The Goat

by Hugh Todd

Most esteemed mentor (I dare not address you as I would),

Knowing the danger you continually face as a member of our despised order, I have refrained from writing to you until this present. Even now I take up my pen only, as I have come to suspect, as a form of testament, so that some one at least of my former acquaintances may know of my doom.

Bitter it was to face the accusations of those whose charges against our holy service brought such ruin upon us. Yet at that time my consolation was to remember the suffering and rejection of our heavenly master. I have known also the pain of exile, and fugitive wandering. Yet gladness has filled me to remember that our blessed Lord had no place to lay his head.

Now, however, I face the almost certain prospect, in this land of my banishment, of an end more desolate than any I might have known in the company of my spiritual companions.

When I crossed into this country, I was filled with hope. I had heard tell of the Empress Catherine’s refusal to uphold the Papal suppression. News had also reached me, too, of a treaty forced by the Russians upon the Turks, whose suzerainty extends over this land, to guarantee the welfare of Christian people. How could I have then known that a greater danger even than darkened man awaited me in the woods of Moldova?

I had intended, with God’s help, to reach the monastery of Sucevita before the snows. (Such monasteries there are here, my mentor, built as fortresses and filled with the treasures of the land!) On the way, however, I came upon a peasant in a field by a great forest and he, perceiving me to be a man of God, gestured to me to turn aside and visit his sick wife.

As I left the path, I felt a chill come upon the earth, and looked above to see whither it might have come. To my surprise, the day looked as before. The man was now a little way ahead, and I gathered my robes to catch him. He entered the wood. As he did so I heard, as I thought, the tinkle of a small bell.

We came to a small clearing in which the peasant’s dwelling stood. Sheltered from the steppe winds by the trees and an outcrop of mountain rock, it seemed of pleasant aspect. A stream tumbled past its eastern side.

The shock I felt upon entering the house, most esteemed mentor, I am unable fully to recount. There, upon the straw bed, lay a woman, with golden locks spilling out around such a face as I had never before seen. My heart was seized with a violent contraction such that I nearly cried out. In that face was mingled such nobility, such infinite grace and distant sadness that I felt myself unravel in an instant. Eyes of purest blue seemed at once to take me in and to gaze upon some other land beyond. I was bewitched.

Restored for the moment by a tug on my cassock, I hastily drew out my breviary, made the sign of the cross, and began my office. The peasant halted me. He took my hand and placed it upon that of his wife. It was as cold as the gathering winter, yet a fire seemed to leap from it, through my fingers and up my arm. I closed my eyes to block out the vision before me, hoping that the peasant would mistake my shaking for a response to the chill.

Again I heard that tinkle.

I resolved at that moment to finish my prayer and to leave the place forthwith. The peasant, however, was of another mind. With many movements of his hands (and because his language owes so much to Latin) the man conveyed to me his intentions.

He, as I, must needs make a journey before the season of snow. He wished to walk to the nearest town, a distance of a day and a half, to purchase some winter provisions. Until now he had not dared to leave her alone, for fear that she might expire without his ministrations. Now I could care for her during his absence.

At this a great terror seized me. How should I manage, left alone for four days with the creature who had so unnerved me? I demurred, and offered to make the journey myself. I could not admit to him the processes of my mind, although no man should willingly leave his woman to the sole attention of another.

The peasant shook his head, and took me outside. Pointing to his donkey, he indicated that he alone had mastery of the brute, and that it would be impossible to bear home his provisions without it. He then indicated my vestments, as if to declare his trust in my profession. My expostulations had no further effect. The peasant prepared for his journey and, it being shortly after the middle of the day, set forth.

Misgivings overwhelmed me as I watched him go. Oh, my dear mentor, how alone I felt at that moment! I hastened to the stream, and dashed water in my face. Cleanse my heart, O Lord. Four days. With God’s grace I would survive four days. The Almighty speed that peasant in his errands.

I devoted the remainder of the afternoon outside to hard labour, chopping, splitting and stacking firewood, and towards nightfall began a fire to warm the cottage. The woman slept much of that time. I caught myself gazing at her unconscious glory. At one time, suddenly fearful, I drew close to ascertain her breathing. As I bent low over her breast, the sound again reached me of a tiny bell.

In the evening, I essayed to encourage my precious charge to eat, and was delighted when she sipped some of the broth and even chewed a little of the solid food. She being too weak to raise herself, I was obliged to cradle her head and to bring the bowl to her cold lips. She was to me, as I did this, as a porcelain figurine, of infinite fragility and delicacy.

I can envision you, my mentor, dread growing in your heart as you read of my idolatry. For such, as I now confess, it was. The promise, however, that I would be released from this thrall within four days gave me strength, for I knew with the wisdom of years that once I was free of that place and on my journey the thought of her would fade.

Even as I lay her head again upon its rest, I heard that tiny bell. The sound having come from without, I glanced towards the opening in the door. Darkness had all but swallowed the day. Against that greying light, I was startled to espy a darker shape, and within that shape a yellow eye.

How I started, almost dropping the food bowl in my fright. For that eye stared at me as a serpent’s might. Indeed, it had the aspect of a serpent’s, with narrow pupil and unblinking stare. Greater, however, than my fright at its appearance was the effect it had upon me, for in that instant I felt my secret thoughts exposed, and that I was undone.

Rising hastily, I threw wide the door. The owner of the eye was gone. From the trees came a tinkle, or was it the sound of the brook?

You may imagine the effect of this event upon me, beloved mentor, for in our training we learn to recognise dissimulation within ourselves, and I could now see how perilously my mind had been entertaining those thoughts which can lead to perdition. I fell to my knees and recited my evening prayers, receiving as I did a measure in return of holy peace.

The peasant’s hut had room enough only for the rough bed, a table with stools and some space before the fire. I contrived to fashion a bed of straw by the table and, after ascertaining the state of my patient, lay down to sleep.

I awoke in the night to find the air warmer; more so than could be accounted for by the ebbing fire. In the rafters above I could discern meat and herbs, onions, garlic and other stores hung up for winter. Their shapes shifted as the fire’s last flames flared and guttered.

Then I saw the face.

It watched me through hollow eyes. A great lump of fear gathered at my throat as I made out its contours: long and narrow with, at its crown, a pair of pointed horns. Try as I might I could discern no body behind it. The face simply hung there above me, motionless, malevolent.

I rose upon my elbow, willing the cords of sleepiness to fall from me that I might be ready for my soul’s battle. The face stayed steady.

“Vade retro,” I muttered. “In nomine Domini, be gone.”

A sound from the far side of the hut bade me hasten to the sick bed. The woman now was hot with fever. I glanced into the rafters. The face was not to be seen. I grasped the jug and slipped through the door. The stream was icy cold. Above, low clouds glowered in the moonlight. Against them the circling trees seemed to wait, still and quiet in the warm air. I shivered.

Attending to the woman, I held to her brow a damp cloth and administered sips of water. Her fever grew, and her agitation with it. She pushed off her blankets and writhed this way and that. Even in that darkened room, the glow from the embers was enough to reveal to me her form as it twisted and arched.

Oh, unhappy man! How brief had been my reprieve. The feelings that now assailed me redoubled in their ferocity. I shut my eyes. I blocked my ears, filling them with the muffled sound of my own chants.

The woman seized my arm and pulled me to her. Oh, Jesus, have mercy. Did she, in her delirium, imagine me to be her husband? How many years since I had felt the embrace of a woman, and I had thought never to do so again? I held her to myself as she tossed against me. What perversity was this, to find such pleasure in the agonies of the afflicted?

The night deepened. At last the fever reached a peak, and broke. The woman’s heaving breaths subsided, attaining at length the slow rhythm of sleep. I dared not move for fear of waking her, yet feared also that she may find me beside her in the morning and believe the worst. Heart pounding, I dared to brush with my lips the nape of her neck.

A small bell tinkled from beyond the door.

This time I seized a poker before emerging from the hut. There on the sward stood a goat, dungeon-black. It fixed me with its yellow eyes.
“Who art thou, fiend?” I croaked. “And what is thine errand?”

At this the goat turned and made off. I followed it through the trees. Around its neck a bell tinkled; a sound not gay but flat, and the menace of it grew upon me.

The moon now being low, the darkness was profound, and I all but lost my quarry, but for the bell which led me on. I held the poker before me and called upon the holy names of the saints to guard my steps.

All at once that great cold enveloped me again. A gust of wind assailed the trees about me, masking the sound of the bell. I stepped forward and — oh, horror! — found no purchase for my foot and fell headlong into a pit.

Above me roared the trees. I gasped to regain my breathing and felt about me. The pit seemed freshly dug, and as I regained my powers I discerned that it was deeper than I was tall, barely wider than a man and about as long. Terror gripped me. This was a grave. I cried out to the turbulent trees and fell silent.

The fall had rendered useless my left arm, and I feared that this might settle my fate, for how should I clamber out with such a handicap? A bell tinkled above and the baleful face of the goat looked over, its yellow eyes gleaming, and was gone.

In deepest despair I fell to my haunches and buried my face in my hands. “What evil is at work here?” I wondered. “At every turn I am led to my doom. Yet who is it that leads me but myself?” Then I felt a snowflake fall upon my hand.

In the darkness of that moment I recalled the tales of winter mummery amongst those peoples, of masks of creatures human and otherwise, and of one play in particular, of a goat which haunts the grave of the dead.

Snow now fell thickly on me and about me. The cold increased. I remembered my charge alone in the hovel. If I were to perish here, so would she, I thought. The loss of an exiled priest might cause little grief, but that she should perish as a consequence of my folly would be a grievous thing.

I remembered the poker I had carried and cast about for it. Here it was! How lucky I was not to have impaled myself upon it as I fell.

I rammed the poker’s tip into the wall of the grave at about chest height, attacking from an angle and straightening the poker as it went deeper to make it perpendicular to the surface. Then I did the same on the opposite wall. In this way I was able to suspend the poker between the two sides. Setting my back against one wall and my feet against the other, and pulling also upon the poker with my good arm, I worked my way up until I could set my feet upon it. From here the top of the pit was little more than waist height, and I found that I could topple myself out to freedom.

But where was I? Any tracks I or the goat might have left were covered by the thickening snow. I listened. Faint and far off came the sound of water. I stumbled towards it and, oh, glory, came again upon the hut.

Inside, the beauty lay still asleep, and the chill upon her had returned. I stoked the fire and began this tale.

For I now believe that I shall never leave this place. The snows have come, and I am alone with a creature whose power over me is almost complete. Her husband will be prevented from returning, and I am lost.

Beyond these walls is the dark creature who awaits my degradation, and who has prepared the place where I shall lie.

Hark, she stirs, and I must go to her.