There was no trial, and no record was kept of their execution. Their papers were long gone, and they declined to offer their names before the sentence was carried out. Their leader, or at least the one to whose authority the others most clearly deferred, was in his thirties, the youngest still in his teens. I was permitted to say a few words on their behalf, to beg forgiveness for what they had done. I was standing to one side of them, praying as they were blindfolded, when the eldest one spoke to me.
“I have tasted it,” he said. “I have eaten the Word made flesh. Now God is in me, and I am God. He tasted good. He tasted of blood.”
Then he turned to face the guns, and they spoke his name.
I am God. I taste of blood.
This too I decided not to share with the bishop. I was uncertain of the bishop’s views on God. Sometimes I suspected that he considered the concept of the Lord as merely a convenient way of keeping the masses in check while securing his own authority. I doubted if his beliefs had ever been tested beyond the occasional intellectual joust over sherry. How he would have fared in the mud of the trenches, I do not know. I think, perhaps, that he would have survived, but only at the expense of others.
“And how are you finding your time at the hospital?”
As with all of the bishop’s utterances, it was important to understand the subtext before one answered. Thus, in reply to the bishop’s earlier question, I was tolerably well, even though I was not. Now he was inquiring about the army hospital at Brayton, to which I had been assigned upon my return from the war. I ministered to those who had been deprived of limbs or senses, attempting to ease their pain and to make them understand that God was still with them. And while I was, nominally, a member of the hospital staff, I felt that I was as much a patient there as they were, for I too required pills to help me sleep, and had occasional recourse to the more enlightened of the “head doctors” in an effort to shore up my fractured sanity.
I had been back in England for six months. All I wanted was some quiet place where I could minister to the needs of my flock, preferably a flock that was not intent upon blowing out the brains of someone else’s flock. The bishop had the power to grant me my wish, if he chose to do so. I had no doubt that he was astute enough to sense my dislike, although I imagined that my feelings were of little concern to him. If nothing else could be said for the bishop, at least he was not in the habit of allowing his emotions, or the emotions of others, to influence his decisions.
His question still dangled in the air between us. If I told him that I was happy at the hospital, he would transfer me to a more arduous posting. If I told him that I was unhappy at the hospital, I would be there until my dying day.
“I was hoping that you might have found a living for me,” I replied, opting to answer a different question entirely. “I am anxious to resume parochial work.”
The bishop waved those arachnoid fingers in response.
“In time, Mr. Pettinger, in time. We must walk before we can run. First, I require you to comfort an afflicted member of our own flock. You know Chetwyn-Dark, I assume?”
I knew it. Chetwyn-Dark was a small parish, perhaps a mile or two from the southwest coast. One minister, hardly any parishioners, and not the most rewarding of livings, but there had been a church there for a long time.
A very long time.
“Mr. Fell currently has responsibility for the parish,” said the bishop. “Despite possessing many admirable qualities, he has endured his difficulties in the past. Chetwyn-Dark was adjudged to be a suitable place for him to…recuperate.”
I had heard stories of Mr. Fell. His disintegration was rumored to have been quite spectacular, involving alcoholism, unexplained absences from services, and obscure rantings from the pulpit during those services that he remembered to attend. It was the last that proved to be his undoing, for in making public his difficulties he embarrassed the bishop, and the bishop was a man who prized dignity and decorum above all else. Mr. Fell’s punishment was to be banished to a living where few would be present to listen to his ravings, although I did not doubt that the bishop retained agents in Chetwyn-Dark who would keep him apprised of the minister’s activities.
“I was told that he suffered a crisis of faith,” I said.
The bishop paused before answering. “He sought proof of that which must be understood through faith alone, and when that proof was not forthcoming he began to doubt everything. In Chetwyn-Dark, it was believed that he might find a place in which to heal his doubts, and to rediscover his love of God.”
The words, I thought, emerged hollowly from the shell of the bishop.
“But it appears that we were wrong to assume that Mr. Fell was capable of restoring himself in comparative solitude. I am informed that he has begun to behave even more oddly than usual. He has taken to locking the church, I hear. From the inside. He also appears to be engaged in some form of renovation work for which he is temperamentally and vocationally ill-suited. His congregation has heard him digging, and hacking at the stones within, although I am told that there are, as yet, no obvious signs of damage to the chapel itself.”
“What would you have me do?” I asked.
“You are practiced in the art of dealing with broken men. I have heard good reports of your work at Brayton, reports that lead me to believe that you are perhaps ready to return to more conventional duties. Let this be your first step toward the living for which you ask. I want you to talk to your brother cleric. Comfort him. Try to understand his needs. If necessary, have him committed, but I want this to stop. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Pettinger? I want no more trouble from Mr. Fell.”
And with that, I was dismissed.
The next day, my replacement arrived at Brayton: a young man named Mr. Dean, with the instructions of his tutors still ringing in his ears. After an hour in the wards he retreated to the bathroom. When he eventually emerged his face was considerably paler, and he was wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.
“You’ll get used to it,” I assured him, although I knew he would not. After all, I never did.
I wondered how long it would be before the bishop was forced to replace Mr. Dean as well.
The train brought me to Evanstowe. From there, a car arranged by the bishop collected me and brought me ten miles west to Chetwyn-Dark, depositing me, after a cursory farewell from the driver, at the entrance to Mr. Fell’s garden. It was raining and I could smell salt on the air as I walked up the path to the minister’s house, the sound of the departing car gradually fading as it returned to Evanstowe. Beyond, accessible by another paved pathway, was the church itself, silhouetted against the evening sky. It stood not at the center of the village, but about half a mile beyond it, and there were no other dwellings within sight of it. It had once been a Catholic church, but it was sacked during the reign of Henry and then later claimed for the new faith. Small and almost primitive in construction, it still retained something of Rome about it.
A light burned in the depths of the house, but when I knocked no one came. I tried the door and it opened easily, revealing a wooden hallway leading to a kitchen straight ahead, with a flight of stairs to the right and a doorway to the left into a living room.