The Devil in green da-1 Page 20

  To the majority of the brethren, Cornelius became an elusive figure, confined to his sick bed in the bishop's palace, tended by Julian and a small band of helpers, with reports of his condition occasionally sent down as if from On High. 'Temperature raised, but doing fine.' 'Fever broken.' 'Took the air in the palace garden this morning,' and the like. Rumours circulated as to what exactly was the root of his illness — everything from pneumonia and cholera to a brain tumour — but they all knew at heart it was his age. Whatever the hopeful spin placed on his condition by Julian, there was a dismal acceptance that he couldn't have long left.

  In the upper echelons of the Church leadership, meanwhile, manoeuvrings for the succession continued in some quarters with unseemly openness. Stefan appeared to be the leading choice of one faction, though he professed no interest in the job, preferring 'only to serve'. His supporters were happy to class themselves as hardliners, culled from the evangelical communities of Southern England and Unionist enclaves in Scotland. Stefan, however, kept his own views close to his chest.

  Both Hipgrave and Miller recovered quickly under the able if curt treatment of Warwick in the infirmary. Exhaustion and hypothermia had been the only ailments afflicting Hipgrave, who had spent the days since the attack on Bratton Camp wandering randomly around Salisbury Plain. He had taken a blow to his head that had left him with a mild concussion, just enough to addle his thoughts before the weather took its toll on him. Blaine didn't put him through the mill of the Inquisition — it would not have been right for a captain of the knights to be seen to be doubted in current circumstances — but Hipgrave had been questioned extensively about what had happened. His ordeal had wiped away many of his memories of that night, but he still found it within himself to blame Mallory, Miller, Daniels and Gardener for the failure of the mission.

  'They were cowards,' he told Blaine in front of the other four. 'They ran at the first sign of danger, left me to deal with it on my own. Whatever happened to that poor man was their fault, and they should be punished accordingly.'

  Gardener protested, but Blaine silenced him angrily. Later, however, the four of them found it telling that for such a disciplinarian, Blaine didn't mete out any punishment. Hipgrave's outburst managed to sour any residual sense of camaraderie they all might have felt with him after the horrific experience they had shared that night. And it was a time when Hipgrave needed them. His dislocation at the mysterious transformation of the cathedral had been acute, and he'd made a fool of himself trying to convince everyone he spoke to of the change. Even Blaine eyed him with suspicion. Yet Hipgrave couldn't bring himself to talk to Mallory and the others for fear it would diminish his leadership.

  But a strong bond was forged amongst Mallory, Miller, Gardener and Daniels. They were outsiders in a community that was already outside of society, the only ones who could see the truth. Gardener made a grudging reconciliation with Mallory, though he 'owed him a bloody big punch in the face'. Whatever doubts they had about each other had to be overridden if they were going to survive in a place that continually tested their sanity.

  Mallory spent much of his time attempting to piece together some overarching mystery he was sure lay behind the scenes. The others were not convinced. 'Hello? Are you lot blind?' Mallory said after one particularly heated debate. 'We were lured out of the cathedral by two ghost-clerics who disappeared the moment they'd got us where they wanted us. And then we were let back in-'

  'What do you mean?' Gardener snapped. 'We nearly got torn apart when we fetched Hipgrave.'

  'You've seen what's out there. Do you really think they couldn't have stopped us if they'd wanted? Jesus, they could have wiped us out in the blink of an eye. They let us back in,' Mallory stressed. 'They made a pretence of stopping us so we wouldn't be suspicious, but that was it.'

  There was a long silence while Mallory's theory washed over them. It was Daniels, fiddling with his eye-patch nervously, who spoke first. 'Why would the Adversary want to get us out and then let us back in — all of us, because we came back on three separate occasions?'

  'And what's it got to do with all the new buildings appearing?' Miller asked. 'There has to be a connection, right?'

  The silence lasted longer this time, and none of them had any answers. But they knew that the only way of uncovering what was happening, and what it meant for all of them, was to work together.

  It was October the twenty-eighth. Mallory and Miller had been despatched to the kitchens to see Gibson, whom Mallory had dubbed the Canon of the Pies. The place had been transformed along with the rest of the building and was now the size of half a football pitch, with a low, vaulted roof like a wine cellar supported by stone pillars. Woodburning ranges ran along one wall, drawing on the huge but limited supply of timber that had been amassed. Giant bubbling pans sent clouds of steam scented with spices and herbs drifting across the ceiling. The room echoed with the sound of clanging lids and chopping knives as twenty or more cooks and assistants prepared the day's meals.

  Sweat beading his ruddy face, Gibson moved amongst the activity, chuckling at some joke no one else knew; his frame appeared as massive as ever despite the limited rations, nor had he lost any of his celebrated larger-than-life humour. With one podgy hand outstretched, he lumbered across the room to slap both of them on the shoulder in greeting. 'Jolly good you could make it down here,' he said, as if they had ambled along of their own accord. Laughter rumbled out like an avalanche as a vat of bubbling turnips steamed up his large-framed spectacles. Cleaning them on his robes, he motioned to a large door against the far wall. 'The stores are through there, dear boys,' he said theatrically. 'Mr Blaine suggested you might be able to help us with the conveyance of several large sacks of potatoes. I keep my little workers here so busy, they never do find the time to do those necessary chores.' He wagged a chubby finger at Miller. 'And no potatoes means no hearty meals to keep you boys big and strong.'

  'Straight away, sir,' Miller said brightly. Gibson appeared pleasantly amused by this.

  As they headed down some steps into the basement stores, Mallory muttered sourly, 'Do you have to be so deferential? You should have offered to stick a brush up your arse so you could sweep the floor while we're hauling and toting.'

  'It doesn't hurt to be polite. Besides, it makes people smile.'

  Mallory snorted. 'Great. I get spud duty with Jesus' little ray of sunshine.'

  'You can be very hurtful sometimes, Mallory.' Miller sniffed.

  'No. This is hurtful.' Mallory cuffed him around the back of the head.

  'Ow!' Miller flashed him a black look and jumped a foot to his right to avoid another blow.

  There was a fast movement at floor level when they swung open the storeroom door on to the dark interior. 'Rats,' Mallory noted. 'The way things are, they'll be in the stew soon.'

  'How long do you think we can keep going?' Miller asked. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, he could see that the storeroom was vast, but in the great space the haphazard piles of sacks and crates appeared insignificant.

  'I'm not looking forward to Christmas dinner.'

  'If we stand firm, whatever's out there might just give up and go away,' Miller suggested hopefully.

  Mallory began to investigate the sacks in search of the potatoes. 'I love an optimist as much as the next man, Miller, but you've seen what we're up against. Those kinds of things don't give up, ever. They'll hang on until we're worn down.'

  'I don't understand why this is happening. We've not done anything wrong.'

  'That's always a matter of perspective.'

  A look of curiosity crossed Miller's face. 'What did you do before the Fall, Mallory? Sometimes you sound like a historian, sometimes a philosopher, and sometimes…'

  'Yes?'

  '… sometimes you act like a yob at closing time.'

  Mallory let out a belly laugh. He plucked a potato from a sack and tossed it in the air. 'The only hope we've got is if our great leaders come up with a plan… a counter-strike�
� anything… that works. Do you have any faith in that?'

  'I have lots of faith, Mallory.' Miller attempted to shoulder the sack, but he wasn't strong enough. All he could do was drag it across the floor in jerks like some small child with a too-big toy. 'You see, I have faith in people like you, Mallory. You're a man who gets things done. Why don't you turn your mind to a solution instead of being negative. As always.'

  Mallory tossed the potato another time, then hurled it into the shadows. It thudded against a wall and burst.

  'You act as if you're apart from all this,' Miller continued breathlessly, 'as if you can just sit back and sneer and be snide. But we're all in it together, Mallory. If people help other people, things get done. Individuals have a responsibility to the community. No one can afford to stand alone, in here or out in the world.'

  'I'm sick of hearing about responsibility.' Mallory grabbed another potato and threw it furiously into the dark. It splattered against the stone.

  'Don't waste the supplies!'

  'Ah, we'll all be dead before we get down to the last potato. They'll be roasting the youngest and tenderest of us in those big ovens long before that.'

  The silence prompted Mallory to turn. Miller was staring at him with a comical expression of horror. 'This is a Christian community!' he protested.

  'It's survival, Miller. That's what humans do.'

  'That's what beasts do.'

  Mallory plucked another potato from the sack, tossed it in the air, but caught himself before he threw it. He peered at the wall for a long moment, then marched over and began to rap it with his knuckles.

  'What's wrong?' Miller asked.

  Mallory turned to him and raised a finger. 'A tunnel.'

  Miller's eyes widened. 'Of course. Under the wall.'

  'Not just under the wall. To the travellers' camp. It stretches almost up to the cathedral compound now, on both sides of the river. We wouldn't need to dig far. And…' He paused in pride at his idea. '… the camp is protected. By magic, or faith, or whatever you want to call it, but the point is, it's safe ground. The travellers could help us get food in through the tunnel…' He paused. 'After we've managed to build bridges with them. But they're good people…'

  Miller looked uneasy. 'You know how Gardener reacted. Do you think our people will be able to deal with the pagans?'

  'You were the one preaching about the Brotherhood of Man, Miller, everybody working together. And oddly it dovetails with my philosophy, too. When it comes down to survival, people will do whatever it takes to keep living.'

  Miller thought about this for a moment, then smiled. 'We need to tell someone. They should start on it straight away.'

  Metallic crashing exploded from the kitchen as if someone had dropped a pile of pans. It was punctuated by a terrified yell. Mallory and Miller rushed upstairs and found the kitchen assistants clustered in one corner of the room. Gibson loomed over them, scrubbing his fingers through his tight grey curls. 'What's going on here? What's going on?' he said in a flap.

  One of the chief chefs clambered to his feet from where he had been sprawled on the stone flags. The way his features had been put together suggested he didn't have much time for nonsense, but he was now ashen- faced and his eyes darted around like a frightened animal's.

  'It brushed right past him,' said one of the assistants who had helped him to his feet.

  'What in heaven's name brushed past him?' Gibson squealed.

  The assistant glanced at two or three others in the circle. 'You saw it too, right?' They nodded. The assistant was reticent to continue until Gibson prompted him with a rough shake of his shoulder. 'It was a ghost,' he said, obviously relieved that he'd got it out. 'A ghost of a churchman of some kind… or a monk… hard to tell. I mean, it had the clothes on and everything.'

  'A ghost?' Gibson's expression suggested that everyone in the room was malingering.

  'We saw it! All of us who were looking this way…'

  'It was the face,' the chef muttered. His eyes ranged around the kitchen but couldn't fix on anyone there. 'It looked right at me. The eyes…'He turned and vomited down the side of the range, the heat cooking it instantly and filling the air with a repugnant stink.

  'It was old Bishop Ward,' one of the older assistants said. 'I recognised him from the painting that used to hang in the library.'

  The chef wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'When it looked at me, it felt as though my insides were being pulled right out through my eyes,' he said.

  'Did he say anything?' Miller asked.

  'Not in so many words,' the chef replied shakily. 'But it felt as if it was telling me about death… about all our deaths. About the end of the world.'

  The study of the bishop's palace had the sumptuous feel of a Victorian gentleman's club: burnished leather high-backed chairs, books, dark wood panelling, Persian carpet, stone fireplace. It was a world away from the cold quarters the brethren endured. For many years it had been the cathedral school, but it had recently been reclaimed as a haven for the bishop from the privations experienced throughout the compound.

  Mallory had spent a good half-hour convincing the ancillary staff to allow him a few minutes with Julian, whom he then had to convince to allow him in to see Cornelius. Julian looked tired and distracted, but he was receptive to anything that might get them out of their current predicament. He had told Mallory to wait and he would be granted an audience once Cornelius was strong enough. That had been three hours ago.

  The opening of the door suggested that the time had finally come, but it was only Blaine. Mallory instantly fell on the defensive. Blaine was sphinxlike, didn't even acknowledge Mallory, but the moment the ancillary left, his inscrutability vanished. 'What do you think you're doing?' His voice was like stone. Mallory began to reply, but Blaine talked over him. 'There's a chain of command here. You don't go bothering your betters with your half-baked ideas' The word was a sneer. 'You come to me, and then I can tell you how much bollocks it is. Don't waste your time thinking — that's not what you're here for.' Implicit threat filled every action. 'Your trouble, Mallory, is you think you're better than anyone here. You're not. Nobody cares what you think.' Blaine took a step forwards, and Mallory had a sudden image of a Belfast backstreet, broken bottles and last orders.

  The door opened and Julian breezed in, a little fresher, even managing a smile. 'The bishop is ready for you now,' he said.

  Julian led them up imposing stone stairs to Cornelius's bedroom. The heavy drapes were drawn and it was oppressively warm despite the time of year: a fire blazed in the grate and candles flickered everywhere. The aroma of burning logs barely covered the atmosphere of sickness.

  Cornelius was propped up in a large four-poster bed, his frame unbearably thin and fragile against the piles of cushions and brocade bedspread. He forced a weak smile in greeting and shakily beckoned for Mallory to come closer.

  Only then did Mallory realise they were not alone. Stefan stood to one side, smiling insincerely, hands clasped in front of him in an attempt to appear penitent. 'I took the liberty of inviting your commander-in-chief here,' he said to Mallory. 'I thought it only right you receive due recognition for your actions.'

  Every time Mallory saw Stefan, he liked him less, but at that moment he felt there was something unduly sinister about the chancellor. Mallory looked to Julian who shifted uneasily. 'I felt any suggestions should be heard by the Chapter of Canons,' Julian said. 'Stefan felt that would take too long to arrange, and that we here could easily assay its worth and decide if it should be taken forwards.'

  'Tell us what you think, my son,' Cornelius said so weakly that Mallory could barely hear him.

  'A tunnel-'

  'Is that it? We've already thrown that idea out,' Blaine said contemptuously. 'We haven't got the time or the facilities to dig a tunnel the length we would need to get to safety. If we go short, those things will be waiting to pick us off when we come up. And you try coming up under concrete and Tarmac when you haven't got
power tools. If we go west we hit the river. We could never get under that.'

  Mallory allowed him to say his piece and then continued as if he hadn't spoken. 'A tunnel under the wall into the camp to the north-west. It would be easy to dig. We wouldn't have to go under any water.'

  'Haven't you been listening-' Blaine began, but Stefan silenced him with a raised hand.

  'Why that particular spot?' he said curiously.

  'Because it's protected.'

  This intrigued Stefan greatly. 'Protected? In what way?'

  'In the same way that the cathedral and its grounds are protected.'

  'The cathedral is protected because of the Glory of God,' Stefan said.

  Mallory sensed the traps lining up before him. His position was already weak; he couldn't risk offending anyone. And the way Blaine had acted earlier, he felt there was more than his reputation at stake. 'It seems, from what I've heard-'

  'Where?' Stefan interrupted.

  'Here and there.' Mallory fixed his gaze on Stefan's and refused to break it. 'That the strength of our belief… our faith… has… empowered the land so those things can't come on it. It's the same in the camp.' 'They have accepted the Lord into their lives?' Stefan plainly knew otherwise.

  'They have very strong beliefs.'

  'They are Christians?' Stefan's gaze didn't waver.

  'No. They're a mixed bunch.' He paused, but it was obvious Stefan wasn't going to let him get away with skirting over the issue. 'Some nature- lovers. Probably… Odinists. Wiccans. Druids, maybe-'

  'Pagans?' Stefan raised his eyes to look at the ceiling. 'What you are saying sounds very much like blasphemy.'

  'Oh, for God's sake!' Julian snapped. 'Does it matter who they are? If it provides us with a way out of this mess we're in, then we should go for it.'

  'I think the chancellor doesn't believe in equality of worship,' Mallory noted, with a little more acid than he'd intended.