The Devil in green da-1

by Marc Chadbourn

  As they left the refectory, the broken-nosed man was sullen and depressed; he'd lost his dinner in the scuffle and there would be nothing more until the thin gruel they laughingly called breakfast. Mallory didn't have the heart to deliver the caution Blaine had outlined for such occasions, so they walked in silence.

  When they arrived at the infirmary, they were surprised to find the place in disarray. Warwick's surgical utensils were scattered across the floor, the contents of some herb jars had been emptied and the operating table was upended. Warwick sat on a chair in one corner, white-faced and uneasy. He was surrounded by two stony-faced Blues and a tall, weasley inquisitor who was brandishing Warwick's clockwork radio.

  'It's not mine, I tell you,' Warwick protested.

  'Your assistant said it was.' The inquisitor examined the radio as if it were filth.

  'Well, he's wrong.'

  'You know the punishment for hoarding banned technology.'

  Warwick looked as if he was going to be sick. 'It's not mine!'

  'Why was it hidden amongst your things?' The inquisitor plainly wasn't going to let up.

  Mallory wanted to say, It's just a little radio! We all loved them only a few months ago, but he knew the object had taken on new meaning in the rapidly developing language of the cathedral. It was a nuclear bomb, an Ouija board, a letter filled with anthrax. He wondered if he was the only sane one in the entire place.

  It looked as if the inquisitor was only just beginning, so Mallory abandoned the broken-nosed man there and wandered into the network of back rooms. He was taken with the desire to see Hipgrave, who hadn't been heard from in days.

  The main ward was full. With the food declining, more and more people were getting sick and taking longer to recover, while others were being laid low by injuries they would normally have fended off. Every bed was also taken in a makeshift ward in an annexe. Beyond, there were several single rooms with occupants in various states of illness.

  The final room was locked, but like the others it had a window of reinforced glass through which Mallory could see Hipgrave lying in bed, arms straight out by his sides, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling.

  Mallory hesitated, then rapped gently on the window. Hipgrave's gaze didn't even flicker towards him. He appeared, to Mallory's untutored eyes, catatonic. A rigid man, the strain of all they'd experienced had finally broken him.

  For the first time, Mallory felt pity for Hipgrave. Although the captain had been thoroughly disagreeable, he didn't deserve what had happened to him. None of them deserved it.

  Back in the surgery, Warwick's radio lay smashed on the floor. Mallory found it hard to deal with the pointlessness of it all; no more information coming from across the country, no more messages of hope. All thrown away, for some stupid idea of religious belief that was as irrational as all the supernatural creatures pounding on the walls. He'd been consumed with thoughts of vengeance against Blaine and the Church authorities for all his suffering, but the pointlessness of everything in the cathedral had worn him down. Now all he wanted was to get away with Sophie. Stefan and the others could stew in the hell of their own making.

  Warwick was nowhere to be seen. Mallory didn't try to divine what that meant, nor what it insinuated for all the sick brothers in the infirmary. There was no sense anywhere.

  Leaving the infirmary, he had half a mind to go back to the dorm and climb into bed until he heard raised voices coming from the refectory.

  He had expected to find another fight, but the atmosphere was much different. Most of the brothers were standing watching a scene being played out near the serving tables. More inquisitors and Blues were struggling to contain a slight figure throwing himself around in a wildcat frenzy. It was Lewis, Daniels' young boyfriend. When he found a gulp of breath, he let out another burst of shouting so filled with passion that Mallory at first had trouble understanding what he was saying.

  'This is wrong!' Mallory eventually deciphered. 'I'm a good Christian!'

  Eventually, the Blues got a grip on his arms and pinned him between them. His face was flushed and tear-stained. Inquisitor-General Broderick turned to the crowd, obviously feeling a need to explain the arrest of someone so young and unimposing.

  'This one has committed a sin against the Lord,' he began.

  'No sin!' Lewis shouted.

  'A terrible sin, against the very order of things. He is a sodomite-'

  Lewis shouted him down. 'I'm someone who loves! Is that wrong? No, it's God's message!' he added incredulously. 'Then why am I being punished for it?'

  'Take him away!' some of the fundamentalists in the corner were shouting, their faces filled with hatred.

  Mallory noticed Daniels standing in the front, not far from Lewis. He looked as if he was about to tear himself apart.

  Lewis's eyes fell on Daniels. 'If you believe in love,' he proclaimed, seemingly to everyone, though Mallory knew it was aimed at his boyfriend, 'speak out now! Speak out on my behalf! Because if this is allowed to happen, this cathedral… this religion… will lose something much more important this day! And you'll all know in your hearts you turned your back on a truth… on love… on me!'

  In the candlelight, Mallory could see tears glinting in Daniels' eye. It seemed he was ready to go to Lewis's aid. Mallory prepared to restrain him, knowing that if Daniels spoke out, he would be dragged away with Lewis to an uncertain fate.

  Daniels hovered for a second, then turned and pushed his way through the crowd, his head bowed. Lewis cried out as if he had been wounded, but even then he didn't say Daniels' name.

  In the confusion of Lewis's arrest, Mallory forced his way through the mute crowd in search of Daniels to try to mitigate the blow. But Daniels was not at the back of the refectory, nor was he outside, or back in the dormitory. Mallory searched for half an hour and in the end was forced to give up. The day that had seemed hopeful only a few hours earlier was ending so bleakly he didn't want to see the morrow.

  Wrapped in his cloak with the hood pulled low over his head, Mallory drifted around the buildings for a while, lost to his own dark thoughts, until he was drawn to the cathedral by the distant sound of plainsong drifting through the cold evening air. With the candles gleaming through the frosted windows and the blanketing snow casting the night white, a sense of peace and hope fell across him.

  He felt an urge to be on his own, so he made his way to the kitchens, which he knew would be empty at that time. With the ovens burning around the clock, it was also the only continually warm place in the entire cathedral compound; the list of brothers seeking work there had been long ever since winter had come. But how long would the fuel last, he wondered?

  The dinner pots and pans had been rinsed and lay gleaming on the work surface; the ovens had been stoked, the few vegetables trimmings put aside for composting. Dinner had been even more meagre than usual and Mallory's stomach was rumbling, but he resisted the urge to raid the larders out of responsibility to the others.

  Instead, he found a space beside the furthest oven from the door and shuffled in. The temperature was just right to begin to ease the aching cold from his feet and hands. When he swallowed the warm air, the contrast allowed him to feel the permeating cold all the way down his throat into his lungs; it felt as though he hadn't been warm for months.

  In the soporific atmosphere, it wasn't long before his eyelids began to feel heavy. He fought it — it would be embarrassing to be discovered there — but within minutes he had drifted off.

  'You've all done a terrible thing.' Sophie walked slowly around the moonlit glade.

  Mallory knew what she meant. 'The Fabulous Beast.'

  'How could you do such a thing? It was something wonderful, Mallory.' The deep sorrow in her voice made his heart ache. 'It was more than just a living creature, it was a symbol, it was the manifestation of the Earth Spirit, the power of life given form. And you killed it!'

  'I'm sorry.' That sounded pathetic against something so huge. He wanted to say that he hadn't joine
d in; it wasn't his hand that had helped bring the creature down. But he knew that was no mitigation. As she had pointed out to him before, he was complicit because he hadn't taken sides; there was no sitting on the fence. He had known that at the time, and he knew it now.

  'We can't begin to guess the repercussions of what you did, Mallory,' she continued. 'The echoes will run through the universe, through time. Goodness knows what the end result will be, what price we'll all have to pay. And there will be a price, Mallory, make no mistake.'

  'I wish it hadn't happened, Sophie, more than anything, but everyone in the cathedral is under tremendous pressure. They've been facing a siege for weeks now… they're running out of food, and fuel. They feel they're in a fight to the death against Evil, not just to save themselves, but to save the whole world. And they're completely powerless-'

  'I know,' she sighed. 'But that doesn't justify-'

  'I'm not trying to justify anything, just explain.' He walked over and took her hand; she let him, folding her cool fingers into his. 'If there's any way we can put this right, make amends…'

  'I don't know. It's hard to think how. I'll have to petition Higher Powers, see what can be done.'

  He tugged gently on her hand and she looked into his face, her eyes lost in pools of shadow. 'Against all the terrible things happening in the world, we should be nothing, but it doesn't feel like that to me.'

  She rested her head on his chest. Even in that place he could feel the tension in her brought on by the weight of all her obligations. Behind her confidence and power lay a woman as unsure as everybody else, desperate for a break from the demands heaped on her, someone who had managed to put her own needs to one side to do her best for others. Sensing that, Mallory felt even more drawn to her.

  'We're going to make a go of this, aren't we?' she said wearily. 'It would be so nice to have someone to help with the burden… of this life.'

  There was a weight of belief in her voice that suddenly scared him. She was implying he had the strength, the ability, the confidence, to stand beside her, to help support her, and he was very good at presenting that view to the world; but inside, he wasn't half the man he pretended to be.

  Once again she appeared to be reading his thoughts. 'You're a better man than you think you are, Mallory,' she said, her voice muffled against his chest.

  'Where do we go from here?' he said. But even as the words had left his lips, he was aware that they were moving apart, not through any conscious will of their own, but as if a rope were dragging him back.

  Her voice floated to him even as she was swallowed by the trees. 'I'll you soon, Mallory. In the flesh next time.'

  He awoke with a start, still wrapped in thoughts of trees and a moonlit landscape. Briefly, he wondered where he was, until the warmth of the oven brought him back to earth quickly. Someone else was in the kitchen. Cautiously, he peered around the edge of the oven.

  Gibson, the Canon of the Pies, was opening a padlocked larder built into one wall. It had been constructed to be almost hidden unless it was actively being sought: the doors merged with an area of wood panelling, the keyhole lying behind a swivelling, decorative rail. Only the padlock around the two handles, both disguised as ornaments, gave the game away.

  Inside the larder were shelves filled with food. Mallory could see cured meats, dried fruits in jars, pickles in larger glass containers, and assorted tins. Gibson was removing what looked like salt-beef from a large Tupper- ware box and stuffing it into his mouth till his cheeks bulged. From his anxious backwards glances, Mallory understood this was Gibson's own private store. He had plainly stockpiled emergency supplies under his role as head of the kitchens to keep him well fed. Meanwhile the rest of the brothers underwent privations to ensure everyone had enough food to survive. Mallory felt a dull flare of anger. He considered confronting Gibson there and then, but he knew the canon would use his authority to deny his crime and Mallory would be the one made to suffer.

  While he considered his options, Gibson finished off half of the salt-beef and followed it with two pickled onions. Then he pulled out a stoppered bottle — some fortified wine, probably brandy, Mallory guessed — and took a long draught.

  Just as Mallory had reached the conclusion that he could no longer contain himself, he became aware of a sickening but disturbingly familiar smell. His heart began to pound as desperate images of the labyrinth at Bratton Camp crackled through his mind.

  Gibson filled his mouth with dried apple and raisins until the contents were falling out even as he pushed more in.

  Anxiously, Mallory searched for the origin of the foul odour. Gibson wasn't aware of it. He popped one whole sugary biscuit into his mouth and began to close the cupboard. At that moment, he heard or sensed something and froze. Mallory saw Gibson's fear that his sins had sought him out.

  Mallory drew his sword slowly.

  'Who's there?' Gibson snapped the padlock shut and turned, pressing his huge bulk against the larder. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes shining.

  Who's there? Mallory echoed in his head.

  A shadow moved on the far edge of his vision, but was gone the instant he looked towards it.

  The air in the kitchen appeared to deaden. The only sounds were the dim crackling of the logs in the oven and Gibson's laboured breathing.

  The key-ring jangled as Gibson dropped it into a pocket in his robe. He wiped the saliva from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Mallory had grown taut. He scanned back and forth across the kitchen but could see no sign of any other person even though every fibre of his being told him the threat was there. Gibson, too, appeared to have come to this conclusion, for his expression was now tinged with nascent dread. He shivered, steeled himself, then began to march insistently towards the door.

  The shadow reappeared, driving towards Gibson so fast that Mallory had no time to react. Half-glimpsed, it seemed to be made of glass, falling almost into view, then vanishing completely, like flashes of light illuminating a statue. At first it was undeniably human in shape, but altering as it progressed: tentacles, wings, a fan of knives, a bulking body with too many arms and legs, each blurring into the next.

  Gibson only had time to let out the briefest scream. His twisted, horror- filled expression showed that the attacker had presented itself to him fully. Mallory launched himself from his hiding place, a dazzling sapphire light dancing across the kitchen from his sword.

  The sheer speed and ferocity of the attacker made him feel rooted. Though barely seen, its effect on Gibson was of unyielding substance. As Mallory vaulted a preparation table, he was aware of a rapid back and forth movement and Gibson simply crumpled.

  He reached the canon in seconds, but all that remained was butcher's- shop detritus, the final spark of life just winking out.

  He whirled, but somehow, even at that close range, the monstrous attacker had become lost to him. Yet as he searched, the light from his sword created a shadow where none should be, away by the doors into the storerooms; and it was the shadow of a man.

  As it attacked, he brought up his sword, hoping whatever power it held would be enough. The blue glow illuminated something so foul his conscious mind refused to accept it, but at that point he realised — as he had known at Bratton Camp — that he could never defeat it alone. He turned and sprinted out into the snowy night.

  Things only fell into place when he was sucking in the freezing air, finally accepting that nothing was going to come out of the open door. Downcast before, his mood was beginning to fan into despair.

  The killer wasn't human at all: somehow they had brought the thing from Bratton Camp back with them.

  He ran into the cathedral to raise the alarm. Compline was just coming to a close. Before he had time to yell out, Blaine ran over and gripped his arm. 'Shut up, you idiot! Do you want to start a panic?' he hissed. He could see from Mallory's face that something terrible had happened.

  Roeser, the Blues' captain, manhandled Mallory out into the night while
Blaine attempted to convince the brothers that all was well. After Mallory revealed what had happened, Roeser gathered a coterie of Blues and rushed to the kitchens, leaving Mallory with Blaine, two other Blues and Broderick, who watched Mallory closely with his inquisitor's eyes.

  Stefan arrived shortly with the knight sent to summon him, and spoke hurriedly with Blaine before they both approached Mallory. Blaine looked hateful, but Stefan remained as emotionless as ever.

  'Do you swear now before God that you did not kill Gibson, and before him, Cornelius, our beloved bishop, and his assistant, Julian?' Stefan asked abruptly.

  At first, Mallory was taken aback, but then he saw the hardness in Blaine's face and realised the connections that had been made. 'No, I did not,' he said forcefully. 'I've already told what I saw.'

  'He's lying,' Blaine said. 'I've had him under observation for a while. He can't be trusted.'

  Mallory didn't flinch in the face of the accusations. 'I have not killed. I could never do anything like that.'

  'Not even in the service of God?' Stefan said slyly. He softened as he turned to Blaine. 'We must not distrust this young knight,' he said. 'He has made his vow before God. He has proved himself in the past as a good crusading Christian.'

  Mallory didn't believe him for a second.

  'Besides,' Stefan continued, 'we will shortly be putting all of our good souls to the test. Then the truth will be there for all to see.'

  Mallory wondered what Stefan meant by this, but he didn't have time to consider it for Roeser ran up, looking more worried than Mallory had ever seen him.

  Blaine recognised it, too. 'What is it?' he barked.

  'No sign of the perpetrator, sir,' he replied. His lips had grown thin and white. 'But the storerooms have been ransacked.' He looked from Blaine to Stefan and back. 'All our supplies have been destroyed.'