“Mrs Simpson would never lie,” retorted Ross. “Maybe the sheep are just behaving themselves. Being good girls and boys and keeping quiet for us?”
They ran along the back of the house, snatching peeks through the windows of the place and the courtyard beyond. They were sure they could see the silhouette of the shepherdess in the yard among the flock, but didn’t pause to look more closely, instead dashing up the stone path at the side of the house and into the yard itself to see her with their own eyes.
The figure of the shepherdess, her stooped back to the children, hesitated and then turned to look at them, a violent slash of a smile on her face, splashed with blood. She was holding something. There was blood down her front, on her hands and all across the yard which was covered with the massacred white bodies of the lambs.
At once the children froze and Annabel and Maisie screamed, Ross breaking down in tears, his hands to his eyes.
“Whatever are you doing, Mrs Simpson?” he cried. “Whatever have you done?” His hands dropped a little and he stared at the bloody mess stretching to the far end of the yard.
The shepherd dropped the lifeless lamb in her arms onto the cobbled stones and took a step towards the three children
“The lamb of Christ lies down before him,” she spoke, as if reciting a passage from a sermon.
“Before who, Mrs Simpson?” wept Ross, shaking his head in anger and confusion.
“Before the Antichrist!” she laughed lightly. “He is coming. And his power reaches around the world.”
FIFTY FOUR
THE SLOVENIAN BORDER.
Naked, bloodied and covered in dirt, Poré dropped to his knees and hung his head like a man defeated. But he wasn’t, not quite yet. He had run for hours from Pleven into the west, wearing his pelt, still transformed into the form of a wolf, stopping not even once, not until he knew he was far away from the town and the Inquisitors hunting him. Not until he knew they would no longer be able to follow his scent.
As a wolf he was stronger, faster. He found the wound to his leg did not trouble him as it did when he was a man. But even a wolf had to rest occasionally.
Slowly he recovered his breath and looked west, into the dark ridge of night which clung to the rolling hills beyond. Slovenia and, beyond that, somewhere, Italy and the Carso.
He looked back down into the damp grey and white of the fur pelt, turning it over in his fingers. His thoughts turned to his travelling companions who were now dead, killed by those who had thwarted him in Paris. A feeling close to sorrow enveloped him and quite without warning he felt the sudden need to weep. He let the cries come, shuddering and weeping into the pelt, feeling so alone, so terribly alone. Privately he had been grateful to find solace in others as desperate as he had been, people who shared a common hatred for that accursed religion. They were scoundrels and thieves, all of them with a history of mischief and violence, but they had come away with him and trusted him, for a while at least.
He had dared to believe, from the moment when he had found the pelt of Frederick Prideux discarded and stinking in the rubbish behind Notre Dame that night after the Mass for Peace, that the Mass had merely been an essay in a greater story he was to write. He had begun to understand that the road he travelled was assigned to him by a greater power and that it was always going to be long and difficult.
But now everything was close to its end. He just hoped the end had not already come.
A sudden heat exploded on the back of his head, as if the sun was shining just for him. He peered into the glittering heavens above at the new day breaking, as if trying to discern a reading from the constellations.
Now there was a light, shining down. And with it came a voice, a voice he recognised from long ago when he was a young man, the sound ringing sweet in his ears, just as it had back then. He almost expected to see a host of angels, such was the beauty of the sound and the warmth he felt. And then he saw it, the light, both brilliant and terrible, blinding and rendering him unable to move or talk, other than to shield his eyes. It was both terrifying and majestic but with it came a renewed strength and the voice called to him, as clearly as a bell. “Gerard-Maurice Poré,” it commanded, “you still have so much to do. And upon you the fate of all will one day rest.”
Almost as soon as the light had come it vanished, and the kneeling man was cast once more into cold and darkness, save for the meagre pale light of dawn at his back.
He lifted his head to the horizon, discerning a line of red dawn across it. Then he slowly gathered himself to his feet and walked on, knowing every step took him closer towards it, to redemption and to sacrifice.
PART FOUR
“For it is not an enemy who reproaches me, then I could bear it; Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me, then I could hide myself from him. But it is you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend; We who had sweet fellowship together walked in the house of God in the throng.”
Psalm 55:12-14
FIFTY FIVE
THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.
“Which way?” called Isabella, confused by the layout of the corridors. It was years since she’d been to this part of the Vatican, her work rarely taking her to the areas of the city afforded to the Sodalitium Pianum. Only the most resolute and austere of men resided here.
“Left,” replied Tacit, feeling Henry stir on his shoulder, leaving him relieved that he hadn’t wasted his energy dragging a corpse halfway across the central offices of the Vatican. “Go left.” He indicated with the thrust of his head and turned to look back down the way they had come. “Keep going!” he called. “Keep going. Don’t stop!” He could hear footsteps coming, heavy booted steps, and he knew to whom they belonged.
Isabella followed his directions, her feet tracing lightly over the wooden floorboards and through an arch of grey stone which led into a long broad corridor. Portraits of Priests adorned the walls, a carpet of faded lime lining the passageway, making their footsteps sound hollow and dull as they ran.
They reached the far end and Tacit told Isabella to go right, which she did without hesitation, reaching a flight of steps taking them down into blackness beyond.
“At the far end,” called Tacit, using his right hand to help steady himself on the narrow steps, his left still grasped around Henry’s middle, “go left.”
From the maze of corridors behind, inquisitional voices barked orders and teams of Inquisitors peeled away, taking other routes through the building, hoping to head Tacit off.
At once Isabella spun to look round upon reaching the relative safety of the bottom of the stairs.
“Keep going!” Tacit replied, pushing her on and into a dashing run along the wood-panelled passageway. They could all now hear many pairs of hobnailed boots coming down the stairs behind them. They landed with a weighty thud at the bottom, twenty paces behind, as Tacit veered right and then instantly left, the corridors taking on the feel of a labyrinth, dark and claustrophobic.
“Whatever they want,” called Sandrine, “let me fight them!”
But Tacit scowled and bundled into her to keep her moving along. “They want us. But in your condition, I don’t think you’ll be fighting anyone!”
“I’m a wolf!” resisted Sandrine.
“Who was floored by a single punch,” Tacit reminded her. “Shut the hell up and keep going.” All the time Tacit ran he was rooting in a pocket with his hand. A cloth bag came to his fingers and he tore it open, scattering the flowery contents on the floor beneath his feet. With his right hand, he delved deep in another pocket and took out his lantern. He admired it briefly, as if saying goodbye to the item, before clicking it twice into life and then throwing it over his shoulder. It bounced on the wooden floor and shattered open. Instantly the corridor was rocked by a series of explosions, everything behind them bursting into flame.
“What the hell was that?” cried Isabella, dropping low as she was turned left by the Inquisitor’s guiding hand.
“Somet
hing to keep a bit of distance between them and us.”
“Why don’t you shoot them?” spat Sandrine, blinking the sweat out of her eyes.
“Why don’t you keep your ideas to yourself?” replied Tacit. He stopped at the next fork in the corridor and looked back into the clouds of smoke which trailed in their wake. The shadows of figures seemed to loom within the swirling mists and Tacit cursed, pushing the pair of women with him back into a run.
“Ahead,” he shouted, looking briefly over his shoulder and hearing what sounded like laughter and the stomp of heavy feet still following, “there’s a flight of stairs and corridor. Go around them!”
Within twenty feet, Isabella reached the stairs, veering right and running along the landing above them as they had been told. There was light coming up from the floor below, while only the darkness of a cramped corridor lay ahead.
Tacit stopped at the stairs and snapped a nail into the left hand wall, dragging a fine wire across the full width of the corridor to the right hand wall into which he drove a second nail. The metal wire reverberated in the clinging smoke as Tacit tested its strength.
“Choke on that, you bastards,” he muttered, before waving Isabella and Sandrine on into the darkness and crouching down after them. The passageway was narrow, like a secret tunnel, ferreted away, and Tacit dropped Henry to the ground, dragging him by the feet so that he could manoeuvre himself between the constraining walls.
Ten seconds later, many cries roared out and heavy bodies thudded down the stairs. Tacit allowed himself a wry smile and squeezed himself on.
Ahead was only black and nothing else, and Isabella, trusting Tacit, thrust herself into it, her hands raised. Her palms struck a solid wall, which held for a brief moment, before the panel snapped open and she fell out into a broad well-lit corridor, Sandrine tumbling after her. Tacit loomed large through the secret door.
“Where is Henry!” cried Sandrine, aghast, before seeing him follow in Tacit’s wake, dragged like a slaughtered prize from a hunt. At once she battered Tacit’s hands away and took Henry into her arms, her hands on the back of his head, looking into his slowly opening eyes.
“You carry him then,” growled Tacit, looking up from the pair of them to Isabella. He took her hand and helped her to her feet from where she had fallen through the door. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and tightened her grip on his hands in gratitude.
He stepped away purposefully, looking left and then right down the passageway with alarm.
“Which way do we go?” asked Isabella.
But Tacit had other thoughts on his mind.
“Get behind me!” he roared, taking out his revolver. “Quickly. Quickly!” He positioned himself in front of the three of them and levelled his gun towards the far end of the corridor.
“What is it?” cried Isabella, but she now heard the heavy thump of boots, many more pairs of running feet. “Tacit! Let’s go!”
“No,” he replied, his face etched with anger. He closed one eye to aim. “No more running. Now we fight.”
Three, and then a fourth Inquisitor suddenly appeared around the corner of the passageway, their weapons drawn. Tacit’s finger whitened against the curve of the trigger.
“Stop!” shouted Sandrine, bundling forward.
At once Tacit paused, and opened his eye a fraction.
“Flint!” she called.
“Sandrine!” replied the Inquisitor, stepping towards her, his hands held open in a surprised and relieved greeting.
“Accosi! Santoro! Kell!”
“What is this, Prideux?” growled Tacit, letting the revolver drop a fraction from his eye line.
But Sandrine said nothing, as she shook the Inquisitors’ hands.
“Goodness, it’s good to see you again! I thought you were dead!”
“After we heard about Cincenzo, we feared the worst of you too!” replied the one called Kell.
Smiling with joy and relief, Sandrine turned to face Tacit.
“These are our friends,” she said, “the Inquisitors we thought were lost.”
FIFTY SIX
THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.
Cardinal Bishop Korek had been drawn from his office by the sound of an explosion long before he smelt the smoke. Instantly he knew that Tacit must have been found. In a lower corridor of the Borgia Apartments he discovered a large group of Inquisitors and Priests fanning through clouds of smoke, attempting to seal exits.
“What on earth is going on?” he asked, spotting Bishop Basquez among the throng.
“Tacit,” replied Basquez, and Korek saw that the thin smile the Bishop so often wore was missing. “He was here. Within the building. And Monsignor Benigni.”
“What about him?” asked the Cardinal, feigning a cough and wafting at the acrid smoke.
“Murdered. They found him in a passageway not far from the inquisitional hall. A broken neck. Appears Tacit came back for his stuff and the Monsignor got in his way. The inquisitional storekeeper, Gaulterio, has admitted to seeing him, just a short time before.”
“So it would seem it is true that your subject has slipped free of his chains? I trust you were able to discover enough about the man before his prison escape?”
“Don’t blame me that he’s escaped. I did what was requested of me by the Holy See, to test the rumours of who, or what, Tacit is, of what he possesses, or what possesses him, not that he was securely held.”
“Well, something possessed him enough to do the impossible, to break free of Toulouse Inquisitional Prison and then break into the Vatican! What doesn’t make sense is why kill Benigni?”
“Does anything with Tacit make sense?” Basquez scowled.
“I don’t know,” replied Korek. “He was your subject.”
But Basquez shook his head. “He was your subject too, Cardinal. We have an interest in the man, especially if the rumours are true.”
Korek frowned. “Where was he discovered?”
“The Monsignor’s office.”
Korek’s watery eyes narrowed. “Benigni was investigating the murder of Inquisitor Cincenzo. The two must be connected. Hopefully answers will be found once Tacit is recaptured.”
“Grand Inquisitor Düül sent only one unit of Inquisitors to hunt Tacit down, and he didn’t accompany them. I wonder if our Grand Inquisitor underestimates him, or perhaps there is another reason why he doesn’t wish to face him?” Basquez was aware that Korek’s own face had grown suddenly paler than usual. He felt a presence behind him. Turning, he looked up into the torn, ravaged face of the Grand Inquisitor looming over him, the wound across his dead eye glistening with sweat.
“Grand Inquisitor Düül,” he said in nervous greeting, regretting his words. “You’re here?”
Düül ignored the Bishop, lifting his nose to the smoke.
“Get the dogs,” he growled. “Tacit’s scent is still strong, even in this smoke. We’ll follow him, we’ll find him and kill him. Him, and all those foolish enough to have accompanied him.”
FIFTY SEVEN
THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.
They worked their way back to the secret shelter the Inquisitors had been using, close to the Via della Cava Aurelia, a cellar beneath a town house, fifteen minutes’ walk from Vatican City.
“How long have you spent down here?” scowled Isabella, holding her nose, as the eight of them crowded into the main room. It smelt of sweat and piss. Inquisitor Kell sought out a lantern and lit it, while the other two lowered the blinds. “I thought you said they’d gone missing only a few days ago?” she asked Sandrine. “Smells like months.”
“Where did you go?” asked Sandrine, ignoring Isabella’s question. “We thought you were dead.”
“We found ourselves a little tied up,” replied Kell, pulling off his robe and chain mail with a sigh and setting it on the table. There were tears in the links of his armour, as if something had gored him from behind.
“Demons,” added Inquisitor Santoro.
�
��You got anything to drink?” asked Tacit, shifting his weight onto his left leg as he surveyed the stinking lodgings. He had long fallen sober with all that had happened and his ribs ached. Only alcohol could soothe him.
“What do you think?” replied Kell. “We’re Inquisitors.” He indicated the packing crate to the side of the barn and Tacit lifted the lid, producing an oval frosted bottle of brandy from inside. He broke the seal and lifted it to his lips, swallowing several times.
“What do you mean, ‘demons’?” asked Henry, who had found a chair and set himself gingerly down, his head nursed in his hands. Whoever had hit him had hit him harder than he’d ever been struck before.
“What’s your description of a demon, Englishman?” spat Kell, his broken mouth puckering up with distain.
“Something out of hell,” said Henry.
“Then you know. You don’t need to ask.” The Inquisitor turned to look at Tacit. “So how did you get to be among our prestigious company, Inquisitor Tacit?” he enquired, the corner of his mouth turning up with the hint of a smile. “I thought you were chained to a wall in Toulouse?”
“I was. Something encouraged me to break out,” replied Tacit, his eyes turning to Isabella, before drinking down half the bottle straight. He felt restored thanks to the surge of strong liquor within him, feeling his ribs gingerly. “What happened to you?” he asked, looking at the four Inquisitors. “How did demons waylay you? First-year acolytes are weaned on them. Shouldn’t be a problem for experienced Inquisitors.” He took another glug from the bottle and assured himself he would finish it before the hour was out.
“Maybe,” replied Kell, stepping towards a column in the room and leaning his weight against it, crossing his arms as he did so. “But you didn’t see them.”
“Don’t need to,” retorted Tacit. “Seen all manner of demons.”
The Fallen Page 20