BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

It is said that he who has the keys to the Sanctuary also has the keys to the bedchamber, and it is equally said that he who hath the ear of the Archbishop, also hath the rear of the Archbishop, which when one comes to think of it is not as preposterous as it seems, for that which is the wine of Aphrodite is also the sauce of Alexander! But the measure of our amusement should not be so casually thrown to the non-believers, for that way surely madness awaits and nonsense grows apace lest we should find some woven strand to call the beginning and there begin! Through the call of great rejoicing there stood a man, of no particular stance or shape yet I should persist in description for those who hath fallen far and for those I say that he was of a rotund perspective with a length of beard that reached far and wide and nowhere in its simple conclusion, which was that behind the tangled waves of unkempt and distressed fibres, there lay a man of deep emotion and folly, a man of sanguine turn and pure learning, a man not content with this world in search of God whose eager spirit drank from a holy well of thought. This man, in Divine circles was the noble essence of free-thinking, religious notions that swept across a puritanical country filled with peasant folk and simple beliefs; a man half-ashamed at his country men and women for their insistence upon the strange desires of a pagan authority which no longer had precedence. The man, if we must name him, was Hieronymus Ramsbottom, Father of the flock, Lord Protector of the souls within his keep and a man deigned by Christ as Bishop to shepherd his nimble parishioners from the phlegm of Catholicism. Among this flourishing flock there was a lamb, a young boy who had great learning potential and showed great interest in the works of our Lord among the Sanctuary of the Spirit; a boy orphaned by birth, fair of face and feature who went by the not too disagreeable name of Peter Saxonby. Peter was an apprentice to the forge-master, an ogre of uncommon and uncontrollable passions whose eye would rove over the curvaceous contours of his young apprentice who had made his thirteen summers sweet with sweat in the fiery heat of the forge where his eyes of magical amethyst pierced through the dark smoke and flickering shadows of the forge like twin orbs of desire and the blacksmith, sodden with ale worked his mental hands over the slender, long-necked boy in lascivious, serpentine ways and it was to the Father and the Protector that Peter looked for his salvation and Hieronymus offered the young swan the succour of the Church and the arms of the Lord who presides over all, and so it was that the Bishop handed the smithy six pieces of silver and took Peter to be his young Deacon who would attend to his ecclesiastical needs.

The Bishop rose and his stature exhausted the stars beyond him and he stood with pensive eyes downcast as he began to speak whispered words that softly lilted upon the dying of the evening air that called unto the night – ‘I hath never looked mine enemies in the back, Peter, for you must look them in the face with great sympathy to see yourself reflected in eyes of torment and corruption’, and his magnificent beard shook as he bathed Peter with the sacred drops of spittle that issued from his lips as his brow was bathed in moonlight; Peter could not discern the saintly folds of the vestments that the Bishop wore nor could he gather in his eyes the encrusted saliva that lay drying upon his beard and collar or upon his own tunic which shone gloriously with the great globules that the Bishop shot from his lips and poured forth. It was the same sacred spittle that the Bishop blessed his flock with, washing his parishioners in the beautiful liquid sustenance of God that splashed hither and nither upon the rejoicing congregation like raindrops. And so he preached unto his lamb like Prospero unto Caliban in gentle yet damp manner for many hours until the moon, a moon of witchcraft and sorcery where unholy terrors reign was fair over his shoulder and much yawns and drooping of eyes showed that sleep was near and eager to be surrendered unto. Nightfall had crept upon them like a thread of hope between the spider and the fly and Peter watched with fearful eyes as the moon yielded to the slumber of the innocent and so the night was passed in the arms of the corpulent church until dawn heralded the glory of the sun.
With the new day upon them the Bishop told Peter of some of his work amongst the poor and destitute and how he administers prayers of healing to the sick, and he showed Peter a strange unction kept in a leather pouch which the Bishop used as a balm during the healing work of the Divine. ‘I will show you how to make it and you will prepare it for me!’ the Bishop said and Peter asked what was in it and how does it heal, to which the Bishop answered that it is a simple paste made from the leaves of mint and sorrel and placed upon wounds as a poultice; of course there is no medicinal property therein itself and it is only able to heal after I have blessed it and it is deemed Holy in His name and only then can it do His work amongst the lame and the sick. And Peter was shown how to pick the mint and the sorrel in his role as Deacon and how to crush the leaves in preparing the balm and to boil the herbs and strain the liquid to form a tincture.
Peter and the Bishop set about their journey to the next village where there would be no welcome to ministers of the church among the sensualists and sinners outside of the faith. The road was arduous and several times they had to stop to rest but they persisted over hill and along valleys and through coppiced woodland until at length a mile from the village of Forlorn they came upon a rider, a uniformed man of stoic resolution who dwelt beneath the name of Captain Horsenbutt; the rider pulled up to the wayfarers and seeing the Bishop and the boy who showed signs of exhaustion, greeted them cordially and offered them water to drink, which they accepted. The Captain, who by birth had been spoon-fed a constant yet nourishing diet of malicious hatred from a long ancestral line of malevolent monsters, took an interest in the boy’s complexion and asked if he would rather an easier life as a stable hand in his regiment, to which Peter shook his head, saying ‘my path is beside the Bishop who has shown me great favour and trust!’
‘You have a rare child there Bishop! Treasure him well for I see great things of him!’ the Captain snarled at the portly man of God with a look of treachery in his eyes, and he rode off at the gallop on the tide of his own arrogance. ‘Your loyalty does me honour!’ said the shepherd tenderly to his lamb.
Many nights passed on the road and together the boy and the Bishop were inseparable and a great tenderness grew between them which was delivered by Divine hands and lit with spiritual approval; much hardship did they suffer and when the boy grew sick the Bishop nursed him diligently through his fever and back to health, such was the bond of friendship forged in their wandering. Peter looked upon the Bishop with admiration and the tenderness in his youthful ways was most agreeable to the older man of God who had spent many years in the wilderness of solitude like the petals scattered upon a lake wearily winding towards some end through the tempest of his own unreality and imperfections; there was no shame that fair love had drifted through sorrow and Peter called the Bishop ‘Father’ and the Bishop called the boy ‘Son’ and Peter wore the Bishop’s spittle with pride. Through the long nights Peter became accustomed to relating tales which seemed to amuse and comfort the Bishop, who would break out in merriment of laughter and it was good to see him laugh for he was often of a mournful temperament. One night, as the wind blew the Bishop’s beard in every direction of the compass, Peter began a strange tale on how punctuation came into being and he began with the full stop, ‘but surely’ said the Bishop, ‘that is the end!’ and Peter leant upon his elbows at the feet of the Bishop and said, ‘no, that is the point of origin of the story for everything begins from a single point!’ and the Bishop chuckled and said ‘continue, my little goose’. Peter went on to inform the Bishop that the full stop, or to give it its rightful name, the ‘stoppydotty’, felt very uncertain of his beginning and even less unsure of his end until he found another like him but with a tail which went by the name of ‘loopydot’ but was actually a comma and so loopydot and stoppydotty joined together to form sentences which was really quite astounding in itself! They were so excited that loopydot jumped into the air to form the ‘toploopydot’ or the apostrophe as it is now known and stoppydotty laughed so much he split his sides in twain and doubled with laughter he became two stoppydottys one above the other to make a ‘doubledotty’ which came to be known as the colon which was good at introducing things to each other and not wishing to be outdone the stoppydotty and the loopydot joined together to form the 'loopydottystoppy' which as everybody knows is the semi-colon. The Bishop could not contain his laughter and burst out bellowing through his wild and wiry beard, ‘and what about the exclamation mark my little swan of Jerusalem?’ asked the Bishop, ‘I was just coming to that,’ said Peter, who continued as quick as a flash, saying that ‘one day the doubledotty, or colon, decided that it was tired of introducing things and suddenly began to shout very loudly until the topdotty of the doubledotty suddenly stretched itself upwards in his attempt to be heard and thus was born the exclamation mark or the 'uprightdotty'! But as the exclamation mark grew old he suddenly developed a hunch-back and instead of shouting he began asking questions and thus we arrive at the question mark, previously known as the 'curvydotty'! Don’t you see?’
‘Very good my boy!’ said the Bishop, ‘very good!’ and the Bishop shook with laughter for a long time afterwards. And so the hours would pass in tales and contemplation of great and Godly things. Then the Bishop struck a more serious note, asking Peter if the blacksmith ill-treated him and that he was not to blame himself for the evil of others, for the wickedness that lies in the hearts of men seeks glory and gratification in its condemnation and utter corruption of innocence. And Peter, whose eyes became tearful by the light of the fire, a fire whose flames had transported him back to the unspeakable torments of the forge, looked soulfully to the Bishop for further explanations, muttering something about Captain Horsenbutt and how his eyes bore into him, to which the wise man of God who had long meditated upon the stem of his existence, uttered softly through his beard – ‘you have seen how the bee looks upon the flower and you have seen how the spider looks upon the fly: Peter, you are at once the flower and the fly!’ Peter did not altogether understand but he thought he would with time.
The weeks passed by and one village was much like another until they came upon the little hamlet of Hope Lost where there was much need of the Bishop’s balm as there were plenty in need and sick for there was some strange ague or air fever rife thereabouts and it seemed that no-one was safe. A young girl of about nine years of age, for the parents were uncertain of the child’s birth year, was put before the Bishop for she was in an advanced stage of suffering and the Bishop in his capacity as God’s healer of wounds applied the herb poultice and administered the tincture and sat with the young girl in solemn prayer. The next morning the girl was found to be incomprehensible and in the grip of seizures to which no amount of prayer would abate until just a few hours later the girl became radiant with the still, silence of death and the Bishop, who was at a loss as to why death should have overwhelmed her young soul, crossed himself, made his excuses and left. But the parents were furious and enraged with malice and sought justice from the Squire, a man of great power whose hands dispensed a form of jurisdiction amongst his tenants and so he sent his men to apprehend the Bishop and have him brought to the Squire’s manor house.  
The Bishop and the boy had walked many miles along the road contemplating God’s ways and the many mysteries that do not concern the gentle flock of His creation. They walked on and came to a little stream where they could see a brazen and colourful young man recumbent with one leg in the air. ‘Good day to you friend!’ bellowed the Bishop towards the horizontal youth who in turn gazed upon the travellers and squinted through his long lashes at them before nodding his head and clearing his throat as if to respond but sound was not forthcoming! After a little while he said ‘pleasant day’ and looked with furrowed brow upon Peter. The youth, who now visibly wore a chaplet of wild flowers in his hair, explained that he was a rhymester by the name of Thomas Dodds and that all the world would hear of Master Dodds and his verse! The Bishop looked upon the pale and placid versifier whose dark hair framed his eyes which seemed like coins exchanged by night with a measure of distrust for the rhymester had not yet attained full-sail and was becalmed beside the stream, his soulful eyes fixed upon Peter, who seemed a little overcome and embarrassed by the attention. Dodds, who chose his words carefully and chewed them over twice or thrice, fell to dramatic swooning as was his wont in new company. Unmoved by the theatrics, the Bishop, trying exceptionally hard not to besiege the young man with his saliva, engaged him in conversation and learnt of his background, which the versifier was at first reluctant to enter into, but after gentle persuasion expressed a few historical facts as to his nature. Peter grew weary under Dodds’ gaze and before long the young songster began to sigh soft yet long before entering upon his song:

‘The frail rapture of my ruined heart in hurtful sleep

Hammers upon the vault of my passion, dispossessed; I weep
No more for the content within love’s sweet celestial bliss
That worshipped thy lips long ago, ay long ago, yet longed to kiss
The soft contours of thy mouth… This emptiness haunts my soul
And echoes relentlessly through this expanse of my regret!
Hark! What fatal thought resides in mind motioned to love and set
In monstrous brain and bay where the horror of the heart has stole
The delight from curved limb; the moonlight from my nakedness?’

And so on went the songster, untiringly through verse after verse of love lyrics that seemed would never end. The Bishop was decidedly unimpressed with the songster’s verse and Peter seemed even more bewildered by it, but strangely flattered to be the recipient of the poet’s wild-eyed devotion throughout the song and returned a sweet smile and cast his eyes downwards before looking sideways at the Bishop. The Bishop forced a polite note of gratitude and thanks towards the versifier who by now had attained his full stature beside the stream and they exchanged pleasant farewells as the young man of song gazed long upon the boy as if he were some young and beautiful maiden to be courted.

Night fell and the Bishop and the boy found an old barn in which to lay their heads for the night. As they settled down to sleep Peter said how amusing it was to meet Dodds and he hoped that one day they might find him again to which the Bishop replied – ‘yes, a harmless fool and we shall surely have paths cross again for don’t forget the world shall know of Master Dodds!’ and they both looked at each other and chuckled. It was a warm night and the stars were bright in the dark curtain of the cosmos above as the weary travellers fell fully into the folds of sleep. The next morning the pair was rudely awoken by a rough and manly voice which seemed oddly familiar:
‘Gather thy yesterdays and thy tomorrows priest!’ said Captain Horsenbutt at the blunt end of a sword, who had bloody vengeance in mind and together with his accomplices Turbot Barnstrom and Douglas Crabheart, hot-blooded brutes who talked overmuch in their cups, they seized the Bishop and the boy and accused the old man of God of heresy and unnatural associations with the boy whom he held under some spell, possessed of devils. The balm was found and described as a devilish bile or ‘tincture of Satan’ used in bewitchment. The Bishop was taken away until he was made to confess his activities in the black arts and his unholy bewitching of the boy; during his incarceration at the Manor of Squire Stackpole he was pricked all over and found to bleed from the wounds which surely showed he was a brother of the black arts and he was heard speaking in an unknown language which was actually Latin but he was accused of speaking in dead tongues and consorting with the devil and the evidence against him was enough to damn the poor Bishop and sentence him to death; the sworn testimony of Turbot Barnstrom alone accused the Bishop of several deprived and unholy acts along with attempting to bedevil his accusers with the ‘waters of witchcraft’ that ‘flowed unhindered from the Bishop’s mouth’ which would seem had already sealed his fate. Young Peter was distraught and pleaded on behalf of the Bishop for mercy from Squire Stackpole, a man who carried considerable weight within the shire and equally carried a sizable portion of pustules upon his face, but the Squire was not willing to listen to anything except incriminating evidence against the Bishop and a sworn confession from Peter as to the Bishop’s fiendishly, filthy hold upon the boy which was the work of witchcraft; when the boy refused to confess he was put to the wrack and lashed with course, twisted rope until he bled and lost consciousness; no sleep, no food or water was he to take until a signed confession was forthcoming. Peter held true to his innocence and to that of the Bishop’s and not a word of untruth passed his lips; he would never betray the dear Bishop!
The Squire, the result of a long line of depravity whose one tooth rocked to and fro like an old wooden post between his cracked and festering lips; a man who commanded several wenches to bestow themselves upon his rotten and bloated body who secretly mocked and despised him, grew impatient and as surely as the red wine did flow upon his table did the fire ignite within his heart and he wanted the matter dealt with swiftly and resolved.
And so the Bishop was taken from his place of incarceration and hung one frosty morning from a tree along the avenue which led to the Squire’s manor house and his body was left there wearing a chain of dried spittle around his neck and a stream of congealed blood from his mouth which glistened in the moonlight like diamonds and rubies; he was left as a measure of his sins against God and the good people of England!
The fate of young Peter is not known as the hand of time has washed much that is true away and left little but rumour and lies, but it is idle to speculate that perhaps that young sonneteer, Thomas Dodds, who alas would not become known by all the world, who saw something sensual in the boy’s misfortune, like the young Galilean, gave tender affection towards the rose, yet plucked before gentle budding and marched towards manhood and onwards to a simple grave and a wake of unfinished rhymes… the deception of time leaves nothing to confirm except that love is a commonplace executioner!