The Plague Charmer

by Karen Maitland

  Noll tugged on the Prophet’s sleeve to get his attention. ‘But, Brother Praeco, the church was already weakened and crumbling. If it collapses, it could even crash through the roof of the cave below. They’ll all be crushed. We must bring them up, just until this wind abates.’

  The Prophet, his long beard and hair swirling up towards the sky, gripped Noll by the shoulders, shaking him harder even than the wind. ‘Do you have so little faith? Would you betray me as Peter denied Jesus at the hour of his greatest test? It is written the saints will be sealed by the Blood of the Lamb until the tribulations are past. If the church collapses then that is the seal that will protect them.’

  ‘But we could never dig them out.’

  Luke pushed forward, tugging hard on the Prophet’s cloak of pelts. ‘Master, my brother is down there. Please let me fetch him. He’ll be afeared without me. Please!’

  Brother Praeco seized the boy and pushed him round to face the wind, holding him tightly against its force. Luke’s eyes watered, and his face and hands stung from the twigs and grit it dashed against his skin. He shivered in his thin shirt. He felt the coarse beard of the Prophet whipping against his cheek as the man bent close behind him, bellowing into his ear.

  ‘Listen to it, boy, feel it. That is no ordinary wind. That is the blast from the seven trumpets blown by the seven angels as they prepare for the Day of Wrath. It is here at last. The terrible day is come!’

  Pushing in front of Luke and the two men, Brother Praeco raised his arms flinging them wide in the darkness. ‘“Et dicunt montibus et petris cadite super nos et abscondite nos a facie sedentis super thronum et ab ira agni. And they say to the mountains and the rocks – Fall upon us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath is come!”’

  Sara fell to her knees and crawled the last few steps towards the heap of stones that marked Matilda’s grave. The storm was blowing from the sea, but the grave was so close to the cliff edge that she was afraid a sudden gust might knock her over the edge. Harold crouched by the fire. Even though he had dug a shallow pit for it and built a wall of stones around it to protect it, the red and orange flames were whirling like imps in Hell. Sparks spun up into the night to be instantly extinguished. Sara wondered how long the fire could remain alight. If it went out before Janiveer came, they’d have to face her in darkness.

  Harold’s face was pinched and pale in the gusting firelight, but he smiled wanly in relief at seeing Sara.

  ‘Did you find it?’ she asked. ‘Was it there?’

  ‘Moved some stones,’ he mouthed at her, ‘but . . .’ He grimaced, shaking his head.

  Sara crawled forward. A small pile of stones lay to one side of the grave. There was a hole in the cairn, roughly where she guessed the centre of the hag’s body to be. Clenching her jaw, Sara peered down. She could see the large stone Will had dropped on the old woman’s chest. She prayed they would not have to move that. She lifted out another of the smaller stones. The firelight was too dim and restless to see anything properly. She pulled a burning stick from the fire, but even though she tried to shield it with her hand, the flame was snatched away before she could even bring it close to the stones.

  Harold was staring into the dense mass of trees. ‘Heard someone moving. It could be her!’

  ‘You’d not be able to hear anyone in this wind,’ Sara said. Then, seeing Harold’s expression growing even more alarmed, she added, ‘More like it was a tree falling.’

  He was right to be worried, though. If Janiveer arrived before they’d found the hand . . .

  Sara drew her knife and, gritting her teeth, plunged her hand into the hole in the cairn, feeling around. Her fingers encountered the coarse cloth of Matilda’s skirt. It felt unpleasantly wet and sticky. She tried not to think about that. Then she brushed against something soft and fish-cold. Her arm? The flesh was swollen. It was all she could do not to jerk away. She pushed higher, and then she found it – the leather belt. She gripped it with one hand and wriggled the knife in beside it. Sliding the blade under the belt, she began to saw. Mercifully the belt was not a thick one and her knife was sharp. The leather soon gave way. She tugged.

  The belt slipped upwards. She seized the corner of the soft leather pouch that hung from it and tried to lift it, but it wouldn’t move.

  ‘Harold, help me. It’s stuck. Lift the edge of that stone, while I pull.’

  Shuddering, he put his hand where hers had been. She tugged. The pouch suddenly jerked free, sending her sprawling on the ground.

  The leather bag lay between them on the stones, but neither was willing to pick it up.

  ‘Is it in there?’ Harold asked.

  Turning his face away, he began piling the stones back into the hole as quickly as he could, as if he was afraid that Matilda might creep out through the gap.

  Sara tugged at the drawstring, then upended the bag on the ground between the cairn and the fire. Something that resembled a great black spider came slithering out on to the ground. She glanced at Harold. He nodded grimly.

  ‘The ancient mothers told me it would return to me with the wind,’ a voice said.

  Janiveer stepped from the shadow of the trees, her hair streaming wildly behind her. ‘Bring it to me! The hand of Cadeyrn is mine.’

  Luke gingerly edged a few paces back from the men, then bending low, he ran into the night. He took care not to head directly for the church, but away from it, towards the shelter of a ruined stone hut. He crouched there, trying to snatch a breath from the wind, but he dared not wait too long. At any moment they might see he was missing and guess where he was going. Keeping low, he dashed towards the corner of the church, creeping along close to the wall, feeling with his hands until he reached the open doorway and flung himself through. The church was tiny, smaller even than the one at Porlock Weir, but the darkness inside was impenetrable. He couldn’t even see the floor, much less the stone trapdoor in it. Sinking down on all fours, he swept his hands over the flags in front of him, inching forward.

  They were covered with dried dung, leaves and twigs that had blown in over the years, but he was certain that somewhere there would be a patch that was clear of debris, for surely each time they moved that stone it must be swept aside on that spot, unless the dust and rubble from the roof had already covered it. But he was trying hard not to think about that, or about the beams creaking ominously over his head.

  He ducked as a shower of loose stones fell just inches from his head. It was all he could do to stop himself fleeing back outside, but he couldn’t leave Hob trapped down there. He shivered as the wind hammered on the door of the church, and he heard them nailing the last board over the window in the cottage, blocking out air and light, shutting him in, walling him up alive with his father’s rotting body.

  Think! Where had he been standing when he first climbed out of the hole? The shriek of the wind seemed to fill every space in his head. He couldn’t even remember which way he’d been facing. The whole world was in darkness. Was that how it was now, always dark, no day, no night, nothing but the howling of that wind?

  He jerked in pain as his hand raked across something sharp on the floor. He rubbed his stinging palm and felt the warm slipperiness of his blood ooze between his fingers. Tears of frustration burned his eyes.

  ‘Devil’s arse!’ he screamed. ‘Devil’s fucking arse!’

  His heart began thudding: he was suddenly afraid that the men outside might have heard him. Another lump of stone crashed down. He must find it. Where was the hole? Where?

  Then he saw it, a line of red in the blackness, thin as a vein in a horse’s ear. For a moment, he couldn’t understand what it was. Then, in a flash, he realised. He scuttled towards it on his hands and knees, frightened to stand up in case he lost sight of it. He ran his uninjured hand over it. Now he could feel the gap and glimpse the feeble glow of the fire beneath shining up through the crack between the floor and the trapdoor. His finger
s touched something even colder than the stone – an iron ring set into the top.

  He scrambled up, and spreading his feet as wide as he could to brace himself, he hooked his fingers in the ring and pulled. The stone was heavy, but it lifted just a little. He heaved again, this time trying to drag it sideways. Stone rasped over stone and the crack of red light widened into a narrow oblong. He let go of the ring and scurried round to the open side. Sitting on the floor, he braced his feet against the edge of the stone and pushed as hard as he could. The stone slid backwards so suddenly he almost slipped over the edge and had to fling his arms out to stop himself.

  A sea of faces peered up at him.

  ‘Hob! Hob, are you there?’

  From that height, he couldn’t see the walls on either side of the chamber below, but he thought he heard his name. His brother’s cry tailed off in a paroxysm of coughing.

  ‘Hob, you must climb up here. Master wants you. Come quickly now.’

  He saw movement below him. Hands were pushing Hob towards the bottom of the pole ladder. The boy doubled over in another spasm of coughing. Luke lay on his belly and thrust his arm down through the hole.

  ‘Climb up, Hob. I’ll grab you.’

  But the boy stared fearfully upwards, shaking his head. ‘Can’t . . . too high . . . and I don’t want to see the master.’

  There was a loud crack from one of the beams above and it swung down from the roof into the church, sending a cloud of dust swirling around Luke. The beam swayed back and forth in the wind, like a gallows corpse.

  ‘Hob, you have to climb up here! He won’t hurt you this time, I swear, but you must come now. Hurry!’

  Hob hesitated then grasped the rungs, but he had only taken one step when a hand grabbed his shoulder pulling him back down.

  Uriel stood at the bottom of the ladder, peering up at Luke, her mouth pursed and her eyes pinched hard.

  ‘What does the Prophet want with the boy?’

  Luke swallowed. ‘Don’t know,’ he replied, as casually as he could. ‘Just said I was to fetch him quickly.’

  ‘If he wanted the boy brought to him, he would have sent David or Noll, not you. Where is he? Where is the Prophet? I shall speak to him.’

  ‘No!’ Luke’s mind had gone numb, but he’d invented so many excuses to get out of trouble before that his tongue started babbling before he even knew what he would say.

  ‘The master’s praying, said he wasn’t to be disturbed. He says the Day of Wrath is beginning and you all were to stay safe down here, ’cept for Hob. He needs him. The master said . . . he said the Blood of the Lamb –’ Luke struggled desperately to remember the exact words ‘– would seal his saints against the tribulations. So you all have to stay here . . . sealed.’

  Muttering and cries rose up among the disciples in the chamber below, like a colony of seabirds suddenly disturbed. Several fell to their knees and began to pray, each trying to raise their voice above those of the rest of the Chosen, clamouring for God’s attention. Others pressed towards the ladder, staring anxiously up through the swirl of smoke and ashes, as the wind flew, shrieking like a demon, across the hole.

  Raguel pushed her way through the knot of disciples and crouched down, pulling Hob on to her back.

  ‘Hold tight, Hob, and close your eyes.’

  She grasped the ladder, but Uriel thrust her arm in front of her. ‘Where do you think you’re going? You heard the boy. The Day of Wrath is upon us and the Prophet commands that we must stay hidden in the cleft of the rock where the Blood can protect us.’

  Raguel pushed the scrawny arm aside. ‘He also commanded the boy be brought to him. The demon the master expelled has left the child too weak to climb. I’ll take him up. Then I’ll come back. Unless you want to carry him up on your back, dear sister?’ And before Uriel could stop her she had started up the ladder.

  Hob’s eyes screwed shut and his arms were wrapped round Raguel’s throat so tightly that he was half strangling her. Luke was afraid she’d stop breathing before they got halfway to the top.

  He reached down. ‘Hob, come on, take my hand, I’ll pull you up.’

  But the boy only tightened his grip. Climbing the pole ladder was not easy, and Luke knew that doing it balancing a weight on your back must be harder still. Several times Raguel swayed backwards as if she was about to topple off, and each time her foot missed the rung Luke’s heart lurched.

  As they neared the top, she rasped, ‘Here, lift him off me before he chokes me.’

  Luke braced himself. Lying flat on his belly so that he could reach down, he grabbed the boy under the armpits, but Hob was still clinging to Raguel and Luke couldn’t lift him. Raguel heaved herself up another rung and Luke, rising to his knees, managed to heave Hob over her head to land with a thud on the floor. The boy yelped as his elbows hit the stone.

  Raguel, her feet still on the ladder, leaned over the edge of the hole, gasping for breath. Luke pulled Hob to his feet, then turned back to her.

  ‘Come on!’ Luke cried. ‘Grab hold of me and I’ll help you out. Hurry before—’

  He jerked round as fingers like bars of iron dug into the flesh of his shoulder so viciously he thought they would crush his bones to splinters. A shriek made him glance back towards the hole. The Prophet, his face lit by the hell-red glow of the fire beneath, towered over his young wife. With one great fist he seized her hair, yanking her head back while his other arm locked about her throat, the muscles bulging as his squeeze tightened.

  ‘Run, Hob, run!’ Luke yelled, but he barely had time to push his brother aside, before a fist slammed into his belly and he crumpled to the floor.

  Father Cuthbert stood on the stillroom table, sweeping a kindling stick along the top of the beams he could reach from the centre of the room. Piles of dirt, loose straw, mouse droppings and dead flies showered on to the floor and rained down on the bald patch of his tonsure. He shuddered as he felt the scurrying legs of a beetle or spider running across the back of his neck, and dashed it away. But though a couple of tiny rolls of parchment, a lead seal and even a little drawstring bag tumbled down, Father Cuthbert didn’t bother to examine any of them. He guessed they were merely charms or amulets set up there to ward off evil. Certainly none of them was big enough to contain a knife.

  He was leaning out as far as he could to try to reach the furthest beam when the voice rang out so unexpectedly he almost fell off the table.

  ‘Don’t think you’ll escape unpunished, priest!’

  The voice grated like stone being dragged over stone, the sound so low he couldn’t be certain he’d heard the words correctly, except that whoever had spoken had been close by, almost beneath his feet.

  ‘Who’s there? Come out and show yourself!’

  Blood pounded in Father Cuthbert’s temples. His feet seemed frozen to the table. He bent forward, trying to peer beneath it, but terrified that, even as he looked, a hand might reach up and grab his ankle from behind. He stood still, listening for any sound of movement, but he could hear nothing save his own hard breathing and the gale raging outside.

  He raised the lantern, shining the feeble mustard light into every corner, but the stillroom was as empty as it had been before. Shaking, he dropped to his knees and awkwardly clambered down. Once more, he swept the lantern light around the room, even edging towards the kegs to peer cautiously behind them. He tried to tell himself that no one could possibly have crept into the room in that storm without him hearing the door open and feeling the blast from it. With shaking hands, he lifted the thick oak beam and slid it through the brackets to brace the door. It made him feel safer. At least he could be certain that no one could enter now.

  Father Cuthbert had lost all track of time. He couldn’t tell if he’d been in the stillroom for minutes or hours. Every sense was urging him to leave, but the thought still gnawed like a worm in his mind – suppose the knife was lying on top of one of the walls. He couldn’t leave knowing it might be up there. It had to be! He was certain of that
now. Just another few minutes and he’d have it in his grasp.

  The table was too cumbersome and heavy to drag round the room. Besides, he’d never get it close enough to the walls without moving all the boxes and kegs, and there wasn’t time enough for that. He remembered having noticed a small rough-hewn ladder leaning near the back wall, broad at the bottom, tapering towards the top, constructed, he supposed, for a stillroom maid to carry out to the forest to collect wild fruit or leaves from the trees.

  He leaned it against the wall, and climbed up a few rungs. It creaked alarmingly under his weight and he dared not mount another step. He stretched up, feeling along the top of the wall. But there was nothing except piles of dirt and bird dung. Clambering down, he moved the ladder and tried again.

  It was on the third attempt that he felt it, something hard wrapped in a cloth that was stiff. He tugged it down. The white cloth was covered with a dark stain that had made the linen folds stick to each other. Hardly daring to breathe, much less waste time climbing down from the ladder, he feverishly tore open the wrappings. In the gloom he could barely see what lay inside, but his fingers curled around the handle of a knife. It felt all too familiar. Relief flooded through him. He had found it!

  A sudden hammering sounded at the door. The maid had returned. She was trying to get in. Hastily thrusting the knife deep inside his shirt, Father Cuthbert tried to scramble off the ladder, but he moved too quickly. His weight tipped the ladder sideways. The priest crashed to the ground with a scream that the maid heard even over the storm.

  The stillroom maid struggled to open the door, but eventually realised it had been braced from the inside. She ran to the grooms, who were still trying to calm the maddened horses. It took her a while to get them to stop and listen to her, let alone make sense of what she was saying. It took far longer still for them to realise that no amount of battering against the stillroom door would break that stout beam. In the end, they had to open the shutters, smash the casement frame and push the smallest stable boy through, while he squealed that they were ripping off his skin.