Right at the back, in the shadows, a huddle of guards surrounded the prisoners awaiting trial, but immediately behind the Quisitor were two guards gripping a weeping prisoner by the arms. It was a tall girl with long dark hair. She was wearing a tattered dress and had no shoes.
‘That’s Maggie!’ Alice hissed into my ear. ‘The one they kept sticking pins into. Poor Maggie, it ain’t fair. Thought she’d got away ...’
Up here the sound was much better and I could hear every word the Quisitor spoke. ‘By her own lips this woman is condemned!’ he called out, his voice loud and arrogant. ‘She has confessed all and the Devil’s mark was found upon her flesh. I sentence her to be bound to the stake and burned alive. And may God have mercy upon her soul.’
Maggie began to sob even louder, but one of her captors seized her by the hair and she was dragged away towards a doorway at the back of the platform. No sooner had she disappeared through it than another prisoner wearing a black cassock and with his hands bound behind his back was pulled forward into the torchlight. For a moment I thought I was mistaken but there was no doubt.
It was Brother Peter. I knew him by the thin collar of white hair that fringed his bald head and by the curve of his back and shoulders. But his face was so badly beaten and streaked with blood that I hardly recognized it. His nose was broken, squashed back against his face, and one eye was closed to a swollen red slit.
Seeing him in that condition made me feel terrible. It was all because of me. To begin with he’d allowed me to escape; later he’d told me how I could get to the cell to rescue the Spook and Alice.
Under torture, he must have told them everything. It was all my fault and I was racked with guilt.
‘Once this was a brother, a faithful servant of the Church!’ cried the Quisitor. ‘But look at him now!
Look at this traitor! One who has helped our enemies and allied himself with the forces of darkness. We have his confession, written with his own hand. Here it is!’ he shouted, holding up a piece of paper high for all to see.
Nobody got a chance to read it - it could have said anything at all. Even if it was a confession, one look at poor Brother Peter’s face told me that it had been beaten out of him. It wasn’t fair. There was no justice here. This wasn’t a trial at all. The Spook had once told me that when people were tried in the castle at Caster, at least they got a hearing - a judge, a prosecutor and someone to defend them. But here the Quisitor was doing it all himself!
‘He is guilty. Guilty beyond all doubt,’ he continued. ‘I therefore sentence him to be taken down to the catacombs and left there. And may God have mercy on his soul!’
There was a sudden gasp of horror from the crowd but it was loudest of all from the priests seated at the front. They knew exactly what Brother Peter’s fate would be. He would be pressed to death by the Bane.
Brother Peter tried to speak, but his lips were too swollen. One of the guards cuffed him about the head while the Quisitor gave a cruel smile. They pulled him away towards the door at the rear of the platform, and no sooner had he been led out of the building than another prisoner was brought forward from the gloom. My heart sank into my boots. It was the Spook.
At first glance, apart from a few bruises on his face, the Spook didn’t seem to have had as hard a time as Brother Peter. But then I noticed something more chilling. He was squinting into the torchlight and looked bewildered, with a vacant expression in his green eyes. He seemed lost. It was as if his memory had gone and he didn’t even know who he was. I began to wonder just how badly he’d been beaten.
‘Before you is John Gregory!’ cried the Quisitor, his voice echoing from wall to wall. ‘A disciple of the Devil, no less, who for many years has plied his evil trade in this county, taking money from poor gullible folk. But does this man recant? Does he accept his sins and beg forgiveness? No, he is stubborn and will not confess. Now only through fire may he be purged and given hope of salvation. But furthermore, not content with the evil he can do, he has trained others and still continues to do so. Father Cairns, I ask you to stand and give testimony!’
From the front row of benches a priest stepped forward into the torchlight closer to the platform. He had his back to me so I couldn’t see his face, but I spotted his bandaged hand and when he spoke it was the same voice that I’d listened to in the confessional box.
‘Lord Quisitor, John Gregory brought an apprentice with him on his visit to this town, one whom he has already corrupted. His name is Thomas Ward.’
I heard Alice let out a low gasp and my own knees began to tremble. I was suddenly sharply aware of how dangerous it was to be here in the hall, so close to the Quisitor and his armed men.
‘By the grace of God the boy fell into my hands,’ Father Cairns continued, ‘and, but for the intervention of Brother Peter, who allowed him to escape justice, I would have delivered him to you for questioning. But I did question him myself, lord, and found him to be hardened beyond his years and far beyond persuasion by mere words. Despite my best efforts, he failed to see the error of his ways and for that we must blame John Gregory, a man not content with practising his vile trade, one who actively corrupts the young. To nay knowledge over a score of apprentices have passed through his hands and some, in turn, now follow that same trade and have taken on apprentices of their own. By such means does evil spread like a plague through the County.’
‘Thank you, Father. You may be seated. Your testimony alone is enough to condemn John Gregory!’
As Father Cairns took his seat again, Alice gripped my elbow. ‘Come on,’ she whispered into my ear,
‘it’s too dangerous to stay!’
‘No, please,’ I whispered back. ‘Just a bit longer.’
The mention of my name had scared me but I wanted to stay a few more minutes to see what happened to my master.
‘John Gregory, for you there can be only one punishment!’ roared the Quisitor. ‘You will be bound to a stake and burned alive. I will pray for you. I will pray that pain teaches you the error of your ways. I will pray that you beg God’s forgiveness so that, as your body burns, your soul is saved.’
The Quisitor stared at the Spook all the while he was ranting but he might as well have been shouting at a stone wall. There was no understanding behind the Spook’s eyes. In a way it was a mercy because he didn’t seem to know what was happening. But it made me realize that, even if I somehow did manage to rescue him, he might never be the same again.
A lump came to my throat. The Spook’s house had become my new home and I remembered the lessons, the conversations with the Spook and even the scary times when we had to deal with the dark. I was going to miss all that, and the thought of my master being burned alive brought pricking tears to my eyes.
My mam had been right. At first I’d been doubtful about being the Spook’s apprentice. I’d feared the loneliness. But she’d told me that I’d have the Spook to talk to; that although he was my teacher, eventually he’d become my friend. Well, I didn’t know if that had happened yet, because he was still often stern and fierce, but I was certainly going to miss him.
As the guards dragged him towards the doorway, I nodded to Alice, and keeping my head down and not making eye contact with anybody, I led the way along the balcony and down the steps. Outside I could see that the sky was beginning to grow lighter. Soon we wouldn’t have the cover of darkness and someone might recognize one of us. The streets were already busier and the crowd outside the hall had more than doubled since we’d been inside. I pushed through the throng so that I could look down the side of the building, towards the door the prisoners had been taken through.
One glance told me that the situation was hopeless. I couldn’t see any prisoners, but that wasn’t surprising because there must have been at least twenty guards near the doorway. What chance did we have against so many? With my heart in my boots I turned to Alice. ‘Let’s get back,’ I said. “There’s nothing to be done here.’
I was anxious to reach the safety
of the cellar so we walked quickly. Alice followed me without a word.
Chapter 12
The Silver Gate
Once back in the cellar, Alice turned to me, her eyes blazing with anger.
‘It ain’t fair, Tom! Poor Maggie. She doesn’t deserve to burn. None of ‘em do. Something’s got to be done.’
I shrugged and just stared into space, my mind numb. After a while Alice lay back and fell asleep. I tried to do the same but I started thinking about the Spook again. Even though it seemed hopeless, should I still go to the burning and see if I could do anything to help? After turning it over in my mind for a while, I finally decided that, at nightfall, I would leave Priestown and go home to talk to my mam.
She’d know what I should do. I was out of my depth here and I needed help. I’d be walking all night and would get no sleep then so it was best to grab what I could now. It took me a while to nod off, but when I did, almost immediately I started to dream and the next thing I knew I was back in the catacombs.
In most dreams you don’t know that you’re dreaming. But when you do, one of two things usually happens. Either you wake up right away or you stay in the dream and do what you want. That’s the way it’s always been with me, anyway.
But this dream was different. It was as if something was controlling my movements. I was walking down a dark tunnel with the stub of a candle in my left hand and I was approaching the dark doorway to one of the crypts that held the bones of the Little People. I didn’t want to go anywhere near it but my feet just kept on walking.
I halted at the open doorway, the flickering light of the candle illuminating the bones. Most were on shelves at the rear of the crypt, but a few broken ones were scattered across the cobbled floor and lying in a heap in the corner. I didn’t want to go in there, I really didn’t, but I seemed to have no choice. I stepped into the crypt, hearing small fragments of bone crunching beneath my feet, when suddenly I felt very cold.
One winter when I was young, my brother James chased me and filled my ears with snow. I tried to fight back but he was only one year younger than my eldest brother Jack and just as big and strong, so much so that my dad had eventually got him apprenticed to a blacksmith. He shared the same sense of humour as Jack too. Snow in the ears had been James’s daft idea of a joke but it had really hurt and all my face had gone numb and ached for almost an hour afterwards. It was just like that in the dream.
Extreme cold. It meant that something from the dark was approaching. The cold began inside my head until it felt frozen and numb, as though it didn’t belong to me any more.
Something spoke from the darkness behind me. Something that was standing close to my back and between me and the doorway. The voice was harsh and deep and I didn’t need to ask who was speaking.
Even though I wasn’t facing towards it, I could smell its rank breath.
‘I’m got proper,’ said the Bane. ‘I’m bound. This is all I have.’
I said nothing and there was a long silence. It was a nightmare and I tried to wake up. I really struggled but it was useless.
‘A pleasant room, this,’ the Bane continued. ‘One of my favourite places, it is. Full of old bones.
But fresh blood is what I want and the blood of the young is best of all. But if I can’t get blood then I’ll make do with bones. New bones are the best. Give me new bones every time, fresh and sweet and filled with marrow. That’s what I like. I love to split young bones and suck out the marrow. But old bones are better than nothing. Old bones like these. They’re better than the hunger gnawing away at my insides. Hunger that hurts so much.
‘There’s no marrow inside old bones. But old bones still have memories, see. I stroke old bones, I do, slowly so that they give up all their secrets. I see the flesh that once covered them, the hopes and ambitions that ended in this dry, dead brittleness. That fills me up too. That eases the hunger.’
The Bane was very close to my left ear, its voice now hardly more than a whisper. I had a sudden urge to turn round and look at it but it must have read my mind.
‘Don’t turn round, boy,’ it warned. ‘Or you won’t like what you see. Just answer me thisquestion ...’
There was a long pause and I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. At last the Bane asked its question.
‘After death, what happens?’
I didn’t know the answer. The Spook never spoke about such things. All I knew was that there were ghosts who could still think and talk. And fragments called ghasts that had been left behind when the soul had moved on. But moved on to what? I didn’t know. Only God knew. If there was a God.
I shook my head. I didn’t speak and I was too scared to turn round. Behind me I had a sense of something huge and terrifying.
‘ There’s nothing after death! Nothing! Nothing at all!’ bellowed the Bane close to my ear.
‘There’s just blackness and emptiness. No thinking. No feeling, just oblivion. That’s all that waits for you on the other side of death. But do my bidding, boy, and I can give you a long, long life!
Three score years and ten is the best that most feeble humans can hope for. But ten or twenty times that I could give you! And all you have to do is open the gate and let me go free! Just open the gate and I’ll do the rest. Your master could go free too. I know that’s what you want. Go back, you could, to the life you once had.’
A part of me longed to say yes. I faced the Spook being burned and a lonely journey north to Caster with no certainty that I’d be able to continue my apprenticeship. If only things could return to the way they’d been! But although I was tempted to say yes, I knew that it just wasn’t possible. Even if the Bane kept its word, I couldn’t allow it to roam loose in the County, able to work its evil at will. I knew the Spook would rather die than let that happen.
I opened my mouth to say no, but even before I could get the word out the Bane spoke again.
‘ The girl would be easy!’ it said. ‘All she wants is a warm fire. A home to live in. Clean clothes.
But think what I offer you! And all I want is your blood. Not a lot, see. And it won’t hurt that much. Just enough is all I ask. And then a pact we’ll make together. Just let me suck your blood so I can be strong again. Just let me through the gate and give me my freedom. Three times after, I’ll do your bidding and you’ll live a long, long life. The girl’s blood is better than nothing but you’re what I really need. A seven times seven, you are. Only once before have I tasted sweet blood like yours. And I still remember it well, I do. The sweet blood of a seven times seven. How strong that would make me! How great would be your reward! Isn’t that better than the nothingness of death?
‘ Ah, death will come to you one day. It will surely come despite all that I do, creeping towards you like the mist on a riverbank on a cold damp night. But I can delay that moment. Delay it for years and years. It would be a long time before you’d have to face that darkness. That blackness.
That nothingness! So what do you say, boy? I’m got proper. I’m bound. But you can help!’
I was scared and tried again to wake up. But suddenly words tumbled out of my mouth, almost as if they’d been spoken by somebody else:
‘I don’t believe there’s nothing after death,’ I said. ‘I’ve a soul and if I live my life right, I’ll live on in some way. There’ll be something. I don’t believe in nothingness. I don’t believe in that!’
‘ No! No!’ roared the Bane. ‘You don’t know what I know! You can’t see what I see! I see beyond death. I see the emptiness. The nothingness. I know! I see the horrible state of being nothing.
Nothing at all, there is! Nothing at all!’
My heart began to slow and I suddenly felt very calm. The Bane was still behind me but the crypt was starting to get warmer. Now I understood. I knew the Bane’s pain. I knew why it needed to feed upon people, upon their blood, upon their hopes and dreams ...
‘I’ve a soul and I’ll live on,’ I told the Bane, keeping my voice very calm. ‘And that’s
the difference. I have a soul and you don’t! For you there is nothing after death! Nothing at all!’
My head was pushed hard against the near wall of the crypt and there was a hiss of anger behind me.
A hiss that changed to a bellow of rage.
‘ Fool!’ shouted the Bane, its voice booming to fill the crypt and echo beyond it down the long, dark tunnels of the catacombs. Violently, it swatted my head sideways, scraping my forehead against the hard, cold stones. Out of the corner of my left eye I could see the size of the huge hand that was gripping my head. Instead of nails, its fingers ended in huge yellow talons.
‘You had your chance but now it’s gone for ever!’ bellowed the Bane. ‘But there’s someone else who can help me. So if I can’t have you, I’ll make do with her!’
I was pushed downwards into the heap of bones in the corner. I felt myself falling through them. Down and down I went, deep into a bottomless pit filled with bones. The candle was out but the bones seemed to glow in the darkness: grinning skulls, ribcages, leg bones and arm bones, fragments of hands, fingers and thumbs, and all the while the dry dust of death covered my face, went up my nose into my mouth and down my throat, until I was choking and could hardly breathe.
‘This is what death tastes like!’ cried the Bane. ‘And this is what death looks like!’
The bones faded from view and I could see nothing. Nothing at all. I was just falling through blackness. Falling into the dark. I was terrified that the Bane had somehow killed me in my sleep, but I struggled and struggled to wake up. Somehow the Bane had been talking to me while I slept and I knew who it would now be persuading to do what I’d refused.
Alice!
At last I managed to wake myself up, but it was already too late. A candle was burning close beside me but it was just a stub. I’d been asleep for hours! The other one had gone and so had Alice!
I felt in my pocket but only confirmed what I’d guessed already. Alice had taken the key to the Silver Gate...