morning. If he could find some water then he could boil them in the saucepans. That started him thinking – were there any herbs growing nearby that he could use to flavour the water?

His mind occupied with thoughts of how he was going to impress Virginia with his culinary skills, he walked up to the hut.

‘I’m back!’ he called softly, in case she was sleeping. ‘And I’ve got dinner!’

He stepped into the shelter, where Virginia had got a fire going in the stove. By its light, he saw that she was asleep, curled up on the ground. She had found some rushes or reeds from outside, and had piled them up underneath her head as a pillow. She had also piled more of them up for Sherlock, just a few feet away from her own head.

He wasn’t sure what to do. He supposed he could prepare food and then wake her up, but it had been a long hike uphill, and they had more walking ahead of them in the morning. Best that she slept now.

He dumped the mushrooms on the ground and sat beside Virginia. Something about the fresh air and the long walk through the woods had quelled his own appetite as well. They weren’t going to die of malnutrition if they missed one meal. He could cook the mushrooms when the sun came up.

He stared at her face. She seemed so relaxed, asleep. Her lips were curved in a slight smile, and her expression was calmer that he had ever seen it. Usually there was a watchful look on her face, especially when she was looking at him, but now it was as if he was looking at her with everything wiped away apart from the real Virginia. The girl that he so desperately wanted to know better.

He reached out a hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. She stirred slightly and made a noise, but she didn’t wake up.

He watched her for a while, mesmerized by her incredible beauty. It was difficult looking at her when they were together in daylight, because she would spot him staring at her and stare straight back, or ask him what he was looking at, but now he could admire her for as long as he liked.

Eventually he stretched out beside her, his head on the rushes that she had left for him. He felt himself drifting off to sleep. Despite the danger, despite the situation that they were in, he felt happy. He felt as if he had found the place where he belonged.

He fell asleep so gradually that he didn’t even realize when it happened, but he woke up suddenly. Sunlight was streaming through the doorway. He must have turned over during the night, because he was facing in the opposite direction, away from Virginia.

He turned back, and felt his heart freeze.

There was no sign of Virginia. Three white skeletal figures were standing in the centre of the room. They stared at him with wide, lidless eyes set deeply in shadowed sockets. In their hands they held curved blades, like the sickles that farmers use to slice through wheat when harvesting it.

He scrabbled desperately for the door, but thin arms grabbed him from behind. The fingers looked like twigs against the sleeves of his jacket, but they were as hard as bone, and they hurt as they dug into his flesh.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sherlock struggled wildly, trying to break free, but the fingers of his attackers were immovable. One of them held a knife to his throat. It had a tarnished blade, as if it had been buried in the ground for years. The message was clear, and he stopped struggling.

The figures turned Sherlock over unceremoniously. He noticed with a shiver of fear that their clothes were ragged and mouldy, as though they too had been underground for a while. Buried.

They bent and grabbed his feet, hauling him unceremoniously into the air. They were strong, despite their appearance. He was carried from the shelter like a sack of corn. None of them said anything, but he suddenly realized that he could hear them breathing. One of them wheezed like an asthmatic, while the others sounded just like ordinary men would if they were carrying something heavy. Dead men didn’t need to breathe, Sherlock told himself. They didn’t smell as if they were dead. Sherlock knew the cloying, awful smell of rotting flesh: he’d found enough dead animals in the woods in his time. Looking at these things, they should have reeked to high heaven, but all he could smell was sweat. So they weren’t dead men. Just men who looked like they were dead. But why? And what had they done with Virginia?

He looked down at where their thin hands were clutching at his shoulders. White marks were rubbing off on the material of his jacket. Make-up? On their hands? He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t really thought they were dead, but it was a relief to have his deductions confirmed. He supposed it made sense: if you wanted people to think that you were dead, then you needed to look the part. White hands and white faces indicated a lack of blood circulating. If people saw them only at a distance, as Sherlock had till now, it was convincing.

They were carrying him downhill, away from Cramond. He caught sight of the occasional upside-down face as he was jolted along. This close he could see beard stubble poking through the white make-up on their cheeks and necks. He could also see how bits of thin paper had been stuck to their skin to resemble dry, peeling flesh, how the clever use of shading made it look as if their bones were poking through their skin, and how one of them had markings painted on his cheeks that, at a distance, would look like the grinning teeth of a skull. It was all theatrics and pretend. Dressing-up games.

‘Tell me where we’re going!’ he demanded.

The ‘corpse’ holding his right arm looked down at him and grinned. His teeth were stained green, like moss, but even that was make-up. ‘You come with us,’ he grunted in a voice that sounded like it was bubbling up through mud. ‘You see Clan Chief of the Dead.’

‘You’re not dead,’ Sherlock said. ‘You’re just pretending.’

The ‘corpse’ kept on grinning. ‘You sure about that?’ he asked. ‘You bet your life on it?’

Sherlock had no answer to that.

They carried him over rough ground for what seemed like an hour. He kept looking around to see if he could see Virginia, but if she was being carried as well then she was ahead of him and out of sight. He hoped that she’d managed to escape.

Eventually he was thrown on the back of a horse. His arms and legs were tied together with a rope running beneath the horse’s stomach, and his belt was fastened to the saddle so that he didn’t slip underneath the animal while they were riding. One of the ‘corpses’ mounted the horse, and they started to gallop away.

The repetitive thumping impact of the horse’s rump in his stomach and the heavy odour of the horse itself made Sherlock feel sick. He was constantly on the verge of sliding beneath the horse, where its massive legs would pound into him over and over again until his bones were smashed to fragments. He clenched his arms and legs as tight as he could, trying to stay where he was.

His head was jolted up and down so much that he couldn’t see what was flashing past. He was dimly aware, though, that there were other horses ahead of him and behind. Was Virginia on one of them? As his discomfort got worse and worse, he hoped that she wasn’t.

The noise made by the horse’s hoofs changed. They weren’t riding on earth any more; they were riding on stone. He heard echoes, as if they were surrounded by hundreds of horses. They were inside some kind of stone courtyard. The horse slowed to a halt. Sherlock was thrown forward, and the rear of the saddle hit him in his side, knocking the breath from him.

Hands grabbed him. A knife cut through the ropes holding him on to the horse. He was carried again, face down this time, too weak and nauseous even to lift his head. All he saw were cobbles, and the occasional edge of a stone wall.

And flickering shadows. The whole place appeared to be lit by torches.

Where was he? He remembered the granite shape of Edinburgh Castle, looming above the town. Surely they hadn’t ridden far enough to be back in Edinburgh? Were there other castles around?

Sherlock was carried down a corridor and into a room. He heard barking and growling. On the far side of the room was a fenced-off area. Men were looking into it with avid interest, some of them exchanging money. Through

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