Epic Historial Collection (296 page)

Merthin ran forward. “What's going on?” he cried.

Thomas turned to him, making go-back motions with the cleaver. “Quiet!” he hissed.

The light changed in a heartbeat. Suddenly the cloisters were illuminated with the bright glow of a flame.

Someone came running out of the refectory with a heavy tread. It was a big man carrying a sack in one hand and a blazing torch in the other. He looked like a ghost, until Merthin realized he was wearing a crude hood with holes for the eyes and mouth.

Thomas stepped in front of the running man and raised his cleaver. But he was a moment too late. Before he could strike, the man cannoned into him, sending him flying.

Thomas crashed into a pillar, and there was a crack that sounded like his head hitting the stone. He slumped to the ground, out cold. The running man lost his balance and fell to his knees.

Caris pushed past Merthin and knelt beside Thomas.

Several more men appeared, all hooded, some carrying torches. It seemed to Merthin that some emerged from the refectory and others came down the stairs from the dorm. At the same time he heard the sound of women screaming and wailing. For a moment the scene was chaos.

Merthin rushed to Caris's side and tried to protect her, with his body, from the stampede.

The intruders saw their fallen comrade and they all paused in their rush, suddenly shocked into stillness. By the light of their torches they could see that he was unquestionably dead, his neck sliced almost all the way through, his blood spilled copiously over the stone floor of the cloisters. They looked around, moving their heads from side to side, peering through the holes in their hoods, looking like fish in a stream.

One of them spotted Thomas's cleaver, red with blood, lying on the ground next to Thomas and Caris, and pointed at it to show the others. With a grunt of anger, he drew a sword.

Merthin was terrified for Caris. He stepped forward, attracting the swordsman's attention. The man moved toward Merthin and raised his weapon. Merthin retreated, drawing the man away from Caris. As the danger to her receded, he felt more frightened for himself. Walking backward, shaking with fear, he slipped on the dead man's blood. His feet flew from under him and he fell flat on his back.

The swordsman stood over him, weapon raised high to kill him.

Then one of the others intervened. He was the tallest of the intruders, and moved with surprising speed. With his left hand, he grabbed the upraised arm of Merthin's assailant. He must have had authority, for without speaking he simply shook his hooded head from side to side in negation, and the swordsman lowered his weapon obediently.

Merthin noticed that his savior wore a mitten on his left hand, but nothing on the right.

The interaction lasted only as long as it might take a man to count to ten, and ended as suddenly as it had begun. One of the hooded men turned toward the kitchen and broke into a run, and the others followed. They must have planned to escape that way, Merthin realized: the kitchen had a door that gave onto the cathedral green, and that was the quickest way out. They disappeared, and without the blaze of their torches the cloisters went dark.

Merthin stood still, unsure what to do. Should he run after the intruders, go up to the dormitory and find out why the nuns were screaming, or find out where the fire was?

He knelt beside Caris. “Is Thomas alive?” he said.

“I think he's banged his head, and he's unconscious, but he's breathing, and there's no blood.”

Behind him, Merthin heard the familiar voice of Sister Joan. “Help me, please!” He turned. She stood in the doorway of the refectory, her face lit up grotesquely by the candle lamp in her hand, her head wreathed in smoke like a fashionable hat. “For God's sake, come quickly!”

He stood up. Joan disappeared back into the refectory, and Merthin ran after her.

Her lamp threw confusing shadows, but he managed to avoid falling over the furniture as he followed her to the end of the room. Smoke was pouring from a hole in the floor. Merthin saw immediately that the hole was the work of a careful builder: it was perfectly square, with neat edges and a well-made trapdoor. He guessed this was the nuns' hidden treasury, built in secrecy by Jeremiah. But tonight's thieves had found it.

He got a lungful of smoke, and coughed. He wondered what was burning down there, and why, but he had no intention of finding out—it looked too dangerous.

Then Joan screamed at him: “Tilly is in there!”

“Dear God,” Merthin said despairingly; and he went down the steps.

He had to hold his breath. He peered through the smoke. Despite his fear, his builder's eye noticed that the spiral stone staircase was well made, each step exactly the same size and shape, and each set at precisely the same angle to the next; so that he was able to go down with confidence even when he could not see what was underfoot.

In a second he reached the underground chamber. He could see flames near the middle of the room. The heat was intense, and he knew he would not be able to stand it for more than a few instants. The smoke was thick. He was still holding his breath, but now his eyes began to water, and his vision blurred. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and peered into the murk. Where was Tilly? He could not see the floor.

He dropped to his knees. Visibility improved slightly: the smoke was less dense lower down. He moved around on all fours, staring into the corners of the room, sweeping with his hands where he could not see. “Tilly!” he shouted. “Tilly, where are you?” The smoke caught in his throat, and he suffered a coughing fit that would have drowned any reply she made.

He could not last any longer. He was coughing convulsively, but every breath seemed to choke him with more smoke. His eyes watered copiously and he was nearly blind. In desperation, he went so close to the fire that the flames began to singe his sleeve. If he collapsed and lost consciousness, he would die for certain.

Then his hand touched flesh.

He grabbed. It was a human leg, a small leg, a girl's leg. He pulled her toward him. Her clothes were smoldering. He could hardly see her face and could not tell whether she was conscious, but she was tied hand and foot with leather thongs, so she could not move of her own accord. Striving to stop coughing, he got his arms under her and picked her up.

As soon as he stood upright the smoke became blindingly thick. Suddenly he could not remember which way the stairs were. He staggered away from the flames and crashed into the wall, almost dropping Tilly. Left or right? He went left and came to a corner. Changing his mind, he retraced his steps.

He felt as if he was drowning. His strength gone, he dropped to his knees. That saved him. Once again he found he could see better close to the floor, and a stone step appeared, like a vision from Heaven, right in front of him.

Desperately holding on to the limp form of Tilly, he moved forward on his knees and made it to the staircase. With a last effort, he got to his feet. He put one foot on the lowest step and hauled himself up; then he managed the next step. Coughing uncontrollably, he forced himself upward until there were no more steps. He staggered, fell to his knees, dropped Tilly, and collapsed on the refectory floor.

Someone bent over him. He spluttered: “Close the trapdoor—stop the fire!” A moment later he heard a bang as the wooden door slammed shut.

He was grabbed under the arms. He opened his eyes for a moment and saw Caris's face, upside-down; then his vision blurred. She dragged him across the floor. The smoke thinned and he began to suck air into his lungs. He sensed the transition from indoors to out, and tasted clean night air. Caris put him down and he heard her footsteps run back inside.

He gasped, coughed, gasped, and coughed. Slowly he began to breathe more normally. His eyes stopped watering, and he saw that dawn was breaking. The faint light showed him a crowd of nuns standing around him.

He sat upright. Caris and another nun dragged Tilly out of the refectory and put her beside him. Caris bent over her. Merthin tried to speak, coughed, and tried again. “How is she?”

“She's been stabbed through the heart,” Caris said. She began to cry. “She was dead before you got to her.”

72

M
erthin opened his eyes to bright daylight. He had slept late: the angle of the sun's rays shining through the bedroom window told him it was the middle of the morning. He recalled the events of the previous night like a bad dream, and for a moment he cherished the thought that they might not really have happened. But his chest hurt when he breathed, and the skin of his face was painfully scorched. The horror of Tilly's murder came back to him. And Sister Nellie, too—both innocent young women. How could God permit such things to happen?

He realized what had awakened him when his eye lit on Caris, putting a tray down on the small table near the bed. Her back was to him but he could tell, by the hunch of her shoulders and the set of her head, that she was angry. It was not surprising. She was grieving for Tilly, and enraged that the sanctity and safety of the nunnery had been violated.

Merthin got up. Caris pulled two stools to the table and they both sat down. He studied her face fondly. There were lines of strain around her eyes. He wondered if she had slept. There was a smear of ash on her left cheek, so he licked his thumb and gently wiped it off.

She had brought new bread with fresh butter and a jug of cider. Merthin found he was hungry and thirsty, and he tucked in. Caris, bottling up fury, ate nothing.

Through a mouthful of bread Merthin said: “How is Thomas this morning?”

“He's lying down in the hospital. His head hurts, but he can talk coherently and answer questions, so there's probably no permanent damage to his brain.”

“Good. There will have to be an inquest on Tilly and Nellie.”

“I've sent a message to the sheriff of Shiring.”

“They will probably blame it on Tam Hiding.”

“Tam Hiding is dead.”

He nodded. He knew what was coming. His spirits had been lifted by the breakfast, but now they sank again. He swallowed and pushed away his plate.

Caris went on: “Whoever it was that came here last night, he wanted to conceal his identity, so he told a lie—not knowing that Tam died in my hospital three months ago.”

“Who do you think it could have been?”

“Someone we know—hence the masks.”

“Perhaps.”

“Outlaws don't wear masks.”

It was true. Living outside the law, they did not care who knew about them and the crimes they committed. Last night's intruders were different. The masks strongly suggested they were respected citizens who were afraid of being recognized.

Caris went on with merciless logic. “They killed Nellie to make Joan open up the treasury—but they had no need to kill Tilly: they were already inside the treasury by then. They wanted her dead for some other reason. And they were not content to leave her to be suffocated by smoke and burned to death: they also stabbed her fatally. For some reason, they had to be sure she was dead.”

“What does that tell you?”

Caris did not answer the question. “Tilly thought Ralph wanted to kill her.”

“I know.”

“One of the hooded men was about to do away with you, at one point.” Her voice caught in her throat, and she had to stop. She took a sip of Merthin's cider, composing herself; then she went on. “But the leader stopped him. Why would he do that? They had already murdered a nun and a noblewoman—why scruple to kill a mere builder?”

“You think it was Ralph.”

“Don't you?”

“Yes.” Merthin sighed heavily. “Did you see his mitten?”

“I noticed he was wearing gloves.”

Merthin shook his head. “Only one. On his left hand. Not a glove with fingers, but a mitten.”

“To hide his injury.”

“I can't be sure, and we certainly couldn't prove anything, but I have a dreadful conviction about it.”

Caris stood up. “Let's inspect the damage.”

They went to the nuns' cloisters. The novices and the orphans were cleaning the treasury, bringing sacks of charred wood and ashes up the spiral staircase, giving anything not completely destroyed to Sister Joan and carrying the detritus out to the dunghill.

Laid out on a refectory table Merthin saw the cathedral ornaments: gold and silver candlesticks, crucifixes and vessels, all finely wrought and studded with precious stones. He was surprised. “Didn't they take these?” he said.

“Yes—but they seem to have had second thoughts, and dumped them in a ditch outside town. A peasant on his way in with eggs to sell found them this morning. Luckily he was honest.”

Merthin picked up a gold aquamanile, a jug for washing the hands, made in the shape of a cockerel, the feathers of its neck beautifully chased. “It's hard to sell something like this. Only a few people could afford to buy it, and most of those would guess it had been stolen.”

“The thieves could have melted it down and sold the gold.”