Second Night (50 page)

‘Talk!'

‘What do you want me to say?' he asked.

‘I want no traitor at my back.'

‘I'm not a traitor.'

‘The Bank can't get anything out of me, so he uses you. What do I tell you that you don't sneak off and report straight back to him?'

‘I don't sneak anywhere.'

‘Liar! Your loyalty to the old man's madness is greater than any friendship you've ever had for me! Don't deny it!'

Alan staggered. The razor tip had drawn burning, acid blood. He gasped, ‘I've defied the Master for you, more times than I can ever count!'

The eyes measuring his pain were cold. ‘Then what did you talk about when you were having those cosy little chats with the Bank outside the Selerest?'

‘If you were near enough to hear what was being said, you would have realised that it was always him doing the talking and the ordering. It doesn't mean that the orders were carried out.'

‘Where's the proof of that?'

‘There is no proof, other than what I've already told you.'

‘That's not good enough.'

‘Then what must I do to make you believe me?'

The spear jabbed into his chest. The smoking weapon glowed a dull red. He could feel the heat from it burning through the thickness of his cloak and jacket. The voice was grating and cruel. ‘You are sworn to uphold your oath, Guardian. So how will you serve it? Your hands are white. You are unblooded, unshriven. What will you sacrifice to prove your word?'

Alan bowed his head. ‘I'll give my life.' With a great cry he fell onto the head of the weapon. The blinding intensity of the pain ground into his breastbone, compressing his heart and lungs as he pushed himself onto the blade. His eyes bulged. Blood poured from his mouth. Still the voice demanded, ‘Where is your loyalty, soldier?'

Burning in the complete agony of body, mind and spirit, Alan answered. ‘Let the God be my witness! I will fulfil my oath! I will live and die by the spear and by the will of he who wields it, Heartbiter, Spear Bearer, Rune Winner. By my blood, I forswear all other service save this.'

The spear was drawn back. Bright blood burst from the wound. Alan's heart faltered. He dropped to his knees and fell forward onto his face. Valkyrjan stood over him, soothing him with the soft perfume of her breath. Freyja followed Caz to the spring, while Rúna nuzzled his hair and neck.

His heart resumed its regular beating at the first touch of the cold, clear water on his damaged flesh. He cried out and opened his eyes. The wound was already sealed. Caz helped him to his feet and led him to the fire. Neither of them spoke until Alan had drunk the rest of the water from the jug.

In those few moments of sacrifice, he had glimpsed the horror of visitation and claimed it for his own. He knew it was only a matter of time before he would be tested by the reality. Acutely aware of his heart pumping the precious blood through his veins, he fingered the wound on his chest. The black bruising was fading, but the skin still felt thick and unresponsive to touch.

‘The numbness will soon pass,' Caz said quietly. ‘There will be no more pain, only the memory of pain if you decide to give it mind-space.'

Alan swallowed, almost gagging. His voice grated the raw flesh in his throat. ‘Is it always like that for you?'

Caz nodded. ‘Always. Does this make you a heretic now?' he asked sadly.

‘No. It proves why I swore the oath and justifies all the reasons why my father and grandfather did not. You must take me with you tomorrow night.'

‘You know I can't.'

He cried out. ‘But I am destined! I have felt the Gaze of the God upon me.'

‘Not yet. You are needed here.
I
need you here.'

Alan hunched forward, his head in his hands. Tears trickled through his fingers. ‘I'll gladly give up my life for you,' he wept.

Caz unwrapped the length of rope he had tied around his waist and knotted it round Rúna's neck. Once more he thrust the spear to within an inch of Alan's chest, saying, ‘The choice is simple – ride or burn?'

Alan made his choice. ‘I'll ride. I'll follow wherever you lead me.'

‘Then prove your courage and come with us.'

Hoofbeats pounded and faded, night-riding wild to the hills. The fire burned low between the hearthstones in Thunderslea. The old tree bent its boughs, waiting. The first flakes of snow began to fall.

CHAPTER 85

The camp bed creaking as he turned over woke Caz up from a dreamless sleep that slipped gently away, leaving him with a profound sense of peace. He felt the blanket laid over him and the heat of the fire against his cheek.

It is finished,
he thought.
I'm back. I survived.

He opened his eyes, looking up at the circular pattern in the panelled ceiling. He glanced around the room, at the incongruous chandelier and the curtained bed that Daisy had so lovingly refurbished and he could never bring himself to sleep in. The mail coat shone on the stand in the corner by the mirror. The shield was propped up beside it. The helmet was on the desk, its metal bright, the leather cleaned and oiled. The spear and the seaxe lay where he had left them on the floor in front of the fire.

He threw off the blanket and got out of bed. He picked up the spear, turning the great black head of the weapon in front of the flames, examining each of the three sides. Two were blank. Only one was faintly glowing, lit by the rune. He switched on the lights and examined the mail closely. There was no sign of wear or damage. The paint was pristine on the shield. He sat down at the desk and turned on the computer. The picture of Bryn came up on the screen, and the date and the time:
December 21: 07:15
. Winter solstice night had not yet begun.

He pulled back the heavy blue curtains and opened the shutters, where countless microscopic ice crystals had rushed a preternatural dawn into the shrouded world. The ledge of the big bay window at the corner of the west wing of the manor house was heaped with snow. He lifted the latch. The icy air was sharply invigorating. He leaned out to catch a cluster of the white flakes, examining the crystals formed from water vapour in the atmosphere and falling thick and white from the clouds to melt in his hand. He licked the fresh, cold liquid from his palm.

He left the window wide open and turned on the coffee maker. In the other, larger room, the black embers were still smoking in the fireplace. He made up the fire and stripped down to his shorts, adding more weight to the bar before he lay down beneath it on the mat.
They are coming!

Down at the lodge, Jemima looked out of her bedroom window and squealed with delight, coming to an entirely different conclusion. She pulled the cats out from under the quilt and held them with their noses pressed against the cold glass to watch the snow tumbling out of the sky. The huge flakes were colliding and sticking together as they fell.

‘Look! The Goddess is looking after us!' she cried. ‘Nothing horrible can possibly happen now. We'll decorate the house today and I'll wear my amazing dress to the party tomorrow night. Then we'll take Jas and Sara to the airport, and Ma and I can do all the shops. There'll be snow everywhere, and I'll ride out with Caz every afternoon. We're going to have the best Christmas ever!'

Headlights gleamed. The big tractor was labouring up the service track from the wood yard and turning into the drive. She dropped the cats back on the bed. ‘Oh no! Everyone's ready for work and I'm not even dressed!'

She threw on her clothes. The cats scratched at the door, mewing for their meat. Kush leapt up, trying to balance on the handle and clawing the paint as he fell.

‘Oh, you are pests and nuisances!' Jemima exclaimed, throwing them out onto the landing. ‘I'm coming!'

She ran downstairs. Jasper was singing in the bathroom, beating time with a toothbrush on the water pipe while he shaved. Maddie and Sara were getting the breakfast ready, giggling when they bumped into each other. The cats crouched side by side over their dish.

‘Have you ever seen such delicious snow?' cried Jemima. ‘Let's sledge this afternoon!'

‘So who's going to decorate the house and do the table?' asked her mother.

‘And put up the tree?' said Sara.

Jemima groaned. ‘Oh, I forgot! Why do all the good things always happen at once?'

Sara buttered toast, ski-wise with many winter holidays in the Swiss Alps. Her hair was newly tinted purple with a mass of copper-coloured streaks.

‘The snow will be too soft today,' she said. ‘Wait until tomorrow when it's had a chance to pack down.'

‘But it might melt! It always melts here!'

‘It won't, not this time. This looks as though it's here to stay, at least for the next few days.'

‘We have to pray that it does then!'

‘Not at the airport,' said Jasper, in mid-conversation, with his phone stuck to his ear. He sat down at the table, waving to Sara for the toast.

‘No, Tris, ' he sighed. ‘We're not doing the airport today. Put your brain in. You've got fifteen minutes to get your arse in gear and get up here. We're meeting Al down the wood yard to bring the green stuff up to the house. Loz and Milky are already on the road.' He tore a bite out of a large chunk of toast, mumbling with his mouth full, ‘No, Tristan, you can't pick them up. They're walking.'

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. ‘What do you mean, what‘re they doing that for? Look out of the window, will you, mate? There's a load of white stuff out there called snow, which means that until someone figures out how they can clear the roads, no one's going anywhere in this neck of the woods except us. And we're short on practice for the gig. If we get everything sorted this morning, we can get in another couple of hours before the boss throws us out for the night.' He groaned. ‘Yes, Tris, it's very pretty. Now get up!'

‘What do you think about tonight, Jem?' whispered Sara, as they were getting ready to walk to the yard. ‘Do you think the snow's changed anything?'

‘I think it's a sign that everything's going to be okay.'

‘I hope you're right.'

CHAPTER 86

By early afternoon, the manor house was humming with an infectious happiness that masked the more sombre mood of the Guardians. All the principal rooms were draped with garlands of ivy and bunches of holly tied up with gleaming red tinsel and hung with strings of gold and silver lametta. The dining room table was magnificently crammed with shining silverware and sparkling crystal. Each individual place setting was indicated with a gold name card inserted into a miniature arrangement of porcelain Christmas roses. Jemima's traditional kissing bunch – more glittering and stuffed with mistletoe than ever before – hung defiantly in the doorway between the dining room and the reception room. The ballroom remained locked and out of bounds to everyone except the band.

Alan and John excused themselves immediately after lunch and went outside to the shed to sharpen their chainsaws. The weight of snow had toppled a tree over the old iron gate in the wall at the back of the orchard and Sir Jonas was anxious that no entrance into the forest should be hindered on this most significant of winter nights. Jasper pointed the boys in the direction of the ballroom.

Daisy had dealt emphatically with his remarks regarding Caz's convenient absence during the morning. ‘There'll be no naming shirkers in this house by you or anyone else, young Jasper! There's plenty left of the usual chores that always need doing, party or no party, and it's a good thing one of us remembers and gets on with them!'

There was still a lot of of work to be done in the kitchen. Melanie volunteered to help.

‘Where do you want us to start, Daisy?' asked Sara.

Daisy pointed in the direction of the sculleries. ‘We'll get cracking in there first!'

Maddie looked at her watch. ‘I've just got a couple of things to finish in the office. I'll be back as soon as I'm done.'

‘And I've got to finish decorating the hall,' said Jemima.

She was putting the final touches to the huge Christmas tree towering up into the stairwell, when the front door opened and Sir Jonas appeared, stamping the snow from his boots onto the mat.

‘What do you think of the tree, sir?' she cried.

‘Very highly commendable,' he said, nodding enthusiastically. ‘Very commendable indeed.'

He hastened to the cloakroom to divest himself of his coat and hat and to retrieve his slippers. He had great respect for Jemima's intuition and lately he had surprised some odd looks in his direction that were not always friendly. It would not do to arouse her suspicion at this late hour when his preparations were almost complete. A few minutes of conversation would not be wasted while he took the opportunity to warm himself in front of the fire in the hall.

She turned on the lights just as he reappeared, and ran up the stairs to look at the tree from every angle.

‘Very well done, my dear Lady Sibylla!' he said loudly, determined to show suitable appreciation over the discordant beginnings and ends of guitar solos and abrupt drum rolls booming out of the ballroom.

‘I think it's utterly magical!' she exclaimed, her face rapt.

‘Indeed it is.' He cleared his throat. ‘The house looks all the better for it, I can assure you, all the better.'

She leaned over the gallery rail looking down at him and obviously inviting further comment. He coughed and cleared his throat again, desperately awkward under the scrutiny of those grey eyes that he fancied were intent on prising out his deepest and most secret thoughts. A prolonged drum roll and Jasper's voice lifted up in song from the direction of the ballroom settled the matter.

‘Ah, ah, I think I shall take a little nap,' Sir Jonas said hastily, retreating towards the library door. ‘If you could mention it to Madame Marguerite I would be grateful.'