Order of Darkness Read online

  Quickly, they crossed the stable yard to the double door to the mortuary, big enough for a cart and a horse, barred by a thick beam of wood. The two young men silently lifted the beam from its sockets and the door stood closed, held shut only by its own weight. Freize lifted a pitchfork from the nearby wall, and Luca bent and took his dagger from the scabbard in his boot.

  ‘When I give the word, open it quickly,’ he said to the Lady Almoner. She nodded, her face as white as her veil.

  ‘Now!’

  The Lady Almoner flung the door open, the two young men rushed into the room, weapons at the ready – then fell back in horror.

  Before them was a nightmare scene, like a butcher’s shop, with the butcher and his lad working over a fresh carcass. But it was worse by far than that. It was not a butcher, and it was no animal on the slab. The Lady Abbess was in a brown working gown, her head tied in a scarf, and Ishraq was in her usual black robe covered with a white apron. The two girls had their sleeves rolled up, and were bloodstained to the elbows, standing over the dead body of Sister Augusta, Ishraq wielding a bloodied knife in her hand, disembowelling the dead girl. The nuns keeping vigil were nowhere to be seen. As the men burst in, the two young women looked up and froze, the knife poised above the open belly of the dead nun, blood on their aprons, blood on the bed, blood on their hands.

  ‘Step back,’ Luca ordered, his voice ice-cold with shock. He pointed his dagger at Ishraq, who looked to the Lady Abbess for her command. Freize raised his pitchfork as if he would spear her on the tines.

  ‘Step back from that body, I command you,’ Luca said. ‘Leave this – whatever it is that you are doing.’ He could not bear to look, he could not find the words to name it. ‘Leave it, and step against the wall.’

  He heard the Lady Almoner come in behind him and her gasp of horror at the butchery before them. ‘Merciful God!’ She staggered and he heard her lean against the wall, then retch.

  ‘Get a rope,’ Freize said, without turning his head to her. ‘Get two ropes. And fetch Brother Peter.’

  She choked back her nausea. ‘What in the name of God are you doing? Lady Abbess, answer me! What are you doing to her?’

  ‘Go,’ said Luca. ‘Go at once.’

  They heard her running feet cross the cobbles of the stable yard as the Lady Abbess raised her eyes to Luca. ‘I can explain this,’ she said.

  He nodded, gripping the dagger. Clearly, nothing could explain this scene: her sleeves rolled to her elbows, her hands stained red with the blood of a dead nun.

  ‘I believe that this woman has been poisoned,’ she said. ‘My friend is a physician—’

  ‘Can’t be,’ Freize said quietly.

  ‘She is,’ the Lady Abbess insisted. ‘We . . . we decided to cut open her belly and see what she had been fed.’

  ‘They were eating her.’ The Lady Almoner’s voice trembled from the doorway. She came back into the room, Brother Peter white-faced behind her. ‘They are witches, as I thought and the two of them were eating her in a Satanic Mass. They were eating the body of Sister Augusta. Look at the blood on their hands. They were drinking her blood. The Lady Abbess has gone over to Satan and she and her heretic slave are holding a Devil’s Mass on this, our sanctified ground.’

  Luca shuddered and crossed himself. Brother Peter stepped towards the slave with a rope held out before him. ‘Put down the knife and put out your hands,’ he said. ‘Give yourself up. In the name of God, I command you, demon or woman or fallen angel, to surrender.’

  Holding Freize’s gaze, Ishraq put down the knife on the bed beside the dead nun, then suddenly darted for the doorway that led into the empty hospital. She flung it open and was through it, followed in a moment by the Lady Abbess. As Luca and Freize raced after the two young women, she led the way, running across the yard to the main gate.

  Luca bellowed to the porteress, ‘Bar the gate! Stop thief!’ and flung himself on the Lady Abbess as she sprinted ahead of him, bringing her down to the ground in a heavy tackle and knocking the air out of her. As they went down, her veil fell from her head and a tumble of blonde hair swept over his face with the haunting scent of rosewater.

  The Moorish girl was half way up the outer gate now, springing from hinge to beam like a lithe animal, as Freize grabbed at her bare feet and missed, and then leaped up and snatched a handful of her robe and tore her off the gate, bringing her tumbling down to fall backwards on the stone cobbles with a cry of pain.

  Freize gripped her arms to her sides so tightly that she could barely breathe, while Brother Peter tied her hands behind her back, roped her feet together, and then turned to the Lady Abbess, still pinned down by Luca. As Luca dragged her to her feet, holding her wrists, her thick golden-blonde hair tumbled down over her shoulders, hiding her face.

  ‘Shame!’ the Lady Almoner exclaimed. ‘Her hair!’

  Luca could not drag his eyes from this girl who had veiled her face from him, and hooded her hair so that he should never know what she looked like. In the golden light of the rising sun he stared at her, seeing her for the first time, her dark blue eyes under brown up-swinging brows, a straight perfect nose, and a warm tempting mouth. Then Brother Peter came towards them and he saw her bloodstained hands as the clerk bound them with rope, and Luca realised that she was a thing of horror, a beautiful thing of horror, the worst thing between heaven and hell: a fallen angel, a satan.

  ‘The lay sisters will be coming into the yards to work, the nuns will be coming from church, we must tidy up,’ the Lady Almoner ruled. ‘They cannot see this. It will distress them beyond anything . . . it will break their hearts. I must shield them from this evil. They cannot see Sister Augusta so abused. They cannot see these . . . these . . .’ She could not find the words for the Lady Abbess and her slave. ‘These devils. These pilgrims from hell.’

  ‘Do you have a secure room for them?’ Brother Peter asked. ‘They will have to stand trial. We’ll have to send for Lord Lucretili. He is the lord of these lands. This is outside our jurisdiction now. This is a criminal matter, this is a hanging offence, a burning offence; he will have to judge.’

  ‘The cellar of the gatehouse,’ the Lady Almoner replied promptly. ‘The only way in or out is a hatch in the floor.’

  Freize had the Moorish girl slung like a sack over his shoulder. Brother Peter took the tied hands of the Lady Abbess and led her to the gatehouse. Luca was left alone with the Lady Almoner.

  ‘What will you do with the body?’

  ‘I will ask the village midwives to put her into her coffin. Poor child, I cannot let her sisters see her. And I will send for the priest to bless what is left of her poor body. She can lie in the church for now and then I will ask Lord Lucretili if she can lie in his chapel. As soon as they have cleaned her up and dressed her again she shall go to sanctified ground away from here.’

  She shuddered and swayed, almost as if she might faint. Luca put his hand around her waist to support her and she leaned towards him for a moment, resting her head on his shoulder.

  ‘You were very brave,’ he said to her. ‘This has been a terrible ordeal.’

  She looked up at him, and then, as if she had suddenly realised that his arm was around her, and that she was leaning against him, he felt her heart flutter like a captured bird and she stepped away. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I am not allowed . . .’

  ‘I know,’ he said quickly. ‘It is for you to forgive me. I should not have touched you.’

  ‘It has been so terrible . . .’ There was a tremble in her voice that she could not conceal.

  Luca put his hands behind his back so that he would not reach for her again. ‘You must rest,’ he said helplessly. ‘This has been too much for any woman.’

  ‘I can’t rest,’ she said brokenly. ‘I must put things to rights here. I cannot let my sisters see this terrible sight, or find out what has been done here. I will fetch the women to clean up. I must make everything right again. I will command them, I will lead them, out of error i