Some of the tiles were the work of highly sophisticated artists; some the work of journeymen; some – especially those that were devoted to areas of pure foliage – the handiwork of apprentices, working on their craft by filling in areas that their masters neither had the time nor perhaps the interest to address.
But none of this spoiled the power of the overall vision. In fact the discontinuity of styles created a splendid energy in the piece. Portions of the world were in focus, other parts were barely coherent; the abstract and the representational sitting side by side on the wall, all part of one enormous story.
And what was that story? Plainly, given the kind of quarry Sandru had listed, this was more than simply a hunt: it smacked of something far more ambitious. But what? He peered at the tiles, his nose a few inches from the wall, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
‘I looked at the whole room, before we put all the furniture in here,’ Sandru said. ‘It’s a view, from the Fortress Tower.’
‘But not realistic?’
‘It depends what you mean by realistic,’ Sandru said. ‘If you look over the other side –’ he pointed across the room ‘– you can see the delta of the Danube.’ Zeffer could just make out the body of water, glittering in the gloom: and closer by a mass of swampy land, with dozens of inlets winding through it, on their way to the sea. ‘And there!’ Sandru went on, ‘to the left –’ again, Zeffer followed Sandru’s finger ‘– at the corner of the room, that rock –’
‘I see it.’
The rock was tall, rising out of the ocean of trees like a tower, shrubs springing from its flank.
‘That’s called the May Rock,’ Sandru said. ‘The villagers dance there, on the first six nights of May. Couples would stay there overnight, and try to make children. It’s said the women always became pregnant if they stayed with their men on May Rock.’
‘So it exists? In the world, I mean. Out there.’
‘Yes, it’s right outside the Fortress.’
‘And so all those other details? The delta –’
‘Is nine miles away, in that direction.’ Sandru pointed at the wall upon which the Danube’s delta was painted.
Zeffer smiled as he grasped what the artists had achieved here. Down in the depths of the Fortress, at its lowest point, they had recreated in tile and paint what could be seen from its pinnacle.
And with that realization came sense of the inscription he’d read on the threshold.
Though we are in the bowels of Hell, we shall have the eyes of Angels.
This room was the bowels of Hell. But the tile-makers and their artist masters, wherever they’d been, had created an experience that gave the occupants of this dungeon the eyes of angels. A paradoxical ambition, when all you had to do was climb the stairs and see all this from the top of the tower. But artists were often driven by such ambition; a need perhaps, to prove that it could even be done.
‘Somebody worked very hard to create all this,’ Zeffer said.
‘Oh indeed. It’s an impressive achievement.’
‘But you hide it away,’ Zeffer said, not comprehending the way the room had been treated. ‘You fill the place with old furniture and let it get filthy.’
‘Who could we show it to?’ the Father replied. ‘It’s too disgusting …’
‘I see nothing –’ he was about to say disgusting, when his eye alighted on a part of tile-work that he’d cleaned with his arm but had not closely studied. In a large grove a round stadium had been set up, with seating made of wood. The perspective was off (and the solution to the perspective changed subtly from tile to tile, as various hands had contributed their piece of the puzzle. There were perhaps twenty tiles that had some portion of the stadium represented upon them; the work of perhaps five artists). The steep benches were filled with people, their bustle evoked with quick, contentious strokes. Some people seemed to be standing; some sitting. Two more groups of spectators were approaching the stadium from the outside, though there was no room for them inside.
But what drew Zeffer’s eye, and made him realize that the Father had been right to wonder aloud who he might show this masterwork to, was the event these spectators had assembled to witness. It was an arena of sexual sport. Several performances were going on at the same time, all unapologetically obscene. In one section of the arena a naked woman was being held down while a creature twice her size, his body bestial, his erection monstrous, was being roped back by four men who appeared to be controlling his approach to the woman. In another quarter, a man had been stripped of his skin by three naked women. A fourth straddled him as he lay on the ground in his own blood. The other three wore pieces of his skin. One had on his whole face and shoulders, her breasts sticking out from beneath the ragged hood. Another sat on the ground, wearing his arms and pulling on the skin of his legs like waders. The third, the queen of this quartet, was wearing what was presumably the piece de resistance, the flesh which the unhappy owner had worn from mid breast-bone to mid-thigh. She was cavorting in this garish costume like a dancer and, by some magic known only to the maker of the mystery, the usurped skin still boasted a full erection.
‘Good God …’ Zeffer said.
‘I told you,’ Sandru said, just a little smugly. ‘And that’s the least of it, believe me.’
‘The least of it?’
‘The more you look, the more you see.’
‘Anywhere in particular?’
‘Go over to the Wild Wood. Look amongst the trees.’
Zeffer moved along the wall, studying the tiles as he went. At first he couldn’t make out anything controversial, but Sandru had some useful advice.
‘Step away a foot or so.’
In his fascination with the details of the stadium, Zeffer had come too close to the wall to see the wood for the trees. Now he stepped back and to his astonishment saw that the thicket around the arena was alive with figures, all of which were in some form or other monstrous; and all unequivocally sexual. Erections were thrust between the trees like plum-headed branches, women dangled from overhead with their legs spread (a flock of birds, thirty or more, swooped out of the sex of one; another was menstruating light, which was splashing on the ground below the tree. Snakes came out of the scarlet pool, in bright profusion).
‘Is it like this all over?’ Zeffer said, his astonishment unfeigned.
‘All over. There are thirty-three thousand, two hundred and sixty-eight tiles, and there is obscene matter on two thousand, seven hundred and ninety-eight of them.’
‘You’ve obviously made a study,’ Zeffer observed.
‘Not I. An English man who worked with Father Nicholas did the counting. For some reason the numbers remained in my head. I think it’s old age. Things you want to remember, you can’t. And things that don’t mean anything stick in your head like a knife.’
‘That’s not a pretty image, with respect.’
‘With respect, there’s nothing pretty