Order of Darkness Read online

  ‘Then try them!’ someone shouted.

  ‘You say that you are an Inquirer – hold an inquiry!’

  ‘Right now!’

  ‘I will hold an inquiry,’ Luca tried to seize control of the angry crowd. ‘I will hold an inquiry this afternoon. A proper inquiry . . .’

  ‘Not this afternoon – now!’ the man with the dirty jacket shouted him down.

  ‘I’ll hold an inquiry,’ Luca insisted through gritted teeth. ‘A proper inquiry at the time that I appoint, and Brother Peter will write a report to the lord of our order and to the Holy Father. And you shall give evidence on oath of what you have seen –’ he glared at the angry women – ‘what you have really seen – not what you imagine. And if there has been any witchcraft or magic I will find it out and punish it.’

  ‘Even if she has seduced you with her witch skills?’ Mrs Ricci asked, her voice clear and accusing. ‘She, who crept into the men’s room in the night?’

  Isolde’s cheeks burned red for shame, but it was Ishraq who stepped forward and spat out her reply. ‘There is no witch, and there is no seduction. There are friends and fellow travellers, Christians and pilgrims and a terrible, terrible tragedy which you make worse by your slurs and scandals. Let the Inquirer hold his inquiry without fear or favour and we will all abide by his judgement.’

  ‘Right now, then,’ Mrs Ricci insisted.

  ‘Right now,’ said another voice, the commander of the guard of the sea walls. ‘I would know what made the sea turn on us.’

  ‘Right now,’ Brother Peter conceded, frightened by the hostility and the numbers of the crowd. ‘We’ll go to the inn and meet in the dining room. I’ll get some paper and ink from Father Benito. We will hold an inquiry, as we are bound to do, and you shall have your say.’

  The man in the dirty jacket suddenly lunged forwards, grabbed Luca by the jacket, thrust his big face forwards. ‘Right now!’ he shouted. ‘We said right now, we mean right now! Not down at the inn! Not when you have fetched paper! Not when you have whispered together and made up a story. Now! Justice for the drowned!’

  Luca pushed him away but he was a strong, angry man, and he did not release his grip. Ishraq flexed her fingers and looked around as if to measure how many people might try to drag them down. Isolde saw from her face that she thought they would not escape a beating, perhaps worse. The two young women stood a little closer, knowing that they were hopelessly outnumbered.

  ‘Justice for the drowned!’ someone else shouted from the back and then there were more people, running up the narrow streets, shouting and catcalling. ‘Justice for the drowned!’

  ‘Right now,’ Luca offered. Gently he pushed the big man away, sensing that the whole crowd was on the edge of a riot. ‘Where? In the church?’

  ‘In the church,’ the big man agreed, and he released Luca and led the way to the church with half the village following, and the other half running through the streets to join them. He looked back at Brother Peter. ‘And you write it down, like you should,’ he insisted. ‘There’s ink and paper in the church. And if they are guilty you write down that they are to be given to us, the people of Piccolo, for us to do as we please.’

  ‘If they are guilty,’ Father Benito specified.

  Ishraq took a look around, thinking that she and Isolde and Rosa might be able to break away. Isolde took a firm grip of Rosa’s hand, lifted the hem of her own long gown ready to run.

  ‘Not so fast,’ Mrs Ricci said with an evil smile. ‘You’re coming too. Don’t think you’ll get away again to bathe in the water and call down a wave from hell on us poor Christians, you vile heretic and you vile witch and you vile child.’

  Ishraq looked at her, the fury in her dark gaze veiled by her dark lashes, and the three of them submitted to being hustled into the church.

  The people filed into the church, ranged around the stone walls and stood in a murmuring hush, waiting for what was to happen next. Luca took a seat in the choir stalls, Brother Peter on one side of him, Father Benito on the other, the witnesses, as they came up to make their statements took the front row of the opposing choir stalls, the light on the altar behind the rood screen shining warmly on them all. The commander of the sea walls waited at the door. The hushed holiness of the place silenced the crowd but they were still determined to see justice done, and one after another, the villagers stepped up to the choir stalls and spoke of their experiences with the crusade and then with the flood.

  They reported seeing the children begging and praying. They all agreed that Johann had preached of the end of days and had promised that they would be able to walk dry-shod to Jerusalem. They all reported that he had tempted them, by promising them sight of a beloved lost kinsman. People wept again as they said that Johann had spoken to them personally, described events that he could not possible have known unless he had been guided by the Devil himself, that they had been sure of him as an angel, now they knew he was accursed.

  Brother Peter made notes, Luca listened intently, fearing more and more that some terrible wrong had happened in this town and that he had missed it. Remorsefully, he remembered coming into the town at dusk, after riding all day with Isolde, quite entranced by her, noticing nothing about the gateway, the harbour or the inn. He remembered saying goodnight to her on the stairs of the inn, thinking of nothing but the closeness of her and that if she had leaned a little nearer they could have kissed. He thought of the arrival of the children on the quayside and how he had looked up to see the two beautiful girls at their window as they had called down that hundreds of children were on the road; he had heard what they had said, but what he had seen was the two exquisite young women. He remembered warning Ishraq that she should not wear her Arab dress and how he had told her that her skin was the colour of heather honey. He knew now that he had been instantly and completely persuaded by Johann, that he had been determined to join the crusade to Jerusalem, hoping selfishly that he would see his parents again. Distracted, filled with sinful desire, obsessed with his own hopes and fears, Luca blamed himself for being quite blind to the events unfolding before his very eyes, and letting this town be swept through by the flood.

  He should have been a Noah, he thought – he should have known that the flood was coming and prepared a safe haven. If he had been a true Inquirer, and not a lovesick boy, he would not have been distracted and perhaps he would have seen something: a movement of the sea, the largeness of the moon – something that could have warned him of the disaster that was coming. Luca sat very still, listening intently, filled with shame at his own failure.

  ‘What about the young ladies?’ one of the midwives called from the body of the church. ‘You are asking about things that we know, that we all know. What about the young ladies and what they were doing?’

  At once there was a murmur of suspicion and anxiety in the echoing chancel. ‘Call them. And have them answer to you.’

  Wearily Luca rose to his feet and looked into the shadowy body of the church. ‘Lady Isolde, Mistress Ishraq!’ he called. He could see the girls coming slowly from where they had been kneeling at the back of the church and then the quiet patter of their leather slippers as they came up the stone-flagged aisle and hesitated. Solemnly, he waved them into the choir stalls opposite his seat, so that they should take their place like the other witnesses. He looked at them, and he knew he was looking at them as if they were strangers to him: strangers filled with the incomprehensible powers of women.

  ‘And the child,’ someone insisted. ‘The child who escaped the wave.’

  Isolde bowed her head to hide her resentment, and went back down the aisle and returned with Rosa holding her hand.

  The two of them sat opposite him, in silence, Rosa between them, their eyes on the floor. Luca remembered that when he first met Isolde she was accused of witchcraft and now she sat before him accused of the worst of crimes, once again. He could not help but feel a superstitious shiver that so much trouble seemed to swirl around her, though she always looked,