Read Death of a Pilgrim Online
Authors: David Dickinson
Death of a Pilgrim
D
AVID
D
ICKINSON
was born in Dublin. He graduated from Cambridge with a first-class honours degree
in Classics and joined the BBC. After a spell in radio he transferred to television and went on to become editor of
Newsnight
and
Panorama.
In 1995 he was series editor of
Monarchy
, a three-part examination of its current state and future prospects. David lives in London.
Praise for The Lord Francis Powerscourt series
‘A kind of locked bedroom mystery … Dickinson’s view of the royals is edgy and shaped by our times.’
The Poisoned Pen
‘Fine prose, high society and complex plot recommend this series.’
Library Journal
‘Lovers of British mysteries will enjoy Powerscourt’s latest adventure.’
Booklist
‘Dickinson’s customary historical tidbits and patches of local color, swathed in … appealing Victorian narrative’
Kirkus Reviews
Titles in the series
(listed in order)
Goodnight Sweet Prince
Death & The Jubilee
Death of an Old Master
Death of a Chancellor
Death Called to the Bar
Death on the Nevskii Prospekt
Death on the Holy Mountain
Death of a Pilgrim
Death of a Wine Merchant
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2009
This paperback edition published by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2010
First US edition published by SohoConstable,
an imprint of Soho Press, 2009
This paperback edition published 2010
Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
www.sohopress.com
Copyright © David Dickinson, 2009, 2010
The right of David Dickinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Data is available from the British Library
US Library of Congress number: 2008034617
UK ISBN 978-1-84901-097-9
US ISBN 978-1-56947-623-9
eISBN 978-1-78033-413-4
Printed and bound in the EU
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Chris and Karen.
The message carved in stone is very simple. It tells of a choice, a choice between eternity and salvation, a choice between paradise and the torments of the damned, a choice
between heaven and hell. The work is divided into three horizontal sections. In the centre stands the largest figure of them all, Christ risen from the dead and wearing a long tunic with a scarf of
white wool embroidered with black crosses, usually reserved for the Pope and certain church dignitaries. Above him is a cross carried by two angels holding a nail and a spear. His right hand points
upwards and to his right. There a procession of the chosen ones, the Virgin Mary and St Peter, carrying the keys of the kingdom, lead the elect into paradise. On the strips of stone that divide the
panels there are Latin inscriptions. For Peter and Mary and Abraham, seated with the other victors in this religious race, the message is clear: ‘Thus are given to the chosen who have won,
the joys of heaven, glory, peace, rest and eternal light.’
On the other side of the work there is neither peace nor glory nor eternal light. Christ’s left hand points to the left and sharply downwards. Beneath him is a panel enclosed by two doors,
one ornate and graceful with two keyholes for the locks, the other with heavy metal supports and no keyholes. The chosen are led by the hand to heaven’s gate, but in front of the gateway to
hell diabolical monsters pummel the damned and force them into the vast open jaws of Leviathan: in the words of the Book of Isaiah, ‘Sheol, the land of the damned, gapes with straining throat
and has opened her measureless jaws: down go nobility and the mobs and the rabble rousers.’ Presiding over hell is Lucifer, Prince of Darkness, with a hideous grimace, bulging eyes and short
hair pleated to resemble a crown. To his left a miser or a thief has been hung up with a pouch of hoarded or stolen money wrapped round his neck, killed by the weight of his own greed. To his right
a messenger devil is whispering into Lucifer’s ear the news of the latest torments in his kingdom. Lucifer’s legs are adorned with serpents and his feet are pressing down to hold a
sinner being roasted on a brazier. In the panel above, an abbot is holding on to his crozier, prostrate in front of a deformed and bestial demon. In his net the demon has captured three other false
monks and is preparing further torture. Behind him, a heretic, his lips shut and a closed book in his hand, is having his mouth crushed while a demon devours his skull. To the right a false banker
or moneychanger is about to atone for his sins. A demon is melting the metal in a fire. He is tilting back the false banker or moneychanger’s head and preparing to make him swallow the liquid
of his infamy. A king has been stripped naked and a demon is preparing to pull him off his throne with his jaws. A glutton has been hung upside down with a pulley and forced to vomit his excesses
into a bowl while another fiend prepares to beat his feet with an axe. There is a couple taken in adultery and fornication, possibly a monk and a nun, now tied together for ever with a rope joining
their heads at the neck. The sins of pride and power are here in stone. A knight in an expensive mailcoat has been forced upside down by a demon pushing a pole into his back. Another seems to be
trying to tear his arms off. A scandalmonger, forced to sit in a fire, the flames licking round his waist, is having his tongue pulled out. A glutton with an enormous belly is going head first into
a piece of kitchen equipment, a cauldron or a boiling casserole. Love of money, love of power, love of women who are not your wife, love of gossip are all portrayed here, surrounded by demons with
fire and snakes and pulleys and axes and prongs to welcome you into hell. ‘The wicked’, the inscription proclaims, ‘suffer the torments of the damned, roasting in the middle of
flames and demons, perpetually groaning and trembling.’
These scenes are carved in the tympanum, the space above the doorway, in the Abbey Church of Conques in southern France. They were put in place early in the twelfth century, possibly around
1115. For a couple of hundred years they would have acted as inspiration and warning, threat and reward, to the tens of thousands of pilgrims passing through Conques on their journey to Santiago de
Compostela, the field of stars on the north-western coast of Spain, final resting place and shrine of St James the Apostle, which was the ultimate destination of one of Europe’s most
important pilgrimages. As they came into the great square in front of the church in Conques the pilgrims would have stared in awe, and possibly terror, at this visible representation of the likely
fate of all their souls in the world to come.
And now, in this year of Our Lord 1906, another group of pilgrims, bringing perhaps the same hopes and the same vices, are preparing to set out on the same pilgrims’ path to Santiago and
stand in front of the great tympanum at Conques. For them, as for their predecessors eight hundred years earlier, the inscription at the bottom of the sculpture still rings true: ‘Oh sinners,
if you do not mend your ways, know that you will suffer a dreadful fate.’
NEW YORK–LE PUY-EN-VELAY
Be for us, a companion on the journey, direction at our crossroads, strength in our fatigue, a shelter in danger, resource on our travels, shadow in the heat, light in the dark,
consolation in our dejection, and the power of our intention; so that with your guidance, safely and unhurt, we may reach the end of our journey and, strengthened with gratitude and power, secure
and happy, may return to our homes, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Apostle James, pray for us. Holy Virgin, pray for us.
Pilgrim’s prayer, Cathedral of Le Puy
A bell was ringing, somewhere close. As the man struggled towards consciousness he thought he was deep, deep underwater. A ship was sinking slowly beneath him, heading straight
down for her last resting place on the sea bed. Maybe it was one of his ships. Ghostly figures, their clothes streaming behind them, were struggling towards the surface through the murky water.
Other figures, the fight abandoned, were falling backwards towards the ocean floor. Still the bell rang on. Now the picture in the man’s mind changed. He was in a coal mine. The bell meant
danger, a rock fall perhaps, or a collapsed shaft. Miners were running as hard as they could towards the way out, trying to escape before they were buried alive. Maybe it was one of his mines.
