Lost Acre

by Andrew Caldecott

  The Polk Travel Company’s untouched copy of the local County Guide contained an inconspicuous Appendix N headed: Sites of No Particular Distinction. After an Ordnance Survey reference, the last entry read:

  Chapel of St Jude. Remote, forgettable, disturbing; a few brasses. Near Hoy; usually closed, guardian (rarely available) at Hoy, PO Box 71.

  The paradoxical conjunction of ‘forgettable’ and ‘disturbing’ and the parenthesis suggested a cack-handed attempt to deter interest.

  She wrote to the chapel’s guardian as instructed and booked herself into The Blue Lion in Hoy.

  Boris used an afternoon supply run to give her and her bicycle a clandestine lift in the back of the charabanc. Despite driving rain, she insisted on cycling from the embankment rim, reaching the inn just before opening time.

  A corpulent landlord opened the door with an agreeable twinkle. He confirmed the booking.

  ‘We’re off-season, so there’s plenty of room at the inn. You can have Rob Roy, Moby Dick, Long John or The Return of She. Here’s the Race Card.’

  The twinkle brightened on Orelia’s removal of her oilskin and sou’wester.

  ‘I do like high up,’ she said.

  ‘Well, you would, Sister,’ he replied, trying not to look or sound surprised. ‘Tell you what, you can have The Return of She at the price of Moby Dick.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ she replied, before reminding herself not to push her luck. She had taken care with the deception: a rosary hung from her waist, a wimple contained her gypsy hair and she wore the severe black lace-up shoes acquired for her aunt’s funeral. She must hold repartee in check.

  The attic room had charm. Impressionist prints and competent watercolours of Hoy’s more picturesque landmarks adorned the walls and a bright kilim the floor.

  After the usual unnecessary introductions – kettle, coffee, tea and milk, shower mechanics – the landlord turned remorseful.‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘No Bible.’

  ‘A change is as good as a rest,’ she replied, ‘and in any case I know by heart what matters. But thank you. She will Return.’

  The landlord followed a golden rule: Never ask guests where they’re from or why they’re here, unless they open that door themselves. That did not prevent him speculating. A nun on the run, he decided from first impressions.

  As at the Unrecognisable Party, her habit deterred unwanted company and attracted a display of good manners from even the more loutish regulars. The secular-minded called her Miss.

  The landlord served her personally and continued to twinkle. ‘Holy orders are on the house,’ he said. ‘Liquids only.’

  ‘Frackle’s cider,’ she said. ‘I like the colour and I don’t like those mean-looking glasses. So, call it a pint, but if I order another, say no – and the fish pie without the chips, please.’ She stacked the coins for the pie on the bar like a croupier.

  Nun on the run, definitely.

  She ate and drank delicately, while she watched and listened. Hoy’s popular discourse lacked Rotherweird’s scientific edge, but the camaraderie was still restorative. She could not reconcile this random sample of humanity with those who laid low forests, poisoned rivers and massacred their own kind in God’s name. Somewhere between the individual and communal government, mankind had lost its moorings.

  In the best English tradition, the weather, having frowned most of the night, was smiling by morning. A nameless narrow lane with a dead-end sign at the north of town looped west to the escarpment, where it ended in the yard of a ruined cottage with a collapsed roof. Beside it was a dilapidated car. She secured her bicycle to a tree trunk and followed an iron sign whose corroded letters read Chapel of St Jude, 2 miles. The grass betrayed no sign of wear; the County Guide entry had achieved its objective. The sun broke through, making the night’s rain glisten. Early lambs tottered among ewes too pregnant or exhausted to take much notice.

  The chapel had a low-slung look, with a squat tower and shallow pitched roof, although closer up, the dimensions proved to be more generous; the foreshortening had been caused by a fold in the land. The dismissive criteria in Appendix N fitted the exterior: no stained glass, no visible churchyard, no gravestones, no enclosing wall, no lych-gate, no porch and no exterior ornament of note. The single oak door had a circular black iron latch, but was locked. In her letter to the guardian, she had mentioned Oblong’s name, expressed an interest in the brasses and given a time.

  She was debating whether to leave when a bellow from over the hill scattered the sheep. In the far corner of the meadow stood a sturdy pole and a cross-post. The latter held a heavy ball on a chain at one end and a shield at the other. A figure in full samurai armour was jousting with the device, hacking at the shield before ducking as the ball swung round.

  The warrior removed his helmet to reveal a fresh-faced young man with white hair.

  ‘You cycle at quite a lick for a nun,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘You duck better than you strike,’ she responded.

  He had a schoolboy voice to match his complexion, but the sword was no toy. ‘The armour is on the tight side – they were smaller then. I need to make adjustments,’ he said, adding a wink to the grin as he tapped the weave of steel and bamboo strips encasing his legs and torso. ‘I like the weapons of legend. What better way to keep in trim?’

  ‘How did you get this job?’ asked Orelia.

  ‘Mine, mine, it’s all mine,’ he replied, gesturing at the meadow, the chapel and the sheep. ‘It’s true, but not much of a job. As we’re not in Rotherweird Valley, we can appear on a map, but we don’t in fact want visitors. Ambrose Claud the Thirteenth, at your service.’

  It must have been Oblong’s name that prompted this unexpected candour. Encumbered by his armour, Claud waddled rather than walked to the chapel door, which yielded to an iron key hanging round his neck.

  She followed him in. The chapel had no pews or chairs, although a camp bed suggested that Ambrose the Thirteenth occasionally spent the night here. A marble altar had neither tabernacle nor candles, but the austerity was not universal. The rood screen drew the eye by its colour, subject matter and quality. Orelia shuddered. Why must doom paintings display the torments of the damned with such relish? Men, women and children tumbled into jagged rents in the earth’s fiery surface. The Schadenfreude extended to man’s inventions: water wheels, buildings, boats and primitive flying machines accompanied the human dross in their headlong fall.

  ‘In many ways the blessed are more interesting,’ commented Claud telepathically.

  Indeed, they were. In the Judgement Seat sat an overweight man, a most atypical portrayal of God the Father, with books in both hands. On either side small figures, instruments in hand, measured and recorded. Orelia felt an uncomfortable tension between the doomed inventions and these apparently satisfactory faces of science. The screen had an oddly secular air.

  She turned to the only other visible source of colour, a strikingly beautiful Renaissance statue in painted wood standing on a plinth near the altar.

  ‘St Jude, patron saint of lost causes,’ explained Claud. The bearded saint looked world-weary, but a slight uplift in the corners of his mouth offered the hint of hope for which he was renowned. ‘The chapel is dedicated to him – not him.’ Claud pointed at the statue and then at the Judge on the rood screen. The remark should have sounded sacrilegious, but it did not; this was no ordinary chapel. ‘St Jude has but one rule: you have to work for his help. Put another way: if you don’t play the tables, you don’t give Lady Luck a chance.’

  To Orelia’s surprise, he handed over the door key. ‘I’ll be back on the eve of the Equinox at sunset. Be sure to be here.’

  ‘You trust me?’ asked Orelia. ‘St Jude must be worth a pretty packet.’

  ‘You’ve been to the other place, as has your friend Oblong, whom I like. And I’ve Gabriel’s word too.’ He looked into her face. ‘He said hazel, and he was right.’

  Orelia felt both pleased and irritated. She might have de
scribed Gabriel by his beard, but eyes were intimate territory. He had taken a liberty. Yet the pleasure of the compliment prevailed. The chapel’s eight supporting pillars were each carved with an upright angel, save one whose angel was inverted.

  ‘Do I really need three days?’

  ‘Hardly enough time, believe me. This place is rich in history and it doesn’t duck the darker side of human nature. I’d start with the brasses, as that’s what you came for. They’re all Clauds, Ambrose or Ambrosia – the good, the bad and the indifferent. They read like a family tree. The earliest is by the door, the most recent by the altar, as if we’re creeping our way to the Promised Land. By the way, you can sing or swear as much as you like. We’ve just been deconsecrated.’

  Ferensen knows Gabriel who knows Claud. Orelia took Ambrose the Thirteenth at his word and accepted the key.

  ‘Keep the outside door locked and don’t let anyone else in. I’ll knock seven times, once for each good angel. Feel free to use the taper and light as many candles as you like.’

  He walked back to the pole and removed the shield and the ball before departing with a cheery wave, leaving Orelia to disentangle his ancestors and their contributions to this peculiar place.

  She established a ritual and set herself rules: she must resist distraction and complete the brasses first. Hoy provided the wherewithal in the form of twelve sheets of pastel paper, silver and bronze crayons, scissors, masking tape to prevent slippage, and a duster to buff the end product.

  On leaving the chapel at dusk, a familiar shape lolloped towards her from the edge of the meadow. The Mance nuzzled her leg by way of reintroduction before bounding off into the dark. She smiled. She had a guardian.

  She completed Ambrose I to Ambrose V on the first day, assembling the rubbings in order on the floor and bed of her lodgings. Each figure had for company their dates of birth and death, and a single Latin verb. Most she interpreted without difficulty. Ambrose II, who had completed the chapel, had the accolade Aedificavi: I have built. Ambrosia I, who died in 1661, had the less flattering tribute Peccavi: I have sinned. Her left hand gestured to the side, while her head twisted in the opposite direction as if too ashamed to look. Ambrose I, who had commenced the works, had the more puzzling Occului: I have concealed, with its unsettling similarity to the word occult.

  She finished the rubbings, including Ambrose VII, who from the dates had to be the Vagrant Vicar, late on the second day. His legend appropriately read Commemoravi: I have recalled. His successor, Ambrosia II, had the only negative verb: Non cantavi, which Orelia first took to mean I have not sung, only to remember the mysterious instrument which the present Ambrose had given to Oblong. Maybe she had discovered it and resisted the temptation to play?

  On the last morning, the eve of the Spring Equinox, she paid her bill and thanked the landlord.

  ‘You’re welcome back any time, Sister. There’s not been a rough word at the bar all week, which is a record.’ He presented her with a bottle of Frackle’s by way of thanks.

  As on the previous morning, the Mance assumed his post as she arrived. Was he guarding her, or was there some undisclosed enterprise she was expected to undertake? She turned her attention to the remainder of the chapel.

  A pair of circular recesses had been set into the altar. Each held a cup fashioned from a hard material, unfamiliar, but not unlike horn. One was blue, the other ember-red – for water and wine, perhaps? The altar turned out to be old polished wood with stipples of paint to imitate marble. Halfway across, the colours changed from red to blue in inverse order to the cups. The cups had wooden handles concealed in their base which opened out. Unconsecrated ground this might be, but it was still holy. She left the cups in place. They had a sacramental feel.

  On the back wall of the north transept were two stone fists about five feet apart holding iron rings in their grasp like shackles. Each had tightening cogs, but only one had a lever to work them. Whatever object they had held had vanished, while leaving behind the unpleasant aura of a haunted room. On the floor, Ambrosia I’s brass hand was pointing in this very direction. Peccavi.

  The pillars had the archangels’ names inscribed on their base. The eighth, the inverted angel, aptly declared himself as Lucifer, surely a unique presence for any chapel. The screen, this pillar and the stone fists prompted the thought that Ambrose I had devised a chapel to house the holy and the unholy.

  *

  Ambrose the Thirteenth kept his promise: a sanguine sunset stained the plain glass of the west window as he entered. In the doorway he dropped a backpack on the floor. ‘Any questions?’

  ‘What did Ambrosia I get rid of?’

  ‘The Tree of Knowledge had angel wood and witch wood entwined, hence Good and Evil, or so the legend goes. Ambrose III found a staff of the latter stuff in the other place.’

  ‘Or so the legend goes.’

  ‘He secured it here, only for Ambrosia to sell it. She lived the high life. We don’t know who bought it.’

  ‘And the coloured cups?’

  ‘Equally no idea. They’re another contribution from Ambrose III. Maybe they mirror the rood screen – blue for the cloudless sky of Paradise and red for the fire of hell.’ Ambrose sounded serious, as if the answer might matter in the here and now. ‘St Jude rewards those who strive to find a way. That’s likely to be true tonight of all nights.’ He did not elaborate but walked back to the doorway. ‘Find a way, Miss Roc, for all our sakes.’

  With that request, Ambrose left the chapel and locked the door behind him.

  Orelia stood stock-still in disbelief. Friend and foe seemed bent on immuring her in sealed chambers. Here at least she had the statue to inspire.

  And perhaps the bag? She unpacked it methodically. He had provided generously in terms of food and water. Side pockets held a slow candle with a protective glass and a strange key with spikes at all angles.

  ‘All right, good St Jude, I’m trying. Now you help me. Please.’

  ‘The meadow turned red-orange . . .’

  2

  Pre-emptive Bids

  Dead of night, three days before the Vernal Equinox. Gabriel sat by the peat stove, the carving across his knees: an apple with its leaves. It was not quite perfect; the lighter grain on the cheek needed more work to convey the blush of ripeness.

  Panjan did not flutter at the window, his habitual way of knocking for admission, but burst in through the chimney and flapped against the outer door: Panjan-speak for Get out NOW!

  Apple in hand, Gabriel rushed outside, not pausing for coat or boots. High in the night sky, bearing down from the north and closing fast, danced tongues of flame like Pentecostal fire.

  Gabriel cursed. The enemy must have a craft to rival the Hoverfly – and well protected too, or the fearless Panjan would have attacked. Seconds played like minutes; minutes like an hour. Should he risk himself to save his work, or run? His wooden roof-tiles would ignite like pitch. Once landed, they could easily chase him down.

  Panjan skimmed towards the alders along the river, his flight path deciding the issue: Live to fight another day, play the longer game.

  Gabriel followed, sprinting between the tree trunks and turning only when the first volley struck the building and the meadow turned red-orange. His home and workshop blazed. Funnelled globe-lights crisscrossed the meadow.

  Panjan had rescued him, but his tools and belongings, and worse, the fruits of centuries of creativity, his own and his ancestors’, were being fast reduced to ash.

  He could see no alternative but to await events in the other place. Panjan appeared to agree, for he had risen and was soaring towards the white tile.

  *

  In the dead of night, two days before the Vernal Equinox, dancer’s feet once again descended the main stairs of the Manor, guided by childhood memory.

  Nona found the gnarl with equal ease, propped in a corner of the Great Hall.

  She stroked the shaft, teasing the wood into growth, and snapped off the single shoot. It wa
s no larger than a small twig, but enough. She bent the ends together. They entwined of their own accord, contracting tighter and tighter into a ball no bigger than a generous pebble.

  She left for Rotherweird Westwood in mid-afternoon and waited for dusk. In the distance the charred shell of Gabriel’s home and workshop was still puffing like a pipe. Above her, men were patrolling the gateway to the Witan Hall. She smiled. They would soon be otherwise engaged.

  She pulled a catapult from one pocket, lodged the ball of wood in the leather pouch and fired it over the sentries’ heads into the outer gate. It made no sound, nor did it ricochet, but clung there, filaments spreading from the small dark heart across the oak like tiny cracks in a golden glaze. By the time the sentries noticed the discolouration, the doorjamb was already sealed. Frantic action with billhooks and knives only stimulated further growth, veins branching out and engulfing the door like a rampant leafless ivy.

  Nona smiled. She had secured the countrysiders’ children for later use and immobilised Ferensen; all in all, a successful day’s work. Time to go home.

  To those inside the Witan Hall, the assault by the gnarl’s shoot brought the yawing groan of a boat in distress. They were trapped.

  ‘So it has begun,’ said Ferensen to Megan Ferdy.

  3

  The Reluctant Skipper ‘I don’t understand, Jones.’ Rhombus Smith, the long-suffering Headmaster of Rotherweird School, sounded both hurt and surprised. ‘You’re the mainstay of the School’s athletic endeavours – you’re our star and chosen skipper.’

  ‘But I’ve never actually finished, sir.’

  ‘That, as we all know, is down to your highly tuned sense of Old-World courtesy,’ replied the Headmaster. ‘Such self-sacrifice is – alas – unsuited to this new team game. Any stricken damsel will have her own to rescue her.’

  Jones had not considered this, although it still sounded ungallant. But in any case . . . ‘I have an ancient debt to pay, Mr Smith. I am mighty sorry. I recommend Mr Fanguin in my place.’