'Where's the relic gone?' Mallory asked.
'Stefan took it. The Blues came with him one night, transferred it to another box. Stefan… Blaine… the Blues… I think they've got a secret stash of food. Not much, but enough to keep them going.'
'Where did they take it?'
Gardener sat up in the pew, a hiss of air escaping between his teeth. At first, Mallory thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he said, 'I need you to help me. You do that and I'll tell you.'
'I haven't got time-'
'You do this or you'll never find out!' His voice cracked with hysteria again.
Mallory sighed. 'What do you want?'
'I want you to help me to rescue Daniels.'
There was an odd note to Gardener's voice, and Mallory could tell it was because he didn't want his betrayal mentioned. The act weighed on him, had probably been the thing that finally broke him.
'Where is he?'
'They took him to the infirmary.'
'The infirmary?'
'They were trying to cure him…' Gardener's voice trailed away, the silence carrying the weight of too many unspoken words.
They were trying to cure Daniels of his sexuality. It sounded insane, but Mallory knew it was only an extension of views that had common currency within living memory. 'Come on,' he said with restrained anger.
Their footsteps echoed loudly up the stairwell to the infirmary. They had to rest at regular intervals to allow Gardener to gather his strength for the climb. In the glow of the candle Mallory had lit on entering, Gardener's face looked like a skull, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, the skin hanging from his bones; the only thing keeping him going was the hardness that had always set him apart.
The white-tiled room had grown filthy since the last time Mallory had seen it, and the sickeningly fruity smell of decomposition still filled the air, although the bodies had been removed. Gardener appeared oblivious to it.
'He's down here,' he said, limping with a strangely innocent eagerness.
They hurried through the deserted wards, the stained sheets left in disarray on the beds. In the corridor beyond, Mallory glanced into the room that had been reserved for Hipgrave and was shocked to see the knight still there. He lay on his bed in the dark, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling and looking remarkably well fed and healthy.
'He's off his rocker,' Gardener said without pausing. 'Nobody let him out in case he was dangerous.'
'Very compassionate,' Mallory muttered. He resolved to break down the door on the way back.
Daniels' room was at the far end of the corridor. The lock shattered easily under a few blows from Mallory's shoulder. Daniels lay on his bed, too weak to get up, but he rolled his head and smiled wanly when he saw Mallory.
Mallory quickly poured a cup of water from a jug next to the bed and supported Daniels' head so he could wash some on to his dry, cracked lips; it didn't look as though anyone had been in to care for him for a couple of days at least. In the background, Gardener shifted uncomfortably as if he was getting ready to run.
'Well, isn't this a pretty picture.' Daniels tried to laugh, but it became a hacking cough.
Mallory was drawn to a black stain on Daniels' trousers around his groin.
Daniels saw him looking and began to weep uncontrollably. 'They cut it off, Mallory! They cut it off!'
In horrified disbelief, Mallory turned to Gardener, seeking a denial. Gardener wouldn't meet his eyes.
Daniels' crying turned to a low giggle; his awful trial had left him balanced on the edge, his emotions untethered. 'I think they mustn't have tied off their stitches properly!' he said. 'Those boys… can't do anything right! But at least the bleeding's stopped now.'
Gardener was crying silently, too, wiping his eyes repeatedly in an anxious manner that suggested he, too, was on the edge of a breakdown fuelled by guilt and self-hatred. Mallory felt sickened: so much suffering and hardship, so many broken lives, and a pointlessness to it all that made it almost incomprehensible.
His thoughts were disturbed by the echoes of several pairs of feet rushing up the stairs.
'Don't leave me!' Daniels pleaded.
'You stay with him. Block the door with the bed, if you can,' Mallory said to Gardener.
'Stefan's got the relic with him all the time now,' Gardener said. 'He's locked himself in the bishop's palace.'
As he drew his sword and slipped out, Mallory saw Gardener drop to his knees and falteringly take Daniels' hand. Daniels smiled weakly.
Mallory moved tentatively into the corridor. The running feet had slowed now; they were cautious, ready for him. The flickering light of a lantern playing down the corridor told him they'd entered the ward. If they wanted a fight, his best bet was to take them in the corridor where they could only come at him one at a time. He gripped his sword ready, his mind focused, but as he passed Hipgrave's room, the play of faint light told him it was empty. Curiously, he tried the handle; it was still locked.
Before he could understand what had happened, a huge outcry erupted in the ward. He rushed to the end of the corridor to see eight Blues in furious attack caught in the glitter of a lantern lying discarded at the foot of a bed. The uncertain illumination made it difficult to discern what was going on. There was movement, hacking swords, constant running back and forth, faces caught for just an instant, white with concentration and tinged with fear. But their adversary remained firmly in the shadows so that all the motion with no result made the scene faintly comic.
But then there was a wet sound like the contents of a paint tin being thrown against a wall. One of the knights staggered back, trying to hold in his intestines. A second later, an arm skidded across the floor. Someone else backpedalled with a stump where his neck and head should have been. The butchery was so fast and clean it was mesmerising.
The flash of something that resembled an enormous arm stuck with knives snapped Mallory from his trance. He knew what it was, and he now knew who it was. Hipgrave was the host for the thing they had brought back. Of course, it had to be Hipgrave, his madness growing as he was eaten away by guilt, knowing of his crimes but unable to do anything about them. Mallory had no idea how it had passed through the locked door of the room, how it worked at all, but he did know he would be as dead as the Blues would inevitably be if he didn't move.
Mallory slipped along the wall and then clambered over the beds, ignoring the blood that sprayed over him as if it had come from a hose. He couldn't help one look into the heart of the shadows, but whatever lay there resisted any attempt to identify it.
The sounds behind him grew worse, turning his stomach; soon the thing would be finished and free to pursue him. He skidded out into the white-tiled room and came face to face with Blaine lurking in the gloom of one corner. The commander's sword was drawn.
Blaine didn't speak, didn't feel the need to for the benefit of someone so far beneath his contempt. Mallory could read it in his cold, hard eyes: Mallory was just a distraction to be dispatched at the earliest opportunity. Blaine's attention was partly distracted by the noises coming from the ward, which were winding down now.
Mallory stepped in quickly and swung his sword. Blaine was quick to block it, the collision sending jarring vibrations into Mallory's arms. But the fact that Mallory had almost caught him unawares clearly irritated Blaine. Anger flashed across his face and he launched into a calculated but relentless attack that drove Mallory on to his back foot.
Blaine was an excellent swordsman, moving with grace and strength and an eye for his opponent's weaknesses. What added to his threatening pose was an icy composure that made him a brutal machine; his features remained fixed, his arm moving with strokes timed to the millimetre and the microsecond. Mallory had learned his lessons well, but he wasn't even close to Blaine's ability.
It was all he could do to keep Blaine from driving straight through his defence into his heart. In fact, as he batted away the curt moves while backing across the room, he felt that Blaine was simply making him suffer before he decided it was time for the killing blow.
In the ward, the sounds of attack faded away.
This time, it was Mallory's turn to be distracted. Blaine saw an opening and rammed his blade through. It cracked against Mallory's shoulder blade, cutting through the skin, but Blaine whipped it back before it did any more damage; still toying.
