The Book of Beasts (17 page)

‘Your Jeannie carries a fine tune,' said Solon, looking up at the arrow slits, the only openings in the tower other than the door.

Removing his parka, Matt tore out another piece of the lining to use as a canvas, leaned against the stone wall and began to draw. Seconds later, he shoved Solon out of the way as the air above him rustled and a wooden ladder fell from nowhere.

After Matt had helped Solon up from the rocks, the boys manoeuvred the ladder against the wall, driving its wooden legs securely into the sand.

‘I'll climb,' said Matt. ‘You watch for any changes in the door animation, or for anyone coming across the bay. If I can see into the arrow slit at the top, I might be able to talk to Jeannie before we risk breaking in.'

Against the backdrop of Jeannie's lilting song and the slap of the water on the rocky shore, Matt began to climb the ladder. He felt a little like the prince about to rescue Rapunzel.

The turret room looked like a tableau from Madam Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors.

Jeannie was sitting on a bale of hay against one wall, her wrists and ankles in iron cuffs that were soldered to rings and mortared into the stones behind her. But the worst thing was the great iron mask encasing Jeannie's head, with only a narrow letter box opening for her eyes. The mask was cuffed round Jeannie's neck and, like her wrists and ankles, soldered to a heavy ring attached to the wall behind her. The air in the room was thick with dust. It was lit with one stinking tallow candle.

Jeannie stopped singing the moment she saw Matt at the arrow slit.

‘Mattie, I'm OK. Don't fret, son,' she said in a hoarse whisper. Her love fluttered through the crevices in the stone tower and brushed Matt's skin like a warm breeze. ‘And so are yer mum and Em. They got home fine.'

Relief washed over him, but then such sadness that he could barely find his voice. He bit hard at the inside of his cheeks, determined not to cry. ‘I'll get you free, Jeannie,' he said. ‘I promise. I have help.'

Jeannie stirred. ‘No, son, you won't risk your life to save mine. What's about tae happen, I set in motion the moment I came back to these early days and called up that wave from beneath the islands. I upset the balance of things, and I roused Albion.

‘The hollow in the earth far beneath the islands is a sacred enchanted place, a place out of time. The most powerful among our kind – those of us born on the islands and of the islands – are connected to this place in unique ways. Albion was the first, and he dwells now and forever with the beasts in Hollow Earth. During dangerous times, his descendants can communicate with him.' She began coughing with a wretched wracking sound.

Solon rattled the ladder beneath Matt's feet. ‘Torches coming across the bay,' he called. ‘Hurry. We need to flee this place.'

Matt gripped the ladder more tightly. He couldn't leave Jeannie like this.

‘But, Jeannie, if you're such a powerful Animare, can't you imagine a way out?' he asked in desperation.

‘I've tried, son, but I think Malcolm has been poisoning me. I've stopped taking his food and water, but for the moment I can't imagine anything fer tuppence and my hands are useless.' She rattled her wrists against the iron rings on her wrists and fingers.

Poison
? Matt struggled to stay focused, to keep the terror at bay. ‘How is my dad
doing
all of this? He's a Guardian, he can't animate anything. He's been bound in a picture for over ten years, for God's sake!'

Jeannie's body was wracked again with another coughing fit. For a second the clouds shifted, and the little cell was illuminated by a shaft of moonlight piercing the arrow slit above Matt's head. Upended on the hay next to Jeannie was a bowl and tankard. The hay under the tankard had turned purple.

‘Matt, you must come down,' yelled Solon. ‘Our enemy is almost upon us.'

‘I won't accept that we're helpless against him,' shouted Matt to Jeannie through the arrow slit. ‘There has to be some way to stop him. If we don't, he'll find the book and use the bone quill. Then he'll control the beasts in Hollow Earth. It'll change the future. It'll change everything!'

‘I know, son, I know.' Jeannie's words were slurring a little. ‘There is only one way you might stop him.'

‘Tell me, Jeannie! Please!'

Jeannie tried to turn her head, but it was impossible. ‘Trap the Grendel,' she said. ‘Lead it into Hollow Earth. Finish
The
Book of Beasts
. Complete the mission of the monks of Era Mina.'

Matt thought he was going to be sick. ‘Jeannie, I can't… I don't know how to do that.'

‘When the time is right, son, you'll know… you'll know what you must do. Albion will help you. He'll get you home.'

Matt could hear oars now, splashing across the water towards the tower.

‘I want ye tae ken that I hoped when you and Em finally came home tae us, that we'd have much more time together,' Jeannie whispered. ‘I'm awful sorry, son.'

Matt shoved his hand through the arrow slit, desperate to reach Jeannie even though he knew it wasn't possible.

‘Matt!' Solon hissed. ‘There's no more time!'

‘I have to go,' Matt choked. ‘I must leave now. I'll be back for you.'

Jeannie's head was drooping. The weight of the mask was too great for her to hold up for much longer. Her eyes seemed to grow smaller through the slit. Matt knew that behind the iron mask, she was smiling goodbye.

‘Be brave, son. And always know that I love you and Em like my own.'

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Matt climbed back down the ladder.

‘We may need your galaxy weapon again,' said Solon, pointing at the sea as Matt climbed down the ladder.

Row upon row of Malcolm's black knights were rising up out of the waves and heading towards them, the helix symbols on their breastplates shining with a brilliant white light.

‘No time, Solon, and nothing left to draw on,' said Matt. He wiped his eyes, unsheathing the dagger Solon had taken from one of the sleeping monks and given to him. ‘We'll have to fight.'

‘I can draw in the sand,' Solon said suddenly.

He dashed round to the other side of the tower, where he remained for several long moments. Then Solon skidded back, sending a spray of sand into the air. His pride was obvious in his wide grin.

‘I don't know how long my animation will work,' he said. ‘I suggest we leave the island immediately.'

‘What did you do?'

Solon grinned more broadly. ‘I stopped the sea.'

Matt stared. Malcolm's black knights continued to rise out of the water, but the first row of figures was stuck in thick swamp mud and unable to move. This had a domino effect on each successive row, forcing them to crash into the one in front, exploding each row on contact, their toxic bodies dissolving into the sea.

‘Clever,' said Matt, holding his fist up to bump Solon.

Solon looked shocked. ‘You want to hit me now?'

‘Sorry, I keep forgetting you're not Zach,' Matt said, sheepishly lowering his hand. ‘Or Em.'

Solon looked even more mystified. ‘You hit your family and friends?'

‘Don't worry about it,' said Matt, clapping the young monk on the back instead.

He was about to climb into the boat when he paused and gazed at the floundering knights out in the water.

‘I think using the boat again is a bad idea. We'll be pretty vulnerable out there.'

Solon closed his eyes. Like a stealth drone, the peryton landed next to the boys in a squall of air and sand. Matt had never been so glad to see it.

From high above the islands on the peryton's wide white back, it was possible to see the pale glow of the rising sun over the Scottish countryside.

‘We don't have much time before dawn to find your master,' said Matt over the beat of the peryton's wings. ‘Man,' he added, rubbing his growling stomach, ‘I need porridge or a big slice of bread slathered with Jeannie's jam.' The thought of food, and of Jeannie trapped in that hideous mask, made his stomach pitch. He swallowed the tears before Solon could see.

Solon pointed at a curl of white smoke from the hamlet outside the monastery's walls. ‘Someone has returned,' he said. ‘They will have food.'

The peryton swooped into a steep dive, landing with the boys at the rear of a cluster of wooden buildings surrounding a field that was divided up into quarters, each growing a different crop. Two mangy goats were tethered to a nearby fence pole, a milking bucket tipped over beneath them. Matt could hear the low mooing of a cow, but he couldn't see the animal anywhere in the cluster of buildings. The air reeked of peat, pig fat, rotting vegetables and waste. A pain twisted behind Matt's eyes. He suddenly felt dreadful.

‘You will get used to our odours,' Solon said, amused as Matt gagged at the stench. ‘The privy is to blame.' He pointed to a hole surrounded by straw and sacks of sand. ‘The muck is spread over the fields before planting in the spring.'

To their right stood a long rectangular thatched structure with double wooden doors open at one end and a smaller arched door at the other. A mill wheel turned on the water at the burn nearby. Matt smelled something pleasant wafting through the open doors: bacon and woodsmoke. His stomach betrayed him once again.

‘This is James Guthrie's cottage,' said Solon, starting forward. ‘The miller. He lives here with his children, Fraser the gatekeeper and his daughter. Perhaps he will give us some food.'

The main room in the miller's cottage was warm and dark, the shutters on the windows closed against the chill of the morning. It was comfortably furnished with wooden chairs covered with sheep skins; deer pelts hung on the walls for insulation and an open sleeping loft stretched the length of the structure and was lined with straw. A sturdy table carved from pine was laid for a meal, and freshly baked bread was waiting on a warming stone in an open hearth in the centre of the long room. A pig was sitting on a spit above smouldering slabs of peat; a cauldron of mashed turnips was being kept warm on the fire. But the cottage's inhabitants were nowhere to be seen.

Matt stepped closer to the sizzling meat and inhaled. Carik's fat rabbit felt like hours ago.

‘We have got to have some of this,' he said.

But Solon had moved past the hearth. Matt followed him. Despite his growing discomfort and his now thumping headache, he looked over his shoulder at the roasting meat.
Maybe eating would make me feel better.

At the farthest end of the room was a fenced pen, behind which stood the cow Matt had heard mooing earlier. He stopped in amazement, gazing at the cow and several squealing wild pigs.

‘The animals live in the same room as the people?' he said in disgust.

‘Of course.' Solon was gazing around the cottage with a frown on his face. ‘That cow and those pigs are more important to this family than some of their relatives.'

Matt experienced an unsettling rush of emotion coming from his companion. ‘What's wrong?' he asked. ‘You're worried.'

Solon lifted the gate to the animal's pen and went inside.

‘The straw is fresh and the animals have recently been fed,' he said, coming out again. ‘So where are James and his bairns? And the others that live here – Fraser and Jo, his daughter? My sister Margaret oftentimes cooks for them. They would never leave the hearth untended like this. This emptiness disturbs me.'

Hunger was overwhelming Matt's senses. It had been days since he'd eaten anything substantial. ‘I can't think about anything else until I've eaten,' he blurted.

He unsheathed his knife, wiped it on his jeans and cut a thick slice of meat from the thickest part of the pig. Then he sat at the table, tore a chunk from the warm bread, wrapped it round the meat and crammed it into his mouth. The crispy skin on the pork burned his tongue, but it was worth it.