shining bald creatures all in long dresses like women, but as more and more of them came forward, the entire gathering became ever more alarmed.
“He is my son!” declared my father. “My son, I tell you! He is Ashlar, come again!”
And this time many women screamed, and some of them fell back as if fainting; the men rose from their benches, and the old Laird rose, bringing down both fists upon the boards so that cups and knives were shaken to the right and to the left. Wine splashed. Plates clattered.
Then, in spite of his age, the old Laird leapt upward onto the bench.
“Taltos!” he said in a low and vicious whisper, leering at me with lowered head.
Taltos. I knew this word. This was the word for me.
I would have run then, instinctively, if my father hadn’t held tight to my hand, forcing me to stand firm with him. Others were leaving the hall. A number of the women were ushered out by their anxious attendants, including some of the very old, who were quite confused.
“No!” my father declared. “St. Ashlar. Come again! Speak to them, my son. Tell them it is a sign from heaven.”
“But what shall I say, Father?” I asked. And at the clear sound of my voice, which seemed to me in no way remarkable, the whole company went mad. People were rushing through the various doorways. The Laird now stood on the trestle table, fists clenched, kicking out of his way the laden plates. The servants had surely all taken cover. All the women were gone.
Finally only two of the monks remained. One stood before me, tall but not as tall as I, and red-haired and with soft green eyes. He smiled upon me in that moment, and his smile was like the sound of the music, utterly quieting, and I felt a sinking in my soul.
I knew the others loathed the sight of me! I knew they had run from me. I knew the panic was the same as I had seen among the women of my mother, and in my mother herself.
I was trying to understand it, to know what it meant. I said, “Taltos,” as if this would trigger some revelation stored within me, but no more came.
“Taltos,” said the priest—for that is what he was, though I did not then know it, a priest and a Franciscan—and again he gave me this great and gentle smile.
All had fled the hall now but my father, myself, the priest and the Laird, who stood upon the table, and three men crouched by the fireplace, as if in waiting, though for what I couldn’t guess.
It frightened me to see them, and the anxious way in which they looked to the Laird and the Laird looked down on me.
“It is Ashlar!” cried my father. “Do you not see with your own eyes! What must God do to claim your attention? Destroy the tower with lightning? Father, it is he!”
I realized that I had begun to tremble, a most amazing sensation, which I had never felt before. I had not even shivered in the cold of the winter. But I could not control this trembling. Indeed, it must have looked as though I were standing upon a piece of earth that was shaking, so violent was it, though I managed to remain on my feet.
The priest drew close to me; his green eyes very much reminded me of jewels, except that they were obviously made of something soft. He reached out and stroked my hair gently, almost tenderly, and then my cheek and my beard.
“It is Ashlar!” he whispered.
“It is the Taltos, it is the Devil!” declared the Laird. “Heave him into the fire.”
The three at the hearth came forward, but my father stood in front of me, and so did the priest. Ah, yes, you can imagine it, you can well picture it, can’t you? One screaming for my destruction as if he were Michael the Archangel, and the gentler ones not letting such a thing happen.
And I—gazing at the fire in terror, barely aware that it could consume me, that I would suffer unspeakable pain if I were thrown into it, that I would be alive no more. It seemed in my ears I heard the cries of thousands suffering, dying. But as my fear crested, the memory became nothing but the violent quavering of my body, the tensing of my hands.
The priest enfolded me in his arms and went to lead me from