched as I was imprisoned in here. Did they watch with pity, with triumph, with approval? I can’t stop thinking about it. I swear it happened. I swear it by the vows I took when I entered St Benedict’s earlier this year. Poverty, chastity, obedience … That’s yet another trinity – but a sterner one. Have I obeyed that trinity? I thought I would manage poverty and I thought most of the time I would manage obedience. As for chastity – well, always knew that would be the most difficult of the three.

  Far above me, I can feel the dead bell, the Brazen Head, stirring.

  And I can still hear a voice – or is it two voices? – singing ‘Thaisa’s Song’.

  Maeve shut the journal with a snap that was shockingly loud in the quiet bedroom.

  She was not going to read any more – not now, perhaps not ever – because she could not bear to know what Andrew had written at the end. Instead she got out of bed and hid the book inside an old shoebox, which she put at the back of the wardrobe under some folded blankets.

  Had Andrew died in the tower that night? Had he drowned when the sea came slopping and gushing in? He had used words and expressions she had never heard in his journal, but there were some things Maeve had understood very clearly. One of those things was that he, too, had seen the ancient bell as an ogre’s head. The Brazen Head, he had called it. Maeve would look up the word ‘brazen’ in her school dictionary tomorrow.

  What was even clearer and what was the most frightening thing of all was that Andrew had seen the stone eyes watching him, exactly as Maeve had. And he had heard someone singing ‘Thaisa’s Song’.

  ‘Thaisa’s Song’. Andrew had known about it – he had heard it played and sung. ‘A death song,’ he had written. ‘A dread lament that always brings a tragedy.’

  As Maeve tried to sleep, she knew that it was not reading about Andrew’s fear that had upset her so much – or even reading how he, too, had seen the stone eyes move and felt the dead bell stir.

  It was reading what he had written about ‘Thaisa’s Song’.

  She was finally tumbling over into sleep, when she remembered that Andrew had written about copying down the song, and this brought her fully awake. Did one of those copies still exist, or had they all been burned, the words torn to unreadable shreds as he had wanted?

  SIX

  From: Olive Orchard, Organizing Committee, St Benedict’s Revels

  To: Daniel Goodbody, Local Historian and Revels Chair

  Daniel –

  Gerald is capering around the house in high glee because your Victoria County History reference has led him to another entry about the fourteenth-century monks singing ‘Thaisa’s Song’ at a Requiem Mass to mourn Elizabeth 1’s death (1603?). It was part of the general lamentations, which I should think was very appropriate, because as far as any of us know, it’s one of those gloomy dirges, all graveyard yearnings and willowy bodies draped over tombs, and mournful voices from the deep.

  So Gerald has declared his intention of spending the evening sorting through the boxes brou
ght out of the monastery when it was demolished (1970s, I think that was), in the hope that among the reams of turgid Victorian records and letters, there might be a few Tudor remnants. One of the Victorian monks apparently made a life’s work of transcribing some records left by a Brother Cuthwin from the 1500s, so Gerald is hotfoot on the trail of that.

  He says the search could take some time, so it will best if I don’t wait supper. If he’s late, he will be perfectly happy with something on a tray – perhaps some soup, but not tomato which always gives him acid indigestion, and not leek and potato which upsets other areas of his system, and he doesn’t want to fall victim to that, not with all the Revels activity going on.

  It was a pity you had to cancel the little lunch I had arranged for us last week, but I entirely understand that you had to remain at home to deal with the blocked drain at your house. However, with Gerald closeted with his archives, you would be most welcome to come along this evening to make up for that. The smoked salmon and Chablis are still in the fridge (Gerald doesn’t care for smoked salmon and would rather have a pint of beer than a glass of wine any day). The Brie has three days to go before the sell-by date expires.

  The run-up to the Revels is going smoothly, although it was a pity that the tractor got bogged down in Musselwhite’s Meadow while towing in the generator. You wouldn’t have thought it would take an entire afternoon to un-bog it, would you? I couldn’t help thinking of all those generations of gypsies who are said to have rested their wagons there, some of whom must have got stuck at times.

  It was a pity the rope snapped just as they were hauling the tractor through the gate, but I am glad you think we can claim the cost of dry-cleaning Gerald’s suit from Festival expenses.

  All best,

  Olive

  From: Daniel Goodbody,

  To: Olive Orchard,

  Olive – So that’s why Gerald wasn’t at his usual post in the library when I called in earlier, and why there were alarming thuds coming from under the floor.

  I did look at the display in the museum section, though. Those notes from the mid-1800s look very enticing. I shall read them very thoroughly after the Revels kerfuffle is over.

  We can certainly plunder Festival funds for the dry-cleaning, even if I could privately wish Gerald had donned anorak and wellingtons for the tractor rescue like everyone else.

  I’m so sorry I won’t be able to come to supper this evening. It is very kind of you to ask, but I have to attend a Parish Council meeting to discuss the new sewage pump for Puddleston.

  Daniel

  Cliff House,

  Rede Abbas

  Dear Mr Goodbody,

  I have just seen the programme for your Dusklight Concert, and see that despite my warnings, you are including ‘Thaisa’s Song’.

  May I enter one last plea that you remove this from the schedule. It has always trailed a wake of tragedy with it.

  Sincerely,

  Maeve Eynon

  From: Daniel Goodbody, Local Historian and Revels Chair

  To: Gerald Orchard, Librarian

  Dear Gerald

  I was very impressed by the library’s display, and grateful to you for staying on duty until seven each evening. I’m sure you will find the Kalms helpful, although it wasn’t a good idea to take them at the same time as the Scotch. I hope your migraine has blown itself out by now.

  As for Miss Eynon and her Cassandra-like prophecies, I’ll see if I can smooth her over. Of course we’ll go ahead with ‘Thaisa’s Song’ if you find it.

  Kind regards,

  Daniel

  Michael had spent a reasonably productive day. The morning was taken up with tutorials, and the afternoon was devoted to finishing the latest Wilberforce book, which was, it appeared, already notching up enthusiastic pre-sales. Michael’s editor had emailed twice to say they did not want to push him – in fact, heaven forfend that they should do such a thing with any author – but it would be really useful to know when they might expect delivery of the final MS. In fact, if they could possibly have even a draft within the next week, that would mean they could put out some advance information for their sales team to use. But she was really not pushing him.

  Michael, in a rash moment, had agreed last year to a deal for a series of books that worked their way through the tapestry of England’s history, written in a format suitable for seven- and eight-year-olds. A different Wilberforce cat character starred in each one. He had thought that signing the contract might prove to be a triumph of optimism over experience, but in fact he was rather enjoying writing the series. He was especially enjoying the final one, which had an Elizabethan setting and was going to end with Wilberforce being knighted for capturing pirates and given a house and lands as an expression of the Queen’s gratitude.

  College was relatively quiet this afternoon, and mellow sunlight lay across the small courtyard outside Michael’s windows. The real Wilberforce was snoozing on the windowsill; Michael did not trust him not to be plotting further mayhem, but at least he knew where Wilberforce was, and that in itself made for an untroubled working environment.

  With the memory of Quire Court’s original owners, and also the impending Rede Abbas Revels in his mind, he was going to close the Histories series on a note of revelry. He accordingly caused Wilberforce to join clumpily in a maypole dance on a village green, during which Wilberforce became hopelessly entangled in the trailing ribbons, and had to be rescued and revived with copious draughts of mulled wine, the quaffing of which resulted in him leaping into the centre of the festivities and entertaining the assembled company with a spirited rendition of a lively ballad. Michael allowed the revellers to join gleefully in the chorus, and supposed his editor would expect him to dig out a suitable verse or two to reproduce at this point. It was to be hoped he could find something that was not too bawdy. He re-read Owen Bracegirdle’s email about the Rede Abbas monks and the ballads performed during the first St Benedict’s Revels, and thought it a shame that Brother Cuthwin’s ‘Cuckolds All Awry’ was not likely to be suitable for seven- and eight-year-olds.

  He saved the scene to the hard drive for polishing later, then phoned Nell.

  ‘I’m guessing you’ll be too busy with getting ready for tomorrow’s journey to link up for supper tonight?’

  ‘Well, we will, really,’ said Nell. ‘We’re bundling up all the old papers from Godfrey’s storeroom at the moment. He didn’t have time himself, and he said he’d be eternally grateful and for ever in my debt if I could do it for him.’

  ‘That sounds like Godfrey.’

  ‘I don’t know about him being grateful; what I do think is that he owes me a very lush lunch when I next see him,’ said Nell. ‘There’s far more than I thought. Jack Hurst’s men cleared most of it out because they’re fitting some new flooring over the weekend, but there’s still masses of it. Beth and I are tying it in bundles for the recycling lorry on Saturday.’

  ‘Godfrey’s part magpie, part squirrel,’ said Michael.

  ‘Yes, but he’s a very canny squirrel and he never misses anything, so we aren’t expecting to find a first-folio Shakespeare or an undiscovered Chaucer in the baked-bean carton.’

  ‘What time are you setting off in the morning?’

  ‘Around half eight, I hope.’

  ‘Have a safe journey.’

  ‘You too. Don’t miss the train on Saturday, will you?’

  They had decided that as Michael would only be at Rede Abbas for Saturday night, he would travel by train on Saturday morning, then he and Nell, with Beth, could drive back to Oxford on Sunday in Nell’s car. As Nell said, the train took three hours, but it was nearly that time by road anyway, and they could share the driving coming home.

  ‘I won’t miss the train,’ Michael said. ‘I’ll be with you even if I have to travel on the ship of fools, and cross hills whose heads touch heaven, or—’

  The ship of fools might be more reliable than National Rail on a Saturday morning,’ said Nell, somewhat causti
cally, to which Michael replied equably that he would check for any delays before setting off.

  ‘In any case, I’m looking forward to The Swan’s four-poster.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Nell, and he heard the smile in her voice.

  Michael dined in Hall that evening, after which he was swept up by Owen Bracegirdle and hauled along to a meeting of the Whatley Society, where two of Owen’s more promising final years were leading the evening’s debate. The topic was, ‘How free is the free press today?’ and it turned out to be so voluble and so lively a session that discussions were animatedly continued in the bar afterwards.

  As Michael was crossing the quad back to his rooms later, he was greeted by the doughty Mr Jugg, who had been lying in wait for him, and who imparted the information that Wilberforce, still enamoured of the rose garden with the Ben Jonson Society plants, had become entangled in the trip-wires cunningly placed across the soil by Jugg’s own hands. Finding himself enmeshed, Wilberforce had fought furiously to get free, setting the wind-chimes jangling with, said Jugg, as much noise as if it had been a rehearsal for the Last Trump.

  ‘How did he get free?’ asked Michael. And then, ‘Oh God, he isn’t still there, is he?’

  Wilberforce was not, however, still there. A second year, who had been climbing into College through the buttery window, had run out to see what the rumpus was, and had discovered Wilberforce and managed to extricate him.

  ‘After which the wretched animal shot off like a bat escaping hell,’ said Jugg. ‘I couldn’t tell you where he is now, for we haven’t seen hide nor hair nor whisker of him since. As for the student who rescued him … well, Dr Flint, I didn’t ask what he was doing climbing through a window at that hour, because it’s nothing to do with me if students behave like house-breakers. What I did think, though, was that we might have to fetch out the medics, because there was blood all over the Archduke Josephs we planted in spring, and you never saw such a—’