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_Roger Arcot explores the fringes of a really never forgotten world, the introduction to which is an aged manuscript _De Necromantiae_, and the wish, not too repressed, to pledge your soul to the Devil! There are many strange memories and unhappy frustrated souls in this Fantastic Universe of ours--strange and sinister memories and stranger urges, frightening urges that refuse to die in the heart of Brother Ambrose._
g-r-r-r...!
_by ... ROGER ARCOT_
He had borne the thousand and one injuries with humility and charity. But the insults! These were more than he could suffer....
Gr-r-r! There he goes again! Brother Ambrose could scarce restrain thehatred that seethed and churned in his breast, as his smallish eyesfollowed Brother Lorenzo headed once more for his beloved geraniums, theinevitable watering-pot gripped in both hands, the inevitable devotionsrising in a whispered stream from his saintly lips. The very fact theman lived was a mockery to human justice: God's blood, but if thoughtscould only kill.
_Ave, Virgo!_
The thousand and one injuries of Fray Lorenzo he had borne as aChristian monk should, with humility and charity. But the insults, aye,the insults to faith and reason! They were more than a generous Fathercould expect His most adoring servant to suffer, weren't they? To haveto sit next to the man, for instance, at evening meal and hear his sillyprattle of the weather. Next year's crop of cork: we can scarcely expectoak-galls, he says. Isn't _petroselinum_ the name for parsley? (No,it's Greek, you swine. And what's the Greek name for Swine's Snout? Icould hurl it at you, like the Pope hurling anathema.) _Salve tibi!_ Itsticks in one's craw to bless him with the rest. Would God our cloisternumbered thirty-and-nine instead of forty.
For days now, for weeks, Brother Ambrose had witnessed and endured thefalse piety of the man. How he'd ever got admitted to the order in thefirst place beat all supposition. It must have been his sanctimoniousapple-cheeks or (Heaven forbid such simony), some rich relative greasedthe palm of the Prior. _Saint, forsooth!_
Brother Ambrose recalled just a week previous; they had been outside thewalls, a round dozen of the brothers, gathering the first few bushels ofgrapes to make the good Benedictine wine. And all men tended to theirduty in the vineyard--save who? Save lecherous Lorenzo, whose job was toattend the press. Picked the assignment himself, most likely, so hecould ogle the brown thighs and browner ankles of Dolores squatting onthe Convent bank, _gitana_ slut with her flashing eyes and hint of sweetdelight in those cherry-red lips and coquettish tossing shoulders. A mancould see she was child of the devil, flesh to tempt to eternalhellfire.
But how skillful Brother Lorenzo had been in keeping the glow in hisdead eye from being seen by the others! Only Ambrose had known it wasthere. Invisible to even the world, perhaps; but lurking just the samein Lorenzo's feverishly disguised brain. _Si_, there and lusting beyonda doubt. By one's faith, the blue-black hair of Dolores would make anyweak man itch; and the stories that had floated on the breeze that day,livelily exchanged between her and that roguish Sanchicha, the_lavandera_; Lorenzo must surely have lapped them all up like a hungryspaniel, though he cleverly turned his head away so you would not guess.After all, Ambrose, scarcely a step closer, could recall clearly everyword of the bawdy tales!
Back to the table again; and Brother Ambrose once more noticed how FrayLorenzo never let his fork and knife lie crosswise, an obvious tributehe, himself, always made in Our Senor's praise. Nor did Lorenzo honorthe Trinity by drinking his orange-pulp in three quiet sips; rather (theArian heretic) he drained it at a gulp. Now, he was out trimming hismyrtle-bush. And touching up his roses.
Gr-r-r, again! Watching his enemy putter away in the deepening twilightthat followed the decline of the Andalusian sun, Brother Ambroserecalled the other traps he had lain to trip the hypocrite. Traps setand failed; but, oh, so delicious anyhow, these attempts to send himflying off to Hell where he belonged: a Cathar or a Manichee. That lastone, involving the pornographic French novel so scrofulous and wicked.How could it failed to have snared its prey? Especially, when FrayAmbrose had spent such sleepless nights, working out his plot in greatdetail?
Brother Ambrose allowed himself an inward chortle, as he paced along theportico, recollecting how close to success the scheme had come. The bookhad had to be read first (or re-read, rather) by Ambrose to determinejust which chapter would be most apt to damn a soul with concupiscentsuggestion. Gray paper with blunt type, the whole book had been easyenough to grasp for that matter--what with the words so badly spelledout. The cuckoldry tales of Boccaccio and that gay old archpriest, JuanRuiz de Hita, what dry reading they seemed by comparison--almost likedecretals.
As if by misadventure, Brother Ambrose had left the book in Lorenzo'scell, the pages doubled down at the woeful sixteenth print. Ah, therehad been a passage! Simply glancing at it, you groveled hand and foot inBelial's grip.
But, that twice-cursed Lorenzo must have had the devil's luck that day.A breeze sprang up to flip the volume closed; and the monk, not knowingthe book's owner and espying only its name, had handed it over to thePrior who had promptly turned the monastery upside down in search offurther such adulterous contraband!
Worse fortune followed. The next day, Brother Lorenzo had come down witha temporary stroke of blindness--it lasted only a week; but even so, forseven days Ambrose had been forced to labor in his stead in the draftylibrary, copying boresome scrolls in a light scarcely less dim thanmoonlight. Worse still, the Prior had found mistakes: letters dropped,transposed (Latin was so bothersomely regular; compared to the vulgartongue). For what he called such "inexcusable slovenliness," the Priorhad imposed a penance of bread and water and extra toil.
_Slovenliness!_ Why didn't the Prior--was he blind, too?--notice thedeadly sins that were each day so neatly practised by Brother Lorenzo?They went unpunished. Probably, God's Angel would even be found to havebeen asleep when Judgment Day came around and Lorenzo would slip intoHeaven by a wink, as one might say.
Obviously, there was no justice, except such as man would make himself,Brother Ambrose had at last decided.
_Ave Maria, plena gratia._
Now at last, he was alone in his cell, free finally from the unendurable(sometimes it seemed everlasting) torment of Brother Lorenzo's presence.Twenty-nine distinct damnations listed in Galatians, if you cared tolook up the text; and not one of them could the enemy be made to tripon, a-dying.
In fact, of late, so bad had the situation grown that Brother Ambrosehad even once considered pledging his soul to Satan. Oh, not for keeps!No enmity was worth that dread sacrifice. But as a trick, sort of--witha flaw in the indenture that proud Lucifer would miss until it was toolate to wriggle out of the bargain.
But that had been two days ago.
Now, a better scheme presented itself to Brother Ambrose, engendered bythat forced labor within the dreary precincts of the convent library.For that was where (and when) he had made his delightful discovery, theone that would now redeem him from all his irritations and travail. Thediscovery that would rid him of Brother Lorenzo for always!
It had happened like this.
Inasmuch as the monastery was over eight hundred years old, many ancientbooks and moldy scrolls lay forgotten in the cobwebby corners of thegreat library, especially where the light was gloomy. One afternoonduring his week of enforced toil, Brother Ambrose had sought the shelterof one of these ill-lighted and seldom-visited nooks of the building torecover certain lost hours of sleep, hours that had gone astray thenight before as he sat up in his lonely cell and brooded over hiswrongs. But before his drowsy head could nod off into dreams completely,his eye had chanced to notice a faded scroll that jutted for
th from itsfellows on the shelves. Starting to push the offender back in place,Ambrose's fingers had hesitated when he noticed the title: _DeNecromantiae_.
Surely, thought the monk, such a book belonged on the Index. Then, itoccurred to him that possibly the copy in front of him was the only oneof its kind in the world, in which case not even the Holy Father couldbe expected to know it existed. Then, how could it be on the Index or beforbidden?
Taking advantage of this personal achievement in casuistry, BrotherAmbrose promptly untied the scroll and began reading.
What he discovered there interested him very much. We do not intend todescribe all of the marvels unfolded for him in that venerable mildewedmanuscript, for some of the more gruesome mysteries of the supernaturalworld are better left unrevealed; but let it be said at least, that onechapter intrigued Brother Ambrose immensely. So much so, that heshamelessly whipped out his scissors and, nipping that section, stuck itinside his rough wool robes