Franklin shrugged. “I just obey orders, and there was no political desire to keep the investigation going. Targeting Christians in an overwhelmingly Christian country is never going to win many votes, particularly post 9/11 with Islam becoming the new Communism. The average guy on the street would probably be quite happy to discover that a group of powerful Christians were quietly running the country. But here’s a thought for you — this network was supposed to extend far and wide, not only in central government but also in law enforcement, the judiciary — NASA. So if, as you say, Professor Douglas was a man of faith, maybe he was part of this network, maybe Kinderman was too. And people of strong faith will do anything if they believe it’s God’s will. So whatever preconceptions you have about the Reverend Cooper, or your Professor Douglas, you need to be under no illusion that the ones we are chasing down here are powerful and very motivated people. We need to tread carefully, Agent Shepherd; there’s nothing more frightening than an enemy who thinks death is just a gateway to something better.”
36
The Postilion Gate swung wide and the slow clip of hooves on cobbles echoed across the Public Square as the tribute cart emerged from the seminary complex in the Old Town of Ruin.
Riding up front were two seminarians, dressed all in black apart from the white of their surgical masks. Usually the weekly spectacle of delivering provisions to the Citadel was witnessed by large crowds of tourists who would gather along the route, cameras in hand, ready to get the best view of this timeless ceremony. Today there was no one.
The cart passed through the stone arch onto the embankment encircling the base of the Citadel, heading toward the wooden bridge spanning the moat of waving grass that grew where water once rippled. The wind flapped and tugged at the black cassocks of the two seminarians, ruffling the cellophane around the many floral tributes that still covered the spot on the flagstones where the monk had fallen.
The sound of the wheels changed to a deep rumble as they moved off the flagstones and onto the wooden bridge spanning the dry moat. It jerked to a halt by the waiting wooden platform, secured at each corner by thick ropes that soared up the side of the mountain and disappeared into the dark of an overhanging cave high above them.
Normally, the unloading would take four men about ten minutes to complete. Today it took the two of them less than five. The amount of food had been drastically cut over the past few weeks, suggesting there were far fewer mouths to feed. The only things they had requested more of — much more — were medical supplies.
The weekly bundle of correspondence was the last thing to be loaded. It was placed into the wooden box built into the corner of the platform before one of the seminarians pulled hard on a thin, hemp rope, causing a bell to sound high in the mountain above.
They watched as the ropes creaked and tightened and the platform started to rise, relieved that there were still arms strong and healthy enough to pull it up.
The platform rose steadily, three hundred feet up into the gloom of the tribute cave where it jerked to a solid stop. Hooded figures wearing surgical masks peeled away from the shadows to unload it, stacking the crates of food on various stone shelves cut into the walls and handing the medical equipment straight to the waiting brown cloaks who took it down into the darkness of the mountain where the distant sounds of suffering could be heard.
Brother Osgood watched from the edge of the cave, fiddling nervously with the straps on his face mask. He had only recently been elevated from the lowest order of monks within the mountain to the brown cloaks of the Administrata, not that the old system of apprenticeship had much bearing since the first case of the blight had struck. He waited until most of the supplies had been unloaded then stole forward, feeling the platform rock beneath his feet as he plucked the correspondence from its box and scurried quickly away again, glad to be away from all the people in the tribute cave.
He moved through the dark corridors, clutching the bundle to his chest, probing the blackness ahead for signs of anyone else coming his way. Since the blight had struck, the Apothecaria had advised everyone to minimize contact with others and movement inside the mountain had been severely restricted.
Osgood passed a padlocked door with a handwritten sign nailed to it saying CAVE ROBIGO — BEWARE BLIGHT. Similar signs barred routes all through the mountain, remnants of the initial attempt to contain the disease by sealing off different areas as each new case occurred. No one had bothered to take them down, even though they were no longer relevant. There were far too many other things to occupy the monks and everyone knew to ignore them anyway, at least the ones who were still rational.
A low, guttural moan wormed its way out of the darkness and the cotton mask sucked in and out of his mouth as his heart rate rose. Even after a year he had still not gotten used to the dark of the mountain, and still had nightmares from time to time in the quiet midnight of the dormitory. He would imagine the tunnels closing in on him, or dread creatures pursuing him down the labyrinthine corridors, the sounds of their inhuman grunts getting closer and closer until he woke, breathless and slicked with sweat. And now the nightmares had escaped into this waking world.
He clicked the latch on the heavy wooden door that led into the garden, shielding his eyes in preparation for the blinding daylight about to hit him.
The garden filled a large central portion of the mountain and was surrounded on all sides by high walls of sheer rock, It was the sunken crater of a long-extinct volcano that had bequeathed such rich and fertile soil that it had sustained the men of the mountain for thousands of years, through drought and famine and siege. For so long it had been the living jewel at the heart of the black mountain.
But not anymore.
Osgood blinked as his eyes adjusted to the daylight and made his way past vegetable beds filled with the decaying remains of beans and tomato plants, lying black and shriveled among the sludgy remains of pumpkins that looked like rotting heads. The vines that had covered the rock walls hung in withered curtains and broken branches littered the ground, buried in drifts of brown leaves bearing the black spots that had first heralded the arrival of the contagion. And all around, the air that had once smelled so strongly of earth and loam and life now carried the bitter tang of wood smoke mixed with something Osgood would not forget for the rest of his days. Through the broken trees he could see the source of the smell as well as the group of monks who presided over it. It was the firestone, piled high with tangled branches through which hungry flames licked, and on top of them — three bodies.
They had started to burn the corpses on the third day of the contagion when they began to run out of places to store them and panic had already started to gnaw at the edges of the ordered life of the mountain. It had been decided that diseased corpses posed too much of an additional danger to health and they had to be either buried or burned. Burning was quicker. The fire had been burning constantly ever since, as the bodies kept on coming.
“Brother Athanasius!” Osgood called to the group, coming to rest as far from the heat and stink of the fire as he could manage. “I have brought the dispatches.”