Succubi

states? This is England. Oxford will probably terminate the funds now. They paid us to find a Saxon urn field.”

The awkward woman’s face seemed to redden. “It’s history. How can they turn their backs on their own history?”

Easy, Fredrick thought. “You’ll get your chance to convince them. The appropriations liaison will be here in the morning. Just don’t get your hopes up.”

Their footsteps crunched up the weed tangled path. The sun seemed misshapen this close to dusk, an orb of molten orange light losing its contour to the slow and steady churn of the earth.

Fredrick held open the canvas flap. As she entered the tent, he stared after her, and the lithe shadow. He paused in time, then entered the tent himself, wondering how many thousands of people had been butchered here.

«« — »»

It was the ease with which Ms. Eberle spoke that made Fredrick queasy. She assessed several field photos of the huge cauldrons. “The Ur locs did things that would make Vlad the Impaler look like Captain Kangaroo. Skinning, castrating, dismembering—it was all part of their art. They plundered whole settlements, not for spoils or territorial expansion, but for infydels to serve either as sacrificial victims, slaves, or food. They were big on sacrificing children from conquered settlements. Babies provided the ultimate sacrifice to the object of the Ur locs’ belief. Men were taken as slaves. Women were butchered for food. The Ur locs considered any women out of their bloodline to be spiritual enemies. So they ate them.”

Fredrick’s old hand shook slightly as he poured tea from a thermos. The tea steamed before their faces.

“And these cauldrons, the chettles?” She pointed to one of the photos. “They’ve got a volumetric capacity of about 100 gallons. They filled them with blood and cooked their festival meats in them. I figured it out. Do you know how many human beings would be needed to provide 100 gallons of blood?”

Fredrick winced in the wake of the revolting question. “How many?” he dared himself to ask.

“About seventy five.”

Jesus, Fredrick thought.

“They roasted babies by the dozens on dolmens,” she went on, brushing clay dust out of her hair. “They were very concerned with youth, or should I say with the spiritual cyclic inversion of human worldliness to infinity. Hence, the ritual obsession with the sacrifice of youth. It was all a transaction, a gesture of tribute by way of a spiritual emulation.”

“That’s preposterous,” Fredrick said.

“Is it? Is it really? The Ur locs were a very secretive occult society. They lived for over a thousand years amongst the Celts, Goidels, and Brythons with little or no knowledge of their existence. Ur, by the way, is a pre Old English derivative for weik or wicc.”

“Witches,” Fredrick offered.

“Yes. We’re talking about a subcultural belief system that predates European record. Witches, before the existence of witchcraft. It was all transitive. By sacrificing youth, they reasoned that they could metamorphose that youth into the object of their beliefs. Faith and sacrifice. It’s the foundry of all religious systems, Christianity included.”

“Christians didn’t roast babies on dolmens,” Fredrick said.

“No, but read about what the Christians were before Christ, before the laws of the Old Testament were eradicated by the New Covenant. They believed in the same God, yet they were notoriously sacrificial. Read Leviticus, if you have the stomach. It’s universal, Professor. It’s proof of sanctity.”

“Sanctity? What does cooking human flesh in 100 gallon cauldrons of blood have to do with sanctity?”

“Blood,” she replied. “The essence of life. It was a symbol, and it can be said that any religion functions through a mechanical utility of sociological symbols. It can also be said that religion demonstrates a society’s sense of hope through faith.” Did she pause to smile? “Blood, the essence of life. Is not the consumption of blood a universal gesture of perpetuity? Of sanctity? The Druids were doing it six hundred years before Christ was born. Ever heard of Holy Communion?”

“Fine,” Fredrick said. He felt disgusted, tired. What would the funds liaison think when he was told what the Ur locs really were? He wished they’d found their dull, easy urn field instead.

Ms. Eberle splayed out more photos. One showed a deep cooking pit. “The Ur locs had a particular taste for human brains, slow cooked in the skull. The heads would steam in their own juices for several hours, whereupon they were removed and cracked open with stone mallets. They had slaves who were trained exclusively for this task, called cok-braegans, which means, literally, brain cookers. The brains were served piping hot over chunks of baked oatmash.”

Now Fredrick’s stomach seemed to be intent on turning itself inside out. His bile roiled.

“And you’ve heard of Rocky Mountain Oysters? Well, the Ur locs had their own variation. Human testicles were corn-floured and deep fried in pots of sesame oil. They also had a bone marrow potpourri that proved a favorite appetizer. The marrow was blended with peppers and wild onions, pan simmered to coagulation, and served on wheat cakes. Kind of like pate on toast points. A most notorious ceremonial dish—reserved for high ranking Ur loc priestesses—was called ‘womb bread.’ Human uteri were stuffed with stone ground wheat and leaven and then baked in stone ovens. Quite often, semen was used as a baste.”

Womb bread, Fredrick thought in bald revulsion.

“Ovaries were marinated and skewered over an open wood fire. Lungs were pureed, carefully blended with wild raspberries, and cooked like pudding. Tongues, lips, and facial muscles were minced, spiced, wrapped in human skin, then fried in oil until crisp. The most famous Ur loc festival meal was known as entrillus- brok—which means ‘gut roll’: chopped bowel wrapped in lotus leaves and steamed in blood.”

Fredrick paled, looking back at her in utter silence. His mouth felt dry as sand as Ms. Eberle continued her all too detailed description of Ur loc cuisine.

“As for the cauldrons, they were brought to a high, roaring boil. Choice organs such as the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, were immersed into the boiling blood and stirred regularly. All of the larger muscle groups were expertly filleted and tossed into the pot, too. Herbs and spices were added gradually, and toward the end of the boil, veggies were tossed in.”

Veggies. Fredrick’s mind swam in a momentary fog of terrible imagery. He could picture the Ur loc abattoirs, where human beings were filleted like trout, where abdominal cavities were systematically cleaned of their choicest parts, and where throats were slit and pitilessly emptied into hot cauldrons. Womb bread, he thought. Gut roll. Could such a society have really existed? Could spiritual beliefs actually have compelled people to roast babies? “Ms. Eberle,” he said, shaking off the fog. “When the liaison arrives, I think you might spare him these culinary details. He’ll want to know why the Ur locs are important from an archaeological standpoint. What are you going to tell him?”

“The truth,” Ms. Eberle returned. “The Ur locs were a female dominant society. They regarded the whole of the male race as a necessary evil. Whenever an Ur loc gave birth to a male child, that child was summarily sacrificed to the object of their beliefs. Ur loc commanders attacked outside settlements with a militia composed entirely of male slaves from previous conquests.”

“That’s a bit hard to believe.”

“Perhaps you just don’t want to believe it. You just don’t want to believe that women have existed as a sociological superior over men, when in fact there are many such examples throughout history.”

Was that it? Fredrick didn’t think so. “How did they do it, then? How were a bunch of renegade amazons able to enslave whole communities of men?”

“That’s a legitimate query, Professor,” she admitted. “But unfortunately there’s no clear-cut answer. As I’ve stated, the Ur locs were witches. The Roman registry abounds with occult reference to them, and though the Celts left very little written record of themselves, the little they did leave documents it all.”

“Witches, you mean? You’re telling me that the Ur locs reigned over a territory for a thousand years because they put spells on men?”

“I’m not saying that myself. Just read the registries. According to record, the Ur locs ritualistically called upon