Thunder God (22 page)

‘There!’ shouted Cabal, ‘There it is!’

Just then, I saw a figure clad in a brown robe. It was a priest. The top of his head was shaved, leaving a ring of hair round the edge of his skull. He popped up from the hole, glanced at us, then grabbed the trapdoor handle and pulled it down over him. Wood clanked against stone as it slammed shut.

We ran to the altar platform and clawed our fingers around the edges of the door, but the fit was tight and there were no handles.

‘The tunnel is down there.’ Cabal drew his sword and worked the blade into the crack between the wood and stone. A moment later the sword snapped with a strange musical clank and Cabal fell back cursing.

I heard a noise behind us and turned to see a movement back among the benches. I ran down the aisle and found another priest, cowering behind the seats.

I hauled him up by the scruff of his thick robe and dragged him over to the altar.

Cabal barked a question in his face.

The man shook his head.

Now Cabal grabbed him by the neck and forced him down to his knees, bending his head over the trap door. Again he shouted the question and once more the priest shook his head. Cabal slammed the priest’s face against the trap door, then wrenched him to his feet and shouted in his ear.

The priest moaned and held one hand against his nose, blood pouring between his fingers. With the other hand, he pointed to a gap in the stone where the floor of the platform met the wall.

Cabal went over to the gap and drew out a long metal rod, almost as long as my arm, with a loop at the end. He dropped it in front of the priest, who slowly picked it up and pointed the end of the rod at a tiny hole in the stone at the base of the platform. He was crying now, as he tapped the iron rod weakly around the edge of the hole.

Cabal snatched the rod out of the priest’s hands and slid it into the hole until we heard a clunk. One end of the door popped up just enough that we could get our fingers under it.

I lifted the door and looked down a flight of narrow steps, lit by a torch placed in a metal holder. I went down first, grabbed the torch and waited for Cabal to follow. But there was no sign of him. I called his name, and when he still did not appear, I climbed back up the steps to see what had happened to him.

Cabal was talking to the priest in a low voice, his fist bunched in the priest’s heavy brown robe. I thought he was going to let the man go, but then Cabal picked him up and with a roaring bellow heaved him through one of the stained-glass windows. The panes smashed out around the frail, cloaked figure of the priest, filling the room with glittering greens and browns and reds as the sun flickered through the flying glass. Then came the thump of the priest’s body when it struck the
ground. After a pause, I was surprised to hear the sound of his footsteps running away among the gravestones.

We clambered down the staircase into the tunnel and Cabal followed me as I ran into the darkness, carrying the torch. In the sandy ground were imprints of sandalled footsteps and the drag marks of what must have been the chest. The ceiling of the tunnel was low and the walls were narrow. We ran hunched over and the rustling chorus of our breathing returned to us from the walls of rock and earth which passed by as if they were moving and not us. In places, the walls were wet and sparkling with crystals, which looked like the eyes of thousands of insects. The rest of the passage was dry and dusty, marked by the tools which had carved it out. Flakes of ash, thrown down by the torch, singed my hair.

Suddenly, from down the tunnel came the glow of another torch.

We skidded to a stop.

My heart was beating in my throat.

Cabal leaned over my shoulder and brought his face close to mine. When he spoke, his voice was soft, like the voice of a lover. ‘Kill them all,’ he said.

We ran through the tunnel. Our torch scraped along the tunnel roof, sending down a rain of dirt and sparks.

The walls seemed to be narrowing. Ice-white crystals blistered on the walls. Darkness rushed behind us like a silent wave, and I felt panic closing in on me. The tunnel veered to the left and when I rounded the corner, I saw something that even my worst nightmares could not have invented.

It was a wall of human skulls.

I cried out and Cabal skidded into the back of me.

By the light of the torch, we stared at the dozens of
black-gaping
eye-sockets, the hundreds of bared teeth and
lightning-jagged
cracks which snaked across the craniums. The skulls were placed in careful rows, one beside the other, filling an alcove carved into the wall of the tunnel.

There was no time to stop, or even to wonder what kind of people would do this and why. We kept moving. Oily darkness swallowed the grotesquely sorted dead.

A little further on, we reached the source of the light we had seen earlier. A priest was trying to drag a heavy chest along the passageway. Lying on top of the chest was a large cross made of gold, studded with rubies and emeralds. With one hand, the priest gripped the leather side-strap of the
chest. With the other, he held up a torch, whose light winked off the jewels which were set into the cross. The old man was exhausted. Sweat darkened his robe and gleamed on his face.

We bore down on him along the gullet of the tunnel in an avalanche of chain-mail armour, shields and knives.

When the priest saw us, he dropped his torch and knelt before us, holding up his empty hands. ‘Brothers!’ he called to us in Norse.

We stopped before him, gasping for breath, caught off-guard by the fact that he could speak my language.

The man rose cautiously to his feet. Grey hair, like iron filings, flecked the darker strands around the edge of his
half-shaved
head. ‘I am your friend,’ he said. ‘I have lived among you as a missionary to the court of Harald Bluetooth. I converted many hundreds of your countrymen who had been blind to the mercy of God before I reached their shores.’ He pointed at the trunk. ‘The contents of this chest belong to God. Only to God.’

‘It belongs to us now.’ Cabal’s voice bounced off the walls, where crystals frothed like frog-spawn from the rock. ‘Do you not remember me, Ethelred?’

The priest stared at Cabal. Slowly, he narrowed his eyes. ‘How do you know my name? And remember you? From where?’

‘From the ground above our heads!’ snarled Cabal. ‘You do not remember me, who carried this cross for you so many times? The one you taught about your Christian hell and then forced him to live in it?’

‘Cabal?’ The man reached out, fingers pale and twitching.

Cabal slapped them aside. ‘That same hand beat me senseless more times than I can count. And worse! The things you did to me and called it love.’

Now I began to understand the source of Cabal’s hate, so terrible to him he could not even speak its name.

‘You ran away,’ said the priest.

‘Of course I ran away! A dog would have run away. And what do you have to say now?’

With careful movements, the old priest moved around to the other side of the trunk, fingers trailing over the cross. ‘Take the chest,’ he whispered, shrinking from the torch’s flame. ‘Take everything. It is yours.’ He turned and staggered away into the shadows.

Cabal walked after the old man. He did not need to run.

The priest shrieked when he heard the footsteps behind him. The sound sank into the walls.

After only a few paces, Cabal grabbed hold of the priest’s hood and hauled it back, knocking the old man off his feet. Then he bent down and set his knee on the man’s chest.

‘Let me live,’ the old man choked. ‘God will forgive you.’

‘It does not matter if he forgives me,’ said Cabal. ‘I do not forgive him.’

The old man clawed at Cabal, tearing at his clothes.

Cabal set his hands on either side of the priest’s head.

I turned away.

The darkness filled with screams.

When I looked back, Cabal was already on his feet, staring at the dead man. His whole body was trembling. Then he unhooked the latches of the trunk and swung it open.

I expected to be dazzled by the flash of coins, as I had been when I walked into the Emperor’s treasure room, so clumped with glittering wealth, heaped to overflowing from chests and strewn about so carelessly that the mosaics on the floor could hardly be seen. Instead, here, deep in the crystal-sweating earth, I saw only the dull brown lumps of leather bags.

Cabal fished one up, untied the leather lace which held the
mouth closed and poured out a clattering stream of silver and gold coins onto the other bags. ‘Now we have what we came for.’

We dragged the chest back to the entrance of the tunnel. I climbed the steps and stuck my head up. The church was empty. I went to the doorway and looked out across the square, which was deserted except for copper pots, broken crockery and the up-ended tables of the merchants. I heard no voices, no footsteps, not even the barking of dogs. The whole town seemed deserted, but it would not be long now before they organised themselves and began to hunt us down.

I could see from the direction of the distant river weeds that the tide was turning. We had to hurry or we would be rowing against the current. Then the Cymry could stop us before we reached the sea.

An overturned cart blocked the alley that led to the square. I jumped down off the wall and turned the cart back onto its wheels. Picking up the two wooden arms for fastening the horse into its traces, I pulled the cart to the foot of the church steps. Cabal and I slid the chest down the steps and heaved it onto the cart. From the weight, we could tell that it contained much more than 120 pounds of silver.

We hauled the cart along the same road we had used to reach the town, its iron-strapped wheels clattering noisily over the hard-packed earth.

We had not gone far when Cabal stopped.

‘What is it?’ I asked, looking around in case he had seen someone approaching.

‘We forgot the cross,’ he said.

It was true. I remembered seeing it by the door. ‘Too late now,’ I told him, wiping the sweat from my face.

‘I am not leaving without it,’ he said.

‘Cabal,’ I began, but then I fell silent, knowing it was useless
to reason with him. He had waited too long for this day. All that he had endured, and the pain of memories he had carried for so long in silence, were somehow contained in that cross.

‘I will catch up in a moment,’ he said. ‘You go on down the road.’

When I did not move, he gave me a gentle shove. ‘Go!’ Then he smiled. It was the smile of his old self. ‘I am untouchable. Remember?’

Then he ran back towards the town, and I kept moving in the other direction. Going down the slope, I found I could not stop the cart. It was all I could do to keep pace with it, and I was halfway up the other side before I felt again the drag of the cart’s weight on my arms.

It was hard to spot the turn-off down to the boat. Just when I was convinced I had passed it, I saw where our footprints had disturbed the tall grass. I ran the cart off the road and into the shade of the trees, then stopped to catch my breath. A warm breeze blew in off a field of barley, just across the road, cooling the sweat on my face. The barley swayed and changed colour, like the sea when clouds are passing overhead.

I pulled the cart down from the ridge, twisting it this way and that around the trees, until I reached the riverbank.

At first, I could not see the boat. Then I noticed it half-hidden by leafy branches which had been cut and thrown across the deck. There was no one on board. I was just about to call out Olaf’s name, when he rose from the weeds where he had been hiding up to his neck in the water, with river grass draped over his head.

‘What happened to Cabal?’ he asked, wiping the mud from his eyes as he climbed up onto the bank.

‘He went back for something,’ I said. ‘A cross.’

‘A cross?’ His jaw was shaking with cold.

‘Just help me get this silver on board.’

‘Is there enough?’ he asked.

‘More than enough.’

Olaf and I set to work loading the silver. Without Cabal, we were unable to lift the trunk from the cart, so we had to move the bags of silver one by one. After throwing them onto the deck of the boat, we moved the empty chest on board, refilled it with the coins and then wedged the chest under one of the rowing benches.

Afterwards, we decided to move the boat to the other side of the river, where it would be safer. We untied the ropes which held us to the willows and drifted across to the other bank, a short distance downstream. We cut some branches and laid them over the deck to hide us. From the shelter of the leafy shadows, I stared at the water sluicing past, dappled with pale green pollen dust. Already the current was growing slack. Soon the tide would ebb and turn against us.

The birds had begun to sing again. A river rat plopped into the water and swam to the other bank, pink paws scrabbling through the weeds. Far above, I saw a flock of small birds, thousands of them, swaying in one dappled mass in the sky.

Suddenly I caught sight of a movement in the trees on the other side. It was no more than a flickering of the leaves, but I knew something was there. I rose to my feet and peered through the screen of branches. The leaves shook again and then I heard a branch crack.

Olaf and I remained motionless, staring dry-eyed at the shadows on the opposite bank.

A shape was weaving its way down towards the water. A bird screeched.

I took up the spear that lay beside me.

Then the shape stepped into view and we realised it was the
bearded man’s horse. Its bridle trailed on the ground as it pulled up clumps of grass, grinding its teeth together.

We sat back and sighed, fists unclenching from weapons.

A breeze blew in from the ocean, rustling the willow branches.

‘The tide is changing. We cannot wait any longer,’ said Olaf. His soaked clothes clung to his shivering body. Water dripped from his sleeves.

‘He should be here by now,’ I replied. ‘I had better go and find him.’

‘That is too much of a risk,’ he said.

I took off my chain-mail vest and laid it in a rustling heap on the deck. My shirt was checkered with the dirty imprint of old iron. ‘We cannot leave him here,’ I said.

‘Then let me go.’

I looked at him in surprise.

‘If we do not stick together now,’ he said, ‘then we deserve whatever fate these people have in mind for us.’

‘If you have to,’ I told him, ‘you can sail home by yourself. That is why you have to stay with the boat. Wait as long as you can, but if we are not back by the time the tide has changed, then you will leave. Do you understand?’

Olaf nodded, his face pale with cold and fear.

I lowered myself into the water and struck out for the opposite bank. It was warm at the top but down below I felt the cool undercurrent, like a second river running underneath the first.

When I reached the muddy bank, I hauled myself up and looked back. The Drakkar was well hidden. Overhanging willow branches swayed in front of the boat. I set off along the river bank, heading for the town. The ground was carpeted with thick grass, glowing emerald in the shady light.

I began to run along the river bank, keeping in the shadow of the willows. Just ahead lay the body of the horseman. A fox
was licking the blood from his face. As I passed by, it streaked away in a blur of black and dusty orange.

Through the trees ahead, I saw the rooftops of the town. When I reached the muddy place where people had crossed the river, I began to move up the slope, remaining hidden in the trees until I reached the wall of a house. There, I lay down and crawled to the edge of the building.

Peering around the corner, I saw that a crowd had gathered outside the church. The men in the group were armed, some with longbows taller than themselves and quivers stuffed with arrows. Others carried broadswords. One man carried a huge wooden mallet. It looked as if they were preparing to set out after us.

At the top of the church steps, a priest was shouting at the people who had gathered. I recognised him as the man Cabal had thrown through the window. He was shaking a hammer in the air. In amongst his own language, I heard him say a few words in Latin. ‘Libera nos, Domine, furore Normanorum!’ Deliver us, O Lord, he was saying, from the fury of the Northman.

Then I saw him lift a torn red blanket up to the door of the church. He held onto a nail and hammered the blanket into place. After several more nails, he stepped back so that the crowd could all see what he had done.

It was then, as the people moved forward, that I saw Cabal’s body lying at the base of the steps. He had been stripped and was lying face down. His back was a cloak of blood. He had been flayed, exposing the bones of his ribs and spine. The blanket on the door was his skin.

I crawled behind the wall again. My head was spinning. I had to force myself not to cry out. I pressed my hand against my mouth, muffling the moans which rose from deep inside my lungs.

Looking once more around the corner of the house, I saw that the crowd had begun to disperse. The armed men moved off down the road we had used to enter the village.

Two women took hold of Cabal’s feet and together they dragged his body across the square. His face raked on the gravel. Straining, they hauled him down towards the river. Cabal’s fingers seemed to claw at the grass, as if trying to stop them from what they were about to do.

They rolled Cabal’s body into the water, where it sank but then rose up again.

The women turned to walk back up the hill. Their dresses were splattered with blood.

Before they could spot me, I darted into the trees. Cutting down through the woods until I reached the river, I could hear the men as they advanced along the top of the ridge.

When I saw the boat, I dove into the water and swam across.