Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 34: Three Escapes

Friar Cedric

By nights there is but one guard for our corridor. Fifteen cells; ten occupied. Clearly Persephone is no hotbed of crime. A locked door separates the corridor from the rest of the gaol. The cell keys are locked in a cabinet beside the night guard. He does not keep the key to the cabinet. That's kept beyond the door, in the outer guard room.

Our lone watcher waits in his chair beside a rope that will sound alarum, should we somehow walk through stone and iron bars. Meanwhile he sits reading beside the oil lamp. What a peaceful, excellent job.

The book is leather bound and heavy. The 'Baptismus Deorum' by Benedictus himself. Describing the conversion of the ancient deities, demiurges and archons of old days, baptizing them into the blessed House of Saints. A problematic work only allowed the most advanced students of history.

Its subject is forever on my mind. Vital to the truth of the Lucretians. I feel an urge to call out from my cell, question his opinions, share my own. I resist. There is other work tonight, and if I argued well I'd get the good man thrown to the fire for fellow heretic.

So I ignore his book, and fix upon the flower in the pot beside the lamp. Persephone is full of flowers, even in this sad place of stone.

The particular flower is a periwinkle. Or as the learned say: Per omne vinculum: 'through every bond'. Astonishing, at times, these meetings of accident and meaning.

I contemplate the flower, while my fellow prisoners are quiet. Even the bard, who has been singing all day to some urchin in the street. Pretty songs, I admit.

I close my eyes, thinking upon Sainted Demeter. Talking to her, as I oft did in the cell of my pleasant cottage in Milltown.

Blessed saint, I don't believe in you. You are a creation of men's minds. A face in the clouds, a voice in the summer wind. Your heartbeat is the life of the earth, the warmth of spring, the light in the clouds. We hear your song in the hum of the bees, the choir of birds with each sunrise. Your voice, your heart, your face... these remain mere wind, light, cloud, animal motion and sound. As I myself am but shadow of self, composed of earth and water, dream and bone. And so to you I call, oh saint, and ask your blessing from one shadow to another.

Certainly not the authorized catechism; but I feel the peace of the saint calm me, strengthen me, as lines of prayer-book praise long ceased to do.

I open my eyes, stare across the corridor to the charm above the witch's door. The Greater Charm of Inhibition, preventing the witch from casting.

It is a thing well-made; a plate of silver and bronze melded to form a stern face, eyes open in determined guard. To my opened senses it gives a faint buzzing, like a bee nestled into blossom.

"Peace", I whisper to it. "Peace. Sleep now, and let others take the watch of the night."

The soft glow does not diminish; the inaudible hum does not lessen.

The usual voices of doubt chatter in the chapel of my mind. I have offended the saint, I have fallen into mad doctrine. Perhaps. But I have stood for the Truth I have seen. It shall suffice. It must suffice.

I raise right hand; not in plea, but in authority.

"I am Father Cedric of the order of the Most Blessed Saint Demetia. Sleep, servant of the saint. Your watch is done. Mine now the duty. Sleep, watcher."

The witch stands, hands grasping bars, staring at me. My body is beginning to tremble, as it does in true prayer.

"Sleep, now, servant of the saint," I command.