Roger Curtis - Lights in a Western Sky

‘We did see one person on the track last night,’ Emma said cautiously.

‘Really, that surprises me. The locals are far too superstitious to use it at night.’

‘Perhaps one of your monks…’

‘Tucked up in their cells by six. Not possible, I assure you. Sometimes our eyes play tricks on us.’

‘Exactly what I told her,’ Hugh said.

‘I know what I saw.’

‘A foolhardy tourist, then,’ Father Petros said with a smile, ending the discussion. Now, after some tea I’m sure you would like to see something of our humble community.’

They climbed a flight of steep stone steps leading from the hallway. ‘As you see,’ Father Petros said, ‘much of the building is carved out of the solid rock. We’ll begin with the library at the top. My old legs find it easier to do the hard bit first. Once it was the scriptorium – that was when we had fifty monks here and not the present six.’

‘But this is a remarkable collection,’ Hugh said, running his eye over the many shelves of dusty volumes. ‘May I look?’

‘Of course, But let me draw your attention to these few volumes,’ he said, pointing to half a dozen bound codices on an upper shelf. ‘These are why we keep this door locked. They date back to the time of the inquisition.’

‘The Spanish Inquisition?’ Emma’s eyes widened.

‘Hardly here,’ Father Petros said. ‘Inquisitions were common throughout the medieval period, in all sorts of places.’ He reached for one of the codices; as he opened it a sheet of parchment fell to the floor. ‘This is a summary of the questioning of one of the monks of this monastery. The charges were without foundation but unfortunately that was realised only after it was too late to save him.’

‘Was he… tortured?’ Emma asked.

‘I’ll come to that,’ Father Petros said, ‘when we go downstairs.’

They entered a stone-vaulted room with windows looking out over the valley and the sea. The sole item of furniture, besides a couple of chairs, was a massive wooden table in the centre of the room, placed parallel to the windows. ‘We believe this is the actual table used by the inquisitors,’ Father Petros said. ‘But the brothers fear to come here, so this room is rather wasted.’

‘I can imagine the inquisitors sitting with their backs to the sunlight,’ Emma said, ‘so that their victims couldn’t see their faces.’ She drew up one of the chairs, in the supposed position of an accused, and looked across to where her husband was observing her from the other side of the table, his face in shadow. ‘Uggh!’

‘Beneath this room,’ Father Petros said, ‘is a cellar where we believe… But I’m sure you don’t wan’t to go there.’

‘But I…’ Hugh began.

‘I think we’ve already taken too much of the good Father’s time,’ Emma said. ‘I’m sure there will be other occasions.’ She looked at Father Petros for acquiescence but was surprised to see no sign of it in his expression.

Father Petros said, ‘Should you think of coming again, you would be most welcome to attend when the monks meet for singing liturgical chant. The few visitors that do attend write to us to say what an uplifting experience it has been. I suppose it’s our way of communicating with the outside world. The door is left open at such times – you can come straight in.’ As he opened the door for them he said, ‘Now, as you go back down the track be sure to note the remains of a chapel on your left. It’s dedicated to Antonis Stavros, the unfortunate novice we spoke about.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s rather grim and partly why the locals choose not to come this way. You hear all sorts of stories, but I’m inclined not to believe any of them. I’d advise you to do the same.’

The chapel turned out to be little more than a pile of rubble and Emma passed it by without further interest. She was surprised, on looking back, to see Hugh stiffly contemplating the displaced stones, deep in thought.

That night Hugh slept badly. A dream that on previous nights had been a chaotic jumble of indeterminate shapes and colours took more tangible form. Faces dimly familiar but never quite remembered mingled with images of forested mountains and precipitous descents into black and turbulent seas. In the morning Emma told him of his nocturnal sweats and incoherent ramblings. It became the pattern for subsequent nights, except that animate objects in his dreams began to assume more recognisable form. Then one morning he awoke with an after-image of himself sitting at a vast table that remained with him throughout that day. So occupied with it was he that when Emma said she was leaving for her weekly traditional dancing class in a nearby village he was startled by his forgetfulness. Then he realised what he had suppressed during the past few days: an urge to revisit the monastery. Was it just fortuitous, then, that this was the evening when the chanting of the monks would be shared with the public? No, he told himself, and as soon as Emma had gone he locked up the house and set off up the track.

No longer was there the bright sunshine of the week before. The freshening wind was already disturbing the boughs of the chestnut trees and the tips of the pines were bending perceptibly. And was the light really beginning to fade this early? He drew level with the ruined chapel, keeping well to the opposite side of the track. He looked around for the figure that he only half-believed Emma had seen.

As soon as he pushed open the door in the wall of the monastery he could hear the chanting from the chapel. But he had no intention of going there and tiptoed past into the hallway where Father Petros had first greeted them. He was surprised to find the door of the inquisition room unlocked. Funny how just looking at that massive table could conjure up images from his past, as if its surface had been impregnated with some invisible substance that had ‘legal persecution’ written on its jar. He thought of Tony Savage, one of the last men in England to have been hanged, and it came back to him how he had allowed the man’s arrogance in the dock to sway his summing up to the jury. And how, before the verdict was given, he had read innocence in the man’s eyes – and seen disbelief and hatred in the eyes of the family in the gallery above. He drew up a chair to sit at the centre of the table with the light behind him and wondered if the inquisitor who had faced Antonis Stavros had entertained similar doubts. He withdrew from his pocket the fragment of parchment that he had taken from the codex in the scriptorium, and had perused in secret during the days since. He spread it flat on the table. So powerful were the words of incrimination it contained that he looked up sharply, as if to see the novice monk’s face crease up in terror while his own expression was concealed by shadow. Involuntarily he pointed a finger and felt, as much as heard, himself say the words ‘take him down for torture.’ His gaze drifted across the room to where a small door gave access to the cellar below. He rose, walked to it and pulled at the handle; but like the door to the inquisition room it was unlocked. Hearing heavy footsteps in the hallway outside he closed the door behind him and descended the narrow staircase between walls damp with mould that brushed his shoulders.

He reached a rock-hewn chamber – more a cave than a room – with a masonry wall on the side facing the valley and the sea, in which a tiny aperture high up was the only source of light. He let his eyes wander over the rusted metal implements laid out, as if ready for use, on a stone bench and on the floor. Terrible though the scene was, he had, somehow, known what to expect. He fingered each object in the sure knowledge of what had been its purpose and how it had been used. Waves of remorse swept through his body. He needed air, but knew he could not return to the room above, having no believable excuse to be found there. He took hold of a stool – the stool on which…? – and placed it against the masonry wall. Stretching his body upwards he could just apply his face to the aperture. He could see below him the headlights of what must have been Emma’s car returning and down the valley to the little fishing village, beyond which the solitary pale blue light seemed to burn with greater intensity. Then, for what reason he would never be in a position to know, the structure of the wooden stool on which he was standing gave way, sending him crashing to the floor.