by Sarah Rayne
Joachim reached down to lift Gina out of the cart. ‘Don’t struggle,’ he said. ‘You won’t get free anyway – I have the strength of ten men because my heart is pure, and my soul is unflawed and safe. But you – repentance won’t be enough to save your soul, Gina.’
As he pushed open the cottage’s door with a foot, he said, in a voice of such menace that spikes of cold terror went through Gina’s body, ‘And now here we are. This is your place of execution, Gina.’
ELEVEN
Gina had often seen Infanger Cottage from the windows of Chandos House, and had thought it rather picturesque, a tumbledown witch’s cottage, something she might one day try to sketch. But seeing it like this, crouching in the darkness with the trees framing it like curving claws, it was not picturesque at all. It was sinister and menacing.
As Father Joachim carried her inside, the cottage’s atmosphere seemed to rear up to hit Gina like a physical blow, reaching her even through the laudanum. This is your place of execution … There was a smell of damp and neglect, but there was also the impression of sadness, and of loneliness. Gina had the sudden thought that in the past people had been deeply unhappy here. Then she thought: and people who live here in the future will be deeply unhappy, as well.
The hall was bare except for an oak chest standing against a wall. At the far end a door was open; the room beyond it was wreathed in shadows, but Gina glimpsed windows with narrow strips of lead, and a view of the dark forest beyond them. There was no furniture except for a couple of wooden chairs and a rag rug on the floor. She had not often been inside this kind of house, although she sometimes accompanied her mother who visited Chandos tenants, and liked to distribute gifts of food to the poor of Cresacre. But it was clear that this cottage had been empty for a very long time – which meant no one was likely to come here, and that Gina was wholly at Father Joachim’s mercy.
Beneath stairs that must lead to the upstairs rooms was a heavy-looking door, the oak worn and dark with age. It had been propped open, and it was possible to see a flight of stone steps, wreathed in shadows, leading down. As Joachim began slowly to carry Gina down these steps, she thought: we’re going down into the past. We’re going down through the layers of this cottage’s history. What will he do to me when we get down to that past? He’s mad, of course. How strange that I never realized it before – that no one realized it. But he must be mad – all that talk about repentance not saving my soul and about knowing who I really am.
Joachim reached the bottom of the steps and set Gina down on the floor. It was partly stone flagged and partly hard-packed earth and it was dreadfully uncomfortable, but lying flat helped steady the dizziness a bit. Joachim made sure that her wrists were still securely tied, then went to one of the corners; Gina, twisting her head round to see what he was doing, realized there were two oil lamps, and that he was firing them.
The laudanum-soaked cloth had loosened and fallen around her neck. She was able to take several deep breaths, which helped, and then to partly sit up. As the lamplight flared up, she saw that the stories about the foundations of Infanger Cottage being older than the present house must be true. Alberic Firkin had always maintained that its foundations were medieval, although most people said you could not trust Alberic’s judgement, especially after a night at the Black Boar. But the cellar must be considerably larger than the house standing above it. And it was old – oh, God, it was so old. The walls were crusted with dirt, and cobwebs dripped from the ceiling like tattered grey cloth. Halfway along was a brick archway. It looked as if it might once have supported a massive structure directly overhead.
There were several shallow alcoves in the walls; they had straight sides and rounded tops, like niches in churches, fashioned for statues. These alcoves were man-sized, though, and two – no, three – of them were very wide. It looked as if someone had been working down here, because piled high against one of the alcoves were what looked like the bricks Alberic Firkin had used to build an extra wall at one side of the Black Boar so that the mail coaches could drive in and out. Gina and her mother had driven past while this work was in progress, although mother had ordered their driver to whip up the horses to a faster pace, so that brick-dust did not blow into the carriage. With the bricks was a bucket containing grey, wet-looking paste, and next to it was what looked like gardening tools. Trowels?
Set high up on one wall was a long window. It was barely a foot deep, and Gina saw that it was level with the ground outside. The glass was smeared with dirt, but it was possible to see thick grass growing up to the cottage’s walls and the stunted roots of trees. In this light they looked like diseased hands thrusting up out of the ground.
Father Joachim set the oil lamps down in the centre of the cellar. He moved slowly and deliberately, the radiance from the lamps all around him, faint curls of smoke spiralling up. Gina suddenly realized that he was singing, very softly. She could not make out the words, but the impression that Joachim was preparing to preside over some macabre religious ceremony – that it was not greasy smoke that came from the lamps, but incense – was impossible to miss. His face blazed with all the fervour that the old prophets – Ahab and Elisha and their ilk – might have displayed.
Then he turned to look at her, and the eerie chanting ceased. ‘The Bible commands us to root out evil,’ he said. ‘And for certain sins there was once a very particular punishment. A very old punishment. It used to be known as sacred murder, and it was a punishment that was meted out hundreds of years ago. It fits your own sin now, Gina.’
Gina said, ‘What were you singing?’ She thought this was probably the most supremely irrelevant thing she could have said, but Joachim nodded, as if he did not find the question strange.
‘It’s a form of plainchant,’ he said. ‘I found it in the convent quite recently.’
A memory stirred, of Sister Cecilia saying something about her music being disturbed. She had sounded upset – had she known this music was there? Had Father Joachim stolen it?
‘It was hidden inside a stack of plainchant,’ he said. ‘They’re so sly, those nuns, with their secrets. But I know those secrets, and because of it they don’t dare refuse me anything I ask. That’s why I had a key to the retreat house tonight. The words of the chant were written in French,’ he said, ‘but it wasn’t difficult to translate them. And once I did that, the music soaked deep into my mind. It was a very long time before I recognized what it was, though.’
‘What is it?’ I’ll keep him talking, thought Gina. Then I might get a chance to escape. Or people will realize I’m missing and start a search. He’s mad, of course. But perhaps he’s only trying to frighten me with all that talk about sacred murder and punishment. Probably he won’t actually do anything.
Father Joachim said, ‘It’s called the murderer’s chant.’ He reached for the handkerchief again, and from his pocket took a small bottle, tipping its contents onto the cloth. Before Gina could do anything to stop him, he had pressed it over her mouth. The sickly stench invaded her senses for a second time, and the cellar spun wildly around her, the dimness shot with crimson flashes. Through it she felt Joachim pulling her to her feet, and dragging her over to the alcove.
He did not bother to tie the handkerchief in place this time, and in any case the laudanum was spinning a web across Gina’s vision and her hearing. She tried to beg him to let her go, but her voice came out so weakly it was likely he had not heard. He pushed her into the shallow recess of the alcove, so that she was standing against the bricks at the back. Moving swiftly, he untied the silk belt from around her wrists, and wound one end around her left hand. He tied the other end to a protruding brick or a jutting bit of brickwork, level with her shoulder. Then he did the same with her right hand, this time using the handkerchief that had been soaked in the laudanum.
‘Why are you doing this?’ whispered Gina, struggling against the bonds. Surely she could tear a bit of silk and a piece of cotton? But her whole body felt as if all the bones had been pulled
out of it. ‘Please let me go.’
‘Don’t you know why?’ He sounded surprised. ‘It’s because you have the taint. I didn’t think it had been passed to you,’ he said. ‘I watched you all these years, and I believed you had escaped it. That you were perfect. My dear, lovely girl – that was how I thought of you. But then that afternoon, when I saw you with that man, I knew I had been wrong. I knew you had the taint after all. I knew you must have had it from the moment of your birth. It was a bitter discovery.’
He turned away, reaching for the tub with the thick paste, and for one of the tools near to it. Through the thick waves of the laudanum, Gina heard him start to sing again. And this time the words came clearly to her.
‘Step by measured step with murderer’s tread …
Inch by measured inch with murderer’s brain …
Brick by careful brick with murderer’s hands …
I make the layers of death …’
The chant echoed around the cellar as Joachim began to lay the bricks across the shallow recess. As he reached the end of each row, he covered the bricks with the paste, then started a new row on top. He’s building a wall, thought Gina, with horror. He’s going to wall me up in this place.
On and on, he went, layer after layer. The alcove was narrow, and it was not going to take him very long. This was a nightmare – it could not be happening. But it was happening – the height of the bricks was rising. Brick by brick … Gina fought with the puny strength she had left, but the silk belt and the handkerchief held firm. She tried to cry out, even though she knew no one could hear her, and she heard herself weeping with frustration and fear. It was hateful to let Joachim see her like this, but she could no longer help it. She was going to die, here, in this dark and dreadful place; she was going to die alone, and there was no escape.
The sound of the wet paste and the grating of the bricks being set in place was starting to form a terrible rhythm. It was mingling eerily with the sound of the chanting, and the bricks were up to her shoulders now; the glow from the oil lamps was already partly hidden.
‘Father Joachim – please let me go …’ Gina pulled again at the cloth bonds, but they did not tear and, at last, she let the laudanum pull her into the dark, bottomless well.
As she fell down into it, she could no longer see Joachim very clearly.
But the uncanny singing of the murderer’s chant followed her into the blackness.
Coming out of the laudanum’s darkness was like fighting up through thick, clogging water that swirled at your eyes and tasted sour in your mouth, threatening to choke you. Gina’s arms were starting to ache from being strung up against the wall; she dragged at the silk belt and the handkerchief again, praying for one of them to rip, but neither did. I’ll try again in a little while, Gina promised. I’ll let the laudanum wear off a bit more, then I’ll have more strength.
The macabre singing had stopped. Had Joachim gone away? Gina listened, but could not hear anything. Or could she? The sounds were so faint that it was impossible to be sure. They might simply be echoes of this cottage’s past – of the long-ago monks whose priory had stood on this land, centuries earlier.
Were they peering at her across the years, those monks, chattering their rosary beads together, telling each other that this was the wanton, wicked Gina Chandos, the girl who had done the forbidden things with a man, and who deserved to be the victim of a sacred murder?
But Gina would never believe she deserved this, not if a hundred dead monks hissed and gibbered at her, and not if a thousand rosaries chattered and rattled and swung to and fro like cracked bones.
She moved slightly in the small, cramped space and, as she did so, something moved with her – something that was on her right-hand side, something that was impossibly close to her.
A hand came out of the dark, enclosed space and cold fingers closed around hers.
Gina’s screams echoed and reverberated in the tiny space, and her mind felt as if it was exploding with panic, because there was someone in here with her – someone in this brick tomb and, whoever it was, was clutching her hand with icy fingers … She must get out; she must find a way to get away from this dreadful clutching hand … She fought against the thin bonds all over again, but to no avail.
And then a voice close to her said, ‘Gina,’ and, incredibly, it was a voice she knew.
The pulsating waves of panic receded slightly, and Gina stopped screaming and stopped struggling, and turned her head towards the sound.
On a note of disbelief, she said, ‘Father?’
It would not be, of course; it could not possibly be: this was a nightmare and soon she would wake up safe and secure. Or was she going mad and imagining the voice?
But her father’s voice said, ‘Yes – yes, it’s me, Gina. It really is. I’m here with you. I’m not a nightmare.’
He had often been able to understand – to hear – her thoughts in a way her mother had never done. The fact that he had heard her thoughts now made it possible to believe he was real.
But his voice was wrong – it was a struggling voice, as if he had been running hard or as if he did not have enough breath to speak.
Gina said, in a frightened whisper, ‘What’s happening? Why are you here? Did Father Joachim put you here?’
‘Yes. He’s mad, I’m afraid. Genuinely mad. I should have realized, but I trusted him … Oh, God, I trusted him with so much … But today he attacked me …’ The words broke off, and there was a dreadful sound of indrawn breath bubbling wetly. But then he said, ‘I fought him and shouted for help – but no servants around when you need them, not even that rascal Dan …’
Dan. The man who had almost kissed her and who had stared at her in her bedroom that afternoon, and who had gold-flecked green eyes … There was a faint, far-off comfort in that memory.
‘Joachim planned it that way – he waited until no one would be there. And he swung a blow at me – didn’t see what it was, but something heavy; it smashed into my ribs … Then there was something that sent me spinning into a darkness – laudanum, I think. I couldn’t stop him …’ Again he broke off, and the wet, struggling breaths came again.
Gina wanted to ask again why Joachim had brought her father here to die with her, but she only said, ‘Don’t talk. Preserve your strength. We’ll get out – between us, we’ll manage it.’
‘I can’t help you.’ The voice was not just thready now; it was becoming slurred, as if the speaker could barely summon the strength to form words. ‘I’m dying, Gina …’
‘No! I won’t let you die. Keep holding my hand.’
‘I’m trying to.’ Even as he said it, the clasp of his hand was loosening. ‘Such pain,’ he said. ‘So difficult to breathe. Blood in my mouth … Keeps welling up … The blow that evil creature dealt me – I think it damaged something inside me …’
‘I won’t let you die,’ said Gina. ‘I’ll keep hold of you. We’ll get out somehow. Someone will miss us and start searching.’ Again there was the glimmering memory of Dan – this time with an absurd touch of guilt because, if she had been clinging to the idea of a rescuer, it ought to be the idea of Chimaera.
But even as the thoughts and the spark of hope were still forming, Gina knew that even if the entire community of Cresacre turned out to search for them – even if they came to this very cottage – no one would think of breaking down a wall in the cellar. Not until long after it was too late.
John said, ‘My poor, dear girl – oh, Gina, I never dreamed he’d bring you here as well. Did he give you laudanum, too?’
‘Yes. I thought he had probably stolen mother’s.’
‘Your mother is …’ He stopped, gasping, the painful breathing quickening again.
‘Don’t talk,’ said Gina, at once.
‘Let me talk while I can.’ The clasp of his fingers tightened briefly. ‘You don’t deserve to be here,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I do, though – I’m the real sinner.’ With a new note of urgency, he said, ‘Gina – you must
get out – you must find a way to get out.’
‘I will. But it will be to get both of us out. I’m tied up, but it’s only a piece of silk on one hand and a handkerchief on the other, and if I keep pulling at them, one of them will tear.’ She did not say her shoulders were already aching with trying to do this. She said, ‘And the stuff sticking these bricks together—’
‘Mortar.’
‘Mortar. It’ll still be wet, won’t it? For a while yet, at least. So the bricks won’t be fixed in place.’
‘I think so.’
‘Then once I’ve got my hands free, I can push the bricks out.’
‘Yes. And you’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You must …’
The voice trailed off again, and with the idea of keeping his mind awake, Gina said, ‘That chant Father Joachim was singing – do you know what it was? He called it the murderer’s chant.’
‘It’s a form of a death chant,’ he said, and she heard that his voice sounded a bit stronger. ‘An old French custom. Medieval – perhaps even older. It was used when a sinner was being put to death. Immured behind a wall. It’s called the Lemurrer, and it’s a dreadful thing, Gina. A twisted version of prayer. Pre-Christian. There’s the other part of it too. The victim’s chant.’
In the failing voice, he said,
‘Step by measured step the murderers came to me …
Inch by measured inch, the light is being shut out from me …
Breath by measured breath, my life is being cut off from me …
Heartbeat by measured and precious heartbeat, my life is ending …’
‘That’s the victim’s chant, Gina. I never knew the murderer’s chant – until tonight, I didn’t think it existed.’
