Devilry
by Paul Murgatroyd

 

 

The two freshers first met when they sat next to each other in hall, eating the inedible, on the first night of term. Bill, being an affable type, invited Rodney back to his rooms for coffee, and after that they moved on to the expensive bottle of college port which he had bought that afternoon in the hope of sharing it with some new friend. Rodney steered and dominated the conversation, speaking with authority, seeming to know everything about everything, especially literature, and quoting Shakespeare frequently. Bill was impressed by his erudition, and felt callow and unsophisticated in comparison, as was intended. When Rodney mentioned Yukio Mishima, Bill seized the opportunity to stem the flow and make a contribution of his own. He said: ‘Speaking of things Japanese, I read about the Grove of Jesus in Japan and a tradition there that it was in fact Jesus’ younger brother who was crucified, while Jesus himself went to Japan, to study theology.’

When Rodney snorted at that, Bill mistook his lofty disdain for amusement and followed up with a similarly quaint story, about the Devil this time. ‘The Chanctonbury Ring. In Sussex. That’s the name given to a grove on the site of an Iron Age fort, and there’s a tradition that if you walk round the Ring seven times without stopping, the Devil emerges from the trees and hands you a bowl of soup. Ha ha.’

Rodney raised an incredulous eyebrow. ‘Soup? Why on earth would he do that?’

‘Beats me. Maybe it’s a joke. He is a trickster in folklore. Especially in Poland, apparently.’

‘Oh yah, the Devil’s well-known sense of humour,’ scoffed Rodney, producing a handsome meerschaum pipe and getting it going with a Dunhill lighter.

Bill was fascinated with the supernatural and had read the Malleus Maleficarum and several other books on witchcraft, so he was able to back up his suggestion. ‘Er, well, he possessed a young woman in the sixteenth century and spoke to people with a ravishingly sweet voice from her stomach. Probably did some belly laughs and all. And St Gregory had a story about him lurking in a lettuce, and a nun swallowing him when she ate it without making the sign of the cross first.’

‘Oh really? Hmph.’

Bill nodded. ‘Yeah, and look at the things he made people regurgitate when he possessed them or sent one of his demons into them – needles, pins, nails, brimstone, hot coals, hay mixed with dung, and, er, dogs’ tails, and live eels, and large lumps of flesh. He has to have a sense of humour…Oh yeah, and he used to transport witches to sabbats on flying chairs, gave them an ointment made from the fat of boiled babies to rub into the chairs and make them fly, ha ha.’

Rodney was clearly not amused (in fact he was nettled because the topic was outside his areas of expertise). So Bill stopped being flippant and moved on to serious matters, like different concepts and representations of Satan, and the various forms that he was said to take – not just a humanoid with a goat’s legs and horns and a tail, but also sometimes a fly, often a tall, dark man, at other times a dog, or a cat, a ram, a bear, a flame, a fox, a hare and a lizard. Bill spoke also about the osculum infame; witches scratching a cross on the ground, so they could walk on it, and devouring the flesh of hanged men; and Satan having sex with them, taking the pretty ones from the front and the ugly ones from behind. Bill explained that this was often said to be painful for the witches, as his semen was icy-cold, and his penis was scaly and as big as an arm. He added that sometimes it was attached to his backside, or even bifurcated, so he penetrated two orifices simultaneously.

‘Oh stop it,’ snapped Rodney. ‘I’ve heard quite enough. That’s nonsense, and disgusting nonsense at that. It’s a well-known fact that all this kind of piffle comes from old women who were tortured into saying absolutely anything during the witch-hunts. None of this actually happened, and there is no such person as the Devil. Only somebody with the brains of a rocking horse believes any of that in this day and age.’

‘Erm, actually there are other sources, stretching back long before that. I can quote lots of –‘

‘I’m not listening to any more of this poppycock,’ said Rodney, raising his hand to silence Bill. ‘It’s late. High time for me to shake the dust of this place off my feet. Thanks for the coffee. And the rather disappointing port. Ciao ciao.’

Bill was hurt, but saw Rodney out and said that he’d see him in hall the next day, if not before.

Rodney strode across First Court, tutting and vowing not to have anything to do with that preposterous little philistine ever again, in hall or anywhere else. There was no moon, but the lights were on in several students’ rooms. They provided enough illumination for him to see his way, and after several seconds to make out a large fly describing intricate arabesques just above his head. Wondering where the hell that had come from at this time of night, he went to bat it away, but missed it. He flailed at it ineffectually three times. Then it landed on his cheek, and tickled him. With a grunt of disgust he tried to swat it, but it disappeared and all he managed was to slap himself on the cheek. He looked round. Fortunately nobody had seen that.

He was still smarting from that indignity as he approached the archway between First and Second Courts, which was in deep shadow. As he entered it, a patch of shadow detached itself and moved towards him. Rodney leapt back, with a small shriek. Then he saw that it was a tall, dark man, who chuckled and said: ‘Good evening, sir.’

Ah, thought Rodney, just one of the bloody porters. He snarled: ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at, man? Must you lurk like that?’

As he walked on, he heard: ‘Are you one of the sons of Belial, sir? Flown with insolence and wine?’

He flung back over his shoulder: ‘No, I am not. I am Rodney Smythe, scholar of this college.’

When he walked into Third Court, Rodney got another unpleasant surprise. There was a black poodle on the lawn, which he assumed belonged to one of the dons. Suddenly it rushed up to him and nipped him on the leg, then sauntered off, pleased with a job well done. He kept a wary eye on the dog as it departed and merged into the darkness. He was taken aback to see that the creature actually seemed to be emitting sparks. But by the time he reached his staircase, he had solved the mystery: it must be one of those absurd collars that lit up, so stupid owners didn’t lose their stupid pets at night.

Once inside his set, he noticed that the light was on in the main room. That was odd: he was sure that he had switched it off when he went to hall. He pushed the door open wider, and was confronted with needles, pins and nails on the floor in the doorway. He was frowning at that when he suddenly realized that there was somebody in the room, sitting at his desk. He looked up to see a person with a small red beard and moustache, and green eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a black coat, a red waistcoat and white gloves, and a ring with a large ruby flashed on one of his long fingers as he pointed to the chair on which he was sitting and drawled: ‘Is this the seat that we must change for Heaven?’

Rodney, who had been speechless with astonishment up to now, blurted: ‘What?’

‘Ah, it speaks,’ said the Devil, and his lips twitched in languorous amusement. ‘That’s the second Milton reference that you’ve missed, my boy. Not to mention the Goethe and Gautier allusions. Tut tut, Smythe, what are Cambridge undergraduates coming to, in this day and age? Mind you, I can’t say that I’m all that surprised. I’ve been inspecting your bookcase, and I have to say that your taste in literature is execrable, positively puerile. I mean, Martin Amis is so passé, my dear.’

‘H,how did you get in here?’ asked Rodney, somewhat deflated.

‘Well, not by means of a flying chair. Or a lettuce.’

‘What? What?’

Raising a quizzical eyebrow, Satan said: ‘Is there an echo in this room? In this room?’

‘No, I just…Look, what do you think you’re doing in here?’

‘Well, dear boy, I rather think I’m sitting at your desk, in your chair. And, as I think, therefore I am. There’s a point for you to ponder. With your mighty intellect.’

Rodney flushed. ‘What do you want?’

‘I could tell you that I have come here in pursuit of my eternal quest, for naked ladies in wet mackintoshes…But you wouldn’t get that quotation either. Would you, you preposterous little philistine?’

‘Right, I’ve had just about enough of this,’ snapped Rodney, ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Well, Rodders, actually my names are legion. Satan, the Devil, the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, the Evil One, the Father of Lies, and so on and so forth. You think I don’t exist, and of course you’re quite right about that.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Rodney with a smirk. ‘You’re a friend of Bill Brown. This is some sort of jape he’s put you up to, isn’t it?’

The Devil made a steeple out of his fingers, put it to his chin and said: ‘You know, that explanation really doesn’t work, logically. If you think about it for a second, darling, you’ll realize what a silly thing that was to say. Piffle, in fact. And, honestly, I wouldn’t know Bill Brown if he suddenly stood up in my soup. No, I really am the Devil. Take it from me, old scream.’

Uncertainty flickered in Rodney’s eyes, then he insisted: ‘No, I don’t believe you, and I don’t believe in the Devil.’

Satan smiled. ‘Excellent, excellent.’

He produced from nowhere a red pen and a piece of parchment with words inscribed on it, held them out to Rodney and murmured: ‘Since you don’t believe I exist, you won’t have any problem signing this document, selling me your soul in return for the standard period of prosperity.’

Rodney gulped.  

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