John Pritchard - Dark Ages

More than just a word, of course; a Name. It had come again last night, still fresh, from out of desert places in his mind. The rest would surely follow in its tracks.

Murzim . The Announcer.

A faint smile twitched his mouth like a galvanized muscle: briefly alive, then lifeless as before. Straightening up, he walked towards the keeper of the door.

‘Thank you for seeing us, John,’ said Dr Lawrence.

The other’s cold eyes didn’t blink. He’d nursed his cigarette almost down to the butt: each puff drawn in, and lazily expelled. Like the slow, unconscious breathing of a thing in hibernation. But the mind behind those eyes was wide awake.

It seemed he’d never smoked before he came here. The case notes mentioned wariness, and blank incomprehension. But then he’d had a go, and grown voraciously addicted. Watching him, in search of a response, Lawrence noted again how he held his cigarette: between the second and third fingers, so that each drag masked half his face. Like somebody still learning the technique.

The other clients kept him well-supplied; gathering round to hear him speak. Something about his ramblings seemed to reach their deeper selves. Bible John , they called him; a name with sombre echoes of some half-forgotten crime.

‘We’re here to review the progress of your case,’ Lawrence went on. ‘Dr Andrews here is on my team … An affable nod from the younger man. ‘And Miss Johnston is your designated social worker.’ The woman smiled politely. ‘I wonder, could you tell us how you feel you’re progressing?’

John snorted, very faintly. ‘There is no change in the truth.’

His tone was low and surly – made more so by the European accent. Speaks English well, but not as a first language , was the comment in the file. Lawrence’s mind flashed forward through his questions, resetting them to iron out confusions.

‘What truth is that?’ he came back calmly.

‘I come from the stars – to bring Good News to the poor.’

Lawrence nodded, poker-faced; then probed again. ‘When you say from the stars … what do you mean by that?’

A fleeting smile lit John’s dark face: contemptuous, and cunning. ‘You have not heard; why should I tell?’

‘I should like to understand.’

‘Who are you, then, who asks?’

‘A doctor.’

‘A learned man. Why then have you not heard?’ John sat back, grimly satisfied with that.

Dr Andrews rubbed his jaw; eyes shrewd behind his glasses.

Lawrence was warming to the game, but didn’t let it show. ‘Do you believe that you have come from another world?’

John shook his head. ‘I go to one – which is to come.’

‘But you came here from another country? Another land?’

A pause. John’s stare had grown suspicious. ‘I have told you this before.’

‘Forgive me. Indulge me, if you would.’

John gazed at him with hooded eyes; head resting on the chairback. Then: ‘I was born in the city of Siena.’

‘In Italy?’

‘As you call it.’

Miss Johnston’s eyes flicked down towards the folder on her lap; then up again.

‘And when did you come here?’ asked Lawrence.

John stared at him; then shrugged. ‘After the Death. I do not know the year.’

‘By the Death … you mean the Black Death, is that right?’

‘The Pestilence. Indeed.’

‘That was in the fourteenth century. Do you know what century you are living in now?’

‘You have told me the twentieth.’

‘So you believe you have lived before?’

That grim, spasmodic smile again. ‘The thread has not been cut.’

Lawrence spread his hands, his smile a study in bemusement. ‘But nobody can live that long. Do you see my problem?’

‘No, dottore. I see your unbelief. ’ And as he spoke, he stirred himself, sat forward – so abruptly that the others almost flinched. Yet before they could react he was slouching back again: drawing deep upon the ember of his dying cigarette.

Silence in the room. The smoke had spread like fusty wings, brooding over the four chairs. Lawrence leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his chin against his interlocking hands.

‘You still maintain that you’re a priest?’

‘I am ordained in Holy Church,’ John said: matter-of-fact, monotonous again.

‘Do you belong to any order?’

‘ Ordo Praedicatorum. ’

The Order of Preachers, as one contributor to the case notes had helpfully explained. Better known as the Dominicans. Black Friars. Black for their cloaks, so Lawrence recalled. The friar’s habit would be white; and sure enough, John wore no other shade. Hence the institutional pyjamas, which Lawrence cordially disliked. The clients wore their own clothes here: the clinical environment was consciously played down. But John had been found wandering, a tramp in filthy rags, and refused to wear the clothes that he’d been offered. The starch-white shirt and trousers were an interim resort – but had now become his permanent attire. He still rejected shoes and socks; his bare feet brown and callused, tough as hide.

Lawrence sat up straighter; gave an understanding nod.

‘The reason you’re here, John … as I’ve explained before … is that we believe that you suffer from delusions. That you can see this past, quite clearly, in your head – but it’s something your mind has created.’

John didn’t rise to that. He sucked on the last spark, his eyes reptilian.

Lawrence glanced down at the file. ‘Are you taking your medication? Your drugs?’

A sneer convulsed the other’s lips. ‘So am I free to choose?’

‘Don’t fight against them, John. They’ll help you see .’

John slowly shook his head. ‘They make me blind. I must be wakeful.’

‘What for?’

‘That Day. The Day of Anger. It comes soon.’

Andrews made a dutiful note.

Lawrence regarded his client thoughtfully; then tried one final tack.

‘You let us call you John. Wouldn’t you prefer it if we called you by your own name?’

John met his gaze full on for several seconds. ‘I do not remember it.’

The same response as usual. ‘So what do you call yourself ?’

Normally John stonewalled that; but not this time. Though his face remained defiant, a shadow seemed to cross it: a tremor raised by turbulence deep down. He wavered for a moment … then let his last lungful of smoke stream out, like a dead man’s final breath.

‘Dominicain,’ he said.

Cain was the bit that Lawrence’s mind latched onto. Intrigued, concealing his excitement, he leaned forward.

‘That’s interesting. Because you’re a Dominican?’

Once more the other shook his head. His look was almost pitying.

‘Because I have done murder, dottore. Because I am a murderer for Christ.’

CHAPTER IV

Mind and Memory

1

‘Come,’ said the voice, ‘let us bury our dead.’

Dominicain’s eyes snapped open. A group of men were towering above him, like silhouettes against the milky sky. All of them were cloaked in black, with black scarves round their faces. He recognized their kind at once: he’d watched them carry coffins to the death-pits. The only figures moving in a landscape of decay. The sight awoke a long-forgotten dread.

Becchini …

He tried to rise; his limbs would not obey him. Numbness soaked through every muscle. He was dimly aware of lying on his bed – but the bed itself had sunk into the ground. Walls of dark earth hemmed him in. He realized he was waiting in his grave.

‘No!’ he gasped, and fought to raise an arm. Anything to show them he was still alive. But his own flesh had disowned him. His mind felt like a broken egg: a sticky, mingled pulp of white and yolk. The worst thing was, he was aware of it.