The Bush: Part 1

Content Warning: Insanity, Violence and Religion

My Dear Readers, with this tale leaning more biblical than our usual affari, I must admit have never been one for religion. After all, it's all a scam to get us to buy more candles!!!

However, even in deception, there is always a kernel of truth and even the Powers That Be are not able to fully disguise the greater powers which exist in this world.

After receiving a digitised copy of the medical report from one of my more scholarly contacts, I am happy to share this tale of medieval malce with you all. I am sure you will find the truths within highly interesting.

This report, as recorded by the most Venerable Medicus of St.Elizabeth's, seeks to illuminate on the conditions of some of our most afflicted patients. Many here hath returned from the old campaigns of the most Devout Crusade against the Fatimids for the Holy City. This report, for one Alexandre, the Count of Armagnac's fifth son, shows a great number of mal humours of the mind. Many of the most Virtuous Medicus who spoke to Alexandre, of house Armagnac, believed his condition to be that of possession or a case of insanity. Myself, I believe this to be a tormented man, driven to insanity by a combination of his wavering faith, improper mind and the toll of war. His diary was recovered alongside his person, within this report I have transcribed the last entry as evidence for his inevitable decline into his current heretical state.

Janvier 13th,

We have just set up camp on the road to Jerusalem. My fellow warriors of Christ seek to end this ordeal by taking it by siege. Yet I feel far too fatigued, taken across the deserts and lands of others in the name of the cross has taken its toll. My heart grows weary and I sometimes wish for my rests to become eternal. Yet my rest this night has been disturbed by what I can only attest to be singing coming from outside the camp. Upon talking with others who were restless this night, I sought to ask if they too heard the song, yet they denied its existence, proving my hearing it to be a folly. Yet still my senses were outwitted by this dissonant singing, coming from the dunes ahead of us. It has been a dreadfully cold night, yet still I feel the desire to search for the origin of this song, if for no other reason than to stop it from disturbing me, for I fear without rest I may not make it to the most holy lands of Jerusalem.

I hope the chants shall cease in all truth, for their voices carry a familiarity that should not be entirely possible. Voices of those that are no longer with us, that have joined our most devout father who art in heaven or simply those who I know remain still in the monasteries of my home, far from the terrors and desolation of these eastern deserts. From what I had been told of these lands, through the verses of the holy Bible and from mutterings and tales from travellers that had stopped by for rest at my father's court, regaling us ignorant fools in return for a place to stay. But now I have spent a few years I believe, stuck in desperate marching and constant skirmishing in this world, I wish now only to return to Armagnac, a vision that no longer feels fixed in my memories. I pray for a swift end to this violence, despite its supposed holy mission I believe it has fallen too far to truly be counted as moral. I cannot believe God wanted us to kill each other for the sake of reclaiming a city, no matter how holy it may be to us. But this is not for me, a count's son, to comment on in truth. My time living in the clergy was brief and I don't think long enough to allow my questioning. Yet still, my thoughts grow more and more perturbed and uneasy at the thought of all this. Further disrupted and pushed to dismay by the distant chants from the dunes.

I may resolve to look out toward the singing if it continues through the later hours of the night, if God blesses me and my prayers it will cease and allow me to sleep finally.

Upon first inspection of Alexandre, he seemed to be of a right and proper sort, unlike many of the other patients of our most blessed St Elizabeth's. In truth, his history amongst other members of the clergy afforded me some leniency in believing him at first, already knowing him to be both learned and of noble birth. I at first asked him what had occurred after his final entry, this would be what started shaking his supposed stability and with it the mask of his sanity.

After I wrote that in my journal for the night, I attempted to return to sleep. Yet, I was constantly stirred awake by this incessant singing, the chants I had described seemingly I remember getting more and more like whispers, yet it somehow caused more of a disturbance to me. Eventually, I had no other recourse than to leave my tent and, rather quietly, locate the source of these chants. So I rose and headed out for the dunes, with my journal and sword at hand, though I had only time or patience to foolishly coat myself in my padded jacket and some chainmail. The dunes were cold, empty and expansive for as far as the eye could see, the stars and the moon lit up brighter than I had ever seen them and as such afforded me a view of this rocky hill with what looked like a cavernous entrance. I believed that to be its origin.

Anyway, I continued through the sands to this cavern entrance, seemingly well defined and carved out the face of the rock and the singing grew louder and louder with each step I took. I also believe the dissonance by this point had ceased and turned more to something smooth and beautiful. Before I entered it, I looked up to the sky and said my prayers, for I knew not what lay beyond the threshold of this seemingly untouched cavern. Though, in truth, I found it hard to muster any form of fear in my heart, it felt right to me as I journeyed closer to the singing.