by Kate Mosse
He saw me paying close attention to his work and waved a hand towards the ceiling. I stood up and peered at the nearest carvings. I saw they were all bone. There is a peculiar quality to the material that makes it different from any wood that I have ever encountered or seen worked.
He handed me the lamp. I inspected the hanging ornaments more closely and gasped. Tiny faces, no larger than my littlest fingernail, perhaps smaller still, carved with extraordinary precision. The minuscule faces were disconcertingly lifelike. My eye was drawn from one to another, dozens of them, all different, all finely worked.
How many were there? I am certain at least a hundred bones dangled from the struts supporting the roof. Each seemed to accommodate at least six or seven likenesses. Each likeness projected a distinct personality. And as I passed the lamp from hand to hand, they seemed to come to life. The play of the light across them transformed their expressions, from despair to fury, from resignation to horror.
I felt faint and feared I might fall. I put out a hand to steady myself, but the only fixed object in the room I could use to maintain my balance was the gaunt man himself and he shrank from my touch.
On that instant, the door burst open and the room was suddenly crowded with men. Strong arms grabbed me and lifted me from my feet, carrying me out into the night without explanation. I protested, but they paid no heed and did not stop until we arrived at the cauldron on the beach.
A few embers were still glowing and they deposited me alongside the fire. I was still light-headed, but the cool sand and the fresh air revived me and I found my tongue.
‘What is the meaning of this? I am not used to being manhandled.’
No one paid the slightest attention. I tried to get to my feet but my head swam and the vision of all the horrible little faces seemed to surround me like a white swarm of slow-moving horseflies.
I sat back and rubbed my hands over my eyes, feeling sick to my boots.
‘How did you know I was there?’
Still, no one spoke to me or offered explanation. Frustrated, I resolved at least to take out my notebook and make a complete record of this strange settlement.
By now, all but one of the men who had seized me from the cabin had drifted away. He looked a solid citizen, with broad shoulders and a handsome square face. I recognised him from the adventure with the fishing boat that ran aground. He knelt beside me and looked into my eyes.
‘Will you tell me?’ I said, attempting the Breton language.
The man replied in rudimentary, strongly accented French. ‘Do not speak to him. Not speak.’
I felt a spurt of anger on the gaunt man’s behalf, even though I did not know his story.
‘You have made him an outcast, yes I see that. But why? What crime has he committed to be punished in this way?’
He was frowning, whether because he didn’t understand the words or because he didn’t understand why I should be asking the question, I cannot be sure.
‘Do not speak,’ he insisted.
His intransigence made me more belligerent still.
‘I’m not from this village. I shall speak to whomsoever I please.’
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he shouted. ‘No.’
‘Why should I not speak to him? It’s cruel, I tell you.’
‘That man he is . . .’ He spread his hands wide to indicate he had no words.
I shrugged, though I admit my interest was piqued. ‘Say it in your language. Perhaps I will understand.’
He took a deep breath. ‘He is Ankou.’
My blood went cold and though I had heard quite clearly, I made him repeat it.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Ankou,’ he said again. ‘You understand?’
I had learnt of the Ankou at my grandfather’s knee. It was a ludicrous folk tale with no foundation in fact; even so, there was something in the man’s demeanour that gave me pause for thought.
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘I understand.’
‘He transports the dead.’
My grandfather told me that a legend is a story about someone who may have existed far back in some distant past, whilst a myth is a story that is, by general agreement, a fiction, with no connection to real people, however far back one might search.
He had told me many such stories. Living at the tip of the great Brittany peninsular, summer visits had introduced me to all kinds of fantastic creatures – imps, giants, naiads and sages – each associated with a detail of the coastline or the sea. And the Ankou: a fisherman called by name in the deep of the night by God or the Devil to transport dead souls to the portal of the beyond on the shore of the distant island.
That evening, sitting alone on the hard sand, I thought of how my grandfather had shaped my sensibilities. It was thanks to him that I enjoyed gardening, mostly the growing of food but also, from time to time, flowers and shrubs. He taught me to cook with the produce of his own soil, to set traps for vermin such as rabbits and to carry out repairs about the home. In short, it was his influence that transformed me from a boy into a capable young man.
Because I had slept the entire afternoon I was not in the least tired. The moon was low, almost touching the horizon of the sea, and appeared enormous. Otherwise the sky was veiled with cloud and the air was relatively warm. The cooking utensils had been cleaned and were stacked on a clean board alongside the cooking fire. The heavy iron cauldron retained some of its warmth.
The fishermen would go out once more upon an early tide, so I had no expectation of finding any society in the village. All the same, I rose to my feet and strolled between the squat houses. Here and there I noticed a job to be done – for example guttering that was poorly attached, allowing the rain to run down the wall. I was plunged into a reverie in which I made myself indispensable to this small community of isolated peasants and became a fixture in their lives.
I came to a halt in the centre of the modest cluster of houses, alongside the rustic shrine. In the silvery light I saw that the saint – if saint it was – took the figure of a mariner. I supposed this was unsurprising: what would one expect in a fishing village? But there were some peculiarities that emerged on closer study.
The skill of the stonemason had depicted a thin man standing upright in the aft of a fishing boat, his eye fixed upon the horizon. I turned in order to follow his gaze and realised that it was focused upon the distant island beyond the reef of black rocks. That said, one might just as well have argued that his gaze was fixed upon the moon. The line to each was more or less the same.
At the base of the carving, the artist had rendered an image of the mariner’s boat. It was depicted on the angle and it seemed that an attempt had been made to give a sense of the movement of the craft over the waves.
I was unsure what time it was and was resolved to return to the woman and her children once more, when I heard a sound I recognised from the previous evening. The sliding of the wooden bolt that fastened the door of the cabin at the far end of the village.
I stood in silence and soon heard the steady tread of the gaunt man coming towards me. He was dressed as he had been at that first meeting. He carried nothing in his hands and paid no attention to me as he passed, although I must have been visible to him, standing in the open by the light of a strong moon.
Was it to prove I was a man of the city? That I paid no heed to old wives’ tales? Or that I wished to demonstrate I would not be dictated to about to whom I should or should not talk? I cannot say, only that all at once the idea returned to me of visiting the island. If my original companion was preparing to take a boat out onto the water, could I not persuade him to take me with him? Morning was nearly upon us and I could enjoy the sunrise on sparkling water between the reef and the landmass out on the open sea.
‘I say,’ I called.
He did not slacken his pace. I hurried after him. ‘I say, will you take me out with you?’
Still, he did not even turn his head.
‘I know enough about the water. I won’t be a burd
en to you.’
At that he turned his mournful gaze upon me. It was impossible to read his eyes, so deep-set were they above his prominent cheekbones.
I hurried on. ‘Since I have been here, I find I have formed an attachment to the place. I would be very grateful to visit the island out there in the ocean.’
We were already part-way down the beach and as we stood, one facing the other, I wondering if I had made myself understood. Then, with the smallest movement of his right hand, he indicated a boat that already sat bobbing in the water. I took his gesture for acquiescence.
‘Thank you. You are very kind.’
Together we crossed the sand to the fringe of surf. I hesitated, intending to take off my boots and roll up my trousers but he pressed on into the water, so I did the same.
I took hold of the prow to keep the boat steady as he climbed aboard and then swung my own leg over the gunwales. It was a fine solid craft, perhaps nine metres in length, with a single mast rigged and ready for the wind. He stood in the aft and took hold of the tiller and I realised that, by some action of the tide, we were already drifting away from the shore.
Then I felt the boat rock as if something or someone had come on board, though the gaunt man himself had not moved. His head was turned, looking out towards the reef. All at once, I suddenly had a sense of misgiving. Not because I gave credence to the superstitions of the village, but rather wondering if it was wise to be out upon the water in darkness.
But it was too late now. The boat gave another lurch and swung round. We were under way. The prow came in line with the route that I had seen the fishing boats take through the reef, though the boat still rolled from side to side as if a multitude of travellers were hauling themselves over the beam.
I had the sense of no longer being alone. A disquieting claustrophobia began to take hold of me and I shrank in on myself. I felt my muscles contract as I tucked in my elbows against my flanks. And with each sway of the boat, it sat deeper in the water. Perhaps we were holed and would soon sink. I dipped my hand into the bilge, expecting it to be at least a foot deep in seawater. All I found was a short length of damp rope.
The sail billowed, taking the wind. We began to pick up speed. It struck me that this was the first offshore breeze that I had encountered on this coastline. There was no need to tack or even, or so it seemed, to steer. The boat made rapid way and the gaunt man’s hand rested only lightly upon the tiller.
Sitting in the prow, I felt the slap of the water against the hull and spray on my face. As we met each wave, I expected the black water to cascade over the sides and swill about around my booted feet, but it didn’t.
I looked over the edge, down into the dark waves. Here and there in the water I thought that I saw shapes, like the figures of men, pale and indistinct in the moonlight, their hands reaching up and out, but before they could take hold of the timbers and haul themselves aboard, we had moved on. Then I heard the strange and plaintive wailing that, on the cliff top, had accompanied my arrival into the village the previous night.
It was as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes. I was caught between horror and wonder for our boat was now crowded with those taken by the sea. The drowned. They stood shoulder to shoulder, massed like rotting corn left too long in the fields. I was transfixed by their awful faces, sagging and collapsing in every stage of decomposition and decay, rags for clothes, limbs torn and broken, fleshless fingers flailing at the night. The swell became deeper and they jostled against one another. I began to hear their voices, despairing and complaining, but with a note of restrained joy whose reason I could not fathom.
I wondered what kind of madness had enraptured me. Was I asleep in the hammock? Had I eaten the flesh of some hallucinogenic fish? I had no idea if such a thing existed. Or perhaps it was the herbs, the green leaves with which the stew was flavoured?
No, it couldn’t be. I could feel the spray on my cheeks and taste the salt on my lips. Whatever was happening had to be true. Simultaneously, I knew it could not be real.
We were nearly at the reef. Another silvery hand tried to reach up and take hold of the craft as it passed. An angry murmur went up from the ghastly passengers. One of the long-dead reached out a claw-like hand and beat the other away. It fell back into the water with a terrible moaning sound of renunciation and loss.
‘Why can the others not come aboard?’ I shouted.
The question was absurd. They were mirages, surely, a play of the moonlight upon the water. But I persisted.
‘If some can be transported to the afterlife, why not all?’
I saw his lips move but could not hear his voice.
‘Please, tell me,’ I cried.
His lips moved again and, this time, the tightly packed drowned turned towards him. In parody of some ghastly stage routine, they began to whisper together and turn. First those closest to him repeated his low words, then they passed the message to a neighbour who turned and passed it on again. In that way, the message travelled down the boat from gaping mouth to mangled ear, until all the appalling faces, blue and white and bloated, were hissing it at me in ragged unison, each it seemed in a separate language, but all of them comprehensible to me by some demonic alchemy.
‘They have not yet earned their deliverance. Might not ever do so . . .’
I fell back in the prow of the boat. It was true. He was the Ankou and I had embarked upon the Ship of the Dead.
There was a moment of silence followed by a faint cry of hollow triumph. We were through the reef and out in the open sea. The wind drove us on. We sat so low in the water that it rose in a wall of darkness to either side.
The dead souls became excited. They grimaced and turned to one another, mouthing incomprehensible words. Our pace slowed, the great wake subsided and the island became visible, at first just a black shadow on the night, then more and more distinct. I soon made out trees and a beach.
There we headed.
The drowned edged forward. Those closest to me wanted my place in the prow. They leaned in, almost touching my garments. Those further back shuffled forward too, pressing up against their fellows, until soon I was completely hemmed in by the foul and rotting bodies. They groped with their terrible hands past my face, scratching their bony claws through the night air, as if the gesture would make the island come more rapidly near.
Through the thicket of decomposing flesh, I saw the gaunt villager stand and raise his hand. There was the unmistakable grinding of hull on shore. We had arrived.
Immediately, they began to leave. Clambering over me in their haste to quit the boat and reach the land, I was trampled and buffeted by their vile remains. Ten then twenty then thirty and more, kicking and dragging themselves over the prow and splashing away through the shallows to the beach.
Speechless with horror, I covered my head with my hands and curled myself into a ball for fear of contamination or injury. The truth is, I felt no pain – their touch was insubstantial – but it left a nausea, a deep, disconcerting revulsion. I cursed myself for having come. In my need to prove myself better than the villagers and their ancient superstitions, I had brought this dreadful experience upon myself.
They staggered from the water, took a few steps upon the land before coming to a halt and raising their hands. I heard their joyful voices like the yelps of distant dogs, as they began to fade. I cannot say precisely when their substance disintegrated utterly into darkness.
Without the gaunt man even seeming to turn the boat around, we were all at once again riding the white crests. We got into trouble in a spiralling eddy from which our boat was flung. The prow swung violently round and, without any kind of wind, as if moved by some mysterious underwater force, the boat began to drive homeward towards the shore. The gaunt villager lay back against the timbers and the tiller swung wildly back and forth. Unburdened of our cargo, we seemed to skim across the waves.
We made straight for the centre of the reef where the rocks were sharpest and tallest. I felt sure we must b
e sundered by the teeth of stone. I believe I may have uttered some kind of imprecation. I don’t know to whom. Perhaps it was answered. More likely, the Ship of the Dead cannot be sunk by anything in our base world. In any case, we sailed right though the deadly rocks, dancing on the wild foam.
My fear made me oblivious to my surroundings. Only once we were in the quiet of the bay did I realise that the boat was becoming less and less distinct. The timbers beneath my hand were translucent as if they, too, like the long drowned, had finished with this world. The prow itself, though still substantial to my touch, appeared like paper, as if my hand could push through it into the cold black water beyond. The mast seemed no more than a blade of straw. The aft panels were quite invisible. At last, the beach approached. Now it was as if the two of us, the gaunt man and I, were hovering across the waves, so transparent had the boat become.
Just as it felt that my imagination could no longer sustain the image of the craft and I must drown, I felt myself thrown up onto the sand. I lay still for a moment, dazed with all I had seen. I was drenched from the spray. The waves lapped at my legs but I hadn’t the strength to pull myself upright. Then I noticed the gaunt man already trudging away up the beach. The sun was rising and a pale shaft of yellow light illuminated his sunken features.
I dragged myself to my feet and ran after him. ‘Why you?’ I cried.
He held my gaze for a moment then replied, in a voice thick with sorrow and resignation:
‘Because I was called.’
I let go of his arm and the man continued on his weary way. I watched him go. There was, in the awkward droop of his shoulders, a terrible lassitude – or at least so it seemed to me.
I thought again of the carved bones that dangled from the timbers of his roof – all the vile little faces. I pictured him in his lonely cabin, working away at some of that very evening’s passengers. He carved them as they must have been in life, but I could not have done the same. I wondered if he was the only man allowed to see the men they had been. As an interloper or a stowaway, I had perceived the desperate transformations that death had wrought.
