The tents flapped and whipped in the wind. The men ran to steady them. The lanterns went out. The wind became a gale, and as Mary Beth crept to my side, and held tight to my arm, a storm came down on Donnelaith, a storm of rain and thunder so fierce that we were all cowering before it.
All save I. I righted myself soon enough, realizing it was pointless to cower, and I stared back into it. I stared up into the heavens as the rain pelted and stung my face.
“Damn you, St. Ashlar, that’s who you are! Go to hell with you!” I cried. “A saint, a deposed saint, a saint knocked from his throne! Go back to hell with you. You are no saint. You are a daemon!”
One tent was torn loose and carried away. The guides ran to stop the other. Mary Beth tried to quiet me. The wind and the rain gave their full breath, strong perhaps as a hurricane.
To a peak of anger it came, so we saw a ghastly funnel of black cloud rising suddenly from the grass and spinning and spinning and darkening the whole sky, and suddenly-as swiftly as it had come-it vanished.
I stood stock-still. I was dripping wet. My shirt was half torn from my shoulder. Mary Beth uncovered her hair and walked round in the damp, staring upwards, bravely and curiously.
One of the guides came back to me.
“Goddamnit, man,” said he. “I told you not to pray to him. Whatever in hell did you pray for!”
I laughed softly to myself. “Oh, God, help me,” I sighed. “Is that the proof, Almighty God, that you are not there, that your saints could be such petty demons?”
The air was warming slightly. The men had the lanterns lighted. The water had vanished from the earth as if it had never come at all. We were still battered and wet but the moon was clear again, and flooding the glen with light. We went to right the tents, to dry the bedding.
I lay awake the whole night. As the sun came up, I went to the guides. “I have to know the story of this saint,” said I.
“Well, don’t say his name for god’s sakes,” said the other. “I wish I hadn’t said it last night, I’ll tell you. And I don’t know his story and you won’t hear it from anyone else I know either. It’s an old legend, man, perhaps a joke,” he said, “though we’ll be talking about that storm last night for many a night to come, I can tell you.”
“Tell me all,” I said.
“I don’t know. My grandmother said his name when she wished for an impossible thing, and said always to take care, and never wish for something from him unless you really wanted it. I’ve heard his name once or twice up there in the hills. There’s an old song they sing. But that’s all I know of it. I’m no Catholic. I don’t know saints. No one hereabouts knows saints.”
The other man nodded. “I myself did not know that much. I’ve heard my daughter call on him, though, to make the young men turn their heads to notice her.”
I pounded them with questions. They gave me nothing more. It was time for us to survey the ruins proper, the circle, the castle. The spirit lay back. I neither heard his voice nor saw any evidence of him.
Only once did fear come on me when searching the castle.
It was treacherous there. But he played no tricks.
We took our time. It was sunset before we made camp again. I had seen all that I had the strength to see. Many feet of dirt covered the original Cathedral floor, and who knew what lay below it? What tombs? What caches of books or documents? Or perhaps nothing.
And where had my precious Suzanne died, I wondered. No trace was left of roads or marketplaces. I could not tell. I did not dare to challenge Lasher or say any words to make him angry. I remembered everything.
In Darkirk, a small, clean Presbyterian town of white buildings, I could find no one who knew a thing of Catholic saints. They would talk of the circle, the witches, the old days, Sabbats in the glen, and the evil little people who sometimes stole babies. But it was all remote to them. They were more interested in taking the train to Edinburgh or Glasgow. They had no love of the woods or the glen. They wanted an iron smelting factory to come. Cut down the trees. It was all bread and butter.
I was a week in Edinburgh, with the bankers, buying the land. But at last I had title to all of it. And I had set up a trust for its study with my little professor of history, who welcomed me back from my journey with a fine dinner of roast duck and claret.
Mary Beth went off on her own, another escapade, and took with her the daemon. He and I had not exchanged one silent or audible word since that terrible night, but he had hovered close to her, and spoken with her. And I had told her nothing of what I had done or learnt or said, and she had asked me nothing.
I was afraid to utter the name Ashlar. That was the truth. I was afraid. I kept seeing that storm around me. And those frightened men, and Mary Beth peering so curiously into the rainy darkness. I was frightened, though why I wasn’t sure. I had won, had I not? I had the thing’s name. Was I ready to wager my life in a battle with it?
At last I sat down with my little bald-headed bespectacled teacher in Edinburgh and said, “I’ve been through all the lives of the saints in the library, all the histories of Scotland, and I can find no mention of St. Ashlar.”
He gave me a cheerful laugh as he poured the wine. He was in great form tonight, as I had just laid upon him thousands and thousands of American dollars to do nothing but study Donnelaith, and his security was assured and that of his children.
“ ‘By St. Ashlar,’ ” said he. “That’s an expression the schoolchildren use. Saint of the impossible, I believe, rather like Jude in other parts. But there is no tale to it, none I know, but remember, this is a Presbyterian land now. The Catholics are very few, and the past is wrapped in mystery.”
Nevertheless he promised we would search through his books when the meal was over. And in the meantime, we discussed the trust for the excavation and preservation of Donnelaith. The ruins would be fully explored, mapped, described, and then made an object of ongoing study.
Finally, we retired to the library together, and he sought, among his books, some old Catholic texts dating back to the days before King Henry, one in particular, A Secret Historie of the Highland Clans, which carried no author’s name on it. It was a very old book, of black leather, and rather large, and many of the leaves had come unbound, so it was more like a folio of damaged pages. When he laid it down in the light, I saw they were covered with writing.
There was a family tree of sorts described, and he followed it down with his finger.
“Ah, here, can you read this? Well, of course you can’t. It’s Gaelic. But it’s Ashlar, son of Olaf and husband of Janet, founders of the clan of Drummard and Donnelaith, yes, there it is. The word Donnelaith, and to think all these years I had never spotted it here. Though Ashlar I have seen in countless places. Yes, St. Ashlar.”
He paged through the sloppy fragile text until he came to another page. “Ashlar,” he said, reading the crabbed hand. “Yes, King of Drummard-Ashlar.”
He carefully read the text, translating it for me, and jotting notes on a pad with his pencil.
“King Ashlar of the pagans, beloved by his people, husband of Queen Janet, rulers of High Dearmach far north of the Great Glen in the Highland forests. Converted in the year 566 by St. Columba of Ireland. Yes, here it is, the legend of St. Ashlar. Died at Drummard, where a great cathedral was raised in his name. Drummard later became Donnelaith, you see. Relics…cures…ah, but his wife, Janet, refused to give up the pagan faith and was burnt at the stake for her stubborn pride. ‘And when the great saint mourned her loss, a spring gushed forth from the burnt ground in which thousands were baptized.’ ”
The image virtually paralyzed me. Janet burnt at the stake. The saint, the magic spring. I was too overcome to speak.