dead fire but he could make the bodies out through the murk by the light of the candles. They were sitting upright, leaning on each other or against the walls, rich plate and candlesticks strewn about them, one, a big man with a three scars across his bald head, seated on a glorious chair of gold and enamel — the reliquary of Saint Maurice, which contained the saint’s bones. No one moved and Jehan could see that not one of the Norsemen was alive.
A celebration had been interrupted here, thought Jehan, by the angel of death. He felt his heart racing. He was sweating despite the cold, salivating so heavily that drool ran down his chin. Was this the beginning of the condition that had claimed the Norsemen? He was so hungry. The Vikings had clearly raided the kitchen before retiring, and half-eaten fowl, bread and cheese were in their hands, in their laps and on the floor. It held no appeal for Jehan, though. He must, he thought, be ill. To be starving but unable to eat was surely a sign of the onset of some sort of malady.
He held up the candlestick and stepped into the room to examine one of the dead warriors. He was a young man of around fifteen, blond and beardless. His mouth smelled of pitch and at his lips was a black froth. The same with the next fellow and the next. In the lap of the man with the three scars was a big bowl of the monks’ cloudy beer, still unspilled. Behind him was a barrel, a hole smashed in one end. Jehan sniffed at it. The smell of the pitch was there too. Poison. But why was the room so very smoky? Jehan looked down. Someone had broken a hole in the floor. The smoke from the warming fire would be able to go directly into the room. Someone had killed these men in the most deliberate way.
He was suddenly very cold. He took one of the Vikings’ cloaks and, for good measure, the sword, scabbard and belt of the big man in the chair. It was a good Frankish blade. The people would trade with the invaders, no matter what penalty their nobles threatened.
Before he left, he put his hand on the chest that was built into the chair — the one that contained the remains of Saint Maurice. His reason was available to him only in glimpses but he used a moment of clarity to talk to God.
‘Strengthen me,’ he said. ‘Let me know your will. Make me your right arm, God, that I may serve you.’
It was no good, though. He couldn’t clear his head, couldn’t work out what do. His reasoning powers were failing him. All he could think of was his hunger. Even the fate of the monks seemed to pale beside that. But what was he hungry for?
He went out of the warming house and over to the infirmary. There might be some sort of physic or purgative he could use to get this sensation out of his head. He opened the door and peered in. The iron smell of cut meat filled the room. There were five or so monks asleep in their beds, their bald heads reflecting the candlelight like a row of strange pink flowers shining from the dark. Jehan felt relief coursing through him, but then he realised what was missing. There was no snoring, no breathing. His heart was the loudest thing in his ears. It was only then that he really looked at what was in front of him. The two nearest him were lying normally, but the others were at odd angles, limbs half out of bed. They had been slaughtered.
Jehan desperately wanted help but there was nowhere to go to get any. He would need to send a messenger to the next monastery. Where was that?
He walked forward to the end of the infirmary. Was there no one alive here? And then he saw him. In the candlelight, watching him, was a figure. It gave him a start. A man was standing stock still at the far end of the room looking at him but saying nothing.
‘What happened here, brother?’ asked Jehan.
The man didn’t reply. Jehan took a pace forward.
‘Brother?’
As he drew nearer Jehan saw there was something wrong with the man. His weight was distributed incorrectly. That is, he seemed hunched forward, as if leaning over a high bar. Jehan moved the last few paces through the dark and drew level with him. He was a monk — he could tell by his tonsure — but that wasn’t what took the confessor’s attention.
The noose at his neck was suspended over a ceiling beam. Jehan put out his hand and touched the man’s cheek. He was cold as a fish on a slab. There was no point cutting him down, clearly. Jehan looked at the knot that tied the noose. It was a strange affair, three knots in one, in tight interlocking triangles. Jehan swallowed. He had seen that somewhere before, he felt sure. He drew the sword, his hand brushing his tunic. It was wet at the front and a thin stream of drool dribbled down from his lips.
How many monks were there at Saint-Maurice? Five dead in this one room. That left maybe fifty or sixty others at a minimum. What had happened to them? Where were the boys, the scholars and the novices? Jehan could only think that, by God’s mercy, they lived down the valley in the winter or had been away for some reason.
He felt powerfully intrigued by the dead men. His mouth ran with saliva. Jehan shook his head, overcome by horror, unable to acknowledge the thoughts that were growing in his mind. He had to get out of the infirmary and he blundered for the door, dropping the candlestick as he went.
The horse in the church neighed. Jehan heard a voice say a single word in Norse across the still air. He recognised it. ‘Easy.’ Someone was soothing the animal. He left the candles where they were and made no bid to relight them.
Jehan gripped the sword and crept across the courtyard then up the night stairs towards the door, just visible in the gloom. It was still ajar, as it had been when he’d gone out. As quietly as he could, he made his way into the church. He drew back the curtain covering the internal porch.
A single candle burned, a bud of light in the great soil of the church’s dark. He could see no one in the darkness, only the lustre of the candlelight on the gold of the altar. Something caught the candlelight lower down, a flash of silver near the floor. At first he couldn’t make out what it was. It was as if there was a crescent moon of light but a piece of blackness ran up and down its length.
‘I am cleaning my sword, monk of Saint-Maurice. Do not make me dirty it again.’
Jehan couldn’t see who it was but he replied in an even voice, ‘I am not a monk of Saint-Maurice.’
There was a clatter and someone stood up. The horse, disturbed by the noise, blew and whinnied in the darkness.
‘Then who are you?’
Jehan said nothing. An animosity and anger he had never felt before was buzzing through his bones. He had never seen the man’s face but he recognised the voice. Hugin — Hrafn — the Raven, the man who had tortured him.
The Raven said in a faltering voice, ‘You must have seen some things here that are difficult to understand. I-’
‘Where are the monks?’ Jehan cut across him.
The Raven tilted back his head as if in thought. ‘Come, share my meal. The day has been hard for me, and I would welcome conversation and forgetfulness for a while.’
Jehan stepped towards the light. Hugin’s eyes flicked to the sword the confessor held. ‘There can be no calm talk while that is in your hand,’ he said.
‘You killed them?’
The Raven pursed his lips. ‘Not all of them, not yet,’ he said, ‘though that may yet turn out to be necessary. Please. Sit. I am not the monster that I might appear.’
Jehan lowered the sword to the floor and sat down beside it, pulling the Viking cloak about him. He had the instinct to attack this abomination but needed to know what had happened, why such strange forces were arrayed against the Lady Aelis.
The sorcerer stank of something, a deep, enticing odour of iron and salt.
‘Where are the monks?’ Jehan watched his breath clouding the candlelight in the freezing air.
‘Below.’
‘Live or dead?’
‘Both.’
‘Below where?’
‘I will show you soon enough.’ The voice was not the one that Jehan had heard in front of the king, or nursing him through the torture beneath the beaks of the birds. That voice had been calm and even. Now the Raven stammered and his words were faint and weak, scarcely audible.
