by Sarah Rayne
As Moira stole into the dark silent library, and out into the huge dark stillness of the main Abbey, her heart was pounding.
The unmistakable monastic silence was like a veil, and the indefinable scents of a religious house were very noticeable. St Asaph’s had the same scents. Floor polish and lye soap and drifting incense and the ghost of whatever had been the day’s mid-day dinner.
The door to the turn was open and there was sufficient light to see the large wooden notice board which the monks, typically orderly, had lined with green baize and set with neat black cup hooks. The keys were not only labelled, they were in alphabetical order with the Abbot’s study on the top at the left, and the Vestry at the bottom right. There was what looked like a master key for the cells; Moira touched it with guilty longing. If she knew which was Ciaran’s she could creep in. How would it feel to be in bed with him? The idea sent a shaft of delight through her because what had been disgusting and repulsive with Edward Mahoney would not be with Ciaran.
Kate had said something about blackmailing Ciaran into silence by getting into his bed and swearing he had raped her. She had clearly found him attractive. Would it have been mutual? Yes, of course it would be. Monks were not supposed to eye females with physical interest, but Moira suspected that Ciaran did. She hoped the jolt of emotion she had felt when Kate talked about him had not been jealousy. In any case, she was leaving Curran Glen and she would not see Ciaran again. She pushed the bleakness of this away and concentrated on what she was meant to be doing. Would the tower be under T for Tower or B for Belfry? B for Bell Tower, of course, yes, there it was! Moira unhooked the key, and went back to the library for Kate.
The quadrangle was drenched in grey and silver as they stole across it, keeping in the shadows as much as possible. An owl hooted softly and went soaring across the night sky above them in pursuit of a ragged-winged bat, and once they pressed back into the shadows as something pattered out of the bushes and scurried into the darkness beyond. Kate let out a breath of relief and Moira said in a whisper, ‘Probably a badger or a fox.’
‘As long as it isn’t the ghost of some long-dead Father Abbot I don’t care what it is.’
‘There’s the tower.’
‘Yes. Where’s the key? All right, here we go. Ready? You know what we agreed: I’ll go down and spy out the land while you keep watch up here. If you hear me yell, beat it, understood?’
‘Understood.’ Moira would not beat it if Kate yelled, but it was not the moment to argue. She took a deep breath and unlocked the tower door.
It was cold in the crypt and very dark, but Kate did not want to switch on the torch until she was actually in the crypt because even a wavering torchlight might be seen from outside. The trouble was that when you were stealing down a dark stair you found yourself imagining that things were creeping up to meet you . . . Or even that undead creatures were crawling up out of coffins . . . No, he’s shut away, I heard Ciaran and the other man do it. I’m safe, thought Kate firmly. She reached the foot of the stairs, took a deep breath, and switched on the torch.
The crypt was larger than she had expected, although she was not sure what she had expected. No real experience of crypts. It was cold and dank, which accorded with the best horror stories, but for all its apparent space and for all the far-reaching shadows, there was a feeling of being hemmed-in; a sensation that the walls were inching towards her and that the roof was closing down. Some kind of medieval torture chamber that slowly crushed you. Don’t be ridiculous. Yes, but this place is older than medieval, and it’s inhabited by monks, and monks and nuns can be very ruthless.
The sarcophagus was directly in front of her, and although it was menacing and awesome, Kate saw with relief that it was above ground. She walked round it, shining the torch. A large stone slab. Heavy and awkward, but not impossible to push aside.
It was important to remain very cool and very sensible, even though what she was about to do was drenched in superstitions of the bloodiest kind. Premature burials and living dead and resurrected corpses. But scores of people robbed graves and lived to tell the tale; it was not as if she was Burke and Hare digging up still-fresh corpses to sell to anatomists, or as if she was a greedy Egyptologist – Carnarvon or Howard Carter – plundering pharaohs’ tombs wholesale and incurring the wrath of the gods.
Tomb robbers had never enjoyed the best of fates, of course. Burke had ended on the gibbet and Hare had been flung into a lime pit which had burned out his eyes. Howard Carter had not lived to a ripe old age either, and everyone knew the legend of Lord Carnarvon, dead of blood-poisoning from being bitten by a scorpion or a tsetse-fly or something at the entrance to Tutankhamun’s death chamber.
It would be better not to think about curses or death-wishes at all. If you were about to plunder an ancient tomb, the last thing you ought to think about was curses. But it would be remarkable if this tomb of all tombs did not have a curse attached to it. Kate thought she should be prepared to find that something very nasty and very admonishing was carved into the coffin. ‘Curst be he who moves my bones . . .’ No, that’s Shakespeare’s grave, you fool. Nothing to do with this. If this tomb had a curse at all, it would be something much older than a piece of pseudo-Elizabethan doggerel of questionable merit and doubtful origin. I don’t care if it’s got fifty curses and a hundred direful admonishments, I’m going ahead. She moved purposefully forward.
Standing up against the tomb was the worst yet. It felt eerily alive. If you wanted to give yourself nightmares for the next ten years, you could easily think you were hearing sounds from within. Not breathing, which would be absurd through the stone, but little murmurings.
Ahasuerus whispering to himself inside the coffin . . .
Kate swallowed a gasp and set the torch down carefully so that its light fell across the tomb’s surface. Her heart was pounding so frantically that she thought for a moment she might die of a heart attack. How ironic it would be to expire when you were opening a grave. She took a deep breath and grasped the edge of the stone, throwing her whole strength behind it. Could she do it alone? She had not wanted to involve Moira until they were ready to carry the coffin out, because it seemed important to have a lookout. It was important to give Moira the chance to get away as well, in case anyone came along and caught them.
The stone was stubbornly immobile. Kate gave a sobbing gasp and paused to wipe the sweat from her forehead, and then pushed again, this time bending her body at the waist, so that her shoulders were level with the tomb’s rim. Push harder, Kate . . . Did it move then? Just a half inch? Yes!
The slab grated harshly, but it was unmistakably moving. Kate threw her shoulder against it, and felt it give a little more. With every second she expected to hear footsteps tumbling down the stair and shouts of alarm, but nothing disturbed the dark crypt and the only sound down here was her own ragged breathing.
Nearly there. God, what a noise it’s making! Surely someone will hear. But Moira would warn me if anyone was approaching. Odd how I trusted her so completely, so instantly. I’d like to help her if I could. How am I doing? I’m almost there, I think. One more push . . .? Yes, it’s coming. If I wanted to be sure of those nightmares, I could nearly believe that someone was helping from beneath. Ahasuerus coming out of the grave. Opening the coffin and climbing out . . . No!
One more thrust – yes, there it goes! I’ve done it!
The stone slab, dragged so frantically into place barely twenty-four hours earlier by Ciaran and Isarel, moved back with a harsh scraping sound that tore at Kate’s shredded nerves. She stood back, her muscles trembling, and tipped the beam of the torch into the gaping tomb.
Within the ancient stone tomb lay a smaller coffin made of wood. Kate, her heart pounding but her hands steady, reached down. The lid lifted with unexpected ease and there within the coffin . . . Her heart lurched. Whatever she had expected – mouldering bones, gruesome bloated corpse – she had not expected this.
Lying in the coffin was the slender
figure of a man, wearing a robe not dissimilar to that of the present-day monks here. But the cowl was pulled over his face and his hands were hidden by the robe’s long full sleeves.
The Devil’s Piper. Ahasuerus. Kate stared down at him and felt the strength drain from her, and if she had not been leaning against the tomb’s side she would have fallen to the ground. Dear God, it’s true. The legend, the scrap of gossip in Simon’s journal, Richard’s suspicions, are all true.
She reached for the coffin lid thinking she could wedge it back in place before calling Moira down to help her lift the whole thing out of the tomb, and it was then that she caught a movement from the coffin. Her heart leapt again and she gripped the wooden lid so tightly that the edge cut into her hands. She nerved herself to look down.
Kate heard her own strangled gasp as if it came from a great distance. The creature in the coffin was turning its head. Ciaran and the other man forced him back last night, but they had not sent him back into his strange deathless sleep. I should have been prepared for it, thought Kate. I should have been prepared to find Ahasuerus alive in the tomb. But panic swept through her and she fought for control, seeing through a blur, a confused impression of a pale clinging mask covering most of the creature’s face. But the mask had eyeholes cut in it, and behind the eyeholes, were open eyes, glittering eyes, living eyes . . . He was looking straight at her.
Kate’s mind tilted with terror, and she flinched, and as she did so, Ahasuerus reached up out of the tomb and the long deep sleeves fell back, revealing clawed hands – oh God, mutilated, nightmare hands – He’s trying to get out—
Kate fell back, slipping on the smooth stone of the floor, throwing up both hands to protect her face, her eyes fixed on the open tomb, jarringly aware of the noise she had made. Would the monks hear and come running? I’d almost welcome it if they did. He’s climbing out of the coffin . . . His hands are clutching the sides . . . His hands . . .
As the cowled, hooded head rose up over the edge of the tomb, there was the sound of scrambling feet on the stair, and Moira, her hair whipped into disarray, half fell into the crypt, and then stopped short, her eyes distending with terror as she saw the open tomb and the rearing shape of Ahasuerus. Kate clutched the coffin lid, ready to strike. Because any kind of weapon . . .
And then Ahasuerus turned his masked face to where Moira stood, and a terrible cry – the cry of someone whose mouth is spoiled and whose throat is mutilated – broke from him. He threw up his hands as if to shield his face from a blow, and cringed.
Kate moved at once, springing forward, bringing the coffin lid down on his head. There was a dreadful sound: the dull thud of wood on bone, and Ahasuerus gave another of the blurred moans, and fell back. Kate, gasping and shuddering, thrust the coffin lid down into the tomb after him. Don’t look down, don’t even think about looking down, and certainly don’t think about what you’re doing. She jammed the lid roughly into place, forcing it on to the coffin, dreadfully aware of the dank stench of the tomb gusting upwards, and then straightened up, shuddering and sick.
At her side, Moira said, shakily, ‘All right? Did you force him – it – back?’
‘I—yes, I think so.’ Kate took a deep breath and stepped back, her eyes still on the tomb. But the iron vice had loosened its grip on her chest a little, and when she spoke again, it was in what was very nearly a normal voice. ‘So far so good. But we’ve got to get him out of here as fast as possible. At least a coffin’s easier to carry than an inert body.’
‘Is it?’
‘I don’t know. But we’ll say it is. What’s the time? Half-past three, is it? Then we can still give ourselves a good start.’
‘Do we think anyone will come after us?’ said Moira, looking about her nervously. ‘If Ciaran knows so much about this creature, won’t he follow us?’
Unexpectedly something warm brushed Kate’s mind. Ciaran. That sharp intuitive mind. That held-in-check sexual glamour. Might Ciaran really come after them to reclaim the brothers’ immortal devil? Come off it, Kate, monks are forbidden in any culture. I could probably be burned at the stake even for thinking about it. Yes, and I’m probably toppling into madness for thinking about it down here as well. But the thought of Ciaran steadied her, and when she spoke again her voice sounded normal.
She said, ‘I haven’t the least idea if he’ll follow us, but I should think it’s unlikely. But let’s put as many miles between ourselves and Curran Glen as we can. Are you ready? Good girl. I think it looks heavier than it is. And there’re handles at each end – see there? We’ll lift it out and we’ll carry it up the stairs and out to the caravan.’
Moira, leaning over, trying not to think too deeply about what this was and what she had seen, said, ‘And then? Once we reach the caravan?’
Kate looked at Moira, and in the light from the torch, a smile of reckless delight spread over her thin face.
‘And then,’ she said, ‘we’re going to take the Devil’s Piper to England.’
Chapter Sixteen
‘Of course she’s going to take Ahasuerus to England,’ said Ciaran, facing Isarel in the music room of Mallow House, the morning sun striking red glints in his hair.
‘Why should she? Why should she take the coffin at all?’ demanded Isarel. ‘It sounds like a completely motiveless crime to me. Unless she’s discovered the legend and she’s going to cash in on it – I suppose that’s a possibility. Would you like some coffee, by the way?’
Ciaran accepted the coffee and sat down, looking about him. Isarel’s builders had apparently arrived at the crack of dawn, and Mallow House was already shedding its air of neglect and damp and decay. There was the scent of plaster dust everywhere and the hot dryness of wood being sawed. A cheerful whistling drifted down from the upper floors, and from the cellars came the clanging of hammers and spanners against pipework. A small satisfied smile creased the corners of his eyes, but he said nothing.
‘Electricians in the cellar and plumbers in the attic,’ said Isarel coming to perch on the half-stripped window seat, his back to the garden. ‘Or it might be the other way round. Don’t ask me because I don’t know. I’m hoping that at some point there will be light and that at another point there will be heat and instant hot water, and that somewhere along the way the woodworm will raise a flag of surrender and beat a retreat down the path. But nobody seems to have any time scale and as far as I can make out it could all happen anywhere between the millennium and next Tuesday. What makes you think that girl’s gone to England?’
‘Well, largely because she was English herself,’ said Ciaran. ‘And I suspect that the entire thing is the culmination of a long-standing plan.’
‘Not your average Burke and Hare, then.’
‘Far from it. She was a very smooth-talking lady,’ said Ciaran thoughtfully. ‘The sort with no chinks in the armour anywhere. In my disreputable pre-monastic days, I’d have called her a ball-shriveller.’
‘Would you really?’ said Isarel, staring at him.
‘I would. And I’d have taken great pleasure in puncturing her armour,’ said Ciaran grinning.
‘You astound me.’
‘No I don’t. If I’d said I’d have taken pleasure in pricking her armour, that might have astounded you.’
Isarel grinned too and said, ‘You gave her permission to camp on Abbey land?’
‘I did indeed. She’d a perfectly believable explanation about research into early Church music. Mind you, if she has taken Ahasuerus’s tomb, she told nothing less than the truth,’ added Ciaran. ‘D’you know, Isarel, I’m beginning to think she’s a very clever lady, that Kate Kendal. I think she stuck to the truth as much as possible because she knew it was the easiest way not to trip herself up.’
‘Oughtn’t you to be advocating truth for its own sake, Brother Ciaran?’
‘Yes, but I’m playing devil’s advocate just now. I agreed to let her have the field for a modest rent and I told Brother Matthew to let her into the library for a couple of ho
urs. And then I almost forgot about her until we found the tomb empty this morning.’
‘“Almost” forgot about her?’ Isarel had caught the faintest change of expression in Ciaran’s voice, and he watched the other man through narrowed eyes.
‘Oh,’ said Ciaran in an off-hand voice, ‘I suppose if I was going to have forbidden fantasies about anyone, I might very well have had them about Kate Kendal.’
‘Are fantasies forbidden to you? I’ve never been quite sure—’
‘Absolutely forbidden,’ said Ciaran, and although his tone was light Isarel heard the barriers click into place.
He said in an ordinary voice, ‘And so the bird has flown. I suppose it couldn’t be coincidence? No, of course it couldn’t.’
‘It’s a pretty large coincidence if it is,’ said Ciaran. ‘No, it fits too well. I think she was after the tomb all the time.’ He drank his coffee. ‘She was very intelligent and she was rather coldly efficient. I think she’d be ruthless if something mattered enough to her.’ He grinned at Isarel and then said, ‘I’ll have to go after her of course.’
‘Really?’ said Isarel in an expressionless voice.
‘To get Ahasuerus back. Not for any other reason.’
‘It didn’t occur to me that there could be any other reason.’ And, thought Isarel, I know, of course, what’s coming next. But I’ll damn well make you sweat for this one, Brother Ciaran. He leaned back on the window seat and waited.