Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [46]
What happened next is difficult to ascertain, as although the Masonic archive records events in detail it does so in an annoyingly obscure code which insists on describing everything in alchemical terms (‘scrying-bone’ for chalk, ‘red dragon’ for sulphur, etcetera). What can be said with some certainty is that the ape appeared, and began tearing at the walls of its invisible prison. Traditionally any summoned thing is incapable of crossing a chalk line, and in the Westminster account the animal tore its fingers to shreds trying to rip its way out of the circle. There was a lot of blood (‘fire vitae’) on the floor, and the screaming of the ape was so great that students as far away as Pembroke College were said to have complained that a murder was being committed. When the Marquis began the binding process, the ape didn’t calm down, and by the time the ritual was finished the saliva from its jaws was so thick that it looked as if it had become rabid.
It was at this point that the Grand Lodge’s representatives told the Marquis to step into the circle.
According to the principles of the ritual, this was perfectly safe. The only way to complete the binding was to step over the chalk line, leaving oneself at the mercy of the animal: only when the ritualist made this ‘sacrifice’ could the beast come under his will. It goes without saying that the Marquis was horrified at the suggestion, but he doesn’t seem to have had much choice. It wasn’t just that the traditional penalty for those who disobeyed the Grand Lodge was to be hanged below a bridge with their intestines cut out. It was that the Marquis needed the Lodge’s protection. He was betraying Sabbath even by revealing the ceremony, and that must have scared him even more than the rat-catchers did.
So the Marquis, it seems, stepped into the circle with the ape. The Masonic account becomes increasingly obscure at this point, but the ‘fire vitae’ is mentioned quite a lot.
Evidently, Sabbath’s ritual wasn’t exactly foolproof. Indeed, in the weeks that followed there was some speculation that the binding process didn’t work at all, and that Sabbath had concocted the entire thing as some monstrous practical joke. Days later Fitz and Juliette found the scrubbed remains of the chalk circle on the floorboards, but there’s a contradiction here, of course. In his letter to the Doctor, Fitz doesn’t describe any blood: it’s difficult to remove bloodstains from wood at the best of times, but the idea that a floor could have been washed clean of blood yet still have chalk marks remaining is nothing less than ridiculous. Possibly Fitz’s account is incomplete, or possibly the Masonic archive is, not unusually, exaggerating. Scarlette would no doubt have claimed that the ghost of the chalk circle had worked its way up through the ground, just like the ghost of Newgate Prison. Whatever the reason, Fitz believed the marks to be significant, and (rightly) found the behaviour of the Professor/guide suspicious. When he finally asked the Professor for access to one of the University’s more esoteric archives, in the hope of finding material written by Sabbath that hadn’t been destroyed by the Service, the Professor filibustered for some time (waffling about ‘bureaucratic process’) before granting Fitz admittance.
As expected, nothing of importance was found in the archive. But documents relating to Sabbath were already in Fitz’s possession. Scarlette