Pip Vaughan-Hughes - Relics

It was like stepping into a cave, a cave with wooden pews and candles burning dimly at the farthest end. The smell of incense mingled queasily with the ranker scents of mildew and burning tallow, and shadows fluttered moth-like across the rafters. As my eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, I saw that every wooden surface – pews, rafters, beams – was carved into fluid, rippling forms. I ran my hand over the nearest pew. Dragons writhed and chased one another through flowering branches, and other monstrous beasts chased them in their turn. The work had the mad energy of a fever dream, and there was a kind of desperation in the urgent repetition. The beer and the heavy air of this place were making me feel slightly sick. I advanced reluctantly up the aisle.

What, exactly, was I doing here? I asked myself as I approached the altar. A pale Christ, carved from ivory, hung from a golden cross. It reminded me of suet, the thick fat from around an ox's kidneys, hanging on a butcher's stall. Why was I, a churchman, a servant of Our Lord, for whom churches and monasteries had been home since I was a child, suddenly thinking of carcasses and the squalor of death in this holy place? With a start, I realised that I had not been thinking about my soul of late, that, in fact, I had all but sloughed off my monkish skin on the long voyage north from Dartmouth. I sank down onto the nearest pew. Holy Mother! I had not talked of God with another person for months, not read a sacred text – I had not even prayed since that long night in the marshes outside Balecester. My faith had shattered like the frailest eggshell, and what had emerged? An unwashed, uncouth boy, the pet of a boat-load of heathen cutthroats.

I had had enough of this place. Turning my back on the altar, I left the strange cathedral to its damp and dragon-fretted dreams. I could not even bring myself to genuflect. I hurried outside, looking neither left nor right to avoid the ghastly sentinels of bone, and almost ran full-tilt into the Captain himself. Wrapped in a thick woollen cloak and with a bulbous satchel slung across his body, he almost looked ordinary, until I met his gimlet gaze.

'Hello, Petroc,' he said with a tight grin. 'Did you find what you sought?'

'I found something; but what I was in search of, I do not know,' I replied, honestly enough.

The Captain chuckled, the same odd grin on his face. He looked wolfish, I thought.

'In your experience of cathedrals, how did you find this one?' he asked.

'It is too big,' I said carefully. And full of strange carvings. I do not care for it very much, to speak the truth.' And what of the trappings? Is it rich, would you say?'

'I would say it is tolerably poor, at that. There is little gold. The crucifix is ivory, there is an ivory pyx, and some silver candlesticks with dragons on them.'

'In a place as poor as this, even the Church goes hungry,' said the Captain. He gave a snort, as if in response to some wry inner jest. "Were you looking for me?' I asked.

'For you? No, lad. My business is with the Bishop. I am not happy inside such places…' and he waved at the cathedral door. 'So I hoped to catch him as he went amongst his flock.' Abruptly he bent at the waist so that his head was below mine, and stared upwards into my eyes. His look was so fierce I could almost feel my eyebrows singe. 'Did your soul pull you hence, Petroc? Do you still feel the pull of duty? Are there some ties that have yet to be broken?'

'Nothing like that,' I answered, stung. 'I went in from curiosity, and because, as you say, I felt the tug of long years' habit. But sitting before the altar I could think of nothing but the tales of my crewmates. I had tried to picture Our Lord's passion, but all I could see were the hidden workings of Deacon Jean's throat. My soul is dead within me, it seems.' I spoke sharply, but at my words the man's face softened, and he smiled his familiar smile.

"Your pardon, lad,' he said. 'I did not mean to put you to the question. I fear that this place works its misery upon me. Whatever you keep close to your heart is your own affair. I have not kept a crew like mine together by prying. And now, let us find somewhere warm, you and I, and pass the time before the wretched Bishop shows himself again.'

The Captain led me through muddy streets to Gardar's other tavern, which looked a good deal worse than the one I had left earlier. The innkeeper wore a leather skullcap and had a squint, and his guests, for the most part, seemed to be on the verge of death. There were no women to be seen. The Captain seemed to be known, however: the squinter greeted us warmly and we were ushered to the rear of the longhouse and behind a thick hide curtain, which concealed a private room of sorts, complete with a crackling fire. There were three high-backed chairs of dark wood, carved all over with more dragons and nightmare-beasts, as I noted with a private shudder.

When we were seated and our feet were before the fire, the Captain reached into his satchel and brought out a large clay bottle sealed with red wax. The innkeeper bustled in with two drinking cups and a trencher full of roasted mutton – fresh mutton, by God! I had not smelled anything so savoury for many a sea-tossed day. As I gnawed a rib-bone, the Captain opened his bottle and filled our cups with wine, red wine so dark it was almost black.

'Drink, my friend,' he said and took a slow pull himself. His eyes closed. 'The wine of my country,' he said. I sipped. The taste was heavy, almost sweet but with a hard edge. I thought of wild marjoram and sun-baked stone, and sighed.

'A sigh! Ah, Petroc! You are a lucky find,' the Captain laughed, and slapped my knee. 'For me, this wine is almost like a bottled sigh. I knew these very grape-vines when I was a boy. I have pressed their grapes with my own feet. That was long ago, and other feet press them now, but no matter. I keep a secret hoard on the Cormaran for just such dismal landfalls as this. I could not set foot in Gardar without it, I swear!'

We talked thus for the time it took to drain a cup or two and finish the mutton. I told him about my own home, the sights and smells of the moor. I dwelt a little on my mother, which made me sad, and on my father, which cheered me. And then in his turn the Captain told me a little of his childhood, and I listened as one listens to the words of a famous teacher, aware that mysteries were on the verge of being revealed. I learned that he was the first son of a noble family who held lands in the western part of the Duchy of Provence. His home had been a castle, a place of rose-coloured stone that perched upon a thyme-scented crag. Goat-bells had lulled him to sleep at night. His father had been a warrior but also, wonderful as this sounded to me, a poet – a troubadour, as the Captain said -who was famous in the land for his songs and fine playing on the lute. He had raised his son to be the same, although the Captain waved his hand in refusal when I asked for a song. Fearing I had spoken out of place I begged his pardon, but he laughed away my apology. 'My voice would scare a raven now, and besides, the songs of that sunny place would sound a strange note here, I think.' The mutton gone, we settled back in our chairs. The fire spat and sparked, and burning birch-wood filled the room with its tart, spicy smell.

'So, are you curious as to my business with the Bishop?' the Captain asked. I confessed that I was. He reached into his satchel once more and pulled forth two small packages wrapped in oiled cloth. Untying one, he held it out to me. I reached in, touched something hard and drew it out.

And blushed furiously. I was holding an exquisite ivory carving as long as my hand. Or rather, two carvings that fitted together. Two figures, a man and a woman, represented in every particular by a master craftsman. They were naked, the man stretched out with his arms bent at the elbow, the woman crouching. The man's – how would I have described it then? His membrum virile? His shame? – stuck out as plain as a pikestaff. There was a crease between the woman's thighs that deepened into a little hole. With shaking hands I moved the strange dolls together. The man fitted perfectly into his mate, and they clung together, their little ivory faces scrunched up in a simulacrum of ecstasy. I laid them down carefully upon the table, not daring to look at the Captain. The couple rocked together. Very slowly, I breathed out.