CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Bayliss took a swig from his coffee. ‘Up until the eighteenth century Kulsay was uninhabited. There had been a few attempts to colonize the place before then but the colonists found conditions too harsh. There may have been other reasons why no one stayed very long on the island even then, but there’s nothing documented.
‘In 1720 a wealthy Spaniard called Alphonse deMarco arrived in Aberdeen and bought a large house just outside the city, Farley Grange. In the research I’ve done on him I’ve seen him described as an alchemist and a necromancer. He might even have been both…or neither; the records about him up until then are pretty vague. Either way his arrival certainly stirred up the local population.
‘He brought a large entourage across from Spain with him and filled Farley Grange. Before long there was talk of very un-Christian things going on at his house—weird ceremonies, strange rituals, as well as more lurid tales of all sorts of debauchery. To make matters worse he was a very attractive man, with great charisma and charm, and he had no trouble enticing younger, more impressionable members of society to his house for wild parties. Many stayed on after the parties, and after eighteen months it’s said that there were more than sixty bodies inhabiting Farley Grange, and indulging in what ever forbidden pleasures deMarco was offering.
‘There was an incident in 1724 when a young girl, the daughter of one of the local dignitaries, was found dead in the forest surrounding the Grange. She’d been badly mutilated. Her eyes and tongue had been ripped out. DeMarco was arrested, almost as a matter of course, and he stood trial for her murder. But the case was dismissed when it was proved that deMarco hadn’t been in the country when the girl was murdered. He was released and he returned to Farley Grange, but by now public opinion, which had always been set fairly against him, sunk to an all-time low. The local population engaged in what can only be described as a witch hunt. Mysterious fires were started at the Grange and several of his followers were beaten up when they ventured into town. There were no processions of angry villagers holding flaming torches but from what I’ve read, that would have probably been the next stage.’
Bayliss drained his coffee and set the mug down by the side of his chair. When he looked up again he saw that everyone in the room was sitting, silently, waiting for him to continue. He had them hooked, and he liked that. Storytelling was in his blood; a direct line from his grandfather. The old man would be proud to see him now.
‘DeMarco realized he was, to put it mildly, no longer welcome in the area, so he bought Kulsay Island. He had a house built and moved everyone across. Suddenly he had total freedom to indulge his excesses, and the stories that filtered back across to the mainland were even more extreme than those that had preceded them. And, for him, the beauty of it was that there was no one to bring him to book. There are reports of massive cruelties carried out on the island, even human sacrifice. But then all the stories stop. There’s no record of anything at all on Kulsay from 1734 through to 1746. Then the records pick up again.
‘I had to search for months before I turned up anything else about deMarco, but I finally found an old book in the British library. It’s called Soldiers of God and was written in the early nineteenth century by Bishop Everard Hislop. Basically it’s a history of the Jesuits. I won’t bore you with the details prior to 1736, but the chapter that interested me contains a record of that year.
‘Apparently stories about deMarco and his followers reached the ears of Pope Benedict XIV. Around that time Benedict was trying to strengthen the moral influence of the papacy, so he decided to intercede in what was happening on Kulsay; his theory being that if he could turn deMarco and his followers back to the path of righteousness it would be seen as a shining example of the power, not only of Christianity, but of the Roman Catholic Church in general.
‘He assigned a Scottish bishop, Archibald Prime, to go over to the island and turn these lost sheep back to the way of God. Nothing was heard of Prime for about six months, but then it emerged that, far from turning deMarco and the others back to Christianity, Prime had in fact been turned by deMarco. Pious Prime, as he was now called, had wholeheartedly embraced the lifestyle on Kulsay and had been appointed deMarco’s lieutenant.
‘Of course, the Pope was furious. Benedict himself was highly respected by both Protestants and Catholics alike, and he was seen to be one of the more enlightened pontiffs of the 1700s, but he’d been made to look a fool, and that was a situation he couldn’t allow to flourish. So he called in a man commonly known as The German.’
‘I hate to interrupt,’ Carter said. ‘But where’s all this leading?’ He was surprised how much of what Bayliss was saying mirrored the information he had uncovered.
Bayliss frowned. ‘You wanted to know what is happening on Kulsay so you can deal with it,’ he said. ‘Without an understanding of the island’s history, you may as well be pissing in the dark. This stuff is important because it explains why the island is as it is.’
‘Let him continue, Robert,’ Jane said. She was fascinated by what Bayliss had said so far, though she couldn’t yet see what events from three hundred years ago had to do with Kulsay today.
Carter shrugged and sat back in his seat.
‘Thank you,’ Bayliss said. ‘Where was I?’
‘The German,’ Kirby said.
‘Ah, yes, The German. Klaus Meyer, not actually a German at all. He was born in St. Wolfgang in Austria, but his parents moved to Dresden when he was a child. His family was very strictly Catholic and he entered the Seminary when he was in his late teens. He progressed quickly and by the time he was twenty-five he’d joined the Jesuits, and within five years he’d risen to the position of spiritual coadjutor. These are members of the Society of Jesus who take a special vow of obedience to the Pope.
‘Benedict sent him on a secret mission to Kulsay, to stop the rot, in what ever way he saw fit, on the strict understanding that, to all intents and purposes, he would be working alone, under the radar so there could be no fallout detrimental to the Vatican. He picked the right man for the job. Meyer was a devout Catholic and a purveyor of what’s commonly known today as muscular Christianity. He had a reputation for total ruthlessness, and wasn’t shy of violence if he believed that violence would get the Catholic faith across to unbelievers.
‘Meyer assembled a small team of mercenaries to go with him to Kulsay. These were men he’d used before and whom he trusted implicitly. They in turn were loyal to him, and him alone.
‘The first time he went across to Kulsay he went by himself. He had a meeting with Pious Prime. The two men detested each other on sight.’
‘What about deMarco?’ Jane said. She was absorbed in the story, sitting forward in her seat as if afraid to miss a single word.
‘DeMarco stayed out of the way, at least during the initial meeting. But Meyer made it clear to Prime that he would return to the island, and on his next visit deMarco would meet him face-to-face or suffer, as he put it, dire consequences.’
‘And did he?’ Jane said. ‘Meet with deMarco, I mean.’
Bayliss smiled. ‘Oh yes, they met.’
‘What happened?’
‘He went across to Kulsay with two of his men who were essentially acting as his bodyguards. He not only met deMarco but also six others that he called his High Council. The Council included Pious Prime, which didn’t sit well with The German. Several years later Meyer’s journal was unearthed and in it he claimed that on that day he’d met the Devil’s Disciples and Satan himself, in the guise of Alphonse deMarco. From what I remember he wrote, “He pretends to be a man, but in fact he is Lucifer in corporeal form. With God at my side I will send him back to Hades where he belongs.”’
‘They didn’t get on then,’ John McKinley said with a wry smile.
Bayliss shook his head. ‘Among other things he offered deMarco and the others life everlasting through the grace of God. DeMarco told him he had life everlasting already, and that it had nothing to do with the grace of God. That blasphemy was enough for Meyer. He was a proud man and a fanatical Catholic and was not prepared to sit there and listen to such heresy. He went back to the mainland, gathered the rest of his troops and sent them across to Kulsay with the instructions to eradicate deMarco and his followers.’
‘Eradicate them?’ Jane said.
‘Muscular Christianity, as I said. As far as The German was concerned he was ridding the world of heretics and blasphemers. That was justification enough.’ Bayliss reached down and lifted his mug, put it to his lips then realized it was empty. Seconds later Kirby was at his side with the coffeepot, refilling the mug, her attitude towards him apparently softening by the moment.
‘Did Meyer go back over with his men?’ McKinley asked.
‘Good God, no,’ Bayliss said. ‘The man was ruthless but he was no fool. He stayed on the mainland; distancing himself and the Church from imminent slaughter. He remained there for a week, every day expecting to hear that the mission had been successful. He heard nothing. Finally, on the eighth day, he went across to the island.’
‘What did he find?’ Jane said.
‘He went, expecting to find carnage. What he found was even more chilling. Of deMarco and his followers there was no sign at all. They had, to all intents and purposes, vanished into thin air. The house was deserted, as was the rest of the island.’
‘And his own men?’ Carter said. ‘The mercenaries?’
‘He found the bodies of two of them. The rest had gone. The first he found at deMarco’s house. He was sitting in a chair with his throat cut. He was holding a knife and it appeared he’d taken his own life.’
‘And the second?’
Bayliss smiled, but it was humorless, a rictus more than a sign of pleasure. ‘Meyer found the other man on the grounds of the house, embedded in a tree.’
‘What?’ Carter said.
‘Just his face, chest and knees were visible. The rest of him was in the tree. Meyer described it in his journal. According to him there was no way of telling where the flesh of the man stopped and the bark of the tree began; they had merged into one.’
Jane and Carter exchanged looks. No one in the room said a word. Bayliss continued.
‘Meyer returned to Rome. On the one hand the mission had been a success. DeMarco and his followers had been neutralized, so they were no longer a thorn in Pope Benedict’s side. But the mission raised more questions than it answered. Where had deMarco and his people gone? Would they one day reappear to cause more trouble? What had happened to the rest of the mercenaries? Had they all been killed, or had they joined with deMarco? And as for the man in the tree…well that was clearly the work of the Devil. Benedict wasn’t a happy man.
‘But that’s the end of that story. At least, that’s as far as my research has taken me. DeMarco and his followers never resurfaced. The German was sent home in some disgrace and he never worked for the Pope again. He apparently died a few years later in a small village just outside Dusseldorf, a broken man; haunted by nightmares.’
‘So what happened to Kulsay after that?’ Jane said.
‘Well the Catholics gave the place a wide berth and never set foot on the island again, but thirty years or so later a Presbyterian minister called McLeod led a group of settlers over here. They brought a few thousand sheep with them and turned the island into a fairly thriving farming community. They built the church, held regular services, and McLeod took over deMarco’s house and turned it into the Manse. For a number of years the place flourished. Until sixty years ago when the entire population vanished. Then nothing until the island was bought by the KDC.’
‘So this is the house deMarco built?’ Carter said, looking about the room.