I’m dealing with demons. We are just in two different places and there is some sort of barrier in between us.’ She put down her mug. ‘This is not just a ghost story, Athena.’
Athena was sitting back on the sofa now, her cup cradled between her hands. She was studying the reflection of the lights on the surface of her green tea. She sighed. ‘Don’t trust Justin, Abi.’
Abi studied her face. ‘Why?’ she said at last.
‘Just don’t.’
‘I know you don’t like him now, but he must have been a friend of yours once.’
Athena shook her head. ‘Once perhaps.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘Let’s say he can be dangerous.’ Athena sat back and folded her arms.
‘I think you need to tell me,’ Abi said quietly. ‘After all, Ben seems to trust him.’
There was another pause, then Athena sat forward. ‘OK.’ She held Abi’s gaze. ‘Justin caused the death of someone very close to me. Not deliberately. He was trying to help her, but he was in way over his head and he killed her.’
Abi stared at her. She felt a shiver pass right through her body. For a moment she was incapable of speech. It was several seconds before she could ask, ‘How?’
Athena looked up. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’m sorry. Just keep away from him, Abi.’
14
Bishop David looked up from his notes and waited while Kier took the chair in front of him. The younger man looked tired and he had lost a lot of weight. ‘I know I shouldn’t have gone after her,’ Kier said.
The bishop laid down his pen. He stifled a sigh.
Kier glanced up under his eyebrows and flinched as he saw the flash of anger cross the bishop’s face. David Paxman’s summons back to Cambridge had been peremptory, his fury barely controlled. Kier had obeyed the command at once. ‘I’m sorry I went against your orders and I’m sorry if I’ve made things worse, but I had to go.’ He rushed on before the other man had a chance to interrupt. ‘I had been to see Abi Rutherford’s father. I though it would help me get over her,’ he shrugged with what appeared to be genuine embarrassment, ‘if her father told me to sod off! It would have made it easier somehow, but he didn’t. He begged me to go and find her. He begged me to help her. He seemed genuinely distraught.’
‘So you made that an excuse to disobey my orders.’ David Paxman was finding it hard to curb the surge of anger and impatience which was rising inside him.
Kier nodded. He kept looking at his hands, folded on his knee. He no longer seemed able to meet the bishop’s eye.
‘And what happened when you got there?’
‘I saw her. She is staying – ’ He paused and gave his head a small shake, as if trying to keep himself awake. ‘But of course you know where she is staying. Professor Rutherford gave me her address and I went to try and persuade her to give up a piece of rock that her mother had left her when she died. The rock is some kind of pagan talisman. The professor felt it was having an evil influence on her and I agreed with him.’
‘You agreed with him.’ The bishop repeated the words without emphasis as if to make sure.
The flat delivery made Kier even more nervous. ‘Yes. I wanted to find it and dispose of it. Throw it away somewhere where it could never be found. I had planned to throw it in the moat at Wells Cathedral.’ He gave a rueful grimace.
‘But you failed to find it.’
Kier nodded. ‘Abi was very angry. I thought she would have complained by now. She was angry and rebellious. She seems to have forgotten all her vows as a priest of the church.’
‘She has offered her resignation as a priest of the church, Kier.’ The bishop leaned back in his chair and recapped his pen slowly.
Kier’s eyes were riveted to the action. ‘She mustn’t be allowed to resign. She is far too good a priest.’
‘I seem to remember that you told me she was quite the opposite. That she was practising witchcraft in your church.’
‘She was being influenced in a way she could not control, but that was because of her inexperience. I want you to take her back. Help her.’
‘She has all the help she needs down at Woodley, Kieran. She has a spiritual supervisor there, and she was supposed to have peace and quiet to allow her to spend some time in contemplation.’
‘But she isn’t.’ Kier was becoming agitated. ‘Don’t you see? She is using this stone as some kind of key to access a supernatural world. There are ghosts everywhere down there.’
‘Ghosts which you too have seen?’ David looked up and fixed Kier’s face with an intense glare.
Kier shifted uncomfortably. Then he nodded. ‘I know she’s telling the truth. I watched her. She didn’t know I was there. I saw figures. I saw people around her. Sort of swirling, misty lights and shapes and shadows.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘What did you do at the time?’
Kier shook his head. ‘Nothing. I was so afraid. I couldn’t move or speak or even call out to her. I watched it all happen and then I fled.’
Flavius was back at the house, and had shouldered the entire blame for taking Romanus with him without informing his mother, and for their late return. He had explained away his injured hand by saying he had fallen from his horse and landed on it. Sorcha had cleaned the wound and bound it up for him with a warm poultice. Romanus, shaken and silent, watched his uncle grit his teeth against the pain, and felt an overwhelming wave of relief that his mother’s wrath at his all-day disappearance without a word had been directed at someone else. When their supper of mutton stew and bread and beans was over, Lydia and Sorcha reached for their sewing, whilst Rhiannon brought her small harp to the fire and gently began to strum a slow melodious tune. Lydia glanced at Flavius. He was sitting in silence, the shadow of the flames playing across his face as he nursed his bandaged hand. She caught the thoughtful look her son threw at him from time to time and wondered what had really happened up there in the hills. With a sigh she laid aside her sewing. She found it harder to see these days in the dim light of the flames. ‘Petra was worse today, Rom,’ she said quietly. ‘I think I am going to have to ask Mora to come back with the stronger medicine she promised.’
Romanus froze. He looked up at his mother with an expression of utter horror.
‘It’s all right. She stayed in bed today, and she has eaten some supper.’ She had interpreted his look as concern for his sister. ‘We’ve wrapped some hot stones for her and put them in her bed to keep her warm.’
‘Perhaps you should volunteer to go and ask Mora to come to see your sister tomorrow, Romanus,’ Flavius said suddenly, raising his voice over the sound of the harp. ‘And to bring her colleague with her. He can perform miracles, so we heard today. He seems to be more successful than she is at curing people.’ He eased himself back on the bench with a groan, flexing the fingers of his injured hand. ‘He can take a look at this while he is at it.’ He gave a strange harsh laugh which made Romanus flinch with terror.
A short while later he rose to go outside and beckoned Romanus with him. The boy hesitated, then reluctantly he followed his uncle to the door. The night was bright with stars. They walked across the yard and stood leaning on the gate, looking out across the fields down towards the marshes. Romanus could see the great cone shape of the Tor in the distance outlined against the luminous sky.
‘You will go over there tomorrow, and you will tell them that I have left.’ Flavius turned to him. ‘You will beg them both to come and see your sister. Then you will return and if you do not want your mother and sister to see what happens you will make sure they leave the place and do not return until after dark. Is that clear?’
Romanus shook his head. ‘I don’t think I can -’
‘You can, boy and you will. Do you want me to kill Mora?’
Romanus went white. His eyes were round and huge in the starlight. Flavius smiled. ‘I saw how you looked at her. That was the reason you cried out her name and ruined everything for me today. You like her. Do you want her to die horribly? It is up to you, boy. Do you want to serve the Emperor, to be regarded as a warrior? Do you want to write your name in history with any woman you want, or are you going to remain no better than a petty tribesman
