Alys Clare - The Way Between the Worlds

Gurdyman closed his eyes, and his lips moved as if he was praying. Then he looked at me, a smile on his face. ‘Lassair, it is as I thought,’ he said, still smiling. ‘I do not yet know why you were sent this dream vision. There has to be a reason — there always is.’

‘Is it connected with the words in my head?’ I asked eagerly. ‘Can you tell me what it’s all about, Gurdyman, and who it is who is calling out to me?’

He put out a hand and grasped mine briefly. ‘Perhaps.’ He seemed to retreat into himself for a moment. ‘Yes, perhaps.’ Then he withdrew his hand, settled himself more comfortably on the stool and said, ‘I told you just now that there was something I might have to tell you, and the time has come for me to do so.’ He glanced around his cellar, eyes lingering here and there.

‘This house of mine holds many secrets,’ he murmured. ‘Some of them you will come to know about, Lassair; some will remain hidden. I will reveal one of them to you now, for it seems to me that the moment is right.’ He paused, and I sensed he was reluctant to go on. It was with some effort that at last he began.

‘There has been a settlement here for a very long time,’ he said. ‘Many centuries ago, men recognized that its location was readily defensible, for there is an area of higher ground which overlooks the place where the watery, dangerous fens can be crossed at their south-eastern corner. Later, the invaders from the south crossed the Narrow Seas and made this country part of their vast empire, although they never subdued the north to their will. They built a great wall there, marking the limit of their territory. They would have said, I have no doubt, that it was to keep the barbarians out.’ He smiled faintly. ‘They made roads across the length and breadth of the land, and their soldiers were ever marching up and down, to and fro, on the move all day and by night resting in the forts that their engineers put up along the roads. They built such a fort here, in the same place where a fort had stood before, and a settlement grew up around it. At first only soldiers lived here, but in time the merchants came too, for the river connects the town to the sea and trade developed swiftly. In the fullness of time, men brought their wives and their families, and a rich society developed such as we see here today. But to begin with this was a man’s world: a hard, tough world of soldiers, merchants and traders.’

He stopped, eyes again roaming around the cellar. Then, drawing a breath, he went on. ‘Wherever the soldiers went, their god went with them, for their lives were comfortless and full of danger, with death always at their shoulder. Their god was a god of light, of hope, who made a blood sacrifice for mankind in order to nourish the good earth and allow men to live.’

‘Like — like Jesus?’ I asked tentatively.

‘Like him, yes, but then throughout man’s long history, many religions have worshipped such a figure: a god who died for them and rose from the dead.’

‘Why did the soldiers choose this particular one?’

‘Because his worship was organized in a way that appealed to the mind of a fighting man,’ Gurdyman replied. ‘The soldiers of the southern empire lived under rigid military discipline, and the rules were firm and unbreakable. In this religion, worshippers were divided into ranks, just as the soldiers were in their everyday lives. The lowest rank in the religion, that of the new initiate, was a Raven. He went through various ordeals and, if he passed them, became a Nymph. The ordeals increased in severity, and some of them were both very painful and truly terrifying. If a man was brave and steadfast, eventually he could progress to Soldier, Lion, Persian, Runner of the Sun and, finally, Father, although few men rose to that high degree and many, indeed, were content to remain at a lowlier level.’

‘They’d be foot soldiers rather than officers,’ I suggested.

He smiled, pleased at my understanding. ‘Yes.’

Persian. Runner of the Sun. Silently, I repeated the exotic names to myself. ‘Did they have churches?’

‘No. They worshipped in caves — spelaeum , in their own tongue. In places where a natural cave was not available, they would construct an underground chamber. Always, wherever the god was worshipped, there had to be fresh water nearby in the form of a spring or an unpolluted well. The men of the south were habitually clean, Lassair, for they bathed frequently and used the occasion as a social event, going from baths of cold water to hot water and steam, and employing servants to scrape the dirt from their skin.’

I smothered a laugh, finding the idea of communal bathing both absurd and faintly embarrassing.

‘They never approached their god without first performing a ritual cleansing,’ Gurdyman was saying. ‘Together they would enter the sacred space, going down the steps until they were inside the earth, and there they would bathe and dress in clean robes before proceeding into the god’s presence.’

His voice went on, calm, even, soothing, almost hypnotic, and images flashed through my mind. A cave. Going down the steps into an underground chamber. A town that had stood there for centuries. A house with many secrets.

Then I knew what he was telling me.

‘This cellar was a place where the soldiers gathered to worship!’ I burst out.

His eyes met mine, and I saw that he was smiling again. He put a finger to his lips to hush me.

‘ Wasn’t it ?’ I hissed.

I knew I was right, even before he answered. The crypt seemed to be teeming with the presence of unseen men and the air was full of magic.

Gurdyman stood up and moved across the stone flags of the floor. It always surprises me how light on his feet he is, how silently he moves, for although he is short he is not a small man. Now, however, he almost seemed to hover above the ground. .

We had been sitting beside the workbench, which stood against the far wall to the right of the steps leading down into the crypt. Beside the steps was Gurdyman’s low cot, and the opposite wall was covered in shelves that groaned under the weight of bottles, jars, rolls of parchment, scales, lamps, ink, quills and all the other tools of Gurdyman’s work.

The fourth wall was covered by a large, heavy hanging. I had never given it much attention, for whatever pattern or scene was once depicted on its generous folds has long been obscured behind the smoke and the fumes and the occasional clouds of noxious humours that frequently fill the crypt. It is now a uniform dark-grey colour, and if you accidentally brush against it, clouds of ancient dust fly out.

Gurdyman walked up to it. He paused before it and, turning to me, beckoned with his finger. I got up off my stool and slowly approached him.

He took hold of the hanging with both hands. With a powerful tug, he pulled it down from the wall.

When I saw what was behind it I gave an involuntary cry and stepped hastily backwards, for in that first instant I truly believed that living, breathing creatures were lungeing towards me.

There was a man: a broad, strong-looking man dressed in a soldier’s short tunic. He wore a cap that rose up in a softly-pointed cone, and a wide cloak flew back from his shoulders as if a fierce wind blew. It was red, and the lining was deep blue, like the twilight sky, and spotted with brilliant points of light that seemed to shine like the stars. His right leg — it was thick and very well muscled — was extended, tense with the effort of keeping his balance, and his other leg was bent at the knee and pushed down hard into the shoulder of an enormous, pure-white bull. His dagger was thrust into the creature’s throat, and he was in the very act of sacrifice: the bull’s life blood — vivid red, glistening as if it had only just begun to flow — spilled out and pooled on the ground.