Philip Gooden - The Salisbury Manuscript

The inscription was from Chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes. When he got back to his house, the man wrote out the inscription from memory. He stared at it for a long time. He realized that the verse provided not only a strange allusion to his discovery but an even stranger one to himself. The man wasn’t especially superstitious but he’d grown into the habit of looking for little signs and markers. It was enough to determine his course. He would go back to Todd’s Mound and open up the cavity in the burrow once more and bring out the objects.

As soon as he was free of duties — the next afternoon as it transpired — he slipped out of the cathedral close and, once on the edge of the city, he donned the rough coat and hat which might cause him to be mistaken for an itinerant labourer and walked rapidly into the surrounding country. The sky was overcast and he was glad that there were few people about. The only person who had taken any notice of him was the shepherd striding downhill on the western slope of Todd’s Mound.

Now, a couple of hours later when it was dark outside, he sat in the stuffy burrow by the light of the oil lamp, hefting the sack which contained the treasure hoard. He took another swig from his flask. He had almost forgotten that someone, or something, had intruded on the burrow in his absence. Then the sight of the bones casually thrown to one side reminded him that the burial chamber had been visited. The idea of waiting for first light was not an appealing one.

He prepared to leave, looking round to make sure that he’d gathered up all his implements. He doused the oil lamp. He waited while his eyes adjusted to the near-absolute dark inside the burial-chamber. The entrance showed as a slightly less dark shape in the gloom. He unscrewed the flask for a final draught. Whether it was that he was no longer so absorbed in his task or whether the absence of light had somehow sharpened his senses, the man abruptly stopped in the action of returning the flask to his pocket and listened.

What was that sound from outside? A kind of rushing noise. The wind, no doubt. And that flicker of movement across the mouth of the burrow, like a curtain being drawn? The man scrabbled to get clear of the confined space as if afraid that the entrance was about to be sealed up for ever. He emerged into the open on his hands and knees, drawing in lungfuls of cold air. Still crouching, he looked from side to side. Nothing to see beyond the great bulk of the beech tree on the slope below him and the blotted shapes of the yews. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear apart from some scudding clouds and the starlight which shone stronger in the absence of the moon. He gazed up at the rapidly shifting sky and there came to him another line from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 11: he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap .

The man reached back into the burrow and dragged out the bag containing his spoils. He stood up, momentarily unsteady on his feet after being confined for so long. He looked out at the few scattered lights of the city and the silhouette of the cathedral spire. He put the bag over his shoulder. It was heavy. He would be exhausted by the time he got back to the security of the close. He would have to take care returning through the town even though he would be threading its streets in the dead hours of morning. And he knew its streets and alleys well.

The man was still standing near the entrance to the burial chamber. A few feet to his left was the branch which he had earlier thrown to one side. He was reluctant to leave the burrow exposed so he shuffled across to lay hold of the branch and tugged it back to conceal the entrance. Breathing deeply from the effort he turned about to begin his progress uphill, guided by starlight and the contour of the slope. He glanced at the area above the burrow. There was something up there he hadn’t seen before. A darker shape squatting against the sky. For an instant he thought it was a tree with two branches splayed out in queer symmetry, one on either side. But the tree began to move. It seemed to grow higher. The branches became arms. Then it left the ground altogether and launched itself at the man. He was too shocked to move. He received the flying shape full force in his chest and tumbled backwards down the flank of Todd’s Mound.

The breath was knocked out of him and an object in the bag — the trowel or an item taken from the burrow — stabbed him painfully in his back. There was another duller pain in his left leg, as though in falling down he might have injured himself. But the man was scarcely aware of any of this. Instead from where he was lying, his head lower than his feet, he saw the tree-shape once more raise itself further up the slope of the hill. Like him, the shape was breathing hard. Both of its arms were extended and it was jigging and swaying as if to keep balance. In one of the outstretched hands the man made out a metallic glint, a knife blade. If he stayed very still he might pass unnoticed. Irrelevantly, out of the depths of his mind there sprang a name, a strange name. It was that of Atropos, one of the old Greek Fates, the one who wields her shears like a blade and who cuts off the thread of life. It had all been explained to him.

Seeing the outline of the figure waver uncertainly as if it didn’t know what to do next, the man remained where he was, stock still. After what seemed an interminable length of time, the black shape turned about as though it intended to make its way uphill, away from him. Yes, it was moving away . Without thinking, the man on the ground raised himself slightly so as to relieve the stabbing pressure from the bag at his back. As he did this, a much worse pang seized his left leg like a hot wire cutting into the flesh. He must have broken something in falling, broken an ankle, perhaps a leg-bone. He heard a suppressed groan and wondered who was making it. Another groan, louder this time, before he realized that the noise had come out of his own mouth.

Alerted by the sounds of pain, the black shape which had been startig to ascend the flank of the hill twisted back on itself. Even though the man on the ground could see nothing, he felt the eyes of the other boring into the spot where he lay. He’d betrayed himself. Now the shape started to descend the slope, almost bounding down, coming straight for him.

He put out his hands as if to ward off the figure but it continued to advance directly downhill towards the sprawling man, the knife seeming to cut a slice out of the starlit sky.

And, for the last time, another quotation from Ecclesiastes 11 passed through the man’s mind: thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth .

When he changed trains at Woking, Thomas Ansell noticed that the gas lamps in the second-class compartment had recently been lit. As the train began to move, the mantles glowed orange then white and the smell of the lamps mingled with the engine-smoke that somehow penetrated even though the window was shut fast. An old woman was sitting across from him. She was reading the Woman’s Journal . Thomas Ansell had hardly glanced at his book until then but he took it up now only to find he didn’t want to concentrate. Instead he gazed out of the smeared glass at the lowering sky and the bare ridge of the horizon. Despite the fug of the compartment, he hunched his shoulders and almost shivered.

He had the compartment to himself after Andover. As they drew into the station the woman opposite glanced up at the heavy case over her head. He hefted it down from the rack and stepped out after her to place it on the platform. They hadn’t spoken on the short journey. In fact he’d taken in no more than a round face and a maternal smile. She thanked him and then said some words that sounded like ‘Good luck.’ Aware of the train puffing impatiently at his back, Ansell might nevertheless have asked the woman why he needed luck but her attention was taken by a porter who took her case. He climbed back into the carriage, unsettled by her parting remark. Perhaps she’d noticed that half-shiver. Perhaps he’d mis-heard her.