‘It was more than that, Mallory. In their language, they sinned against God … my god … Existence … nature. They thought they had a right to take anything. That everything was created to be bent to their will, for the ends of their religion. Nothing else mattered but what they believed. And now they’re paying the price.’
Mallory remembered the Green Man’s eyes and shivered. ‘It felt as though he was … more than he was. Does that make sense?’
‘In ancient times, pagans believed there was one true God, so far removed they couldn’t know anything about him, and all the other gods were aspects of him, symbolising different facets.’ She looked up at the blue sky. ‘It feels like the solstice.’
‘Time’s strange in … those places.’ Mallory wasn’t really aware of the vocabulary to describe the experience. ‘How do you know?’ ‘I just … feel it.’
They paused at the gate, enjoying the sun on their faces, despite the cold. ‘We have to go back, then,’ he said.
‘It’s down to us to put things right. For … Existence.’ She leaned over and gave him a kiss.
‘I can’t believe we’re alive. I never thought we would be.’ He took the measure of himself inside. ‘Everything’s changed.’ ‘Then we’d better not throw it away,’ she said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
golqotha
‘How lamentable it is that men blame the gods for their troubles, when their own wickedness brings them suffering over and above that which Destiny decrees for them.’
- Odyssey
The gates of the cathedral remained closed, but they bore the innumerable scars of the vicious attacks inflicted during the time Mallory and Sophie had been away. Now they only hung by a thread; one final push could have broken through. Repairs didn’t appear to have been carried out for some days.
In the twilight, the place looked mournful and desolate. No guards patrolled the walls, no sounds of activity came from within. Mallory stared at the imposing gates apprehensively, afraid of what he might find. The killer of Cornelius, Julian and Gibson was still loose, but it was a more personal fear that was eating away at him. The past felt hard at his back; his time of running was nearly done.
Salisbury was unusually quiet. The people had retired to their homes early, as if anticipating something awful. Even the pubs were deserted, their doors open forlornly, casting candlelight across the frozen pavements. But the Green Man had kept his word: his forces were nowhere to be seen.
‘You should stay here,’ Mallory said to Sophie as he craned his neck to survey the top of the wall.
‘Can I weep gently until you come back, as well?’
‘Sarcasm is a very unattractive quality.’
‘So is being an asshole. You can waltz off waving your little pigsticker; just don’t forget who has the real power around here.’
‘It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it.’
‘Yeah, yeah, that’s what all men say. Have you ever noticed how women smile tightly when they hear it?’ She examined the gates closely; although they were insecure, any attempt to break them down would attract too much attention. ‘Any idea how we’re getting in?’
‘Well, you know, there’s a thing called foresight.’ From under his cloak he brought out a length of rope he had picked up from one of the houses they had rested in on the day’s trek back from Knowlton. He tied a noose in one end and then took five attempts to throw it on to one of the defensive barbs protruding from the top of the wall. He hauled himself up easily, then dropped quietly on to the walkway. One brother trudged lamely through the snow near the cathedral. Quickly, Mallory hauled Sophie up and they climbed down the ladder into the compound.
As they hurried to the shadows at the base of the wall, Sophie grabbed Mallory’s arm and held him tight. ‘Look!’ she said.
On the far side of the cathedral, near the eastern wall, five stark, black scarecrows rose from the snowy wastes. Two were failing to do their job, for three large birds were fluttering around them, cawing discordantly. Mallory dismissed the sight quickly, but his eyes were drawn back by the muttered expression of shock from Sophie. And then he saw truthfully.
‘No,’ he said in disbelief. ‘They wouldn’t.’
But Stefan had clearly given in to the madness of his religious zeal. Snow began to fall lazily, casting an eerie, dreamlike quality across the scene. The five crucified figures didn’t move.
Sophie tugged at Mallory’s arm, but with his new eyes he was transfixed. One of the figures looked familiar in some subtle shape of head or limb, despite the dusting of frost and snow that made all five seem like siblings. He shook Sophie off and began to run, slowly at first, but as the horror rose up in him towing the guilt behind, it became a sprint. He didn’t care if anyone saw him, didn’t think anything at all apart from what a truly terrible person he was and how he’d never, ever be anything else.
He stopped in front of the figure, his breath steaming all around him, hot tears burning his cheeks. It was Miller. His hair and eyebrows were white, his shoulders and arms glittering with frost. It made a sharp contrast with the dried black blood on his wrists where the spikes had been hammered into the fencing posts.
Sophie arrived at his side breathlessly. When she saw Miller, tears filled her eyes, too. ‘Oh, Mallory, I’m sorry.’
She might have said more, but he didn’t hear it. His head was filled with a fantasy of what would have happened if he’d taken Miller with him when the young knight had made his desperate plea for help. Self-loathing consumed him and he had to turn away so Sophie couldn’t see it eat at his face.
Bitterly, he drew his sword and cut the ropes around Miller’s ankles and then gently prised his wrists over the spikes while Sophie supported the slight frame. Finally, the limp form fell into Mallory’s arms.
Gently laying him on the snow, Mallory blinked away his tears, which splashed across Miller’s face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, knowing it meant nothing.
‘Wait!’ Sophie said. ‘I saw his eyes move!’
They flickered again. Mallory brushed the snow from Miller’s eyebrows; his skin was as cold as the surrounding ground. His lips moved a little, as if he were trying to speak, but no sound issued.
‘It’s just the end of him. Look at his hands,’ Mallory said quietly. Under the white layer lay the deep purple of severe frostbite. ‘He’s been out here too long … the shock of what they did … all that time without food … he won’t last much longer.’ He glanced back at the thin form until he couldn’t bear it any longer, than looked up to the darkening sky.
After flailing around for a moment, he found another emotion that would help him go on. ‘You stay with him,’ he said, sheathing his sword. He was ready now, and he wouldn’t fail.
‘But I need to—’
‘No. I don’t want him to die on his own.’
This made sense to her, but he could see she still felt he was jeopardising their success by leaving her behind. ‘When he’s gone,’ he said, ‘when you’re sure he’s gone, catch up with me.’
He picked Miller up and carried him to the steps of the west front; the body was as light as a bundle of sticks. He laid Miller down and covered him with his cloak. ‘If anyone comes, hide,’ he said.
‘I’ll fetch some blankets for him,’ she said. ‘Make him comfortable.’
Mallory dropped down beside Miller and briefly rested one hand on his chest before hurrying into the twilight.
The cathedral was dark and cold; no candles had been lit, no one was preparing for compline.
In the Trinity Chapel, the cordon still lay around the relic box. Before, Mallory had always felt a faint charge in the air around it, but now there was nothing. It had to be the relic; all the terrible things had happened after the Blues had brought it into the compound that night. He recalled the burned knight, the speed with which they had carried the box through the gates as if they were being pursued. Whatever it was, its power was phenomenal, he mused. The cures it had wrought
were astonishing. What wonders could it carry out if it was used wisely by someone in the community? He thought of the dying husband and his pitiful wife. Instead, it had been locked away as some arid object of veneration. If it was a gift of God, would He want it wasted in that way?
Yet that very same power made him anxious. Could it kill as well as cure? Cautiously, he stepped over the cordon and paused in front of the box, flexing his fingers in anticipation. He had little choice. In one rapid movement, he flung open the lid and stepped back.
The box was empty.
‘It’s long gone, man.’
A knight was sitting in the shadows behind him, the cross on his shirt glowing in the dark. Mallory couldn’t see the features, but the voice was distinctive.
‘Gardener,’ Mallory said coldly. The Geordie must have been sitting there all along, so still and quiet that Mallory hadn’t seen him.
‘Never expected to see you back here,’ he said gruffly.
As if it was a natural movement, Mallory lowered his hand on to the hilt of his sword; was Gardener the one who harboured the thing they brought back from Bratton Camp? ‘Bad pennies and all that, Gardener.’
‘Aye. But I always figured you for a bloke with good sense, Mallory. A smart man would be putting miles between himself and this fucking place. I’d be doing it myself … if I was smart.’
Mallory picked up no sense of danger, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. ‘I thought this was the New Jerusalem for you.’ He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.
There was a long silence that was almost painful. ‘I was just praying. I don’t even know if He’s listening any more.’ The bleakness in his voice was almost unbearable. ‘It all went to hell pretty quickly after you left.’
‘It started down that road a long time before.’
‘Aye. Aye, it did, man.’ His voice grew muffled as he bowed his head; akhough Mallory couldn’t see, he thought Gardener’s hands were over his face. ‘They started testing everybody … using that bloody thing in the box. We all thought hardline was the way to go, but it got out of hand.’
‘Miller
‘Aye.’ A sob. ‘Bloody harmless lad. Did a bad thing, but you know him … Poor bastard.’ He was wracked by a juddering sigh. ‘There’s been no food since you were gone. The old ones started dropping like flies, and the sick. We buried them at the start, till none of us had the strength to dig. And still that cunt was doing his bloody tests!’ His voice rose sharply before bursting in another sob. ‘We put the bodies up in the old infirmary … till we found someone had been at ‘em.’
Mallory was sickened, but not surprised. He tried to imagine the desperate atmosphere that must have permeated the cathedral: a world filled with food just beyond the walls, but everyone trapped in an intense, claustrophobic jail, unable to reach it, the wild energies of the relic unbalancing minds.
‘Then we started burning them … until we ran out of strength even for that,’ Gardener continued desolately. ‘Now we just leave ‘em where they fall.’ There was a pause. ‘No, that ain’t right. James and some of the others … they still try to do the right thing. But the rest of us, the miserable ones …’
‘Lost your faith, Gardener?’
‘No.’ The denial was adamant. ‘I was only trying to do the right thing … we all were. It just got out of hand—’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
‘You don’t have to get on your high horse, Mallory. You’re as bad as me. Worse … you don’t believe in anything.’
Mallory could have argued, but there was no point. The facts were clear for anyone with the eyes to see them.
‘Stefan … Blaine … they’ve gone mad,’ Gardener said. ‘We all went mad, and the thing is, I don’t know when it started. When that thing got here …’ He waved a hand towards the box. ‘… or a long time ago. Hundreds of years ago.’
‘Where’s the relic gone?’ Mallory asked.
‘Stefan took it. The Blues came with him one night, transferred it to another box. Stefan … Blaine … the Blues … I think they’ve got a secret stash of food. Not much, but enough to keep them going.’
‘Where did they take it?’
Gardener sat up in the pew, a hiss of air escaping between his teeth. At first, Mallory thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, ‘I need you to help me. You do that and I’ll tell you.’
‘I haven’t got time—’
‘You do this or you’ll never find out!’ His voice cracked with hysteria again.
Mallory sighed. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to help me to rescue Daniels.’
There was an odd note to Gardener’s voice, and Mallory could tell it was because he didn’t want his betrayal mentioned. The act weighed on him, had probably been the thing that finally broke him.
‘Where is he?’
‘They took him to the infirmary.’
‘The infirmary?’
‘They were trying to cure him …’ Gardener’s voice trailed away, the silence carrying the weight of too many unspoken words.
They were trying to cure Daniels of his sexuality. It sounded insane, but Mallory knew it was only an extension of views that had common currency within living memory. ‘Come on,’ he said with restrained anger.
Their footsteps echoed loudly up the stairwell to the infirmary. They had to rest at regular intervals to allow Gardener to gather his strength for the climb. In the glow of the candle Mallory had lit on entering, Gardener’s face looked like a skull, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, the skin hanging from his bones; the only thing keeping him going was the hardness that had always set him apart.
The white-tiled room had grown filthy since the last time Mallory had seen it, and the sickeningly fruity smell of decomposition still filled the air, although the bodies had been removed. Gardener appeared oblivious to it.
‘He’s down here,’ he said, limping with a strangely innocent eagerness.
They hurried through the deserted wards, the stained sheets left in disarray on the beds. In the corridor beyond, Mallory glanced into the room that had been reserved for Hipgrave and was shocked to see the knight still there. He lay on his bed in the dark, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling and looking remarkably well fed and healthy.
‘He’s off his rocker,’ Gardener said without pausing. ‘Nobody let him out in case he was dangerous.’
‘Very compassionate,’ Mallory muttered. He resolved to break down the door on the way back.
Daniels’ room was at the far end of the corridor. The lock shattered easily under a few blows from Mallory’s shoulder. Daniels lay on his bed, too weak to get up, but he rolled his head and smiled wanly when he saw Mallory.
Mallory quickly poured a cup of water from a jug next to the bed and supported Daniels’ head so he could wash some on to his dry, cracked lips; it didn’t look as though anyone had been in to care for him for a couple of days at least. In the background, Gardener shifted uncomfortably as if he was getting ready to run.
‘Well, isn’t this a pretty picture.’ Daniels tried to laugh, but it became a hacking cough.
Mallory was drawn to a black stain on Daniels’ trousers around his groin.
Daniels saw him looking and began to weep uncontrollably. ‘They cut it off, Mallory! They cut it off!’
In horrified disbelief, Mallory turned to Gardener, seeking a denial. Gardener wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Daniels’ crying turned to a low giggle; his awful trial had left him balanced on the edge, his emotions untethered. ‘I think they mustn’t have tied off their stitches properly!’ he said. ‘Those boys … can’t do anything right! But at least the bleeding’s stopped now.’
Gardener was crying silently, too, wiping his eyes repeatedly in an anxious manner that suggested he, too, was on the edge of a breakdown fuelled by guilt and self-hatred. Mallory felt sickened: so much suffering and hardship, so many broken lives, and a pointlessness to it all that made it almost
incomprehensible.
His thoughts were disturbed by the echoes of several pairs of feet rushing up the stairs.
‘Don’t leave me!’ Daniels pleaded.
‘You stay with him. Block the door with the bed, if you can,’ Mallory said to Gardener.
‘Stefan’s got the relic with him all the time now,’ Gardener said. ‘He’s locked himself in the bishop’s palace.’
As he drew his sword and slipped out, Mallory saw Gardener drop to his knees and falteringly take Daniels’ hand. Daniels smiled weakly.
Mallory moved tentatively into the corridor. The running feet had slowed now; they were cautious, ready for him. The flickering light of a lantern playing down the corridor told him they’d entered the ward. If they wanted a fight, his best bet was to take them in the corridor where they could only come at him one at a time. He gripped his sword ready, his mind focused, but as he passed Hipgrave’s room, the play of faint light told him it was empty. Curiously, he tried the handle; it was still locked.
Before he could understand what had happened, a huge outcry erupted in the ward. He rushed to the end of the corridor to see eight Blues in furious attack caught in the glitter of a lantern lying discarded at the foot of a bed. The uncertain illumination made it difficult to discern what was going on. There was movement, hacking swords, constant running back and forth, faces caught for just an instant, white with concentration and tinged with fear. But their adversary remained firmly in the shadows so that all the motion with no result made the scene faintly comic.
But then there was a wet sound like the contents of a paint tin being thrown against a wall. One of the knights staggered back, trying to hold in his intestines. A second later, an arm skidded across the floor. Someone else backpedalled with a stump where his neck and head should have been. The butchery was so fast and clean it was mesmerising.
The flash of something that resembled an enormous arm stuck with knives snapped Mallory from his trance. He knew what it was, and he now knew who it was. Hipgrave was the host for the thing they had brought back. Of course, it had to be Hipgrave, his madness growing as he was eaten away by guilt, knowing of his crimes but unable to do anything about them. Mallory had no idea how it had passed through the locked door of the room, how it worked at all, but he did know he would be as dead as the Blues would inevitably be if he didn’t move.
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