Deliver us from Evil (21 page)

He breathed in hard.

'If my soul is but a phantom,' he asked slowly, 'how then am
I
to give it to you?'

'Like this,' said Lightborn. He struck, suddenly, at the man by his side. The blade cut deep across the face. 'You see?' he asked, as the man screamed and writhed upon the floor. 'It is really very easy.'

'
I
cannot do it,' whispered Robert.

'Your parents' ghosts are crying out for vengeance.'

'No. Not at such a price.'

'Are you certain?' Lightborn narrowed his eyes. 'They visit you at night, do they not?
I
have heard you mutter and cry in your sleep.'

Robert looked away. His mother again, and his father drained white, standing before him, reaching out; Emily, silent, in a soldier's arms.

'The knife.' Lightborn was handing it to him, pressing it into his hand. 'Just one stroke will kill this sorry bag of guts. It is an easy matter. Just a single stroke.'

Robert looked down at the man, who was moaning soundlessly, clutching at his face. His nose had been sliced open, and his left eye seemed put out.

'Do it.' Lightborn's voice was hard and very cold. 'For you shall soon discover how there is no certain pleasure in this tedious world but to witness another person's suffering and pain.'

Robert's knuckles whitened around the handle. He stared at the man's belly and thought how easy it would be, the work of a second, to slash across it and pull the entrails out. But then, although it was warm in the room, he shivered with the cold; for he was suddenly standing by Wolverton Hall, and Hannah's corpse was lying in the snow, and Mr Webbe was bending over it, and his father too, and he was saying a prayer for the peace of Hannah's soul. 'No,' whispered Robert, it is more than
I
can bear.' He dropped the knife; he covered his eyes; then he stumbled from the room and out into the street.

'A little
onward lend thy guiding hand to
these dark steps, a little further on . . .'

John Milton,
Samson Agonistes

‘
I

he city, which only the day before had seemed a paradise of wonders, now seemed a hell, for the streets bore him like the currents of a maelstrom, this way and that, until Robert feared he would be drowned beneath their swirl. Mr Webbe, he remembered, had been once to London and had often told him of what he had seen there: 'Cheats, thefts, murders, lusts, knaves and rogues.' Robert seemed to hear the preacher's voice in his ears; he wept, from homesickness and because Mr Webbe had been right. For everywhere, people stared at him with hatred; a woman, her face encrusted with paint, had even spat at him and pelted him with stones. Robert had fled from her down a broad and dusty street; it had led him at last to a crowded park, in which high ribboned poles had been erected and great bonfires lit. He stared at the sea of faces around him; there were men and women there, young and old, rich and poor, but all seemed greasy and repellent with excitement, and they leered as the villagers of Woodton had leered. 'Please,' Robert asked one man, summoning up his courage, 'what is it that people are celebrating here?'

The man glanced round, and his nose wrinkled as he saw Robert's clothes. 'What has been forbidden these past fifteen years,' he said, 'thanks to your people's prohibition on merriment.'

'My people's?'

'Whose son are you, if not a canting Commonwealth-man's?' Robert clenched his fists. 'Do not speak of my father,' he answered furiously.

'Why should
I
not? For he was clearly a fool to let you come to this place, dressed as you are.' The man winked at him. '
I
would run, boy,' he sneered. 'For otherwise, such is the mood of the people here, you may be seized upon and tossed into the flames. You would make a merry bonfire to light the King's return.'

Robert choked, and imagined for a moment that he was back on Woodton green. Then he did as the man had advised, and ran. How far, he didn't know; but always in his mind he heard the crackling of flames, and his mother's voice as she was eaten by the fire, her dying promise that they would meet once more in Heaven. And then Robert would look about him in the streets; and think how there was no one in all of London who cared for him; how there was no one but Emily now in all the world.

So should he not return to her at once, he wondered, weak and powerless even as he was? For a moment, he wished he had not turned his back on Lightborn - that he had some powers at least with which to confront the Evil Spirit and, if not to destroy it, then to rescue Emily. He stopped suddenly, and realised he was still as lost as before; he looked about him and saw that he was standing on a street lined with boarded shops. He walked into one of the few which still seemed open; it was a butcher's. Robert remembered the cartloads of offal he had seen in Pudding Lane, and he almost asked for directions there, for he was certain that the butcher would know the way. But he checked himself; and when he asked instead for the Salisbury road, the butcher smiled and nodded, and took him by the arm.

He was led along the street. The butcher was large and bald, and drenched in sweat, but though his grip was very tight, his smile was broad. 'First time in London?' he asked. Robert nodded, and agreed that it was. The butcher's smile widened even more. 'This way,' he said, as he dragged Robert after him down a dark, narrow side-street. A couple of heavy blows, and Robert was lying in the filth. He was vaguely aware that he was being searched; then he felt his hidden purse being found and removed. He tried to protest - that he needed the money, that his parents were dead; but he was silenced by a kick to his stomach, and then to his head. He did not even hear the butcher leave him, but lay where he was, conscious of nothing but the feel of the dirt; slowly he grew aware of his pain, and at last of his despair, and only then did he rise to his feet. He wandered aimlessly, he knew not where. It did not matter; he would never escape. For there was a city his mother had always warned him against, which once entered could never be left. Its name had been Hopelessness; and it was that city's byways he feared he was walking through now.

Robert drifted until it grew dark. He thought vaguely about finding a bed, for his bruises were aching terribly. Then it struck him anew that he had nowhere to go. Passing a church, he pushed at the door; it was locked. He slumped down in the street against its wall and tried to pray, but the words in his ears seemed meaningless noise. Still he tried: 'Guide me, O Lord. Lead me from this place of darkness. Show me a sign.' He waited. Nothing came.

It was growing cold now. He shivered, and wished he had a blanket or a coat. He remembered how he had lain beneath the stars only two weeks before, but that had been with Emily after a stolen swim at midnight, and they had lain on grass together then, not amidst the filth and dust of a street. Robert sighed, and rubbed his eyes. Although it was late, he was not alone. There were other people lying near him, in rags even dirtier and more tattered than his, not only children but adults as well. How long, Robert wondered, had they been without a home? Might he grow a man, and still not have a bed? He sat up suddenly. It could not be possible
- it could not be possible;
but he felt the weight of misery pressing on his chest, and he knew that it was. A week ago. he had had his parents and a home; and now - gone, all gone, and there seemed nothing he could do.

He stared about him hopelessly, and caught the eye of a passing man. 'Please,' he asked. The man nodded and smiled; he crossed to him, bent down and slipped a coin into Robert's hand. 'Thank you,' Robert whispered, 'in the name of Jesus, thank you.' But then he felt the man's fingers exploring his thighs, and he remembered other hands more terrible by far, and he suddenly realised what the coin had been for. 'No!' he screamed. The man backed away, startled; then, as Robert continued to scream, he began to run. Other people were stirring now, blinking sleepily and shouting at Robert to shut his mouth. He fell silent; he hugged himself tightly and fell back to his prayers. But still there was no answer, and the darkness of the street was now silent and profound.

Then suddenly, Robert heard footsteps. He looked round, and could just make out two shadowy forms approaching him along the side of the church. One seemed a boy of about his own height; the other was a man, cloaked and with a hat, gripping his companion's elbow. The boy stopped; at once, the man did too. 'Wait here a moment,' the boy said.

'Do not leave me here,' the man replied, 'for you know that
I
am helpless.' His voice, though he had whispered, was firm and clear; but the boy ignored him and ran on down the street. He passed Robert; then, on the corner of the church, he stopped and was met from the shadows by two cloaked and hooded men.

'He is back there,' Robert heard the boy whisper. 'You may take him easily, for he is blind and without friends. It seems he has been a very great Commonwealth-man - lead him to the authorities once you have robbed him, and we will doubtless be rewarded for having captured such a traitor.'

'God save the King, then,' answered one of the men. His companion laughed, and then the two of them began to walk down the street to where the blind man stood waiting. Robert ran ahead of them. 'Do you have a weapon?' he whispered in the blind man's ear.

'Who are you?' the man answered.

'There is no time,' Robert hissed. 'Do you have a weapon?'

Expressionlessly, the blind man reached inside his coat and drew out a knife. Robert took it - just in time, for the footpads were almost on to him by now. They caught sight of him, and paused. 'Out of the way,' said one of them. 'This one is ours.'

Robert answered him by pointing the knife at his chest. 'Walk back,' he whispered in the blind man's ear. 'We must reach the high street.' They began slowly to retreat, Robert still pointing the knife at the footpads, who both stood motionless watching him. Suddenly, one of them snarled, then came running forward.

Robert struck him in the thigh, very hard, and the man seemed so surprised that he failed to cry out at first; then, as he collapsed into the dirt, he began to shriek. His companion, blinded by fury, charged down the street; but Robert fought him as though he were every Cavalier in the world, and as he stabbed the man again and again, he imagined it was Faustus, and the thought strengthened his arm. The footpad collapsed and was still; Robert laughed violently, and realised he had been muttering half-formed prayers to himself. He looked about for the treacherous servant boy, but he was nowhere to be seen, so Robert took the blind man's arm and hurried him away. They stumbled through narrow, twisting streets, and all the time Robert was whispering to himself that he had killed a man, that he had shed living blood. He felt no guilt though, only a shuddering exultation, and at last he had to stop, for his legs felt like air and he could not still his hands. He leaned against a wall and breathed in deeply; then he prayed that his parents, watching him from Heaven, would forgive him his sin and wash his stained hands clean.

He had spoken this beneath his breath, but the blind man, as though reading his thoughts, felt for him and touched him on the arm. 'Do not condemn yourself,' he said. 'The heroic Samson, though he was a prophet of the Lord, thought it no sin to be revenged on his attackers.'

'To be revenged . . .' Robert's voice trailed away. He froze for a moment then stared round. The blind man was standing in the street, upright and perfectly still. His skin was very fair and, were it not for his eyes - which rolled as though seeking a light forever lost - Robert might have taken him for a statue set amongst the worthies of some ancient temple, for there was a strength in his expression, and a resolution, which seemed both heroic and strangely remote. He had been a Commonwealth-man, Robert remembered suddenly, and a notorious one; as notorious as his own father, he wondered, who had likewise been hunted and, in the end, put to death? When he took the blind man's arm he felt the familiar roughness of homespun. It almost made him choke. His father's arm, when he had held it, had always felt the same.

'What shall happen to you,' he asked, 'if you are captured?'

The blind man's voice, like his face, betrayed no hint of emotion. 'If
I
am captured, and then sentenced,' he said, '
I
shall be hung and then, while
I
still breathe, disembowelled. After that,
I
shall be sawn in four, to serve as a lesson and a wonder to the people.'

'Where do you go now?'

'Into hiding. But my boy has left me.
I
have been betrayed.'

'
I
shall guide you.'

'You will risk your life.'

'It is no matter.
I
could welcome death.'

The blind man frowned, then smiled grimly. ' 'Tis the times' plague,' he muttered, 'when madmen lead the blind.' He felt for