by Tom Pugh
The statues faced each other. Schoff followed the line of Luna’s hand, down towards the sea, and saw cooking fires in the village below.
The Hounds of the Lord ignored the ancient steps, riding round the conical hill in a wide circle, out of the sulphurous mist in a single wave. They fired their pistols together, a clap of thunder in the still night. Chabal drew his war-sword. Others reversed their pistols, to use the long straight butts as clubs. The villagers scattered before them. Only one man died. He was old, too slow to avoid the charging horses. The sound of the impact played in Schoff’s head. The sound of a butcher hacking meat.
He saw a neat vegetable garden; healthy leaves offering shade to roots and tubers. A bell rang wildly, men and women screamed. The hounds snapped and snarled at the villagers, herding them onto a patch of open land in front of their church, a wooden stockade facing out to sea. Spina ordered his men to build a bonfire.
The villagers sat on the ground with hands on heads. A group of mothers in long skirts tried to protect a dozen crying children. The hounds had been careful; they weren’t here to kill.
The air was heavy with the stink of sweat and fear. Spina addressed the villagers; Schoff marvelled at his self-control. These people looked well-enough fed, for this bleak plateau, but there was something insubstantial about them.
“We need guides,” Spina’s voice was loud. “To lead us through the caves and tunnels. We’re looking for a library or temple. Take us to it and you’ll be rewarded.”
Schoff looked at the children, eyes wide with terror, and thought of his own childhood in Lübeck. He’d often played on the docks, listened as the old tars told their stories of leviathans, strange lights in the sky, storms that should have torn their ships to shreds. He remembered the tale of the St. Gabriel, a ghost-ship that haunted Africa’s Atlantic coast. A three-masted carrack whose sails hung in tatters, oak hull streaked with filth, encrusted with barnacles and which sailed more swiftly than a Portuguese ship-of-the-line. He shuddered and turned his back on the surly, unresponsive villagers.
Chabal appeared in the doorway of the wooden church.
“Found their storeroom. Cured meat, flour, wine, salt and spoiled vegetables. Scraps of tin and pewter hammered flat and stacked against the far wall,” he shrugged.
Spina smiled at him. “There are riches here, my friend. More than you can imagine. And secrets more dangerous than your sword,” he turned to the villagers. “Which of you is the headman?”
No one replied. Chabal moved through the crowd like a wolf, seized a man by the shoulder and threw him forwards into the glare of the bonfire.
“You and I are going to be friends,” Spina smiled. “We are going to do God’s work.”
The headman wore a colourless smock and worn leather sandals. He pointed at the old man, lying crumpled on the ground.
“You dare to speak of friendship?”
Schoff could not bear to look at him. He looked at the women, standing with heads carefully lowered. All but one. She was young, with short dark hair, beautiful by the light of the fire. She stared at Spina with such proud hatred that Mathern Schoff took several steps towards her.
“No.” There was panic in the headman’s voice. As he moved to intercept the lawyer, the point of Chabal’s sword touched his throat.
The hounds fashioned a rope collar and dropped it around the headman’s neck. The young woman was separated from the others and forced to her knees. Chabal sauntered to the bonfire, heated his dagger in the flames, held the glowing point a hairsbreadth from the girl’s eye.
“No,” begged the headman. One of the hounds twisted the rope, choking him.
Chabal smiled. “You can protect her from wild animals. Build a shelter to protect her from the elements. But you can’t protect her from us. This lesson you have to learn.”
The woman did not make a sound. Her lips were pressed into a hard line. She stared past the knife, never taking her eyes from Spina. Schoff could feel her fear, the effort she was making to harden it, make it into a weapon.
“Notice how she refuses to beg for mercy,” Spina’s voice was soft. “Her courage is quite magnificent, in its way.”
The headman struggled silently against the rope collar as Chabal drew the point of the knife across the woman’s cheek. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and Schoff smelt burning flesh.
Spina gestured at the weeping headman.
“We have made our point.”
Schoff needed to be close to Spina. He watched while the hounds pitched tents, listened as the Master of the Sacred Palace gave his orders.
“Place the headman in chains and secure him in front of the church. Separate the men from the women.”
“They live in the caves,” Chabal pointed to a large fissure in the rock. “There’s a long tunnel runs parallel to the rock face, about five yards deep. Several side chambers – one big enough to house the women and children.”
“Put the men in the church for now,” said Spina. “We’ll talk to them again in the morning.”
Chabal kicked the old man’s corpse. “And him?”
“We don’t want unexpected visitors. Rig him as a scarecrow.”
A groan escaped the man they’d taken for dead. Chabal looked at Spina, who shrugged.
“You have your orders.”
Schoff moved round the tent, lighting candles and pouring wine.
“You understand, don’t you?” Spina placed his hands on a table taken from the caves. “It was the only way to ensure their cooperation.”
Schoff nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
Spina forced a smile. “They will understand soon enough.”
“They will. Then they will thank you.”
“They may not know the exact location of the Library, but they know how to find it.” Spina looked at Schoff. “Do you still doubt?”
He shook his head. “There is power here. I can feel it.”
Spina drank. “They’re more fortunate than they know. At least their suffering has meaning.”
Schoff remembered the look on the young woman’s face.
“We should pray,” he opened Spina’s travelling chest and reached for two short cat-tail whips.
The Master of the Sacred Palace shook his head.
“Not this evening, Mathern. Not here. Bring the case and my writing implements.”
Schoff retrieved quill and paper from his chest, and the rosewood box containing St. Benedict’s secret writings. Spina unlocked the case with a key he wore around his neck. He opened the book reverently, lips moving as he committed the words to memory. He dipped the quill in ink and formed the strange glyphs with quick, decisive strokes. Part memoir, part dictionary, this was the key to deciphering the Book of Aal – the volume which had shown St. Benedict how to reach among the seeds of things and bend them to his will. It was close now, waiting for them in the Devil’s Library, but useless unless Spina mastered the ancient script.
Schoff stood in silence for several minutes, watching in admiration. What more could he do to help? They were so close. Soon, they would have the means to make war on the Devil himself.
Schoff shivered, the cool evening air raised goosebumps on his arms. Was he ready? Would he stand or run when the hordes poured forth from Hell. He looked longingly at the cat-tail whips. Spina spoke of a way to emptiness – a way to understanding. He had starved himself; denied the flesh, but had he mastered it? Schoff stepped out of the tent, moving silently, so as not to disturb his master.
Spina’s men were nailing planks across the doors and windows of the wooden church, laughing at the headman. Schoff hurried past, head down, making for the entrance to the tunnel. The air was sluggish inside, smoke from the torches eddying against the low ceiling. He entered a womb-like cavern. Many of the women reached out to him, while the children shrank away. Schoff pressed on into the far corner of the cave, where the young woman lay on a pile of dirty straw, holding a scrap of damp cloth against the scarred cheek. Schoff’
s breath grew fast as he leant forward to whisper in the darkness, fingers reaching out to trace the line of her jaw. “I am predestined for heaven, exempt from the common laws of man.”
CHAPTER 31
They rode south, covering twenty miles on the first day before camping beside a stream. Longstaff tried to give Vescosi the book he’d taken from Ivan the Terrible – the small volume, written on middling parchment and neatly bound in red leather. The Otiosi leader looked up from his place by the fire and traced the words on the title page. On the Planets, their Characteristics and the Orbits they describe around the Sun.
“Give it to Aurélie,” he said. “Her Greek is the equal of mine, and her eyes are better.”
He strolled away. Aurélie sat nearby, curled against Sparrow. Longstaff put the book in her hands, watching as she turned to the opening page. A small wrinkle appeared between her eyes as she focused on the text. “When we observe the movements of the stars and planets,” she translated fluently, “we see the higher, inward purpose of the Gods.” She smiled at him.
“Thank you.”
Longstaff took pains to ensure they did not exhaust themselves, limiting the number of hours they spent in the saddle each day, knowing they would need their strength when they reached the Phlegræn Field. The further they went the more they encountered the ruins of the past, looming out of the landscape like the remains of a race of giants. A cracked face as big as a house, the cheeks still smooth. A huge stone arm, rising in mock salute from the muddy shallows of a pond, a titan disappearing into soft, swallowing earth.
Vescosi grew talkative, as if inspired by the ruins. Durant stayed close, never missing an opportunity to ask him questions. Longstaff tried to follow their conversation, which leapt with dizzying speed from articles of faith, to the science of patterns and the very laws of nature.
He cantered up alongside Aurélie. She no longer sat side-saddle, having discarded her dress in favour of hose and a tunic which fell to her knees. She rode well, with a straight back and light hands. As they passed an old oak, standing alone at the side of the road, Longstaff broke off a stick and threw it for Sparrow to fetch. The dog stared at him with an expression of such wounded dignity that Aurélie burst out laughing.
“She’s a cross. Gets her strength from her father and her intelligence from her mother.”
“She is beautiful.”
“She is,” he agreed, looking at Aurélie’s wrists, poking from the tunic’s sleeves, delicate as a bird’s. He glanced at the musket strapped to the palfrey’s saddle, picturing it in the crook of her arm.
“Do you know how to shoot that thing?”
She shook her head. “I was hoping you might teach me.”
That evening, while Durant and Giacomo saw to the horses and built a fire, he led her through the trees to a wide meadow. Putting a hand on her forearm, he brought her to a gentle stop.
“Look there,” he whispered. “Do you see the rabbits?”
He raised his musket, took aim and touched the firing pan. Thirty paces away, a plump doe collapsed among the wildflower. Sparrow ran forwards to collect their supper.
“You’ve a wheel-lock gun,” said Longstaff, “so the firing mechanism is automatic. No need to worry about matches and tinderboxes.” He smiled. “Let me see you load it.”
He showed her how to stand and gave her a cloth pad he’d made to dampen the recoil. She fired a dozen balls, growing accustomed to the weapon.
“Another,” she said.
“How’s your shoulder?”
“Fine.”
“It will hurt like hell in the morning.”
She insisted, and he gave her powder and shot.
“Fire on the outward breath, the trigger an extension of your finger, the barrel of your eye.”
She raised a finger to her lips. “Listen.”
Longstaff heard the call of an owl in the distance, the faint tapping of a woodpecker. Aurélie pointed at the branches of a nearby tree. In the gathering gloom, he saw the silhouette of a small bird.
“You’ve known Vescosi a long time?”
“All my life.”
“Man of his word?”
She stared at him. “Why do you ask?”
Longstaff couldn’t put it into words – a vague suspicion that something was being kept from him.
“I’m here on my own account now,” he shrugged, thinking of the letter for Sir Nicholas in his jerkin.
She poured powder and ball into the musket-barrel, tamping it down, then a few more grains in the pan.
“Are you a Lutheran, Matthew?”
Longstaff frowned, the monk’s name forever associated with his father.
“People say you can measure a boy by his heroes,” continued Aurélie, “a man by his reasons for giving them up. Giacomo’s hero was Martin Luther. Not a popular choice in Florence, but he’s always been different. Even as a child, he wanted to be responsible for his own life. Most men are secretly terrified – my father was – giving his conscience into the hands of priests, dreams to Fate and staking his fortune on the roll of a dice. Giacomo thought Luther pointed to a better way; faith, not obedience. Courage instead of fear.
“He wasn’t the only one. People believed in Luther’s message. Not princes or priests, but people – farmers and peasants, small tradesmen, servants. The best of them banded together, drafting a document called The Twelve Articles of the Black Forest, demanding the abolition of serfdom and death tolls, the right to elect and depose their own clergymen. They wanted to see the ‘great tithe’ used for public purposes.”
Aurélie held the musket at her waist, eyes on the meadow. A brace of rabbits hopped into view.
“They were trying to make the world a better place. And the Lords gathered their armies and slaughtered them by the thousand. Giacomo gave up his hero because Luther supported the nobles, turning his back on the men he’d inspired to action. Do you understand? For Giacomo, tragedy is a good man who would have been great if only he’d had the courage of his convictions.”
She took a deep breath before raising the musket to her shoulder, barrel tracing a steady line. She was smiling when she pulled the trigger. Sparrow bounded forward to collect her prize.
“I brought plenty of powder and shot,” she said. “We can have another lesson tomorrow, but now I think we should get back. The others will be waiting for their supper and I have a book to read.”
The road was in good condition, the trees cut well back on either side. They overtook merchants, a party of pilgrims, a noblewoman escorted by four men-at-arms. Slowing to exchange greetings but rarely stopping, they covered the ground at a steady, mile-eating canter and spent the third night at a crowded inn. The yard was full of merchants banding their wagons together and hiring mercenaries; signs the road would soon grow less hospitable.
Sure enough, the first caravan they passed the following morning was twice the length of any they’d yet seen, swordsmen riding in front and behind. The forest grew wilder, creeping closer as the day wore on. They cut through the trees an hour before sunset and made camp beside a stream.
“No lesson this evening,” said Longstaff.
Aurélie fetched her musket. “Teach me how to strip and oil it.”
She was inclined to rush. Longstaff shook his head.
“Cut corners now and it will let you down when you need it most.”
She pulled a face, before rising to her feet and stretching. “How many more days to Naples?”
“Three, according to the innkeeper.”
“I want to bathe,” she said. “I won’t go far.”
Longstaff watched as she followed the stream into a stand of trees. He stared at the fire, imagining the soft shrug of clothes falling on grass. The water would be freezing. Would she go in slowly, one inch at a time? He heard a distant splash, a muffled shriek followed by a peal of laughter. And then silence. He pictured her in the shallow water, the current tugging at her hair.
The road was quiet the next day. A
courier in the morning, another long chain of wagons around noon. Another lonely campsite that night. Aurélie shook Longstaff awake soon after dawn.
“Smoke in the distance.”
He sat up, rubbing tired eyes. “A village. Nothing to worry about.”
“I know what it is. They may have food. I’m sick of rabbit.”
“It won’t be what you’re used to.”
She grinned. “You get your things. I’ll tell Giacomo where we’re going.”
*
Durant woke with a start. Vescosi sat a few feet away, cross-legged beside the remains of their fire, regarding him with steady eyes. Durant looked round – no obvious signs of danger, but something told him to be on guard.
“Where are the others?”
“Gone to find food,” Vescosi shifted. “I’ve been waiting for the chance to speak with you alone.”
Laure! Durant placed both palms flat on the ground, bracing himself for news of his daughter’s death.
“Tell me.”
“Five months ago, I received a letter from an official in a small French town. Among other tasks, he is responsible for recording the births, deaths and marriages in his district.” Vescosi paused. “A woman was married not long ago. Unusually, she signed the register in her own hand – Laure Barthes, née Durant.”
“It’s a common name,” Durant’s voice broke on the final word. He lowered his eyes in embarrassment.
“There were several discrepancies, though the date of birth she gave is the same as your daughter’s. She gave her hometown as Arles, for example. In the past we’ve raised your hopes in vain and I wanted to be sure. I asked my contact to investigate further. He maintains that her accent is pure Bordeaux, and describes a woman with black hair and pale skin.”
Durant rose to his feet. “Why in God’s name are you only telling me this now?”
“You are still interested, then? You never asked for news of her.”