Light One Candle

It's Groundhog Day, and the Spec the Halls Contest is over for 2006-2007. That means I can post another story here above my contest story, "Cold Hands, Warm Heart", which was among the "recommended submissions". It was an interesting concept for a contest, and I enjoyed a number of the entries. But it's done, and now it seems appropriate to post a story related to the next holiday-- not Groundhog Day, but the feast of the Meeting of Our Lord, known in the West as Candlemas, which falls on the same day, February 2nd. This cover is by Lynne Fahnestalk Taylor from the Fall 1992 issue of On Spec, where the story first appeared.

Edit March 2008: Of course, this story is also related to a holiday in April, the 23rd-- St. George's Day.

LIGHT ONE CANDLE

(This story originally appeared in the Fall 1992 Issue of ON SPEC, the Canadian Magazine of Speculative Writing. I've been archiving it on my old website, which my old ISP for some reason still has up, so I thought I'd move it over here before Rogers figures they should shut that site down.)

There was just too little comfort to be had in the world, John Williamson thought as he swung his last kettle of tallow onto the fire. Sweat rolled off his brow, as God had promised Adam in the beginning. God had said nothing, however, about good Englishmen like John's father leaving a wife and twelve-year-old son, and the foundations of a promising new trade, to go off on the crusade led by a French king.
That was what his father had done, though, more than eight years ago now. For the last year, since his mother died, the chandlery had become nearly too much for John. Straining his back lifting the kettles while he boiled up mutton suet, spinning wicks like a woman because he was too poor to get himself a wife, contending with the lazy mule to get the candles to market--if he had wanted a life of ascetic labour, he could easily have chosen it for himself, and become a monk like his mother's brother. It rankled most of all that his misery was none of his own, but all his father's fault.
Now, checking the wicks draped over their rods between two chairs, he swore at his latest adversity, the death of the mule just yesterday, which left him no transport for his wares. And it was at this moment that the crusader knight came to the door with the packet that was to change John's fortunes.
"You be John Chandler?" the dishevelled man asked.
John saw the chainmail armour and cowl, and the cross sewn on his surcoat, and knew he must be one of King Edward's knights, home from crusading in the Holy Land. "I am the son of William Chandler, sir, just minding shop--"
"Not any more," said the knight, and tossed John a large leather wallet. "There's your inheritance, as he begged me to bring you. Died of a fever in Acre, he did."
And that was all the knight had to say. He was gone before John could speak a word. These beastly, self-important gentry, thought John, they are all the same!
John left the tallow kettle to bubble on the fire, the undipped wicks waiting on the rods, and took the wallet to the table. Though he cavilled at the knight's thoughtless manner, John did not bother to weep for his father -- dying in the desert was no more than he deserved for his monstrous desertion.
He looked at the leather wallet a moment before opening it. Could he dare hope his father's war wages would be enough to replace the mule?
But they were not. Inside the wallet he found one silver coin, three coppers, and a dozen candles. John regarded his meagre inheritance with dismay and a mounting anger. Then he spat on the floor and said, "That for honouring my father!"
The impulse welled up in him to throw the candles into the fire, but John stayed his hand. He was too poor to indulge in such a fit of rage.
Then one candle among the rest caught his eye; it was wrapped about with a small piece of vellum and tied with a string. Curious, he slipped it off and found writing on one side. Laboriously he dredged up the minim of schooling acquired in his childhood to sound out the words.
"Thisse candel beareth a grete blessinge, for that its wicke hath twined into it an haire which is an holy relicke of Sainte George. Keep the candel withinne its wallet, and thereby thou shalt find the wallet never empty of candelles."
"Saint George in sooth!" John exclaimed. John's grandfather had once told him that he had it from his father that hardly a body in England so much as heard of Saint George until King Richard came back from a crusade and began having chapels built in his name. Slew a dragon somewhere in Outremer, did Saint George, but he had plainly done no good for William Chandler, to leave him dead of fever in Acre.
John returned the candle to the wallet. "Never empty of candles indeed! Of course it will never be empty if I leave this one candle in here! What a credulous horse's ass my father was!"
He examined the other candles; they were of fine yellow beeswax, not tallow, and might bring some good coin. He took the 'miraculous' candle out again for a second look; it was distinguished from the others by bearing embedded in the side a cross of palm leaves. He might do even better by that, but not likely as much as his father paid for the thing. John sighed and put the candle away again. He would do better, he suspected, to keep it as a monument to his father's folly.

But next day the miracle happened. John bundled up the eleven beeswax candles, which he had left on the table all night, and went to put them in the wallet with the other. But the wallet was already full of candles.
He emptied the wallet onto the table. Eleven more candles, plus the one that incorporated Saint George's hair, if he were to believe it. "By'r lady!" he exclaimed softly.
Three days later he was on the road in search of customers, the Saint George candle in its wallet and fifty others in a sack. He stopped in each of the neighboring parishes (where no-one would wonder where he got the wax to make his wares), sold a few candles to each local priest, and in less than a week had a plump purse jingling at his belt.
Each morning he transferred eleven more candles from the wallet to the sack. He could have sold more than the miracle produced, but at this he did not grumble; John was not greedy of gain, only of a measure of comfort. He was well pleased, indeed, to contemplate purchasing a new mule before long, to lighten the load presently on his back, and after that, well, what was to stop him from wooing any girl he liked? A girl to take away the spinning chores that made his hands raw, and to cook him pleasant and filling meals. A life of just enough comfort to avoid jealous attention from his neighbours, and he might even be able to forget the wicked desertion of his father.
So he went whistling down the road, eventually finding himself in the next shire, where he had never been before. He sold three mornings' worth of candles to a large abbey, and came away with plenty of coin. John congratulated himself on his cleverness in avoiding competition with local chandlers and waxmakers by his speedy travel, and planned his route to make a circle west and south to the coast, where he heard there were two more abbeys, and at last back to his shop in Winchester.
But before he had found himself a suitable mule, the dog days came on with the suddenness of the Last Judgment. The sun pounded on John's head, laying his sandy locks against his forehead, lank and sweaty, and his gay mood turned to distress. The candles--they would melt into one another!
"Must take to the shade," he muttered. There was a wood ahead, but it did not overhang the road--he would be forced to retreat from the route that led toward the abbey of Beaulieu, and hole up in the shade of oak and beech until the evening brought cooler air.
The shiver that ran down his spine was from more than the cooling shade as he made his way in under the canopy of the wood. He knew well from last night's drinking acquaintances that all the land hereabout was royal forest.
"But really," he told himself, "I am not intending to poach, and have nothing more than a dagger on me. If I should meet one of the king's verderers, all I need do is show him my stock of candles to explain and excuse my presence here."
John very carefully did not think about highway robbers or outlaws, for that would not have been conducive to comfort, and without comfort, it would have been difficult to sleep. Perhaps he should have thought about such things; but by the time he was kicked awake from his noonday doze, it was rather too late to do anything about it.
A big, hefty fellow with a bushy black beard laughed at John as he sat up in alarm. The robber had cut the purse from John's belt with a well-honed knife that now glinted in a shaft of sunlight falling through the beech-leaves above.
"'Ere, Bob," he said to one of the two companions who were inspecting the candle-sack. "Why, this 'ere purse is fat as a cow's udder before the morning milking!"
John felt his heart fluttering against the wallet that held the Saint George candle inside his shirt.
"Purse that 'eavy, 'e might 'ave someone as would pay ransom for 'im," one of the others suggested as he heaved the candle sack over his shoulder.
"Nar," said the other, "Too risky. Look, we ought to 'ave cut 'is throat while 'e were still asleep."
John felt faint. He had an impulse to cross himself, something he had resisted ever since his father went off on crusade, but he held back, fearing the robbers.
"Hold, villeins!" cried a voice. John twisted to look over his shoulder, and there, a stone's throw distant, saw a mounted knight, resplendent in glittering mail and a white surcoat emblazoned with a blood-red cross. Through the slit of his visor the knight's eyes blazed like twin candles in a lantern -- a trick of the light through the branches, surely? thought John.
"Scatter!" yelled the burly robber, and ran. His henchmen obeyed. The knight drew his sword and spurred his mount, thundering after the ringleader.
In a few moments John found himself alone. But the robber did not get far through the wide-spread trees; John could hear the horse's pounding hooves off to his right, then the robber's pleas for mercy.
"Churl!" came the knight's powerful voice, "If I grant you your life, what will you do with it but waylay some other unfortunate?"
The robber went on begging, and at last the knight had mercy, having extracted a promise of penance and reformation. Whether or not this could be depended upon at all, the knight soon sent the villain off and came trotting his horse back through the wood to John.
"Your purse," said the knight, and handed it to him.
John stammered out his thanks, bowing awkwardly.
"A pity the other two have escaped with your goods. And you with no victuals, I'll warrant."
"No, my lord," John said.
"Then follow me," said the knight, and wheeled his charger round, starting into an easy walk.
He was headed into the forest, not out to the road. But John dared not disobey him.
At first he had little difficulty tagging along at the horse's heels, but the time wore on and on. He no longer had his sack of candles to worry about, and the Saint George candle seemed safe enough in its wallet. Yet as they passed through the wood, the trees seemed to draw closer together, and instead of only the grey-barked holly, ferns and brambles gathered in attendance on the great old oaks. Branches arched together overhead, shutting out the fiery summer sun.
John found himself trying to pick his path through the thorny undergrowth, and yet the knight's charger marched on like a steed of iron. John stopped, cursing, to pull his coat away from a prickly bush. "Wait, I pray, sir knight!"
The knight reined in the horse, turning in the saddle to watch as John extricated himself from the tangle and caught up to him again. Then he extended a gauntleted hand to the young chandler.
John took the hand, bracing one foot in the stirrup the knight left open for him, and his free hand on the saddle. But he had scarcely any effort to boost himself; the knight hauled him up effortlessly, like a fisherman with a catch of small fry. John settled himself behind his benefactor, astonished at his manifest strength.
The knight was a local lord, John supposed, and knew a shortcut to his own manor across the royal forest here. No doubt he would leave John to spend the night at the cottage of one of his vassals. John could take his morning's candles up to the manor house as a gift of gratitude to his deliverer. It was certainly the first time any noble had ever done John Chandler a favour.
But no manor house appeared. At every bend the wood grew darker and more maze-like. John began to fear that the knight, with the typical overconfidence of the high-born, had lost his way. John dared make no such remark, but at last he was so sore and weary that he could not keep silent longer.
"My lord, of your mercy, will you not tell me where you are taking me?'
The knight was silent a moment. Then he said, "I am taking you inward. Coming out again, that depends on you."
John swallowed, his grip on the knight's belt tightening. He had been a fool not to see it sooner -- his benefactor was a madman, or a fiend! But how could he escape now, out of this trackless forest? Could he slip away when the knight slept, perhaps, and find his way out of the wood along the banks of a stream somewhere?
After a time the knight said, "If you hunger, fear not. Soon we will come to our night's shelter, and there you may be fed."
John was not able to put much hope in this promise, and he grew more and more apprehensive as the filtered light melted into the forest gloom. But to his surprise, just as he thought night had really fallen on them, a clearing opened ahead, where stood a tiny stone church like an unexpected island in the vast sea of trees. Heaven smiled upon it from above, the branches seemingly forbidden to block the sky here. The day had all but faded from the sky, and at the very moment John alighted from the horse's back he looked up and saw the first star of the night wink at him.
"Into the chapel, at once!" barked the knight.
John turned, startled at the urgency in his voice, and stared wide-eyed at the knight's face. He had not imagined it before -- there was real fire in the eyes behind the visor!
Terror took hold of him all at once, but his feet stayed rooted to the ground. The knight stood before him, holding the horse's bridle, waiting for obedience. John's racing heart urged him to flee into the woods; the woods themselves seemed to beckon him -- wild animals, robbers, anything was better than what awaited him in that chapel!
He tore himself from the spot, made a dash for the trees. But the knight lunged after him, catching him by the arm. John gasped and squirmed, trying to free himself.
"Look at me!" said the knight.
John looked. The eyes were still fiery, but the fire struck him once more as it had when the knight first appeared -- like candle flames, steady and quiet, a light in a window to lead the traveller home on a dark night. Not, as he had thought for a moment, the unquenchable flame of hell.
Then the knight let go his arm. "You have been a fool all your life. Do not be a fool now."
Out around the clearing, a rustling ran in a wide circle through the undergrowth, as if the wood had taken a deep breath.
The knight glanced into the trees. "It comes," he said in a low voice. "Only in the chapel will you be safe."
He drew his sword, but it was not John he brandished it at. The woods fell silent again. Every bone shaking, John picked up his feet and ran. He ducked through the open doorway, half-blind with fear, and threw himself on the stone floor before the altar.
A moment later the knight came in, leading his horse by the bridle. He shut the door and dropped a heavy bolt across it. John's blood pounded in his ears, and his breathing slowed only gradually to something like normal.
The first thing he noticed about the chapel was that there was light. It came from a single small lamp suspended before a statue off to the left in front of the altar. Another lamp hung above the altar itself, but it was dark, and the two candlesticks upon the altar stood empty. The rest of the chapel was empty too, as if unused for countless years.
The knight stepped toward the light, and tested the weight of the bowl with his hand. "I would judge the oil sufficient to last until midnight. After that, well, we must see what provision God will vouchsafe us."
John supposed they would have no need for any light after midnight, both being soundly asleep, but he said nothing.
And then the knight revealed for the first time something, other than his voice, of the man beneath the armour. He drew off his gauntlets, laying them on the floor, and then lifted off his helm. John's gaze went at once to his eyes; but surely, the light he saw there was nothing but the reflection of the little votive flame?

Next the knight pulled off the ring-mail cowl, placing it with the helmet and gauntlets. A striking mane of gold hair tumbled round his shoulders, and John thought of the tale of Achilles and Troy once told him by his mother's brother, who had studied it as part of his monastic education. The 'golden-haired Achaeans', the heroes were called. This knight could have been one of their company. A well-trimmed beard, somewhat darker than the hair, adorned a face that was youthful, yet with the lines of suffering upon it. But even those did not destroy the serenity of the features.
"Here is the refreshment I promised you," said the knight, and sat down cross-legged on the stone floor beside John.
John blinked. Where it had come from he had not seen, but the knight was holding out a little tray with a cup and a loaf upon it. It reminded John at once of the wayfarers' dole, the bread and ale provided to travellers by the Hospitallers of Saint Cross in his own Winchester. But when he tried the drink, it proved no ale, but the sweetest wine he had ever had the fortune to taste.
They shared the simple meal, and though there was not much of it, John sat back when he had done, satisfied, to listen to the silence in the chapel. Even the horse made no sound, nor so much as switched its tail. Its master had left it, strangely enough, still saddled and bridled, as if it might be needed at any moment.
John felt the ache ease out of his weary muscles, and almost thought he might sleep, hard though the stone floor was. But then the knight said, "Now." And though his voice was mild as milk, John suddenly went on his guard again.
"We have until midnight. Do you want to tell me your tale?"
It was not possible to say no. What the knight could want with a chandler's tale John had no inkling, but he began dutifully to recount his misfortunes. It occurred to him as he spoke that no-one had ever asked to listen to his troubles before -- not even the inkeep down the road from his shop, much less a knight.
"--and as for my father, if he spends eternity in Hell, I will not shed even one tear!" As the words came out, John realized they might well offend the knight's too-obvious piety. Still, he had said nothing when John poured out his rancorous account of his father's departure on crusade. When John ran out of words -- he said nothing about the miraculous candle that was his inheritance -- the knight stood and began to pace. He stopped before one of the small side windows and stood with his arms folded, peering out into the darkness.
"Fathers are but men," he said, "and share the fault of our first father, Adam. Yet they, like Adam, are formed in the image of the Heavenly Father."
"Mine left me," John said sharply. His heart beat uneasily against the candle in his shirt. He did not like the knight to excuse his father, and now he recalled that the knight had called him a fool as well, and he did not like that either. A fool was something John Chandler had never been -- on the contrary, he was the very picture of prudence. Had he not forborne to throw the candles in the fire, despite his burning wrath?
Outside, something like a winter wind suddenly seemed to wrap itself around the chapel. The hair on the back of John's neck rose, and he wound his arms around himself against the sudden chill.
The knight turned slowly from the window, the reflected oil-lamp flame shining in his eyes again. "It comes," he said, and took his cowl once more from where it lay and drew it on over his head.
John started to his feet. "What comes? You said we were safe in the chapel!"
The knight gave a little toss of his head as he settled his helm on over the cowl, a gesture that led John's eyes to the lamp. "As long as we have light. Without light, there is little hope."
John went to the lamp, tested its weight as the knight had done earlier. His breath caught as the little flame wavered at his gentle movement of the bowl. He released it again, trembling, but it did not go out. Yet how long could it last?
Then the thing in the night outside took on form and weight. John could feel it out there, coiling round the chapel and drawing tight like a rope round a post. His mouth went dry.
For the first time he looked at the little statue illuminated by the lamp, preparing to dip into the depths of his memory in search of long-disused prayers. To his surprise, the image was not, as he had expected, of the Virgin, but of a military saint, his helm surmounted by a gilded halo. He held a long, thin lance in one raised hand, its point down and threatening the tiny dragon that lay cowering under the crush of his booted foot.
Saint George. John's hand went to his breast, where the candle still lay in its wallet.
"I will do what I can to help you," said the knight, standing at John's shoulder as he put on his gauntlets. "But to make light for you without any means is beyond me."
John avoided the fiery eyes. A stubborn vision of his comfortable, carefree future, made possible by the daily appearance of the candles, kept his hands from the wallet, and his lips sealed. He held his gaze on the statue, and remarked, "Where's the great feat in slaying a dragon that size?"
He could feel the knight's eyes on him, and knew what a foolish thing it was to say. Something gave a violent rattle to the door of the chapel, and John's heart leapt into his mouth. The horse whinnied.
"Do you think," said the knight, "that the dragon was so small at the beginning of the battle?"
He turned and went clinking across the stone floor in his mail. The horse greeted him eagerly as he leapt into the saddle.
The thing outside battered the door again, as resoundingly as any ram ever did a besieged castle. The knight crossed himself and drew his sword.
As the charger took up its position before the door, John cowered by the statue of Saint George. "Surely -- surely," he choked, "no wicked thing can come in here, this is a holy place!"
The knight glanced at John over his shoulder, but gave no answer.
Again the night creature pounded against the door, this time setting up a shudder that ran through every stone of the chapel. The tiny flame in the oil lamp flickered alarmingly. John reached inside his shirt and drew out the leather wallet, but hesitated to bring the candle itself out of hiding. To do so would mean something irrevocable, he knew, though he was not sure what, nor whether it would be something worse than the thing that was battering the door. His thoughts, indeed, were so clouded that when the door at last flew inward before the force of the thing's attack, he still stood gazing at the lamp like a snake-charmed mouse.
The charger reared, neighing loudly, and the knight lifted high his sword, crying, "Halt! While I guard him, you shall not approach!"
In through the doorway the beast thrust its gigantic, obscene head. The oil flame grew smaller, but John could see well enough. His innards heaved, and his shaking hand dropped the wallet. "Merciful God!" he whispered.
Tall as the door, with bloody eyes and a gaping mouth full of teeth like Saracen blades, yet John recognized it at once. It was his father's face.
The nightmare creature slid into the chapel, snaking its huge coiled body past the mounted knight who stood in its way. The knight turned the horse quickly, and stood once more between John and the beast. "No!" His voice shook the roof-beams. "He will not face you until he is ready!"
John fell to the floor, fumbling with the wallet. The oil lamp flickered. With sweaty hands he took the candle out and leapt toward the lamp.
"John!" the monster called. Its voice was like thunder, and the icy tone of it stabbed him to the bone. He stood frozen before the lamp, unable to lift the candle and place its wick in the flame.
"John." It was the knight who spoke now, his voice urgent yet firm. "I can do no more for you. This is your dragon, not mine. Light the candle, John."
John tore his eyes from the thing with his father's face and dipped the candlewick into the dying flame. Not a moment too soon. Even as he lifted it upright, shining brightly, the oil lamp sputtered and went dark.
John clutched the candle before his breast, but his relief was short-lived. The knight lowered his sword and made the horse sidle away, allowing the thing with his father's face to advance toward John. Grinning, it reared backward and lunged toward him.
"No!" he screamed, and lifted the candle high. The monster fell back, whimpering. Encouraged, John jumped forward, thrusting the candle in the creature's face.
The candle flame surged suddenly, and again a horror of recognition washed over John. How could he have thought this was his father's face? It was not. It was his own.
It was a bland, soft face, the face of a worm and not of a man. And it had shrunk as he held the light upon it. A pitiful, complaining moan issued from its throat, and John, startled, drew back the hand that held the candle.
"Steady!" said the knight, and John held the light out toward the thing again.
The face that was and was not his own grew puffy, the lips pouting in protest against the injustice done to it. The vast, quivering body dwindled and melted like a lump of suet in the kettle, until it was no larger than John himself.
"John," said the knight, and John turned to see him offering his sword.
John looked from the thing to the knight and back again. "But surely it's harmless now!" he said.
The thing turned its head in a pleading fashion, as if to demonstrate the truth of John's words.
"Perhaps," said the knight. "But when the candle is burnt out, will you be able to stop it from growing again?"
John swallowed. But, oh, to thrust a blade into his twin! Perhaps he could have done it cheerfully enough if the face had remained that of his father...
But what a face it was. The more he looked at it the sorrier he was ever to have seen it. It was undeniably his own face, and written in every lump of the flesh were cowardice, selfishness, pettiness. Feeling sick, he shifted the candle to his left hand and accepted the offered hilt from the knight with his right.
The small nightmare was crying like a kitten now, begging him without words for mercy. But John held the candle above it while it squirmed, and watched it shrink to the size of a cat. Then he set his left foot firmly upon its back, drew back his sword arm and plunged the blade into its soft flesh with all his strength.
Whimpering, it went stiff and rolled over. Its maggoty flesh melted, pooling on the floor, and then with a hiss like an extinguished candle evaporated into wisps of smoke.
With a sob of relief, John dropped to his knees before the altar, and there he stayed, the knight at his side, until dawn, when the candle breathed its last.
The knight helped him to his feet, and led him out into the morning. A spring bubbled in front of the chapel, and John drank from it gratefully.
"My lord --" John began, but the knight shook his head.
"I am not your lord. A fellow warrior, only."
John could not look at him, thinking, That thing in the night, that was how he saw me all along. "I -- I do not know what to do now. Perhaps -- perhaps I should go on the crusade, as my father did." It was with wondering relief that he realized the thought of his father no longer burned his soul like spilt hot tallow.
"Not by my advice," said the knight. "The crusading days are nigh done, and there was ever more evil than good in them. Still, there has been many a soul saved along the way to them. Perhaps your father was among them."
Then the knight mounted his horse and brought John out of the wood by a short route. When John jumped down he found himself under the eaves of a beech hanger, looking downhill over a vineyard that nestled up against a stately abbey. Black-robed brothers stooped amongst the vines, singing as they worked, and the sun washed the whole valley with its blessing.
He turned to look up at the knight. "Please do not forget me."
The knight smiled. Behind his visor, his eyes shone brightly.
John made his way down the hill, turning at the bottom to wave. The knight raised his arm in reply, and then he was gone.
John strode into the vineyard, and hailed one of the monks. "Greetings, brother! I beg you, take me to a priest, so that I may make my confession. And then, I think I should like to speak to your novice master."
The monk, an old man with the leathery skin and keen eyes of lifelong asceticism looked up from his labour. Sweat streamed down a brow furrowed with skeptical lines. "If you hope to escape the ills of the world within our walls, young man, let me warn you, the only comfort you'll find here will be the spiritual sort."
John smiled. "Comfort! The truest comfort is the light of one candle on a dark night. Yes, that sort will be enough for me."
--END--