S. P. Somtow - An Alien Heresy.pdf - S. P. Somtow - widez2

AN ALIEN HERESY

by S.P. Somtow

S.P. Somtow was born in Thailand, grew up in Europe, and had a career in music in

the 1970s before emigrating to America. “A Day in Mallworld,” his first story for

Asimov’s (as Somtow Sucharitkul), appeared in our October 1979 issue. After

numerous stories for us, he tells us he “graduated to fantasy, horror, and

historical novels; went off to a monastery in Thailand; reemerged as a composer

of operas; and founded the Bangkok Opera.” Although he has been very busy

writing and premiering grand operas, he found he’d hit a fiction writer’s block that

lasted for seven years. That dry spell broke suddenly with the penning of “An Alien

Heresy.” This science fiction story offers the reader an intensely disconcerting

look at a medieval inquisitor’s reaction to the unknown.

A word of warning: there are scenes in this story that may be disturbing to some

readers.

* * * *

I am not a heretic. I am a being from another world. I am lost. Send me home, I

beg you.

You may say I am young to be an inquisitor, but in my brief existence in this

world I have not remained unexposed to evil. For, in the Fourteen Hundred and

Fortieth Year of Our Lord, I was a novice in the service of the Bishop of Nantes,

and because I could scribe a fair round cursive hand, I was often called upon to

set down confessions of such horror that it is hard to think of them even years

later without a shudder; I mean revelations of deviltry, sorcery, and heresy as

would awaken doubt in the stoutest believer, and drive the purest of souls into

the abyss of despair.

Thanks to that legible hand, I was appointed one of the scriveners at the

trial of Gilles de Rais, called Bluebeard, and I was compelled to write down,

dispassionately and accurately, descriptions of the mutilation of small children,

onanistic rituals, and perversions I had never even imagined. And when at last the

Marshall of France came to be burned at the stake, I was asked to expunge some

of the more lurid details from the record, for fear that the truth might give too

much distress to future generations; and so my much-vaunted penmanship

proved to be mere vanitas . What was torn from the pages, however, could not be

expunged from our souls. We were scarred by it, and it still gives us nightmares.

Yet even that infamous trial could not prepare me for my encounter with

the lost soul who claimed to have come from another world. It was only through

the sternest self-discipline that I managed to survive the interrogation with my

soul, to all appearances, intact.

The Gilles de Rais case was a dozen years ago, and now I was returning to

Tiffauges, that cursed place where Bluebeard perpetrated his crimes. I was to

investigate a new incident. It was a simple, open-and-shut case, just the kind of

thing a junior inquisitor can handle in a week’s work. His Grace the Bishop of

Nantes used to favor me, and often assigned me such routine cases, which help

one to rise in the bureaucracy of the church and are not intellectually taxing.

These were the details: a fire from the sky. A strange man, mud-soaked,

naked, seen by the river’s edge. A strange man with strange eyes. Perhaps a

demon; more likely a natural man, or a village idiot who had wandered back to the

wrong village. I was either to quell their superstitions or, if necessary, act as the

proper representative of the Church Militant.

Routine indeed. But of course no one wanted to travel to Tiffauges. I could

feel the gloom long before I came in sight of the castle. Only three days by oxcart it

might have been, but it felt as though I had left the world of men and entered a

kingdom of ghosts. Beyond the hamlet of St. Hilaire de Clisson, it seemed that the

sky became perpetually gray. Though it was already March, much snow still lay on

the ground. The River Crame was still part frozen, and, where it joined the Sévre

Nantaise, which is where the castle stands, ice clanged against ice.

When we arrived in the village, the sun was already going down. We were

well stocked with provender, and we had brought all the instruments for the

Question with us, in case none could be found locally. Ahead of me rode two

knights, or rather a knight and his squire. I had not bothered to find out their

names. In the cart with me sat Brother Paolo, a Roman musician and general

note-taker, the dour-faced Brother Pierre, and the ever-smiling Jean of Nantes, a

genial fellow, by avocation a barber, by trade a torturer. And I, of course, another

Jean of Nantes—how many are there, I wonder?—who am called Lenclud.

A few hours behind us marched the secular arm, a small detail of a dozen

foot soldiers and a captain on horse; they would reach the village by midnight,

perhaps, and would camp in the field.

My traveling companions had been garrulous all through the journey. Now,

in the sunset, they could all feel the oppression in this village. No children played in

the one muddy path that ran through the center, where stood a well. The huts

were hushed. One, a little larger, seemed to pass for an inn. A bit of light came

from within and there had been noise, although the sound of our horses and oxen

seemed to still it.

“We should press on,” I called out to the knights, our escort. “It’s barely

one league to the castle.”

The chateau had been abandoned since the trial, but it must at least have

walls, and a fireplace, and a room in which to conduct interrogations.

“We’ll put up in the inn,” said the elder of the two.

I had certain reasons for avoiding that, but they were not reasons I could

admit. I said, “Sir chevalier, another hour’s riding at best will bring us to a place

with stone walls; we’ll have a roaring fire and we’ll be able to sleep in real beds.

And not have to pay,” I added, for the execution of Gilles de Rais had made his

lands temporarily forfeit to the church, until such time as all the rights and papers

were sorted out.

“All very well for you to say, mon pére,” said the knight. “But think of us.

And my squire’s frightened; he’s heard the stories.”

The younger one turned around and I saw that he was, indeed, younger

than I had thought from just seeing the back of his head for three days; but I had

to hold to my word, lest authority be lost. It is in our training.

“We’re not here to disrupt the village,” I said. “The inquisition is not a

circus. Let’s get to the castle as quickly as possible, set up, and have the case

brought to us properly.”

“As you wish,” said the knight.

But at that moment the inn door flew open. There were faces I knew; the

innkeeper, even more grizzled than when last I saw him, some villagers who had

given evidence in the matter of the Marshall of France; but I did not yet see the

face I most dreaded to see, and so I breathed a sigh of relief. My traveling

companions must have mistaken it for relief at seeing that this was not, after all, a

village of ghosts.

“Father Lenclud,” the innkeeper said, “it’s best you came in.”

I started to protest, “We are bound for Tiffauges,” but he interrupted me.

“What you want,” he said, “is all in here.”

The door opened wider. We saw tables inside, and we could smell a rabbit

stew on the pot. There was a smoky light and the air heated up just a little; I could

see the others were tired, and perhaps, perhaps the person I wished to avoid was

no longer there. After all, it had been ten years; no, twelve. Perhaps I was safe

after all. Perhaps she had gone away.

And in the grand scheme of things, it was, perhaps, a smallish sin, for which

I had suffered seven painful penances already.

We piled inside, leaving our cart and our belongings unguarded; for who

would steal from God? and we were offered benches inside; there were villagers

there, and children, too, scurrying in the shadows; the walls were sooty and

greasy; but the fire blazed, and the stew was filling.

The innkeeper said nothing while we ate, except to remind me of his name,

which was Henri. I learned at supper that our knight was another Jean of Nantes;

but this one we called Johan, because he had a Flemish mother.

It was only when we had eaten our fill that Henri was ready to tell us why

the villagers had sent a letter to His Grace in Nantes.

“We’ve got him locked in the cellar,” he said.

“And he is well rested, and has eaten?” It is true that we torture people, but

we do love them; I never want to begin an investigation with threats and violence;

that comes all too soon.

“Yes, he’s eaten all right.”

“Twelve fish,” said a woman from the back. “I counted them myself. Raw.

And all the bones. You’ve never heard such a crunching sound, mon pére!

Frightened out of our wits, we was.”

“Bid her come out of the shadows,” I said, “she seems to have a lot to say.”

And I regretted it as soon as I said it, because when she stepped into the light I

recognized her, as I should have from the voice.

She knew me too. But she had the courtesy to lower her gaze, and gave no

sign of it. In the firelight, in her grubby peasant shift, she was still beautiful,

though. I looked longer than I ought to have. I was glad I had remembered to pack

the flagellum.

“Your name?” I asked her, already knowing the answer.

“I am Alice, mon pére. I am the innkeeper’s wife.”

So she had married. How much did the innkeeper know?

“Alice,” I said softly, “tell me about the man in the cellar. If it is indeed a

man; I have read the letter to the bishop, but we tend to view reports of devils in

the flesh with a degree of cynicism.”

The villagers looked at each other. Alice looked at me. Was there a hint of

reproach? She did not reveal much. In the void in the conversation, all we could

hear was the sizzle from the fireplace.

“Children, come out now,” the innkeeper said at last, speaking at the

shadows and at the space under the stairs. “The inquistor won’t hurt you.”

I realized then what it was that had subdued the noise. It was fear.

‘You have to forgive us,” Henri said, “they haven’t trusted many people

since ... you know.”

Three children emerged. One was a little girl with stringy hair, perhaps

seven; an older girl, on the cusp of womanhood, her shapeless smock belying an

incipient voluptuousness. The two girls curtsied. Then there was the boy. He was

perhaps eleven; he had long blonde hair, a dirty face, and clear blue eyes. He

seemed so familiar ... I could not place him ... he did not look at me at all. But Alice

did. At me and him. And in that awkward moment I understood everything, and I

knew that her marriage must have been loveless, born from desperation.

“They saw him,” the innkeeper said. “They’ll tell you.”

“We’re not to tell him anything,” said the boy, defiant. “They’re going to

burn him at the stake. He’s our friend.”

“Let the church be the judge of that now, Guillaume,” Alice said. Was her

voice not edged with cynicism?

“Guillaume, sit by me,” I said, with all the gentleness I could muster. “Tell

me of your friend.” I reached out to touch his cheek. He flinched quite visibly, but

overcame it, and sat on the bench. Meanwhile, the musician, the knight, and the

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