A sharp grip of claw on stone thrust the wolf forward again, striking Tacit hard in his side with a taloned hand, slashing open his cassock, rending a great gash in his inquisitorial chain mail, blood staining dark crimson against the fabric. The Inquisitor went down in a heap. Immediately the beast turned and focused its fiery glare onto the Sister. It leapt, but as quickly as it did so, it stopped, mid-air, and staggered to the ground, Tacit having grasped the creature by the tail. He wrenched it back towards him and gathered it into a bear hug, tightening hard about its yawning jaws and neck.
It was then that Isabella caught sight of Tacit’s silver revolver on the ground. She rushed forward and took it up. It felt cold and terrible in her hands, the weight of it unsettling. She raised the gun and fired. The shot rang about the apartment like a thunderbolt. The wolf barked out in pain, going down on one leg. Immediately it pulled itself free from Tacit and spun on the Sister. She levelled the revolver at the creature’s chest. And then it was gone, launched like a spring from its good right leg, through the door and out of the building as if pursued by unseen furies.
She charged after it as far as the door, but already it had fled into the dark of the city. She looked back and watched the Inquisitor stumble onto the floor, his hand at his side, his face broken and bruised.
“Tacit!” she called, rushing to him, a hand to his ribs, another to the back of his head, supporting his body down to the flat of the floor. “Tacit, are you okay?”
The Inquisitor scowled in pain, and then chuckled coldly.
“Tacit, I fail to see what is so funny!” the Sister retorted, pushing the hair from his face and wincing as she peered down at the cruel wound in his side.
“Shame. I do. It would seem our enemy is scared.”
“Scared?!” stuttered Isabella. If anyone was scared, it was her. “If you say so, Inquisitor.” She pulled her hand away from his side, fingers and palm drenched in his blood. “Tsk, this is nasty. I’ll get some water and a cloth.”
She ran for the kitchen to gather the water jug. She was suddenly aware of how her feet smarted with glass embedded deep within them. She stopped and hobbled to a chair to examine the sole of her left foot.
Tacit tried to get up. “Yes, scared,” he muttered, turning awkwardly onto an elbow. “Clearly they don’t want us going to Fampoux.” He growled out his words like a prophecy. “I wonder what it is we will find there that so terrifies?”
FIFTY-SIX
19:28. WEDNESDAY, 14 OCTOBER 1914.
FAMPOUX. NR. ARRAS. FRANCE.
There was a style and a poise in the way Sandrine stepped briskly through the shattered streets of Fampoux. It brought a colour and a light to the surroundings even as a sombre shade of night fell about it. She passed lines of soldiers marching out towards low trenches being dug and constructed at the eastern outskirts of the village, standard issue folding spades strapped to their backs. She could smell the sweat and gun oil from them as they passed. Several times she was called to “Halt” by a barking sentry, but each time she ignored the order, striding past with a flippant turn of her head. A grumbling, “Bloody Froggies”, or words to similar effect, were always levelled back at her, but the sentries clearly thought the woman not enough of a threat to their growing defences to follow up their shouts with bullets.
Once again the German guns had fallen quiet. No longer was there the distinct growl of artillery. A hesitant peace had come to the lands. After the hell of fighting and bombardment, to see the soldiers march past in formation or dig in their units at the harsh chalky land, felt like watching a scene from a huge exercise, with just a darkening sky above, the smell of horse dung, sweat and hay all around.
The town hall had been badly damaged from an earlier onslaught, a direct hit decapitating the bell tower and bashing a great hole in one side of it. Pigeons now roosted in the ruins of what was once a finely carved stone rampart, taking startled flight whenever the shells fell again. Dust and stone littered the ground before the grey stone-brick building. It broke Sandrine’s heart to see it as it was, the cobbled square before it cast light grey by fallen masonry and dust. The hall held so many great memories for her, of dances and fetes, of her first proper kiss.
There was a bored-looking soldier at the door, resting against the lintel, a cigarette balanced precariously between his lips. He watched Sandrine studiously as she strode up, stepping into her path before she could reach out to the door.
“What is the meaning of this?” Sandrine cried, throwing her hands in the air. “This is my town hall.”
“Major’s headquarters now,” replied the sentry, dutifully. He gripped his rifle in his hands and measured himself against the woman, moving a little to the right to better block the way through.
“Piss on your Major!” hissed Sandrine, making to push him to one side.
The soldier swept Sandrine’s hands to the side with the body of the rifle and tried to usher her away. She was stronger than he expected and it was in fact he who found himself pushed aside. He lost his footing and stumbled over, down onto his knee. Sandrine was through the door and inside before he could reach back to grab her.
She pranced lightly over the wooden floor of the hall, long ruined by the endless trudging of military boots. At the far end of the hall, a set of sweeping staircases ran upwards either side of double doors. The rich pile carpet which had adorned the stairs had long since been ripped up and disposed of. With the soldier fast on her heels, Sandrine gambled on the lower doors and headed towards them, casting them wide. The balding figure behind the desk looked up and roared at the unexpected interruption.
“What is the meaning of …!”
And then the words were stripped from his throat the instant he recognised the woman before him.
“You!” Sandrine hissed, stuttering to a stop on the carpeted floor of his office.
The sentry caught hold of her roughly by the arm, and began to draw her away. “I’m so sorry sir,” he called apologetically, expecting any moment a torrent of abuse to be unleashed upon him by the Major. But Pewter’s face was a mix of surprise and cautious delight. His mouth hung partially open, his eyes burning into Sandrine.
“No, leave us, Ponting,” he ordered, gathering himself to his feet and stepping slowly around the desk. “Shut the door behind you please, as you leave.”
The sentry did as he was bid, bowing dutifully. Pewter stalked towards her, like a hunter approaching a triggered trap. She watched him with uncertainty, turning so that she always faced him, as if expecting a lunge or a killing blow from behind.
“Well, well,” Pewter smiled, showing teeth. He brushed back his wisps of hair and stepped close. Sandrine could smell his stale breath and took a step away but the Major’s hands were around her back in an instant, snatching her to him, his mouth to hers. She pushed him away and wiped his spittle from her lips, snarling at him, her eyes like fire.
“How dare you!” she hissed.
“How dare you walk out on me like that?!” he retorted, his tongue gently touching across his lips to taste her saliva. He gave an eyebrow a surreptitious little raise and sat back on his desk with an arrogant ease, feeling in his pockets for cigarettes. “You know, you shouldn’t have turned me down like that. Just as I was getting a little excited about the whole thing too. You really are quite a tease. And quite a delicious thing.” His eyes played over her body. “I’m certainly glad to see you again. Why on earth you chose Lieutenant Colonel Wood, I just do not know. You naughty thing. I’ve had women flogged for less.”
Sandrine spat at his feet. “I don’t care what you think!”
“Oh, but clearly you do. I mean, why else have you come back to me?” he asked, drawing out his packet of woodbines and placing one into his lips. “Realised your mistake have you?” He laughed, a high haughty laugh. “I must say you must be desperate, padding all the way across the British front, but I do agree that I am a bit of a catch.”
Sandrine seethed, her eyes thin and hostile.
>
“Oh, I see,” chuckled the Major, coldly, “this is just a happy chance, you turning up like this, is it?” he asked, his hands raised in mock question. “Cigarette, my dear?” Sandrine’s silent response gave him his answer. “Look!” he said, adopting a more conciliatory tone, “let’s not worry about what went on back in Arras, shall we?” He pushed himself forward, at which Sandrine immediately stepped back, expecting another assault. Pewter raised his hands in submission and stepped slowly to one side, circling about the woman, studying her as he went. She looked filthy and exhausted but he could still feel the urge grow within him at seeing her again, her natural beauty no war could ever diminish. “You played with me,” he went on, “really rather well, too, I’ll admit. But I survived and so did you. And here we are, once again. I say it’s a jolly good omen, don’t you?” He chortled manically. Sandrine glared at him.
“Be quiet you fool!” she shouted back, her body still taut, ready to spring aside if the Major tried anything. “I haven’t come to see you.”
“Of course not,” he replied, smugness filling his features, then suddenly saying, “My God! Your body is a gift!” He stood back to admire it, shaking his head with exaggerated wonder.
Sandrine gritted her teeth and shook off his nonsense. “I have come to warn you.”
“Warn me? Warn me of what, exactly?” replied Pewter, his face and manner darkening. “No one, particularly women, warns me about anything. I am my own man.”
“Keep your men indoors at night when in Fampoux.”
“Good heavens!” Pewter exclaimed, shaking his head and now laughing. “Are you in any way connected to Lieutenant Frost? The damned fool said exactly the same to me earlier!”
“I know Henry, yes.”
“Oh, it’s Henry is it? On first name terms, are we?” There was a jealous glint in the Major’s eyes. “My, you do get around. Lieutenant Colonel Wood one minute, Lieutenant Frost the next?” He leaned close to her. “I have bad news for you. You are going down the ranks, not up them.”
“You should listen to your Lieutenant. Keep your men indoors on a night in Fampoux!”
“And why exactly should I do that, pray tell?” he asked, sitting on the arm of an armchair and crossing his legs.
“The wolves,” Sandrine replied, coldly.
“The wolves?” replied Pewter doubtfully, with a smirk.
“The wolves of Fampoux. They are what defeated the Germans. The Germans were warned and they did not listen. Listen to me now,” Sandrine urged, coming forward a little into the centre of the carpet. “Do not let your men outside after dark.”
The Major sat back and looked at her blankly. He then started to laugh, a high forced mocking laugh. Sandrine crossed her arms and stared back at him.
“Very good!” he chortled, putting a cigarette between his lips and clapping. “Very good! I am most impressed!” He stood up and started walking again, his time in the opposite direction to which he had first surveyed the woman.
“I don’t understand what you have to be impressed about? You just have to do it. Give the order. Keep your men indoors and safe.”
But the Major was still laughing. “So, what are you? A German spy?”
“No!” Sandrine shot back.
“A German sympathiser?”
“How dare you! The Germans invaded my country, enslaved my people, ruined my village!”
“Yes, and took you as their little fuck puppet, no doubt?!” the Major cried, dropping his cigarette to the carpet and crushing it beneath his boot. “What did they do? Fuck you so well that they won you over to their side? I do suggest that you must have a delightful and eager cunt. Moist. Well worked. At least that was the impression I got from what you allowed me to feel.”
“You are sick!” Sandrine cried, turning and heading for the door.
“All lined up and fucked you, one by one, was that it? Worked you over to their side so that you’d be encouraged to spy for them? Eh?! Thought you’d get secrets from the Lieutenant Colonel, did you? Thought you’d try the Major next, did you?”
Sandrine threw the doors open. She turned back and stared at him in the doorway. “You are sending your men to their deaths! I have tried to warn you. I ask you one final time, keep them indoors.”
“No, I won’t oblige you with your request to remove my troops from my defensive trenches,” Pewter shouted after her, storming through to the entrance hall into which she had now gone. “No, I won’t give the Germans free passage back into the village I won from them. I am terribly sorry, German whore! Go and tell them that now. Tell them that I am waiting for them and we will give them a typically British hospitable welcome, when they come!”
Sandrine stopped before the main doors of the hall and turned around. She looked at the Major and then over his shoulder at the carpet in his office, before steering her eyes back to him. “I remember when that carpet was first laid down, laid down by my family twenty-two years ago.” There were tears in Sandrine’s eyes, tears of rage. “I would prefer if you showed it a little more courtesy than to stamp your cigarettes out on it,” she warned, before turning and striding away.
“Silly bloody woman,” Pewter cursed, his eyes still trained on the open door. “Ponting!” he shouted. At once the sentry rushed through the open doors. “Go and pass orders to all the officers. Tell them they and their men are all to take sentry duty this evening. Tell them I have received intelligence of an imminent German attack. Tell them I expect all defences to be occupied and primed within twenty minutes. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” nodded Ponting.
“Good, now go.”
At once the young soldier tore out of the hall. Pewter watched him go from a window of the building. He looked out to the horizon. The moon was just beginning to rise silver and sleek above it. Somewhere in the darkness, a wolf howled.
FIFTY-SEVEN
19:34. WEDNESDAY, 14 OCTOBER 1914. PARIS. FRANCE.
Cardinal Bishop Casado was signing papers at his desk when Bishop Basquez swept in unannounced through the open door, the only sound coming from the swish of his cape as he approached the table.
“Cardinal Adansoni is guiltless then?” Casado asked not looking up, knowing his visitor to be the serpentine man who seemed to be everywhere in the Vatican. He knew of no one else who would enter his room without first declaring his arrival.
“Monsignor Benigni and the Sodalitium Pianum found newspaper cuttings in his residence,” the Bishop countered, leaning forward on the desk with a gloved hand, “regarding this Mass for Peace”.
“And?” replied Casado, his eyes still fixed to the papers he was signing. He waved with his left hand, like a king might do to a favoured subject, in the direction of a tall pile of paper where the cuttings now sat.
“This material is dangerous,” Basquez insisted, his eyes turning from the papers to the Cardinal Bishop.
But Casado showed little in the way of agreement. He scratched angrily with his pen across several documents without reply, only eventually looking up to skewer the scowling man with a stare of his own to match. “Don’t be ridiculous!” he spat. At once Basquez drew his hand away from the desk, as if burned. “This material is available in every home in Europe! Indeed, it seems that everyone within the Church is talking about this event, some even with both great hope and admiration for those with the gumption to attempt to forge peace through the power of prayer!”
“But—” Basquez tried to protest.
“This is nothing which requires further investigation!” Casado roared, picking up the sheets of newspaper and tossing them forcefully to floor of his office. With that, his anger seemed to evaporate, the heat within him cooling to something which resembled shame. “And I feel foolish for agreeing to the Sodalitium Pianum’s involvement. Cardinal Adansoni is many things, but he’s not a traitor or heretic.”
“As you wish,” replied Basquez cautiously, bowing with his head subserviently and stepping back from the desk. He put his hand to his
chin, in a way which suggested he was concocting some new evidence to use, walking a tight circle in the carpet in front of Casado’s desk. “May I ask a question, Cardinal Bishop?” Casado sighed. By now he had gathered his pen into his fingers with the intention of showing that Basquez’s time with him was at an end. “Just as we’re talking about Adansoni,” Basquez continued, “knowing how much he was against the assessment of Inquisitor Tacit.”
“Is it important?”
“Probably not. But may I ask it anyway?”
“Very well. As long as it’s your final question.” The old man behind the desk cast one eye onto the clock on the far wall. “I am busy.”
“Why was Tacit sent for assessment in Arras? I mean, there are far more appropriate, one could say challenging, places to test an Inquisitor than somewhere, dare I say it, mundane like Arras. What was the Holy See’s thinking?”
“It was not of their choosing,” Casado replied, his pen beginning to scratch across the coarse surface of parchment in front of him. “So whose decision was it?”
“Pope Pius X. He requested it, in a final letter to me shortly before he died.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
1901. VERONA. ITALY.
The tavern smelt of vomit and mould. Neither Tacit or Georgi paid the stench any mind. They supposed it probably helped mask their own odour, four days on the road riding hard to bring news of their first assignment together back to the Vatican. They still had another four days ahead of them till they got there and the pair felt the need for a night under cover and a little more comfort than the land could offer. A hot meal cooked by another’s hand and wine on tap would beat what fare they could gather on the road and drink from their wineskins.
Tacit guzzled his third goblet of wine, before filling it again and pushing back his chair into the shadows of the tavern corner. He gulped another mouthful of the weak house red and stared into middle space.
The Darkest Hand Trilogy Box Set Page 23
