Their entrance into the keep was heralded by more squealing hinges as they pushed open the stout door. Motes of dust danced in the air, catching light from the moon and their flickering torches as footfalls echoed around the empty halls. Cobwebs hung thick in every corner and fluttered in the draught coming from the open door. Spiders scuttled into cracks to escape the intrusion.
There was very little in the way of chatter as the monks separated into twos and threes to explore the castle, lighting sconces on the walls as they went. It was something they were more than used to, although not every place they encountered was quite so grand. Again, Sam seemed almost forgotten as the robed men seemed preoccupied and wandered off. He followed a couple of them through a side door which opened into a large wood panelled room, where even in the dark he could see grand tapestries and paintings adorning the walls. Once their colours had been vibrant but now, with a coating of cobwebs and dust, they were dull and jaded. In the centre of the room was a large oak table and arranged around it were a dozen high backed chairs. Sam could easily picture the lord, lady and their court sitting there; eating, drinking and plotting.
When the two monks he’d followed in disappeared through a low door on the opposite side of the hall Sam lingered behind, absentmindedly running his finger over the table to draw a picture in the dust, trying to copy the faded image of a stag which hung on the wall.
A quiet, intentional cough interrupted him from his doodle and Sam turned to see Father Geoffrey standing in the doorway.
“Shall we find you somewhere to sleep then?” It was more of a statement than a question. He turned to walk back through the way he’d come and Sam followed.
Thoughts of Joshua were playing heavily on his mind and Sam wondered how long it would be until they were reunited. He hoped so much that Brother Aaron could find him and return both of them safely, but he couldn’t shake his doubts. Joshua was an excellent hider and if he didn’t want to be found then he could easily disappear into the city for months if need be. Sam didn’t know how he’d manage without his friend to look out for him and anxiety knotted his gut.
He half considered waiting until everyone else was asleep and creeping out into the night, sneaking back along the road to Riverford. It would be easy, just as it would have been earlier when he’d seemed almost forgotten. But ever since he’d opened his eyes in the wagon, deep down he knew he didn’t want to escape. Finally, after scavenging and looting for so long there was no need for him to fend for himself, for a little while at least, and until he got the measure of his new companions, he was happy to accept the monks’ hospitality.
The only thing which belied the fact Father Geoffrey hadn't been in the castle before was the way he constantly looked around as he walked. Nevertheless, he went directly to a narrow, winding stone staircase and started up. The only light was from the torch the monk was holding out in front of him and as the stairs wound upwards, Sam ran his hand along the wall and dragged his feet on the steps to feel his way in the near dark of the monk’s shadow.
At the top of the first flight, a corridor went off to the left, whereas the stairs continued to wind their way upwards. Thinking it a good place to search for somewhere to sleep, they stepped into the passage and went to investigate. They hadn't gone far before the corridor branched.
At the junction was a chair and on it sat a soldier dressed in a bright tabard with a short spear propped against the wall at his side. Even in death he was keeping guard, although his unseeing eyes had rotted to black ooze and his lips were withered and receded back over his teeth.
Father Geoffrey made the sign of the cross before ushering Sam quickly into the corridor and continuing down it. The passage was short with one door at the end of it. The monk paused momentarily, as if mentally bracing himself, before he grasped the iron handle and pushed.
The door opened into a room grander than any Sam had ever imagined, let alone seen. The full moon shone in through a magnificent lead lined window which looked out over open countryside beyond the castle walls. Above the king-sized bed hung a life-sized portrait of a man and woman, obviously of notable power and wealth. They looked happy in the picture. The woman was sitting on a high backed chair, rosy cheeked and smiling with a sparkle in her eye, whilst the man stood next to her with a hand draped over her shoulder. He looked authoritative with a bushy, grey beard and gold sovereigns on his thick fingers.
They didn’t look so happy now, laid out on the bed. Sam knew it was the couple from the picture by the man’s facial hair and the glint of gold on his bloated hands. He didn’t appear quite so regal with his fine silk shirt stained as it wicked away fluids of decay and sagged between sunken ribs. And the lady’s eyes didn’t sparkle, with maggots crawling out from them.
Sam didn't flinch while Father Geoffrey turned away and gagged. Suddenly he missed Joshua more acutely and even managed a small smile as he thought about how he'd probably have cut the jewellery off the rich man’s fingers.
“Excuse me,” said Father Geoffrey and stumbled from the room.
Sam had no desire to remain with the bodies either, especially as Father Geoffrey had taken the torch and left him with only moonlight to see by. He fumbled his way into the corridor and expected the monk to be waiting just outside the door, but it was darker outside the room than in, without the pale light from the window.
Without the flickering illumination of the monk’s torch he was blind and felt his way along the corridor until reaching the stairwell, where he collided with the wall. All of a sudden he felt trapped and without thinking about how easily he could fall, he turned left and started up the steps with increased urgency. Not once did he falter or stop to investigate the passages which announced each new floor he arrived at. As he went up, the winding staircase became narrower, the walls on each side closing in on him and the steps became rough and uneven and so he was eventually forced to slow down or risk stumbling, and it was a long fall back down the stairwell.
A narrow chink of light showed him where the stairs ended. He’d reached a crude wooden door and pushed, but it did not budge. He pushed harder and then kicked at it.
Claustrophobia overwhelmed him and a desire to be out in the fresh air became all important. All he wanted was to be out of the place which was no longer a castle but a tomb. He kicked at the door and beat it with his fists in desperation and only when his toes were bruised and his hands grazed did he take the time to consciously take some deep breaths and rein in his panic. Feeling around the inside of the door, his hand closed on a cold loop of iron. He twisted and the door swung outward without having to push at all.
The night was cool and for a while he stood motionless, savouring the wind ruffling his hair and the clanking of a rope blowing against the flagpole. The flag was flying at half-mast which told him at least one person had lived longer than their masters.
The land spread out before him, bathed in silvery light. Sam peered over the battlements, down into the courtyard below. Vertigo made him dizzy and so he fixed his gaze upon the more distant road and settled in to wait for Brother Aaron to arrive back, hopefully with Joshua in tow. With each minute that passed, his anxiety grew. The night seemed endless but he sat and waited until the moon sank over the horizon and, what seemed like an eternity later, the yellow disk of the sun rose in the opposite sky to drive away the night. Riverford showed itself as a dark, hazy blot in the distance and somewhere between the castle and there, Brother Aaron was on the road.
14
Only three of them ventured out on the search. Sam had left the tower at sun-up and was waiting in the courtyard, ready to go and find his friend. The monks saw no point in arguing when they saw the resolution in his eyes and took him with them for the sombre journey. Brother Aaron should have arrived back at the castle hours earlier, even if he’d searched long and hard for Joshua and although none of them voiced their concern, they all feared the worst.
Halfway back to the city they saw something which hadn't been there the day b
efore. In the front of the cart, squashed between the driver and Father Geoffrey, Sam craned his neck to see. Since setting off from the castle none of them had spoken and now, beneath the early morning sun, the solemnity between them became tangible. The driver flicked the reins and quickened the pace. Not for the first time, Sam felt sick.
The thing they’d seen turned out to be a crude stake which had been driven into the soil at the side of the road. Ravens were fighting over something impaled on top of it, constantly landing and alighting and at first their flapping bodies obscured it from view but as they neared all could see it was a head. Sam chided himself for hoping it wasn't Joshua's while Father Geoffrey leapt from the cart and ran, as best a man of his stature can run, towards the spike, flapping his arms to chase away the birds. They gave up their meal begrudgingly and alighted in nearby trees.
It wasn't Joshua’s head on the spike but Brother Aaron’s, mutilated by the birds which were cawing in the trees. They’d peeled strips off his scalp and eaten his eyes. Father Geoffrey looked like he might be crying and was slowly shaking his head as he reached out to touch the ravaged head. Sam looked away as he pulled it free of the stake but heard the squelch it made, which seemed too loud in an otherwise calm morning.
"Fetch shovels," Father Geoffrey said quietly and without turning.
Sam clambered down off the cart and the driver handed him a spade. He tried his hardest not to look at the head, which Father Geoffrey had already wrapped in a cloth but he couldn’t take his eyes from it and stepped in a muddy puddle. Thinking it strange on an otherwise dusty road, he looked down to see the mud had a distinct red tinge to it, and sprang back onto drier ground.
Brother Aaron’s body lay just off the road and it too had suffered the gnawing of scavengers, the bloody stump hung in tatters where ravens had reached in to peck marrow from his spine and his exposed calves were gnawed by foxes.
They chose a spot near the body, but not too near, and started to dig. Father Geoffrey stood with them, cradling the shrouded head.
“Aren’t we taking him with us?” asked Sam.
Father Geoffrey looked at him. “Where to?” he asked.
Sam thought about it and then realised he didn’t know their final destination. He looked back to Father Geoffrey and held his gaze for a few moments before deciding it wasn’t the right time to ask, before thrusting his shovel back into the crumbly earth.
They’d only dug a shallow grave when Father Geoffrey signalled for them to stop and got down on one knee, reached forward and placed the wrapped head into the ground. Sam watched as the two monks picked up Brother Aaron’s body and between them carried it to the grave, gently lowering him in next to the head.
When soil covered the remains and the grave was filled in, Father Geoffrey gave an almighty roar and kicked the stake out of the ground before picking it up and snapping it over his knee. He fashioned the two halves into a crude cross, tied in the middle with the cord from around the middle of his robes and drove the longest end into the ground at the head of the grave. Then all three of them stood with bowed heads and uttered a short prayer before silently climbing back aboard the wagon.
The castle gates were wide open when they returned, just how they'd left them. The driver stopped outside and through the arch, Sam could see the wagons in courtyard, tethered and ready to go. Father Geoffrey put his hands on his knees and rose with a grunt before climbing down onto the driveway. While he went through into the courtyard, Sam stayed on the cart with the driver and slid over to fill the empty space on the bench.
The other wagons began to trundle out of the gates, the driver cracked the reins and they were moving once again. Sam turned to study the driver, who didn't speak and kept his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead. He was a heavyset man who despite the heat, kept his cowl pulled down low over his eyes so all Sam could see was a thick nose and square jaw. After a while of staring intently without eliciting any kind of reaction, Sam also turned his eyes toward the road in front.
For much of the day they travelled through open country with no shade to speak of. The road was as featureless as the countryside it wound through; a brown scar running across green pasture with only the occasional gnarly oak or overgrown field boundary to distract the eye. Dust shrouded the convoy, hanging as a dirty plume behind them to mark their passage.
Every now and again the driver would pass Sam a jar of water to sip from and he always thanked the man, who acknowledged the gratitude with a small nod of his head but never uttered a word. With no conversation to break the monotony as they bumped along, Sam’s thoughts turned inward. He hoped Joshua was safe and vowed to one day return to Riverford and find his friend. If the half-deads didn’t kill him first, or disease didn't claim him, or loneliness didn't turn him insane.
Late in the afternoon the wagon-train came across a cluster of huts clinging to the side of the road. Made mainly from dung and straw, smoke was rising from the centre of one or two of the low, conical roofs. As they rode in Sam stared in wonderment. Even though the monks were proof others had survived the plague, he’d spent so long with only Joshua for company the sight of a whole village overwhelmed him and his bottom lip began to tremble.
Initial joy quickly turned to sadness when they drew closer. A handful of inhabitants of this small back-water had lined up along the side of the road to watch the convoy roll in. Filthy rags hung off withered bodies and round saucers of eyes stared vacantly as the caravan slowed and came to a halt in front of them, veiled by a cloud of dust.
At first Sam was afraid the monks might try to take food from the village and breathed a sigh of relief when instead they went into the back of one of the wagons and unloaded two sacks of grain, some smoked fish and salted pork from barrels. The villagers shuffled closer, surrounding the monks in a loose circle.
While the food was being handed out Father Geoffrey stood off to one side, talking to a man who could have been the eldest in the village although he wasn't any older than thirty. He returned to the rest of the monks a few minutes later and clapped his hands together twice to get their attention. "We'll sleep here tonight," he declared.
There were no great preparations for the night. The horses were uncoupled and tethered to stakes driven into the ground at the side of the road, and a fire was lit. With simple chores out of the way, a barrel of ale was miraculously produced from one of the carts and tankards were distributed to everyone. As dusk fell, the monks gathered around the fire and sat on the dry, sun-scorched ground. The tensions of the day started to ease. Hoods were drawn back to expose bald heads to the evening air and silence became replaced by banter. There was even a fair amount of laughter as the barrel started to drain lower. Sam smiled. If only Joshua were with him, he might have been happy; it was certainly the most content he could remember being.
Relaxed and tired, he crawled into the back of the wagon and closed his eyes, listening to the low sound of conversation from outside. He stayed awake until all was quiet save for the occasional shuffling of feet. The last thing he remembered was the sound of someone urinating against the wheel of the cart.
15
The next day they entered a forest and Sam was glad of the shade and cool damp air between the trees. Boughs reached right overhead, lush and green, blotting out the sky and dappling the sun onto a carpet of mulch and leaves. All of a sudden the dust, which had been clogging his nostrils and drying his throat, was gone.
He was just starting to doze. After hours of inactivity his chin drooped to his chest and a small puddle of drool formed at the corner of his mouth. A rustling off to the side of the road caused him to sit up straight and listen. He was not the only one to hear it and the convoy slowed to a crawl while they all peered into the trees.
Sam recoiled in sudden fright and shifted back across the seat until he was pressed up against the driver as two half-deads lurched out of the forest. He was astonished when instead of speeding away, the train of wagons pulled to a halt and some of the monks even clim
bed down to greet the diseased people. Other brothers fetched food from the back of the carts, just like they had in the village, and shared it between the two, pus-ridden things.
The monks re-mounted the wagons and the train pulled away, leaving the half-deads poring over their meal in the middle of the road. Sam leaned out to watch them recede into the distance. Had he expected a response, he would have asked questions of the driver but instead he copied the quiet monk’s example and kept his mouth shut, turning his eyes back to the road ahead.
Eventually the trees thinned and the hills became steep as they moved through a much folded landscape with higgledy-piggledy fields on either side of the winding road and trees which were small and bent. The horses were building a sweat with the work of dragging carts up the hills and stopping them rolling down, until eventually they crested a rise and in front of them lay the vast blue expanse of ocean, glinting in the sun. A cooling breeze, tinged with a subtle, clean scent caressed Sam’s face and he closed his eyes to breathe it in. He’d never seen the sea before and had never imagined he would. He squinted and tried to see the other side, marvelling at the horizon where it stretched out to touch the sky, blue fading to pastel shades of grey where the sea and sky met.
The caravan pulled to a halt for a brief pause which could only have been to savour the view and breathe the air. The sea was a long way below them. Along its edge, tall cliffs curved around a large bay, plummeting hundreds of feet down into the waves below. Just out to sea an island rose up from the water, standing craggy and tall. On top of it stood a building as imposing as any castle and larger than most. Sam looked at the driver, who smiled from beneath his hood with joy shining in his eyes.
The Dark Stone Page 7