Roger Taylor - Whistler

With remarkable perceptiveness she had seen, even in her youth, that the church in Canol Madreth wielded almost as much authority as its secular counterpart, the Heindral, and that her best hope for future wealth and security lay that way. For despite its austere protestations, the church was rich, and its senior figures, though for the most part not ostentatious in their lifestyles, were most agreeably comfortable. More significantly, in political matters the church’s opinions and discreet support were always carefully sought because of the influence it exerted over the people. Dowinne particularly appreciated the fact that the church’s utterances were substantially unburdened by popular debate and that, above all else, it did not need the affirmation of the people every four years for its continued reign.

Of course, she could not enter the church herself – that was a privilege confined exclusively to men – but she could perhaps do even better than that. By marrying and mastering the right man she could master in turn those whom he commanded. And Cassraw was the right man beyond a doubt. She had judged him to be her own restless ambition given form, and he had confirmed her judgement time after time.

True, his fierce passion had been an unexpected burden to her at first, but she had gradually redirected it into proclivities that she found more tolerable and which had subsequently proved to be useful both as goad and lure. She smiled secretively, instinctively bringing her hand to her face to hide the response even though she was alone.

She must always be careful. She must never fall into the trap of imagining that Cassraw was an ordinary man like any other; that much she had learned through the years. For all his intellect and reason, he resembled a wild animal, and as such he could perhaps be trained, but he could never be tamed.

Her unease returned as she gazed up at the Ervrin Mallos. Within the building clouds she sensed a power which seemed to echo the power she felt within her husband. Unexpectedly, a flicker of self-doubt passed through her. How could she hope to manipulate such a thing? How could she have the temerity?

She crushed the doubt ruthlessly. All storms could be weathered by those with the will.

Yet Cassraw had been behaving in an increasingly peculiar manner of late. His sharp intellect seemed to be feeding upon itself, shying away from the shrewd and subtle conspiring at which he was so adept. It was almost as though he was searching for ever more simple solutions. His preaching had become more impassioned, but more primitive, and it was not fully to the liking of all his flock, although, she mused, some of them seemed to be responding to it. Dowinne frowned. They were not the kind of people she wanted following her husband. Not only would they be of little value in furthering his progress through the church, they would probably be an outright hindrance. Still, support was support, even from malcontents and incompetents, and it must surely be usable one way or another. She made a note to turn her mind to this problem in the near future. It was always worthwhile having alternatives available. You never knew. Her thoughts returned to Cassraw. Life would be easier if she could keep him safely in the mainstream of affairs. Perhaps she had been holding the reins a little too tightly of late. Perhaps she should help him to… expend… some of his burning energy. She tapped her hand lightly on her chest. After all, it wasn’t too unpleasant a prospect these days.

But, even after this resolution, her unease lingered. She would not be able to settle until he returned from the Witness House. Cassraw had never been desperately enthusiastic about Chapter meetings and, thanks to the bleating of some of his offended flock, he had been on the receiving end of one of Mueran’s soft-spoken rebukes only a few days ago. He had laughed it off on his return, mimicking the pompous old hypocrite, but she had felt the rage beneath the mockery and, on the whole, would have preferred that he did not meet Mueran so soon afterwards.

Then, from deep inside her, came an awful intuition that something was terribly amiss. She began to shake and, for an unbelievable and giddying moment, she felt the long-built edifice of her ambitions begin to totter. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror again, posture wilting, eyes haunted.

‘No!’ she cried out and, swinging round, she brought her hands down violently on the windowsill. Her right hand caught the base of a heavy metal dish and sent it clattering to the floor, but she made no outward response to the pain, letting it pass through her unhindered, to burn away this unexpected and fearful spasm of weakness.

The effort left her breathless, however. It was the storm coming, she decided. That was all – just the storm. But this explanation held no more comfort than it had earlier.

She looked out again at the mountain. She could just make out the grey stone Witness House halfway up. It had always seemed pathetically small against the rugged might of the Ervrin Mallos, but now even the mountain looked small against the ominous banks of clouds.

‘Come down, Cassraw,’ she whispered. ‘Come down. Get off the hill before the storm comes.’

‘ Come, My servant. Come closer. ’

Cassraw did not so much hear the voice as feel it suffuse through him. His body began to tremble, and his mind to whirl with a maelstrom of incoherent thoughts. It was as though all that he was, all that he had ever known, was struggling frantically to escape lest it be scattered and destroyed by the power that had just touched him. A preacher both by profession and inclination, however, he instinctively reached out and found his voice. It was hoarse, broken and shaking, but it served as an anchor to which he could cling, if only for the briefest of moments.

‘Lord, I see the dust of Your mighty chariot and I am less than nothing even before that. Guide me, Lord. Guide me.’ The words seemed pathetically inadequate.

Despite the screaming demands of his body following his precipitate charge up the mountain, Cassraw held his breath through the long silence that followed. Then the voice came again.

‘ Come closer. ’

Cassraw’s tumbling thoughts stopped short. He gazed around desperately, not knowing what to do and fearing to repeat his plea. The clouds were above him now, but from the south some residual daylight still lit the mountain, throwing long shadows like an unnatural, pallid sunset. It made all about him unreal, ill-focused and dreamlike; a strange image seeping through to him from some other place – a place in which he did not belong. Only the darkness overhead and his own awareness were real now – the one opaque, oppressive, unbearably solid, the other guttering and feeble. He felt as though he were not standing high up on a mountainside, but cowering in some dark cavern far below, in the very roots of the mountains, with their crushing weight towering above him.

Yet he must go upwards. There the Lord waited. Waited for him .

He set off again, clambering recklessly over the rocks, heedless of the damage to his shoes and his cassock, heedless of the cuts and bruises he was gathering as he stumbled and fell repeatedly in the failing light.

Questions tormented him. What was happening? What madness was driving him? Bringing him into confrontation with the leaders of his church, jeopardizing his position both in the church and the community – jeopardizing old friendships, perhaps even his marriage? But these thoughts held no sway. All were carried along by the stark certainty of what he had felt as he had dashed out of the Witness House and turned to see the sky beyond it turned black and forbidding, like the anger of a beloved parent writ large.