Book 2 - The Oxford Order - Part 2 of 14
Daniel de Jager arrived in Oxford before the morning traffic settled into its usual rhythms. The early light moved slowly across the honey coloured stone of the colleges that gave the city its aura of intellectual permanence. Oxford had always carried a particular weight for him; his grandmother had studied theology at Merton College during the 1930's, returning to the Netherlands in 1935 imbued with a scholarly fervour not shared by the bakers, clock makers and carpenters of Groningen; eventually settling for a secretarial position at the local parish, a stone's throw from the street she grew up on. She spoke regularly of the misogyny of the city's intellectuals without revealing any particular confrontation. Generations of minds had passed through the courtyards of Merton, some realising potential, some not. Either way, the place was overbearing for a man of modest intelligence and whose primary scholastic achievement was a business studies vocational qualification, Daniel thought.
Leaning against the weathered stone, he smoked three cigarettes and flicked all of the butts onto the Mob Quad's lawn, before Croker's insider finally emerged from one of the Gothic arched doorways. A retirement aged woman in navy slacks and rainbow coloured knitted jumper approached hastily with arms crossed around her torso and her hands tucked inside her oversized sleeves. When arriving at his feet she asked, "Are you looking for Eden?"
"Not today. I'm on the wrong road."
The woman flung anxious glances around the square before awkwardly revealing a faux leather file from under her jumper.
“This is everything myself and my colleague could find here and at Campion Hall. Some hand drawn leaflets and posters, letters requesting official Merton College funds from various years and as far back as 1344."
"Anything like a thesis, or manifesto, meeting notes?"
“One set of meeting notes from a college treasurer seeking justification for the group's funding. Individual societies usually keep their own records, you know what these beardy weirdy boys clubs are like. Interestingly though, that same treasurer signed off their funding every year for the following 23 years.”
"Is that interesting?" Daniel remarked.
"Well yes, treasurers were usually notable students. He was the longest serving by 15 years." She paused briefly as Daniel rifled through the folder before tentatively asking, "So, you're him aren't you?"
He lifted his eyes from the contents of the folder and looked the women in the face. Behind the weathering, the grey shoulder length hair, he saw real beauty. Her green eyes dazzled from the pedestal of her well defined cheekbones.
"Him?"
"Yes. I mean, Croker feeds us tidbits here and there, you know."
"Croker exaggerates." Daniel scoffed as he closed the folder.
"Croker never exaggerates." the woman said.
Daniel did what he always did when getting nowhere at work: he stared at his pride and joy. A wall-mounted 12th century woodcut depicting God smiting Leviathan. His eyes followed its contours, he dotted details with his fingers in the air and when distracted enough, doodled the entire image on whatever was lying around, frequently and grievously, on the back of Church archival papers. Nothing had leapt from the pages retrieved from Merton, certainly nothing to indicate a history of occult practice. Though, there had been nothing to indicate practice of any kind, all but confirming to Daniel that whatever the groups activity, it would not have been benevolent.
"A secret society that can actually keep a secret." He whispered to himself, tapping a pen on his desk, ink side down. What had the treasurer, some eight hundred years ago, seen to prompt such generosity with college funds? and with ever increasing donation sizes year upon year during his service to Merton, he thought. Daniel pushed himself up from his chair to make his eleventh coffee of the day when the phone rang.
"De Jager Antiques"
"Daniel. It's only me, returning your call. How did you get on with Mrs. Pardew this morning?."
"Croker. Yeah, fine I guess . . . um, I have a couple of questions."
"She was a pretty girl wasn't she?"
"Um, I suppose so." Daniel said with a clearly irritated tone. "Who was the source that told you this lot were practising whatever it is they are practising?"
"A research paper called "University Originated Cults and Societies" by Dr. Alan Huhm, out of, guess where?"
"Merton?"
"Yes. The paper was never actually published in a journal, it had just been submitted for refereeing."
"Why didn't you give me his details instead of making me trapse up to Oxford for a bunch of shitty admin entries?"
"He died of an as of yet undetermined manner, a month ago. All of his research was taken by Thames Valley."
"Right. Fuck. So what's next? Can Mrs. Pardew dig anything else up from anywhere? In between her vegan action group meetings and crystal healing sessions, of course."
"I doubt it. I just had word from her colleague. A student caved her skull in with a library chair about an hour after you left. Dear Daniel?"
"Um." Daniel swallowed hard before answering. "Ye . .yeah?"
"Stop asking questions and use the fucking book."
The line went dead. Daniel dropped into his chair. With his elbows resting on the desk, he lowered his cheeks into the palms of his hands. Looking down he could see the handle of the filing drawer. He let out a long sigh before reaching his hand down, tilting his head on his other hand for balance, and pulling it open. There, a red leather bound copy of Summonitores Libro, wrapped in plastic. He side-eyed it for a minute or so before heaving it out of the drawer and dropping it on his desk. He pulled it out of the plastic and opened it at the first page. He released another long sigh before he began to turn the pages, dragging his fingers across and down the images. Sixty three turns in there came that familiar buzz and the sound of rocks falling down a mountainside in his head. He was taken away.
As the boat rolled slowly in, sailors could be seen shuffling across the deck, their movements sluggish and uncertain. One man lay motionless, slumped over the ship's barrier ropes, his eyes sunken into his sockets like pebbles pressed into clay; they tracked the man waiting on the dock as the boat drifted by him. When it eventually stopped, the man waiting, a monk, drew a cloth from a pocket, put it over his mouth and slowly ascended the gangplank.
The crew, emaciated and with waxy-grey complexions, moved toward the edges of the boat as the monk made his way through the centre to the captain's cabin. At the open door, a man wrapped head to foot in white cloth gestured him over, walking backward with every step the monk took toward him.
"Well?" the monk said, silhouetted by the afternoon sun as he stood in the doorway.
"Something had begun in the east . . . just as you said. Something that travelled faster than any army."
"Given the state of your crew, can I assume you successfully boarded some specimens?"
"Yes sir." the man in cloth said confidently.
"And?"
"Troubling that God could make such a thing, sir."
"Now what value would an eternal inheritance be without the mechanisms for death? Show me something, Manuelo."
The monk stepped inside the cabin as the man in cloth turned and descended steps to the ships living quarters, emerging a few seconds later with an object wrapped in pale green foliage. He placed it onto a worn wooden table and slowly peeled away the large dried leaves, revealing the dismembered head of a far-eastern peasant woman. What was left of her neck had swollen into blackened knots the size of plums, clusters of blister were present on the cheeks and at the edges of the wide open mouth, a distortion that revealed both the agony of her final days and the relief that came with her last gasp.
"How have the locals attempted to contain the disease?" the monk said, unable to take his eyes off the woman's expression.
"They set the docks ablaze as we were leaving sir . . . is it what you'd hoped for?"
"The Church holds Europe together with superstition,” the monk whispered. “Kings bow to bishops. Knowledge is treated as heresy, God to them a conjurer. Acquire the disease. Study its mechanisms. Explore its uses."
“You mean to spread it?”
“We mean to accelerate what has already begun.”
“And how will we do that brother Matthieu?”
The monk gestured over his shoulder with his right hand and walked back onto the deck with the man in cloth following behind. There they watched as trading boats waited in the estuary for their turn to unload their cargo.
"What should I do with the crew?"
Matthieu twisted his head around and looked into Manuelo's eyes.
"Thank them for their sacrifice and send them home."