Midnight is a Lonely Place

The ceremony was strictly ordained. The man was honoured by his colleagues, crowned with gold. In the hours that remained he would bid farewell to his family, order his affairs and at the last divest himself of all his raiment, bathe in waters sanctified with herbs and spices, then, drinking the sacred, drugged wine of death he would kneel willingly for the sacrifice: the garotte if his death was dedicated to the gods of the earth, the rope if to the gods of the sky, and the third death, the death by water if to the gods of the rivers and seas.

Now Nion watched, his head covered, as were those of the others, as the bakestone was blessed and heated. His mouth was dry with apprehension, even though the choice was preordained. He stole a glance at the oldest druid there, a man as frail as a windblown reed, his bald pate beneath the linen veil wrinkled as an old, dead leaf. Almost certainly he would be chosen, the bread passed in such a way that his would be the burned piece. How did he feel, knowing that by the next dawn he would be dead?

Nion closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on prayer, but at noon he was to meet Claudia. His body, strong, vigorous, lusty, quivered at the thought. Sternly he reprimanded himself, and brought his thoughts back to the scene before him.

The bread was cooking now, the fragrance sharp on the morning air. His nostrils picked up the acrid smell of scorching and he swallowed nervously, his eyes going once more automatically to the old man who had blanched to an unhealthy shade of buttermilk.

He watched, arms folded beneath his cloak, as the bread was allowed to cool and broken into small pieces – twenty-one, seven times three – one for each of them, and put into the basket. Slowly it was carried round the circle. Slowly. Slowly. One by one the hands went in. The choice was made. The hands came out. One by one the faces relaxed into relief and the portion was eaten. The old one’s turn came. He put in his hand, shaking visibly, and withdrew it. Nion saw him turn the fragment over and over in disbelief. Then his face relaxed into a toothless smile. So, the gods had rejected an old, frail man. In the face of the threat from Rome such a sacrifice was not enough.

Nion’s stomach knotted sharply in fear. He noticed suddenly that several men were watching him surreptitiously from beneath their headdresses.

The woven bowl was coming closer. His hands were sweating. Only five more portions remained. Then it was before him, held in the hands of the archdruid who had baked the bread and taken the first piece himself. For a moment Nion hesitated. He raised his eyes to the other man’s face and read his fate even before he had put his hand in the basket.

The bread fragment he took was crumbling, still warm from the bakestone, and it was burned black.

The tide was high at six in the morning and the wind was from the north-east, crossing the Urals, dripping ice across the continents, whipping the sea into angry peaks of foam.

Tossing in her bed, Alison was dreaming uneasily. All around her the cold wet earth was pressing down, clogging her nostrils, crumbling into her eyes, filling her ears so she could no longer hear, weighing her into the damp sedge. Hiding her. Hiding the truth. The truth which must be told. With a cry of panic she sat up, untangling herself from the duvet. She stared round the room. It was pitch dark and she could hear the rain pouring down in the garden outside. When it grew light there would be a puddle on the windowsill.

Still dazed by her dream, she stood up and reached for her clothes. There was something she had to do; something urgent. The pounding behind her eyes was insistent, like the beat of the tide upon the shore, driving her, pushing her against her will. Opening the door she stood for a moment on the landing, listening. The house was silent. Her parents slept at the far end in a bedroom which looked out across the woods. Next to her, Greg and beyond him, Patrick, always slept like the dead until they were awakened. She shivered violently. Today was a day for awakening the dead.

Scarcely knowing what she was doing she hauled on her waterproof jacket and forcing her feet into her boots she opened the door and peered out into the icy morning. The wind was roaring in from the north-east full in her face as she pulled the door shut with difficulty behind her and set off in the darkness towards the track through the woods. All she knew was that she had to get to the grave; she had to get there before the tide washed it away.

She had to save it.

XXV

Kate had slept in the end, too exhausted to do anything else, but she too had awoken at six to the sound of rain against the windows. It was steady rain this time, hard and unrelenting and behind the sound of it she could hear the wind.

She didn’t want to get up. There was something frightening downstairs, something which when daylight came she would have to confront, but until then she was going to stay where she was, safely tucked up in her bed with the lights on. Wearily she reached for her book and lay back huddled against the pillows.

When she dragged herself out of bed an hour later and pulled back the curtains all she could see was blackness, alleviated only by the streaks of rain sliding down the glass. But she couldn’t go back to bed. She was too conscious of the silence outside her door.

Pulling on a pair of jeans and a thick sweater she went out onto the landing and peered down. All seemed as usual down there. She stood for several seconds, then taking a deep breath she ran down and flung open the living room door. The room was empty. The woodburner still glowed quietly. All was as it should be. Lights burned in every room – God knows what her electricity bill would be when she left – but all was quiet. There were no strange smells, no figures lurking in the shadows.

Her face doused in cold water and a mug of strong coffee at her elbow she poured some muesli into a bowl and reached into the fridge for some milk. She was a first class prize idiot with a powerful five-star imagination – how else could she be a successful writer – and a bad dose of nervous collywobbles. All she needed was food, coffee – both being attended to – and then a bracing walk in the rain to clear her head. Then in the cold light of day, probably with more coffee, she would switch on the computer again and get back to young George and his mother.

The knock on the front door took her completely by surprise. Greg stood outside, his collar pulled up around his ears, rain pouring off his Barbour jacket. His hands were firmly pushed into his pockets.

‘You see. No key. I had to knock,’ he said grimly. The wind snatched the words from his lips and whirled them away with the rain. ‘May I come in, or am I too dangerous to allow over the threshold?’

‘Of course you can come in!’ Kate stood back to let him pass and then forced the door closed behind him. ‘Why the sarcasm?’

‘The sarcasm, as you call it, was perhaps engendered by two hours of questioning by the police last night who seem under the impression that you still think I robbed the cottage.’ He pulled off his jacket and hanging it on the knob at the bottom of the bannisters, shook himself like a dog. ‘I just thought I would come and thank you in person for your vote of confidence and, incidentally, collect one or two of my things which I would rather not leave here any longer.’

Kate could feel her antagonism rising to match his. ‘I assure you, I didn’t tell the police it was you. If they thought so they must have got the idea somewhere else,’ she said furiously. ‘And I must say, I wonder if they aren’t right. It seems the sort of half-baked stupid thing you would do to try and get me out. That was the idea, I take it? To get me out.’

‘It would be wonderful to get you out.’ He folded his arms. ‘As it happens, I think the wind and the weather will do it for me. Now, if you don’t mind, I should like to collect my property and then I shall leave you to your triumph behind your locked doors.’

‘What property exactly have you left behind?’ They were facing each other in the hall like a couple of cats squaring up for a fight. ‘It seems to me you cleared everything out on Wednesday night.’

‘The torn paintings, yes. There are two more here. On the walls.’ He strode past her into the living room. There in the corner, hanging near the window, was a small portrait sketch of a woman. Kate had hardly noticed it. He took it down and laid it on the table. ‘There is another upstairs. If you will permit me.’ Still unsmiling, he turned away