Historical Lovecraft: Tales of Horror Through Time by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Paula R. Stiles
Authors: Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Paula R. Stiles
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centuries. The Empire entered its final decline during the High Middle Ages, with Justinian’s city falling to Frankish crusaders in 1204.
Years later, a lone traveler, dressed in rags, disembarked from a ship in Sicily. His appearance occasioned some comment, as he was unusually tall and possessed a voice like wind-swept trees, the groan of masts in a winter gale.
He was later heard securing passage to Marseille. He admitted himself fascinated by the West and hoped his visit there might prove an interesting one.
Daniel Mill s is a young writer and lifelong resident of Vermont. His first novel, entitled Revenants: A Dream of New England , is available from Chômu Press. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont.
The author speaks: “Silently, Without Cease” is set in the plague-stricken city of Constantinople in 542 CE. It attempts to recreate the suffering of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, whose dreams of reuniting the Roman Empire died with the catastrophic outbreak of bubonic plague known as the ‘Plague of Justinian’. The disease first appeared in Egypt, where it was widely believed to have originated. For generations, the plague ravaged the Mediterranean Basin, resulting in general chaos and massive depopulation. The connection to Nyarlathotep – especially the pharaoh-like herald of apocalypse described by Lovecraft’s early prose poem – came all-too-easily. While much of the story has its basis in fact, the quarantine of the city is my own invention.
THE GOOD BISHOP PAYS THE PRICE
Martha Hubbard
T he Bishop of Celestia stood on the roof-top of his residence, watching the bulging carts: exhausted, wheeled elephants creaking down to the harbour, taking their places by the imperial triremes waiting to be loaded. “Timos, that’s the last one. How many were there in all?”
“Thirty-three, my Lord.”
“Only! Do you think it’s enough?”
Timos raised his eyebrows, in that eternal gesture of negation mastered at birth by all bureaucrats. He was only a secretary – and a slave, at that; what did he know of the workings of the Emperor’s court? His master was a bishop, spiritual leader of the dusty flock clustered around the Church of the Holy Martyrs on the eastern shore of the Euxine Sea. It was the Bishop’s responsibility to ‘know’ what was required to persuade the Court of Theodosius that their claim to the disputed relic was just, fair, indisputably correct – that the blasted thing should be returned to its former resting place in the Chapel of Saint Nicholas of Heraclitus.
Bishop Probus scratched his magnificent nose. Then, because it was July and stiflingly hot, he lifted his hat and scratched thoughtfully at the greying tangled nest wound up on his head. He sometimes felt that one of the most difficult aspects of being a bishop was carrying around this itchy mass under his mitre.
“Tell me again. What did we send?”
“Everything?”
“Well, no, maybe just the most important items.”
With the universal sigh of martyred civil servants, Timos took up the first of 100 scrolls and considered where to begin. He wished Probus would read them for himself, but he couldn’t read. Although, as a boy, he had failed to master any language beyond his native Armenian, his father, General Marcus Probus, had managed, through assiduous use of family connections, to secure this sinecure in remote Eastern Anatolia for his only son.
“Six bales of red-and-azure Phrygian silk, 100 lengths of purple-dyed wool-stuffs suitable for winter cloaks, ten gold-and-silver embroidered altar cloths for which five holy sisters from the Convent of Saint Eulalia forfeited their eyesight, three caskets of saffron – hand-picked locally by children under three, especially selected for their tiny fingers, 20 prepared hides of unborn spring lamb – suitable for inscriptions, four caskets of whole black peppercorns, two caskets of cinnamon, two of whole cloves, and one of ground; in a separate vessel,
Years later, a lone traveler, dressed in rags, disembarked from a ship in Sicily. His appearance occasioned some comment, as he was unusually tall and possessed a voice like wind-swept trees, the groan of masts in a winter gale.
He was later heard securing passage to Marseille. He admitted himself fascinated by the West and hoped his visit there might prove an interesting one.
Daniel Mill s is a young writer and lifelong resident of Vermont. His first novel, entitled Revenants: A Dream of New England , is available from Chômu Press. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont.
The author speaks: “Silently, Without Cease” is set in the plague-stricken city of Constantinople in 542 CE. It attempts to recreate the suffering of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, whose dreams of reuniting the Roman Empire died with the catastrophic outbreak of bubonic plague known as the ‘Plague of Justinian’. The disease first appeared in Egypt, where it was widely believed to have originated. For generations, the plague ravaged the Mediterranean Basin, resulting in general chaos and massive depopulation. The connection to Nyarlathotep – especially the pharaoh-like herald of apocalypse described by Lovecraft’s early prose poem – came all-too-easily. While much of the story has its basis in fact, the quarantine of the city is my own invention.
THE GOOD BISHOP PAYS THE PRICE
Martha Hubbard
T he Bishop of Celestia stood on the roof-top of his residence, watching the bulging carts: exhausted, wheeled elephants creaking down to the harbour, taking their places by the imperial triremes waiting to be loaded. “Timos, that’s the last one. How many were there in all?”
“Thirty-three, my Lord.”
“Only! Do you think it’s enough?”
Timos raised his eyebrows, in that eternal gesture of negation mastered at birth by all bureaucrats. He was only a secretary – and a slave, at that; what did he know of the workings of the Emperor’s court? His master was a bishop, spiritual leader of the dusty flock clustered around the Church of the Holy Martyrs on the eastern shore of the Euxine Sea. It was the Bishop’s responsibility to ‘know’ what was required to persuade the Court of Theodosius that their claim to the disputed relic was just, fair, indisputably correct – that the blasted thing should be returned to its former resting place in the Chapel of Saint Nicholas of Heraclitus.
Bishop Probus scratched his magnificent nose. Then, because it was July and stiflingly hot, he lifted his hat and scratched thoughtfully at the greying tangled nest wound up on his head. He sometimes felt that one of the most difficult aspects of being a bishop was carrying around this itchy mass under his mitre.
“Tell me again. What did we send?”
“Everything?”
“Well, no, maybe just the most important items.”
With the universal sigh of martyred civil servants, Timos took up the first of 100 scrolls and considered where to begin. He wished Probus would read them for himself, but he couldn’t read. Although, as a boy, he had failed to master any language beyond his native Armenian, his father, General Marcus Probus, had managed, through assiduous use of family connections, to secure this sinecure in remote Eastern Anatolia for his only son.
“Six bales of red-and-azure Phrygian silk, 100 lengths of purple-dyed wool-stuffs suitable for winter cloaks, ten gold-and-silver embroidered altar cloths for which five holy sisters from the Convent of Saint Eulalia forfeited their eyesight, three caskets of saffron – hand-picked locally by children under three, especially selected for their tiny fingers, 20 prepared hides of unborn spring lamb – suitable for inscriptions, four caskets of whole black peppercorns, two caskets of cinnamon, two of whole cloves, and one of ground; in a separate vessel,
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