Voice Of The Demon (Book 2) (54 page)

All in all, he was entirely unlike the figure Damien had thought the Bishop would be. Not that he’d imagined he would ever meet McCauly.

Damien took the list and glanced at it without reading. ‘Forgive me, Father, but may I ask you a question?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why . . . why did you reveal your identity to the gardener?’

‘Why not?’

‘But surely you must know the danger.’

‘I wanted to see what his reaction would be.’

‘Why?’

McCauly brought his hands together under his robe. With the greatest calm he replied, ‘I wanted to know if anybody outside the Church still remembered me. Would you wake me for Prime, Brother? It’s been a long time since I performed the orders of the day.’

McCauly turned back to his table once more, then paused. ‘Do the lay workers usually attend mass?’

‘Most of them.’

‘And those who do not?’

‘Well, Martin doesn’t. He never has. He won’t even go into the chapel.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. He never really says anything.’

With a smile, McCauly nodded. ‘I’d be grateful for those books.’

*

Long after the last monk had filed out of the chapel, Aiden remained in his seat. He didn’t feel like praying – though the gods knew he had enough to pray for – it was just the sheer luxury of being able to sit in the house of the gods. How long would it be before he could do so openly? Even now, after these few weeks of freedom, he still watched each new arrival at the Abbey, scanned new faces for those he might recognize. The sound of a slamming door still sent a rush of fear through him, and some of the older rooms in the Abbey had the same damp smell his cell had acquired. He avoided going anywhere near them.

Such a little piece of freedom – but how sweet! To converse with monks and priests again, to be able to wander for as long as he cared, to be able to read whatever he wished . . . To eat food – real food – again with relish, no fear of poison. The touch of the sun upon his face on some days felt like a kiss from the gods themselves.

And this was a good house, Saint Germanus. The people were good, the Abbot was good. McGlashen had chosen well. Now, if only Aiden could rid himself of his bad dreams, he could be well content – at least, as content as he could be having no knowledge of the safety of his rescuers. Surely if something had happened to them, word would come…

‘Am I disturbing you?’ Abbot Chester approached from behind and took a seat beside Aiden.

‘I was just admiring your chapel.’

Chester nodded. ‘Are you settled in? Do you have everything you need? Is Brother Damien looking after you?’

Aiden smiled. ‘Very well indeed, for one so young.’

‘And you? Are you well?’

Glancing aside, Aiden raised his eyebrows. ‘By that, if you mean, have I recovered from my years of prison, then I must warn you I am unlikely to give you a good answer. I survive – and better so, each day. Much of it is due to you, of course.’

‘Damien tells me you spend much time in the vegetable garden watching Martin.’

‘I’m interested in the way he works.’

‘Oh? How?’

‘Each swing of the hoe or thrust of the spade is performed with exactly the same effort. He bends his back to the work, spending each day the same as the last, as though his only thought was to achieve perfection in digging the garden. In a way, his gardening is similar to the life of a monk – but the man never attends mass. He plies his devotion in a different manner to us.’

Chester gave a short laugh. ‘I never thought of it that way. You know Brother Ormond has suspicions Martin might be a spy for the Guilde?’

‘You think so?’

‘You told Martin your name. Was that wise?’

Aiden came to his feet. ‘If Martin had something to tell the Guilde he would have gone running off to do so the moment I told him. Has he been outside the Abbey grounds?’

‘No.’

‘Then you have your answer.’

Chester joined him and together they walked down the aisle towards the door. There Chester paused, ready to go back to his office. ‘I suspect your faith is stronger than mine, Father.’

‘Faith?’ Aiden murmured, glancing up to the patch of blue sky he could see through a doorway. ‘Interesting you should put it like that. I must thank you for the loan of Brother Damien. However, I think it’s time he went back to his own duties. Would you thank him for me and tell him he’s done a fine job.’

‘Of course, Father.’

*

Aiden rose and washed as he did every morning. He attended Prime, bade the Abbot good day, then sat in the refectory and ate a light breakfast. After that, he headed for the garden, for the first time alone. Not that Damien had been even remotely akin to a guard, but the sense of freedom was all that more acute for the young monk’s absence.

The sun was out for the second day in a row and the only snow visible now was that on the peak high above the monastery. With any luck, the sun would stay around now and give those poor trees a chance to bud.

The garden was empty.

With a frown, Aiden glanced around, but Martin was nowhere to be seen. On impulse, he headed for the orchard. He walked the whole length without seeing a soul. When he stopped, however, the sound of an axe against wood drew him deep into the rows of trees. He came to the end and found what he’d been looking for.

‘Good morning, Martin,’ Aiden smiled at the gardener as he hacked away at a thick row of berry bushes overgrown from the last summer.

As usual, Martin ignored him, so he found a fallen log to sit upon where the sun could warm his feet.

‘Be careful of those thorns, there,’ McCauly said after a moment. ‘Even dead and dry, they can give you quite a cut.’

No response. Not even a hair turned in his direction. This was going to be much harder than he’d thought. ‘Still, it’s a good idea to cut them back at this time of year. They can
take over a whole garden if you let them. I used to help my father when I was a young boy. He enjoyed working the land, just like you do.’

Martin swung the axe in a perfect rhythm, pausing only to pull at the branches as he freed them. He made a pile to Aiden’s left which grew with every stroke.

‘Of course, at that age, I had no idea I would find a vocation in the Church. People have asked me – but to be honest, I don’t really know when the idea first occurred to me. I instantly rejected it, of course, and I didn’t tell my father about it. He would have disapproved. Instead, I ran away to the coast and found a berth on the first ship to hand. For the next three years I scrubbed decks, climbed the mast and mended sails of a merchant ship plying the trade along the west coast. Then one day, while ashore at Ankar, I saw a face in the market crowd and immediately fell in love. She was the most exquisite creature I’d ever seen and I pursued her with all the fervour I could muster. I even missed the ship when it left. I got a job with a blacksmith and for a year I pounded steel and iron, trying to build up muscle and a small fortune with which to entice my love into marriage.’

Aiden paused and folded his arms across his chest. ‘But as time went by, I found myself less interested in marrying her than I was in simply loving her. I never did actually ask her. I took my money and went back home, but somewhere along the journey I must have made a decision, because when I finally saw my father the first thing I said to him was, “I want to be a priest.”’

With a sigh, Aiden continued, ‘My father didn’t wait for any divine sign, of course. He locked me in a room upstairs for a month, determined to change my mind. At the end he came up, unlocked the door and told me to go ahead and be a priest. Funny how things work out so opposite to what you expect.’

Martin had finished chopping the larger branches and now, with a scythe, began on the sharp spines which jutted out from the tops of the bushes.

Aiden went on, ‘You know, becoming a priest was much
harder than I’d thought possible. So many years of study, so many years of serving my order, my superior, and yet all the while, I felt that I was doing the right thing, that I’d been born in the Church and that I should die in it. I rose every morning expecting to hate the hour and the cold and the interminable daily prayers – but I didn’t. I loved it. Every minute of it. Right up until the moment they made me Bishop and I was imprisoned for it.’

Martin swung the scythe once more, but this time, into a thick branch where it stuck. Then he turned and strode right up to Aiden. Leaning close, Martin met his gaze with his usual calm – only this time it was touched with something harder. Then he spoke, his voice as sharp and hard as the blade he’d wielded.

‘Leave me alone.’

With that, he turned and walked off through the orchard, leaving Aiden sitting on his log.

*

At first, Aiden couldn’t work out what had woken him, then the bell rang again, over and over, and he almost fell out of bed. He grabbed the first robe to hand, shoved his feet into his sandals and rushed out of his room. In the cloister, he was nearly knocked over by monks rushing past him. He ran after them, ignoring the cold.

He got only as far as the orchard path before he realized what was wrong. The black night was lit up by the orange glow of a fire. The storeroom!

With a gasp of horror, Aiden ran to where the hastily woken monks were busily throwing pails of water from the stream over the nearest flames. They worked in lines, surrounding the building, handing the buckets along to be thrown against the heat. Aiden joined the nearest line and began working.

‘Take another down there!’ the Abbot bellowed over the roar of the fire. The stone building was already groaning with the heat. The whole effort looked to be futile.

As Aiden handed another pail to his neighbour, he chanced a look at the ancient storeroom, in time to see Martin emerge from the gaping door, a pile of manuscripts
under his arm. He ran forward, coughing and gasping for air and dropped the papers. Without waiting, he spun around and ran back inside the burning building.

‘What is he doing?’ Aiden cried. ‘He’ll get himself killed!’

Martin was gone a long time. Then he emerged again, dodging a falling beam to bring more manuscripts out. Again he dumped them on his pile, just like he had with the berry bushes. Again he ran back inside. Voices called out to him to stop, but he either didn’t hear or he ignored them.

Aiden couldn’t stand there any longer. He handed the next bucket along, then left the line. The flames now rose high into the sky, illuminating the whole Abbey like a private sun on a summer’s day. The lines fell back, unable now to reach the fire with their water. The monks waited at a distance, prepared to attack any spark that might ignite the buildings close by.

Martin had not returned. The building groaned again and another beam fell. Then he appeared and Aiden breathed again. He dashed forward to the pile of manuscripts in time for Martin to drop his next load. Before the young man could turn back again, Aiden’s hand shot out and caught hold of his.

‘Don’t go. You’ll be burned alive.’

Martin moved to snatch his hand away, but Aiden was not going to let go. ‘I told you to leave me alone!’

Aiden hissed in a breath and held on as though his life depended on it. ‘Robert! Don’t do it.’

For a moment there was a flicker of something in the young man’s eyes and then, as though he were swatting a fly, he snatched his hand from Aiden’s grasp and turned back towards the fire. Aiden took another step forward. ‘If you’re going to die in there I won’t let you die alone.’

A huge beam crashed to the floor at that moment, showering them both with flying embers. The man didn’t move a muscle. Aiden threw his hands up against the sparks, then peered through his fingers. Robert remained, his shirt singed and black with smoke. Aiden waited behind him and watched. They both stood there for a long time, as though frozen against the searing heat. Then, without even a glance
in his direction, Robert turned and walked away from the fire, disappearing from sight within seconds.

Aiden watched him go until he was dragged back to safety by the Abbot. ‘Thank the gods you stopped him. I can’t believe he risked his life for the sake of a few books. What did you say to him?’

Suddenly drained, Aiden wiped a hand across his brow. ‘I called him a fool. He’ll probably never forgive me.’

*

The light of dawn brought home to the whole community the extent of the terrible damage. The entire storeroom was gutted, leaving behind only four stone walls and a stinking pile of smoking ash. Aiden wandered among the smouldering mess with Brother Damien at his side. From time to time the young monk would bend down and turn over something promising, only to find the item destroyed beyond recognition.

A team of lay workers had already started cleaning up, but Aiden was loath to leave the place so soon. He could see the devastation on the faces of the monks who had fought the fire, on Damien’s face too. Almost the entire history of Saint Germanus had been kept in this building.

‘Tell me, Damien,’ Aiden began, stepping over a smouldering beam, ‘when did Martin first come here?’

‘Well, it must have been autumn last year. He was certainly here before the first snow fell.’

‘Do you know where he came from?’

‘No. I asked once, but he didn’t answer.’

Aiden frowned and glanced at him. ‘Weren’t you curious?’

‘It’s not unusual for a man to come to a monastery with a past he’d rather forget.’

‘And what is Martin is trying to forget?’

Damien shrugged. ‘I couldn’t begin to guess.’ He paused after a moment and took his eyes from the mess at his feet. He glanced over his shoulder at the others. ‘We have almost one hundred monks here, Father, but not one of them got a word out of him. He just worked every day, without his shirt in the freezing cold, determined to do his penance.’

Damien lifted the edge of his habit above the black soggy
dust. Carefully he led Aiden out of the burned ruin to the muddy forecourt. ‘That’s why most men become lay workers. Some are quite willing to talk about their sins. Others not. Either way, we don’t refuse their desire to pay recompense for their past sins.’