Room 13

Based on the M. R. James story "Number 13", as well as elements from some other stories of his and some themes that he would never have allowed.

*

It was February 1895 when I made the journey to Viborg in Jutland that fractured the path of my life. It is only now that I know that path's end is near that I feel I can finally record the truth of what occurred then without rectitude, shame or professional humiliation.

I had joined the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford as a junior assistant curator after graduating the previous summer and had been tasked with assessing the donation of the late A. S. Taylor, which was had been left in a shocking state. The Medieval History of Northern Europe was my specialist field and this area formed the core of Taylor's eclectic private collection which he had formed over his many trading visits to the Scandinavian countries. Amber was a particular obsession of his, and he had many pieces of remarkable clarity and variety.

One particular piece, set in a silver medallion of about 6 inches wide, proved exceptionally difficult to categorise. It was of exceedingly rare blue amber and had an intriguing internal spiral that at first could be taken as a blemish, but was of too fine and regular an arc to be natural. The silverwork around it though was of an especially vulgar and disturbing nature. Limbs and tendril forms were worked around the edge, entwining about each other in a quite suggestive manner. There was none of the heavenly repetition of Celtic knotwork, nor the literalism of classical art, just an explosion of irregular shapes groping and grasping onto whatever they could find as if in some kind of lunatic desperation.

A medallion I called it but although it had a chain so that could be worn around the neck I don't think any sane person would have liked to have been seen wearing it in public. I don't mean to suggest that it was crudely made, as there was clearly great craftsmanship in the work, just that the subject matter was not pleasing to the aesthetic eye.

Taylor, like many great collectors, was notoriously poor at recording where and when he gathered the objects that caught his fancy, hence the reason for my employment. The nearest I could gather from his papers was that the article had been obtained in Viborg, in the Jutland area of Denmark, a few years after the destruction of the old cathedral.

Although the medallion continued to perplex me, I was forced to put it to one side as I worked throughout 1894 cataloguing the collection. I was nearly finished when I saw in the New Year amongst my old university friends and colleagues, and I took up the matter again and consulted my old tutor and several other dons at the colleges. They also could not place this singular object in the great sweep of European art and civilisation, and a few even queried it's provenance and place among the collection, suggesting it was constructed as a rather poor joke by Taylor. If so then it would have been a very rare one, because the man was of a notoriously grave disposition that became more acute as he grew older, even to point of being reclusive in his last years.

It was Sir Arthur Evans, perhaps the greatest Keeper the Ashmolean has ever known, who suggested that a little field research might solve the mystery. Along with General Pitt Rivers he was a great enthusiast for what was then the young science of archaeology, having made many digs in England and having great plans for searching for the early origins of Greek civilisation in Crete. I think he may have wondered if the strange item I had found might unlock an similarly undiscovered period of history in the north of Europe. He asserted that at the very least professional curiosity required that a proper investigation be made into the provenance of the item.

I suppose I was the obvious person for the task. I was the most familiar with the medallion, had read the papers of Taylor, had knowledge of that history of the area and spoke Danish, although with the dialect of Copenhagen rather than Jutland. Many a night I have wished that it had not been so, that another had taken my place, but at the time the opportunity seemed such a blessing for a young man.

And so with a few months spare, and some small funds from the Museum, I was sent to Denmark along with the medallion and a few papers of Taylor's. After a unpleasantly rough ferry crossing over the North Sea from Harwich I was glad to be on solid ground and starting my adventure (as I foolishly thought it as the time ). I found Viborg itself to be a small town, smaller than Oxford, distinguished mainly by it's cathedral which had been recently rebuilt twenty years ago. At the time it was rather bare and did not have the frescoes that Skovgaard painted several years later. I have been told that they are quite remarkable, but not even the art of angels would convince me to travel back to that city again.

For my place of residence during that fateful visit I choose an old fashioned inn whose name in English was The Golden Lion, a remnant I think of Denmark's union with Norway. It was a grand old Renaissance townhouse in the centre of the city near to the cathedral, probably one of the oldest in the city, and if some parts of it looked like they might have seen better days the rooms were large and well furnished, the food was good, and it had an excellent reputation with the landlord being seen as very respectable. It's clientele was mainly businessmen and other solitary visitors such as myself. Occupancy was low during the winter so I had my pick of several rooms, choosing number 12 as it had large windows that looked out of the front of the house towards the cathedral.

As soon as I had placed my bags in my room and taken lunch I got quickly to work trying to trace where Taylor could have acquired artefacts in this town. I soon found that the local traders hardly catered for the desires of a tourist, collector or antiquarian. There was no town museum, only a town hall for parochial records, and I guessed that any serious scholarly research would probably have to wait until I got to Copenhagen.

A light snowfall had started as I returned to the inn in the evening and asked the landlord if there were any notable collectors of antiquities in the area. He questioned why a man would want to spend money on old broken things when what was needed was new things that worked better. I later discovered that this was a reference to the plumbing of the building, which upstairs only ran to a communal bathroom, and the heating, which was a wood fire in each room. Luckily the inn had several maids and other servants who took care of these details and it was not on that account that my stay at The Golden Lion was disrupted.

The company for supper was very subdued, only a few taciturn commercial travellers were staying and they had taken the ground floor rooms on account of their heavy luggage. So I decided to make an early night and an early start the next morning. I ascended the stairs by candlelight, went past room 14, then skipped the next door and put my key in the third door, only to find that it would not fit. I check the key and tried again, only to find on closer inspection that the door I was looking at was number 11.

I traced my back down the gloomy corridor, to find that the previous doors were 12 and then 14. There was no door with number 13 on it in this corridor. Perhaps it was elsewhere in the house. I tried my key in the door for room 12 and it opened with the heat of a gently stoked fire. I mentally noted that I would have to remember that the second door in the corridor was my room. I was pleased to see that there was a good sized desk of old but sturdy wood for my work, as well as several drawers with locks in them. Into one of these I placed the medallion, locking it and pocketing the key.

Although I went to bed early I had not slept long when I was woken by the sound of voices nearby. They were low but obviously of a woman or women, reading or maybe chanting. I was fairly certain that none of the guests I had seen at supper would have made such sounds, and the landlord did not seem to run the sort of establishment that would allow guests to entertain females during the night.

The embers of the fires still glowed so I went to the window to look out on to street to find the cause of this disturbance. The snow was settling thick on the ground and it was obvious that every good soul was at home in such weather, even the few drunkards which usually gather in every town centre. The light from my window cast a faint reflection on the wall of the house opposite, as did a slightly strong light from the room next to mine. It seemed that I had a neighbour in room 14, perhaps one as unable to sleep as myself.

I guessed that a couple of the maids must be up late about some task. When I returned to bed the voices nagged at the edge of my thoughts, as half-heard distant conversations often do. Snatches of sound almost became words of English, Danish or a dozen other languages, although never enough to make sense out of them. There was a soft, lilting quality to the voice that put me in mind of Irish or Welsh, but those Celtic tongues were unlikely to be spoken in this area. After a time I supposed I must have drifted off to sleep, but it could not have been a good sleep because when I woke in the morning I felt more weary than the night before.

At breakfast I saw no new faces, so I asked the landlord whether the new guest in room 14 would be joining us. He surprised me by saying that there was no guest in room 14 and hadn't been for weeks. I wondered if it was the maids who sleep there, and if it was they who I had heard during the night. He assured me with some strength that the maids had their own quarters at the back of the house and would never sleep in guests rooms, such a thing was unheard of and would not happen under his roof. He then left to return to the kitchen and there were some raised voices that I assumed was him reproaching his staff.

With a new day before me my spirits rose and I went to visit the new cathedral. Attached to the cathedral was a sizeable school which served as the main educational establishment for the town and also as a library. There were many volumes on the history of the area and I was granted permission to use them for my research.

There I also met the clerical archivist of the cathedral library, a elderly man named Henrik Tausen, who was delighted that an English academic from Oxford was visiting his city and his cathedral. Over tea and crumpets in front of a warm fire in the afternoon he was full of tales of the kings, nobles and bishops buried there, and the conflicts between them. He also talked of the ancient pagan shrines of fresh springs and tall beech groves, and how the early Christian missionaries from England and German had tried to convert these into churches.

I took note of as much as I could, although it did not seem relevant, and after a while I tried to steer the conversation towards my real goal. Yes, he thought he did remember another Englishman who came here many years ago to do research in the cathedral library, but he could not remember what he was looking for or why. It was not much but at least I felt I was on the right track.

I returned to my room at the inn in an excited state, my earlier tiredness completely gone. Taking supper in my room I skimmed over the general historical texts I had borrowed, looking for things that might have interested the esoteric tastes of A. S. Taylor. My eye was caught by the salacious story of the Baron Sorel, who seemed to have caused quite a stir in the city during the start of the 18th century.

It was a time of peace and prosperity for Denmark and Norway after a series a exhausting wars with Sweden, and it seems that this Baron was a minor noble who did a great favour to the King (what actually varies depending on the source of the story). Anyway he returned from aboard with money, and then the title of Baron and land in Viborg was granted to him by King. He set himself up in the city in high style and soon gained a reputation for extravagance and debauchery, keeping no wife but several mistresses, setting them up in different households around the city. This did not go down well with the staunchly Protestant bishops and burghers of the city. Acquisitions of corruption and debased behaviour were made, which were threatening to even drag in the King himself, when calamity struck the town.

The fire of 1726 destroyed the old cathedral and much of the city of Viborg, leaving only a few scattered building for the remaining population to rebuild on. The town itself was in decline for many decades after this, and may only have been starting to recover when I visited it. Like so many others the Baron's body was never discovered after the fire, and it seems that many locals put the blame for the fire on him as an act of revenge for some slight or insult. That he died does not seem to be much in doubt as he was never seen or heard of again, his great wealth being appropriated by the state.

It was after reading that little morality tale that I went to bed, hoping to get a more restful night's sleep. Alas in the middle of the night I was woken again, this time by a low moaning sound as if the wind was vibrating the top of the chimneys. A horrible storm must be coming in, and I was glad of the sturdy shutters on the windows and the remains of the fire warming my room. I felt the need to visit the bathroom, and although I had no lamp or candle I knew the door was opposite the room next to mine and could find it easily enough in the dark corridor.

On my way back I felt along the cold wall of the corridor to my room, the one to the left of the door opposite the bathroom. The start of the storm must be nearly upon us as the wind was picking up in volume and pitch, almost becoming an ululation. I reached it and turned the handle, eager to be out of the cold and back in the warmth of my own room.

I opened the door gently so as not to wake any of the other guests, but as I slowly pushed it ajar I noticed a slow pink light was in the room. Not only that but a waft of perfume flooded across me of such vivid sweetness that I must confess I felt quite faint.

A female voice issued from inside speaking in Danish, "Who is it?"

For a moment a passing thought came into my mind that it might be one of the maids playing a trick on me, but from a part opened door I could see that this was clearly not my room. Instead of the austere dark wooden furniture of my own room, this was decorated as a lady's boudoir and a very sumptuous one at that. I could see a baroque couch upholstered in soft cream satin, and deep rose pink silk scarves and other items of ladies attire were discarded about.

While I hesitated the woman inside said in an familiar tone, "That door is creating such a draft. Won't you come in?"

No respectable lady would issue such an invitation, so clearly she thought me someone else. Her husband obviously, as I believe that my landlord would never allow an unmarried couple to share a room together.

The shock made me lose most of my Danish and I stammered out a barely coherent apology that probably included as much English and school boy French as it did any local language. I quickly closed the door but as I did so I noticed that the number on it had been changed to 13. Not wanting to dawdle outside the lady's room and possibly be caught by her husband I quickly moved along the corridor to the next door. This time I reached up and felt the numbers, a clear 12. Doubting, I checked again. Still 12.

Knocking gently I slowly opened the door. The hinges gave the same slow creak, the fire was still glowing in the fireplace, my books and papers where on the desk as I had left them. With a great sigh of relief I entered and returned to bed.

But not to sleep. My embarrassment at opening the wrong room was too great and too recent. What would I say to them at breakfast? What could I say that would allow me to preserve my honour and avoid the possibility of being asked to leave the hotel? Saying nothing seemed the best option.

My embarrassment was doubled by my remembrance of that sweet perfume and that soft inviting voice. They stirred certain thoughts inside me, thoughts that wished I had not closed that door, that I had entered and looked upon the lady inside. My imagination pictured her as a young bride, maybe on her honeymoon, dressed in those fine silk garments I had seen strewn about the room. They looked rather old fashioned, and some of them had been so scandalously thin and low cut that they could never have been worn out in today's society. The sort of clothes that a woman would only wear in private for her paramour.

I must confess the more I tried to get to sleep the more the voice of my neighbour went round and round in my mind, especially it's invitation of "Won't you come in?". The mind can play such tricks on you late at night, that sometimes as I took a deep breath in I thought I could still smell that sweet suggestive perfume on that air, as if it was trickling into my room from next door. Impossible of course, because although the walls were old they were thick and well built. They had survived the great fire of 1726 after all.

At least the howling of the wind had subsided somewhat to become just a low background murmuring moan. At times sounding almost like a contented sigh of a pleasured lover to my unsettled mind.

How I got to sleep with all this going through my head I did not know, but the next morning I was woken by the landlord knocking and asking me if I still wanted breakfast. It was already full daylight, so I hurriedly prepared and rushed downstairs. The breakfast seemed larger than normal, but I could barely eat half of it. The innkeeper said jovially that his wife thought I looked a little thin and thought I might do with a few extras, there being fewer guests then expected at the time of year and so plenty of spare rashers that would only be going to waste.

I apologised with a white lie that I had eaten a little bit too much the previous night, and had also not slept well because of the storm.

"Storm, sir? There was no storm last night. It was a clear calm night full of stars, with the moon almost full."

"But I'm sure I heard the wind howling."

"Oh, these old houses make strange noise sometimes, sir. You shouldn't pay any attention to them. Take my advice, sir, pay no attention at all." Was it my imagination or was he hinting at something? Or maybe warning me about something?

"Any new guests?" I asked lightly, as if trying to change the subject.

"None yet, sir, and several have left to take advantage of the good weather."

"But I thought..." I started and then remembered my earlier resolution to not mention the events of last night.

"The barometer says that the pressure is rising, sir. That's a sign of more clear weather to come."

"Well let's hope so." I said and left to continue my research.

It was indeed a crisp clear day, the sun low and golden even at late morning, and the sky the most vivid blue. The snow underfoot still had a deliciously firm crunch to it, although if it continued to warm over the next few days it might turn the city streets into a horrendous slush. As I walked to the cathedral I began to think that my strange experiences of the previous night had been but a dream. A storm that had clearly never come and a woman's voice in a room that by all accounts had been unoccupied for days.

As I browsed through the historical papers the same Baron Sorel kept appearing. It seemed as though although the residents of city did not like to acknowledge his once great presence, some of those visiting and writing about the city seemed to relish in his libertine misbehaviour. His mistresses seemed to have formed an almost elite group, and were drawn from all over Europe. Their fashions and styles were considered by some to have an unhealthy influence on the Danish royal court, scandalising the more conservative and religious in the country that were already in uproar over their King making a secret marriage to one of his mistress while his wife still live.