With his mother’s milk man learns to hate the demons in this world.
But what is a demon but an angel that has fallen – an angel, who has looked upon the daughters of men, has seen that they are truly beautiful, and fallen.
It is easier by far to hate than to love.
He stands on the brink of the world, where it ends – where it ended and his father’s voice reaches out once more through the years:
“Don’t blub, boy. It wasn’t your fault; it was the will of the Fates. They wanted your mama for an angel. Accept it like a man, damn you. Accept it like a Lowther.”
But again and again he sees her face falling away from him, and again and again he hears her scream as she breaks on the rocks below the crags of Sewingshields.
It was the will of the Fates.
Quo Fata Vocant.
And now they will again.
Through the field glasses, his eyes creep once more along the road below him. He is watching; he is waiting for the angel himself.
It will be soon now. The smoke of Hayden Bridge seems so close.
His sacred place is close too, and he yearns to go there.
But he is a Lowther; he is a soldier sworn to the Queen’s Regulations.
‘The first object of his attention must ever be to watch the movements of the enemy and to give timely notice of his approach.’ Of the angel’s approach.
So again he lifts up his glasses and searches the road below.
Lo! He spies him; the enemy, the angel, the Guardian Angel.
He watches and watches his movements and, as the enemy approaches, he stands and raises his arm.
The Guardian Angel, the fallen angel, sees it and waves back.
He stands, silent and perfectly still, watching as another seventh-part of the wergild bustles up to him, bustles up to his death.
“Good afternoon, Colonel. I’m reporting for duty as you ordered.”
James stands smiling to attention. He salutes; his left hand up crisp and smart. It’s like the old days.
Sir Hugh Lowther smiles, salutes in return and points over the cliffs. He points towards Sewingshields.
James’ss face, the face of the angel turns and looks. His face is glossy with sweat and it takes the glow of the sun.
The sun reflects too on the polished bronze of the Holy Platter being raised high above his head. James looks heavenward and sees it. His face twists in puzzlement and he watches, mesmerised as it climbs like the very orb itself.
He hears the words that Sir Hugh screams, words that explain everything:
“Guardian Angel!”
The Holy Platter sets. It is hard and heavy. The expression on the angel-face turns from puzzlement to shock and then to a brutal, bloody mess as the footman falls stunned to the ground.
Sir Hugh Lowther binds the wrists tightly, but piously together as if in prayer. It is an angel after all. He ties the ankles together too and waits.
And as he waits, he stares at the angel’s face and he remembers the other times – the times long ago, before the angel fell, when they had stood shoulder to shoulder. The good times, he thinks, and then he shudders.
“You’re a traitor and a coward!” Verthandi’s voice erupts around them and Lowther jumps to his feet. He glances frantically down at James, but no – thank the Lord, he hasn’t moved; he hasn’t heard her.
“That was a glorious time for your Queen and country; it was a time to be a man. You served as brothers-in-arms, you and he, yet you are the one who cringes from the memory of it like a baby.
“You should remember Cawnpore, Lowther; you should recall Cawnpore and Lucknow and all the other battles you have fought and you should exult!”
‘Remember Cawnpore!’
That had been their battle cry ever since they had found the butchered remains of the women and the children in the well. Remember Cawnpore? How could he ever forget it?
It had been the 16th of July, 1857 when they, the first British relief force, had finally fought their way through to the city. The men of the original Cawnpore garrison had been massacred by the rebel Sepoys, the native Indian troops who had rebelled against the British East India Company in the Great Uprising.
That massacre had been the grossest affront to honour. The besieged British had been granted safe passage to Allahabad in return for their surrender, but instead, they had been cut down at Satichaura Ghat on the banks of the Ganges by Sepoy bullets and by the swords of the cavalry Sowars. The British women and children had been captured. They had been set, so they were told, to grind corn for chapattis at a villa called Bibighar, the ‘House of the Ladies’ in Cawnpore itself.
So he, Lieutenant Hugh Lowther, had been ordered to join a detail of other officers and men. They were to form a rescue party, to take quick possession of Bibighar and to free those held within it.
But when they had arrived there, the House of the Ladies was silent.
“You’re too late. They are all dead,” Urth had hissed through the crackle of distant gunfire, and even as she spoke, he realised that she was right. The stench of death was once again searing his nostrils and the image of his mama searing his mind.
They had found them – dozens of them – piled inside a dry well. They had been butchered with cleavers – killed, stripped naked and dismembered. Some had been thrown into the well whilst yet alive.
The vengeance of the British had been as swift as it had been terrible. Those suspected of being involved in the mutiny were made to lick the blood of the victims from the walls of the Bibighar before they were hanged. The Muslim Sepoys were made to eat pork or to smear pork fat on their bodies – an abomination to their faith. The Hindus were forced to eat the flesh of their sacred cattle, or to rub their fat onto their skins.
The Sisters of the Wyrd had applauded these and the other punishments set out by Brigadier Neill.
“It is proper justice, Lowther, and the Brigadier is a true hero,” Verthandi had told him. “It is just and it is fitting. The rebels might bleat but they have brought it on themselves.”
Although it turned him sick to the marrow of his bones, he had been obliged to agree. Whenever any man baulked at the cruelty they were meting out, the cry ‘Remember Cawnpore!’ would go up. Whenever he, Hugh Lowther, hesitated it was the Norns themselves who would scream those very same words into his mind.
They urged him on in rounding up the rebels and having them build a line of gallows for their own executions. It was good that these were within sight of the well so that the last thing they would see would be the site of their atrocity. The Sisters roared with laughter as the Muslims were sewn into pigskins before they were hung, cackled when the lowliest sweepers were forced to hang those of the highest castes.
But it was Skuld, That Which Should Become, who had shocked him so profoundly by decreeing the fate of the worst of the mutineers.
“You must tell your father to have them blown from the mouths of cannon,” she had whispered in her voice that reminded him so much of his dear, dead mama. “They had your women and children dismembered, so you must dismember them. It is only right. And it is a retribution they themselves have used in times past.”
And so he had. And Sir Douglas Lowther, because he was a major in the Fifth, had listened to him – had listened to the words of the Fates. He had nodded grimly and agreed, wondering in his heart what sort of fiend his son had become.
Quo Fata Vocant.
Accordingly, those adjudged to be the ringleaders were taken to where the guns were waiting, charged and ready with blank cartridge. The soldiery and the populace had been summoned and they had stood in silence as the verdict and the sentence of the court was read out.
Screaming insults, they had been held with their backs pressed against the muzzles of the cannon and they had been lashed fast.
Hugh Lowther stood in the company of his own regiment and felt their gaze. To them, this was his idea and his alone. He had long since learned not to speak of the Norns.
The angel-faced private next to him was speaking words of support but he could not respond. It was as if, despite the blazing heat of the Indian sun, he was frozen.
Then, one by one, the guns had been fired and one by one, the rebels had exploded in the roars of smoke and fire. The guns threw back on their wheels and veil after veil of blood doused those watching. Heads and limbs, blackened arms and legs, spun away into the air.
“They have lost all chance of entering their Paradise now,” Verthandi had laughed. But still he could not reply. He was transfixed – as unable to move as the poor wretches waiting for their own death yonder.
An arm, a scorched, cauterised stump of flesh arced through the air and struck Hugh Lowther full on his chest to leave a mottled print of soot and blood across the front of his dress tunic. He could only stand, staring, unable to move, and piss himself as his comrades-in-arms gasped and turned their faces in horror from the carnage.
The men of the ranks looked at him with respect bordering on awe in the days that followed. He had overheard the angel-faced fusilier telling his mess-mates as they were being laboriously ferried across the Ganges river: “He’s as cool as iron, that one, just like his father, the Major. He just stood there, calm as ye like, even when their arms an’ legs were stottin’ off him like hailstones. I tell ye, I would follow him into Hell.”
“But we know the truth of it!” the Norns had taunted, and he had turned his head away to gaze across the Ganges, towards the besieged city of Lucknow so that none could see his shame.
And he does remember Cawnpore, and he does remember Lucknow and every other battle very often, and he does – he always does try so hard, to be exultant.
The blood has dried to a thick, dark crust when the eyes of the angel – the angel-faced ex-fusilier flutter open. It is time at last for him, for the Guardian Angel, to grow wings. He has looked upon the daughters of men, even upon the wives of men and seen them to be truly beautiful.
And now he will fall forever. Now, he will indeed go to Hell.