Brotherhood of Shades

“Worth a shot.” Adam swivelled round to put his feet up on the couch and rested his hands behind his head. “Let’s give it a go.”

“I will not be explaining this in the conventional fashion; it is a little more complicated than I have time for. I will use a technique I developed for the Brotherhood.”

“You’re the boss,” Adam quipped. “Bring it on.”

“Adam, please try to take this seriously.”

“I am.” Adam sat up again. “Honest, I’ll be serious.”

D’Scover turned from him and made a gesture in the air with his fingers. The chair from his desk swivelled round and slid across the room towards him and he sat down, facing Adam.

“You have to show me how to do that stuff.” Adam pointed at the chair. “That is too cool.”

“Close your eyes and listen carefully to my voice.” D’Scover ignored Adam’s comment and carried on. “Let the images come into your mind and do not resist anything that happens.”

“Well, that all sounds totally creepy, but if you say so.” Adam half closed his eyes and rested his head on the cushions of the couch.

“In the sixteenth century,” D’Scover began, “Europe was ruled then as now by kings and politics, but disease and poverty were its real masters and had been so for centuries. Plague still marched across the civilised world and poverty was both companion and assistant to this horror.”

D’Scover’s voice had fallen to a soft tone that lulled Adam into listening closely, and as he did so, he realised that the edges of the room had begun to blur. He could no longer make out every word that D’Scover was saying, and felt he must be falling asleep. Shadows walked at the edges of his vision and dark shapes loomed around them. The shadows gradually began to take a stronger shape and he could see that they were people in simple, ragged clothes moving between dirty, rustic buildings. Soon the office had faded completely to be replaced by a perfect tableau that looked as if it had fallen from the pages of a history book.

Adam turned about himself with a start and looked upon a scene that was apparently solid and real; he marvelled at the detail of his dream. He jumped back in fear as a cart rumbled past him along a muddy road, throwing up a shower of earth and water, and realised this was more than just a vision. He looked down at his legs and saw that the filthy water had passed straight through him. The people around him were not the illusion here – he was.

Around him everyone carried on with their daily grind of work, but to Adam it looked as though food was not part of this equation. The people were thinner than anyone he had ever seen. Even in the homeless hostels and crowded doorways of London no one had looked as near to death as the gathering he saw before him. Children carried baskets of wood past him and Adam could see nothing but the spectre of a young death in their grey faces. He walked on, turning away as the pathetic wretches came close to him. He knew how it must have been for those who had once passed him by in the streets towards the end of his own life. It was not that they didn’t care, just that they didn’t know what to do to make it better.

Forcing himself to watch, he continued through the village, stepping over rivers of human waste as he went, despite the fact that he knew it could not touch him. Some of the villagers staggered from house to house with dirty bandages flapping from their diseased limbs. Others recoiled in horror as they passed and clutched their filthy sleeves to their faces in a pathetic attempt to prevent infection. Adam knew from the rough plague crosses daubed on many doors that in these shabby houses lay the sick and dying.

D’Scover’s words hung in the air, a soft rhythm of sound that throbbed and built up this world of pestilence further.

“Villages . . . struggled . . . poverty . . . plague . . . feudal lords . . . controlled . . . population . . . iron grip.” D’Scover continued with his speech and as Adam listened to the soft, intermittent music of his voice around him, there unfolded a world as vivid and real as the one Adam had once lived in.

“Plague . . . stronghold . . . weakened population . . . no resistance. Travelling . . . Europe . . . rats . . . decimated . . . cities . . . too few alive to bury . . . dead . . . superstition . . . ghosts stalked . . . living . . . demons . . . assumed . . . control . . . damned . . . village. Time passed . . . spectre of disease . . . rose from the darkness . . . slaughter more and more people . . . religious houses . . . met . . . discuss . . . solution.”

Adam could see this world unfolding around him as real as if he had been born into it. D’Scover stood – a weak shadow by his side – explaining. The scene changed and began to fade from the foul horror of the villages to the towering mass of a great cathedral that now grew up around him. Its creamy walls climbed high above and brilliant light streamed in through a tall plain-paned glass window. Around him sat a large body of men, all dressed in elaborate, highly coloured robes.

Adam realised that these were the heads of religious houses, monks and priests, cardinals – men from all aspects of the religious world and from all over Europe gathered together. He saw and understood deeply that they could no longer cope with caring for those who were suffering. These realisations came to him in a rush that made his head spin. It was the most intensive history lesson imaginable as D’Scover laid out the monastic world and high-church life in front of Adam’s stunned eyes.

The congregation shuffled uneasily in the dark wood high-backed chairs and a solemn murmur ran around the gathered men. An elderly abbot in a dark purple robe slowly and stiffly rose to his feet and cleared his throat. A hush descended on the gathering and he began to speak.

“Brothers,” he said in a voice heavy with age, “this is the darkest time we have ever known.” A rumble of agreement rippled around him.

“The king moves closer to breaking down our great houses, closer than he has ever done before. If we do not take this threat seriously, then all of our efforts have been for nothing.”

The congregation clearly supported this man. Spurred on, he continued.

“Here we have gathered time after time, talking our throats raw, and still we have come no closer to an accord. All of you have made arrangements for your greatest texts and many have taken to moving silver and monies to places of safety.”

A hearty laugh burst from several of the older men who knew which of the priests the speaker was referring to.

“We have all taken steps to protect that which we hold dear, but it is not enough. We have an obligation to others. Try as we might to ignore the truth of this, we can no longer afford to do so. We must take the warnings of Father Dominic of the Benedictines seriously.”

With this statement, the crowd suddenly split angrily and faces began to grow red with the shouting. Some of the men stood and tried to shout down the abbot.

“HEAR ME!” he bellowed above the mêlée and they listened once more. “Plague has irrevocably damaged the beliefs of our world. As more were taken by the pestilence, belief was diminished and the strength of our world is weakened. With less people to believe, more and more spirits have become trapped in the world of the living instead of passing on. Father Dominic’s theories have been borne out. How many of you can say that you have not had reports from your diocese about spirits walking amongst the living? We must hear what Father Dominic has to say, and this threat must be dealt with. It is our solemn duty. That we can no longer question.”

He raised a fat hand and beckoned to a figure hidden in the shadows at the back of the nave. The sturdy form of Father Dominic walked into the light. Dogging his footsteps was a thin servant boy with an unruly mop of black hair. He stumbled as he attempted to keep up, trying not to drop the large bundle of papers and books in his arms. The congregation growled with dissent, but remained seated as the father walked into their midst and took his place in front of them. He waited a moment for the rumble to die down before he spoke.

“You are aware of my workings and of the Dissolution that comes upon us.” His soft voice made everyone lean forward to listen. “It is my solemn belief that we must take action to prevent the world of the living from becoming overrun.” He looked around, waiting for a response; none came and so he continued. “These papers,” he grabbed a large parchment scroll from his servant and held it aloft, “list hundreds of reports from around the country. Spirits are not resting and the nation is in danger of being overrun with the dead. In the Augustinian priory of Lanercost in the north there is the bare start of a new Brotherhood, a Brotherhood that can cope with the demands laid upon us by the coming Dissolution.”

The abbey filled with sharp intakes of breath and more murmurs.

“This new Brotherhood will, with your agreement, remain a clandestine order. They must never be identified and must never be attached to one of our great houses as they must be able to act independently. This is why we have chosen the small priory at Lanercost to gather the necessary texts; these will be moved to a safe place should the Dissolution reach that far north. If necessary, we will continue to move them to keep them protected.”

“But how can this new order be any different?” a thin man with grey hair and long white robes called out from the midst of the crowd. “What is the purpose of this? This new order will surely be broken apart, just as our orders will.”

“No, that will not happen,” Father Dominic responded. “It will not be broken apart because it will not move within the world that we know. This will be an order of spirits – a Brotherhood of Shades.”

With that, the congregation stood and many shouted and even hurled prayer books across the floor to land inches from where Father Dominic stood. He gave a small bow to the angry crowd and spoke over them. His words were almost lost to the chaos of noise.

“Fools!” a shrill voice came from the back of the congregation.

Everyone turned as a hooded figure stepped out of the shadows and walked on into the aisle. In one swift moment the hood was thrown back to reveal a thin, scruffy-looking girl with long and knotted brown hair. Outrage once more rippled through the gathered men.

“I said you are all fools!” she shouted. “And, as sure as day follows night, you will all perish in your ignorance. This man,” she pointed at Father Dominic, “brings you a way of preventing the inevitable creep of the dead into the world of the living and you shout him down. What vexes you here? Are you too afraid that he is right and that you will all be overcome?”

“Who let this girl child in here?” the white-robed monk bellowed. “Servants, take her from here; this is a closed assembly.”

“I know of her!” another monk shouted. “She is from a village close to my abbey. Seize her quickly; this meeting must not become common knowledge.” He spun on his heels and pointed at her, his face purple with rage.

“Her interest lies in our destruction,” he spat. “She is a witch. She must not be allowed to live and tell of what she has seen.”

Several servants ran up the aisle, armed with swords, and surrounded the girl before one of them grabbed her arms and held her tight; another pointed a sword at her stomach.

“You will see,” the girl cried out. “You fear my kind, but I will last longer than any of you. One day superstition and ignorance will be overcome and on that day you will all need the help of such as I.”

The guards grabbed her hard and bundled her from the nave. Chaos ensued as some of the monks used the interruption to leave while others shouted to Father Dominic to explain. The father thrust the scroll back into his servant’s hands and, ignoring everyone’s pleas, he turned away from the gathering.

“I will take my leave!” Father Dominic shouted. “I will not be party to such murderous deeds.” At the door he turned back and bellowed once more.

“Think on!” he shouted. “You will come to me before the year is out and ask for the help of the Brotherhood – that much I can promise you.”

Turning, he walked back into the shadows and was gone through the transept doors.

Adam looked around at the scarlet and angry faces of the men as, one by one, they began to filter out of the building into the night. He suddenly became aware that D’Scover was standing by his side in the empty abbey.

“What happened next?” Adam asked him.

“Father Dominic was correct. Within one year, the heads of the great houses sent representatives to talk to him and let him explain how his new Brotherhood would function. The good father had discovered a text that could manifest a spirit indefinitely. These spirits could then maintain the Brotherhood and continue to assist those passing ungrieved-for long after the monasteries had been forgotten. The father had also had visions, visions that he described as images of angels, including the Archangel Uriel, who explained the Ritual of Sustainment to him. This he recorded and adapted to suit the needs of his new Brotherhood.