The knight ignored his young ward and turned to the monk, pulling his gauntlets off slowly. His expression was grim as he said, "This stays between us."
He expected some sort of objection from the pious man, but the monk merely cocked his head slightly, listening all the more intently to his voice. Lowick saw that his knuckles whitened around the quarterstaff. The knight was an astute reader of men and their intentions. It came with the territory. The monk was tensed to defend himself, not to attack.
And for a moment, as the pair faced each other, Sir Lowick could have sworn he squared up to a demon across the cloister garden. At least that was how it seemed to him as he gazed upon the monk's disfigured face, back-lit by hellish flames.
The man was battered and bruised and bloody, but none of those newer injuries accounted for his demonic aspect. No. These wounds were much older, and deeper.
He had no eyes.
They had been gouged out, and not recently.
The maiming was almost as old as the man; certainly he had borne the scars since childhood. They were white and thick, cross-hatched like veins of bone. The skin of the monk's eyelids had been stretched taut and stitched together crudely to seal the hollows.
The knight could not look away.
He couldn't understand how, being blind, the monk could possibly have held the northerners at bay. It was miracle enough that a man armed only with a stick could beat back the blood-thirsty raiders for more than a few minutes, never mind hours, but that the man was blind was impossible to fathom.
He took a single step toward the monk, who spun on his heel and brought the quarterstaff to bear in one fluid movement.
"Peace," Sir Lowick cried, instinctively holding out his hands to show he meant no harm. "We are friends."
Despite his blindness, there was nothing ungainly about the man. He rocked back on his heels again, turning the wooden staff over quickly in his hands until the movement became a blur, and finally rolling it over his wrist and planting it back in the dirt at his feet. "Speak, then. Let the Good Lord judge the honesty of your words. If you are deemed a liar, you do not leave this place."
The knight looked around him. A dozen fires and more had broken out all across the cloister garden and the surrounding buildings. The chances of any of them walking away from the inferno were slim and growing slimmer by the moment as more of the monastery became food for the fire.
"I am Sir Lowick, Knight of the Round Table, sworn protector of these lands, and this is my ward, Alymere, son of Roth. You may have known his father, my brother."
"The old lord was known to us," the monk said. And that was all he said. He seemed undisturbed by the fire raging through his home, or the dead men at his feet. He turned, as though to look up at the window where Lowick saw one of his brother monks gazing out over the cloister garden despite the fire behind him. Of course, there was no way the blind monk could have seen his brother up there. It was impossible. And yet the knight had to wonder if they could not somehow feel each other, because he was left with the distinct impression that something passed silently between the two men.
But how could it be?
He had heard curious things about God blessing men, robbed of one sense, with extraordinary gifts where the others were concerned, but had always considered them stories to appease the maimed. He could understand men becoming more aware of their environment, perhaps hearing the chirp of the lark and appreciating its beauty come dawn instead of cursing their lost sleep. But that was different. And that couldn't explain the monks passing silent messages between themselves. One was rational, the other anything but.
"You must leave this place, Lowick of the Round Table. Leave now, while you still can."
Lowick felt it then; all of the sadness and suffering Medcaut had seen, all of the painful memories trapped within its stones. It was overwhelming. Such suffering. Such bittersweet sorrow, bursting to be free. To be remembered. He felt the tears come to his eyes, then run down his cheeks unchecked. He didn't know how, and he had still less idea why, but he was sure that the monks had chosen to reveal the secrets of this place to him. He was sure of it in a way that he had never been sure of anything in his life. That was the meaning of the look the blind men shared; they had chosen him to experience the truth of Medcaut. And again, he didn't know how he knew — could it truly be from the stones themselves? What witchcraft were these blind men working between them? — but he was sure that the second monk bore the same ritual blinding as the first. Lowick took a step toward the fire, and then another, needing its heat to break the hold the tortured memories had on him.
He stared at the flames rising higher. Higher.
He heard voices in the flames.
The longer he stared at them the more insistent the voices became, but they were speaking in tongues he had never heard. Tongues, he felt sure, no mortal mouth had ever uttered.
"The Devil abides here, still," Lowick gasped, suddenly understanding the Scot's cryptic warning. It was too late for it to make a blind bit of difference. The knight made the sign of the cross over his chest. It would take more than faith to ward off the evils resident in this place. He licked his parched lips with an even drier tongue and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
With the buildings around the cloister garden ablaze, it was hard to imagine anything holy about the world right then. The fire was unquenchable. After all, fire and flame were the hallmarks of demons and the damned, not angels and the righteous.
Fear had taken root in his gut.
Strangeness gathered all around him.
There was more at work here than his understanding of the world allowed for.
Something darted across his line of sight, skimming the very tops of the flames. It took him a moment to realise it was a crow — a huge crow, more than twice the wingspan of a natural bird. It didn't settle, but flew from left to right, dangerously close to the fire as it skirted the perimeter wall. The bird banked and completed the circle again, and a third time whilst the knight just stared at it. As he watched, time seemed to stretch, sliding away from him until it came to a stop, and then as the crow broke from the third circle and climbed high into the sky, it came snapping back into place and everything began to move too quickly.
Everything changed then.
Sir Lowick felt the overwhelming need to fill the silence between himself and the monk, to bark orders and take charge of the situation, to banish the lethargy that had settled over him in the last few minutes.
He turned to face the monk.
"Two men could not be responsible for this."
"You are right, Sir Knight. Two men did not do this."
"Then where are the others?"
The blind man inclined his head once more, as though listening to the wind and fires. "They sought to flee," he said after a moment. "You will find them on the other side of the island, down by the water bailing out their coracle. If we are done, I would tend to the animals." It was as though the man had no concept of the conflagration raging all around him, nor the danger he was in. It had burned well beyond containment. In a few hours, Medcaut would be reduced to a shell. And in a few years that shell would weather and crumble and there would be no trace of the brotherhood or their monastery on the holy island. That was the way of the world; it purged the past.
But some horrors could not simply be washed away.
Would the memories of the stones always haunt this promontory?
Perhaps.
Lowick shook his head. "No. No. You must leave this place. It is not safe here. Follow the causeway to the mainland. I will find your brothers. How many reside here?"
"We are few in number."
"That is not an answer, monk. Tell me how many of your brotherhood reside here?"
"We number thirteen. Though I fear some of my brothers have fallen."
"If they live, we will find them. You have my word."
"And if they don't, will you bury them?"
The knigh
t bit back on an angry retort. There was nothing to be gained from fighting with the monk, only time to be lost. "We have to get you out of here," Lowick said, hawking and spitting a wad of phlegm into the dirt between them.
"I cannot leave this place."
"It isn't up for debate, monk. You must."
"You do not understand. I cannot leave this place."
Twenty
Alymere found control of his limbs returning slowly, but his senses still reeled.
He had killed a man.
He moved away from his sword. Just a couple of paces, but enough for a shadow of something, doubt, hesitation, to creep in. It wasn't grief or remorse. It wasn't any feeling he understood.
He caught himself staring at the weapon, though at that precise moment it looked less like a sword and more like some bizarre two-headed monster — one head murderous and vile, covered in blood, and the other bright beautiful and innocent, trapped by the nature of its twin — lying there in the melt.
His breathing came fast and shallow.
He had just killed a man.
It wasn't the sword that had committed murder. He was the monster. He was the one who had driven it into the man's back, ending his life.
There was no dichotomy. He was the murderous head, his hands were covered in blood, and the sword was trapped by his nature.
And even as he came to that realisation, he knew that he would kill with it again. It was inevitable.
Perhaps he really was a monster?
No. He had a purpose. Guilt would come, and grief and remorse and all of those human weaknesses, but whilst there were deaths that still demanded an accounting he would remain cold.
He stooped to retrieve the blade.
It felt lifeless in his hands, though why should he have expected anything else? It was not as if the weapon were sentient and blood-thirsty. It was cold steel, nothing more. It did not crave blood, nor demand that he feed it.
There was one thing that he yearned to do, he realised, and that was return to that glade in the Summervale and lie side by side with Blodyweth once more.
He looked up at the blood-red sky, then back at the high windows across the cloister garden and the flames reflected there. The shadowy figure was gone, moved away from the window — and there was no way of knowing if the monk were still alive. Given the fires raging inside the old building it was almost certain that he was not, but that did not change the nature of Alymere's first rational thought since killing the unarmed man: atonement.
He had consigned one soul to the flames, it was only right that he drag one from them. A life for a life.
He started to walk toward the chapter house, his gaze locked on the empty window. The fire had reached the gables and seemed to have found its way through cracks in the masonry. The flames reached higher. There was no end to them.
His walk became a run.
The heat was furious. Thirty feet from the chapter house door it was intense enough to burn his face. Twenty feet away it was so fierce it could have cooked the meat on his bones, given time. Ten feet away the pain was beyond feeling. And still he found the will to go closer and climb the four low stone stairs to the huge oak doors.
The sacristy, the chancel, the infirmary, and the night stair, all of them burned. His entire world writhed beneath the agony of fire. Everywhere he looked, as far and as high as the eye could see, there was fire.
Without knowing the layout of the chapter house, there was no realistic chance of him finding the man from the window. Not with all of the smoke and the flames raging. He'd be effectively blind and deaf in there, and unlike the burning hovel, he wouldn't be able to smash his way through a wattle wall if he got into trouble. He needed to think. Were their roles reversed, where would he take refuge from the fire? He dismissed a dozen possibilities in as many seconds. Of all the answers that presented themselves, only one seemed reasonable; he would make for the roof in the hope of escaping the flames. He could only hope that the monk's mind would work the same way.
He knew he had to find the staircase.
Anything beyond that was in the hands of God.
His uncle did not see him mount the chapter house stairs. Lowick was locked in an argument with the blind monk — the words came back to him unbidden, find the blind monk whose skin is impervious to blades and steal the Devil's book from his hands.
Alymere turned on the threshold, half in and half out of Hell, to look back at the monk.
The man stood between Alymere and Lowick, with his back to him. His tonsure reflected the flames, but contrary to the Crow Maiden's prediction the only thing he had in his hands was that wicked-looking quarterstaff.
He turned, as though sensing Alymere's scrutiny.
If the monk didn't have the book on his person — and why would he? — it had to be inside the chapter house; but whether it was hidden away in the scriptorium or in the privacy of his cell, depended entirely upon whether it was something the brotherhood were charged with protecting as a whole, or if the task fell to one man.
The scriptorium was the logical place to start looking for a book. Where better to hide one than amidst a multitude of others?
He forced himself to walk up those last three steps to the huge oaken double doors.
They were closed.
Alymere reached for the metal handle, but stopped himself barely inches short, realising the black iron bands would sear the meat from his hands if he grasped them. Instead, he used the tip of the bloody sword to work the latch, and kicked the door in with the flat of his boot.
An incredible wave of heat threw Alymere back down the stone steps onto the wet mud at the bottom. The coastal winds battered the island, fanning the flames.
He sank to his knees and dropped his head, letting the heat wash over him in waves.
Deep inside the building something crackled and roared.
Instinctively, Alymere threw himself to the side, scrambling in the mud in his haste to get away from the door.
He slipped, sprawling flat on his face, which saved his life.
A moment later the backdraught of a huge fireball roared out through the open doorway. The tongue of flame writhed and roiled, rolling in on itself even as it lashed out across the cloister garden. And then, as it was sucked back inside the vast old building, the fireball set about consuming itself.
The monk didn't flinch as the flames coiled around him in what ought to have been a lethal embrace. They retreated, leaving him untouched.
Sir Lowick, on the other hand, scuttled back gracelessly to avoid them, and landed flat on his backside for his troubles. As the fire receded he scrambled back to his feet.
Alymere crawled toward the doorway. He moved cautiously, fearful that at any second another huge fireball could burst from the stone arch. There were no sounds beyond the fire now; no ominous crackles or pops deep in the belly of the old building. Whatever had caused the fireball had burned itself out in that one powerful explosion.
Licking his lips, he pushed himself to his feet and walked cautiously toward the open door.
The heat was every bit as fierce as it had been, but as he climbed the steps again his body became inured to it. He refused to be cowed by it, no matter how painful each successive step was to take.
This was his atonement. This moment. Here. Now. He had committed murder, now he would perform a single act of salvation.
That the Devil's book lay inside the burning building — the relic the Crow Maiden had claimed so dangerous to the entire kingdom, to Arthur, to Camelot, and to everything he loved along with them — was about to be lost to the fire ought to have offered some sort of blessed relief, but he couldn't help but think if there was one element any possession of the Devil ought to be immune to, surely it was fire?
Meaning it would survive the inferno.
The threat would not simply burn away.
He was not thinking rationally, he knew that. He knew that it was impossible for parchment and leather binding to survive contac
t with fire, no matter what otherworldly properties were ascribed to it. A book was a book.
But that wouldn't stop the doubt from gnawing at his gut.
What if the book could somehow survive and they left it alone in the ashes of the monastery for anyone to find? What if it were being taken by the reivers at this very moment?
Could he live with the risk?
Unless the monk clutched the book in his hands he was going to have to.
Save the man or save the book?
There was only one answer: retrieving the book had become a compunction he could not resist.
Do not fail me, or the Devil take your soul…
Hell's fire waited for him to take a single step forward into its infernal belly.
Just one step.
He turned, caught in a moment of indecision.
Do this one thing for me… Promise me…
Nothing good could come of setting foot within the burning building. It was not so much a fool's errand as it was a suicide pact he had unwittingly made with Blodyweth. And yet… and yet… he was helpless to do anything but walk through the doorway and into the flames.
Steeling himself, Alymere cast one last lingering look back toward his uncle.
The knight was on his feet again, but too far away to stop him from doing what he was about to do. He saw the horror register in his uncle's eyes as he realised his intentions, and that, this once, he couldn't save him from himself. Sir Lowick took a step forward and began to call out, one word, "No!" demanding he stop, demanding he drop the sword, demanding he climb down from the steps, but Alymere was deaf to him. From somewhere deep within the building, he heard an entirely different cry: a man was screaming.
He couldn't ignore it. He turned his back on the knight.
Clutching the sword and thinking only of atonement, Alymere focused on the voice and plunged into the burning building.
Perhaps, if he ever emerged from it again he would be able to live with himself. Perhaps the fire would cleanse his soul?
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