Don turned off the radio and pressed harder on the accelerator. He knew where he needed to go to find out what might have happened to Margeaux. One last unseen gargoyle remained in the church.
TWENTY-TWO
1532 The two clergymen leaned into the hard wind. Muttering a prayer in Latin, Father Cuthbert pulled the hood of his cowl forward with both hands as the cold rain started to pelt his face. Atwelle disappeared behind them as they pressed on down the road leading into the fields surrounding the town. When he finished his prayer, Father Cuthbert looked over, as he squinted from the rainfall.
“Why do you bring me out on such a night? How can you disregard what this night is? The souls of the dead and the spirits of evil are about on All Hallows’ Eve.”
Father Regis knew before his companion had finished speaking that it was not the weather or the late hour that was the problem. He too said a silent prayer for protection as he looked away from the skeletal tree branches that seemed to grasp wildly at them from the dark of the growing tempest.
“I fear it is those very spirits that we may have to confront this night,” he warned.
Father Regis could feel the damp of the rain starting to seep through the cloth of his cassock as he turned off the road under the violently swaying oak trees leading up to the entrance to Lanham Manor. When he reached the main door of the darkened building, he pounded on it steadily until he finally heard the wooden bar sliding away on the inside. A servant opened the large door a few inches and peered over a flickering candle to see who would knock at such an hour.
“It is Father Regis,” the priest announced impatiently as he pushed open the door and led Father Cuthbert into the entrance hall. “We are come to see Christopher. Go and wake him now.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Richard Lanham’s stern voice came out of the darkness as he came around the corner, closing a cloak around his nightshirt.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Richard. But we must speak with Christopher immediately.”
Lanham looked at the ominous dark figure of Father Cuthbert standing behind Father Regis.
“And who is this?”
“This is Father Cuthbert. He serves at the pleasure of the Bishop of Norwich.
“Father Cuthbert, this is Richard Lanham, lord of this manor and Christopher Lanham’s father.”
After a brief look of surprise at Father Regis, Father Cuthbert bowed his head slightly at Lanham.
“Now we must see Christopher at once,” Father Regis persisted.
Taken aback at Father Regis’s uncharacteristic insistence, Lanham gave him an unhappy look but nodded to his servant. “Would you please fetch Master Christopher.”
The servant made his way with his candle up the oaken staircase, leaving the men standing uncomfortably in the darkness. A few moments later, the servant returned alone.
“I could not rouse him,” the servant informed them.
Lanham frowned, took the candle from the servant, and led them all up the stairs to a door at the end of a long hallway.
“Christopher?” Lanham called out quietly.
When there was no response, he tapped lightly on the door.
“Christopher?” Lanham repeated in a slightly louder voice.
After another moment’s silence, he gently opened the door. Peering into the darkness, he lifted the candle and stepped softly into the room. Father Regis and Father Cuthbert followed closely behind.
The curtains were not drawn around the four posts of the bed. It was empty, the bedclothes undisturbed. With a surprised look, Lanham turned to his servant.
“Where was Master Christopher this evening?”
“I believe he paid a visit to Geoffrey and his wife,” the servant replied. “I did not hear him return before I went to bed.”
Lanham spun around to face the two clergymen.
“What is this all about?”
Father Regis looked over at Father Cuthbert.
“Tell him why you have come to Atwelle.”
Father Cuthbert pulled his black hood from his face and gave Lanham a look of forewarning.
“I am here at the instructions of the Bishop on behalf of the brothers of the friary at Walsingham to examine your son.”
The monk paused.
“Yes?” said Lanham who knew there must be more.
“I am to determine whether your son is suitable to take his vows to become their brother, or—”
Father Cuthbert hesitated once again. He was unsure of the reaction on Lanham’s face, which took on a surprising look of hopeful expectation.
“Or whether his acute interest in the study of satanic rights, as reported by the brothers in Walsingham as well as the brothers of the monastery at which he studied in Bavaria, is unhealthy or even—”
His voice grew even more serious.
“—heresy.”
The hopeful look on Lanham’s face changed to confusion and then anger. Before Lanham could speak, Father Regis turned to walk toward the door.
“We must go quickly, Father Cuthbert.”
Father Regis looked back to Lanham.
“Richard, you will come with us,” he ordered before moving speedily down the hall despite the dark.
2017 For a few minutes, the black sky turned less angry as the lightning abated. Don’s grip on the steering wheel finally relaxed a little as he drove through the steady rain down a mercifully straight stretch of road. He tried to fidget away the clammy discomfort of his wet clothes against the leather of his seat.
Don’s worry about Margeaux pounded at his thoughts. His mind bounced around all sorts of scenarios in which she alternately was perfectly safe or in mortal danger. Somehow he believed he could find the answer by looking at the final gargoyle hidden behind the wood casement in the corner. Yet he didn’t even know for certain that there was another gargoyle. And if there were, would it reveal a possible threat to Margeaux, as the other gargoyles had conveyed their foreboding messages? Glancing down at the speedometer, Don saw that he had slowed down during the distraction of his worries. He focused on the road and sped up significantly. Another bright flash of lightning told him the storm was not yet over. His hands tightened hard on the steering wheel once again.
“Dammit!” he muttered a few minutes later after throwing a glimpse at his rear view mirror. The flashing lights of a police car trailed him about a quarter mile behind. “What are they doing out here?”
Don’s mind jumped back two days to his interrogation at the police station, then ahead to what he might find at the church, and finally back to the mirror to judge the distance between Sally and the police car. He made his decision.
“Come on, Sally,” he urged under his breath as he pressed down even harder on the accelerator.
Looking back repeatedly, Don saw the police car keeping pace in the distance. He felt the undulations of the car rising and falling over dips where the road had settled next to the flat fields of the fens. Great splashes kicked sideways out of the car’s wheel wells from standing water in the road. He knew the stretch of straight road would soon end and he would have to slow down through the curves that followed ancient thoroughfares of past centuries.
Sally’s headlights illuminated a deep water slick across the first curve. Don yanked the steering wheel against the car’s sideways skid, but could not keep the car on the road. With two large bumps, Sally settled luckily into the mud at a break in the hedge where farm equipment accessed the field.
Don angrily pounded the steering wheel with his palms and sat waiting in the stalled car for the police. About twenty seconds later, the flashing lights filled his mirror. He was trying to come up with an explanation for the police when, to his amazed relief, the police car splashed through the standing water at a more reasonable speed and continued on past him.
Climbing out of the car, Don realized that in the dark, the car’s position between the hedges had managed to hide the car from the road. He walked around to the back of the car to sort out the si
tuation. The police car’s flashing lights disappeared around the next curve. He looked down to see Sally’s rear wheels partially buried in mud.
With no real choice, Don climbed back into the car, wiped the rain from his face, started the engine, and put the car in reverse. When the rear wheels started spinning in the mud, he immediately eased off the accelerator, not wanting to bury the wheels deeper.
While Sally’s engine purred in the rain, Don opened the door and slopped through the mud to the rear of the car. There he reached around into the boot and grabbed his MG insignia car blankets. He wedged a blanket under each rear tire to give the car some chance of traction in the mud. After standing up to head back to the open car door, he suddenly crouched back down as the lights of the police car flashed by in the reverse direction after losing its quarry.
Thunder rumbled around him as he crawled back into the car, sat down, and slowly pressed on the gas pedal. He felt nothing for a second as the wheels spun in the mud, but then he sensed a slight lurch as the blankets worked their way under the tires. With perfect timing, he gently accelerated when he felt the blankets catching the tires. The tread of the tires moved back onto slightly drier ground, spun for another second, and then caught some traction, springing Sally free. Don carefully negotiated his way in reverse back to the road, then jammed the gearshift forward to speed off down the road away from his pursuers.
Sally’s headlights soon caught the road sign to Atwelle. The town was twelve miles away. Don leaned forward as if that could make the car go faster. His soaked shirt clung to him like a second skin, and the wet muddy wool of his trousers itched his legs. When he finally pulled up to the church, the storm had reached its full fury with lightning and thunder alternating in the howling wind as if nature were singing out an unpredictable call and response.
Don sprinted down the outside of the church, the blowing rain stinging his face. Reaching the side door that remained open under its low arch, he hastily ducked through. The altar was still illuminated by the spotlight above. He paused when he thought he heard something, but after a moment of silence, ran over to the scaffolding in the corner.
As if to confirm that he had really seen the gargoyle above him a few hours earlier, Don stared for a long moment up into the blackness above. Then he looked down, picked up the hand axe lying in the shadows at his feet, and hurried over to the opposite corner. Once again, his eyes tried to pierce the darkness above to see the wood enclosing the roof beam at the corner.
Laying down the hand axe, Don ran back to the low doorway. The stone floor was slippery from the wet glaze and reflected the dim light. After a few paces along the outside wall of the church, he reached into the tall wet grass where his hands felt for the old ladder.
The buffeting wind kept Don off balance after he lifted the long ladder and tried to maneuver it through the door. Its ends bounced off the ground like a teeter totter as he slipped on the ground. By the time he had threaded it under the low archway and carried it over to the corner of the church, his arms and shoulders were aching.
When Don placed the ladder firmly against the wall, he felt the flex in its long rails that extended up the wall into the dark above. The cold rain on the back of his neck, along with the fear of what he was about to do, sent a shiver through his body. He tried to shut everything out of his mind as he grabbed the hand axe from the floor.
“Just climb!” He gave himself the command out loud over an ominous rumble of thunder when he placed his foot on the first rung.
Flashes of lightning followed one another in close irregular succession, illuminating Don’s steady ascent. He could feel each rung sag under his weight, but he pressed on without stopping. Then, when nearly at the top, he heard a loud cracking sound an instant before a rung gave way under his foot.
Don clutched the rail with his free hand and his other hand fumbled to keep the axe from falling while his muddy shoe flailed against the rail until it found a solid rung. Steadying his body and his fear, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against a rung of the ladder. He could feel his heart pounding.
A sharp, vibrating clap of thunder right outside the stained glass made him flinch. Opening his eyes, he grimaced as he saw his hand clutching the rail at the spot stained brown with Squeaky’s blood. The awful sight spurred him on to the remaining rungs at the top.
Don steadied himself only a second before he started smashing the blade of the axe against the planks covering the corner roof beam at its base. Oblivious to the swaying ladder, he rained repeated blows to the wood. Shards of wood stuck to his wet face and hair. His only thought was about what could be happening to Margeaux. With the frenzied hope that a twelfth gargoyle was there waiting to tell him, he forced his aching arm to keep hacking at the splintering casement.
Large chunks of wood started falling away. His free hand ripped away loose pieces of planking. Don leaned in to see what lay in the dark corner.
“Come on!” he tried to compel nature to give him a well-timed bolt of lightning. Squinting into the shadows, he waited until an obliging flash of light through the blood-red stained glass gave him a momentary glimpse of the ceiling’s final secret.
Under long wavy hair sculpted around its face, the fangs and teeth of a female demon were bared over the head of a man held out in front of her between the claws of her hands. A second flash of lightning through the stained glass indelibly imprinted the horrifying picture in his mind.
Don’s thoughts raced to figure out its meaning. What was the gargoyle telling him about Margeaux’s disappearance and the danger she was in? Holding on to the ladder tightly, he felt confused, vulnerable, and powerless.
“No!”
The cry rang out through the church. Looking down, Don saw Father Lanham hurriedly approaching the base of the ladder. Then he saw more movement. The white hair of Father Adams became visible as he ran down the side aisle of the church toward the ladder. Both figures in black converged below, where they each grabbed the ladder before grappling to pull the other’s hands from the rails.
Clinging to the ladder, Don watched the two men wrestle below. Each struggled to put the other off balance until they banged into the base of the ladder. Don lurched to one side and dropped the axe as he grabbed a firmer hold on the ladder to keep from falling. Spinning around, the two men jostled the ladder again.
Don reached out to catch hold of the wooden carving on the roof beam. He managed to hook his hand around one of the gargoyle’s arms that was holding the head in front of the she-devil just as the scuffle underneath jarred the ladder once more. When the men both caromed hard off the ladder, Don reached over to grab the carved head with two hands while he tried to steady the ladder with his feet. The clash below went quiet, but Don could not look down from the precarious position of his twisted body.
Suddenly the ladder was wrenched away from under his feet. His arms were jolted straight down from the carved head, from which he now hung suspended. His fingers dug into the wood as his legs swung back and forth beneath him. All Don could see was the gargoyle leering at him with her fangs bared.
The wood between his hands cracked loudly. Dangling there desperately, he looked down at the stone floor far below and quickly back up. His panicked eyes searched for something else to grab until, with a splintering snap, the carving broke away from the roof beam.
Don’s hands clawed at the air helplessly from the heights he hated as he felt himself fall and fall and fall . . .
TWENTY-THREE
1532 “I demand to know where you are taking me and what is going on.”
Richard Lanham attempted to reassert his authority as he struggled to keep up with Father Regis and Father Cuthbert. They ignored him as they pressed on down the dark road. Though he received no answer, Lanham did his best to stay right on their heels.
“Your insinuations about my son are preposterous.” Lanham tried a few minutes later to raise them in argument once again. “Satanic rites—ridiculous!”
As befor
e, the clergymen kept striding forward without paying him notice. The wind at their back began to ease. Soon, Lanham realized where they were headed. The large silhouette of the DuBois manor house loomed ahead.
It took a while for a servant to respond to Father Regis’s loud knocks on the entrance door.
“Father Regis?” the surprised woman asked sleepily as she cupped her hand around the fluttering flame of the candle to protect it from the breeze that blew through the open door.
“Lord Lanham!” she exclaimed, surprised once again as she peered at the men behind Father Regis.
“Go tell your master we are here,” Father Regis told her. “And hurry,” he added as they stepped inside out of the wind.
“See here, Father Regis. There is no reason for my being here,” Lanham objected once more. “You will have to answer to the both of us for this impertinence to me and DuBois.”
His threat was met with a stony silence from the priest and the monk.
“I fear no man, save the king,” he warned them when he got no reply.
“Then do you fear God?” Father Regis responded. “And do you fear for your soul? For you should with what you could face tonight.”
Lanham stood there without replying while they waited in grim silence for DuBois. A moment later DuBois was hurrying down the staircase with his wife close behind.
“Sirs, why are you here at this hour?” he asked. He surveyed the night visitors with a lingering glance at the unfamiliar monk in the black cowl.
“I am sorry to raise you from your slumber, Francis,” Father Regis apologized. “But we are here out of concern for your daughter.”
“Margaret?” DuBois looked surprised. “Who is this monk?” he asked, trying to understand the reason for their appearance and interest in his daughter.
“This is Father Cuthbert. He is here for the Bishop of Norwich,” answered Father Regis.
The Atwelle Confession Page 21