The rain broke just as they reached the gate, and they stood trapped under the stone archway. Mouse could see Father Lucas leading two horses across the muddy courtyard. Ottakar saw him, too.
“No, Mouse. I do not allow it.”
“I have no choice, Ottakar. I must—” At first, she thought the sound she heard was another peal of thunder, but as it grew nearer she caught the gaited rhythms. “Horses,” she said. “Someone is coming.”
Ottakar spun looking up to the archers on the wall. “You, Konrad, do you see horses?”
“None, my Lord. But it is hard to see in this rain.”
Ottakar turned to Mouse. “Can you tell from which direction they come?”
“With the storm. From the south.”
“Look south, Konrad. Look hard.”
“I see them, my Lord!”
“Shut the gate!” a guard called out.
“No, wait! I see a banner,” Konrad said. “It is the eagle, my Lord! It is King Vaclav come home!”
Ottakar changed in an instant; his body grew rigid, his face stony, as if he had slipped into some kind of invisible armor.
“What is wrong?” Mouse laid her hand against his back, but she could not reach him. He stared blankly toward the gate until the first of the horses thundered through it. They bore the King’s banners, which were dripping with rainwater. As more horses streamed through the gate, Mouse and Ottakar were pushed back against the wall. Then King Vaclav rode in, his charger flinging water and froth as it stamped and reared.
Mouse saw the King in profile—very much like Ottakar, sharp jaw, high forehead, deep-set eyes, though his eyes were dark where Ottakar’s were the color of the wild hyacinths that grew in the fields behind the abbey.
“Welcome home, Father,” Ottakar said. “I am pleased to see you recovered.”
Vaclav turned to look down at his son, and all similarity melted away for Mouse. A long scar ran down the left side of his face and through the socket where his eye should have been, though it wasn’t the disfigurement that startled her. The pull of his mouth into a thin line and the cold, dead stare he settled on Ottakar made her catch her breath. There was something not right about the man.
And then he turned his eye on her, and she felt the coldness of him pierce her.
“Father, may I introduce you to my ward, Lady Emma, lately of Teplá Abbey. Lady Emma, my father, King Vaclav.”
“My Lord,” she said, bowing.
“Lady Emma.” His voice was smooth like metal. And then he was done with her. “I am glad you are still at Prague. Your men, too?” he asked Ottakar.
“Yes.”
“Good. Well, let us get out of this cursed rain. I want a fire and warm ale and a fleshy pair of legs wrapped around me.” His eyes flicked to Mouse again, but she looked down quickly. Then he stormed off into the sheets of rain toward the keep.
Ottakar turned to follow, but Mouse caught his arm and nodded toward where Father Lucas was waiting just beyond the archway.
“The horses are ready. I must go,” she whispered.
“Ottakar!” King Vaclav called.
“As must I.” Ottakar looked down at her. “I do not wish you to go, but I will make no demands of you.”
Mouse felt shredded under his gaze as Father Lucas looked on, but she had no choice. “I must go, Ottakar. I will come back as soon as I can.”
His eyes flashed with temper, but all he said was, “Be well, then.” And he turned his back to her and followed his father.
Mouse’s horse followed Father Lucas’s without direction from her, cantering when his horse did, slowing to a walk when it was sure it wouldn’t be left behind. Mouse held the reins loosely and kept her head down, the rain stinging first and then running in a slow curtain down her face. Her mind was on Ottakar and the finality of his good-bye.
The heavy clouds and steady rain shrouded the sun and made it impossible to tell the time of day, but something in Mouse sensed the closing sunset. She couldn’t decide if it was a growing dread or a sense of thrill that made her urge her horse to go faster.
“How much farther?” she asked.
“There,” Father Lucas said as he pointed toward some gentle hills.
“This is nowhere.” Mouse could see no signs of home or village, no rivers or ponds, just wildness all around. As they moved down the rise, the woods grew up before them, tall and old, but unlike most old forests, this one was thick with underbrush and bracken, until finally they were forced to stop.
“We must walk from here,” Father Lucas said as he dismounted. He tethered the horses while Mouse slid down and untied the goat strapped to the back of Father Lucas’s horse. It bleated softly to her as she lowered it to the ground.
“I am not your friend,” she said to it as she draped the satchels carrying their supplies over her shoulder and began pushing her way into the dense elderberry, heedless of the branches that tore at her clothes and face. Mouse did not need Father Lucas to guide her now; she could feel the place, like a magnet drawn north.
Father Lucas hoisted the goat onto his shoulders and followed her. It was slow going. They had to stop and find ways around the carcasses of huge fallen oak and linden trees. The tangle of vines and ferns tripped them as it grew so dark deeper into the woods that they could not see. Father Lucas kept his eyes on Mouse as she let herself be reeled in by what was waiting for them.
She felt the night push down the last of the sunlight. But as she tried to quicken her step, she heard the dry rustle of dead branches in the dark to her right. She took a step toward Father Lucas then froze as a massive bear broke free of the shadows. Mouse crouched, preparing for an attack, but despite the deep growl rolling in its throat, the bear kept its head lowered submissively.
And then a howl came from behind them. Mouse spun. Two large gray wolves were pacing a few feet away, moving eerily as one. They stopped suddenly and looked at her, heads cocked.
“Why do they look at you that way?” Father Lucas asked in awe. “Like they are waiting for something?”
Mouse shuddered and then shook her head. “It does not matter. We have work to do.”
She took a step forward cautiously, her eyes on the bear and her ears tuned to the wolves behind her. With an odd lurch, the bear moved in step with Mouse. The wolves fell in behind them.
Mouse led them through the undergrowth, feeling her way from tree to tree until her hand ran along something barkless and smooth—a wood post. She felt the wall reaching out on either side; they were standing at the corner of some structure. She looked up, but the trees ran so close to the wall that they were still under the forest canopy.
She slid along the wall to her left, Father Lucas following and the animals flanking them. She stopped when the posts gave way to a gate with iron rings facing her. Mouse was confused. The rings should be on the inside of the gate so that a piece of wood or an iron rod could be run through them to bar intruders, to protect the people inside the walls.
This was designed to keep something inside from getting out.
She pulled on one of the iron rings and the gate creaked open. As she stepped inside, she could make out the shape of a building a few feet away. She squinted as she looked up, waiting for the rain on her face, but in the absence of trees, she saw a clearing sky—a few thin clouds still passing between her and the moon. With that bit of moonlight, she was able to make out more of the details of the place. The trees looked like giants trying to reach over the dark line of the wall. Large spikes jutted inward from the top of the wall; severed bits of rope dangled from other pieces, which were tied to the spikes and ran across the courtyard like a massive spider’s web.
Mouse inched her way toward the building looking for a door. Something crunched and snapped under her foot. She crouched, feeling along the ground until her fingers closed around something hard. She held it up in the moonlight; it was the skull of a bird.
“Father, what is this place?” She whispered like a child in the night, frightened
but also excited.
“An old fort. It is called Houska.”
“Whose fort?”
“It was built more than a hundred years ago, though I imagine that there was one here before this.”
“Who built it?”
“Many people have claimed it for a time, but they always leave—one way or another. Even the Church has been here and left many times over the years. It seems to be abandoned now.”
“Why?”
“I do not know why they would leave.”
“No. I mean why build it?”
“Why does anyone build a fort?”
“There is nothing here to protect. No road to watch over, no village to guard. There is nothing of value here. We are surrounded by thick forest and bog.”
“You will see once we go inside.”
“I can hardly see anything at all,” she said as she dug her hand into one of the satchels and pulled out a candle.
“No,” Father Lucas said. “Wait until we are inside.” He moved toward the door.
She waited until he was far enough away and then wrapped her hand around the top of the candle. She glanced warily at all the wood—fence and tree and fort—but she was determined to see what was waiting for her before she got there.
She laid her mouth against the opening at the top of her hand. “Burn,” she whispered. She jerked her hand back as the wick caught fire. The wolves ran circles around her as they snipped at each other, and the bear snorted and barked almost like it was laughing.
Mouse held the candle up, scattering a pale light over the near courtyard. It was covered in thousands of dead birds, some already bone, some rotting, others still feathered and fresh as if they had just fallen from the sky. Hawk and sparrow, owl and finch.
“What is this place?” she asked again.
“Come see,” Father Lucas called from the doorway, the goat bleating in the background.
Mouse walked to the door and stepped inside.
SIXTEEN
Though it was huge, the room had nothing in it. No furniture. No windows. No doors but the one they came through, which Father Lucas closed as the wolves neared the threshold. Mouse could see a second floor but no means to reach it—no stairs, no ladder. There was a fire pit in the center of the room but no signs that a fire had ever burned there. A single bird’s skeleton rested in the middle of the pit; it had fallen through the smoke hole in the ceiling.
Mouse jumped as the door groaned with the weight of the bear pressing against it, trying to get in.
“This way,” Father Lucas said from the far corner. He looked like a ghost, his white habit catching the candlelight. He had the goat on his shoulders again.
Mouse only saw the spiral staircase when her foot was on the landing. The opening was as narrow as a coffin and masked by the wall. As small as Mouse was, she could walk easily down the narrow stairs, but Father Lucas had to turn sideways. Dark smears ran along the walls, but Mouse could not tell what they were. As they descended, the air grew dry and cold. They could see their breath by the time they reached the bottom.
They were standing on a slab of limestone. As far as she could tell in the halo of candlelight, the stone followed the subtle curve of the hill they were on, part of the earth, immovable. She could see the posts holding up the fort along the shadowy perimeter.
Mouse could stand in the space. Father Lucas hunched his head and shoulders.
The place felt unnatural. No spiders’ webs in the flooring above them, no dirt or animal droppings, no signs of the kind of life that sought out dark underbellies to live. Nothing lived here.
And yet, Mouse could feel a presence, the thing that had been drawing her here, that was calling to her even now. She walked slowly toward the gaping dark at the summit of the rock.
“Careful, andílek.” Father Lucas put the goat down and took Mouse’s hand.
“What is this place?” she asked again.
“A gateway to Hell, according to the Church.”
“How do they know?”
“There are stories of unnatural things coming out of the pit.”
Mouse eased up to the edge of the pit, sliding her feet slowly along the limestone. The crack was uneven, jagged and higher at the lip of the stone, not like natural weathering or shearing of the rock but like something had pushed its way up from the earth and broken free through the stone. It wasn’t very large, as long as a tall man and as wide as heavy one, but she could see only darkness when she peered into the opening.
“What is down there?”
“No one knows.”
“No one has gone into it? To see what is there?” As uneasy as she felt, the unseen presence tickling at her consciousness, Mouse was more curious than afraid.
“Legend tells of many men who have been lowered into the pit, but none were ever able to speak of what they saw when they were pulled back up.”
“You believe the stories?”
He squeezed her hand a little tighter. “One of the men was my father.”
“Your father?”
“My family lived near here. He was a knight for the grandfather of your young King. He was good at killing and so won his king’s favor and an estate near here. He was also good at drinking and gambling. One night, someone dared him to come up here and go down in the pit. They lowered him laughing. He went down a young man, but when they heard him screaming and pulled him up, he was old, withered and white and out of his head.”
“I am sorry, Father.” Mouse pulled his hand to her cheek.
“We all have sorrow, little Mouse. It can break us and sour us or by God’s good grace it can temper and drive us. I have studied this place, read the stories and talked to the people who live near here. There is an ebb and flow to the evil that emanates from the pit, periods of time when it seems quiet and the stories almost die out, and the people grow complacent, no longer watchful. I believe this gateway has been sealed at times and then forgotten until the evil that lives here starts to slither back into the world of men. I want to seal it again this night and be diligent about guarding it.”
“And we will lock my dark things into the pit as we seal it.”
“Your dark things?” he asked, an edge in his voice.
“They haunt me. They follow me where I go. I woke them at the baby cemetery, and now they want something from me. They hurt others to try to make me give it to them. They are here because of me and I will get rid of them.” She spat the words into the pit almost like a dare.
“What do they want, Mouse?”
She shook her head. “You will see soon enough. It is the sugar that will draw them here.” She moved away from the pit and lowered the satchels and began pulling out the supplies for the spell she had learned from the book.
“We need the other candles, Father.” Her voice echoed against the stone, hollow and cold.
While he lit the candles and placed them around the pit, Mouse mashed the angelica root into a shallow bowl she had brought. She poured in the small vial of chicory juice she had gathered and then added Lady Harrach’s breast milk. She put the blue and green stones she had collected into the bowl, coating them with the mixture, and laid aside another set of stones, gray and dull. Then she crawled back to the pit.
At one end of the fissure, just where the stone began to split, Mouse pressed the point of her knife against the limestone and pulled, scratching a thin line as the rock screeched. When she finished, she stood looking down on the pentagram she had drawn, the pit situated at its center.
“Move this here,” she mumbled more to herself than Father Lucas as she adjusted the candles, positioning them just outside the spokes of the pentagram. “And now the stones.”
Father Lucas handed her the bowl, which she took absently, her eyes closed as she pictured the image from the book, the pattern and placement of the stones. She stepped in and out of the lines of the pentagram, laying a blue stone here, a green one there. Her fingers grew sticky with the mixture that coated them and dripped o
nto the limestone.
“What about these gray ones?” Father Lucas asked, holding out the handful of leftover rocks.
“They must be made red,” she answered as she reached out to take them.
“Ah,” he said, knowingly, and pulled at the sleeve of his habit. His arm was still bandaged, a thin red line staining the linen.
But Mouse shook her head. “The blood must be of one source.” As she bent to place the rocks carefully along the lines she had scratched into the rock, she looked over at the goat, which stood shaking near the bottom step of the spiral staircase. “Bring it to me,” she said hoarsely as she walked to the top spoke of the pentagram and sat down.
Father Lucas laid the goat in her lap. Mouse ran her fingers along its head, and it lifted its face to her, bleating, asking for more petting. In doing so, it exposed its throat. “I am so sorry,” she whispered, and, with a shaking hand, plunged the knife into its neck. She held the goat over the pentagram and laid her head against its face. As the blood poured from the goat’s neck, it eerily followed the pattern of Mouse’s scratches perfectly, flowing left and right, up and over the gray rocks as it ran, leaving them marked with red, until it joined and stopped at the lower spoke. Finally, the goat’s head lolled against Mouse’s knee, its life spent.
“So now it is time to draw the evil spirits here,” Father Lucas said. “How did you plan to accomplish that?”
“I will tempt them with what they want.”
“And what is that?”
She lifted her head, but could not look Father Lucas in the eyes. “The gift of life after death.”
“What do you mean, child?” Mouse could hear his heart racing; he was afraid.
“I am not a child anymore. Watch.”
He shook his head, but she did not see.
“Live.” The word bounced between the stone and wood. “Live,” Mouse said again.
The goat kicked its legs and lifted its head sleepily, its eye rolling to look up at her for a moment.
Bohemian Gospel Page 15
