The Devil's Piper

by Sarah Rayne

  Over hill, over dale . . . thorough bush, thorough brier . . . Through famine and flood and hell’s fire-drenched furnaces . . .

  The images poured scaldingly through his mind. A prowling beckoning dance, the music weaving in and out of the streets and in and out of men’s minds, calling them into the streets. The faceless daemons and devils who danced through the Middle Ages, forcing victims into the streets, forcing them to dance on the medieval cobblestones until they dropped . . . The Plague Piper wearing his glaring red mask of agony, leading his victims to the twin Towers of Fever and Madness . . . The dancing, jeering demons, following him down into the town . . .

  The legends cascaded out of the music as easily as if a door had been opened on a packed-tight cupboard; they walked in the shadowy old house, tapping their skeletal feet, dancing as they came.

  Tap-tap-tap . . .

  The sound was so absolutely in time with the music, that for a while Isarel did not realise that it was a separate thing. He was enrapt in the tumbling images, in the intricate footsteps of Jude’s creation, he was drawing the death-figure out of its lair and forcing it into the light.

  A minor theme was coming in now, something contrapuntal, so that you were more aware of evil uncoiling . . . Springs to catch woodcocks, music to snare souls . . . Come out and die . . .

  Tap-tap-tap . . . He’s riding down into the town, thought Isarel, his black hair falling unheeded over his brow. This is Jude’s creation. Am I Jude? Or is he controlling me, haunting me as he did when I was a child . . . Oh God, all those nights when I lay awake and felt his presence in the bedroom with me. I think he’s here now.

  Tap-tap-tap . . .

  Horses’ hoofs? – No, of course not, they’re cloven hoofs, cloven for satyrs and fauns . . . And devils.

  Tap-tap-tap . . .

  This time he did hear it and it jerked him back into the present. He wheeled round on the piano stool, his eyes on the inner door that led to the square hall, and which he had not completely shut, his heart pounding.

  Someone was tapping lightly on the outside door. Was it? Was someone standing in Mallow’s deep old porch, trying to get in?

  Tap-tap . . . Let-me-in . . .

  Isarel glanced at his watch and saw with a start of surprise that it was ten o’clock. Two hours since he had sat down. Not late by many standards: certainly not late by Stornforth’s standards, where people studied into the night and burned midnight oil almost permanently, but probably very late indeed for this Irish backwater.

  The tapping came again, louder now, as if it might be nearer. Somewhere overhead? Or in the hall, just beyond the half-open door of this room? Had someone got into the house earlier and hidden until darkness fell? It was unspeakably sinister to think that someone might have been in the house with him all the time he had eaten his makeshift meal, all the time he had been falling deeper and deeper into the strange compelling music.

  The sound came again, and Isarel’s heart began to beat erratically as he remembered the darkness outside and Mallow’s isolation and the lack of a telephone.

  There was a dragging sound as well now; as if someone (something?) was making a slow painful way towards him. Outside? Or in? Isarel stayed where he was, his eyes raking the shadows, every sense straining to hear and understand. There it came again. Something that could only creep its poor lame way through the world . . . Something warped and distorted . . .

  Was the door to the music-room being pushed slowly open from the hall? He snatched up the nearest candle and was across the room in five seconds. He was not overly anxious to tackle an intruder on his own, but he was damned if he would be crept up on in the dark.

  He threw back the door of the music room so that it crashed against the wall, and stood for a moment, scanning the hall. Nothing. He glanced up at the stair. Was something there, crouching just above him on the half landing? No. There was only the shadow cast by an old blanket chest – a hope chest didn’t they call it? Why should he remember something so trivial at such a moment? He looked back at the outer door, and saw how the red and blue fanlight, relic of Jude’s own era, cast a harlequin shadow across the bare floor. There was nothing there. Had he imagined the whole thing? At once, as if in mocking answer the sound came again.

  No-you-did-not . . . And the dragging limping footsteps came nearer.

  Isarel held the candle up and went steadily up the shadowy stairway.

  Chapter Three

  In the end, Edward’s supper had not been as late as all that. He drank his coffee benevolently, and wanted to know how his Moire Silk would be spending her evening. Perhaps they could have one of their cosy games of Scrabble which they so enjoyed, and then sometimes there was a television programme to be watched together. Edward smiled indulgently while he waited to hear would it be Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit, and felt the smile die as Moira started to explain about spending the evening working on a project which the monks had undertaken, and with which they had requested her assistance.

  ‘The tracing of religious music down the centuries.’ Moira had been curled on a humpty by the fire, half in and half out of the light, but she leaned forward, hugging her bent knees. ‘As far back as the Levites singing in the Temple and David playing soothing music for King Saul. And Brother Ciaran was telling me a legend about a Temple ha—A Temple lady called Susannah in first century Jerusalem, who possessed a piece of music thought to have power over the dead. Very interesting.’ She had just managed not to say harlot which Father would have said was an unbecoming word for a lady to use. Moira sometimes wondered what century he thought he was living in.

  She said carefully, ‘The monks want to produce a booklet about it all, and if it’s good enough maybe even sell it: so many cathedrals have little bookstalls now. Father Abbot asked Mother Bernadette if I could help with the research or even some of the actual writing.’ Moira faltered into silence, because it was disconcerting when Father stared at her in this way. What had he thought of the idea? Please let him agree to it.

  Edward was thinking: red hair, washed to molten flame by the firelight. Red hair was supposed to denote a passionate nature, although Mary had never really liked that side of marriage. No, there had never been anything passionate there, but then in Mary the red was palest ginger-cat, and in Moira it was vibrant copper. And it brushes her shoulders and curls over one breast . . . Had anyone ever touched her breasts? Had anyone tried to? He would not allow her to be despoiled by clumsy clodhopping boys with hot-breathed appetites and groping hands.

  He said, ‘And what has Mother Bernadette to say to all this?’

  ‘She thought it was a very good idea.’ It was infuriating to hear the pleading note come into her voice and Moira sat up a bit straighter. ‘It will be very interesting, and I do think I can be of help. Brother Ciaran said I could make use of the Abbey library.’ Surely, oh please, he could find nothing to object to in this?

  Edward did not want his Moire Silk spending time in Curran Glen Abbey – he did not really want her spending time anywhere other than with him – but to object might have sounded unreasonable, which would have been short-sighted, or peevish, which would have been unattractive. And he did not want to offend the monks who had several times consulted him professionally over matters of boundaries and the quarterly rents and tied cottages on their land. Edward had been amazed at the speed with which Father Abbot settled Mahoney & Company’s accounts, although it had to be said that Father Abbot always checked the calculations with an eagle eye first. Edward had not forgotten the very embarrassing incident when a total had been incorrect and he had had to go up to the Abbey and apologise personally. You could trust the Roman Catholic Church to make you feel inefficient as well as greedy; there had been absolutely no need for Father Abbot to recite the parable of the rich man and the unjust steward, with a side excursion into the worship of Mammon by way of extra reprimand. Edward had come away red-faced with indignation.

  No, the Brothers could not be offended, although it was a p
ity that this scheme of Father Abbot’s should bring Moira into contact with so many men, even though Edward was inclined to absolve most of the monks from possessing any lingering carnal appetites. Unfortunately you would have to except Brother Ciaran who frequented the Black Boar – although not during Lent it had to be admitted – and was far worldlier than any monk had any right to be, and who appeared to treat the most sacred of subjects with shocking nonchalance. Edward had never trusted Brother Ciaran and it made him feel a bit uneasy to think of Ciaran – to think of any of the monks! – spending perhaps several hours at a time with Moira; shut into the warm dim Abbey library with the scents of old leather and woodsmoke and centuries of learning. It was not the smallest use to think that most celibates were virtual neuters like Father Abbot himself, or dear old Brother Cuthbert who was about eighty, or Brother Daniel who was plump and genial. It was not the likes of Father Abbot or Daniel that Edward feared; it was the others: the ones who knew very well indeed about carnal desire and who waged a more or less ongoing fight against it. Like Ciaran. The unwelcome suspicion that Moira found Ciaran attractive had more than once flickered on Edward’s mind.

  He supposed he would have to agree to this musical project, but he would take his own steps to see that his little girl was not brought into contact with Ciaran more than was absolutely necessary. And so he smiled at Moira and said benevolently, Well, they would have to see; perhaps it might be possible, although they would have to be sure it was not too tiring for her.

  As he spoke, he heard, very faintly, the sounds of the Abbey bell chiming for Vespers and saw the sudden brightness in Moira’s eyes. It was to be hoped she was not wondering if it was Ciaran up there in the bell tower, and harbouring foolish fancies about him.

  Brother Daniel was on bell-ringing duty tonight, and he was going to get the job done as quickly as ever possible and go back down into the chapel with the others.

  He did not like being on bell duty, because he always found the bell tower a touch eerie. Well, he found it very eerie indeed if the truth were told. Probably it was because the tower was the oldest part of the Abbey, set apart from the main buildings, so that you had to cross the quadrangle and unlock the door from outside. Probably it was because the tower was directly over the crypt, as well.

  As soon as he was inside and had climbed up the tower steps and then up the little rung-ladder that debouched into the floor of the bell-ringing chamber, he always scrambled for the light switch as quickly as possible. He tried very hard to preserve an inner calm on these nights but being up here in the dark gave him the shudders. You were so awesomely conscious of the immense bronze mouths of the bells far above you and until you could switch on the electric light they had brought up here in 1940 when Curran Glen was electrified, you had the nastiest feeling that someone was standing silently in the dark watching you.

  The climb up the stairs was becoming more arduous as he got older, and he reached the ringing chamber a bit out of breath. As he pressed down the switch, flooding the small boarded loft with light, he noticed a musty smell up here – he had not noticed it when he came up to ring for the mid-day Angelus, but he would make a note to get it washed down in the morning. It was really very nasty indeed. Daniel reached up to unlatch the little clerestory window to let in the clean night air and as he did so, he caught, like tinkling icicles on the air, the sound of soft piano music. He stood for a minute listening, and then remembered that the grandson of the notorious Jude Weissman was supposed to be coming to Mallow. Presumably he was already here, then. Daniel had been only a young boy when Jude had lived in Curran Glen, but he knew the legend. The older monks could remember how Jude used to fling wide Mallow’s windows, and how his strange beautiful music drifted across the summer nights. It would be rather nice if the grandson did the same. It was very nice indeed to think of Mallow being lived in again. He turned to the tassel-ended sallies of the bells.

  For Vespers – for all of the Daily Offices – the monks used the small sweet bell which their Tudor forbears had had cast in 1536 as a memorial to the dead Katherine of Aragon, and which had a thin clear treble. Daniel gave the statutory twelve notes – not one for each of the Apostles, as so many people thought, but in remembrance of the twelve brothers who had brought the Order to Ireland from Cremona in the twelfth century. Daniel had always rather liked the story of how they had travelled here under the leadership of the Order’s Founder, Simon of Cremona.

  He stood for a few minutes before embarking on the second ‘reminder’ bell. This was the part he disliked, because you could still hear the faint echo of the bells from the first ringing, and if you craned your neck, you could see straight up into the bell tower. You could see the immense bronze mouths of the bells themselves, only two others besides little sweet Aragon, although Father Abbot had wondered should they have a new one cast to commemorate Vatican II. Daniel concentrated on the different bells and their histories, which were all very interesting. There was gentle silvery Aragon, of course, but there was also Siege which had been presented to the Abbey in the eighteenth century to mark the ending of the Troubles, and then there was Victory, the immense wide-mouthed four-ton Victory, commemorating Waterloo. The monks seldom used Victory for the daily Offices and never for Vespers, not since uncharitably minded people down in the town had said that while it was all very stirring not to say historic to hear Victory’s huge solemn note, when the wind was in the wrong quarter it spoiled the evening’s episode of Connelly’s Hotel.

  It was time for the reminder ring. Six short swift chimes, and he would do it briskly and then he would go down from the tower and join the others for Vespers. He was reaching for the tassel-ended sallie of Aragon when he heard the sound.

  A scraping. Hard stone against hard stone. Daniel whipped round, scanning the shadows. Something up here after all? But there was nothing to be seen and he shook his head angrily. Imagination.

  And there it came again. A dull clanging. And beneath it something lighter. Something dry and rustling. Like old bones being rubbed together. Like ancient, sucked-dry flesh stirring . . . Something creeping out of the grave and feeling its blind fumbling way towards him . . . His heart began to pound, and a vague fluttering tightened about his chest. He waited, willing the silence to go on, praying that there had been nothing moving in the bell tower other than his own too-active imagination.

  The sound came again almost immediately; a kind of harsh grating. As if something was being dislodged. As if stones were being dislodged. Daniel stood very still and his mind received the image of an immense slab of stone or rock being moved. Yes, but where? And then, as if in answer, he felt it vibrate upwards, as if it came from beneath, as if it was echoing up the walls.

  Underneath . . .

  Sweat sprang out on his brow, and he thought: the crypt! There’s something moving in the crypt!

  Moira thought she had just about managed to persuade Father into letting her help the monks with their project, which was almost more than she had dared hope for.

  It was absurd how uncomfortable Father was making her feel these days. He had a way of looking at her lately which was – this was the odd bit – but it was exactly the way that road workers or building site men looked at you if you walked past them in the height of summer when you wore your thinnest skimpiest cotton shirts and skirts, so that you found yourself glancing guiltily down in case a button had come undone or a zip had slid open.

  Since she had left school, Moira had taken to wearing cotton trousers or long flowing skirts of thin Indian cotton or silk – what some people called ethnic clothes – to hide the clumsy club foot. It had been rather fun to discover this method of making it less noticeable, but Father did not like the outfits: Drifty and bitty, he said and wouldn’t she look nicer in a well-cut cotton frock or a suit with a proper waist and buttons? There was a new Laura Ashley shop opening in Galway – they’d make a little expedition there together – and there were such things as mail order catalogues from places like Harvey
Nichols. And had she really to wear her hair long and flowing as if she was no better than a tinker’s child?

  Moira would have looked ridiculous in the things Father wanted for her, and if you had red hair you might as well admit to it and let it grow. Bryony O’Rourke, whom the nuns had said was the giddiest girl St Asaph’s had ever known, but who everybody agreed was the best-looking and the best company, said there was a new expression: if you’ve got it, flaunt it. I’ll flaunt it, Moira had thought, rebelliously. And long hair was fun, because you could twist it up on top with little tendrils escaping over your neck, or thread it with beads. Father said she looked like a gypsy and why not have it cut and shaped into a nice bob, and Mother had wanted to make her a blouse with darts at the bust and a Peter Pan collar. Nobody Moira knew ever got wolf whistles by wearing a homemade blouse with a Peter Pan collar and having a shaped bob, and when you had a club foot and knew you walked with an ugly limp the wolf whistles were pretty gratifying.

  She went out into the garden for a breath of air after supper, which was about as far as she ever managed to get in the evening. Tim Shaughnessey, who was the son of Dr Shaughnessey and thought by all the girls to be the sexiest boy in Curran Glen, had once asked could he take her to the cinema and maybe a bite of supper afterwards – actually coming up to the house to ask Father’s permission for Heaven’s sake! – but Father had not permitted it. ‘Our little girl is not very strong,’ he had said, making it sound as if it was a virtue. ‘And I am afraid she is rather nervous of going out after dark. A little homebird.’ From then on Tim Shaughnessey had started taking out Bryony O’Rourke, and smiled at Moira in an embarrassed way when they met.

  Three or four times a year there were discos and cheese-and-French-bread suppers at the Black Boar, and Moira had asked could she attend one of these – Bryony and the others were going and it would be a great night. But Father had embarked on one of his confidential little talks, saying that since she would not be able to dance people would wonder why she was there, which might be distressing. He could not bear his little girl to be upset, he had said emotionally, and it had been impossible to explain that you did not actually have to dance: you went to meet up with people and have a few glasses of wine or lager, and join in the fun. Moira had not asked again, because it was not worth hearing about dance-hall tarts, and having Mother join in and say that in her day there had been a nasty name for girls who went to dances not intending to dance. Moira had wondered what decade they both thought they were living in, because life seemed to have stopped for them around 1940.