Archangel

by Pil Lee

Archangel

Approximately the 3rd of January 1783

To His Eminence, Cardinal St Alban, SJ.

Your Grace

It is almost a year since our last correspondence. And indeed it may be much more by the time you receive this short missive.

Not short because I have little to tell. Quite the reverse is the case. But rather because of the ink left in my well. I have no access to any other, and the quill is starting to scrape the bottom of the glass.

I will be brief.

You will recall that the people of Archangel had begged Paris for a priest. Gregoriev delivered your request and I went about making plans for my journey to that most foreign place.

As I discovered, Archangel sits nestled on the edge of the White Sea, north west of Romania, above St Petersburg and, as I have had heard told, is one of the last ports on the way to the fabled North Pole.

I hoped Gregoriev would accompany me, but he had urgent business elsewhere, no doubt on your instruction. At that time I was close to the port of Constanta, so I questioned the local sea captains about passage to the White Sea. Although I have learnt many fascinating and truly unexpected things in this strange land, my knowledge of its surrounding geography is still in its formative stage. I had assumed that I would be able to travel up the Black Sea by boat, then take the Dniprov River all the way to St Petersburg, then overland to the coast. All the captains disabused me of this ignorant notion, and it seemed that the only sensible route all the way to the White Sea was down the Black Sea, through the Bosphorus, along the Mediterranean and through the Straits of Gibraltar and then up past the North and Norwegian Seas. A trip of near despair for a landsman like myself, but there was nothing for it. I certainly couldn’t walk all the way to Archangel, and there were no serfs or carriers who would venture with me through the steppes and wastes of southern Russia.

With stops for commercial business along the route, my estimated travel time by sea was a year. I grieved for the folk of Archangel, not knowing what horrors they were facing, but I am but a servant of the Lord, not His miraculous self, and with a heavy heart I booked passage on a stout merchant ship.

Departure was next morning and, as I had only a local serving woman to whom to bid adieu, I was ready to leave my rooms after Lauds at 5am. What happened next is still clouded in my mind, but it seemed that a very strong man overpowered me from behind and enveloped me in a feathered sack. I struggled vigorously, fearing local brigands, but to no avail. I was swept off my feet and then lifted up with some force. I imagined myself in the back of a carriage or wagon, but nestled on something extremely soft, for there were few bumps and jolts even though it felt we were travelling at great speed. From this I took comfort, cold as it may have been, as it appeared my kidnapper had tried to make my voyage comfortable. I tried to escape my sack for many hours, but could not so I must confess in the end I just fell asleep, exhausted.

Your Grace, my ink is almost dry and I am meandering into too much detail. I must concern myself with the mission entrusted to me, so I will try to address the facts.

Etiénne, have you ever been this alone?

I travelled for many, many days in that sack. I had no food nor water and I was near delirious with thirst. The sack became all things to me. Travel compartment, toilet, bedchamber, prison, home. The stink and the blackness seemed like real demons, surrounding and suffocating me. It was only the softness of my gaol, the extra-ordinary, almost spiritual speed of my journey, that kept me sane.

At last the craft in which I travelled was still. It was such a shock after so long in motion that I lay supine with no reaction. The covering of feathers was peeled away from me and I gazed at a face so beautiful and luminous that I swear, even if I was in full control of my senses, still I would have gaped stupidly.

“Pére,” he said gently, “Save my people. Their plight is an abomination.”

Then rougher arms took me and stood me upright. I saw that I was in a town square, but looking about woozily I could not see my vehicle of both torture and kindness. Instead I faced a vast crowd that had gathered in the square.

A woman at their head marched forward and planted herself before me.

“Are you the Jesuit,” she demanded in a coarse dialect I could barely understand.
I replied in French but she looked at me blankly and scowled. Still off balance, starving and parched, I spoke to her in Latin.

“Yes, I am a Jesuit,” I croaked, adding desperately, “I need water.”

The woman’s expression didn’t change but a man behind her barked instructions and a young girl hastened forth with a cold pitcher.

I drank feverishly, aware of nothing but the glory of water, but when I had had my fill I picked out my saviour from the crowd.

“Thankyou,” I said slowly to him in Latin. “What is this place.”

He advanced to stand before me. “This is Archangel,” he said. And then he bowed low before me and kissed my filthy hand.

As if on queue, all present bowed low as well, some actually prostrating themselves on the ground.

“Thankyou for coming to our aid,” he said.

I nodded, humbled, but hastened to let them know my own plight.

“Indeed I have come to help you, but I fear my journey has been less than kind.” The man looked at me without expression and I felt anger rear its head.

“If you had your own means of transporting me, why didn’t you let me know instead of abducting me and keeping me starving for so long!”

The man and woman exchanged glances, and it was then I realised she could understand Latin as well. I rounded on her, exhausted and at the end of my tether.

“I need food, and water, and a bed, Madam,” I said sternly. “Then when I have rested we can discuss your needs and whatever horror you are facing.”

She faced me squarely. “My name is Mariya,” she said with a defiant tilt of her head, “and there is no time for that.”

At her gesture, at least six young strong village fellows stepped forward and started to pull me through the square. I shouted to the other man who had first helped me, but he averted his eyes and disappeared behind the now shouting crowd.

Men and women who had bowed to me only a few moments before were now jostling my manhandlers, urging them on through the city streets and down towards the deep blue harbour which loomed into view.

At the end of the main pier, rimed with frost above a freezing sea, a tiny coracle awaited.

I struggled with all my strength, crying out for someone to tell me what was going on, and exhorting them that I was only there to help them, but I was pushed onto the tiny vessel without mercy.

The boat was untied and shoved off without ceremony, the jerky waves moving it away from the pier, almost before I could even register that there were no oars.

I stood up shakily on its calked wooden boards and faced Mariya across the choppy harbour.

“I am here to help you,” I cried. “What foolery is this.”

Mariya joined her hands as if in prayer. “The angel has promised us a sacrifice,” she said, her voice deepening and booming out to all who surrounded. “A sacrifice that will cleanse our sins and spare us from all horrors.”

I shook my head, aghast, then tried to use all the force of reason at my disposal. My God, how had this nightmare happened so quickly?

“Mariya,” I called, “God’s angels do not ask you to sacrifice his own. They do not ask for sacrifice at all.”

“Our Archangel does,” she said, for my ears alone. Then she turned and shouted to the people of the village, lined along the docks, “And we rejoice in your offering, O son of God, so that we may live free.”

The crowd cheered and threw flowers in the water, as my little vessel was washed further and further away from them.

I cried out again and again, pleading for reason and praying for help, but gradually all land disappeared from view.

I realise that I am heading due north now, pulled by the will of one I suspect stopped being an Archangel long, long ago. There is no land in my path, and has not been for many starving weeks. I am sustained by something, I know not what, but at times it feels like this boat is cushioned in the softest down.

I have taken celestial readings with my cross-staff and I suspect I may be near to the Pole. But I may as well be on the Moon. I see no hope of rescue, for no other traveller has ever come so far and returned to tell the tale. And I do not presume that the Lord will risk the lives of other journeymen to save one poor Jesuit. But in my heart I feel that He may allow my coracle to land near whatever outlandish people inhabit the land at the very top of the world, and that they in turn may one day pass this note on to you.

In my dreams, which now seem to fill all my hours, waking or not, I am often visited by the Archangel. And He bathes me with his light and beckons me to him over the water. My Jesuit brain tells me he is a phantom, but as a man long out of food and water, and almost out of ink and paper, I hope you will forgive me, Eminence, when I say that I just may follow.

Remember me.

Your son in Christ,
Canis SJ