“Did very nearly the whole thing. Yes. You’ll find the odd bit here and there that doesn’t seem up to his standards, so he must’ve had apprentices from time to time. But overall? If you see it, chances are he did it. Evidently devoted the last two decades of his life to just this one building.”
“Wouldn’t that have been a little atypical?”
“Too right. Perhaps a bit mad, considering the ah, well … subject matter.”
“Are there any records saying why?”
“Nothing ever found from the time, no. References in a couple of late-sixteenth century histories, now, yes, claiming all sorts of deviltry had been got up to here, but one must consider intent. They’d just had the Reformation, so such accounts do tend to smack of appalled Puritans tarnishing the repute of Catholic leftovers.” He broke with an unexpectedly mirthful smile. “Rather like what those two lavender-scented lovelies will be telling whomever will listen about your gentleman friend.”
Alain. She’d forgotten about him, and glanced around until Crenshaw pointed him out, dozing on a seat while slumped against the outer wall of one of the congregational stalls.
“Except,” Kate went on, “I don’t see anything here that’s patently Catholic.”
“Precisely why the Calvinists and their ilk were convinced that Catholics were idolaters, if not outright devil- worshippers. Quite the inharmonious—”
Abruptly, Crenshaw cut himself off in mid-sentence, glaring across the church at something behind her. Kate’s first thought was that Alain had roused, and what was he desecrating?
“You there!” Crenshaw shouted. “Get out of here! Right now!”
She turned. Not Alain — he was blinking drowsily at the ruckus. Instead, it was somebody past him, lingering beside one of the carved pillars. Kate couldn’t see him well. He was backlit by the light coming in through a lancet window.
“Out of here this minute or I’ll have the police down, this is the last time, do you hear me?”
He was a sturdy sort, she could tell that much, with broad, heavy shoulders, and hair that in silhouette appeared shaggy and unkempt. When he moved out of the direct light, she saw that he wore a topcoat that might’ve once been pricey, but had more likely been salvaged from a wealthier man’s trash, and beneath it, a dark cableknit sweater, tattered here, unraveling there. His beard hadn’t fully grown in, a few weeks’ worth. Age? Hard to determine. Old enough to have earned a few lines. More than she had.
“He’s only annoyed he didn’t collect his fee.” It took Kate a moment to realize the man was addressing her. He then turned his amusement on Crenshaw. “Oh, I
Crenshaw didn’t move, seething at the man, who held his own ground. Alain glanced back and forth between them as though having awakened in the middle of the wrong movie. Finally the man relented, but with an air of having once more proved a point he’d proven times before. He strolled toward the narthex and Crenshaw followed, marching a consistent dozen paces behind, until the man was out the door, leaving behind his own distinctive odor.
“Bloody vagabond,” Crenshaw said. “How it is he gets in here I’ll never know.”
“There aren’t any other entrances?”
“None we’ve found in six hundred years. Slips in when both Mrs. Webster and I are distracted, then hides, is my guess, but I’ll give him this: He’s a first-rank sneak. Been doing it for years, on and off, and we’ve never caught him.”
“Do you even know who he is?”
Alain was walking up, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “Somebody who’s never learned why God invented Calvin Klein.”
“Must live around here somewhere,” said Crenshaw. “I’m sure the locals know him, but Mrs. Webster and I motor up from Ludlow, so these are hardly our people.” He shook his head. “Never harms anything, it’s just the idea. But should you encounter him whilst taking your pictures, I’d keep my distance if I were you.”
Kate nodded, more to pacify than agree, then registered with a shock what she’d missed until now. Surely she’d have seen it as a child, but the recollection wasn’t there. Today, for all intents and purposes, was the first time.
It stood upon the wide platform above the doors, a lifesize effigy whose heavy-lidded eyes stared the length of the nave, toward the rose window where he would greet each rising sun. In shadows now, his mystery was heightened tenfold, hunching with muscled body and sinewed limbs, balanced on wide-stanced cloven feet. His magnificent head was ever-so-slightly inclined downward, as though deigning to acknowledge whoever paused to stare. Alain, she knew, would kill for his cheekbones, while shunning the wild serpentine beard. And he’d have no use at all for the goat horns, sprouting robustly from either side of the forehead, curving back and to each side. A long tongue wagged from between parted lips with a grin of lascivious delight.
Here was the face that had given medieval churchmen all the devil they’d ever needed.
“Pan, right?” she said.
“Or Cernunnos. Call him what you will.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t notice him before now.”
“You’d be amazed how many don’t, until they leave,” Crenshaw said. “One could be excused for thinking he enjoys it that way.”
*
She was a betting woman all right, but knew no one here well enough to make the bet in the first place. It was nothing to be proud of, anyway: She was giving the relationship another week at most, after which Alain would find an excuse to go home early.
It’d been entirely physical anyway, had just run its course sooner than expected. With his mussed raven hair and caramel skin and long-lashed eyes, he’d never been less than beautiful, always a willing model for her artier, more indulgent shots. Most were admittedly Mapplethorpe-influenced, somewhere between deifying and fetishizing. She’d strip him down and zoom in for the kill, the shadowy, side-lit curves of his arm or ass like a blown-glass vase, then devour everything the camera had left. By now, it didn’t amount to much.
