Sacrament

by Susan Squires

  A rise concealed the abbey, so it seemed to burst upon them when they reached the top of the rutted track. It rose against the sky, its towers streaming clouds across the flat green expanse of the promontory. Up close the devastation was much clearer. The entire east section, away from the cliff edge, consisted merely of walls in various states of disrepair, with grass growing like an unkempt lawn within. The part that faced the mouth of the Severn was in slightly better condition, with one tower at least intact: In the brisk morning air the place seemed melancholy, as ruins will when they have seen the centuries pass them by. A large stack of fat timbers, smelling of new wood, lay to the side of the track. Sarah and Corina wandered over the grassy expanse that must once have been feasting halls and prayer rooms. The tallest standing walls had huge empty Gothic arches that looked to the west. In several places winding stone staircases spiraled up to empty air. It was a place of promises broken. What could Davinoff be doing here? Sarah wondered. A ruse, no doubt, to explain his presence and cover his sinister plot to seize her lands. She could feel his presence. Her own brand of ghost, she thought, shuddering. She looked about to find Corina skipping away, laughing and twirling like a leaf in the wind.

  "Sarah, come with me!" she called. "Don't stand there like a pillar of salt!"

  Thus prodded, Sarah strode after her companion. She found her friend standing in the doorway of the tower that occupied a corner of the abbey. Now it had two stories only, with jagged walls and one room made dark by the broken timbered floor of the second story. Corina stood staring into the gloom. Sarah came and peered over her shoulder. In the center of the dirt floor, a huge stone, round and flat, had been lifted aside to reveal a stone staircase, winding down into the black bowels of the earth.

  "Oh dear," was all Sarah could say.

  "I wonder what is down there," Corina whispered.

  "Don't you dare wonder that, Corina Nandalay!" Sarah knew exactly what was coming.

  "How can we not?" Corina asked.

  "I am not one bit tempted to go down that hole." Sarah put all her will into refusal.

  Corina began her assault. "You should feel ashamed to let me have adventures all alone."

  "I don't want you to go either," Sarah returned. "I am sure it's very dangerous."

  "Nonsense, don't you think that every picnicker for miles around has gone down these very same steps a hundred times?" The blond girl put her hands on her hips. "Just for the thrill?"

  "What if that stone were recently opened? What if no one has been down there since the 1500s?" Of course, if it was recently opened, who lifted the stone aside? Davinoff's foreign workers? Not without a block and tackle. She looked around in vain for some such apparatus.

  "Don't be silly. Who could move that stone?" Corina huffed. "It's much too heavy. Depend upon it, this stone has been laid here since the monks abandoned this abbey three centuries ago and fled with all their treasures." As she uttered the word treasure, Corina's eyes grew brighter. "Who knows, some might still be there."

  "Corina." Sarah made a last stand. "What is likely down there are moldering crypts." Such a horrifying image must discourage her intrepid companion. It certainly discouraged Sarah. Her desire to find out what Davinoff was doing here evaporated if the answer were in those crypts.

  Corina was not discouraged. "Delicious." Sarah could see her shiver. "That settles it!" The blonde gathered her skirts and placed one russet kid boot upon the top stair.

  "It's dark," Sarah cried after her disappearing form. "You won't be able to see anything."

  "Then I shall stand and see nothing. Are you coming?" The girl's voice was only an echo.

  "Corina, why do I let you persuade me?" Sarah asked, talking to herself rather than to her friend as she peered into the abyss. "I am past this kind of foolishness." She started down. The stairs were wet with moisture and the walls clammy to the touch. She thought briefly about rats and wished she hadn't. Into the darkness she circled. "Corina?" she called, her voice small.

  "Down here," came the echoing reply.

  "What can you see?" Sarah asked. The light above her dimmed as the stairs curved. Though her eyes began to acclimate to the darkness, she almost bumped into Corina. The stairs came abruptly to a halt. Her friend stood stock-still. In the faint light from the stairwell, Sarah got a sense of immensity. The stone floor stretched away into darkness. The round arches and columns with ornate capitals said clearly that this was the Romanesque crypt of the original abbey, burned above ground three centuries before. It smelled of damp and mold and other smells she could not name. "Corina?" she whispered. Corina did not answer. Sarah looked past her friend to see what had frozen her. Far away across the crypt, a torch burned in a holder.

  "My goodness, someone has been down here!" Sarah gasped.

  "Or is here still," Corina whispered in return.

  Sarah shuddered. Was it the workers? "Do let us go, then."

  Corina turned to look at her. "Why would we do that?"

  "Because we have no idea who might be here or why, and that is a dangerous situation for two women alone," Sarah declared. Perhaps it wasn't the workmen who had left the torch. Perhaps it was someone or something worse. "Let us get back up these stairs."

  But the other young woman was already moving off toward the flickering light that seemed so distant.

  "Corina!" Sarah whispered fiercely, knowing she would receive no response except her friend's echoing footsteps on the stone floor. They sounded unnaturally loud. Corina was alerting anyone who might be near to their presence. Sarah glanced back at the comforting light cascading down the stairway, but she could not leave Corina alone here. She hurried off after her friend, a shadow among shadows in the echoing darkness.

  "I knew you would come," her friend whispered as Sarah scurried up beside her. At least she was whispering, Sarah thought. Even Corina dared not hear the echo of her voice.

  They walked on between the huge round arches. As they approached the torch, Sarah realized it must be set upon a column close to the far wall, for it illumined the ancient stone biers and caskets that lined the crypt, stretching away into the dimness. Ornately carved and inlaid, they looked small, as ancient coffins always did. Yet their stone made them vessels to defend against eternity, even if now they were dust-covered and musty. Spiders had practiced their art through the centuries. The wrecks of their webs still drifted from corners and carvings.

  Sarah clung to Corina's arm and Corina clung back for all her bravado. Sarah's shocked senses finally rested on one casket, slightly to their left, whose lid was definitely pushed askew.

  "You were right, Sarah," Corina whispered. "Moldering crypts."

  "Why a torch?" Sarah asked in a tiny voice. There was no sign of workmen.

  "I was thinking the same thing." Corina turned and reached for it. She held the torch, flickering, above her head. To Sarah's horror, she moved purposefully toward the casket with the opened lid. Sarah did not follow, but put her hand to her throat as the circle of light descended upon the stone coffin.

  Corina stood beside the sarcophagus, and after a moment, peered inside. Sarah could not breathe or move. To her shock, her friend reached into the coffin's dark recesses, and pulled out a greenish, iridescent chalice, perfectly formed. For a long moment, Corina and Sarah locked their eyes. Then Sarah darted forward as she recognized the glass.

  "What is this?" she cried, echoes forgotten. Corina handed her the chalice and reached in to produce several coins. They gleamed in the light of the torch as they fell through Corina's fingers to the floor. Sarah put down her precious goblet gently and bent to take a coin between thumb and forefinger and hold it to the light. The figure of a man adorned one side, with a prominent nose and a laurel wreath around his head. The coin looked shiny new. Sarah leaned over the gaping stone, and felt in the coffin for more treasures. She pulled out a long hairpin, set with rubies or perhaps garnets. Corina snatched up a large aquamarine stone, laughing.

  "Sarah, we have found the buried
treasure!" she exulted.

  "Actually," came a rumbling voice behind them, "those are my personal souvenirs."

  In unison, the two women shrieked and turned, their booty slipping from nerveless hands.

  He walked out of the shadows, into the sputtering light of the torch, his ebony cape swirling around him. His eyes were impossibly black, his face pale. Just as it had under a street lamp in London, time seemed to stop as Sarah was raked with those eyes. He had cast aside the intriguing conversationalism she had experienced at Avebury. All that was left was the devil incarnate, angry and powerful.

  Sarah took a wrenching breath and realized that Corina, too, was speechless beside her. They clutched each other as they would life preservers on a sinking ship. Some part of her wondered that one or both of them had not fainted away to meet such a man in such a place. Just as she felt Corina's knees go weak beside her, the torch slipped from her friend's limp fingers. Sarah put her arm around Corina's waist to support her. The abbey's owner just stood there, looking at them, waiting.

  Was he real? Her nemesis confronted her once again, and now he held all the cards. She had to say something. Something that would get them out of here.

  "We are sorry to disturb you, Mr. Davinoff," she finally managed. "You gave us a start."

  To her surprise, he smiled. "I expect so." The voice crashed over her. "Let me escort you out." He reached forward and scooped the torch from the floor where it lay sputtering and motioned toward the staircase, so dim and far away. Sarah pushed Corina forward and hurried across the echoing floor. Fear sped down her spine when she heard the footsteps in their wake. By the time they reached the stairway, panic had set in and she was practically running. She pulled Corina up the stairs into the tower, half expecting the apparition behind them to melt away once they were safely out of the catacombs.

  She and Corina reached the top, panting, and collapsed against the wall of the abbey tower. As Sarah looked back toward the stairway, she shuddered to see the dark man winding up after them. Fear clutched at her as he came to stand over them in the gloom. Not even the dusty motes of sunshine leaking into the tower through the ruined window embrasures touched the black of his cape, his boots, or those eyes.

  "What are you doing here, if I may ask?" His face was impassive.

  Sarah found her voice. "We came on a walk and saw the stairway. We didn't mean to trespass." But that was exactly what they had meant to do.

  "I seem to find my belongings ransacked whenever you are in the vicinity," he said. If he had been amused by their fear, he was not amused now. His voice had taken on a positively threatening tone. "Would you like to confess to any other trespasses?" He had found evidence of his rifled belongings in the trunk; she could see it in his eyes. She was so confused by fear and shame and outrage, she hardly knew how to react.

  "There is a treasure down there," Corina interrupted as her senses returned.

  "Only some old things that came down to me from other years. Now, I would appreciate it if you would remove yourself from my property," he finished with contempt.

  "As you wish, Mr. Davinoff. But those are treasures." What was he doing with such priceless objects? Sarah's rush of curiosity surprised even herself. She remembered the Viking coins in his trunk. "I have never seen a finer example of first-century Roman glass."

  He examined her. "Yes. You would know, wouldn't you?"

  Sarah looked up into this impossible man's face and felt her fear mingle with something else. Curiosity, perhaps, about what kind of man kept Roman treasures in stone coffins. Beside her, Corina staggered to her feet. Who knew what the woman might say if she remembered her preoccupation! "I am very sorry we have disturbed you, Mr. Davinoff. Corina!" She almost shook her friend. "We must go now."

  "Yes," Davinoff agreed. "I commend you for not fainting. I suspect I surprised you."

  "I should think you did." Sarah glanced up at him and her anger flared. "I expect you quite enjoyed it, too. Never fear, we are leaving immediately." Corina shook her head.

  Davinoff nodded, his eyes hooded. "Discretion is the better part of valor. But don't think you shall escape me. I come to Bath directly. I believe you said I should deal with your solicitors." His eyes bored into her, a smile touching his lips. "You will end by seeing things my way in a day or two."

  Just before the magistrate would sit. He was counting on her to give in. And that was just what she would have to do, damn him. Sarah found her courage revived by his obvious contempt for her. "Perhaps I shall let the magistrate settle the matter after all," she threatened, wanting more than anything to wipe away that small smile.

  His expression grew puzzled. "The magistrate has nothing to say to the price agreed for land. It is painful to let go, I know, but soon it will be over, and you will be the better for it."

  That was the outside of enough. "I will be the better for being left destitute?" she whispered fiercely. To her satisfaction, his eyes narrowed.

  Finally he murmured, "I offered fair value for your land, Lady Clevancy."

  Sarah practically laughed, she was so angry. "You can't dissemble with me, Davinoff. If taking my land by force and leaving me with nothing is what you call 'fair value,' then you live in a different world than I."

  "Sarah!" Corina protested.

  Davinoff's eyes grew distant. His thoughts seemed far away.

  "You threaten me," Sarah went on, riding her emotions, "because you think a woman alone can be no match for you, and you would use any base means to deprive me of my heritage and my livelihood and all my dreams. Well, I tell you, Mr. Davinoff, that I will excavate my Roman villa, and one day I will rebuild Clershing Manor, too." Empty vows, all. Davinoff observed her outburst with an expression of interest she found insupportable. She could only draw Corina away. They hurried toward the horses munching serenely on the grass of the promontory. Sarah refused to look back as they mounted, though she felt his eyes upon her.

  On the ride back to the Tongs and Hammer, Corina came to life. "Sarah, did you see him? He was there," she said breathlessly.

  "Of course I saw him, Corina," Sarah snapped. "How could I not when he popped out so disagreeably down in those crypts? I almost began to believe in ghosts."

  "Ghosts should all look like that," Corina announced.

  "He wanted to frighten us." Sarah dwelt upon her anger rather than her fear.

  "I wasn't frightened," her friend declared.

  Sarah raised her brows. "Of course you weren't. You just have a history of weak knees."

  "Don't be difficult. You cannot tell me you don't think he was quite amazing."

  "I think…" Sarah paused, reliving the last few minutes in her mind. "I think that I would rather we were not caught trespassing. It was quite our own fault we were surprised." She did not want Corina to know how frightened she had been.

  But Corina was not to be distracted. "Let us go back, Sarah. I didn't get a proper chance to speak to him." She pulled her horse's head around. "And you! You were so rude!"

  "Corina, leave it be." Sarah put on her most damping tone. "He did not take kindly to our presence on his property. I shouldn't wonder if he was engaged in smuggling antiquities."

  Corina only smiled. "Perhaps he is…" Sarah could see her turning over the romantic possibilities of being in love with an outlaw.

  "Besides, you heard him," Sarah tried again. "He is coming to Bath directly. You had best meet him there, where you can shine. Perhaps he will have forgotten by then that not only did you trespass, but you fainted at the sight of him."

  Corina considered this and seemed to waver. "I did not appear in the best light, perhaps."

  "Don't feel alone." Sarah sighed. Corina allowed her horse to mope along beside Sarah's while Sarah gazed at the October trees, unseeing. Davinoff would push her off Clershing. If he had felt kindly disposed to her at Avebury, that feeling was burned away by the impression that she was searching all his properties. Which was exactly what she was doing. Unsuccessfully, she had to add. In
spite of her outburst, she was hardly a worthy adversary for a man like Davinoff. Sarah felt herself sliding downhill, toward what she did not know.

  Her depressing reverie evaporated when Corina cried with animation, "I shall captivate him at Chambroke. A select party of the best people. You'll help me choose. Hunting, and gaming, and everything capped by a masquerade ball. What do you think, Sarah?"

  Sarah shook her head in disbelief. "I think you are losing touch with reality, Corina. He did not look as though he were coming to Bath for entertainment."

  Corina only smirked. "That is what he wanted you to think, silly Sarah."

  "He looked fairly serious to me." Grimly serious, Sarah thought.

  "Oh," Corina said airily. "He is most serious in his pursuit of me." She dug her heels into her horse's side and clattered off down the hill, leaving Sarah to frown after her.

  The ride home for Sarah was frustrating at the least. Corina chattered on about her plans for Davinoff, her assessment of his interest in her seeming to grow wilder with each mile. No matter what Sarah said, her friend's belief that she had captured his attention—indeed, even his heart—was not shaken. As if a man like that had a heart. Sarah's only defense was to subside into silence.

  Once home, she had to contend with Amelia's predictions of doom. There was a note from Rutherford Lestrom asking her to come round to the office in Bath at her earliest convenience. She crumpled it and threw it in the study fire. It was only when she was locked safely in her room that she could try to calm her thoughts.

  She began to review the facts newly come to light. Was Davinoff stealing antiquities and storing them in the crypt of the abbey? She was willing to bet he wanted Clershing to excavate the Roman villa. But it didn't matter why. To stop him, she needed a deed. Davinoff was behind that missing article somehow. But how? Josiah Wells didn't believe that trustworthy old Mr. Lestrom had helped Davinoff to it any more than she did.