The Sacred Stone

by The Medieval Murderers

  The glimmer of a solution was beginning to form at the back of Geoffrey’s mind, and he knew he had enough information and clues to identify Leger’s killer. Unfortunately, the pain in his arm was distracting, and he did not feel equal to the serious thought such an analysis would entail. He followed Roger out of the priory, more than happy to sit in the White Lion until he felt better.

  ‘You cannot let Walter destroy the sky-stone,’ said Revelle, intercepting them as they walked towards the tavern. Geoffrey blinked, wondering where the angel-faced knight had come from – and why he was not with the bevy of soldiers he could see moving at a rapid lick along the path out of the town. ‘It cured Nest, and there is great good in it.’

  ‘Probably,’ Geoffrey agreed tiredly. ‘But Aidan knows a faster way, so perhaps he will reach it first. Moreover, Cadowan and Nest have disappeared, and I imagine they also intend to claim it. Thankfully, there is no room for more contenders, because I do not feel—’

  ‘But Ivar did not head for the base of the cliff,’ said Revelle urgently. ‘He was plodding towards a route to the top and farther west – towards the cave where he used to live. I know, because I went there when Eleanor needed his help. I think the sky-stone is not where he told Leger it was.’

  ‘Then go,’ suggested Geoffrey, recalling that Ivar had said as much himself – that he had moved the sky-stone after confiding in Leger, because Leger had not given him an immediate answer about what should be done with it. ‘Claim it for yourself, and give it to whichever contender you think the most worthy.’

  ‘Ivar will not have left it out in full view,’ snapped Revelle. ‘He will have buried it or shoved it in a crevice, and it will take me an age to search for it alone. By then, Walter will have realized the story was a fabrication, and will search the cave as well.’

  ‘He is your liege lord,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Reason with him if you feel so strongly that—’

  ‘You do not reason with Walter,’ interrupted Revelle contemptuously. ‘As you should know from yesterday. He will destroy the stone, and we will all be the losers. But if you two come with me now, we can save it together.’

  ‘But which of us gets to keep it?’ asked Roger acquisitively. ‘Or do we break it in three?’

  ‘We give it to my cousin,’ said Revelle, ignoring Roger’s pained look and addressing Geoffrey. ‘Bishop Giffard will know how to use it justly.’

  ‘He will,’ acknowledged Geoffrey. ‘But—’

  ‘Good,’ interrupted Revelle. ‘Then we must hurry. We shall use a goat-track and will arrive before Ivar is even halfway up.’

  The last thing Geoffrey felt like was scrambling up cliffs, but Revelle and Roger were already setting a cracking pace, so he followed as quickly as he could. Once at the woods, Revelle began to follow an almost invisible trail that angled sharply upwards. Geoffrey doubted many human feet had trodden it.

  ‘How did you discover this route?’ asked Roger, panting as it grew steeper.

  ‘Hunting for wild boar,’ replied Revelle between quick breaths. ‘It was how I reached Ivar so quickly after Eleanor drowned.’

  Geoffrey was breathing heavily, and his vision was becoming blurred, made worse by the fact that the clouds overhead were so black that the morning was more like twilight. He began to wish he had risked removing his armour to inspect his arm the previous night, because now he was developing a fever. He tried to push his discomfort to the back of his mind, but his misery intensified when there was another roll of thunder and rain began to fall.

  At first, it was just a few drops, but then the heavens opened with a ferocity the knight had rarely seen. Even the trees did not protect him, and the track underfoot became slick and dangerous. His feet skidded constantly, and, each time he fell, pain shot up his arm. He could not recall when he had last felt so wretched.

  ‘I cannot continue,’ he gasped to Roger. ‘You go. I will wait here.’

  ‘Watch out!’ yelled Revelle from above them, and Geoffrey only just managed to leap to one side as a stream of brown water shot by, full of foliage, mud and small stones. The intense rain was washing away the soil that anchored trees and bushes to the ground.

  ‘You cannot stay here,’ said Roger grimly, grabbing his good arm and hauling him on. ‘You will be swept away. You have no choice but to climb.’

  ‘Do you think the sky-stone is driving this weather?’ called Revelle uneasily. ‘Is it summoning the help of the elements to ensure it is claimed by the party it wants?’

  ‘No,’ said Geoffrey, refusing to contemplate such a wild notion.

  It felt like an age before Revelle shouted that they were near their destination. Geoffrey was exhausted, his arm burned and he could not catch his breath.

  ‘The cave is there,’ Revelle said, pointing with one hand and reaching down to pull Geoffrey up with the other. The cave’s entrance was well concealed, and Geoffrey would not have known it was there had Revelle not identified it. They fought their way through a curtain of creepers and found themselves in a surprisingly spacious cavern, with a dry, sandy floor. Immediately, the sound of the storm faded.

  But they were not alone: Ivar was there. He was breathing hard, as if he, too, had endured a fierce scramble. He had lit a fire and was sprinkling something on it that made it burn a curious blue colour. He was also chanting.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demanded Revelle. ‘And how did you get here before us?’

  The former hermit’s face wore a peculiar expression, halfway between malice and triumph. ‘I know these cliffs better than anyone: you could never outrun me. And I am about to summon some help, so I can keep what is mine.’

  ‘He is calling on Satan!’ cried Roger in alarm. He was about to stride forward and grab Ivar, but stopped when the crazed-looking man pointed a gnarled finger at him.

  ‘Stand back!’ Ivar ordered. ‘Or you will be sorry. I have called Satan, and he has sent this storm to help me. I control it, and I will use it to destroy you if you come any closer.’

  As if to prove his words, a blaze of lightning lit the entire hillside and the loudest crack of thunder Geoffrey had ever heard crashed outside. Several trees burst into flames. Revelle and Roger regarded Ivar with stunned expressions, while answers clicked smartly together in Geoffrey’s mind. He leaned against the wall of the cave and supposed his fever had prevented him from seeing them before, because they were obvious.

  ‘Ivar is the killer,’ he said, surprised at how feeble his voice sounded. ‘He killed Leger.’

  ‘Keep back,’ warned Ivar again. ‘Or you will die.’

  Geoffrey saw him hold something above his head. It was a little smaller than his hand and unevenly shaped, bearing the same mark as the symbol on the letter that Giffard had forwarded to Revelle. The sky-stone, thought Geoffrey, gazing at the item that had caused so much trouble.

  ‘I conjure Satan!’ shouted Ivar wildly. ‘Come, my dark lord!’

  ‘Get out, quickly!’ hissed Roger, grabbing Revelle’s arm and hauling him backwards. ‘It is not safe in here. Do not just stand there, Geoff! Move!’

  But Geoffrey had no strength to move. It was all he could do to lean against the wall of the cave, when his legs threatened to buckle and deposit him on the ground.

  ‘I thought Walter was being perverse when he accused Ivar of witchcraft,’ said Revelle from outside the cave. ‘But he was right all along! He—’

  But suddenly there was a tremendous crash and a huge tongue of flame shot into the cave. It knocked Geoffrey from his feet, and he could feel heat licking his armour. Then it faded as quickly as it had come, leaving behind it a rank stench of burning. He looked at the front of the cave, but there was no sign of Roger or Revelle, and the vegetation where they had stood was blackened and smoking. Geoffrey had no doubt that they were dead.

  Still staring at the ruined foliage at the mouth of the cave, Geoffrey tried to clamber to his feet. He found he could not do it.

  ‘Are you still here?’ asked Ivar. He sounded surprised.
‘Well, no matter. You are in no condition to hinder me – you will not take the sky-stone, and nor will anyone.’

  ‘You killed Leger,’ said Geoffrey dully, not letting himself think about Roger. ‘But not because you told him the location of the sky-stone, since that was a fabrication – it was here all along. You told him a deeper, more terrible secret. And he was appalled and at a loss about what to do, and that was why he asked for time to consider the matter. You do not trust anyone, and you thought he was going to betray you.’

  ‘He did betray me,’ said Ivar bitterly. He barely glanced at Geoffrey, busy with something over his fire. ‘He wrote down what I said about the sky-stone, for anyone to read. And when he left the priory after we had talked, it occurred to me that he might be the spy – that he was running off to tell Walter de Clare all the things I had confided to him.’

  ‘He was not the spy,’ said Geoffrey, trying again to stand and failing. Another roar of thunder shook the cliffs. ‘He was innocent of everything except befriending a monster.’

  ‘I should have kept him at a distance,’ spat Ivar, ‘as I have everyone else since I arrived in this godforsaken land. But I had one moment of weakness and confessed that . . . But that is none of your affair. I realized immediately that I had made a mistake, so I hastened to confuse him by making up a tale about the sky-stone. Then he rushed off, saying he needed time to “reflect”. You cannot blame me for killing him when his behaviour was so suspicious. Why did he want time to reflect?’

  ‘Because he thought the matter you had entrusted to him was important,’ explained Geoffrey tiredly. ‘He wanted to pray – not in the priory, but alone. But you, who only pretends to hear God, cannot understand that. You tried to stab and poison him when he returned.’

  ‘I wish I had succeeded,’ muttered Ivar venomously.

  ‘He did not share your secret with anyone,’ Geoffrey went on. ‘And that means no one was trying to kill him for it. So he knew you were the one trying to take his life. He stayed in the church, thinking that holy ground would stay your hand. He was wrong.’

  ‘He was a pious fool,’ said Ivar dismissively. He raised his hands again, and almost immediately there was a flicker of lightning outside that seared into Geoffrey’s eyes and forced him to look away. The following thunder was deafening. ‘No one will miss him.’

  ‘My wife will,’ said Geoffrey. He tried to see what Ivar was doing, but the man’s hands were a blur of practised movements: whatever it was, he had done it before. He changed the subject when he saw that Ivar was not listening, hoping to win time and summon enough strength to prevent whatever diabolical mischief he was creating. ‘You killed Marcus, too.’

  ‘Your friend said he was the spy,’ said Ivar with a careless shrug, as if the death of a man was nothing. ‘Marcus had no right to take priory business to the evil Walter de Clare.’

  ‘Walter is evil?’ muttered Geoffrey, taken aback. ‘You are the one summoning the devil.’

  ‘My evil is pure,’ declared Ivar. ‘His is born of malice.’

  Such warped logic was beyond Geoffrey’s understanding. ‘You killed Roger,’ he said as anger gave him the strength to stagger to his feet. ‘There was no need to harm him.’

  Ivar barely glanced at him. ‘Was there not? He was a greedy man, who would have stolen my stone without a moment’s hesitation. Him and Revelle. But I will show you all what happens to men who cross me.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Geoffrey uneasily as Ivar tossed more powder on the fire, which burned blue. Outside, the storm continued to rage; the rain was a white veil across the entrance.

  Ivar stopped his conjuring to grin. ‘I am avenging myself on all those who mean to steal from me. Do not come any closer, or you will not live to witness it – and I promise it will be impressive. I feel Satan strong within me today.’

  Geoffrey again tried to distract him. ‘You probably searched Leger’s belongings, hunting for evidence that he betrayed you.’ He took a step forward, supporting himself on the wall. ‘But you cannot read, so you have no idea what he wrote in—’

  Ivar rounded on him. ‘Enough about Leger. I am tired of Leger!’

  ‘Then let us talk about Ivar Jorundsson instead,’ said Geoffrey, fighting off the dizziness that was beginning to claw at the edges of his vision. The ache in his arm had spread to his whole body, and he knew he would not be able to stay upright for long. ‘You killed him, too.’

  Ivar gaped at him. ‘So Leger did betray my secret!’

  ‘No. It was revealed in a letter that was sent to Drogo de Hauteville five years ago. Bishop Giffard must have taken it after Drogo’s death, then sent it to Revelle. Its sender talked about a killer hunting him in darkness, and a mind lost to evil. The writer was Ivar Jorundsson, and he was referring to you.’

  ‘How do you know?’ demanded Ivar. He was not fiddling with his potions now, and all his attention was focused on Geoffrey.

  ‘Because it was penned by a non-native speaker of English, and because it had a drawing of the sky-stone. Clearly, the real Ivar sent it, warning Drogo about you – the man who would kill him, steal his stone and use it for selfish purposes. Moreover, Ivar Jorundsson left Greenland to become a monk, which means he was devout and almost certainly literate. You are neither.’

  ‘Is that the sum of the “evidence” you have?’ sneered Ivar.

  ‘No,’ said Geoffrey, leaning more heavily against the wall when he felt himself reel. ‘It was obvious from your own story that you were the “other survivor” of the fall of Deheubarth. You probably craved the sky-stone for years, even before the shipwreck, but it was not until you witnessed the slaughter near Civetot seven years ago that your mind turned totally to getting it. And as the last piece of evidence, there is that.’

  He pointed to an alcove behind Ivar, whose eyes grew wide with horror when he saw the skeleton that was huddled there. It had been buried, but the explosion that had killed Roger and Revelle had loosened the earth around it, exposing it for all to see.

  ‘And you probably murdered Drogo,’ Geoffrey went on when Ivar turned back to his fire and began to chant with renewed fervour. Outside, the storm reached new heights of fury, so it felt as if the whole cliff-face was shuddering under its impact. The knight took another step forward.

  ‘Drogo had met Jorundsson,’ said Ivar. ‘He had to die if I was to assume Jorundsson’s identity, and I am glad he fell over the cliff.’

  Geoffrey lunged at him. The madman punched him, using the hand that held the stone. Geoffrey felt a blinding pain in his temple, and then a curious floating sensation. Lights exploded behind his eyes, and he was not sure if it was his imagination or more lightning. Ivar was poised to hit him again, but Geoffrey grabbed his wrist, wrenched the stone away and, after stumbling a few steps, threw it as hard as he could out of the cave’s entrance.

  ‘No!’ howled Ivar, haring after it.

  Geoffrey supposed he should not let him escape. He staggered to the entrance, and winced when there was a terrible scream, followed by the kind of crashing that suggested someone cartwheeling down the tree-studded slope.

  ‘Geoff!’ exclaimed Roger, appearing suddenly in front of him. ‘I am sorry to abandon you with that villain. I was coming back for you, but that thunderbolt hit and knocked me out of my wits.’

  ‘Where is Revelle?’ asked Geoffrey. He found he was able to stand unaided.

  Roger’s expression darkened, and he looked away. ‘The thunderbolt must have blown him to pieces. And then Ivar went over the cliff – he just tore out of the cave and plunged straight over, trying to catch the sky-stone.’

  Geoffrey stood straighter. ‘Did he succeed?’

  Roger shook his head. ‘And I am afraid there is no point hunting for the stone, because it will never be found in all that undergrowth. What a pity! I am sure we could have sold it for a handsome price.’

  ‘It was not something to be haggled over,’ said Geoffrey. He flexed his arm, aware that it no longer throbbed and hi
s wits were clear. He supposed his tussle with Ivar must have dislodged some pocket of poison and allowed his humours to rebalance themselves.

  ‘The rain has stopped,’ said Roger, squinting into the sky, where a brilliant rainbow was beginning to shimmer. ‘So I recommend we leave, because if anyone else comes up here I am not sure how we shall explain what has happened.’

  Nor was Geoffrey.

  ‘I hate to say it, but Walter was right,’ said Roger as they neared Goodrich the following afternoon, glad to have left Estrighoiel and its warring inhabitants behind. ‘Ivar was evil, and he did try to summon demons from hell.’

  ‘He did try,’ agreed Geoffrey. ‘But he did not succeed. All he did was light a fire, throw some handfuls of coloured sand at it and mutter a lot of gibberish.’

  Roger gaped at him. ‘But he called up that terrible storm – which seems to have destroyed crops as far as the eye can see.’

  ‘The storm was brewing long before he went to his cave,’ countered Geoffrey. ‘It was coincidence that it broke when we happened to confront him.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Roger, unconvinced. ‘But you cannot deny that he was a selfish, wicked villain. He murdered Ivar Jorundsson to get the sky-stone in the first place, having coveted it for years. He must have killed Drogo, and he stabbed Leger after he had second thoughts about confiding in him. Then he dispatched Marcus because he was the priory spy. Why did he do that, Geoff? He felt no loyalty to his Benedictine brethren.’

  ‘Probably because he was afraid that a man who snooped might have the skill to learn the whereabouts of the sky-stone and the identity of Leger’s murderer.’

  Roger nodded. ‘And Cadowan, Nest, Odo and his monks, Walter, Revelle and Pigot were innocent. However, I confess that I am disappointed that we could not find something with which to accuse Walter and his henchmen. I did not take to them.’

  ‘The feeling was mutual. But I am sorry we found no trace of Revelle to bury. He was a good man, and I do not like to think of him lying scattered down the cliff.’

  ‘Unlike Ivar – or whatever his real name was,’ said Roger. ‘Walter found his body.’