The castle was more or less as I remembered, a great indifferent, cheerless pile of stone, as ugly surely as any edifice built by the Medici, or any I had seen on my progress through war-torn Europe. The mere sight of it filled me suddenly with fear. I turned round as I stood at the drawbridge, looking down into the valley, at the little town which was far smaller and poorer than Assisi. And all of this seemed crude and frightening suddenly--a land of shaggy gruff-spoken light-skinned persons without civilization, without anything that I could understand.
Was this pure cowardice that I felt? I wanted to be in Santa Maria del Fiori in Florence listening to the canticles or the High Mass. I wanted to be in Assisi greeting the Christmas pilgrims. For the first time in over twenty years I was not there!
As darkness fell the crowds about the little city and the church looked all the more ominous, and the woods themselves closer, as though struggling to swallow what few edifices man had made in this place.
For one second, I thought I saw a pair of dwarfish creatures, two little beings, far too ugly and misshapen to be children, and far too quick as they scurried out of the castle yard and across the bridge and beyond.
But so quick had it been, and so dark was it, that I was uncertain I'd seen anything at all.
I took one last look down into the valley. Ah, the beauty of the Cathedral. In its great Gothic ambition, it was more graceful even than the churches of Florence. Its arches challenged heaven. Its windows were visions.
This, this alone, must be saved, I thought. My eyes filled with tears.
Then I went into the castle to learn the truth.
The main hall had its roaring fire, and many in dark woolen garments gathered around the hearth.
My father rose at once from a heavily carved chair. "Leave the hall," he told the others.
I recognized him immediately. He was mightily impressive, big-shouldered still, and somewhat resembling his own father, but far more hardy and nothing as old as the old one had been when I came. His hair was streaked with gray but still a deep lustrous brown, and his deep-set eyes were filled with a loving fire.
"Ashlar!" he said. "Thank God, you have come." He threw his arms around me. I remembered the first moment I had ever seen him, the same look of love, from one who knew me, and my heart nearly broke. "Sit down by the fire," he said, "and hear me out."
Elizabeth, wretched daughter of the Boleyn, was on the throne of England, but she herself was not the worst threat to us. John Knox, the rabid Presbyterian, had come back from exile, and he was leading the people in an iconoclastic rebellion throughout the land.
"What is the madness of these people?" demanded my father, "that they would destroy statues of our Blessed Mother, that they would burn our books? We are not idolaters! Thank God we have our own Ashlar, come back to save us at this time."
I shuddered.
"Father, we are not idolaters and I am no idol," I declared. "I am a priest of God. What can I do in the face of war? All these years in Italy I have heard stories of atrocity. I know only how to do small things!"
"Small things! You are our destiny! We the Catholic Highlanders must have a leader to take a stand for right. At any time the Protestants and the English may build up the courage and the numbers to force the pass. They have told us if we dare to hold Midnight Mass in the Cathedral, they will storm the town. We have sheep; we have grain. If we hold through this night and the twelve days of Christmas, they may see the hand of God in it and be driven away.
"Tonight, you must lead the Procession, Ashlar, you must lead the Latin hymns. You must place the Infant Jesus in the manger, between the Virgin Mother and good St. Joseph. Lead the animals to the manger. Lead them to bow to the Good Child Jesus. Be our priest, Ashlar, what priests were meant to be. Reach to heaven for us, and call down the Mercy of God as only a priest can!"
Of course I knew this was the very concept which the Protestants found archaic, that we of the priesthood were mysterious and elevated, and that we had some communication with God which the ordinary folk did not.
"Father, I can do this as any priest can do it," said I. "But what if we do hold through Christmas? Why will they back away then? Why will they not come down upon us at any moment that our sheep and our grain are gone?"
"Christmas is the time of their hate, Ashlar. It is the time of the richest Roman ceremony. It is the time of the finest vestments and incense and candles. It the time of our greatest Latin Mass. And old superstition grips Scotland, Ashlar. Christmas in the pagan years was the time of witches, the time that the restless dead walked. Outside this valley, they say we harbor witches, that indeed, we of Donnelaith have the witches' gifts in our blood. They say our valley is filled with the little people who carry within them the souls of the restless dead! Papists, witchcraft--these denunciations are mixed together by men who fight to the death for the right to say that Christ is not in the bread and wine! That to pray to the Mother of God is a sin!"
"I understand." Inwardly, I shuddered. The little people carry within them the souls of the restless dead?
"They call our saint an idol! They call us Devil worshipers! Our Christ is the Living Christ."
"And I must strengthen the people..." I murmured. "This does not mean that I myself shall shed blood."
"Only raise your voice for the Son of God," said my father. "Rally the people, and silence the malcontents! For we have them among us, Puritans who would turn the tide, and even those who claim that there are witches in our very midst who must be burnt if we are to prevail. Put a silence to this squabbling. Call the entire people in the name of St. Ashlar. Say the Midnight Mass."
"I see," I said, "and you will tell them that I am the saint come from the window."
"You are!" he declared. "By the love of God, you are! You know that you are. You are Ashlar who comes again. You are Ashlar who is born knowing. And you know what you are. For twenty-three years you have lived in sanctity in the arms of the Franciscans and you are a true saint. Do not be so humble, my son, that you lack courage. Cowardly priests in this valley we have already, trembling down there in the sacristy, terrified that they will be snatched from the very altar by the town's Puritans and thrown in the Yule fire."
At these words I remembered that long-ago Christmas. I remembered when my grandfather gave the order that I was to die. The Yule log. Would they bring it in this very night and start it to burning, after the Midnight Mass, when the Light of Christ was born into the world?
I was suddenly brought out of my thoughts. A deep sultry fragrance came to me, a thick and unnameable perfume. I smelled it so strongly that I was confused.
"You are St. Ashlar," my father declared again as if piqued by my silence.
"Father, I don't know," I uttered softly.
"Ah, but you do know," cried ou
t a new voice. It was the voice of a woman, and as I turned around I saw a young female, my age, perhaps a little younger, and very fair, with silky long red tresses down her back and a thick and embroidered gown. It was from her that this fragrance emanated, causing a subtle change within my body, a longing and a slow fire.
I was struck by her beauty, by her rippling hair and her eyes so like those of our father, deep-set and bright. My eyes were black. My mother's eyes. I remembered the Dutchman's phrase--a pure female of your own ilk. But she was not this. I knew it. She was a human woman. I could see that she more resembled my father than me. When I saw my like I would know it, just as I have always known certain things.
This woman came towards me. The fragrance was inviting to me. I had no idea what to make of it; I seemed to feel hunger, thirst and passion all at the same time.
"Brother, you are no St. Ashlar!" she said. "You are the Taltos! The curse of this valley since the dark times, the curse that rises without warning in our blood."
"Silence, bitch," my father said. "I mean it! I will kill you and your followers with my own hands."
"Aye, like the good Protestants of Rome," she said, mocking him, her voice very clear and ringing as she lifted her chin and pointed her hand. "What is it they say in Italy, Ashlar? Do you know? 'If our own father were a heretic, we would carry the faggots to burn him'? Do I quote it right?"
"I think so, Sister," I said softly, "but for God's sake, be wise. Speak to me in patience."
"Patience! Were you born knowing? Or is that a lie too? In the arms of a queen, was it not? And for you, she lost her head."
"Silence, Emaleth," cried my father. "I am not afraid of you."
"You are the only one then, Father. Brother, look at me, listen to what I say."
"I don't know what you are saying, I don't understand this. My mother was a great queen. I never knew her name." I stuttered as I said this, for I had long ago guessed who she might have been, and this was stupid for me to pretend not to know, and this woman knew it. She was clever and she saw past my gentle Franciscan manner and the startled look of innocence on my face.