Hill of Bones (29 page)

William stared distractedly at her. ‘Run away. Where will you go? Have you friends who—’

‘Here. I’ve run away here to you. I’m going to stay with you, become one of your disciples. And . . .’ she hesitated, blushing, ‘. . . when we are married, then—’

‘Married!’ William repeated aghast.

‘Of course we will be married. Did you think I wouldn’t consent to be your wife? You said that I was chosen to be your consort. You said our lovemaking would create the divine energy that would transform the world, like the alchemist can turn lead into gold.’ She beamed at him. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t accept you as my husband? How modest you are.’

For a moment, William was at a loss for words, then he recovered himself. ‘What . . . what about your father – does he know this is where you were that night?’

‘He questioned the stable boy and the snivelling little sneak told him everything.’

William groaned. The last thing he needed tonight was some irate father storming up the hill to retrieve his runaway daughter and interrupting the exorcism. That would ruin everything. If he didn’t get his hands on the mirror tonight, he’d never get another chance, for the man would hardly be likely to return, not if some merchant arrived and accused him of seducing the girl.

‘Ursula, you can’t stay here. This is the first place your father will look when he finds you missing and you don’t want him discovering you here and dragging you straight off to that nunnery.’

‘But where can I go? I can’t go back home.’ She was struggling to hold back the tears.

William suddenly saw that she was no wanton seductress, only a scared little girl. A spasm of guilt flickered through him, but it passed almost before he recognised it.

‘Do you have an aunt or uncle, a cousin perhaps, in some neighbouring town?’

‘My grandmother lives in Saltford, but I can’t go there. She’s more strict than my father. She’d take me straight to the nunnery herself, probably an even worse one.’

William frowned, thinking rapidly. ‘If I send Martin to your father’s house with a message to say you are with your grandmother that will give you time to get away.’

And, he thought, stop the old man charging up here, at least for tonight. Tomorrow, he didn’t care where the girl’s father searched, he would be on his way to a port with that mirror.

Ursula’s fearful expression melted away and, smiling, she held out her hand to him. ‘Then I can stay here.’

‘No!’ The word burst out of William more forcibly than he had intended.

Ursula’s eyes opened wide in alarm.

William tried to speak more calmly. ‘Martin’s message will buy you only a night and, perhaps a day, at the most. Sooner or later your father is bound to find out you are not with your grandmother and come searching up here. Do you have money with you?’

The abrupt question seemed to startle her. ‘A . . . a little and my jewels.’

At least that was something, William thought. Best to send her to a city where she could easily lose herself among the crowd and where the arrival of a girl travelling alone would pass unremarked and unremembered.

‘You must ride to Bristol, Ursula. There, take lodgings at an inn and wait for me.’

Ursula looked stricken. ‘But I’ve been there only once with my parents. I can’t travel alone. You have to come with me!’

‘There are many troubled souls coming to see me tonight. I must stay to help them, but in a day or two my work here will be over and I will follow you. There is a woman in the city who sells spices in the market place near the cross. Everyone knows her. Goes by the name of Pavia. I will leave word with her when I’ve arrived and tell you where to meet me.’

‘But why—’

He pressed his fingers gently to her soft hot lips. He had to get rid of her, and quickly.

‘Listen to me, Ursula. I am Serkan the prophet and God has chosen you to be my consort. No power on earth will be able to separate us. He will watch over you until I am at your side once more.’ He took both her hands in his and lifted them to his chest. ‘You believe in me, Ursula, don’t you? You have faith in me? I need to know you do not doubt me or my powers. I must know that you believe!’

‘I do! I swear I do.’ Her eyes once more took on that shine of adoration.

He bent and kissed her chastely on the forehead, laying his hand on her head. ‘Bless you, Ursula, bless you, my beloved. Now go and do as I command. Have faith and I will come to you.’

He watched as she led her horse down the steep hillside. She turned once and he held up his hand as if in benediction. He sighed. She was a beautiful creature, a man could be very happy with her for a few months at least. Though he hadn’t intended to do so, now he rather thought he might go and find her once he had the mirror safely in his possession. Sea voyages could be long and exceedingly dull without a woman to while away the hours.

Having dispatched Martin on his errand to Ursula’s house, William devoted his attention to the preparations for that night. He had constructed a fire pit close to the northern lip of the hill. The pit was shallow, and the kindling dry and thin. He wanted the fire to give off more flame than heat, at least to begin with. Just behind it, he carefully cut a sod from the soil, and excavated a shallow hole beneath it. Then he filled the hole with a small leafy branch cut from a bush and replaced the sod. The branch held the sod at ground level, disguising the hole beneath. As long as no one trod on it, no casual glance would reveal it and William intended he should be the only one standing behind the fire. He checked that all the things he would need lay ready beside the pit – an earthenware jar of water, a fire pot in which charcoal burned, and the fumigant. All was ready, there was nothing more he could do now but wait.

Twilight crept in even before the sun had set. Deep purple and slate-coloured clouds had been rising all afternoon and now they towered like great battlements around the hill, plunging it into premature darkness. The wind was gathering strength; dry and hot as the blast from an oven, it dashed dust into stinging eyes and whipped limbs with fragments of broken twigs.

William stared anxiously down at the valley. There was no procession of torches winding its way towards the hill. The people of Bath had evidently decided to stay safely in their homes on a night like this. But what about the man with the mirror – was he desperate enough to make the journey? On the hillside the bushes swayed in the darkness so that it looked as if they were creeping up towards him. On such a night an assassin might easily steal up the hill and not even the sharpest lookout would see him. William found himself frantically praying for the man with the mirror to come. He could not bear another night of terror waiting for a dagger to be plunged in his back, or a blade to be drawn across his throat. He had to get away. He had to get that mirror tonight.

He was so consumed with fear that he didn’t even notice the pinprick of lantern-light coming along the track from Bath, until the two riders had almost reached the base of the hill. When he finally glimpsed them, he had to stop himself running down the hill to meet them. Instead he forced himself to concentrate on the task of lighting the fire. His fear and the gusting wind made him fumble, but finally, after blowing out several times, the dried kindling took hold and the wind whipped up the blaze, sending the flames whirling around the pit like witches at the Devil’s Sabbat.

As he looked up again he saw the two men advancing and his stomach gave a lurch of relief. But William could afford to waste no time in greetings. With an imperious wave of his hand he summoned his disciples who had been watching and waiting, knowing that something was afoot.

William motioned his two visitors to sit on the ground a little way from the fire and his followers sat themselves down behind them. An expectant hush fell upon the crowd as they waited to see what he would do. William could feel their mounting anticipation. They were expecting something special tonight. And he was determined they would not be disappointed.

He took a long stick and charred the end in the fire, then solemnly drew three wide concentric circles around the fire. No one moved or spoke. He could feel the gaze of every man and woman fixed intently upon him.

Charring the stick anew each time, he wrote signs and symbols in each of the circles in turn, calling out the names of what he wrote in a deep booming voice that rose above the roar of the wind. First, ‘Armatus’, the name of the summer moon, though there was not a glimpse of a moon to be seen tonight beneath the deep clouds. Next he wrote the names of the angels of summer – ‘Gargatel’, ‘Tariel’ and ‘Gaviel’. Then he called out the names of all the angels of the air and the four names of God. Finally, in the outer circle, with a great flourish he inscribed four pentagrams, pointing towards the north, east, south and west of the hill. He had just drawn the last stroke when a long rumble of thunder echoed round the valley. William raised his stick as if he was commanding the thunder and the disciples huddled closer together, staring up in awe.

William dipped a bunch of broom fronds into the jar of water and flung drops around the circles and over the small crowd, who flinched and gasped as the water touched them as if the drops were gold coins thrown by a king.

Then he strode into the circles and stood before the fire in silence, his arms folded. His disciples held their breath in expectation.

‘Bring the cursed mirror to me,’ he commanded.

But the man did not move and, for a few sickening moments, William thought he was going to refuse. Finally his servant scrambled to his feet and, wrenching the mirror from his master’s trembling fingers, he marched towards William and placed it in his hands, before retreating to stand in the shadows behind the group of disciples.

William almost howled in delight as he finally felt the weight of the silver mirror in his hands. He stared down into it. His face was reflected back up at him, framed by a halo of glistening pearls, and rubies that drew the very flames of the fire into their blood-red hearts.

He was close now, so close. He scooped up a handful of sulphur from the fumigant jar. With the other hand he held the mirror high aloft in the raven-black sky. There was another great rumble of thunder, louder than before. William felt the power surge through him as if he could command the whole universe.

‘By the thrones of Beralans, Baldachis, Paumachia and Apologia, by their kings and proud powers and powerful princes, by the attendant spirits of Liachis, the servant of the throne of hell, I invoke you. I conjure you. I command you in the three secret names – Agla, On and Tetragrammaton – foul fiend come forth from this mirror!’

William threw the handful of sulphur onto the flames and a dense cloud of stinking yellow smoke exploded upwards, swallowing him and the mirror. All he had to do now was lift the turf off the hole he had prepared behind the fire and drop the mirror into it, but he never got the chance.

Just as he threw the sulphur there was a great roar and something huge and shaggy rose up the hill and burst out of the darkness behind him. William shrieked and stumbled backwards, stepping onto the hole; the twigs supporting the turf broke under his weight and he was pitched forward. The mirror flew out of his hand and fell into the dense smoke and flames of the fire.

With a clanking of iron chains and maniacal howls, the creature skirted around the prone figure of William and bounded towards the crowd. At the sight of the wild man cavorting towards them out of the dense yellow smoke, the disciples tried to scramble up, but they had huddled together so tightly that they were pushing each other back down in their struggle.

Godfrey had eyes for only one man. The king, sitting slightly forward of the disciples, had scrambled to his feet as soon as he caught sight of the figure. Now he was backing away to the edge of the hill, his arms held protectively across his face. He seemed to be praying or whimpering, Godfrey didn’t know which, and wasn’t going to wait to find out. His dagger was already in his hand as he crept around to the edge of the hill, and crouched, waiting for Henry to back just a little further away from the glow of the fire.

One swift thrust of the dagger, a hard shove over the edge, was all it would take to change the fate of England. And when the crumpled body was found tomorrow at the bottom of the hill, why, who would be blamed but the vagabond prophet who had stolen the valuable mirror?

‘Come to me, my liege,’ Godfrey whispered into the roaring wind. ‘Just a little further, just a few more steps and it will all be over.’

A crack of blue lightning split the sky, and at once rain began to pour down in fat heavy drops. Godfrey was distracted for only a moment, but for Henry this new omen from the sky was more than his battered mind could cope with. He threw himself, face down, on the ground, his arms stretched out in the form of a cross, as if he was a monk doing penance before the altar.

Godfrey dashed the water from his eyes and swiftly glanced around. The disciples were fleeing in all directions. The wild man had slipped on the wet grass and was floundering around trying to regain his footing under the cumbersome costume, and Serkan seemed to have vanished. Henry lay motionless on the ground, as if waiting for the mercy of the executioner’s knife that would put an end to his nightmare.

Godfrey crept forward as silently as he could, not that any stealth was needed, for the beating of the rain and crash of thunder would have masked the sound of an army. As he reached the King’s feet he hesitated. It is much easier to stab a standing man in the back than one who is prone. He’d have to kneel and strike in one fluid movement before Henry could sense the presence of someone beside him and turn his head.

He braced himself, choosing the spot, raising the dagger in both fists ready to plunge it in. If he hadn’t been so intent on his mark, he might have seen the wild man throw up his hands in horror. He might have heard the actor cry out a warning, but he didn’t.

He had taken but a single step towards the prone body of the King when he heard the savage roar behind him; he half turned to glimpse something huge and dark rearing up behind him, the red mouth open in a snarl, the long white fangs bared. As another crack of lightning illuminated the full savagery of the great beast towering over him, Godfrey tried to strike out with the dagger he held, but he was too late, far too late. A huge paw struck him on the side of his head. The curved claws tore the flesh from his face, and with a single agonised scream, Godfrey tumbled over the side of the hill and vanished into the darkness below.