Order of Darkness Read online

  Like a shadow, the beast wormed its way towards him and halted in the centre of the arena, sitting on its back legs like a dog, facing him, its chest pale in the moonlight, its mane falling back from its face. It waited, its eyes on Freize, watching the chops in his hand, but not daring to come any closer.

  Freize dropped one just below his feet, then tossed one a little further away, and then one further than that, and sat rock-still as the beast squirmed to the farthest bone. Ishraq could hear it lick, and then the crunching of the bone as it ate. It paused, licked its lips and then looked longingly at the next bone on the earthen floor of the bear pit.

  Unable to resist the scent, it came a little closer, and took up the second bone. ‘There you go,’ Freize said reassuringly. ‘No harm done and you get your dinner. Now, what about this last one?’

  The last one was almost under his dangling bare feet. ‘Come on,’ Freize said, urging the beast to trust him. ‘Come on now, what d’you say? What d’you say?’

  The beast crept the last few feet to the last bone, gobbled it down and retreated, but only a little way. It looked at Freize, and the man, unafraid, looked back at the beast. ‘What d’you say?’ Freize asked again. ‘D’you like a lamb chop? What d’you say, little beast?’

  ‘Good,’ the beast said, in the light piping voice of a child. ‘Good.’

  Ishraq clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp of surprise. She expected Freize to fling himself off the arena wall and come running into the inn with the amazing news that the beast had spoken a word, but he did not move at all. He was frozen on the bear-pit wall. He neither moved nor spoke, and for a moment she wondered if he had not heard, or if she had misheard or deceived herself in some way. Still Freize sat there like a statue of a man, and the beast sat there like a statue of a beast, watching him; and there was a long silence in the moonlight.

  ‘Good, eh?’ Freize said, his voice as quiet and level as before. ‘Well, you’re a good beast. More tomorrow. Maybe some bread and cheese for breakfast. We’ll see what I can get you. Goodnight, beast – or what shall I call you? What name do you go by, little beast?’

  He waited, but the beast did not reply. ‘You can call me Freize,’ the man said gently to the animal. ‘And perhaps I can be your friend.’

  Freize swung his legs over to the safe side of the wall and jumped down, and the beast stood four-legged, listening for a moment, then went to the shelter of the furthest wall, turned around three times like a dog, and curled up for sleep.

  Ishraq looked up at the moon. Tomorrow it would be full and the villagers thought that the beast would wax to its power. If it could speak now, with the skill of a devil, what might the creature do then?

  A delegation from the village arrived the next morning saying respectfully but firmly that they did not want the inquiry to delay justice against the werewolf. They did not see the point of the Inquirer speaking to people, and writing things down. Instead, all the village wanted to come to the inn at moonrise, moonrise tonight, to see the changes in the werewolf, and to kill it.

  Luca met them in the yard, Isolde and Ishraq with him, while Freize, unseen in the stable, was brushing down the horses, listening intently. Brother Peter was upstairs completing the report.

  Three men came from the village: the shepherd boy’s father, Raul Rossi; the village headman, Guglielmo Mugnaio; and his brother. They were very sure they wanted to see the wolf in its wolf form, kill it, and make an end to the inquiry. The blacksmith was hammering away in the village forge making the silver arrow even as they spoke, they said.

  ‘Also, we are preparing its grave,’ Guglielmo Mugnaio told them. He was a round red-faced man of about forty, as pompous and self-important as any man of great consequence in a small village. ‘I am reliably informed that a werewolf has to be buried with certain precautions so that it does not rise again. So to make certain sure that the beast will lie down when it is dead and not stir from its grave, I have given orders to the men to dig a pit at the crossroads outside the village. We’ll bury it with a stake through its heart. We’ll pack the grave with wolfsbane. One of the women of the village, a good woman, has been growing wolfsbane for years.’ He nodded at Luca as if to reassure him. ‘The silver arrow and the stake through its heart. The grave of wolfsbane. That’s the way to do it.’

  ‘I thought that was the undead?’ Luca said irritably. ‘I thought it was the undead who were buried at crossroads?’

  ‘No point not taking care,’ Mugnaio said, glowingly confident in his own judgement. ‘No point not doing it right, now that we have finally caught it and we can kill it at our leisure. I thought we would kill it at midnight, with our silver arrow. I thought we would make a bit of an event of it. I myself will be here. I thought I might make a short speech.’

  ‘This isn’t a bear baiting,’ Luca said. ‘It’s a proper inquiry, and I am commissioned by His Holiness as an Inquirer. I can’t have the whole village here, the death sentence agreed before I have prepared my report, and rogues selling seats for a penny.’

  ‘There was only one rogue doing that,’ Mugnaio pointed out with dignity. The noise of Freize grooming the horse and whistling through his teeth suddenly loudly increased. ‘But the whole village has to see the beast and see its death. Perhaps you don’t understand, coming from Rome as you do. But we’ve lived in fear of it for too long. We’re a small community, we want to know that we are safe now. We need to see that the werewolf is dead and that we can sleep in peace again.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but it’s thought that my first son was taken by the beast. I’d like to see an end to it. I’d like to be able to tell my wife that the beast is dead,’ Raul Rossi, the shepherd boy’s father, volunteered to Luca. ‘If Sara knew that the beast was dead then she might feel that our son Tomas can take the sheep out to pasture without fear. She might sleep through the night again. Seven years she has wakened with nightmares. I want her to be at peace. If the werewolf was dead, she might forgive herself.’

  ‘You can come at midnight,’ Luca decided. ‘If it is going to change into a wolf then it will do so then. And if we see a change, then I shall be the judge of whether it has become a wolf. Only I shall make that judgement, and only I will rule on its execution.’

  ‘Should I advise?’ Mugnaio asked hopefully. ‘As a man of experience, of position in the community? Should I consult with you? Help you come to your decision?’

  ‘No.’ Luca crushed him. ‘This is not going to be a matter of the village turning against a suspect and killing him out of their fear and rage. This is going to be a weighing of the evidence and justice. I am the Inquirer. I shall decide.’

  ‘But who is going to fire the arrow?’ Mugnaio asked. ‘We have an old bow which Mrs Louisa found in her loft, and we have restrung it, but there’s nobody in the village who is trained to use a longbow. When we’re called up to war we go as infantry with billhooks. We haven’t had an archer in this village for ten years.’

  There was a brief silence as they considered the difficulty. Then: ‘I can shoot a bow,’ Ishraq volunteered.

  Luca hesitated. ‘It’s a powerful weapon,’ he said. He leaned towards her. ‘Very heavy to bend,’ he said. ‘It’s not like a lady’s bow. You might be skilled in archery, ladies’ sports, but I doubt you could bend a longbow. It’s a very different thing from shooting at the butts.’

  Freize’s head appeared over the stable door to listen, but he said nothing.

  In answer, she extended her left hand to Luca. On the knuckle of the middle finger was the hard callous, the scar of an archer that identified him like a tattoo. It was an old blister, worn by drawing the arrow shaft across the guiding finger. Only someone who had shot arrow after arrow would have his hand marked by it.

  ‘I can shoot,’ she said. ‘A longbow. Not a lady’s bow.’

  ‘However did you learn?’ Luca asked, his hand withdrawing from her warm fingers. ‘And why do you practise all the time?’

  ‘Isolde’s father