Blood From a Stone (22 page)

‘It's different,' said Celia, ‘when there's someone who can make it come alive for you. It's totally
thrilling
, isn't it Isabelle?'

‘The bodies aren't still there, are they?' asked Isabelle guardedly.

‘Of course not,' said Duggleby reassuringly. ‘Mr Throckmorton had the bodies moved and interred in ground nearby the churchyard. He couldn't bury them in the churchyard, of course, because it was impossible to tell if they were Christians or not. The Altar Cave itself is most certainly not Christian.'

‘Shall we go in?' asked Frank Leigh. ‘You've got torches, have you, Duggleby?'

‘There's two or three torches in the temple,' said Duggleby. ‘I leave them there to be on the safe side. I like a spare in case the batteries run out.'

With an odd reluctance Jack entered the temple, Isabelle close beside him. It was a large, square, airy space, brilliantly white, with carved stone benches set around the walls, together with various Roman statues and an ornamental urn, the result, no doubt, of Jasper Leigh's Grand Tour.

Frank Leigh led the way to a brass-hinged cedar wood door. Reaching up, he took down a large key from the top of the architrave. ‘We keep the cave locked up,' he said. ‘We don't often get people poking around up here, but it has been known.'

The door opened onto a rocky passageway, filled with the echoing sound of running water. ‘Have you got the torches, Duggleby?'

Duggleby opened a tin box beneath the marble bench near the door and handed out torches.

‘Keep to the raised brick path,' warned Frank Leigh. ‘There's a spring which runs through the cave and it's very muddy underfoot. You can see,' he added, directing the light from his torch, ‘where the spring comes out of the cave wall.'

Evie Leigh looked at her shoes dubiously. ‘I don't really want to get my feet wet, Frank. I'm sure Mrs Stanton doesn't either.'

‘It'll be fine,' said Frank. ‘There's a bridge over the actual stream, but watch out when we get into the cave. The stream runs though it and you've got to be careful of your footing. There's an old well that used to tap into it further along the course of the stream. The gardeners still use it occasionally. You think the well's Roman, don't you, Duggleby?'

‘Judging by the bricks, it seems very likely, sir. The level of the water must have dropped considerably since Roman times.'

‘The main course of the spring was diverted when the house was built so it drained into the new lake. It's a model of Georgian engineering.'

Duggleby was politely dismissive of the Georgians. ‘I'm glad they didn't manage to divert the spring altogether. It would have ruined the effect of this carving,' he said, directing the beam of his torch onto the wall. A carved face was just about discernable in the torchlight. ‘It's as if the water of the spring is the god's tears.'

‘I can hardly see anything,' said Isabelle in a disappointed voice after a prolonged stare. ‘It's all covered over with green slime.'

‘It's been there for two thousand years or so, maybe even longer. As I said, according to the Reverend Throckmorton, it's Euthius, a British god who was also worshipped by the Romans.'

‘Why Euthius, I wonder?' said Jack. ‘I mean, we're in Breagan Stump on the grounds of Breagan Grange in Breagan Hollow. Who or what is Breagan?'

‘I don't know,' said Duggleby. ‘I don't know where the name Breagan comes from, as a matter of fact. I must look it up.' Frank Leigh cleared his throat as if about to speak. ‘Mr Leigh? Do you know?'

‘Can't say I do,' said Frank Leigh in an unconvincing way.

There was a slightly awkward silence, then Duggleby continued. ‘The spring is the original place of worship. Throckmorton considered the Altar Cave to be a later addition. We're at the heart of the old kingdom of the Celtic tribe of the Regnenses and both the Celts and their Roman masters saw springs and rivers as a barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead.'

Celia gave a satisfied little gasp. ‘How utterly
thrilling,
' she murmured once more.

She walked onto the bridge and shone her torchlight onto the dark ripples beneath. ‘Just think. I'm standing between worlds. Here, on this side of the spring, is life but on the other side ...' She gave a happy little shudder. ‘It's as if the god is inviting us to enter the kingdom of the dead.'

The carving didn't, in Jack's opinion, look remotely inviting. He felt Isabelle's hand slip into his.

‘I don't like it, Jack,' she said quietly. ‘It's silly, I know, and Celia's being the biggest sort of idiot, but I don't like it.'

He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘It'll be all right,' he said as the group set off again.

Beyond the bridge the rock of the wall had been carved into rough pictures.

‘These carvings indicate this is a ritual processional route leading us to the Altar Cave,' said Duggleby. ‘The carvings are mainly
dendrophori,
as you can see.'

‘Den what?' asked Isabelle.

‘Chaps carrying trees and branches,' said Jack, a remnant of Classical knowledge returning to him. ‘It's Greek, but they seem to crop up all over the ancient world. I suppose the idea is that the woods are walking, that the woods have come to life. It's not all
dendrophori
though, Duggleby. There's some blokes carrying water-jars and some others carrying what I suppose are flaming torches.'

‘Yes, there's some interesting local variations. The most interesting carvings of all are, as you'd expect, in the Altar Cave.' He raised his voice. ‘Mind your head, Mrs Leigh! It's a narrow opening into the cave.'

The first thing Jack saw, as they crowded through into the Altar Cave was, oddly enough, a Victorian desk, two chairs,
the frame of a wooden camp-bed, an old-fashioned oil lamp, an earthenware beer bottle and an ink-pot.

‘What on earth are these things doing here?' he asked.

‘The Reverend Throckmorton had them brought in,' said Duggleby. ‘He says as much in his book. He liked to work in here. I've found lots of his bits and pieces.'

The roof of the cave, so low at the entrance that they had to crouch, opened to a space about twelve feet high or so. It was a substantial cave, measuring about twenty yards or so across at the widest extent and running back about the same distance. From all around them came the echoed, measured sound of dripping water and, from somewhere close by, the chatter of an unseen stream running through the cave.

‘You'll see,' said Duggleby, shining his torch at the walls, ‘that there's been the occasional landslip. Throckmorton dug it out and shored up the wall and roof all along this side with beams.'

‘Is it safe?' asked Evie Leigh sharply.

‘I hope so,' said Duggleby. ‘I wouldn't like those roof beams to go, though.' He directed his torch light to the ground. ‘Watch your step over the stream. Ideally there should be a handrail but it's only a plank bridge.' He grinned at Celia. ‘The altar's on the other side. It's the barrier between life and death once more.'

Fortunately Celia, who was watching her footing on the slimy planks, wasn't moved to make another speech.

As they approached the altar, Jack felt his feet tread on very smooth ground. He looked down. He was standing on wooden boards. ‘Why's the floor been boarded over?'

‘That's where the graves were,' said Duggleby. ‘Throckmorton found the remnants of wooden planks and the remains of sacrificial victims. The floorboards you're standing on are Victorian. Throckmorton had them placed there to mark the spot and so no one would fall into the graves.'

Isabelle gave a little gulp and reached for Jack's hand once more.

In front of the altar was a stone channel, ending in a dark-stained shallow stone basin and, beyond that, seven broad steps led up to the altar itself.

The stones of the altar were a blackened mass of carving; a staring face with huge eyes, a snarl of pointed teeth and stylised, waving hair.

‘That gentleman,' said Duggleby ‘is Euthius, or, at least, I think it is. There's no inscription on the altar but Mr Throckmorton found a couple of lead tablets addressed to Euthius by the spring. They were pretty vivid requests to wreak vengeance.
Euthius, consume mine enemy,
Saturninus
, ran one.
Make his blood as water, his heart putrefied as rotting blood and his bowels a ribbon of flame.
'

‘Poor old Saturninus,' said Jack. He looked at the staring face on the altar and clicked his tongue. ‘I wouldn't like a character like that after me even if all he wanted was a cup of tea and a chat. Can I borrow your torch Duggleby?' He crouched down beside the altar and slowly worked his way round. ‘What have we got? There's more chaps with trees – lots of trees – and on the other side there's a lot of curvy waves. Water?'

‘I think so,' agreed Duggleby.

‘With what look like dead fish with a spear through them in a heap at the bottom. Then there's what looks like someone about to sacrifice a lamb. D'you think it's a lamb? I don't think the artist was particularly great shakes, but it looks as if it could be a lamb to me. The knife's very clear and so's the blood.'

He looked back at the stone channel in front of the altar. ‘I wouldn't be surprised if that's where the
coup de grâce
was administered. Then, on top of the altar, we've got – what? It looks as if it might be more water, but these waves are different from the other waves.'

‘The Reverend Throckmorton thinks it's fire,' said Duggleby. ‘Water, blood and fire seem to have been the chief symbols of the cult.'

‘Water, blood and fire,' repeated Jack, rocking back on his heels. ‘Are you sure it's a Celtic cult, Duggleby? I thought the Druids worshipped in stone circles and sacred groves, not in caves.'

‘You're quite right. There's descriptions of human sacrifice by the Druids in Tacitus, Strabo and Caesar, but those are all in the open air. However, after Christianity became the state religion, the Emperor Theodosius in 391 A.D. outlawed pagan rituals and shrines. Throckmorton's opinion is that this is a very late Romano-British cult, driven literally underground.'

‘The fish and the lamb are both Christian symbols,' said Jack thoughtfully. ‘And on the altar both the fish and the lamb are shown coming to a sticky end.' He stood up and brushed off the knees of his trousers. ‘It's very interesting, Duggleby, but I don't think I would have liked to meet Euthius' pals.'

He reached out and touched the altar stones. ‘What's all this black stuff?' He rubbed his fingers together and sniffed them. ‘It smells like soot.'

‘It is. Mr Throckmorton states in his book that he was worried by the anti-Christian nature of the cult. He was troubled, he says, when he was alone in here, by sudden changes in temperature, from intense heat to deathly chills.' Duggleby gave an apologetic cough. ‘He had a feeling of ... er ... evil.'

‘I'm not surprised,' agreed Isabelle.

‘Throckmorton decided to hold a service to clear the air,' said Duggleby earnestly. ‘He was a thorough-going Classicist and cites Sidonius Apollinaris on the best way to convert a pagan altar to Christian use. Sidonius suggests that you sacrifice a white cockerel or some other ritual animal to the old god and tell them thanks very much, but the old dedication's off and from now on it's going to be a Christian altar. Throckmorton wanted to give it a go, but his bishop disapproved.'

‘I imagine he would,' said Jack dryly.

‘The bishop seemed to think that it was a Papist rite, which he had the strongest objections too. He gave a cautious thumbs-up to the idea of prayers, but insisted that any service should be conducted on the lines laid down by the Established Church.'

‘So no animal sacrifices?' asked Jack with a grin. ‘Even Catholics draw the line at those as a general rule.'

‘So I believe. Anyway, Throckmorton tried saying prayers and whether it was an accident or not – I imagine everyone was fairly jittery – the candles got knocked over, the oil in the lamp caught on fire and, although no one was harmed, they all retreated in double-quick time. He says the altar seemed to be a mass of flames and the eyes of Euthius glowed white-hot. Fire again, you see? He was probably suffering from an overheated imagination. He was pretty rattled.'

‘I don't blame the poor man,' said Isabelle. ‘Can we go? I think I've had enough of ancient horrors.'

They made their way out of the cave. Jack stopped to look once more at the old camp-bed. ‘Did Throckmorton sleep in here?'

‘He doesn't say as much, but it looks like it, doesn't it?'

‘Rather him than me,' said Isabelle firmly, leading him to the entrance. ‘I wouldn't spend a night in here for all the tea in China.'

‘It's a rum thing where the photograph of Paxton could have got to,' remarked Jack to Wood in the hayloft later that afternoon.

The loft was quite a pleasant place, with sunlight from gaps in the old tiled roof making the clouds of dust-motes dance in parallel shafts of light, but even so, Jack felt he had been stuck up here quite long enough. They had spent well over an hour hunting through the boxes from Mrs Paxton's house. He stood up and stretched his shoulders.

‘I can't understand it,' said Wood, sitting back on his heels. ‘The photograph's certainly not here.'

Jack took out his cigarette case and offered it to Wood. ‘That,' he said, as he clicked his lighter, ‘is a real shame. Odd, too. Dr Mountford said Mrs Paxton had a photo of her son in the parlour.'

‘Do you really think Paxton was the bloke in the train?' asked Wood, blowing out a mouthful of smoke.

‘I think it's possible.'

‘I haven't thought about the murder on the train,' said Wood. He pulled on his cigarette broodingly. ‘It's Mrs Paxton's death Mr Leigh wants me to explain. He's certain Napier is innocent. I wish I could find out where the servants have got to. It could be coincidence, I know, but I don't like the way all three of them have vanished.'