The Red Judge (14 page)

‘You'd better hurry. They'll be wondering where you are,' he said.

I felt my first surge of panic. ‘All I have to do is
walk around?' I checked.

‘That's right. Nothing to it,' my new chum said. ‘Once they've marched you up and down, and given you the gold and grub, and sat you on the throne, that'll be the end of it – you can go home.'

The throne?
What throne?
Suddenly I realised that there were gaps in what the boy had told me. ‘Wait a minute …' I began.

Before I could say any more, however, the cathedral door burst open and two vicar-types bore down on me. ‘There you are! Everybody's waiting. We're ready to get started,' they said.

What had I let myself in for? I felt another surge of panic and turned to tell the boy that I had changed my mind. But he wasn't there any more. He'd disappeared. I looked up and down the cloister, but couldn't see a soul. Apart from the vicar-types, of course.

‘Let's be going, shall we?' they said, lining up on either side of me as if I were a prisoner and they my warders.

What was I going to do? I tried to come up with something, but it was already too late. They turned towards the door, and I knew that I was trapped. Then one of them saw something in the snow. He stooped and picked it up. At first I thought it was my fiver, fallen from my pocket, but then I saw that it was a piece of paper folded over several times.

The man glanced at it, then turned to me. ‘For you,' he said, pressing it into my palm. ‘You nearly forgot this, my lord bishop. You can't preach a sermon without your notes.'

I entered the cathedral at the head of a procession of choirboys and candle-bearers, girls carrying golden crosses and black-frocked vicar-types. I didn't have a clue what was going on, but was too busy absorbing those two lethal phrases ‘my lord bishop' and ‘sermon notes' to do anything but keep on walking.

One thing was perfectly plain.
I had been tricked
. The piece of paper in my hand was a one-way ticket to some unknown hell.

What I should do, I thought, is get out quick – just like my new chum has obviously done!

By this time, however, it was too late. I was halfway down the cathedral, caught up in a drama that featured me in a starring role. Everybody peered at me as I passed by. I wondered if they realised that I was the wrong boy. Every time I stopped for my gifts of chocolate, cakes and money, the girls with golden crosses nudged me on, rolling their eyes as if they didn't know what was the matter with me.

By the time I reached the bottom end of the
cathedral I knew there were no gifts, and that I'd been tricked in this as well. As the great west doors drew close, I prepared to run away. Before I could, however, the organ boomed into life, and the choirboys erupted with a sound that gave a whole new meaning to the words
Christmas carol
.

I felt it behind me like a cannon going off. My hair stood up on end, and the sheer volume of sound propelled me forward like a tank leading a charge. It was a wonderful moment. Suddenly I felt powerful and excited, caught up in something that was bigger than all my fears put together. The next thing I knew, I was halfway up the central aisle, belting out the carol with the rest of the choirboys, not caring how tuneless and untrained I must have sounded beside their perfect pitch. Just for a moment, I felt as if I could take on the world.

But then the moment ended. The high altar appeared ahead of me, carved in stone, lit by candles and decorated with gold. Above it hung a massive, stained-glass windowpane depicting God in aquamarine robes. His all-seeing face looked down at me as if he'd know the wrong boy anywhere, regardless of the candlelight. I blushed as if caught out, and my voice dried up. No longer did I feel like a battle tank leading a charge. Instead I felt like an enemy spy trying to sneak in under cover of darkness.

The choristers peeled away on either side of me, taking their places in the choir stalls, leaving me alone. I stood before a carved throne, its candles lighting up a man in a purple robe.

The choristers stopped singing, and the man stood up. In his hand he held a staff, curved at the top to
look like a golden question mark. I realised that he was the bishop – the real bishop, I mean, not the ‘
my lord bishop
' that the vicar-type had jokingly called me. He looked at me, and I looked back. An absolute stillness fell across the cathedral as if something very special was about to happen.

Then the man came down from the throne, removed the plain gold cross that hung round his neck, and hung it round mine. He took the ring off his finger and put it on mine, and handed me the golden staff. Finally I stood before him, covered in the sort of treasure that only hours earlier I'd imagined stealing.

‘
Except ye be made like unto little children
,' he cried out in a great voice, standing before the congregation, stripped bare of all his symbols of office, ‘
ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven! On this great Feast of Holy Innocents – BEHOLD OUR BISHOP OF THE INNOCENTS!
'

Suddenly it was like a charge going off. A wave of feeling ran around the cathedral. For everybody else, I realised, this was a holy moment, but for me it couldn't possibly have been worse. Bishop of what?
The Innocents?
Was that what the man had said? I broke out in a sweat. Surely he hadn't been referring to me? He couldn't have done. Not possibly.

Not the murderer of Gilda Katterfelto!

I should have turned tail, right there and then, and got out. Before I could do anything, however, the bishop spun me round to face the congregation too. I stood before them all, waiting for God to strike me dead. I was shaking from head to foot, and everybody could see it. The bishop patted my shoulders, as if to say that all boys got nervous at this point, and I
wasn't to worry.

‘
They shall put down the mighty from their seats
,' he cried out in his great, booming voice. ‘
And exalt the humble and meek
.'

Then he took me firmly by the elbows and sat me on the throne between the candles. The choirboys burst into an anthem and the organ thundered so loudly that the whole cathedral trembled. I waited to die, thinking that if I'd been God I'd have finished me off ages ago, before I'd even dared enter the cathedral.

But the anthem finished and nothing happened except that the eyes of the congregation turned back to me. The bishop offered up a prayer for the ‘sweet-smelling savour of a life of innocence'. Then he made a holy sign in the air and the girls with golden crosses got on either side of me.

I was off on my travels again. With the girls in front of me and the bishop bringing up the rear, we processed between the choir stalls, heading for the pulpit. We reached its steps, and I looked up with dread. Behind me I could hear the bishop whispering that I'd be all right so long as I remembered to ‘speak clearly and
project your voice
.'

I had no choice. I climbed the steps, thinking that if God hadn't struck me yet, he would now. The congregation stared up at me – all the great and good of Hereford, including the mayor and mayoress in their chains of office. And I stared back, knowing that I was a black sheep in their midst and that, however many rivers I travelled down, or golden robes I hid behind, I could never escape from what I'd done.

I hung my head. Somewhere below the pulpit, I heard the bishop clear his throat. I could feel him
willing me to do well. And I might be a black sheep, but I still had a sermon to preach!

Remembering the piece of paper in my hand, I opened it out. At the top, promisingly enough, was written the heading, ‘Boy Bishop's Sermon – Feast of Holy Innocents'. But underneath it were four words.

That was it. Nothing else. I stared at the blank page, knowing that, when I found my so-called chum –
and I would –
another murder would take place! The congregation looked up at me, their expressions freezing over with embarrassment as it dawned on them that I had dried up. The bishop cleared his throat again, trying to gently prod me into action, and the vicar-types glanced at each other as if only now were they realising that something was amiss. The choirmaster looked fully into my face and visibly flinched, and the choristers all grinned, as if they'd realised from the start – and thought the whole thing a great joke.

The game was up
. I did the only thing possible in the circumstances – leapt down from the pulpit and legged it out of the cathedral. As I went, I flung off the layers of golden clothing, telling myself that I might be a black sheep but at least I wasn't a thief. The congregation watched in astonishment, as mitre, ring, staff, golden cross, golden cloaks and capes and golden shoes flew in every direction. I reached the great west doors of the cathedral, pulled them open and dashed outside.

It was the last that any of them saw of me. I ran
barefooted across the snowy precinct, not even noticing how cold it was. I didn't know where I was going and didn't care either. All I knew was that I'd got to get away.

I left the precinct behind, and ran around the city centre like a crazy thing. People must have stared at me, but I didn't notice. Gradually I got colder until finally I had no choice but to return to the cloister garden. Here I dug my coat and boots out of the rubbish bin. The cathedral lights were out by now, and its precinct had fallen silent. The great and good of Hereford had all gone home and the place was deserted. My so-called chum had gone as well, which came as no surprise, but he'd left a note on the bench where I'd been sitting, which said, ‘Thanks a bunch.'

I screwed it up, and was just about to throw it in the bin when the cathedral side door opened and footsteps came my way. A couple of vicar-types appeared, locked in conversation about the calibre of boy you got these days in choir schools. They hadn't seen me yet but, knowing that they soon would, I crept into the shadows, looking for a hiding place.

This I found, much to my surprise, in the cathedral coffee shop, whose door I discovered had been left unlocked. I hid behind it until the vicar-types had gone, then, as I turned to leave, I noticed a light next door, in the room that housed the famous Mappa Mundi.

Had somebody stolen it, or was it simply that the person responsible for security round here had taken leave of their senses that night? I went to check, and found the map still hanging on the wall. I'd seen it once before, dragged here by my parents after one of
Cary's concerts, but had been so impatient to get away that I'd hardly bothered to look at it.

Now I stood before it again, with all the time in the world, noticing how different it was to an ordinary map. For starters, everything was in the wrong place according to the ordinary rules of geography. Then some of the places were real, while others were places I'd only ever thought of as existing in myth. Then there were people on the map – kings and saints and people like that. Then there were creatures too, and some of them were real live creatures that you saw in zoos, but others – like the griffin and the unicorn – were out of myths as well.

But there they hung, on the wall, as if the map was big enough for all of them. And I thought about that afterwards, miles downriver in the dark with the wind whistling through the trees.

I wish I had a map like that, I thought, with everything on it – all the places that I've been to, and the things I've seen, all the people, and the creatures, and Plynlimon and the sea. Then when I'm feeling frightened, like I do now, I'll at least know I belong, and where I might end up.

I returned to Harri and Mari bearing a pocket full of burgers bought with my five-pound note. I was overwhelmed with guilt for having been away for so long, but they leapt all over me as if they bore no grudge. We divided the burgers between us and wolfed them down. Then we set off again.

I was glad to see the lights of Hereford disappearing. For evermore, I'd remember it as the place where I'd learnt that I couldn't run away from what I'd done to Gilda. I sat up on the high bench seat, wondering with dread what my journey would teach me next. I tried to comfort myself with the thought of my seafaring father waiting for me when I got to the sea. But, in my new state of clearsightedness, I knew that I was kidding myself.

We rested in a barn but I couldn't sleep. At first light we set off again, but the only thing that kept me going was the promise I'd made after my night in Llewellyn's cave not to give up. There seemed no point to anything any more. I huddled on the bench seat,
watching Harri and Mari pulling the sled, and wishing I had half their spirit.

All that day I felt edgy and nervous. Time and time again, I found myself glancing back, as if the whistling of the wind meant that the
C
ŵ
n y Wbir
were after me. There wasn't anything to see, but maybe Harri and Mari started sensing something too, because they began to falter.

For the first time in our journey, they began to look as if they didn't want to carry on. The wind was bitter and gusty, buffeting against them, and I had to shout to keep them going. I felt ashamed, but also felt as if I had no choice. There was snow in the wind – hard, pitted white stuff that stung my face and stuck like glue. Soon my body was covered with it, and so were the dogs' coats.

We passed snowed-in villages where houses were covered too, and cars buried in their drives. Electric lines were down, candles shone in windows, and not a soul was about. Then we passed through open country where the wind created massive drifts. It was difficult to keep going. Snow piled up on the sled until it felt as if it weighed a ton.

Harri and Mari became slower and slower and, finally, I had to call a halt. I didn't want to, but knew that I had no choice. I unharnessed the dogs and they stood looking up at me, too tired even to shake the snow off their coats. Once they'd flown like wild creatures set free, but now they stood like beasts of burden, wretched and exhausted.