What Manner of Man: Chapter 8 🦇

Guys literally only want one thing (to take you to various archaeological sites.)

ANNOUNCEMENT: There will be a pause in the entries of What Manner of Man this upcoming week, meaning there will be no email next Friday! (Sorry! 🙏) Chapter 9 will, therefore, be sent out Friday, April 14th. Thank you for reading!

(If you can’t bear to wait, there is a little extra content available on Patreon.)

LETTER TO VERA ARDELIAN

Dated March 30, 1950.

Dearest Sister,

Forgive me for this gap between letters — I hardly seem to notice the passage of time in this place. Only today I discovered that spring has arrived on Swallow’s Rest in the intervening time since I came to Whithern Hall.

I have been under some strain of late and, being an exceedingly diplomatic host, Lord Vane approached me this afternoon with a proposal.

“Whithern Hall is very old and very beautiful, but I’m aware that too-long a stay within its walls can grow somewhat oppressive. If you’ll forgive my saying so, Father, you’ve had a rather haunted look about you these past few days — I thought you might benefit from a brief respite from it, if only for the afternoon.”

As we left the Hall, I was startled to find that a subtle but pervasive change had come over everything — the silver and shadow of winter transmuted by the ineffable alchemy of nature into fragile, newborn colour. The breeze that came in off the sea carried with it a certain fresh sweetness that the body, more than the mind, remembers. A mist of pale snowdrops spread across the hillside. Between the white, skeletal trees and stony earth, the drooping heads of violet bluebells like painters daubs colored the frozen landscape.

Lord Vane supplied me with my own horse, a gentle animal whom I quickly became accustomed to. Vividly I remember the ranging, uneven path through dense, untamed forest that took us from the village of St Silvan’s Head to the steeply-climbing grounds of Whithern Hall — but I was quite unprepared for the complete wilderness that reigns over the northern outermost portion of Swallow’s Rest. In all my travels I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered its like before.

We passed first through what remains of a town that Sylvia once mentioned to me, built at the foot of the grounds of Whithern Hall. I found the abandoned buildings so transformed by nature and the passing centuries that I could scarcely imagine the place ever inhabited by living men and women. Whatever was here, it has been all-but-consumed by the island.

Lord Vane rode ahead, stopping at intervals to make certain I hadn’t fallen from my horse. His sureness betrayed great knowledge of secret ways through the pathless and forbidding countryside. We never strayed very far from the sea, for further inland the whole visible island seemed to be composed entirely of thrusting projections and plunging ravines of hard, unforgiving stone, relieved only by the occasional appearance of tall, dark forest, far too dense to be traversed on horseback, or else deep pools of treacherous black mire.

I feel as if I have deepened my understanding of Swallow’s Rest in a way I could not have begun to before. This land shapes the people who inhabit it in a way that would be impossible in more civilized environs. Perhaps this is the very thing that civilization exists to protect us from — this primal, all-consuming awe that strips one of divinity and renders one little more than a beast crawling upon the earth. Even Lord Vane, large though he looms in my mind, seemed as small dust upon the scales when set against that vast hinterland.

The further we travelled, the more the wild, fearsome landscape seemed to loom up all around us and I was glad that my horse kept close behind Lord Vane’s. I had no desire to be separated from him in such hostile surroundings.

The clouds were just beginning to glow with the first rubedo blush of approaching sunset when, all of a sudden, the belt of trees to our right fell away and I found myself faced with the unmistakable remains of a complete Roman settlement! (I’m sure I needn’t trouble to describe my feelings at this juncture to you, Vera, of all people.)

I gave a cry of delight. “Oh, but why have you never mentioned anything about this place?”

Turning, I saw that Lord Vane was regarding me with a look of indulgent amusement. “What — and deprive myself of the pleasure of giving you such a surprise?”

The remnants lay at the bottom of a deep valley, quite invisible from the winding hillside road we had taken. Before us the road began a gentle, sloping descent into a wide clearing thickly carpeted with green moss and purple heather. I was just able to make out the rough-hewn edge of a limestone quarry beyond. In a moment, Lord Vane had dismounted and assisted me to do the same, leading me to a crop of mossy boulders and tall oak trees where the horses could be safely left awhile.

To my great amazement, I found the place in very nearly as complete a state of preservation as the remains of the abandoned town just beyond the grounds of the Hall which we had passed through less than an hour before.

This settlement was, if anything, somewhat more in-tact than the far younger habitation had been and I found myself considering the fanciful notion that it was its relative distance from the Hall that had preserved it — as if the manor itself had some power of corruption and decay

I recognized among the ruins a familiar shape — long-fallen columns half-buried and overgrown with moss — the even lines of column bases arranged in a clear rectangle. Woven over the whole structure was a flourishing vine of thorny wild rose.

“This is a temple,” I said.

“Oh? You have a trained eye.” Lord Vane said, looking at me with mild surprise. “The Roman culture always bored me, I’m afraid — I never paid them enough mind to notice.”

I wandered in across the uneven ground. An immense, rounded block of limestone was set just before the temple foundations — now sunken and half-encased in earth. Of course, in this condition, I could only guess at what god the heathens had once venerated here, but if, as I suspected, this place was as-yet undiscovered by the academic world, I had free reign to guess. On the front of the large stone some of the wild rose had grown into the groove where there was carved a worn double spiral.

“I wonder whether the god they worshipped here was Roman or whether —” I interrupted myself, “They were quite flexible about these things, you know — those old pagans. Willing to adopt any old gods they happened upon, if it got them a foothold with the local population.” The adventure of it all coloured my talk, of course — words tumbling out in an excited babble, with little thought behind them.

Lord Vane smiled patiently. “All I know is that they say the Romans fled Swallow’s Rest rather abruptly, though nobody knows why.”

“Oh, how thrilling! I don’t suppose there’s any records — but you must know these ruins by heart, I can’t imagine resisting the urge to explore all this as a boy.”

“Never as a boy, Father.”

“No, I suppose such a place might be too frightening. James Frazer, of course — scandalous and rightly-censored though he is — says that all ancient religions tended toward the practice of human sacrifice. Ritual slaughter and the offering of blood sacrifice in Roman religion was routine enough, but they tended to offer animals to their gods. It wasn’t unheard of, though. Even at the height of ancient civilization, they occasionally lowered themselves to the vulgar practice.”

“The Golden Bough!” he roared with amusement, “Now that I do know. Sensationalist trash, Father, quite beneath you.”

I continued, however, refusing to allow his mockery to dampen my enthusiasm. “The Romans were only an invading force, anyway. They say the ancient Druids, who they displaced, foretold the future in the death throes of the youths they sacrificed.”

“But then perhaps we’re both lucky it’s the modern day — if I were the priest of some vile and ancient cult, I have no doubt that a Roman Catholic priest would be my first choice for the sacrificial knife.”

“Then I would go like Saint Valentine, and in my martyrdom achieve immortality.” I leaned back on my hands against the altar block, a challenge in the tilt of my chin.

Lord Vane loomed over me. “That’s blasphemy, Father. You’re no saint.”

“And you’re one to know! Am I to believe you’re an unbiased judge of the matter?”

Laughing, I pulled him down towards me. I have not played such games since I was a boy — you remember Vera the sorts of mad play-acting I got up to with Monty — but there is something Lord Vane has been keeping to himself and I thought I may tease him into revealing it. Alas, it was not to be, but he did, in jest, raise the “knife” as I fell back in a melodramatic swoon on the stone and allowed him to pierce me and spill my heart’s blood in a frenzy of barbarous delight.

Part of me feels so strangely free around him, as if he brings back some innocence of my youth, that part which was lost when I — well, you remember.

I am a fortunate man, I know. In Lord Vane I have a wonderful host, and it would be an exacting man indeed who would wish for any better accommodations than Whithern Hall. And yet — but perhaps that’s a subject for another letter.

In one respect, Whithern Hall is no different from all the great houses that it has been my privilege to visit — it is possessed of a large and staggeringly beautiful library. I must remember to betake myself there this evening; I determined to forego my habit of indulging in juvenile literature (short fiction magazines, etc.) this year in honor of Lent and it has left me without anything to read.

Palm Sunday is nearly upon us. Until now, thoughts of home have been far from my mind, but it is strange to think that this year I will miss the blessing of the fronds. I have been away from all the daily rituals that are a part of my vocation for so long that they have begun to feel strange to me, even foreign. I know, though, that to go out into the wilderness is a purer expression of faith than any routine of the calendar, no matter how committed one’s heart and mind may be.

Yours in Christ,
Fr Victor Ardelian

JOURNAL ENTRY

Dated March 31, 1950.

At last I have made a discovery!

I came upon it yesterday evening as I was browsing among the shelves of Lord Vane’s library in search of some reading material with which to pass the time before retiring to bed. Lord Vane is a great student of the natural sciences and at first I despaired of finding any less discouraging light reading material than “Cultivated Plant Taxonomy” and Aristotle's tractate on metaphysics.

Then, intriguingly — from deep within a shelf of books exclusively concerned with the above-mentioned variety of impenetrable subjects — I unearthed a slim, anonymous-looking volume that had been shoved haphazardly to the back behind the rows of books. It was clear that it didn’t belong there, so I removed it. As I inspected it, however, I grew increasingly convinced that the thing wasn’t supposed to be among the books at all, and had been hidden there quite deliberately. I could not tell the exact age of the book, but saw that its contents were handwritten.

I took the text back with me to my chamber and, in the intervening time, I have deciphered a good deal of its contents. As far as I have been able to determine, it is a diary much like my own — written by a man of my own profession, no less!

I can’t say I particularly care for the man, alas. He seems to me a perfect specimen of that peculiarly tiresome, small-minded variety of priest who I seek above all to avoid. I cannot but feel kindly toward him, however — this forgotten man of so long ago — his diary is almost the closest I’ve come to meeting another of the faith since my arrival on Swallow’s Rest.

It seems that he may have been brought here to serve as personal confessor to one of Lord Vane’s ancestors — a man who he describes in glowing terms. Evidently the Lord Vane who he attended was an extremely pious, devout man with commendable passion for the faith.

I read of the man’s righteous disgust at the practices of the villagers (described in rather uncharitable terms, I think), his great affection for Lord Vane’s ancestor, and then some sort of falling out between them which he has utterly failed to convey. After that, as I read it, the diarist becomes increasingly wary of the man who he serves, demanding some explanation from him about which he does not write explicitly. In answer, it seems, this Lord Vane directed him to seek out some ruins that lie deep underground beneath the manor. The cleric seems rather nervous of doing so, but expresses himself determined to get to the bottom of what he deems a “heretical conspiracy,” and plans to take some action on the morrow. Thus ends his last entry.

I may as well admit that, (though I am by no means blind to the dark ambiguity surrounding the fate of this man,) as a result of his writing I myself have become terribly curious about these subterranean ruins. Lord Vane — my Lord Vane, that is — has alluded to them in my presence, so they are likely still accessible. Perhaps some further exploration can be arranged.

P.S. FROM 2024:

Hello! 👋 What you’re reading is a draft version of What Manner of Man. There are two completely new chapters added at this point in the final edition. In one, there appears a tantalizing and twisted discussion of blasphemous theology — about blood, sacrifices, and Father Arelian’s special type of nonsense. Following that, we have a dramatic new scene between Father Ardelian and Lord Vane in Whithern Hall’s conservatory, building to an intensely intimate moment between vampire and priest, featuring some forbidden fruit.

(You can get the complete, edited and expanded novel DRM-free on Itch.io or at the retailer of your choice.)

Are you enjoying What Manner of Man? Are you curious about what things Lord Vane and Father Ardelian might be getting up to that our priest isn’t bothering to write down? How about what Sylvia and Danny think of all this?

Patreon supporters of Accomplice tier and upward get exclusive access to an occasional series of short, post-chapter vignettes — fluffy, spicy, or funny moments that don’t quite fit anywhere in the text. Each will be unedited and under 1000 words (probably.)

Don’t forget: the next chapter will be on Friday, April 14th. Thank you!

-St John

Read from the beginning // Next Chapter