Doug’s gaze strayed to the leather tube with the poem inside it.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Can you find us a car?’
‘I think so.’ He looked reluctant so say anything else, but the ferocity of Ellie’s stare battered down his reticence.
‘Lucy has one she let me borrow once.’ He headed for the stairs. ‘I’ll just pack my things.’
XXXIV
How did he know my name?
It isn’t the most important problem facing me, but I can’t let it go. My thoughts have detached themselves: my mind floats serene, while my body flails and kicks against its fate. I’m Jonah, fighting the water, the sea, the fundament itself. I know I can’t win, but I can’t stop trying. If the God wants His victory, He’ll have to earn it.
How did he know my name?
From the boats, the sea seemed so calm. Now that I’m in it, even the gentlest waves come higher than my head. In the troughs, all I can see is water; from the peaks, only fog. I’ve lost my armour, but it’s taking all my strength just to stay afloat. The water’s freezing. My body rises and falls on the waves: each time it falls, the water comes a little higher. Soon I’ll drown.
Something strikes my shoulder, harder than a wave. I’m so numb I only half feel it, but it still enrages me. I don’t want to be rushed. I look round. A dark mass glides past, like an enormous fish broaching the water. Except instead of scales, the stripes on its flanks are wood and tar.
It’s a boat.
I stretch out an arm and clamp on to the hull. It probably frightens the life out of them, but they haul me aboard. Three men: by their ages and their faces I guess it’s a father and two sons. They fillet me with their eyes and find nothing good. I lie in the bilge, breathing in salt and blood and dead fish. They don’t speak to me.
We pull into a rocky bay. Green weed trails off black stones. The sons wade ashore to check their fish traps. The father gives me a black stare: he doesn’t want me on his boat. Half-drowned and almost naked, I’m still trouble. He’s rubbing the amulet he keeps nailed to the transom to fend off evil. I think he might try to kill me. I vault over the bow and splash ashore. Barnacles and oyster shells are like razors under my bare feet. The men at the fish-traps watch me go. Nobody tries to stop me.
Night falls. The mist cleared in the afternoon, but now a thick fog comes rising off the ground. I stumble on through the darkness. I daren’t stop. I’m freezing — my wet shift clings to me like sin. If I lie down to sleep, I’ll probably never wake up.
Thump. I’ve walked straight into a stone. I reel away, clutching my knee. Thump. Another stone clips my elbow. I step back, and almost fall over a third.
The moon comes out from behind a cloud. I’m standing in a field of stones, rectangular slabs all facing the same way. It looks like a churchyard, though there are no markings. They stand in tight echelons, rank upon rank reaching deep into the fog that swirls around them.
I know where I am. I’m dead. It’s a relief to know. I wonder if I died in the castle — if the fisherman was a spirit ferrying me to the world beyond — or if I’ve died since I came ashore. It doesn’t matter. I’m a ghost now.
Is this heaven? It doesn’t look like hell.
I hear a noise in the fog. The jangle of armour, the thud of someone walking into a stone and a low curse.
There’s someone else here. Is he an angel? A demon? Another ghost? I drop behind a stone, burying myself in the fog.
‘Peter!’ he calls. ‘Peter of Camros!’
I don’t recognise the voice. It isn’t Malegant’s.
How did he know my name?
God knows everything. I’m not sure if the angels do, too, but I assume God can tell them the relevant facts.
But he cursed when he hit the stone. Angels don’t curse.
Am I really dead? I’m not so certain any more. Saint John says of heaven: There will be no more pain, neither sorrow nor crying. Surely I shouldn’t have stubbed my toe in heaven. Surely my heart shouldn’t beat so fast.
The fear convinces me. If I were dead, I’d have left that behind. But if I’m not dead, where am I? And who is he?
Another noise: the rattle of chain mail, like coins shaken in a purse. I look around, trying to judge where the sound came from. All I see is stones.
An owl calls, far off in the trees to my left. I think my pursuer must be distracted. I pull myself up on one of the stones and peer over the lip.
For a moment, the moon is bright and clear. A few dozen paces away, a dismounted knight stands waist-deep in the stones. He’s bare-headed, but the links of his armour gleam like fish-scales in the moonlight.
‘Peter?’ he calls.
How does he know my name?
The moon goes behind a cloud. He disappears from me — and I from him. I drop down and start crawling away.
I might not be dead, but I’m certain I’m in a nightmare — trapped in that endless, featureless graveyard, scuttling about on my hands and feet, chased by an enemy I can’t see. In my headlong flight I career into stone after stone. I run straight into one and feel a splitting pain through my skull. But I’m getting away. My feet are silent on the wet grass; he can’t move without an iron chorus singing his every step. I weave between the stones, following the owl towards the trees. The knight’s sounds grow distant.
I run into the forest. The terror I felt among the stones has me full in its grip. Sometimes I find snatches of paths and follow them; sometimes I just blunder through. Branches rip and tear at me: soon even my shift is gone. I rush on.
A tree root catches me and I sprawl on the ground. My head feels splintered; my skin is bruised and torn; my limbs are bloodied. I lie there, naked, wondering if I’ll ever get up.
Something snaps and rustles in the undergrowth. I hear a snuffling sound. Is it an animal? A fox or a wolf? I imagine it savaging me, gnawing my entrails out of my stomach while I’m forced to watch. Perhaps I have arrived in Hell after all.
The creature shuffles out of the thicket. He bends to look at me: I can feel his breath warm on my cheek. I feel a hand or a paw on my back.
He rolls me over. I stare into his face.
XXXV
Destrier left the car at the end of the street and walked back to the address he’d been given. He forced himself to walk at a moderate pace — he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. The Aston Martin was memorable enough.
He found the house. The curtains were drawn but the lights were on — good. He slipped a pair of brass knuckles over his right hand and knocked with his left.
No one came.
He got out Ellie’s mobile and dialled Doug’s number. He lifted the letterbox flap and heard the phone ringing inside. There was no answer, and no sound of movement either.
He waited through another minute’s silence and decided to go in. It was a college house, used by generations of students: the lock was a joke. It took him thirty seconds to get in, another ninety to establish no one was home.
But only recently. The kettle was still warm. In the bathroom, steam still fogged the mirror; wet footprints walked across the carpet, and the towel on the door was damp. In the corner, beside the laundry basket, he found a woman’s sock.
He ran outside and looked up and down the road. It was empty.
Three streets away, Doug and Ellie sat in a borrowed Nissan and waited for the windscreen to demist. On the pavement, a petite girl in tight jeans and a figure-hugging top watched anxiously.