Ring. Sister. Piano (Book 4 of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Eighteen: Where the Serpent Brings Salvation

Faustus's journal, the twelfth day of December in the year of our sovereign lady the twenty-fifth.

There are others with her. On Tuesday last, five climbed out of the well at Binsey, horns before heads, scattering the pilgrims in panic terror. They say a brace of demons with water-weeds for hair climbed out of the lake at Woodstock, but were brought down by stones before they might leave the town. Another, with long jaws and many monstrous teeth, was delivered to the dissection schools at Merton, enclosed in a butt of malmsey wine.

They are converging on her.

Belike they are her kin – one does claim to be her sister – yet is there no recognition on her face as she beholds them. Rather does she squint and blink, roll up her sleeve or even lift her skirts till she finds some point on her skin which seems to prompt her who they be. Then will she recite their history, yet cannot say how she learnt it.

In appearance, they are prodigies, yet more prodigious is their strength, and far more than either is their intelligence. They can copy and comprehend. Nay, I have seen them watching men, replicating their gestures and their steps as if they were but children.

I ordered the demons into the coal-house of my palace. From there, I may investigate them. I may perchance harness their strength to carry out experiments, or to rebuild the University Church. They say King Solomon harnessed the strength of demons to build the great Temple at Jerusalem, and tales of this wise king have ever delighted me. For, when asked in a dream what he most desired, he prayed to God not for wealth or great renown, but for 'an understanding heart to judge thy people and for to know good and evil'. Scripture gives him plainly the same desires as Eve, and yet is he blessed for them.

There, it strikes me, is the great difference 'tween man and woman. Solomon sought knowledge and is revered; Eve sought knowledge and is reviled. What, then, is the difference between sin and knowledge? Must you be a man to possess one and a woman to possess the other? Is it that Solomon requested knowledge with humility, while Eve took it with rebellion in her heart? Yet had Solomon no need to rebel – he was a King, both Lord and master. Eve was under Adam's regiment, perhaps a slave to his lusts, or a martyr to his idiocy. What had she to lose? What is paradise to a slave?

My poor demoness has been named Eve by the townsfolk – deemed by them the first of a new race, and doubtless the means by which evil shall enter the world. This I scorn to entertain, for they saw evil enough in the world before she was here, and will see it again when she is gone. 

Thankfully my authority within the town is absolute. I will use her genius mathematical to rebuild the University church, and her horned kin to shift stones. Engaged in such a holy enterprise, they must find acceptance of the people. Or tolerance, at the very least.

Martha says the Eve-creature has caught my eye – to which I answer that she has caught my mind.

"Aye, and your mind is more easily tempted than your eyes," says she. "Though your eyes be tempted easily enough."

Yet in general have the creature's manners endeared her to Martha, and to me. She will not leave off asking questions, and attends most respectfully to our answers. Most she enquires what she is. Martha has read to her from the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer (both which, in truth, mention demons but little), yet this does not appear to satisfy her. She does not wish to tempt the unwary. She has no behorned master and no interest in men's souls – how therefore can she be a demon?

Martha counters that she is perchance an elf or faerie – not imbued with an immortal soul, yet not damned neither. To this, the little creature raises up her head and makes answer that she has full as much soul as anyone she has encountered yet in Oxford.