He felt the eyes even after they had gone, as afterimages, scorched into his retinas. He rubbed at his lids, turning the blurs into dark stains, so that when he opened them and looked at the illuminated screen he saw two dark, unfocused holes; pits, like Marey’s dug-out cameras of slowness. He rubbed them again, growing angrier at the irrelevance.
He thought he saw something move at the back of the hall; a shadow that ducked down to avoid detection. Could it be? Was it Gull? There must be an intelligent solution; he would hold no truck with ghosts. The latecomer scratched a painful scramble to his feet, his bruised knee exacerbating the embarrassment of his mid-aisle tumble, none of which Muybridge’s blinded logic registered.
Miss Larrigan danced on the screen, her costume made to resemble the garments of ancient Greek friezes and lofty temples. Its diaphanous nature displayed the elegance of her rhythmic dance and the sensual contours of her body. Projected to this size, it also clearly displayed her erect nipples and the shadow of her pubic mound; her nudity danced gigantically, out of the accepted space of the naked and into the highly charged arena of the erotic. Muybridge had not anticipated such an effect; his audience was noticeably taken aback.
The fallen man at the back of the auditorium stood with his back to the screen, wholly unaware of the delightful vision playing out to his companions. His friend reached out to help him, and the fallen one let out a short chuckle, to show that he was perfectly alright; by some acoustic whim, the laugh carried and was heard everywhere. Muybridge spun towards the noise, peering down like a wrathful Jehovah.
‘Who dares to snigger? These are images of art and science, not brought here to titillate prurient minds! I have not slaved over their perfection so that they might be debased; I have crossed the Atlantic to demonstrate my technique to an educated audience, not to entertain an insolent rabble with the morals of a Turk!’
There was a stunned silence. He looked at the empty seat again.
‘NEXT SLIDE!’ he bellowed at the cowering projectionist.
At the end of his lecture he stalked off the stage, the audience over-clapping as a means of apology. Muybridge left the theatre to the sound of their applause. When he did not reappear, the claps gradually petered out and the crowd left in silence like hunched, mute sheep.
When he had eventually cooled down, he vowed to never again give a public speech in England. It was clear that he was not appreciated in his homeland; he would return to America where they knew how to treat somebody of his worth. Before he left, he found out that Gull was indeed dead. What he had seen was obviously somebody playing an elaborate hoax in an attempt to undermine him and turn him into a laughing stock. He made another pledge to himself that he would only return when he was too old to work any longer, when his dignity demanded that his bones be laid to rest in sceptred soil. Only then would he let these wretches celebrate him properly and share in his genius.
‘I have given flesh, money and years to save you. I suffer like this and you mock me?!’
Sidrus was in a rage of tears.
He drew two black canes out from beneath his coat.
‘I mean you no offence,’ said Williams, ‘but what you speak of holds no meaning for me. There is nothing like a forest out there; I know because I have been walking for days. There is only a vast, dismal mire.’
Sidrus, so eternally contained and controlled, was finally undone. The truth that he had sought for so long, and come so very close to, slipped further from him with every word. Had the Bowman really forgotten all and been blinded into an illusion? Was this the ultimate effect of exposure to the forest, its greatest defensive irony? Or was this all a foul, vindictive game, a vicious lie to keep him from a life of riches and wealth beyond all imaginings?
‘Have you ever travelled through or lived in a forest?’ asked Sidrus, searching out any avenue that might separate truth from lie.
‘I have the dimmest recollection of a forest destroyed; broken stumps and hacked roots; a place of mud and death, illuminated by thunder and lightning, which tore men into pieces. But that was a long time ago and far from where we now stand.’
More lies.
‘Were you alone? Apart from men, what other creatures dwelt there?’
Williams paused, as if in thought, his hand moving slowly into the corner of his canvas bag. ‘I can think of only two: mules and angels.’ The pistol clicked into gear and he swung it up, letting the bag drop to the floor. But he was no match for the speed of indignation. Before he could commit to a shot, Sidrus bounded across the space between them, arcing one of the sticks up and over, its practised blade exposed. It severed the bag and its strap, slicing through the tendons of Williams’ arm. Sidrus spiralled around him in a blur; he was standing behind the Bowman before his cry had reached the cleric’s ears.
‘I have had enough of your mocking lies!’
Williams grabbed at his bleeding arm; the rest of the world fell away from under him.
When he came to, it was darker; the shadow, which seemed to construct the room he was in, smelt rank. He gagged against his consciousness and tried to move. Nothing shifted; he was held in some sort of constraint. He could hear the wind nearby; it sounded as though he were outside, on some desolate landscape. Then he made out the snapped lead and its fringed remnants of light: a stained glass window, long, meagre and broken, its coloured frames all stolen years before. He recalled the tiny chapel behind the figure at the crossroads; its description fitted his rudimentary assessment of the space he strained against: he had been tied to the simple altar.
Sidrus’ voice had changed: there was no sign of his earlier emotion. The anger had been distilled.
‘I mean to have my answer from you today. I will not tolerate any more of your foolishness. I have been a servant to the Vorrh all of my life; I have tended to its needs and commands; I have engaged with its watchers and culled its predators. I know that the child they call The Sacred Irrinipeste opened your soul to it, and I know you carry its essence locked in your heart and head. My knowledge of it is extensive; yours will make it complete.’
Williams choked against his restraints of rope, throttled by his own ignorance.
‘If you will not give it to me,’ continued the cleric, ‘then I will take it.’
‘I have nothing to give!’ spluttered Williams with all of his strength.
‘Then I shall cut you down and peel you away, until you are only your voice. You will have no choice but to tell.’
The wind cascaded through the broken window, flickering the last of the afternoon light. It bent the puckered fragments of clear glass and the fatigued lead arteries that held them in their tenuous position.
‘It is said by some that parts of memory reside outside the brain, saturating themselves into the muscles and running the length of the spine. I believe that to be true, and so I am going to dig them out, one by one; wake them and release them, so that what you know of the core will be free to reach my ears.’
The purposeful cleric attached a tourniquet to Williams’ upper thigh. A small brazier smouldered nearby, a quenching iron glowing in its heat. Sidrus saw the Englishman’s terrified eyes staring at it.