had been asphyxiated by the smoke. The thought came and went like a footprint in the sand, washed away by the cold tide of hunger.
One voice stopped singing and said, ‘Brothers Paul and Simon. Who are you?’
‘Brother Jehan, of Saint-Germain.’ It was as if he was shouting his name over a high wind. He felt tormented, almost unable to think.
‘The confessor of Paris?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you come to save us?’
‘I cannot save you.’
The song of the man on his right continued:
‘A thousand may fall at your side,
Ten thousand fall at your right,
You, it will never approach,
His faithfulness is buckler and shield.’
‘Are you strong enough to sing, brother? We must keep the song going. This abomination has befallen us because we allowed it to stop.’
Jehan couldn’t reply. He moved his leg. Something bobbed against it.
‘We are to die,’ said the monk. ‘Thank God for the gift of our martyrdom.’ His words were brave but his voice was quaking. Jehan could tell the man was cold. Jehan was cold too, very cold.
‘Where are we?’
‘In the lower cave, at Christ’s well.’
The song went on:
‘See how the wicked are repaid,
You who have said, “Lord, my refuge!”’
‘Where is that?’
‘There is a tunnel from the crypt. It drops to here, a holy well beneath the earth. The Norsemen slaughtered us without pity. It is polluted now.’
Something else bobbed against the confessor’s arm. Something else too, tickling his hands. Weed? No, there was a solid form behind it. Jehan grasped it and felt around with his fingers. He ran them across something hard and smooth, a semicircle of ridges and bumps. Then he let go. What he had in his hand was hair, he realised, and they were teeth he felt with his fingers.
‘Can you move?’ said Jehan.
‘No. Are you not tied?’
‘I am tied.’
‘Then it is useless. He will be waiting for us. He means us to die here.’
Jehan swallowed. He was trembling too. The song to his right faltered.
He strained forward and coughed. Something was at his neck. A noose. He tried to work it free by twisting his head but that only made things worse. It was tight now, not crushing his windpipe, not even cutting off his blood, but he knew that any more struggling could kill him.
And then he saw it — a light coming towards him. It was a candle. Surely some of the monks had survived; surely some of the Vikings would become sick of waiting and break in. He saw where he was — a pool in a natural cavern, its ceiling an arm’s reach above his head. Three big pillars of limestone sank from the roof into the water, and it was to these that the men had been bound. To his right was the singing monk, spluttering out the words of the psalm. To his left another, fatter monk. Both men were chattering and shaking with the cold.
All around them, the bodies floated or hung in the water, pale as dead fish in a pond, their human juices, blood, shit and piss, voided from the body by death, turning the pool to a stinking soup. The monks had been murdered, no doubt — some by the sword, some by the nooses tied with three close-fitting knots.
The Raven put down the candle by the edge of the pool. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This terror is… required.’
‘Unclean thing,’ said Jehan, ‘abomination, sorcerer-’ The rope dug into his neck, choking him. ‘I am not afraid of you.’
The Raven smiled at him but there was no humour in his eyes.
‘It is not your terror the god wants. He looks for mine. These…’ he searched for a word but could not find one, so he used the confessor’s ‘… these abominations are not my inclination. Do not mistake me for the Roman who gloried in torture.’
Jehan tried to speak but could only cough.
The Raven continued: ‘We will both have what we want, monk. I will have my vision and you will be a martyr. When they find you they’ll make some rare art to commemorate this death. The pilgrims will wear medallions for you, no doubt.’
‘I-’
Jehan couldn’t speak.
The Raven sat down at the water’s edge. He rocked backwards and forwards intoning a chant quite different to the plainsong of the monks. This was low, guttural, and its metre pattered and stuttered, raced and paused in a dizzying tumble of Norse words.
‘Fenrisulfr,
Pinioned and bound,
Wolf, ravenous and tortured,
Great eater,
Godbane and blight,
I will suffer as you suffer.
For my agony
Insight,
For my terror
A vision…
The chant went on and on, the plainsong rising above it. The monk to his right failed and the other took up the recitation. The psalms had been sung every day in that place for hundreds of years. For what? thought Jehan. To keep this horror at bay. Had this abomination lain unfed for so long because the monks had kept to their vigil?
The cold numbed him, the chants made his head feel like a ripe fig, straining to split its skin. Do you know what they did to me? Do you know what they did? There was a voice in his ear full of rage and hatred. He was in a different place. Or rather it was the same place but changed. There was no pool at all. The room was dry, in fact parched. His nostrils stung and his tongue seemed cased in sand. Around the pillar to his right wound a great serpent, gold, red and green, dripping venom from its lips. It stretched up over his head, curled about the pillar that secured him and down the pillar to his left. On that, pinioned like him, was an extraordinary sight.
A tall pale man with a shock of red hair was screaming as the serpent dripped venom into his eyes. His skin was red raw where the venom burned it, his hair singed to patches, his eyes dark as liver, his lips black and charred. Acrid steam issued from the flesh as the venom trickled and seared.
‘Can you not free me, my son?’ The voice was imploring, between a sob and a scream.
‘I am tied myself.’ Suddenly Jehan’s thinking was clear.
‘They tied you like they tied me, the gods of darkness and slaughter.’
‘Can we get out?’
‘We will get out. It is foreseen.’
‘Where is the Raven? Where is that creature?’ Jehan shouted.
‘Gone.’
‘He deserves death.’
‘He is death’s servant. He serves the god in the noose.’
For the first time in his life Jehan felt afraid. This thing in front of him was in torment but it had a presence that seemed to make the air heavy around it. An awful thought came to him: This is hell. His pride had undone him and he had been sent to the lake of fire. ‘You are a devil,’ he said, ‘and this is hell.’
‘Hell fears you, Fenrisulfr. Its halls tremble to hear your voice.’
