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alchemisland · 5 years

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Moors Mutt III - Beastbound (second edit)

Night fled day and I read the sky. Through bores a fiery sliver shone, conjuring fantastical images of a great city somewhere past the clouds, its denizens craning to the light's dying. I stood waiting for a sunrise which never came. In her place a bruised bank of laden clouds arrived to the beat of mjolnir's blows.

The storm, furious mute, spoke through our works. Droplets exploded musically, dull on timber, shrill on sheet, like crackling fire against thatch.

Lar the blackbird rose early, stretching and emerging from the fugue state that best pleased his constitution, his wingspan filling the alcove.

Foot travel was impossible, even treacherous. Lar wouldn't have it. 'I know someone.' he said 'Unpaid tab, lovely spacious wagon. Hold tight.'

Lar inquired if I had thought in my wisdom to pack a rainmac, to which I said no. After deriding my urban foolishness he opted to lend me his own, an enormous caul like a bear pelt, waxy and unpleasant against my neck.

Unpaid tab, yes. Lovely wagon, no. Against the rising slope, his contraption strained. Its light frame shed water at every judder. We veered, almost fatally, at least twice, prompting a sudden whiteknuckled plee for forgiveness from whichever deity hated me, but the man knew his charge and kept us steady.

Soon the ground levelled and in relative peace I gelded the day's larger duties into manageable tasks. Ten had a certain motivating roundness. Ten labours set to Heracles condemned to misery by jealous Hera. Ten commandments from on high.

After a short time at work my mind lost its typical easy-focus. Each sentence I read twice or three times. At common words I stared with newfound curiousity. A single letter roused me, pertinent by its pompous wax rosette; a bill of sale for several oxgangs, including Talbot Church, to be sold to Lady Sizemore, with a transitory period of two hundred years during which no litigious action could be sought by either party for the purposes of solving any dispute of ownership. I paraphrase now, for each word writ was careful chosen.

There was little ambiguity as to the tone the bill's author Henry Wales, the estate's executor, attempted to convey. Beside the Lady's seal and sinister scrawl Henry, presuming wont to associate with the Sizemore name, printed his agency's crest, ruby pomegranates on a kylix with a lidded eye acentre.

Harder to discern, in an unpracticed hand was the seller's signature, a reluctant cluster of slanting characters keenly reflecting the scribe's defiance at his enforced shift, rudely contrasting the infernal airy loops of Mr. Wales and his evil brood at the Wales, DeLien & Hensonbore firm.

Perhaps fearing her legacy unworthy of envy, Lady Sizemore extended the empire's borders at considerable expense. In the same batch I found two drawings, the first a surveyor's border outline, the other a plan of the churchyard denoting nearby antiquities. Aside from the cairn, which for a thousand years stood its watch in front of Talbot Church, Lady Sizemore's purchase encompassed two dolmens, four standing stones, eight middens and one fulacht fiadh.

As I read, the cairn braced like a greatshield outside. Henry Wales' told me everything else in his correspondence - he was nothing if not thorough. He outlined the how of its shifting, even naming decent but affordable lackeys who wouldn't let the superstitions dissuade their good sense. I peered over my shoulder through the second floor window at the mound of the immense granite phallus, its pulsing micha veins dazzling in the scantest light. Virile and windworn, the stone in shifting lost little of its commanding presence, which had driven men of the Dawn Age prostrate. She took the winds gladly against her bulk like oil upon an anointed brow.

I wondered why she had closed the church. Why move the stone at all if she owned the lands. Surely enforcing a harsh penalty for trespassing to deter ramblers over time is easier than shifting a megalith. How the mind boggles.

Little else occurred. I found interesting some newspaper snippets concerning the then day's pugilistic affairs, to which the upper classes had enured themselves, to such degrees that even the leisurely apolitical pages of Country Living magazine included a column notating the latest heroes and villains of the prize ring - most from Broughton's.

Gull-winged Dan Donnelly was bold in Vetruvian repose. His shoulders wrapped the borders. I noted a scribble in the margin, not her Ladyship's hand, H's looping like drunk P's and S's like broken 8's; the person had written, 'Jew though he is, he is more twelve trys than twelve tribes.. Did you see that match last week? Mendoza has a head like a breastplate.' Witty, though I stayed my smile as punishment for his beastly opening stipulations, but he was right - Mendoza was incredible.

The day otherwise passed quickly. I worked mostly absent of mind. Near freedom the final banality seemed yet more soul destroying, but fortunately it was easily done. I signed the final field with flourish.

On the doorstep gazing out at the torrid tempest, for a brief moment Cairn Cottage seemed inviting. I cast a final backward glance. Inside Acrisian frames, there lay yesteryear's gentry in oils, frozen in perpetual offence.

As arranged Charon ferried me back to Sperrin. In the carriage I thought of Talbot Church. Desirous of its contour I pierced the veil of evening and through the smoking air rifled the horizon. I wished it a modest place, far from the ostentation of Cairn Cottage. The church loomed out there somewhere in the vild. I imagined a modest place, with trees once forming a wondrous girdle reclaiming their purloined land, where roots and shooted tentacles bored the aged concrete, flourished in the open and grew upward until the church itself resembled a pagan kingdom, a mask of blushing ivy hosting colonies of resident bats.

Outside Lar's, wet as it was possible to be, some queer curiosity took me and I paused on the threshold. Fingering the doorhandle, I brought my ear to the wood. Lar joked, joyous overmuch at his own humour. I turned the handle and let the door swing open. All attention on me, I let them drink in the sight of the soaked city rat. 'In you come.' A wave of relief swept Lar, which he wrestled into a piteous pout. Relief more that his finances were secure than any concern for my wellbeing.

Two drinks waited, patient as unconfessed sinners. He smiled as I peeled off the sopping mac and slung it across the chair back, nodding him his reluctant dues.

We feasted like sentenced men. For to uphold our strength we ate lashings of gravy thickened by meat juices, steaming Yorkshire puddings, slabs of succulent pork, bog mushy peas, and custard to follow.

We reclined afterwards. Fergus slipped the bolt unbidden when the small crowd shifted, loudly dragging his stool the short distance to our barside council. We traded nothings, batting pleasantries back and forth with all the vigour of two exhausted tennis players; he shamelessly imparting tall tales of field endeavors and cabbage patch dalliances; I feigning amusement, ascribing his stories more laughter than their content deserved, desperate to avoid frank discussion. I was eaten witless. My mind in grave custardy.

'Are we, like lantern thieves, away with the light?' Lar undid the top button of his trousers and swelled an inch before my eyes.

'We are.' I answered curtly.

'Handled a gun before?' Lar braced for a hasty response, which I gladly supplied.

'I have and don't intend to again. I'm not sure about guns.' Lar's brow furrowed. 'I believe with alternate ends, disagreements often arise.' I thought carefully and to his credit he waited patiently. 'How can I put this.. I don't want a fox hunt.'

'I never said it was.' Lar replied. 'If I might be bold, why hate the gun and not its wielder? Is a rifle always an instrument of terror no matter the context? On the shoulder of an adventurer piercing the interior, emboldened by its weight, is it the selfsame tool dispensing random death in the hands of a deranged?'

He continued on in a similar fashion for several minutes. After zoning out, I had to nod with extra vigor to his next points, just enough to convey attentiveness but not agreement.

Foam pooled at the corners of his mouth. 'It's a fool that lowers caution in victory! Wear these chains. Be it upon your head.'

I tried to interject, 'Lar, really that's a bit dram-'

He continued unabated, 'Should the beast prove strengthful and beguiling and somehow catch us unawares, it won't make a good look for that book of yours.'

Admiring of his passion, I had none to share. 'Any given situation is more likely to end in a leaden exchange with guns present, vise a vie, sans guns we are overall safer, despite feeling less protected individually.'

'Your charisma won't stop a beast. If in some desolate future you find yourself alone, bloodied and fatigued, you'll embrace your firearm like a lost lover and thank Mars for the gift of battle.' Empassioned, Lar slapped the bar.

'Point taken. I'll pack one. Don't intend on using it though. My only stipulation is that I choose my own gun.'

Pulling aside a rug Lar revealed a hatch, the entryway to his private cave of wonders. Fergus tossed the heavy door aside to reveal stone steps and a low unlit corridor. As he descended, candlelight revealed walls streaked and sticky with the dregs of drams spilled in violent melees.

He fetched the swaddled armoury and laid it for my reluctant perusal. I felt something like guilt looking at them. I couldn't pinpoint the feeling. Not a betrayal of principals; I am indignant, but I know my principals only matter until they don't fit my schedule. Nothing is too sacred to reconsider. Still, there was a lingering sense that I had wronged someone. My unease was perhaps a consequence of past lives lived conscience-free. When I rode with Cortez greedily discharging my sizzling firearm into the chest of a scout; when I stood a wart-faced archer at Agincourt and rained death across the mire, athwart a river of Francish blood.

I chose a revolver, its relative snugness more graceful than the longnecked pistols and bayonetted-rifles otherwise offered. Six shots, lightweight, swift off the hip.

Once the guns were again squirrelled away, we untensed with a fifth drink, and a sixth shortly thereafter.

'Have you a route in mind?' Lar slurred at length, his jaw shifting from side to side like a cow's chewing the cud.

'You tell me. You're the gun weilding adventurer.' I teased.

'I have some notions. Let's have one more drink. Don't go to bed bitter.' He fingered a bottle and seductively circled the cork, but his indecision had angered me.

'Notions are actions without legs! As joint expeditionaries, in name rather than eventual royalty I add, I offer no pronouncement on the route. What am I paying you for? Hardly your winning anecdotes. We're following your route to success or failure.' I departed, lifting the flap for myself this time.

Drink deep of nightwine and give to tumbling, so say the texts. I have read them all, from Hobbes' Essential Oneiria to Throughland's Night Study. Through the circle's end, overboard the sil of sanity I fell to a gallery of my own being, divided into layers, each some fractured facet of the whole, where each feeling untempered by its counterparts unfolded in wicked fullness; galleries of nudes in lust's royal academy, raging red the river of anger, rocky the paths untold which might have been. I saw shades of myself in every variation, vexing and charmful, until at last to the untamed plains I came, savage and noxious. It was there I found the church.

What place more apt for spiritual contrition than a chapel of the mind where only the clanking templar's ghost sat in solemn judgement, his observations vocalised in clanks and bumps, selfsame the thud of ladders against the walls of Jerusalem.

I perceived the structure was a mental construct, but its myriad details and idiosyncratic flourishes hinted at a verifiable corporeal existence. A modest church of grey stone, low ceilinged with a single stained glass. I crouched at the fingertips of a stumped transept, at the left hand of the scoured christ on the cruciform. Talbot, who took no pleasure, busied as was his charge. He stared at empty pews. His name I knew implicitly and his face was one familiar, even through the scrambled madness of dreams. He strained from the pulpit without address toward where I watched. I never moved. What should happen if i did? Nothing. No more than the wild sun stirs at the opening of a bud.

Pried from the altar in a chaos of streaming robes and flicking pages, he descended the stairs, alone carpeted, toward the front row where a soiled shovel propped. He took the shovel in hand gravely and exited the church.

Upon his return he came to where I stood. Of the shovel there was no sign. In its place he carried a banded scroll and a small wooden lockbox fit for its length. He placed them by his feet, swept his robes backward and with a trowel from his belt began chipping away over an existing foundational weakness, until the trowel stove and the trough of the block was splayed. When the scroll was placed and the box sealed, he hid it away inside then set to repairing the flagstone.

I woke shortly thereafter to thunderous footsteps. I feared the storm had abated little in the night. Conditions so adverse would delay our expedition, but as the cacophony continued it seemed closer, from within the house. I walked from the bed wrapped in a sheet and opened the door a sliver to see Fergus stomping up and down the corridor gathering supplies.

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dr-archeville · 7 years

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INDY Primer: Trump Says Everything Is Fine While a Duke Alum Seeks to Slash Legal Immigration + Other Things You Need to Know Today

Hey guys. It’s Thursday, which means it’s almost, which means it’s almost the weekend, which, at least for me, cannot come soon enough. Quick question before we begin. One of our corporate owners is in town this week, and he pronounces this thing prim-mer, whereas I and the others around here pronounce it pry-mer. I’m curious as to where your minds are on the subject. If you have any thoughts, email me at [email protected]. And with that bit of ephemera disposed with, we begin. —Jeffrey C. Billman

---

1. TRUMP: EVERYTHING’S FINE.

THE GIST: Last night, President Trump told Reuters that he doesn’t fault his son for meeting with a Moscow-linked lawyer who promised the campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Kremlin, and claimed once again that he had no idea until a few days ago. "I think many people would have held that meeting," Trump said. "It was a 20-minute meeting, I guess, from what I’m hearing. Many people, and many political pros, said everybody would do that." (That’s not exactly true.) He also called the idea that there was collusion between his campaign and Russia “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” and said that his White House “is functioning beautifully despite the hoax made up by the Democrats."

A slightly different picture: The New York Times tells a different version. “In private, President Trump sometimes addresses his adult children as ‘baby,’ a term of endearment tinged with a New Yorker’s wisecracking edge. And now that Mr. Trump’s babies have been swept into the vortex of his storm-tossed presidency, he is taking it personally. … On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump discarded pleas from advisers to avoid wading into the tempest over Donald Trump Jr., and posted a fusillade of tweets defending him. He denounced reports of the meeting — to collect incriminating information about Hillary Clinton — as part of ‘the greatest Witch Hunt in political history’ and even embraced the theory that his son might have been ‘the victim’ in the case.”

COLLUSION OR COINCIDENCE? Peter Baker lays out a timeline that asks the question of whether the campaign’s actions demonstrate coordination with Russia or a whole lot of coincidence. A taste: “At 6:14 p.m. on June 7, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. clicked the send button on an email to confirm a meeting with a woman described as a ‘Russian government attorney’ who would give him ‘information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia.’ Three hours later, his father, Donald J. Trump, claimed victory in the final primary races propelling him to the Republican presidential nomination and a general election contest against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In his victory speech, Mr. Trump promised to deliver a major address detailing Mrs. Clinton’s ‘corrupt dealings’ to give ‘favorable treatment’ to foreign governments, including ‘the Russians.’” Again, the Trump says Don Jr. never told Don Sr. about the meeting.

TRUMP ON PUTIN: In an interview with televangelist Pat Robertson, Trump described his meeting with the Russian president thusly: "Sometimes you're not going to get along on things and sometimes you will. But we had a good meeting, it was a face to face meeting, it was a long meeting. It was two hours and 15 minutes. Everyone was surprised by the amount of time but that was a good thing and not a bad thing. Yeah, I think we get along very well and I think that's a good thing, that's not a bad thing. People said, 'Oh they shouldn't get along.' Well, who are the people that are saying that? I think we get along very, very well. We are a tremendously powerful nuclear power, and so are they. It doesn't make sense not to have some kind of a relationship.”

WHAT'S NEXT: Wait for the next shoe to drop. It’s gotta come soon, right?

---

2. MEANWHILE …

THE GIST: While the media (understandably) obsesses over Russia, the wheels of governance churn on. And with the Trump administration, America is getting exactly what it paid for. Let’s take a quick tour of the headlines.

Trump wants to slash legal immigration: The administration — specifically, Duke alum and senior adviser Stephen Miller — is gearing up to support a bill from Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue that would put the number of legal immigrants allowed in the country from one million a year to five hundred thousand. Miller is also trying to put in place restrictions on sanctuary cities and limit refugees.

The U.S. Department of Education’s top civil rights officials thinks most campus rape investigations are too hard on the accused: Actual quote: “Rather, the accusations — 90 percent of them — fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.’” Here’s a bit about Candice Jackson, the official: “Appointed by [Education Secretary Betsy DeVos] in April, Ms. Jackson represented sexual assault victims as a private lawyer before joining the Education Department. She is best known for her involvement in attacks against Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign, when she elevated women who had accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault or harassment, while denouncing women who accused Mr. Trump of such behavior.”

The Senate will try to repeal Obamacare next week: As it stands, McConnell can’t stand to lose a single vote, as Rand Paul and Susan Collins are solid noes, and for starkly different reasons. Ted Cruz wants to allow insurers to offer plans that don’t cover essential health benefits, which would essentially segregate sick people and those with preexisting conditions into unaffordable plans and destabilize the market. Meanwhile, doctors and hospitals are rallying in opposition.

Related: After ridicule, Trump will allow Afghan girls entry to the U.S. for a robotics contest after twice denying them.

---

3. SEVEN LOCAL HEADLINES.

A Harris Teeter is closing in Cary. (Which means Cary residents will only have approximately 4,284 grocery stores to chose from. I kid. I kid.) [N&O]

A new program seeks to reduce the high number of eviction cases that come through Durham courts each month. [INDY]

FBI agents search the offices of VisionQuest, a wealth management firm in downtown Raleigh. [N&O]

Raleigh asks the Wake County Board of Elections to increase the number of early voting sites for the municipal election from one to five. [N&O]

Section 8 voucher holders are having a hard time finding a place to live in Durham. [INDY]

As the Reverend Barber predicted, a Wake County judge seems ready to toss the legislature’s order banning thirty-one protesters, including Barber. [N&O]

On August 1, the UNC Board of Governors will consider whether to ban the Center for Civil Rights from suing on behalf of its clients. [N&O]

---

4. ODDS & ENDS.

What the fresh hell is this Kid Rock for Senate nonsense all about?

In this week’s INDY, Kevin J. Rowsey wrote about Raleigh rapper P.A.T. Junior. The story inspired me to check out his catalog (it’s on Spotify!). You should, too. It’s pretty great.

Foursquare says people are visiting liquor stores more, but not bars.

An FDA panel recommends approval for a gene-altering leukemia treatment.

TheSearchfortheZone.com — if you’re watching Showtime’s reboot of Twin Peaks, you’ll remember it from the most recent episode — is a real thing, and it’s beautiful.

Another ferociously hot and humid day, no rain. Sorry.

#Donald Trump #Donald Trump Jr #Trump Russia #Trump Administration #immigration #US Department of Education #rape mention cw #U.S. Senate #Obamacare #ACA #healthcare #health insurance

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alchemisland · 5 years

Text

Moors Mutt - III

Night fled day and I read the sky. Spying an uncharacteristically vernal mustard sliver, I imagined the light dying in another world past the clouds, opposing ours directly.

The storm, furious mute, spoke through man's works. Droplets exploded musically; dull on timber, shrill on sheet, like crackling fire on thatch.

Foot travel was impossible, even treacherous. Lar wouldn't have it besides. 'I know someone.' he said 'Unpaid tab, lovely spacious wagon. Hold tight.'

Unpaid tab, yes. Lovely wagon, no. Against the rising slope, his contraption strained. Its light frame shed water at every judder. We veered, almost fatally, several times and white knuckled I would renew my faith, but the man knew his charge and kept us steady. Soon the ground levelled and in relative peace, at hardly a trembling crawl, I gelded the day's larger duties into manageable tasks. Ten had a ring, a certain motivating roundness. Ten tasks set to Heracles condemned to misery by jealous Hera. Ten commandments from on high.

After a short time working my mind lost its typical easy-focus. Each sentence I read twice, three times. At common words I stared with newfound curiousity. One letter alone roused me from drowsy rifling. Immediately noted as pertinent by its wax rosette, I saw it was a bill of sale for several oxgangs including Talbot Church to be sold to Lady Sizemore, with a transitory period of two hundred years in which no litigious action could be sought by either party to dispute ownership.

There was little ambiguity as to the tone the author Henry Wales, the estate's executor, attempted to convey. Beside the Lady's seal and sinister scrawl the lawyer, presuming wont to associate with the Sizemore name, printed the his agency's crest, ruby pomegranates perched on a plate with a lidded eye acentre like a grecian shield motif.

Harder to discern, in an unpracticed hand, was the seller's signature, a reluctant cluster of slanting characters which keenly reflected the scribe’s defiance and fury at his enforced shifting, rudely contrasting the infernal airy loops of Mr. Wales and his evil brood at the Wales, DeLien & Hensonbore.

Perhaps fearing her legacy unworthy of envy, Lady Sizemore extended the empire's borders at considerable expense. In the same batch of papers I found also two drawings, one a surveyors border outline, the other an older document bearing the Holy seal, a plan of the churchyard. On this older sheet I found also records of antiquities in the hinterland. Aside from the cairn her lands encompassed two dolmens, four standing stones, eight middens and one fulacht fiadh, thought to date 3000 years - the cartographer noted. Originally the cairn, which stood now like a greatshield at the shoulder of her manse, was situated outside the kirkyard, itself in the shadow of the chapel.

The newer sheet, written by Lady Sizemore’s resident conceptual botanist, revealed prescient plans for its transfer; the route was marked in ticks from Talbot Church to the old hill, past the sucking bog and high grasses, which stood strong and wilted not for man or wind and made going hard as over jagged stone.

I wondered how many men it takes to move a thing like that, eerily reflecting the thoughts of my ancient forebears in their creation of graven idols. I couldn't find anything else. Checked every drawer, leafed alphabetically, held the sheets to a candle carefully and waited for any hidden ink to react, but I found only my own gnawing curiosity.

I wondered why she closed the church. Why move the stone at all if she owned the lands. Surely it must be easier to enforce a harsh penalty for trespassing to deter ramblers over time than move a massive stone. Above all else I hoped to never climb that hill to the church.

As discussed, Charon on his chucking carriage arrived to ferry me back to Sperrin. Outside Lar's, wet as it was possible to be, some queer curiosity took me and I paused on the threshold. Fingering the doorhandle, I brought my ear to the wood. Lar joked, joyous overmuch at his own humour. I turned the handle and let the door swing open. All attention on me, I let them drink in the sight of the soaked city rat. 'In you come.' A wave of relief swept Lar, which he wrestled into a piteous pout. Relief more that his finances were secure than any concern for my wellbeing.

Two drinks waited, patient as unconfessed sinners. When I peeled off the mac he smiled and I offered reluctant dues.

'Are we, like lantern thieves, away with the light?' Lar undid the top button of his trousers and swelled an inch before my eyes.

'We are.' I answered curtly.

'Handled a gun before?' Lar braced for a hasty response, which I gladly supplied.

He continued on in a similar fashion for several minutes. After zoning out, I had to nod with extra vigor to his next points, just enough to convey attentiveness but not agreement.

Foam pooled at the corners of his mouth. 'It's a fool that lowers caution in victory! Wear these chains. Be it upon your head.'

I tried to interject, 'Lar, really that's a bit dram-'

He continued unabated, 'Should the beast prove strengthful and beguiling and somehow catch us unawares, it won't make a good look for that book of yours.'

'Point taken. I'll pack one. Don't intend on using it though. My only stipulation is that I choose my own gun.'

He fetched the swaddled armoury and laid it for my reluctant perusal. I felt something like guilt looking at them. I couldn't pinpoint the feeling. Not a betrayal of principals; I am indignant, but I know my principals only matter until they don't fit my schedule. Nothing is too sacred to reconsider. Still, there was a lingering sense that I had wronged someone. My unease was perhaps the consequence of past lives lived without conscience. When I rode with Cortez and greedily discharged my sizzling firearm into the chest of a scout; when I stood a wart-faced archer at Agincourt and rained death across the mire, athwart a river of Francish blood.

I chose a revolver, feeling its relative snugness more graceful than the longnecked pistols and bayonetted-rifles otherwise offered. Six shots, lightweight, swift off the hip.

Once the guns were again squirrelled away, we untensed with a fifth drink, and a sixth shortly thereafter.

'Have you a route in mind?' Lar slurred at length, his jaw shifting from side to side like a cow's chewing the cud.

'You tell me. You're the gun weilding adventurer.' I teased.

'I have some notions. Let's have one more drink. Don't go to bed bitter.' He fingered a bottle and seductively circled the cork, but his indecision had angered me.

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alchemisland · 5 years

Text

Moors Mutt III - Beastbound

First draft of the edit, forgive any spelling errors or duplicate words. All will be mended with time. Just back from a wedding. Aoife vomited out the door on the highway. Gnarly. Happy Friday.

III. Beastbound

Night fled day and I read the sky. Through bores a fiery sliver shone, conjuring fantastical images of great city somewhere past the clouds, its denizens craning to the light's dying. I stood waiting for a sunrise which never came. In her place a bruised bank of laden clouds arrived to the beat of mjolnir's blows.

The storm, furious mute, spoke through our works. Droplets exploded musically, dull on timber, shrill on sheet, like crackling fire against thatch.

Lar the blackbird rose early, stretching and emerging from the fugue state that best pleased his constitution, his wingspan filling the alcove.

Foot travel was impossible, even treacherous. Lar wouldn't have it. 'I know someone.' he said 'Unpaid tab, lovely spacious wagon. Hold tight.'

After a short time at work my mind lost its typical easy-focus. Each sentence I read twice or three times. At common words I stared with newfound curiousity. A single letter roused me, pertinent by its pompous wax rosette, a bill of sale for several oxgangs, including Talbot Church, to be sold to Lady Sizemore, with a transitory period of two hundred years during which no litigious action could be sought by either party for the purposes of solving any dispute of ownership. I paraphrase, for each word writ was careful chosen.

Perhaps fearing her legacy unworthy of envy, Lady Sizemore extended the empire's borders at considerable expense. In the same batch of papers I found also two drawings, one a surveyor's border outline, the other an older document bearing the Holy seal, a plan of the churchyard containing records of nearby antiquities. Aside from the cairn, Lady Sizemore's new lands encompassed two dolmens, four standing stones, eight middens and one fulacht fiadh, thought to date back 3000 years - the cartographer had noted in margins interesting asides. Originally the cairn, which stood now like a greatshield at the shoulder of her manse accepting winds against her bulk like oil on the head the anointed, was situated outside the kirkyard, itself in the shadow of the chapel.

The newer sheet, written by Lady Sizemore's resident conceptual botanist, revealed prescient plans for its transfer; the route was marked in ticks from Talbot Church to the old hill, past the sucking bog and high grasses, which stood strong and wilted not for man or wind and made going hard as over jagged stone.

I wondered why she closed the church. Why move the stone at all if she owned the lands. Surely it must be easier to enforce a harsh penalty for trespassing to deter ramblers over time than shift a megalith. Above all else I hoped to never climb that hill to the church.

Little else of note occurred. I found interesting some newspaper snippets concerning the then day’s pugilistic affairs, to which the upper classes had enured themselves, to such degrees that even the leisurely apolitical pages of Country Living magazine included a column notating the latest heroes and villains of the prize ring - most from Broughton’s.

Gull-winged Dan Donnelly was bold in Vetruvian repose. His shoulders wrapped the borders. I noted a scribble in the margin, not her Ladyship’s hand, H’s looping like drunk P’s and S’s like broken 8’s; the person had written, ‘Jew though he is, he is more twelve trys than twelve tribes.. Did you see that match last week? Mendoza has a head like a breastplate.’ Witty, though I stayed my smile as punishment for his beastly opening stipulations, but he was right - Mendoza was incredible.

Two drinks waited, patient as unconfessed sinners. When I peeled off the mac he smiled and I offered reluctant dues.

'Are we, like lantern thieves, away with the light?' Lar undid the top button of his trousers and swelled an inch before my eyes.

'We are.' I answered curtly.

'Handled a gun before?' Lar braced for a hasty response, which I gladly supplied.

He continued on in a similar fashion for several minutes. After zoning out, I had to nod with extra vigor to his next points, just enough to convey attentiveness but not agreement.

Foam pooled at the corners of his mouth. 'It's a fool that lowers caution in victory! Wear these chains. Be it upon your head.'

I tried to interject, 'Lar, really that's a bit dram-'

He continued unabated, 'Should the beast prove strengthful and beguiling and somehow catch us unawares, it won't make a good look for that book of yours.'

'Point taken. I'll pack one. Don't intend on using it though. My only stipulation is that I choose my own gun.'

I chose a revolver, its relative snugness more graceful than the longnecked pistols and bayonetted-rifles otherwise offered. Six shots, lightweight, swift off the hip.

Once the guns were again squirrelled away, we untensed with a fifth drink, and a sixth shortly thereafter.

'Have you a route in mind?' Lar slurred at length, his jaw shifting from side to side like a cow's chewing the cud.

'You tell me. You're the gun weilding adventurer.' I teased.

'I have some notions. Let's have one more drink. Don't go to bed bitter.' He fingered a bottle and seductively circled the cork, but his indecision had angered me.

Drink deep of nightwine and give to tumbling, so say the texts. I have read them all, from Hobbes' Essential Oneiria to Throughland's Night Study. Through the circle’s end, overboard the sil of sanity I fell to a gallery of my own being, divided into layers, each some fractured facet of the whole, where each feeling untempered by its counterparts unfolded in wicked fullness; galleries of nudes in lust’s royal academy, raging red the river of anger, rocky the paths untold which might have been. I saw shades of myself in every variation, vexing and charmful, until at last to the untamed plains I came, savage and noxious. It was there I found the church.

What place more apt for spiritual contrition than a chapel of the mind where only the clanking templar’s ghost sat in solemn judgement, his observations vocalised in clanks and bumps, selfsame the thud of ladders against the walls of Jerusalem.

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