A Darker Prometheus I: Ariel

Part Four: A Descent into Hell.

The day was overcast as the black-draped hearse and attendant carriages arrived, followed by a group of solemn funeral attendants on foot. The horse-drawn cortege ended at the stone church where Liam had prayed so fervently and so fruitlessly. Six pallbearers supported the mahogany coffin draped with a silk cloth and covered in Arum lilies and white roses, carrying their piteous burden down the aisle to place it on a velvet-padded catafalque in front of the altar. The choir began tog asg as the men turned and solemnly filed out.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Liam stood impassively in the one of the front pews, his hands clasped in front of him, his face unreadable. Finally, he tore his eyes from the bitter sight, bowing his head, though not in prayer. ‘My heart must be in that box,’ he reasoned. ‘It surely is no longer within me.’

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Raising his eyes he gazed expressionlessly at the tortured and bloodied countenance of the crucified figure of paint and plaster suspended, life-sized, from the wooden cross above the altar where the Mass was being conducted. ‘How fitting,’ he thought. ‘How like the false faith it represents.’ He looked up at the stained glass windows that lined the church on two sides, the twelve scenes showing the Stations of the Cross strangely darkened by the lack of sunlight from outside. ‘You and your damned religion!’ he seethed inside. ‘All form but no real substance; only the semblance of hope! In the end just broken promises and broken hearts!’

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

Liam had almost not come to the church today. Only his mother’s tearful entreaties had convinced him to set foot again in the place which held such a painful confusion of memories. He swore this time would be the last.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

He looked over at Ariel’s distraught father, the old man barely remaining on his feet despite the support of friends on either side, each of whom held onto one of his arms. The old gentleman seemed to have shrunken in on himself in the days since Ariel passed away. What was left for him now? No wife, no child. How was this God’s merciful love?

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

And for Liam himself? What now? All his plans were bound up in his expectation of a life with Ariel; all his hopes and desires invested in a future that now could not be. Ariel’s virtue and beauty had swept away his former life of self-indulgence and defiance. Right now, he was unable to think even beyond the end of this day, let alone imagine what he might be doing a week, a month, a year from now.

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.

The Mass was only part-way through but Liam could stand it no longer. As the hymn ended and the rest of the assembly took their seats, Liam turned and stalked out of the chapel.

*****

Out in the churchyard Liam stood by the low stone wall that separated the cemetery section from the woods behind, drinking whisky from a silver flask. From there he could see the caretaker seated on a gravestone, smoking a pipe, having just finished removing the last few spadefuls of earth from what was to be Ariel’s final cold resting place. After a few puffs of the thick blue smoke the man walked over to Liam and spoke. ‘Can I offer you a pipe, friend?’

Liam shook his head. The felloanedaned against the rock wall next to Liam. After several minutes he spoke again. ‘Looks like rain, young sir.’

Liam looked up at the sky as though he had not noticed the lowering thunderheads before. ‘Aye,’ he said. More minutes passed. Hymns could be heard, faintly, from the church nearby. Looking at the man, Liam said, ‘Do you believe in God?’

The man puffed his pipe a time or two as though considering. ‘Aye, I reckon I would have to say I do.’

Finally, Liam asked the question for which he knew there was no answer. ‘Then why do you think He sees fit to destroy what little beauty there is in the world?’

Another pause as the caretaker tapped out the remains of the spent tobacco against the wall. ‘I reckon no one can know the reason for that, sir.’ He stood up and started to walk away, then stopped and turned back to face Liam. ‘Me old Mam used to have a saying. “Sometimes God reaches down and plucks the petals from his roses”. Maybe that is all there is to it.’ He turned again and walked off, picking up his shovel on the way.

Liam hung his head and cried.

*****

One of the black-chased carriages waiting on the road beside the graveyard was not empty. In it sat a woman dressed in black, gloved and heavily veiled. A slight smile played unseen across her pretty face as she watched Liam’s anguish grow.

*****

‘This is an obscenity!’ Liam roughly pulled away from his father who had placed a restraining hand on his arm after his son had interrupted the graveside service with his outburst. He could stand it no longer; listening to the platitudes and empty, comfortless words that seemed so trivial compared to the sight of Ariel’s coffin being lowered by black cords into the lifeless dirt.

*****

Storms threatened but no rain fell, the weather matching Liam’s mood completely. He walked the long dusty road from town heading towards home. His parents’ coach eventually caught up with him but he refused to get in. A mile or so from his father’s modest property was an inn, the ‘Highwayman’s Rest’. Liam went inside for a whisky, hoping a drink or two would take the edge of his grief for a while.

He did not make it home that night.

*****

Over the next few weeks Liam returned to his old wild ways with a vengeance. Drinking, gambling, fighting and whoring became the round of his days and nights. What little time he spent at home was devoted to fighting with his father over money or lashing out at his mother if she dared mention faith or religion. Only his young sister Cathie, who adored him, remained untouched by his foul temper - so long as she kept out of the firing line. In his new world of pain the only emotion he could rouse within himself was the desire to cause pain to others.

Darla had ensured that she never met Liam while Ariel was alive but she was never very far away from him now. She watched Liam’s dissolution with relish, waiting for the time when he would reach his lowest point before moving in for the kill – and the creation of her new Childe.

*****

It had been days since Liam had been home and he was broke once again. At a local tavern he drank whisky followed by pints of Guinness with the crew of an English merchantman, the ‘Robert Locksley’, who were recently returned from a voyage to the Pacific Islands and had put into port to offload some cargo before heading round the coast to Portsmouth. Most of the local Irishmen refused to drink with the detested English but Liam had no such reservations. Flush with pay from months at sea, he allowed them to buy him drinks all night.

*****

Next morning Liam awoke on the floor of the room he kept at a boarding house in town. How he got there he did not recall but he obviously had not had the capacity to get himself onto the bed. His last coherent memory was of drinking at a waterfront establishment that was so vile and repugnant that the proprietor had not even bothered to give it a name. What the patrons called the place was too vulgar to repeat.

Heaving himself up into a sitting position Liam felt a dull throbbing pain in his right shoulder. Getting to his feet he steadied himself for a moment then shuffled over to a small looking-glass tacked to the plaster wall above the sideboard which held his shaving implements.

His white linen shirt was unbuttoned, grimy and stained with unidentifiable substances. The back felt stiff and sticky, tearing wetly and painfully as Liam pulled it off his wounded skin. Looking over his shoulder into the mirror he saw a huge bloodied patch, partly scabbed over, with what looked like extensive bruising underneath. Dipping a washing flannel into the large bowl of cold water on the sideboard he began easing the viscous gore from the area he could reach. Slowly he began to distinguish a pattern under the red smear. Not a bruise then, he realised, but a tattoo.

As the design became clearer the events of the previous evening began to flood back.

*****

As Liam sat at the bar drinking the finest Irish whisky that English coin could buy, the idea had been put to him. His drinking companion, Bertie, a nineteen year old Able Seaman from the ‘Robert Locksley’ had patiently listened again as Liam recounted his tale of lost love; a familiar refrain from evenings past. Upturning his empty glass on the scarred timber of the bar, Liam turned to Bertie. ‘Another dead sailor!’ he laughed.

Bertie grinned and motioned the barkeep for another round. As their glasses were refilled, Liam slipped off the ring he wore on his right hand, holding it close to his rapidly blearing eyes as they filled with tears.

‘She ga’ this to me, Bertie! My Ariel did, when we were engaged!’

‘Tis a pretty thing, right enough,’ Bertie replied, taking the white gold band and squinting at the unfamiliar design. ‘Wha’s it mean?’

‘Gol’smith over in Claddagh made it speshly, ‘long with a little gold cross for me sweet love. Said the crown is for loyalty, the heart for love and two clasped hands for friendship.’ Liam sighed deeply. ‘S’all I have left of her now.’

Bertie stared intently, if a little unsteadily, at Liam. ‘You should have somethin’ more… permanent…’ he offered, nodding sagely and patting Liam on the shoulder. ‘You know… to remember her by.’ He unbuttoned both of his cuffs and rolled back the grubby white linen shirtsleeves to reveal a dark blue design tattooed on each forearm. ‘Many of the lads who put to sea these days have ‘em.’ One arm sported a three-masted sailing ship cresting the waves; the other bore a bleeding red heart over a Celtic cross. ‘If a fellow goes overboard, you know, an’ drowns,’ here he crossed himself, ‘or dies in some heathen place, he will have somethin’ … religious … as it were, on ‘im, for the comfort of his soul, like, when he meets ‘is Maker.’ Bertie straightened his sleeves again and re-buttoned his cuffs. ‘A cross an’ beads can be lost but this… well, it’s permanent.’

Liam shook his head. ‘I don’ believe all that superstitious nonsense,’ he said gruffly. ‘An’ I’ll not have any of that so-called “holy” shite marked on me, neither!’

‘Well, it don’ have to be religious,’ suggested Bertie. ‘You can have any sort of thing. Anything at all.’ He slapped Liam on the back. ‘Our ship’s chaplain is a master tattooist. Learned it in the Feejee Isles, he did.’ Sliding off his stool at the bar, Bertie grasped Liam by the arm. ‘Come on, mate! I’ll get us a bottle o’ rum to warm us on our way.’

*****

Liam was surprisedfindfind the merchantman bustling with activity at this late hour. Sailors tramped up and down the gangplank by lamplight, hauling barrels, sacks of grain and bolts of cloth aboard to be stowed away below decks. As the two of them made their way up the sagging boards Bertie explained that the ship was due to sail at the turn of the morning tide.

Up on deck Liam sat down heavily on a huge coil of rope while Bertie spoke to the Quartermaster. Returning to Liam, Bertie said, ‘The Chaplain will be back on board directly.’ The walk from the tavern had cleared Liam’s head somewhat and it was beginning to throb. Taking out a wad of tobacco he began to pack a pipe.

Through the sweet blue smoke that filled the air around him, Liam saw a huge sweaty sailor, about fifty years of age and covered with filth and grime, make his way up the gangplank, a large sack of grain slung over each shoulder. Swinging the hessian bags down on top of a pile of others on the deck, the man strode over to where Bertie and Liam sat. Picking up a wooden bucket from beside the coiled ropes, he upended it over his head, pouring the salty water over himself, sluicing off the sweat, dirt and chaff dust, snorting as he rubbed his sinewy hand over his face and through his close-cropped hair.

As the muck washed from the man’s tanned skin, an extensive tattoo became visible; an enormous crucifix of a bleeding Christ with Mary and Peter kneeling at the base. Noticing Liam’s obvious surprise, the giant lifted his arms and turned around. The tattoo continued around his sides to an even larger scene across his broad back - the Roman soldier Longinus with his spear pointed into the dirt and head bowed. On banners above and below the main design was written in Old English lettering the scripture ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’

As Liam stared up at the powerful six foot five frame of the now-grinning sailor, Bertie turned to him. ‘Liam, meet Father Eusebius.’

*****

The Chaplain’s private quarters below deck was tiny. The six by eight foot cabin was intended only to accommodate the priest and one of his seafaring flock. Bertie perched on the bunk while Liam and Father Eusebius took the two chairs directly under the hurricane lantern suspended from the low timber ceiling.

After hearing Liam’s story Father Eusebius spoke, his soft resonant Welsh accent at odds with his rugged frame. ‘Bertie told you, I hope, that I do only Christian images?’

Liam glanced over his shoulder at the younger man. ‘I thought you might make an exception,’ Bertie piped up, ‘under the circumstances.’

The older man grunted in reply. Turning back to face Liam, he said, ‘What did you say the gal’s name was?’

‘Ariel,’ Liam replied.

‘Ariel, eh? A pretty name, that is.’ Taking a sheet of thick parchment from a small escritoire nd hnd him and a sliver of charcoal for drawing, Father Eusebius began to sketch as he talked with Liam. ‘Do you know the meaning of it?’

Liam thought for a moment. ‘I know Ariel was a figure in one of Mr Shakespeare’s plays; a spirit of the air who did the bidding of an old magician on an island.’

‘Aye. “The Tempest”. I know it,’ the priest sketched with confident, broad strokes of the charcoal. ‘What else?’

Liam shook his head slowly. ‘I do not know.’

‘The name “Ariel” means “Lion of God”,’ Father Eusebius looked steadily at Liam. ‘Like St Mark.’ Liam dropped his gaze but the priest continued. ‘You do not want a religious picture. I know that,’ he said, not unkindly, ‘but you know I will do only sacred designs. I have in mind a picture from a holy book which I think might be acceptable to us both.’ He offered the rough drawing for Liam to see. ‘Let us see if this will do as a compromise.’

Liam stared at the design for a few moments, then nodded slowly.

From beneath the bunk-bed the priest dragged a large brass-bound n chn chest. Opening the heavy lid, he removed a long wallet tied with a thong and a small bottle of dark blue ink which he placed on a small side table. Untied, the rolled leather wallet contained a selection of tattooing implements, wood or ivory-handled tools ending in clusters of thin, sharp needles. Some looked like tiny brushes while others ended in a single tine.

‘I know that picture,’ Liam said at last. ‘I have seen it somewhere before.’

‘Take off your weskit and shirt,’ said Father Eusebius, ‘then turn your chair so your back is to me.’ He reached overhead to turn up the flame in the hurricane lamp, illuminating the area in a bright yellow light.

‘Have you been to Trinity College up in Dublin?’ he asked as he motioned Bertie to hand him the opened bottle of rum.

‘Aye. I studied there for a year,’ Liam replied. ‘Well, nine months really. Until they kicked me out.’

Father Eusebius offered Liam the bottle. ‘Here, take some of this. You are three sheets to the wind already, I see, but this will dull the pain a little.’

Liam was not feeling much of anything by this stage but took a decent pull at the fiery liquor anyway. Father Eusebius took back the two-pint bottle and tipped a splash of rum onto Liam’s shoulder over the area to be tattooed. Selecting from the toolkit an instrument of five very thin needles bound to a handle of bamboo and ivory, he poured a little of the rum over the needles before taking a hefty swig himself. He dipped the needles into the tiny bottle of ink.

‘I did my theology studies there over thirty years ago,’ said the priest. ‘The design is from one of your own Irish treasures - the Book of Kells. I trust you know of it.’

‘I saw it in the library. It was kept in a glass case and the custodian turned a single page each day.’ Liam grunted as Father Eusebius began to puncture the skin of his shoulder, over and over, as he transferred the design, freehand, to Liam’s back.

‘Quite so,’ the old man said. ‘The manuscript is so beautifully illuminated, the designs of such intricate delicacy and perfect proportions that it was believed for centuries that the book could have been written only by angels.’

As he worked on the tattoo, the winged lion of St Mark over a large letter ‘A’, Father Eusebius smoked several pipes and drank freely from the bottle of rum but his hand remained steady throughout the three hours it took to complete the design. When it was done he refused to take any payment, saying it was bad luck to accept money for what he considered was part of his calling. He did, however, willingly accept the rest of the bottle of rum.

*****

Several days later:

The crunch of his fist on the other man’s teeth and snap of furniture breaking beneath them as both men tumbled to the floor of the tavern was satisfyingly real. Liam had felt little enough in the days since leaving his father’s home for the last time and drunken fights at the ‘Highwayman’s Rest’ provided some small outlet for his increasingly vile temper. Whether he gave pain or received it mattered not at all. Anger, hate and aggression masked other emotions that he was unable to face and he had them in abundance.

Hauling himself up from the dusty floor he again caught sight of the pretty blonde woman who sat so calmly by as he and the other high-spirited lads prepared to wade back into the fray. She was looking at him, smiling a wry little smile. Momentarily he wondered what an obviously well-bred young lady was doing frequenting a low establishment like the ‘Rest’. As a punch caught him sharply across the jaw his mind returned to the business at hand.

*****

In the early hours, after Liam and the other unruly lads had finally been ejected from the tavern, he wandered a little unsteadily along a deserted alleyway leading back to his room at the boardhoushouse. No doubt he would raise the ire of the landlady once again by beating at the door to be let in at this hour.

Somewhere close behind him Liam heard a carriage draw up then a quiet command and the snort of horses when it started up again, as though someone had alighted. The sound of soft footfalls caused him to turn around. In the shadowed archway he could just make out a petite figure in yellow silk. It was the pretty golden-haired woman who had watched him with such unruffled amusement at the tavern earlier that evening.

What is it you want from me, my lovely, he thought, smiling at the possibilities that raced through his whisky-addled mind. Occasionally, wealthy young women ventured out of their gilded mansions to seek diversions not available at home and Liam was more than willing to oblige.

Darla walked slowly towards Liam, that same knowing smile playing on her lips. Without a word she stepped up close, placing her small hands against his waistcoat then moving them up across his broad shoulders, running cool fingers over his neck and cheeks, drawing his face down towards hers. Liam wrapped his arms around her but, as he lowered his lips to hers, she turned her face aside whispering ‘I could show you things you have never seen.’

A sudden pain made him gasp as Darla’s sharp teeth penetrated his jugular. His hot blood flooded onto her mouth as a warm numbness began to spread throughout him, following the tracery of his veins backwards from the place where her lips lay against his skin. Slowly, as his blood drained from him, he began to feel a calmness flow over him, a stillness in his mind and heart that he had not experienced since Ariel’s death. As he surrendered to the solace of this woman’s strange embrace Liam sank to his knees on the dirty cobblestones, a travesty of the prayer he had been unable to offer up inside that little church not so long ago.

Stepping back a little, Darla drew a sharp fingernail across the milk white skin above her breast. With the other hand she guided Liam’s mouth to the thread of rich red blood that welled up from the thin wound. Licking the last few drops of his blood from her own lips she leaned close, resting her newly-warmed cheek on his dark hair and whispered, ‘Drink!’

*****