They quickened their pace, always conscious of how little strength there was in Sarah. Ethan held her tightly, taking her weight, guiding her path. They stumbled through snow, then withered undergrowth, then entered the trees, dodging between their trunks, their steps taking them further and further down the mountainside. Ilona led the way, at once urgent and careful, knowing Sarah might not have the strength to make it through the thickets of brambles that crisscrossed the forest floor.
After they had made some progress, Ilona looked back to see Sarah sitting on the ground while Ethan tried to pick her up.
‘Hold back,’ he said to Ilona. ‘She can’t go a step further. Look at her. She’s still very ill.’
‘If she stays here, Ethan, she will die. Take my word for it. She’s got to make it down to Sancraiu. I have a car waiting, she can stay inside after that. But she can’t stay here.’
‘Why the sudden panic?’
‘Because Egon Aehrenthal has come back. He has found a bunch of local hunters and paid them well. They need money in winter, and most of them are the sort of men who will do anything, whether they are paid or not. Some have trained wolves that they use to hunt for bears or wild boar. Of course, sometimes they are paid to hunt for wolves.
‘They’re out there now, scouring the forest. They started this morning, some beating from top down, others from bottom up. We have to find a way out past them. If we can get to my car, I’ll take you out of here. There’s someone I want you to meet.’
Ethan bent down to help Sarah back on her feet.
‘Sarah, I know this is hard, but we can’t let Aehrenthal get his hands on you again. He’ll kill you this time. He’ll have his wolves tear you to pieces. You have to try.’
He made her stand up, less gentle now, knowing the need for speed. He let her weight fall on him again, but less fully, lest she impede his progress. She cried out in pain, and at that moment another wolf howled. A harsh man’s voice rang out among the trees and was answered by a second man somewhere off to their right. Ilona knew the men would carry guns, and the wolves had teeth, teeth that could crush bone.
They came to a small clearing. Here, the ground was covered in a thick counterpane of perfect snow. As they entered the open space, the trees on the other side parted and a man in the clothes of a hunter stepped through. He was followed by a second man who led a wolf on a short chain. The wolf snarled as it caught sight of strangers.
Ethan thought quickly, then turned to Ilona.
‘Tell them that I will pay them ten times as much as Aehrenthal is paying.’
Ilona translated this for the hunters. As she did so, she slipped the glove from her right hand and slipped the hand into her pocket.
The men did not react. They were thickset men with heavy moustaches and long hair tied back in ponytails. On their backs, they wore thick sheepskin coats, and in their hands they carried hunting guns, old guns polished to a fine blue patina and loaded with quarter-inch-diameter steel shot.
The man with the wolf brought the animal forward and spoke curtly to Ilona. She translated for Ethan.
‘He wants me to leave, to go back Sancraiu. Either that or he says he will kill me and you.’
‘Then leave,’ said Ethan. ‘You’ve done your part and more. The rest has nothing to do with you. It’s my business.’
Ilona sighed.
‘Take a close look at the two men,’ she said.
He didn’t know what she meant at first, but glanced nevertheless at the man nearest him. It took moments to see what she was referring to. He turned his eyes on the second man. The same thing. Each man had a long scar on his left cheek. The scars were whiter than the white cheeks of the men.
‘They belong to the Arrow Cross,’ she whispered. ‘It’s an old Hungarian fascist society. Aehrenthal is the head of the Transylvanian chapter. He initiates them by giving them a sabre scar. These are his men.’
‘But if they…’
She shook her head fiercely.
‘Not now.’
She turned back to the man who had offered her a way out.
‘They’re yours,’ she said in Hungarian. ‘Do what you like with them. Take your time.’
She walked towards them, as though to pass that way out of the clearing and so on to Sancraiu. But as she reached the man with the wolf, she took her hand from her pocket. It held a tiny canister. She aimed at the wolf, spraying it in the eyes, then, before its handler could react, sprayed him too. The effect was instantaneous. The wolf howled in pain, the man screamed and dropped the leash, whereupon the wolf ran howling out of the clearing. Two more steps brought Ilona to the second hunter, who was standing as if rooted to the spot, unable to understand what had just happened to his companion and the animal. She sprayed him as well. Ethan went across to where the two men were crouching in agony. He took their guns and slung them over his shoulder.
‘What the hell was that?’ he asked.
‘Pepper spray,’ Ilona said. ‘Now we get out of here.’
19
The Falling of Snow and the Shimmering of the Sun
They reached the monastery between compline and vespers, in a time of silence. The monks had returned to their cells, the priests were preparing for the artoklasia service that would follow vespers that evening. Ilona led them through darkness to the candlelit church where it stood at the heart of a great complex made up of turreted buildings sheltering behind the high monastery wall. This was Putna, the gem in the crown of Romania’s monastic foundations. For long centuries, the voices of the monks had intoned the liturgy from hour to hour throughout the day, in summer and winter alike, beneath the falling of snow and the shimmering of the sun.
The monk priest was waiting for them in an archway near the great iconostasis. Most of the candles had been extinguished, and the priest, dressed from head to foot in black, was hidden in shadow at first, while the clouds of incense that still filled the church swirled like the breath of dragons all about him. He watched them coming and, though they were expected, he felt his heart shake. He knew why they had come. For so many years he had anticipated this moment and feared it. So much depended on what happened now. More lives than he dared think of, innocent and guilty alike; Christian churches everywhere, perhaps all religions. How could he really know? He stepped from the shadows.
He held out his hand, and Ilona went forward and bent her head to kiss it. When she looked up, she saw again the kindly features that had struck her at their first meeting one week earlier. The long white beard gave him something of the appearance of a western Santa Claus, but there was, she noticed, a look on his face that might have provoked tears in susceptible children.
‘Ethan,’ she said, ‘let me introduce Archimandrite Iustin Dumitreasa. Father Iustin is a hieromonk. That’s to say, he is a priest. But when his wife died, he entered the monastery here and now he serves as a monk as well.’
‘His wife?’ Ethan wasn’t sure he’d heard properly.
Ilona was about to answer, but the priest stepped forward and took Ethan’s hand.
‘Your Anglican priests marry, do they not?’ he said. ‘Well, so do Orthodox priests. We are part of the world. How can a man without a wife or family hope to understand the concerns of his parishioners? Ilona tells me your name is Ethan.’
Ethan nodded. He felt in awe of this strange priest. As he shook his hand he looked at his sunken cheeks and slow-burning eyes. This was not an ordinary man. He seemed driven, almost prophetic, a modern-day Isaiah or soothsayer who might perform miracles or utter forebodings of things to come.
Ethan broke away and brought Sarah forward. She would never understand her action later, but as she reached him, she got down on her knees. Father Iustin placed his gnarled and wrinkled hands on the crown of her head and whispered the words of a short prayer.