Braszova

by Pil Lee

31 October, All Hallows Eve
1781

To His Eminence, Cardinal St Alban, SJ.

Your Grace

I have taken to musing lately on the success of my mission as your ambassador to this distant land. It seems to me that increasingly I spend my time in the most fraught of circumstances, helping others with more secular or even pagan exigencies, in amidst fighting demons of my own.

Bringing the Word to these outlandish people is much more difficult than I thought it would be, despite my training as a Soldier of Our Lord.

So it was with relief that I found lodging in the small town of Braszova. Even before I lowered my pack to the floor I questioned my landlady keenly about any supernatural events, preterhuman mysteries or otherwise metaphysical or spectral phenomena.

She looked at me most strangely, and I assumed she would henceforth be giving me a wide berth, but she was able to assure me to my satisfaction that this is the quietest and most uneventful of towns.

I had one glorious day walking its streets in the autumn sun before people began to die.

I learnt of it immediately, for hearing that there was a Christian priest newly in town, the family of the draper’s wife asked me to read her the last rites. I didn’t find this unusual for I had already learnt of the exorbitant sums charged by gypsy priests and their ilk for performing the most simple ceremonies.

The poor woman was lying in her bedroom above the Draper’s Shop and I could see at a glance that she had already passed on. When I had finished blessing her, her husband pulled me to the side and beseeched me for the cause of her death.

“But don’t you have a doctor?” I asked him.

“Yes yes,” he said in the rough northern dialect, tears welling in his eyes. “But he says she has had a heart attack. My Maya, a heart as strong as an ox! He does not know the answer. You must help me, Bon Preot.”

I knew there was nothing I could do in the way of diagnosis but he was so distraught that I promised to speak to the doctor right away.

Finding him in his rooms, I explained my mission and apologised for my interference.

“Not at all, not at all,” he replied. “But there is no other explanation, I am afraid. It is very sad, she was still quite young, but she must have had a weak heart without us realising it. There were no other signs of illness at all.” He asked me to stay for tea which I accepted most gratefully.

He introduced the matronly woman who bought in our beverage as his wife, Marena. “I am sorry to tell you my dear,” he said, “but Maya has been taken from this life.”

“I have already heard,” said Marena, taking the remaining chair. Immediately two cats jumped into her lap and she stroked their fur as she shook her head sadly. “And only two days ago I took her one of my new quilts as a gift for the coming winter.”

We both shook our heads sadly with her and, after sundry pleasantries, I took my leave.

I strolled to the other end of town and climbed an ancient crumbling tower that perched a little drunkenly on the cliff above the sea. I imagined myself taking a break from my endless journeying and making a little Christian church here in Brasznova, with this tower as my campanile, and getting to know the gentle people and introducing them to God.

It was with a head still full of pleasant dreams that I was awoken the next morning by the doctor himself. I brushed away his fulsome apologies and accompanied him to the nearby home of the town seamstress.

“I don’t know how I will be much help, dear Sir,” I told him as I scattered a blessing above the brow of the golden haired figure in the bed. “The family hasn’t even asked for the last rites.”

“I know,” said the doctor, “And normally I wouldn’t have truck with a clergyman, thieving mongrels, forgive me, but I have travelled in the outside world and I’ve heard that Jesuits are men of knowledge. This poor girl here, struck down in the prime of life, seems to me just like Maya last night, the victim of a masive heart attack. And it comes to my mind that there was another, not three weeks ago, Lottye the daughter of the cooper, who had a heart attack in her sleep as well.”

“This is terrible,” I said as I followed him out into the morning air. “Do you think they have all suffered from the same hidden illness?”

The doctor pursed his lips and shook his head. “They weren’t friends, the three of them, and hardly ever saw each other. I can’t think of any activity they would do that would bring them into contact with each other. There are others, their families and customers, who they see every day. Why isn’t the illness spreading throughout the whole village? No,” he said, and he leaned in close to me even though there was no-one else about at that hour. “I think this is what you came here to find, Bon Preot.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I protested but he stayed my words with a swift hushing motion.

“Word had spread, even before you arrived, that there was a priest, a vend˚t, travelling through the countryside to defeat the evil spirits who have long plagued our land. And Madam Voski told me that you started your investigations by questioning her as soon as you arrived. Tell me what it is, I beg you. What have you followed to our innocent town. What is the evil that has entered our hearts?”

I must confess to you, Your Grace, as I have had no access to the confessional and it has weighed on my mind, that I thought a most unholy and profane word.

I tried to explain that I actually come here for a rest, and eventually the good doctor believed me. But then of course we were both aware that, regardless of my intent in visiting his town, the fact was that something terrible was taking place for which there seemed no earthly reason.

“Are you quite sure there was nothing wrong with the seamstress before last night,” I asked, desperate for any natural and commonplace cause.

“Positive,” was his firm reply. “My wife and I visited her just yesterday morning.”

“Did you give her any medicine,” I asked. “Any tonic or elixir that may have disagreed with her.”

“No nothing,” he said. “We were here for a very short time, so that my wife could drop off a winter quilt for her. She looked in the best of health – as pretty and rosy a girl as you could imagine. It was a terrible thing to find her lying in there, twisted about in the bed with the pain of the attack still clear on her face.”

As there was nothing more I could add, we soon parted ways, the doctor extracting a reluctantly promise to pursue all the supernatural avenues he supposed me an expert at.

Back in my lodgings I made sure my cross was securely fastened about my neck, and with slight embarrassment I secreted a clove of garlic in my hosen. I could think of no other precautions to take, but I ventured forth secure with my bible clearly visible in my hand, daring any heathen demon to fight against both me and The Lord.

I wanted to convince the doctor to carry a cross about his person as well while we dealt with these mysterious deaths and so made my way at once to his residence. His wife Marena received me, stitching patiently at some large swathe of cloth while her cats wound themselves around her as before. The doctor was out on errands so I gave her my message and she promised to pass it on as soon as possible. Out of politeness, I asked her what she was working at.

It is another winter quilt, she said. Everyone looks forward to them so much, and I enjoy making them each autumn – it whiles away the time while Georg is at work.

That reminded me what the doctor had said about the seamstress and I asked her if she had known her well.

“Not really that well at all,” said Marena. “Tanya was very young and pretty and not really interested in socialising with someone as old and boring as me.” She gave a small smile and I hastened to reassure her that there was nothing old and boring about her. She laughed merrily. “No no, do not leap to my defence, good Father, the young are always the same.”

We agreed happily on that, though it put me to wondering how much in looks I had aged this past harrowing year. A last thought struck me as I was about to leave. “Maya was young too, wasnt she?”

“Oh yes, not as young as the Tanya, but a pretty thing never the less. But a bit lazy, I’m sorry to speak ill of the dead. It was lucky that I gave her one of my quilts for she would never have made her own before winter began.”

I finally took my leave and made my way thoughtfully back to the draper’s house. It had struck me that Marena had made quilts for both young, pretty women who had died and I wondered if she had made one for Lottye, the cooper’s daughter as well.

The draper welcomed me in, though his eyes were red from weeping, and let me go back into his wife’s bedroom. From the look in his eye I could tell that he had the same suspicions about a supernatural cause as the doctor, and perhaps the rest of the town, and he left me alone trustingly to carry out my own investigations.

I picked up the thick quilt on the bed and saw the same workmanship as the one Marena had been working on in her parlour. I scanned it carefully, looking for any abnormalities, then I lay it on the floor and ran over it very slowly with my hand, pushing into the down. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to find, maybe a poisoned needle or something equally as ludicrous, but there was nothing, just a luxurious softness. “This is a very good quilt, “ I thought to myself.

Just then the door opened and the doctor burst inside. “I was told you were in here,” he gasped, out of breath. “Come quickly, there has been another death.” We ran down the steps together and along the lane to a waiting carriage. We leapt in and raced away, out of the town and along the eastern road.

“Where are we going?” I cried, clutching the sides of the rocking coach.

“To the Palazzo,” he said. “The most awful thing has happened. This time it is the Count’s wife!” We clattered through old elaborate iron gates and lurched to a stop at the the doors of a fine residence. Rushing inside we were shown into the master bedroom where a beautiful woman in silk and lace lay dead upon the sheets.

The doctor cried aloud and flew to her side, though it was obvious there was nothing to be done, but my attention was caught by the edge of a bulky quilt wrapped around the body and the sheets.

I excused myself from the room and rushed out to the carriageway. Take me to the doctor’s house immediately,” I cried to the driver. “There is something he requires.”

We were back in town in a short time and I took the stairs two at a time. Not even waiting to knock I entered and confronted Marena, sitting calmly as always, stitching away.

“The Countess is dead,” I told her without preamble. She looked up at me and then put her hand to her mouth and gave a little cry, but it was too late. I had seen her face as I made the announcement and there had been no surprise, no shock. She already knew.

“How have you done it,” I demanded of her. “How have you killed these young innocent women?”

“Innocent?” she almost spat at me. Then she controlled herself. “I haven’t killed anyone, good father, but as for those girls being innocent, surely you, a man of God, would abhore their pride at their youth and good looks, their silly preening and immodesty, their cruel thoughtless disdain of anyone who wasn’t as young and pretty as them.”

“How did you do it,” I demanded again and before she could move I snatched the new quilt off her lap and took it to the window to examine it closely. She rose and tried to take it back from me and we struggled across the rug. Just as I thought I had it she gave one last heave and it ripped in two, the flying edges knocking the table lamp to the floor with an almighty crash.

We stood panting, each holding onto our half as the door opened and the manservant rushed into the room.

“Madam, madam,” he cried. “Are you alright.”

“This man has attacked me,” she declared, flinging her hand at me. “Make him leave at once.”

He looked at both of us in confusion. “But this is the priest,” he said, taken aback.

Before she could speak again I thrust my half of the quilt at her servant. “What is this, good fellow?” I pulled out a handful of the wadding. “What is this stuffed with? Is it duck down? Is it goose feather?”

He took the soft stuff from me and shook his head in puzzlement. “I don’t know, Father,” he said. “I’ve never seen its like.”

Just then the household cats made their customary appearance, winding their way up onto the sofa, and I realised in a blinding flash what it was I held in my hand.

“It’s cat fur,” I said in amazement.

I picked up a cat and held it up to Marena, standing silent now and still. In the other hand I held up a clump of stuffing so that it rested against the cat’s fur. They were identical. I gaped at the animal, hardly comprehending how much fur would have to be collected to fill an entire quilt. I brandished them at her. “You killed them with cat fur,” I cried.

We all stood in stunned silence for a moment, then the servant gave a polite cough and Marena laughed out loud.

“My dear Father,” said Marena sweetly, “I think that perhaps the demons have got to your mind. How could I kill someone with cat fur?”

I stood, dumbfounded and at a loss, when a voice spoke up from the doorway.

“I know how,” said the doctor sadly behind us.

He advanced into the room and took the handful of stuffing from me. “How ingenious,” he murmured. “So soft, so warm and so deadly to anyone with a common everyday cat allergy lying under the quilt all night. Fast asleep as their throat swells and their membranes engorge, until they wake, fighting for breath and then their heart stops from the shock.”

“But how could I possibly know who had a cat allergy or not,” said Marena.

“You didn’t care,” I realised. “You didn’t care which of the pretty young things died from your quilts, if at least some of them did.” I gazed at her in wonder. “I have fought some hideous things in my time, and run from a good many more, but you are the face of true evil, Marena. You, a human being, who doesn’t care who lives or dies as long as you can wreak a little revenge against the god of aging.”

I turned to the doctor and I could see in his eyes that he felt the same way. I left them to each other, trusting in the law of the town to put things right, and made my way to my rooms to collect my things.

I saw now that it was wrong of me to want to settle down somewhere peaceful and tend a quiet flock. My talent was for crusading against evil, in whatever guise it might appear, and God was reminding me of it once again.

So now I write to you once more, Your Grace, confident again in the work I am doing and request only one thing.

Where next?

Your son in Christ,
Canis SJ