The Skull (4 page)

‘Is that going to happen to our monastery?' Thomas asked.

‘I think so, now. Yes.' Thomas could tell it was hard for his father to even say it.

‘What will we do?'

‘I'll find work easily enough. The important thing is, we need to save the library. These books have to be for everyone, otherwise nothing will change. One day, everyone will be able to read, and everyone will have the power, and then kings and queens will have to obey their subjects.'

Thomas looked back at the books strewn amongst the hay in the back of the cart. The library they came from was in ruins now, and the same thing was happening all over England. He thought of the
monastery where he and his father lived, and how the villagers came there to learn to read. The common people were being educated, and the nobles were getting scared.

The cart lurched up the long winding path on to the brow of the hill. The old horse was struggling, but as it reached the top, the path levelled out and the going got easier. Suddenly, the trees thinned out and they could see sky ahead. The moon illuminated the hillside, outlining the clouds in silver. Ahead, a dark plume of thick smoke rose up in to the sky, lit from below by a flickering orange glow.

The monastery was burning.

Instantly, Thomas' father leapt out of the cart and started running up the hill towards the smoke. ‘Go now!' he shouted back to Thomas. ‘Hide. I'll find you in the morning.' And with that he was gone.

His father had to do what he could, but of course, the monastery would be lost now. There could be soldiers, looters, anyone up there. The place was being burned to the ground for nothing more valuable than the lead on its roof. Thomas knew he should keep out of the way until it was all over. And yet… In the back of the cart, gold thread traced a pattern woven into one of the books' bindings. It shone in the moonlight.
At least he could save these books if he could find a safe place to hide them.

And he knew of one place that was very safe indeed.

Thomas peered down into the wood. It was nearly pitch black, but through the trees, he could just make out the outline of the old tomb in the moonlight. The other villagers were scared of the place and told dark stories about it. They said it was a prison for a demon, or some such nonsense, but to Thomas it held no terror. To him, it was where he practised his skills with stone. While his father repaired the monastery walls, he was given the job of keeping the tomb secure. On its walls he had learned to shore up, to replace and to carve – just as his father had, and his father before him. The old tomb was a patchwork of the labour of generations of stonemasons, each adding their own new ideas and fixing ancient mistakes. It was less of a building, and more of a conversation with his ancestors: a window back through time to whoever laid the first stones.

Through his work on the tomb, Thomas knew one thing that nobody else in the world knew. He knew
some of the stones around the doorway were loose. Now was the time to finally open it.

There was no path to the tomb, and although Thomas had hauled enough stone blocks down the slope to know there was enough space for a cart to pass through, he'd never made the trip in the dark. The old horse struggled and stumbled as he climbed out of the cart and started to lead it over the brow of the hill and down towards the stone monument.

He picked his way carefully, feeling for the flattest route as the cart behind him lurched dangerously from side to side. The slope was perilous and steep, and he had to manoeuvre the frightened animal carefully around each rock and tree. If the cart tipped over now, it would drag them both tumbling down the hill to their deaths.

Eventually, they made it. The ground levelled out, and Thomas quickly found the doorway of the tomb and felt around for the loose stones at the top. They seemed firm at first touch, but that was only because he'd wedged them into place to prevent the damage getting worse before he could make a proper repair.

Thomas edged out the shards of rock he'd pressed into the gaps, then slowly rocked a loose stone until the mud and brittle mortar around it fell away.
Climbing on top of the tomb, he braced himself against the stone roof, and pushed the loose stone with his heels. It rocked, but held. He pushed again and slowly the stone shifted out of position, toppling to the ground with a loud thump.

He peered inside nervously. It was a void as dark as the space between stars. With one stone removed, the others around it fell more easily, and soon there was a space wide enough for him to squeeze through. Filling his father's leather bag with as many of the books as he could, Thomas felt his way into the damp blackness. He almost tripped on what seemed to be rough steps leading down to an inner chamber. No matter how much his eyes strained, he could see nothing but the jagged rectangle of starlight through which he'd climbed.

Tentatively, he felt his way along one wall. It felt oddly rough. The smooth, hewn stone seemed to have been cut and joined to a huge crag of broken rock – as though the tomb had been built around something else. Why would a mason do that?

Further along the wall, the rough rock was ridged with smooth, curved shapes. His expert hands traced them. Jutting curved triangles arranged in a row diagonally down the wall. They couldn't have been
carved, he knew that from their texture, but they were like nothing he'd ever felt in a natural rock.

Suddenly, Thomas felt cold. He had never believed what the villagers said about the tomb, but there was definitely something hidden here. Something he did not understand. He had to get out. He tipped the books onto the floor, scrambled up the steps, and climbed out through the hole into the bright darkness of the wood.

It was nothing, he told himself, breathing heavily for a few moments while his heartbeat slowed down. Just stone. In any case, there were more books. He would have to go back. He loaded the remaining books into the shoulder bag. This time, he took a lamp and tinderbox he had found stowed in the back of the cart, before climbing through the hole and into the void.

Gingerly, Thomas made his way down the steps, and placed the books quietly on the floor. He opened the tinderbox, and struck the flint against the steel, sending a cluster of impossibly bright sparks flying into the air. He struck it again and a spark landed on the char-cloth in his hand, making it glow. He screwed the cloth up and blew on it, then touched the end to the lamp, and a flame grew slowly into life.

As his eyes adjusted to the flickering flame, the
tomb began to reveal itself to him. There was no casket. No bones. No artefacts. The floor was of flat stones. The roof held no carvings. The walls were not decorated.

And yet, Thomas suddenly saw the tomb was not empty. He gasped and staggered back.

One entire wall was built around a huge cracked boulder, and across its surface, ridges of stone traced the shape of a huge, open jaw, lined with curved teeth reaching up toward the sky. Below them a round, empty eye-socket glared out, shifting in the flickering lamp-light so that it appeared to hold a dark pupil, darting and flicking like the eye of a crow.

Thomas controlled his breathing and as the shock subsided, he felt something else. Not fear, but curiosity. This was the demon that the villagers whispered about, sure enough. But it was stone, and Thomas knew stone. His mind was filled not with fear that the creature would rise suddenly into life, but with wonder at how stone could be worked into these shapes.

It was an incredible, beautiful thing, but he had no idea how it could have been created.

Slowly, he sat, and for a long time just stared at it. The huge eye gazed sightlessly back at him. The books lay scattered on the floor around him. Time
seemed to pass both quickly and not at all, as if there was nothing else in the world.

Here was something he simply knew nothing about, yet it had been here all along, so close to him for his entire life, and his father's life, and his father's before that. Silent. Waiting. He had read all about the history of the monastery in the library, but not one book had mentioned the old tomb. Yet someone had built it. Thomas had felt his hand as he had worked on the stones – he had felt as though he knew him. But that first tomb builder had known about the face in the rock, and his knowledge had somehow been lost, buried all these years. How could that happen?

The answer was simple enough. Thomas knew nothing of it because nobody had written it down.

Staring into the great eye, a realisation stirred and rose inside him. Everything he had learned in his life would be lost the same way if the monastery library burned tonight.

Thomas grabbed the lamp and hauled himself out of the tomb. He knew exactly what he had to do.

By the time he had coaxed and shouldered the old horse and its cart up towards the edge of the woods
where the trees came closest to the monastery wall, the night was at its darkest. Driving a horse and cart through the wood without using the road would have been difficult even in daylight, and doing it in darkness was almost impossible. The night was still and every sound made him freeze and stare into the shadows, searching for the shape of a figure or the glint of a sword.

When he saw the glow of the fire through the trees and felt the heat in the air, he left the horse and cart where he hoped they wouldn't be seen, and crept to the edge of the trees.

The monastery was fully ablaze, the windows pouring smoke and flames into the night sky. The lead roof of the hall was melting. A hole had opened up and the tiles at the edges were bending downwards, sliding, dripping into the flames. The wooden supports holding up the roof up were burning too, and as Thomas watched, one great beam gave way in a splintering shower of sparks. As it fell, the rest of the roof started to tilt downwards, and one after another, the remaining beams snapped, the whole roof caving slowly into the fire.

On the ground was chaos. People were running back and forth, frantically loading carts and bags with
whatever they could carry. One man had his arms full of crockery from the kitchens. Another man had a wall hanging draped over his shoulder.

Thomas couldn't tell who were monks, who were looters and who were the king's men. Everyone was simply getting away with what they could. Down at the front of the building, he recognised the prior and his father, arguing with a tall man who looked as though he was directing some of the other men. Whatever they were saying, it was having little effect on the looters who were sifting through a pile of furniture and oddments.

Thomas shifted his gaze over to the library at the back of the building. Luckily, it seemed to have been pretty much ignored by the looters, but there was a wisp of smoke drifting out of the top of the left-hand window.

He kept low to the ground as he darted out of the wood and across what had been the vegetable garden, flattening himself against the building. He could feel the heat of the fire through the stone walls as he edged along and round into the darkness at the back of the library.

The thin windows would have been too narrow for an adult to squeeze through, which was probably why
the looters had abandoned the library after smashing the windows and ripping out the lead linings. However, Thomas was smaller. With a grunt, he managed to pull himself up on to the narrow frame and drop down on to the floor inside.

The only door to the rest of the building was securely locked, but smoke was pouring in underneath it and filling the room. It looked as though it could burst open at any moment, flooding the room with fire and choking fumes.

The books were still there. The newer, less precious volumes were kept in a bookcase near the window. They were arranged in rows with their spines facing the wall so that they could be taken out and opened without tangling the metal chains that locked them to the shelves. The more valuable handwritten books were chained to rows of solid oak desks. Thomas grabbed a book and yanked at it, but it held firm. He wasn't going to be able to break the chains or move the desks, so he turned his attention to the bookcase. He grabbed at the side and pulled. It moved a little. Puffing and panting, he prised it from the wall, and dragged one end and then the other, until the bookcase stood side-on in front of the window. It looked like it might just fit through, if he could lift it.

He grabbed the bottom, and heaved with all his might. It tilted a little then slammed back down on his fingers. He put his shoulder against it and tried again. This time he got it a little higher before it crashed back down. One more try… Thomas put his fingers underneath the bottom shelf, his feet against a desk, and heaved. The bookcase lifted. His feet slid and scrabbled against the floor as he leaned into the wooden cabinet and heaved again.

Slowly, the bookcase tilted upward, then over, the far side crashing down on the window sill with the edge sticking out into the night. Thomas lifted the bottom and pushed hard until the case slid out, pivoted on the window sill, and smashed upside down on to the ground outside.

The smoke was getting thicker now, and tongues of orange flame had begun to flicker under the door. Thomas looked around for something that might break the chains holding the books to the desks. He remembered that his father had been working on a tile in the corner of the room just before they'd left for the market. If he was lucky, he might have left some of his tools behind…

He had.

Thomas recognised a cloth bag left neatly in the
corner beside a cracked stone. Inside were a small chisel and a hammer. He scooped them up and aimed a blow at the chain nearest him, pinning it against the floor. The floor tile cracked, but the chain held. He hit it again and it folded in two. Another blow, and the link split. He grabbed the book, threw it out of the window and moved on to the next one.

He was keeping low to avoid the smoke and trying to hold his breath for as long as he could, but his eyes were stinging and he was starting to feel dizzy. He freed two more books and took a gulp of air at the window as he threw them outside, but as he turned to go back for more, the room suddenly exploded in a ball of fire. Half of the door flew across the room and splintered on the wall next to his head. The other half crashed on to a desk and an ancient, handwritten bible bound in leather and gold erupted into flames.