by Sarah Rayne
A tiny green shoot of hope forced its way through the pain, and I struggled to listen. People coming through the mountain pass, shouting as they came? Was it possible? Wild visions of Theo having escaped and summoned help whirled through my mind, and then I remembered that there had not been time for Theo to get away, and even if he had there was no one in this remote enisled valley but the Tashkarans.
But there was someone. There was an entire colony of someones living on Tashkara’s borders. The leper colony: Fenris and his people. I forced my mind to concentrate. Had I really heard it? Or was it only a gathering storm and my own mind betraying me into false hope?
The iron circlet they had used for Theo was being passed around my neck: I struggled and at once the guards tightened it almost to throttling point. They nodded as if satisfied but their unease was apparent; several times they glanced in the direction of the east, and one of them pointed and said something. I tried to follow the direction of his pointing finger, but my sight was blurred with tears and agony, and red lights were dancing before my vision.
Red lights. I blinked and tried to focus, and this time I saw more clearly and my heart gave a huge bound of hope. A thin strand of moving lights – torch flares! – was coming through the mountain pass towards Tashkara! I struggled against the restraints again and was slammed back against the wooden scaffold by the iron neck-brace and the chains. But I knew I had seen it: people were coming, they were approaching the walled city. But how near were they? And if they were truly the lepers what could such a pitifully weak people do against the Tashkarans? A different agony rose up.
The watchers were pointing to the lights and murmuring uneasily to one another, most of them looking towards Tamerlane and Touaris as if for guidance. Touaris’s heavy-jowled face was unreadable but Tamerlane looked angry. He gestured impatiently to several of the guards and rapped out an order which sent them running from the square. To close the city gates? Dear God, was I to be so near to rescue and be cheated of it? I was still swimming helplessly in and out of huge waves of pain, but I tried to beat them back and think of a way of delaying Tamerlane’s men.
The guard was lifting the grisly spoon-shaped knife and behind him two more were replenishing the wall brackets. Lighting the torture yard so that they can see to conclude their work . . . The flames burned up, reflecting in the eyes of the guards and the watchers. Red-eyed devils watching me. Hell’s demons grinning as I go down in screaming agony once more.
There was a sound of shouting from the far side and into the square, determinedly holding aloft the torchlights they carried, came the shambling, limping figures of Fenris and Sridevi and the lepers.
Every single one of them was there. Their heads were uncovered and in the glowing light of the flambeaux their diseased faces were mercilessly revealed.
The outcasts. Ishmael himself, but an Ishmael whose eyes glowed with bitter hatred. Fenris leading his people to the rescue of one who had shown them a brief surface kindness. They had dragged themselves here with God knew what agonies – many of them leaned heavily on sticks, and the trudge through the mountain pass must have been torment to their poor failing bodies. But they had come doggedly and unflinchingly to rescue me, purely because I had shared their exile for a few nights and because I had accepted their poor hospitality and listened to their stories. I felt stupid tears of weakness and pain well up.
They moved slowly, but they moved purposefully, as if a plan had been carefully thought out and was being followed. They simply separated into little groups and converged on the Tashkarans, holding out their eaten-away hands and pushing back their robes to display the ravages of their bodies. It was terrible and pitiful, and through my own pain and exhaustion I felt a great gut-clenching spasm of something akin to awe.
They were fighting not with swords and pistols and clubs, but with the only weapon they had: their own disease. Each group cornered a clutch of shrieking frightened Tashkarans and reached out to them, touching, stroking . . . Two of the women fell on Tamerlane, winding their arms about his neck, one holding him down, the other leaning forward and breathing into his face.
Fenris stood at the centre like a general marshalling his forces. The light from the torch he carried cast a glowing mantle about him, and as he looked around and saw the Tashkarans fighting to get free, squealing in fear, his spoiled face took on an expression of such cynical bitterness that the remembered anger for them and about them rose up in me, and for several astonishing minutes the pain withdrew its claws.
Tamerlane had broken away and was whisking through one of the courtyard archways, and of Touaris and her attendants there was no sign. The guards were scattering, and the men and women who had lined the square and who had watched with such silent intensity as Theo and I were mutilated, were fighting to get through the northern arch.
I became aware then of Sridevi standing at the foot of the scaffold, looking up at me with unexpected gentleness in her expression.
‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘that we did not get here sooner, Patrick.’
‘For Christ’s sake, find Theo,’ I said. ‘And get me down from here before I pass out altogether.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
Elinor was becoming light-headed with fear and hunger, and she was dimly aware of swimming in and out of consciousness.
She was no longer sure which was the nightmare and which was the reality, but when the sound of doors unlocking pierced her awareness, sick realisation flooded back. All real. All true.
She had not known that the warehouse had conventional doors in addition to the trap door, but as they were flung open there was a glimpse of hazy smoke-filled darkness, and an achingly elusive scent of the real world drifted in. There was a flick of movement as Grendel darted back into the shadows cast by the packing cases, but Elinor’s eyes were fastened on the two men silhouetted against the night. Something’s about to happen, she thought, her nerves jumping. Have we reached Sunday night and the ritual?
And then the doors were slammed, and two men came in, carrying the inert body of a young boy between them. As they moved under the glow of one of the gas jets, Elinor saw that he looked to be in his early twenties. He did not look dead, but he was certainly unconscious. Another street boy for Timur’s gruesome ritual?
The men deposited him on the ground and chained him to a stake in the wall, exactly as they had done with Elinor. They moved swiftly and efficiently, and when they had finished, one of them looked around him and called out, ‘Timur? Are you still in here?’
‘I’m here.’ The voice came from the shadows, echoing slightly in the huge warehouse, and it was so like the dead Timur’s voice that the hairs prickled on the back of Elinor’s neck. But at least they’re speaking English. Out of courtesy to the land they’re in? Or to keep in practice? I wonder what Grendel would have done if they hadn’t used English. Or does he know their tongue anyway?
‘I’m still here.’ There was a movement, and the dreadful false face looked out of the dimness. ‘There is a very great deal for me to do yet,’ said Timur’s voice that was not Timur. Elinor clenched her fists, but the men nodded, and one said, ‘Iwane is bringing one more from St Stephen’s Wharf and then we shall have enough.’
‘Good,’ said the voice. ‘Very good indeed.’ Elinor caught the faint hint of the greedy purr again, and she thought one of the men looked up. He took a step towards Grendel and her heart lurched. And then there was a scuffle of sound from the main doors again, and the one she recognised as Iwane came in.
‘The last victim?’ said the man who had called out to Timur.
‘The last,’ said Iwane, and as he passed under the circle of light from the gas jet, Elinor saw that in his arms was Ginevra.
And from the look of her, she was either drugged or dazed.
Or dead.
Raffael spent most of the night scouring the streets around Chance House and St Stephen’s Wharf, trying to find Ginevra, or at the very least trying to find a clue.
Around four a.m. exhaustion and cold drove him indoors, and he and Baz brewed coffee in Baz’s untidy rooms, and sat over the gasfire, which was identical to Raffael’s own but dirtier. They discussed what to do next, although Raffael found it difficult to concentrate; mentally he was still out in the fog, trying to see if there was a street or a doorway or an alley he had missed. There would have been several dozen, of course; the fog made it impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. It had hidden him from his quarry which was probably as well, but it had hidden the quarry from him very thoroughly indeed.
Bitter self-blame scoured his mind. You should have picked her up and carried her out of the entire thing, said his mind angrily, never mind if you had to knock her out to do it! But you didn’t; you let her stay because you wanted her around, and you made love to her because you’d wanted to do it ever since you saw her! What happened to all that hard-won selflessness, Father? What happened to self-denial and self-restraint? Out of the window, along with all the rest of the vows made and broken!
And afterwards, said the persistent nagging voice, what must you do afterwards, but talk that ridiculous romantic rubbish about being armoured and creating touchstones and charms? Who did you think you were – some kind of pseudo-Arthurian knight? Something out of Tolkien? Grails and charms and nine-fold rings and magical swords! It’ll serve you right if she’s gone for good, and if you never find out what value she accorded all that frantic lust on the bare hearthrug! But it wasn’t just lust, said his mind. Oh no? said the inner voice jeeringly.
Baz had spent almost as long searching the streets as Raffael, and had even tried several of the pubs on the list made earlier, on the grounds that the people who had taken Georgie and Ginevra might still be prowling for victims.
‘It was worth trying, but I’m afraid they’ve got their shoal,’ said Raffael. ‘I’m afraid we’ve lost the trail.’
They reviewed what had happened – ‘For about the millionth time,’ said Raffael wearily – in case they had forgotten something that might provide a lead. There had been that sudden scuffle just out of sight, which both of them had heard, and then the sound of running footsteps. Raffael thought there had been more than one set of footsteps, but he could not be sure. Neither of them could be sure in which direction the footsteps had gone, although Baz thought the scales weighed just very slightly in favour of their having gone towards the disused quayside. He was inclined to rail against himself for not keeping Georgie in better sight, but Raffael, pushing down his own agony, said, ‘Self-blame’s a waste of energy. We lost them in the fog, and now we’ve got to find them and that’s all we’re going to think about. All right?’
Baz said all right, and tentatively asked about calling in the police which Raffael recognised as an indication of how worried the boy was.
But Raffael said, ‘We can’t. We daren’t. I don’t suppose it matters telling you the whole thing now.’ He made an impatient gesture and then said, ‘Timur threatened that if I tried to prevent them taking Grendel, or brought in the police, they would sacrifice all the prisoners on their accursed Burning Altar.’ He paused, and then said, ‘And that they would take Ginevra.’ He made an abrupt angry gesture. ‘Which is exactly what they have done. If we make a wrong move now, they’ll all die – Ginevra and Elinor and Georgie and anyone else with them!’ He frowned, and then said, ‘The only thing to do is find Timur’s hideout before midnight tomorrow.’ He glanced at his watch: five a.m. ‘Tonight, rather. It’s Sunday morning.’
‘But it could be anywhere.’
‘No, I think it’s likely to be very near,’ said Raffael.
‘Why? Why can’t they have just chucked the prisoners into cars and driven off somewhere with them?’ This came out a bit more belligerently than Baz meant, but he could not bear to think of Georgie, silly old tosser, being offered up as a sacrifice on some grisly altar.
Raffael said, ‘I don’t think they’ll dare use cars.’
‘Why not?’
‘For one thing cars can be traced. Number plates can be noted down and traced back to owners, or to hire companies – to people stealing them even, although I don’t see Timur’s famous League of Tamerlane as car thieves.’
‘Too risky?’ Baz sounded a bit surer of his ground here.
‘Too far beneath them,’ said Raffael caustically. ‘But also if they’re operating around here – and we’ve already seen that they are – they don’t need cars. All the dozens of narrow alleys and tiny courtyards – a car would actually be a hindrance.’
‘Docklands,’ nodded Baz. ‘Disused jetties and quays.’
‘Victorian docklands as well,’ said Raffael. ‘Absolutely ideal for their purpose. There must be dozens of abandoned wharves and warehouses and cellars around here. They’re near to us, Baz, I can feel that they are. I can almost smell that they are.’
They looked at one another, and then Baz said, ‘What do we do? Search? Until we find them, or until—’
‘Until we find them,’ said Raffael. He looked at his watch again. ‘We’ve got about eighteen hours to do it.’
They quartered the area around Chance House and St Stephen’s Docks – ‘Like an army manoeuvre,’ said Raffael – and Baz suggested that they separate to explore, but meet up once an hour to share information. ‘Else we might find one of us has discovered something and the other’s wasting time still looking.’
‘That’s a very good idea.’ Raffael regarded Baz approvingly, and Baz felt rather pleased, because peculiar as Raffael was, he was somebody you would want to think well of you. ‘We’ll have an hour’s rest first,’ said Raffael. ‘I don’t suppose either of us can sleep, but we should try. And as soon as the shops are open I’ll get an A to Z – newsagents usually stock them, don’t they? In the meantime, you draw up the checkpoints. You know the area better than I do.’
Baz said with a kind of bitter anger that this was the sort of thing that Georgie would have relished. ‘Thrown himself into it heart and soul,’ he muttered, blowing his nose vigorously, and then by way of covering up such an unmacho display of emotion, said aggressively that it was just like Georgie, silly sod, to bollocks up the entire plan, pardon for swearing.
‘Swear away,’ said Raffael, stretching out on the battered sofa, and thought: did you but know it, my friend, I could match your profanity in three languages!
The brief rest refreshed them slightly and they set off, concentrating first on the streets surrounding the quayside itself; partly because Baz thought the footsteps had run off in that direction, partly because of all the deserted wharves and warehouses there, but partly because, as Raffael said, they had to start somewhere.
The fog still clung everywhere, shrouding the streets, so that even by daylight there was a shadowy, faintly sinister feeling. Raffael, who had not lived here long enough to become very familiar with the area, found it chilling and desolate. It might have been practical to have hired a car or a taxi for a few hours, but a car would have been noticeable and he was very strongly conscious that Timur’s people could still be watching him. And as he had pointed out to Baz, there were too many places where a car could not go.
He moved methodically along the designated streets, looking in doorways, peering into alleys – some of them still with the old cobblestones of the previous century – and looking through the grimed windows of deserted buildings. Nothing. At intervals he and Baz met, as planned, and then went off to scour the next portion.
At one o’clock they stopped for soup and sandwiches in a small café, which Baz said was mostly used by early-morning shift workers wanting breakfast. The place had a faintly seedy air, but the tables were clean, the bread fresh, and the soup piping hot. It was a small oasis of light and warmth and rest and Raffael was grateful for it.
As they drank mugs of strong tea, cupping their hands about them for warmth, Baz said, ‘How much is left to search?’
‘Let’s see.’ Raffael dragged the A to Z out of his pocket and opened it, his heart sinki
ng at the amount of streets still to cover. They would never do it in time. For the first time defeat closed about his mind in cold sick waves.
Then Baz said, ‘We can’t call in the police – I understand that. But there’re people who might help.’
‘Who?’
‘Friends,’ said Baz, a bit defensively, and then, in a rush of explanation: ‘People who go to the Anchor and the other pubs round here. People who knew Ralphie and some of the others who got taken. They’d help with searching. And they know the area.’ It was not necessary to explain to Raffael about territories and boundaries, and how you got beaten up if you strayed on to someone else’s patch by mistake.
‘Can we trust them?’ The words were out before Raffael had time to consider them, and he could have kicked himself.
But Baz only said, ‘Not all of them and not any of them with the whole story.’ He looked at Raffael across the table. ‘But we could tell part of it, if we were a bit choosy. I could put the word around.’ He paused, remembering his company, and said, ‘But you mightn’t want to associate with such people.’
‘I’d associate with the devil and his entire hierarchy of demons if it would save Ginevra,’ said Raffael.
If it had not been for the nagging anxiety and the awareness of time slipping away, Raffael would have derived a wry amusement at finding himself patrolling the streets in company with a group made up mostly of male prostitutes, with three or four female hookers for good measure, and a brace of barmen. Some of them were almost certainly part-time small-time thieves and others would be receivers and fences. Some probably had sidelines in such things as forged MOT certificates and Social Security allowance cheques.