The Sin Eater

by Sarah Rayne

  The minute we were inside Kilderry Castle I knew Fintan had been wrong about there being nothing waiting for us. Something was there all right, and the instant we were over the threshold it was as if it woke and lifted a monstrous scaly head to stare at us.

  N.S. said, ‘This way,’ and led us through dim passages, some of which were lit by greasily burning candles, others almost completely dark. Once, he paused as if listening, and I said, ‘D’you hear something?’

  ‘Don’t you hear it?’ he said. ‘Like a fleshless whispering.’

  ‘No,’ I said a little too loudly, but I had heard it, of course. And with the sounds was the fleeting impression of small shapes, too small to be human, too large to be animals, scuttling back and forth, their eyes glinting red. But that might have been due to my disordered imagination, for by that time I was ready to believe that the demons of the pit – every last one of them – were amassing their dark forces to fight us off.

  The reader will forgive me if this sounds like the sin of pride. I did not really believe Satan would send his entire army to fight our tiny band. Of course I did not. But at this point, I do feel I should issue for my readers the warning that to engage deliberately with any kind of evil adversary is immensely dangerous. As for trading with Satan, which was what the Earl was said to have done to get the chessmen – well, that never bodes well. If Satan doesn’t renege on the bargain in a particularly unpleasant way, he demands his share of the payment long before the term of the deal is reached. Either way you end up losing your immortal soul. There’s maybe some of you will whoop with mirth at the concept of such a bargain – maybe even at the concept of an immortal soul – but there are some strange and fateful things in the world.

  Fintan’s Eithne met us at the door of the library. A slight little thing she was, with soft brown hair and wide, scared eyes. I noticed that Fintan took her hand and pressed it, and when he spoke to her he did so very considerately.

  ‘You be away to your bed now,’ he said. ‘Father Abbot and the rest of us will see to this bit of badness, and tomorrow you can forget all about it.’

  She sent a frightened look at N.S. ‘Eithne,’ he said, softly. ‘Didn’t I say I’d be back for those devil figures? And so I am, for I’m a man of my word.’

  ‘Say your prayers devoutly tonight, and tomorrow you’ll be safe,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ she said, bobbed a half-curtsey, and scurried away.

  The Earl of Kilderry’s library was large and high-ceilinged, and it might have been impressive if it had not been in such a disgraceful condition. The sections of walls not covered by books were discoloured and damp-stained, and mirrors and old portraits hung on the walls – most of them crazily askew. The portraits were so smoke-blackened it was impossible to make out any features, and the mirrors so dim with years of wood smoke and candle grease I’d defy anyone to see a reflection in them. There was a not unpleasant scent of peat and cigars.

  The chess set stood on a small round table near the fire, and small as it was, it dominated the whole of the room. I said, with as much authority as I could muster, ‘We’ll throw the lot in the fire and burn them to ashes. You’ll both join me in prayer while we do it.’

  ‘And then we’ll be off,’ said Fintan, who was setting light to the wall candles, using a taper thrust into the embers of the dying fire. As the candles flickered into life, I had the strong impression that the figures moved – that they flinched from the light. And then – and this is God’s own truth – as the fire and the candles burned up more strongly, the shadows seemed to swell and to link hands and prance round us in macabre symmetry.

  I began intoning the powerful and beautiful Ninety-First Psalm and there was instant reassurance and comfort from the familiar phrases, and in hearing N.S. join his voice with mine. Still chanting the prayer, I began to walk towards the table.

  Twice, intoning the prayer, I had to raise my voice because it seemed as if something was pressing down on it and smothering it, but I managed to continue.

  ‘Whosoever dwelleth under the defence of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty . . . I will say unto the Lord, Thou art my hope and my stronghold: my God in Him I will trust . . .’

  I had reached the part that promises, He shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunters and from the noisome pestilence, and N.S. and I were both reaching for the chess pieces, when something very strange happened to me. From wanting – intending – to burn the chess pieces, I suddenly knew I could not. They were so beautiful, so intricate. I thought: someone must have spent many, many hours fashioning these pieces. How cruel to cast them into the flames.

  At my side, N.S. said, very softly, ‘Father Abbot.’

  ‘What is it?’ I said, whipping round.

  ‘Look at the mirror,’ he said.

  ‘What? I see nothing.’

  ‘The reflections of the chess figures are alive. And they’re watching us.’

  This was impossible, of course. And yet it was true. In the room the chess figures were still and inanimate. In the mirror there was movement. A horse, ridden by a knight, tossed its carven mane, the head of a bishop half turned, and one of the kings tightened a hand around a sword. And the eyes of all of them gleamed with unmistakable life.

  I began to shake so violently I dropped the crucifix I had been holding. N.S. retrieved it, but I had the dreadful thought that it would be of no protection.

  For it’s only two sticks of wood nailed together, after all . . .

  ‘Go on with the prayer,’ urged Fintan, but I was struggling to breathe and something was tightening painfully around my chest. It was with deep gratitude that I heard N.S. resume the prayer. ‘He shall defend thee under his wings and thou shalt be safe under his feathers: his faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and buckler . . .’ He broke off and said, in a low urgent voice, ‘Father Abbot, don’t look at their reflections. Just throw them on the flames. Do it now.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘God help me, I can’t.’

  ‘You must.’ But he, too, seemed unable to touch the figures. Then he said, ‘Tip up the table. Slide them into the bag. But don’t look at their eyes.’

  But when we tried this, the table felt as if it was made of lead or as if some invisible giant held it down. We struggled and sweated, but to no avail, and I became aware that the shadows had stopped moving, and they were standing in a line, as if preparing to face an attack. Then at last – I think it was N.S.’s younger strength that did it – we managed to tilt the table just enough and the figures tumbled into the deep bag. I threw the small crucifix in with them, and Fintan snapped the hasp shut. Clutching the bag, we ran from the Earl of Kilderry’s library.

  The three of us, together with Brother Cuthbert, sat together in my study. I had produced a bottle of brandy and we had all had a goodly measure.

  It was N.S. who said, ‘Father Abbot, you can’t keep those things here.’ He glanced to the corner of the room, where the bag lay quiet and lumpen, but still somehow imbued with malevolence. ‘I’ll take them,’ he said. ‘It’s my responsibility. My family’s responsibility.’

  ‘You’re a Kilderry?’ I said, but I think I already knew he was.

  ‘I am. Not openly recognized or acknowledged as such, but I grew up knowing the legend of the chess pieces. I came to hate and fear them, and I was determined to destroy them. That’s why, earlier this year, I tried to win them from Gerald Kilderry. And I believe,’ he said, his expression intent, ‘that those figures need to be imprisoned in some very remote place where the evil has nothing on which it can feed. Nothing at all – not prayer nor ritual. Not even people. Because evil needs to be fed in order to grow, Father Abbot.’

  ‘We’ll burn them,’ I said. I did not like N.S.’s words about evil being fed, although there were – and are – several reputable sources to support that concept.

  ‘They’ll fight you,’ said N.S. at once. ‘And they’ll probably win. They’re so old, they’ve overpowe
red stronger adversaries than us down the centuries. And it wouldn’t necessarily be a . . . a physical fight, Father Abbot. They would trickle their poison into your mind and corrode your soul and you wouldn’t even realize it was happening.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Fintan. ‘They almost overpowered us in that library.’

  ‘I couldn’t destroy them,’ I said, half to myself. ‘When it came to it, I couldn’t do it. I could only think it would be a wanton cruel waste of someone’s intricate work.’

  ‘I felt that,’ said Fintan.

  ‘But,’ said N.S. ‘if the evil can be weakened – starved – then it might be possible to destroy them.’

  ‘That could take years.’

  ‘I’d wait years,’ said N.S. ‘I’d seal them up and keep watch over them.’

  ‘But where would you go?’ This was Cuthbert.

  ‘There’s an old watchtower on the Moher Cliffs. It’s a lonely, remote place – hardly anyone goes near. I’d seal up the figures inside that tower. And I’d be their guardian.’

  ‘You’d leave your Galway Parish?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘But you can’t simply withdraw from the world for an unknown time,’ I said. ‘No, if they’re to be sealed up, it must be here. This is one of God’s houses – steeped in layers of prayer and goodness, and if anything can cause an evil to wither, it’s surely that.’

  ‘I believe they can invert prayer to their own means,’ said N.S. ‘I don’t understand it, but I think it’s like turning a white bag inside out, so that you only see the black lining.’

  The black lining . . . It was remarkable what images that conjured up. After a moment Cuthbert said, in a determinedly practical voice, ‘How would you live?’

  ‘That rather depends on you,’ said N.S. ‘In this monastery are a number of small, easily carried objects of considerable value. Mass vessels, gold and silver cups and chalices, candlesticks, silk wall hangings and altar cloths. Things I could sell in some large anonymous place, such as Galway.’

  ‘Then,’ I said, standing up, ‘we’d better start deciding what you can take.’

  For the first time since entering the Church, that night I ended up so drunk I couldn’t walk. Fintan had to help me to my bed.

  ‘It’s a shocking thing,’ he said, ‘when a dissolute tinker like myself has to assist a venerable abbot of the Irish Church to his room.’

  ‘You’ll be in my prayers every night.’

  ‘Be damned to the prayers, put me in your Will,’ said the irrepressible Fintan. ‘And I’ll open a great little bar somewhere hereabouts and live a dissolute life so that everyone for miles will enjoy themselves disapproving of me.’

  ‘And Eithne?’

  ‘Ah, Eithne. There’s a girl, now. There’s a grand bit of comfort to be got from a night with her. I dare say I oughtn’t to say that to a monk.’

  ‘I’ve known the odd bit of comfort myself as a young man,’ I said.

  ‘I dare say. What about your man who came with us tonight? He’ll have known more than the odd bit of comfort,’ said Fintan. ‘I’d say he’ll struggle to follow the path of celibacy.’

  ‘We all have our struggles. But he’s promised to make sure those evil things are safely sealed up.’

  ‘Will they stay sealed up, d’you think?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. They seem to have been harmless inside Kilderry Castle all those years.’

  ‘They’re evil,’ said Fintan. ‘They’re leaking evil like – like a dripping gutter. What if someone were to take them out into the world one day?’

  ‘No one will,’ said I, and I climbed into bed and sank into a drunken sleep for which I did heavy penance next morning in the form of a mind-splitting headache.

  And so N.S., that slightly arrogant young priest, probable scion of the Kilderry line, took the chessmen away.

  We had a final word before he left St Patrick’s.

  ‘Last night,’ I said, ‘you mentioned starving the chessmen of everything – even of prayer. Does that mean . . . ?’

  ‘It means I will have to cut myself off from God,’ he said, and, without saying anything more, he turned on his heel and walked away.

  It pained me then and it still pains me to think of him living in that hermit-like seclusion in the old watchtower on the Cliffs of Moher, not daring to open up that channel in his mind through which comes God’s blessed love and understanding.

  I shall pray for him every day. And I shall pray that the power of the devil’s chessmen will quietly wither and die.

  But will it . . . ?

  The story ended there, although the book itself went on for another page and a half, with Fergal McMahon adding a conscientious homily about divine and man-made retribution and atoning for sin.

  Michael had been so deeply immersed in Fergal’s world that when the phone rang it startled him so much he dropped the book on Wilberforce, who let out an indignant yowl.

  The phone call was from Nell. She wondered if Michael would like to have supper at her flat the following evening.

  ‘It’s tomorrow I’m in London, sorting out the inventory at Holly Lodge,’ she said.

  ‘I know it is. What train are you catching?’

  ‘Well, actually,’ said Nell, ‘I thought I might as well go up tonight. I can get the seven forty-five or the six past eight train and Nina says I can stay with her. It would mean I could make an early start. That might even allow time for me to get that chess piece valued.’

  ‘Good idea. Shall I pick up a takeaway tomorrow so you don’t have to cook when you get back?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Chinese? Indian? Fish and chips?’

  ‘Chinese, please.’ She appeared to hesitate, then in a slightly too-casual voice said, ‘Michael, would it be possible for you to meet me off the train tomorrow? I’ll probably get the one that gets in at quarter to seven. We could pick up the food on the way to Quire Court.’

  ‘I think I can,’ said Michael, reaching for his diary. ‘Yes. I’ve got a couple of tutorials in the morning, but that’s all.’ It was not like Nell to ask for a lift from the station; she hated being dependent on anyone else and on the few occasions Michael had offered to meet her from a train journey she had always said she was perfectly capable of hopping in a taxi or walking across to the bus station. He did not want to ask outright if anything was wrong, so to give her a let-out he said, ‘I expect you might have a lot of stuff to lug back.’

  She did not take the let-out. She said, ‘It’s not that. It’s just that I don’t want to go into the court on my own in the dark. I thought someone was prowling around a few nights ago.’

  ‘Oh God, was there?’ Michael’s thoughts switched from the spectral threat of the chess piece to the more temporal one of burglars and muggers. ‘Have you reported it?

  There was a perceptible hesitation, then she said, ‘Yes, but it was such a vague sighting they weren’t inclined to send out the cavalry. The on-duty sergeant logged it and said they would ask the duty patrol car to drive round during the evening, but that’s all.’

  ‘Would you like to bring your things over here and stay for a few nights?’

  ‘And shock your students?’ The familiar note of irony was back in her voice.

  ‘You could creep out at dawn,’ said Michael, smiling. ‘Like a Feydeau farce. But how about if I stay with you for a few nights? As a security guard, I mean.’

  ‘Would you wear a uniform?’

  ‘Would you like me to?’

  ‘It depends on the uniform,’ she said, and chuckled.

  ‘No, but seriously, I could sleep in Beth’s room if you’d prefer, and I could be the one to do the sneaking out at dawn. I should think Quire Court’s seen its fair share of furtive lovers over the centuries anyway. Tiptoeing over the cobblestones among the flowerpots.’

  ‘You’d trip over the flowerpots and set off the shop alarms,’ said Nell. ‘And that would be more like a Carry On film than a French farce.
No, I’ll be perfectly safe, it was only that once and I haven’t heard anything since. I’m probably overreacting.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a pause. ‘Michael – you will be there, won’t you?’

  ‘At the station?’

  ‘Well . . .’ She paused, and something seemed to shiver on the air between them.

  ‘My dear love,’ said Michael softly, ‘I’ll always be there.’

  Michael was vaguely worried by Nell’s mention of a prowler. He was even more worried when he thought about the semi-isolation of Quire Court. It was so quiet, so enclosed in its own gentle atmosphere that it did not seem a place that would be targeted by vandals or burglars. Tomorrow evening he would take a look at the locks and bolts on the doors of the flat behind the shop.

  What about the other threat, though? The chess piece. Unless Fergal McMahon’s memoirs were false – nineteenth-century Gothic fiction presented in an unexpected way – the Abbot and his gang had clearly believed the chess set held a very dark power. And Fergal’s account of the thirty-two shadows performing their own dance macabre in a dim old library was extraordinarily chilling, no matter what one believed.

  Michael glanced back at the book’s publication date: 1904. Presumably Fergal had been dead by then, but it was entirely possible that he had simply stashed the memoirs away, and they had not come to light until many years later. Perhaps some member of Fergal’s family – a niece or nephew – had found them and wanted the world to know the old boy’s strange story. Or the Church might have suppressed the memoirs, of course. Michael thought, with a touch of irony, that the Catholic Church was probably second to none when it came to hiding what it considered to be contentious or disreputable incidents.

  How much danger might Nell be in from that single chess figure? For pity’s sake, thought Michael angrily, it’s a lump of wood with a few semi-precious stones stuck on to it!

  He made himself a toasted sandwich, poured a glass of wine to go with it, and carried the tray through to his desk. Opening the latest Wilberforce file he worked solidly for the next two hours and by eleven o’clock had almost written an entire chapter. He diligently saved the work to a memory stick, which Nell’s Beth had given him for Christmas, tied up in a huge scarlet ribbon. Last December the real Wilberforce had sat on the computer keyboard while Michael was pouring a cup of coffee, and had activated the log-off key. The computer had obediently shut itself down and Michael had lost four pages intended as an insert for the American publishing house, which had recounted Wilberforce’s exploits at a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, when Wilberforce had fallen into the cranberry sauce and it had died his whiskers crimson. Ellie, thousands of miles away in Maryland, had loved this, and Beth had said they could not risk losing any of Wilberforce again, so a memory stick would be a really cool present.