One of the men overreached with a blow. The grey one swatted the sword aside and thrust a hand into the man’s chest, punching all the way through the ribs and out the man’s back. Blood sprayed, and Menzies tasted it in his mouth.
It sent the Earl into a frenzied attack.
The last of the four men who had pressed the attack fell away from the doorway, dead eyes staring accusingly at Menzies.
The Hawick man tugged at Menzies’ tunic. “Come away, James. This is madness,” he said.
But Menzies could not take his eyes from the Earl. The big man pressed an attack with the longsword that would have felled many Saracens in battle, moving fluidly and swiftly, raining blow after blow on the grey figure.
The air was filled with the sound of sword strokes thudding into the body beneath the robes.
Yet still it stood.
“Die you devil, die!” the Earl shouted. “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The grey figure went still. It raised its head, as if listening. The hood of the robe fell back from its face, revealing a pale ivory visage. Milk-white eyes stared blindly at the Earl. Its mouth opened and closed, revealing yellow teeth and a grey tongue inside, but no sound came. It made no defence as the Earl brought the sword round in one clean sweep that nearly took its head off at the neck.
The body fell to the ground and lay still.
Menzies relaxed his grip on his sword. He hadn’t even had a chance to swing it.
* * *
The Earl stood over the robed figure.
“Let us see what manner of thing this is.”
He bent and pulled the robe away.
The body below was thin to the point of emaciation, ribcage showing through skin that was almost translucent. The milky-white eyes stared from lidless sockets and when Menzies bent to check the body, the hair felt dry as straw. He touched a cheek. The flesh was cold, but not overly so. It felt too stiff, too unyielding. He rapped his knuckles on an arm. It rang, like a piece of wood.
“What devilry is this?”
“That is not all,” the Earl said. “Look.”
He held up one of the grey figure’s hands. The fingernails were long and pointed, with a deep brown hue that shone in the moonlight where it caught on razor sharp edges.
“Have you ever seen anything like it, Hawick?” Menzies said.
When there was no reply he looked around.
David of Hawick was nowhere to be seen.
The Earl clapped Menzies on the shoulder.
“Never fear, lad. We two are enough for any foe. We have the Lord on our side. Come. Our destiny awaits us.”
Menzies followed the Earl into the tower.
* * *
The doorway led into a large open area. There were carvings, and carved pillars, everywhere Menzies looked.
One particular pillar caught his eye. Some eight feet tall and nearly two feet wide, the carvings ran up its length in a loose spiral. Red serpents lay at its base, and dark bat-winged fiends circled its top. In the spiral carving, men screamed in torment as demons fed.
“A pretty place for worship,” the Earl said at his side.
Another set of carvings caught his eye; a naked figure, blindfolded, with cherub’s wings but milky-white eyes. It had one hand on its breast, and another on its right calf. A grey figure, also blindfolded, hung suspended upside down in a tight coil of rope, and a cherub, paler than the rest, sucked hungrily from a bloody heart, while the heart’s owner looked on in horror.
“What are we looking for?” Menzies whispered. “For I would like to find it quickly, and leave this place.”
The Earl did not reply. He started to make his way around the chamber, tapping on the stone with the hilt of his sword, looking for hidden spaces.
For the next half an hour they searched the chamber, but there was only the stone and the carvings.
Outside the moon went behind a cloud and the gloom deepened such that it was almost impossible to make out anything beyond the position of the exterior doorway and the high windows.
“We cannot stay,” Menzies whispered. “There may be more of those grey demons here somewhere. In this darkness it would be folly to attempt such a thing.”
The Earl nodded.
“It will be dawn soon enough, and we will return.”
They made for the door, but never reached it. The moon threw shadows across the threshold as four tall grey figures came inside. Menzies recognised them immediately despite their milky-white stares. The last time he’d seen them they’d been lying on the ground dead. Even in the gloom he could make out the bloody hole in the chest of the first through the door.
* * *
On the far side of the chamber a section of the wall slid aside, stone grating against stone. Someone stood in the new doorway, backlit by flickering torches beyond. This one was taller by a hand than any of the others, and wore a white robe, but still with the crude black circle emblazoned on the chest. He raised an arm.
The four figures at the doorway came forward, slowly, deliberately.
Menzies and the Earl moved so that they stood back to back.
“We’re in a tight spot, Sire,” Menzies said.
“Near as bad as yon whorehouse in Nicosia,” the Earl replied.
They were still laughing when the first of the four moved forward to attack.
Seconds later Menzies was fighting for his life, against men who had been his companions just an hour before, men who showed no recognition, just stared at him from dead white eyes.
The Earl was able to keep his two at bay by using the length of the longsword to his advantage, but Menzies struggled. His sword was good for close quarters, for stabbing opponents in their soft tissues at stomach and groin. But the things that attacked him were far from soft.
A cold hand grabbed him at the left bicep and started to squeeze. The pain sent white heat lancing through Menzies. He threw himself away to one side, lashing out with the sword as he hit the ground. A lucky blow caught his attacker behind the knee, hobbling him and bringing the body crashing to the floor. The Earl was quick to spot the opportunity. The longsword took the head off at the neck.
“Don’t get up,” the Earl shouted, whirling the sword around him at head height. “You hamstring them, I’ll do the rest.”
The plan proved more effective than Menzies could have hoped. The grey things were strong, but seemed to lack any intelligence. Even as one fell, cut through the calf, another stepped forward within easy reach. It was hard work, and the sword had grown heavy, his arm jarred from the weight of blows necessary to get the job done.
Minutes later Menzies stood beside the Earl. They were both breathing heavily, but neither had taken a serious injury. Four bodies, twice dead now, lay at their feet. Menzies gave the nearest a hefty kick in the ribs. It didn’t move.
“I think its dead. I have taken its head off,” the Earl said laughing.
Menzies kicked the body again.
“And it has a hole in its chest you can see straight through. That didn’t slow it down much.”
The Earl kicked one of the heads. It rolled away across the floor towards the opening where the newcomer had stood. Menzies’ gaze followed the path of the rolling head. The doorway was empty. Firelight flickered beyond, but there was no other movement, no other sound.
“What say you,” the Earl asked, “shall we finish what we came to do?”
Menzies hefted his sword.
“After you, my lord.”
* * *
The chamber beyond was obviously the reason the tower had been built in this place. It was a vast natural cavern in the side of the cliff, the torchlight sending shadows dancing overheard until they merged with the darkness above, where the ceiling was too high to be seen in the gloom. On the far side of the cavern, some thirty paces away, the white robed figure stood in front of a plain wooden cross that towered high over him. Beside the cross sat a stone plinth. Something lay on top of the stone, but Menzies was as yet t
oo far away to make out what it was.
The floor between the men and the cross was laid out in a huge circular mosaic, a pattern that spiralled in towards the centre. Latin inscriptions ran alongside miniature figures. Menzies had no schooling, but the Earl had spent many a year in the cloisters of the Abbey with the monks. The Earl started to walk the spiral, mumbling to himself.
“Calgary... our Lord... King of the Jews. A storm... a crown for the king. He dies...”
Menzies got another cold chill up his spine. Suddenly he had no desire to see what lay on the plinth.
The Earl kept mumbling.
“The crown is taken, spirited away... a safe place, high in the mountains... “
He was almost at the centre of the spiral now.
“The Brotherhood of the Thorn... guardians.”
He reached the centre of the spiral. He looked at his feet, then at the black circle painted on the white robe.
“I know what it is,” he whispered.
He motioned Menzies over to join him. Menzies looked down.
A crown of thorns.
The Earl stared rapt, at the stone plinth.
“The crown worn by our Lord during his passion,” he said. “The thorns are stained with his blood.”
He turned back to Menzies.
“With this, we can retake the Holy City. With the Lord’s blood in our hands, we can wipe the heathen from the face of the earth. We can make the world Christian.”
Before Menzies could naysay him the Earl strode across the floor towards the plinth.
The hooded figure stepped in front of him, blocking his path. The Earl didn’t hesitate. He raised the sword and swung, backhanded. The robed figure seemed to move languidly, only raising an arm in defence. The sword went halfway through the forearm. The figure made no sound. And there was no blood. The wound gaped, grey and dry.
The Earl hacked again. The arm came away at the shoulder. The other hand gripped the sword and without seeming to exert any force, snapped it off, a foot from the hilt.
Menzies started to move forward to his liege’s aid. At the same moment six more robed figures emerged from the shadows, and moved quickly to block any move he might make. They did not attack him... they didn’t have to. He could not reach the Earl.
The white robed figure had the Earl by the throat. The pair spun around in a grotesque parody of a dance. The Earl was trying, without much success, to reach a vital organ with what remained of the sword. His face had gone bright red and he gasped, struggling for breath.
Menzies jumped forward, intent on trying to get through. An arm, heavy and solid, swung and hit him in the chest. It felt like he’d just ran into a tree. He went down hard, the back of his head smacking against the mosaic. His vision blurred.
His head rang like a bell, but beneath that he heard the Earl call out.
“I am here in the name of Jesus Christ. I do the Lord’s will.”
The white robed figure went still, staring straight at the Earl. The big man took his opportunity. He shoved the broken sword under the robed man’s chin, pushing through till the blade punched out the back of the skull. The body went down without another sound.
The Earl stepped up to the plinth.
“We have it, Menzies,” he shouted. He reached down towards the crown of thorns. “I have my prize.”
The six robed men, as one, turned and moved towards him.
The Earl still had his back to them and did not see them approach, still intent on the crown.
“My Lord,” Menzies called, but his voice was barely a whisper. He tried to stand but his legs refused to bear him. He could only watch as the six men grabbed the Earl. They took the sword from him as easily as taking a toy from a babe. Once the Earl was disarmed two of them moved aside to the large wooden cross and lowered it, almost reverentially to the ground. The others started to drag the struggling man towards it.
Menzies saw their intent and went cold.
“No!” he called, but yet again only a whisper emerged. He began to crawl forward, but his head felt like it might explode. His world began to go black at the edges.
The robed figures spread the Earl’s arms along the spars of the cross.
An arm went up and came down.
There was a dull thud, then silence for a heartbeat before the Earl’s screams began and a splash of red on the wood showed where he had been nailed through the wrist. The big man screamed again as it was repeated on the other side, and mercifully lost consciousness for a time as they drove a nail through both his ankles and deep into the main stay of the cross.
A figure broke away from the group to go to the plinth. It returned with the crown. The Earl woke. His eyes went wide with fear as he realized his fate. He threw his head from side to side but they held him, as if calming a recalcitrant babe. They rammed the crown down hard on the Earl’s scalp. Blood joined tears to run in runnels down his face.
They hoisted the cross into place against the cavern wall.
The six figures prostrated themselves on the ground as the Earl cried out, his pain echoing around the cavern and sending bats scattering overhead.
Menzies tried to crawl, but the darkness was even closer now.
He saw the Earl raise his face to the roof and scream in pain.
“I do the Lord’s will.”
Soon the darkness covered even that sight. He let it take him, and fell into oblivion.
* * *
He woke to a headache that pounded like a drum. When he tried to stand his stomach heaved and he brought up what little he had in his stomach. After that, he felt strangely stronger.
The feeling of wellbeing only lasted as long as it took him to turn to face the cross.
The Earl hung limply—chin lowered to his chest. Blood showed all around his head where vicious thorns had pierced the scalp. More blood coated his left side from a wound that had been punched through the chain mail under his ribs. A black circle was painted on his tunic. He did not look to be breathing.
The six robed men still knelt on the ground at the foot of the cross.
My Leige!
Menzies stumbled across the cavern floor. His sword lay near the centre of the mosaic but he paid it no heed as he approached the cross.
Did the Lord will this blasphemy?
The kneeling figures ignored him as he approached. He reached up to touch the Earl’s tunic.
The big man’s head lifted.
He lives. My liege lives.
The Earl’s eyes opened.
There were no pupils, just a blank, milky white stare.
Wood creaked and groaned. Menzies couldn’t take his eyes from the face, but was aware that one wrist was now free of the nail that had pierced it. He felt gentle hands push him aside.
The robed figures helped the Earl down from the cross then prostrated themselves before him.
The Earl stood in front of the bloodstained cross and opened his arms wide. He spoke—his voice a dry rasp.
“To Jerusalem. The Lord wills it.”
The kneeling figures kissed his robe.
Menzies turned and fled.
He had no idea where he was headed. He only knew that he had to get out of that chamber, away from those milky white stares.
If I had stayed there but a minute longer, I would have been tempted to join him.
He ran, slamming into the stone by the doorway. He reached the exterior door before he realized he could see clearly. The sun was rising, a thin watery dawn.
We have been in there all night.
He staggered out to the clearing. A figure loomed in front of him. He threw a punch but it didn’t have strength enough to land. Someone grabbed him beneath the arms as he fell, off-balance.
“Dear God, James,” David of Hawick said. “What has become of you?”
* * *
A minute later he was sat by the fire at the far end of the clearing. His gaze rarely left the entrance to the tower, but nothing moved there.
Not yet.
The Hawick man fed him some dried bread and wine and the heat of the fire started to loosen the chill in his bones.
“I’m sorry,” David said. “I ran when I should have been by your side.”
Menzies waved him aside.
“We all should have ran,” he said quietly. “Mayhap we would all yet be alive.”
“The Earl?”
Menzies wasn’t ready to tell that story.
“What have you been doing all this time?” he asked the Hawick man.
The man looked sheepish.
“I started to run,” he said. “I even got as far as going down the cliff. Then I came to the ledge where we left John the Swift. He was just lying there, two crows feasting on his face. I couldn’t find it in myself to leave him. So I made a cairn and buried him under it. I sat with him through the night, saying the words. It was the Christian thing to do.”
The Christian thing to do.
Menzies sat for long minutes looking into the flames. Pictures came to mind, of the Earl, crowned in thorns, riding at the head of a vast army before the gates of Jerusalem, every man among them staring ahead with a milky-white gaze as they hacked the Saracens to bloody pieces.
And it wouldn’t stop there.
He saw the Earl sitting on a throne as all the Kings of Christendom were brought before him to bend a knee, a Christendom that would all bow before the holy relic, believing it to be the Lord’s will. He saw countries fall. He saw home, and Melrose Abbey, the monks in grey robes, black circles painted on their chests. He saw a world of nothing but obedience and dead white stares.
And with that came a memory of the night before.
The air is filled with the sound of sword strokes thudding into the body beneath the robes.
Yet still it stands.
“Die you devil, die!” the Earl shouts. “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Samurai and Other Stories Page 17