Often as I tried to conjure them up, I have never seen the twin faces. My eyes have never beheld the crystal. So be it: as we make our inexorable journey to the land of the dead we will never more see the light as it rises – unless the Devil himself twist our heads round on our necks. Whoever would rise, must first descend, for only then can the bottom-most rise to the top. But to which of us of John Dee’s blood came the voice of the Baphomet?
John Roger.
The name “Baphomet” hit me like a hammer blow.
By all the saints – the Baphomet! – Yes, that was the name I could not remember! That is the head with the crown and twin faces, that is my grandfather’s family dream god! That was the name he had whispered in my ear, with rhythmic emphasis, as if he wanted to hammer something into my soul whilst the child I had been was riding a cock horse on his knee:
Baphomet? Baphomet!
But who is Baphomet?
He is the arcane symbol of the ancient and secret Order of the Knights Templar. He is the essence of that otherness which is closer to the Templars than the immediate physical world; he is and remains an unknown deity.
Were the Lords of the Manor of Gladhill Templars? That could well be. One or other of them might have been, why not? What can be gleaned from encyclopaedias, rumours and traditions is the abstruse description of the Baphomet as the “lower demiurge”. What a pedantic obsession with hierarchies! And why then should Baphomet be double-headed? And why should it be I who sprouts these two heads in my dreams? There is one thing that is true in all this: I, the last heir of the English house of the Dees of Gladhill, I stand at “the end of the days of the bloodline”.
And I have a vague feeling that I shall be ready to obey if the Baphomet should ever deign to speak.
– – – Here I was interrupted by Lipotin who brought me news of Stroganoff. As he coolly rolled himself a cigarette he told me the Baron had coughed up blood until he was exhausted. Perhaps one should not rule out a doctor, even if only to make the end easier. “But...” with a languid shrug of the shoulders Lipotin made the gesture of counting money.
I understood at once and opened the drawer in my desk where I keep my cash.
Lipotin put his hand on my arm, and, clenching his cigarette between his teeth, raised his thick eyebrows in his inimitable way as if to say, “No charity, please”.
“A moment, my dear sir”. He went to his fur coat, took out a small box and said gruffly:
“The last possession of Michael Arangelovitch Stroganoff. If you will be so kind as to accept it, it is yours.”
Gingerly I took the object in my hand: a plain box in heavy silver, secured with bands and trick locks patterned after the manner of old silverware from Tula in Russia, at once solid and decorative. All in all, it was a not uninteresting objet d’art.
I gave Lipotin what seemed to me a decent sum. He crumpled up the notes without counting them and shoved them into his waistcoat pocket. “Michael Arangelovitch can die in decency” was all he said about the matter.
Soon after that he left.
I am still holding the heavy silver box in my hand and I still can’t find how to open the locks. I have been trying for hours – it will not open. It would take a saw or shears to cut through the heavy bands, but that would ruin the beautiful box. Better leave it as it is.
Obedient to the command from my dream, I have just taken out the first fascicle of papers and started to make excerpts from it to record the history of my ancestor, John Dee. The excerpts follow the order in which the papers happen to fall into my hands.
Baphomet only knows what the result will be. But I have suddenly become curious to see a life unfold before me – even if it is only the fate of someone long departed – without the interference of my ordering hand, without my mind trying to cheat destiny.
The very first “catch” brought up by my obedient hand should have made me suspicious. It is a fragment of a document, a letter, which on the surface seems to have nothing to do with John Dee and his story. It deals with the exploits of a troop of the “Ravenheads”, who seem to have played some role in the religious conflicts of 1549 in England.
Confidential report to his Grace, Bishop Bonner, in London; from his agent under the sign
In the year of our Lord, 1550.
“– – – and as Yr. Lordship can well testify, it is no mean feat, as you have commanded me, to keep under observation a gentleman such as Sir John Dee, one so justly suspected of most satanical heresy, a strumpet apostate – Yr. Lordship knows well that even the Governor daily exposes himself to that same infamous suspicion; notwithstanding I venture to send this secret report to Yr. Lordship from my make-shift headquarters by a trusty messenger so that Yr. Lordship may see how keen is my ardour to serve him and that Heaven may look graciously on my labours. I well know that failure to discover the ringleaders of the most recent outrages of the mob against our holy Church will be rewarded with Yr. Lordship’s anger, torture and excommunication. I do beseech Yr. Lordship to hold back your terrible judgement on your faithfull servant a little while yet, in
