‘It is very dirty,’ he said. ‘This has been hidden, here or elsewhere, for a long while.’
‘I do not think it is what we seek,’ agreed the mason. ‘Does it open? Should we make sure?’
There was no lock, only a length of tape tied in a dusty loop to keep the lid fastened. Gil slipped it free and raised the lid, and brought his lantern closer.
‘Paper?’ said Maistre Pierre.
‘One parchment.’ Gil lifted it and unrolled the beginning one-handed. ‘Sweet St Giles! It seems to be a map, but of what? I have never seen such a coast.’ The mason took the other end, and they spread the parchment out. ‘Ah — there is the northern sea, and I suppose Norway, and Iceland. But what lies beyond?’
‘Grunland,’ said Maistre Pierre. He peered closer. ‘And Estotilanda.’
‘Where? I’ve heard those names somewhere.’ Gil relinquished his grasp of the curling skin and turned to the open kist. ‘What have we here? A broken sword, very old, and a little box with — ’ He held it to the light, the contents rustling under his gentle touch. ‘Look, Pierre, it is some kind of grain, long dried. I never saw grain with leaves like that. Could this be some of the plants on the window below us?’
‘It could,’ said Maistre Pierre cautiously. He let the map roll up, and stared into the box. ‘It could, but I never saw grain like that either. Wherever is it from?’
‘I think I could guess,’ said Gil, in growing amazement. ‘But that would mean the stories about Earl Henry are true.’ He reached out to the kist again. ‘And if those are true, what else may be? What might be in that bag — ’
Maistre Pierre put his hand over Gil’s.
‘No.’ They looked at each other in the lantern-light. ‘No, Gil. Not for us, I think.’
Gil dropped his gaze to the bag in the bottom of the kist. Worn embroidery gleamed dully in the light, rich silk brocade visible between the stitched saints. A bag for a relic. A very rich bag, for a very important relic, the relic guarded by the Sinclairs with their canting arms, the cross engrailed which appeared here and there all over this rich little building. Whatever the brocade bag held would, he knew, be wrapped in more silk and brocade, to keep it from harm, but its shape, smaller than one would have expected, was just discernible under the padding. There would be a slip of parchment in the wrappings, with an inscription saying what was inside them. In what language, he wondered. What alphabet, even. As for the thing inside — to hold it — to touch it — even to look at it -
‘No,’ he said after a moment, and crossed himself. ‘We are not worthy. But how I wish I was. And to be this close to it …’
‘Et moi, je le veux aussi,’ said the mason fervently.
And how, Gil wondered, packing the little box of exotic grain and the rolled parchment back into the kist, how does Pierre know what might be under that brocade? He knows a surprising amount about what we are doing.
The other wooden box was the right one. Once the first one, with its strange cargo, had been restored to its place in the shadows and the other lay on the wattle at their feet, Maistre Pierre hauled Gil in, and he stood letting the darkness settle round him while the mason bent to study their booty.
‘Three sacks of coin inside it,’ he reported. ‘And there are seals, the eight-point cross. This is what we seek.’
‘Robison mentioned two with the St Johns seal,’ Gil recalled, ‘and one with the old King’s.’
‘I suppose Sinclair restowed them,’ speculated his friend. ‘The King’s purse will be in the other kist, the metal one, by now.’
‘How do we get them down?’ Gil asked. ‘Three sacks will make quite a burden, and we can’t take the box down between us. I wish I hadn’t taken off my gown. It would have made a sling of sorts.’
‘And the rope is not — ’ Maistre Pierre put up a hand. ‘Listen.’ They both listened, and heard the scaffolding creak. Wattle squeaked. ‘Merde, alors,’ said the mason. ‘It must be Johan. He has tried again. He will assuredly turn to stone on the next level. Gilbert, it is best if I go down and stop him, before he gets any further. Can you stay here alone?’
He snatched up his lantern and set off without waiting for an answer, leaving Gil isolated in his own little patch of light. Moving cautiously, he disengaged himself from the coils of rope, and wound it into a hank. Another Green Man grinned at him without humour from one of the knots of vegetation on the vault-rib. Outside the moon had risen, and there were great pale bars across the flagstones far below. The wicker sang and crackled as Maistre Pierre made his way to the flight of ladders, the poles creaked and hummed as he descended first one ladder, then the next. Gil heard his voice, speaking reassuringly, and recognized the change in the movement of the scaffolding as he stepped on to the third ladder, climbed down it, set off across the lowest level of hurdles.
‘Johan?’ floated up through the darkness. ‘Johan, wo sind Sie?’ Johan’s voice answered. And then, sharply, Maistre Pierre: ‘You?’ and louder, in real alarm, ‘Gil, have a care!’
Gil tensed, staring as if he could see through the wattle he stood on. The scaffolding spoke shrilly of hasty movement, in which there were grunting noises, a gasp, an exclamation which rang in the curve of the roof. Something fell, someone shouted. There was what seemed a very long pause, with more gasping movement in it.
‘Pierre?’ he called.
There was another pause, then the pine logs creaked again. Ears stretched, he tried to locate the sound. There was someone on one of the ladders, but was it more than one person? More than one ladder?
‘Pierre?’ he called again. The creaking stopped, and there was a breathless silence. Not Pierre, then. But if not Pierre, who?
‘Guard yourself!’ said a hoarse voice from the dark depths. ‘He goes free.’
That was Johan, whom they had left at the foot of the ladder. Pine sang again. What had Sinclair said? That fool Preston never chained him, and he struck down the guard and ran. Could this be the axeman? Quietly, Gil opened the horn panel of his lantern, licked his fingers, pinched out the flame of the candle. Darkness covered him, in which the scaffolding began to creak again.
‘Cunningham?’
Below, on the floor of the church, there was shuffling movement across the bars of moonlight. Voices rose outside. The door boomed. Up here in the darkness among the echoes, with the night air stirring, there was the crack and rustle of wickerwork, and as the echoes died a whispered question.
‘Where are you, Cunningham?’
Turning his head, he tried to place the sound. His pursuer must be westward, where the ladders were, but the whisper rattled in the vault, and came at him from all sides. The wicker hurdles flexed like a corach he had sailed in. Did the fellow have a weapon? he wondered, and was assailed by the sharp recollection of his sword, on top of his short gown, conveniently placed by the foot of the first ladder. And what had come to Pierre? And Johan?
Johan’s voice rose on the cue from the barred floor of the church.
‘Maister Cunningham! Are you safe? Are you hurt?’
The echoes shot his name round the roof. I dare not answer, he thought, not with an enemy hunting me in the dark. He already knows where I was when I put the light out.
‘Cunningham?’ The whisper again, surrounding him. ‘I ken you’re no hurt. No yet.’
There was a patch of light growing in the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw a silvery glow, as if someone to the east of his perch had another lantern. A hand appeared, and beckoned in silence. He lifted the coil of rope and moved cautiously towards it, leaving the box with its three sacks where they were. There was just enough light to make out the walkway in front of him, not enough to see who held the lantern, but he was sure the whisperer on the ladders was more of a threat.