“And yet you can walk abroad freely, as any normal person, not tethered by Hombre Lobo’s curse of daylight or the moon? I don’t understand.”
“There’s much you don’t understand, and never will.”
“So educate me.”
“Why? Why should I? What have you to offer me?” Sandrine’s fingers were splayed like claws. “Why should I not kill you now?”
“Because I can help you.”
Sandrine laughed, a bitter cruel laugh which froze Isabella’s blood. “If you could help, why would you wish to?”
“Because I cannot go back, not now, not back to the Chaste, not to my Church. Not after what has happened. They will kill me, the Inquisitors. I have nothing. I am not safe anymore.” The realisation of her predicament grew as she spoke, and caught as a moan in her throat.
“It feels terrifying, doesn’t it?” asked Sandrine. “Being all alone?”
Isabella nodded and let her head drop. She could feel the slow creep of fear draw over her. Sandrine tutted, drawing Isabella to look at her again.
“Imagine how my people have felt, for a thousand years. Terrified. Alone.”
“Who was he?”
“Who?”
“The man on the bridge who was killed. Why was he so important? At least tell me that.”
“He was one of us. We watched out for each other. We worked together.”
“He was an Inquisitor! Why are you working with someone at the Inquisition? I thought they were your enemy?” Isabella said, forcing a laugh, but the fierce look which was returned crushed the chuckle to silence.
“You come here, a stupid Sister from the Vatican, who believes all that is important in life is to test the chastity of those who have taken the vow of celibacy.”
“I don’t believe that. Not for a moment.”
“Good, because revenge, it no longer matters. Everything has now changed.”
Isabella’s voice was now gravely serious. “Henry, he said something similar to me earlier. But he never told what had changed.”
“Then I will.” Sandrine took a deep breath, as if summoning the will to speak. “There’s a darkness, which has descended. Light has been extinguished. A hand is clawing across the world, and we know to whom it belongs, a hand which must be stopped, regardless of the cost, of allegiances and beliefs.” She heard the dry swallow of Isabella’s throat.
“How do you know this?”
“Our allies. Our spies. Rumour and investigation. We never rest. In 1877 something was unleashed on the world. What it was, we don’t know, but that year the crops failed in many countries of the world, the animals simply died in the fields by their millions. Parts of the world came close to famine. India was almost destroyed by one.”
“And you think to blame this on some higher power?” Isabella questioned. But Sandrine continued regardless.
“Some devilry had crawled into the cities and towns from somewhere, somehow. Demonic possessions paralysed whole communities with panic and fear. Monstrous children, the mirror of demons, were born in their thousands within the populations. The rivers ran red with blood. Wolves live in the shadows but we hear things, we have our sources, and we felt the evil that had come to the world.”
“And why does something which happened nearly forty years ago matter now?”
“Because it’s happening again. We can feel that something stirring. This Inquisitor who was murdered, our contact within the Vatican and the Inquisition, we think he found some clue. Something big. He had found something we needed, something we could have used to fight back. He was coming to tell us.”
“I thought you only care for your people?”
“Not any more. For this fight concerns every man, woman and child throughout the world. We must find what it was our man had discovered. If we do not, then all will be engulfed in the shadow of war.”
Isabella sat back. “I know what he had found.” The words came out of her like a torrent. She was aware that Henry had been drawn out of the shadows to hear and that Sandrine was bending closer towards her.
“What had he found?” asked Henry urgently.
“A name.”
“Whose name?”
“I suppose the name of the person who can help us. The only one who can.”
“And who is that?”
“Tacit,” said Isabella, turning from Sandrine to Henry and then back again. “Inquisitor Poldek Tacit.”
ELEVEN
ROME. ITALY.
A choral melody was rising up from somewhere in the depths of Trastevere Monastery, angelic voices lifting the gloom of the corridor within which Cardinal Bishop Adansoni stood. His shoes creaked on the uneven floorboards of the passageway, and he winced and tried to place them where they would make less noise, as if ashamed to disturb the choir’s pristine sounds.
The door to the Sister’s residence was plain and black, made of a single panel of wood that sat awkwardly under the twisted lintel in the slanting wall. Adansoni raised his fist and knocked. Almost without delay, he was asked to come in.
Sister Malpighi was sitting in a chair looking out of the window, her hunched back turned to the door so she could not see who had come in.
“Cardinal Bishop Adansoni,” she said, only then looking over her right shoulder and smiling. She was ancient and withered, but there was a sharp light in her eyes that suggested great intellect and energy.
“Sister Malpighi,” replied Adansoni, bowing and waiting to be beckoned into the room. “I apologise for my rude and unexpected interruption.”
“Cardinal Bishop Adansoni, it was neither rude nor unexpected,” she replied, the light gathering in her warm features. “Will you take a little refreshment?” She poured a stream of water from a long fluted china jug into a glass on the table beside her and moved it so that Adansoni would be able to reach it easily when he sat. “Of course, I know why you’re here.”
“Of course,” replied Adansoni, smiling and setting himself down slowly. “I forgot.” Sister Malpighi had long been well regarded by the Holy See and Inquisition for her powers of insight and premonition. Her skills had served the Vatican in times of concern and difficulty. There were others like her in the employ of the Vatican, people blessed with the power to predict the future and advise on it, but none had ever been as accurate or as long serving as the Sister who now watched Adansoni closely.
“Troubling times,” she mused, pursing her thin lips.
“They are,” nodded Adansoni, taking the goblet and sipping at its contents. The water was lukewarm and stale, as if it had stood in the jug for some time.
“I find myself sitting here so often now, Cardinal Bishop Adansoni,” she revealed, peering out of her window over Rome, “looking to the city beyond, the city I love, my mind drawn to lands far away, places I have never visited or seen, other than in my imagination, or in books, and wondering, thinking what horrors must be taking seed right now within those terrible places of the western and eastern fronts. What terrors must be entwining man?” Sister Malpighi blinked, and Adansoni saw there were tears in her eyes. “The lamb of God is being murdered, the blood run out of him.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“In the Caucasus, there will be a massacre, a genocide of a whole people, two million Armenians killed, driven out into the desert to die by the Turkish authorities.”
The old Cardinal swallowed. “When will that happen?” he asked gravely.
“It is happening now. At this very moment. As a prelude to his returning.”
Adansoni shook his head in shock and turned his attention to the small window looking out over the capital. “It seems as if the war is polluting all the towns and cities of the world already. As if he has already returned.”
“He is not returned yet, Cardinal Bishop Adansoni,” the Sister announced. She lifted an eyebrow pointedly. “But he will return. That is certain. It will not be long. When the forces of Britain and Germany meet on the plains of the Somme, when a whole generation
is wiped from existence within one morning, from out of their bloodshed and sacrifice he will be born.”
“What about the others, those who come before him?” asked Adansoni without ceremony, his left hand tightening into a fist. “The ones who will protect him?”
“Why do they concern you, Cardinal Bishop Adansoni?” asked Sister Malpighi, a light in her eyes, the hint of suspicion on her lips.
“Does the coming of the Seven Princes of Hell not concern everyone?”
The Sister took a breath, a leathery stilted gasp, as if breathing was difficult. “It is unclear. There are forces, uncertainties, things which are still to be revealed. The waters of time are muddied and there is a breeze which blows over the top of them. But if you mean is there still time to stop them from returning, my answer to you, Cardinal Bishop Adansoni, is yes.”
TWELVE
THE ITALIAN FRONT. THE SOČA RIVER. NORTHWEST SLOVENIA.
The Italian Third Army had been held in the clearing for days, just down from where the mountainside began the slow long climb to the Karst Plateau of the Carso. Pine forests surrounded them for miles in every direction, the scent of the sap rich in the heady air. It was hot, too hot for the soldiers’ heavy uniforms, infrequent solace provided only when the sun slipped behind the occasional cloud. The choke of coal smoke was in the air, the endless bark of Sergeants’ commands echoing down the mountain towards where valleys ran with the dazzlingly clear cold water of the Soča River.
The trudge of a hundred thousand pairs of boots sounded like a beating snare drum, the maddening noise echoing up and around the steep rocky valleys and sheer cliffs. White limestone shone with vivid light from the mountain, its glare so bright that the soldiers at times squinted to see. Units marched aimlessly in long snaking grey lines up and then back down the surrounding paths and tracks, or put their backs into lugging provisions and supplies to the depots of the camp.
As a break to the monotony of camp life, a new contingent of soldiers had recently arrived and were being processed and broken out into their allotted units. They looked too young and lost among the sea of men who had arrived earlier and already experienced some of what the mountainside and the elements could throw at them.
With them, a group of Priests, black-cassocked, peaked birettas balanced on slick foreheads, had followed at the rear, all five of them flanking a solitary young Private, as if in some way he was special, ordained. As soon as they arrived in the camp, it was clear that they intended to direct this new intake themselves, gesticulating and leading the nervous band of young men towards a particular unit of soldiers who watched the new influx arrive with interest.
The Italian Sergeant Major, standing at the top of the track up which they marched, didn’t try to mask his disagreement at the small entourage of Priests seemingly doing his own job for him. He rubbed his hands down the front of his coat, filthy from his work, and looked from the starched collars of the Priests’ necks to their road-weary features. He tried to measure the greeting he should give the clergymen and the end opted for, “What’s your jurisdiction here then, Fathers?”
The leading Priest scowled and sized the solider up disdainfully.
Immediately the Sergeant knew there was something different about these Priests, all of them sombre, hollow-eyed, cheerless. Worn, as if they had travelled far and hard to reach this place under great difficulties.
“Long way off the beaten path, aren’t we?” the Sergeant Major enquired, addressing the leading Priest, and then wondering nervously for a moment if word of his own little foray into the local town with a couple of his men whoring and drinking before the big push east had found its way back to the officer’s mess and drawn Priests to investigate.
“Long time on the road as well,” the Priest replied joylessly, his stubble the same jet-black as his eyes, and the Sergeant wondered what calling could had driven the Priests to have agreed to visit this ungodly place.
Hard men. That was the Sergeant’s immediate impression of them, men not to be crossed. Men who would stop at nothing to answer their God’s goals, no matter what the cost. Equally though, he supposed no harm could come of having Priests uttering prayers behind their backs as they climbed into the heights of the Italian-Slovenian border with the weight of the Austro-Hungarian army against them.
When the Sergeant Major had been first told of the plan, to drive east into the impenetrable heights of the Carso towards Monte San Michele, he had erupted with uncustomary derision, knowing that it would be madness. These northeastern border mountains, which now surrounded the Third Italian Army, were long known to provide Italy with both a shield against invaders and a wall to check their own ambitions of expansion. He knew any assault up them would be carnage.
“This one,” the Priest said, indicating the youngest soldier they flanked. “He is to go with that unit.” The Priest pointed towards a group of soldiers who had risen as one when the new recruits had arrived. He took the Private by the arm and urged him towards his new platoon.
“I beg your pardon?” asked the Sergeant, stepping into the Priest’s line of sight. “I’m the one who decides who joins which unit.”
“Not this time,” replied the Priest, producing a piece of paper from the depths of his robe and pushing it into the Sergeant’s hand. The soldier’s eyes caught sight of the signature and at once he blanched and nodded.
“Very well” he said, stepping back. “And are you intending to stay?” The Sergeant’s tone had changed instantly to one of subservience.
The question seemed to surprise the Priest. “Of course! We intend to ascend the Carso with them! Our prayers, we hope, will be heard and answered for swift victory.”
“Well, all seems to be in order,” muttered the Sergeant, handing back the paperwork, having looked no further than the signature upon it. After all, that was all he needed to make him realise this was not an appointment he should question.
“Good,” nodded the Priest, taking the sheet from him. “I thought it would, with orders from Commander-in-chief Cadorna himself. Make sure the soldier remains with that unit. Do not let him leave it, not under any direction.” The Sergeant nodded. “You will not want Cadorna to know his own orders have not been followed to the letter, will you? Now,” he went on, looking over the massed ranks of infantry spread out across the stunted grass of the scorched mountainside, the endless, unmoving lines resembling bodies laid out in an open air morgue, “Where can we find lodgings? We need nothing extravagant. A little privacy will suffice.”
The Sergeant pointed weakly to an officer’s tent on the side of the ridge, standing empty as it had done for the last few days, ever since it had been erected. He supposed that would suit their needs. Few officers had risked coming into the front line from the lower valleys, even though the enemy was still miles away, high up in the crevices and ravines of the Carso, waiting for the Third Army itself to come to them.
“But sir,” the Sergeant Major added quickly, his confidence still dented by the image of his unflinching and ruthless Commander-in-chief’s signature, “surely you’ll be more comfortable lodging further down the valley, won’t you? Your type, begging your pardon, they are all encamped down there,” he said, waving with his arm. “All the officers are posted away from the infantry. Surely you’d be happier among them?” The Sergeant was suddenly sure he no longer wanted the Priest and his fellow chaplains to stay in his camp. A harrowing sense of tragedy reflected in the darks of their eyes, the deep frown lines around their drawn and unyielding features. Malice lingered like a presence about them, as if death was their past and would be their future. He noticed the way the Priest he was addressing wouldn’t make eye contact with him, that his gaze constantly strained to the high summits to the east as if they held a great fascination. And the Sergeant was glad that he hadn’t looked into the Priest’s eyes. He was sure that, had he done so, he would have seen something that would have haunted him for many years to come
The Priest raised his hand to silence h
im. “No,” he said. “Where you indicate is fine,” and he walked on, the chaplains falling into line behind him, taking their boxes of paraphernalia and swollen packs of provisions with them for the long march to the summit.
THIRTEEN
THE ITALIAN FRONT. THE SOČA RIVER. NORTHWEST SLOVENIA.
The group of soldiers gathered around the young Private, personally delivered by the Priests, and inspected him as if he were some gift given to the unit.
“What’s your name, son?” the Corporal within the group asked at length. He had an open, swarthy face, from which emerald green eyes sparkled.
“Private Gilda. Private Pablo Gilda,” said the young soldier. Next to the weathered appearance of the Corporal, burnt by sun and wind, the young Private looked like a child.
“Delivered to us by God?” said one of the soldiers in the group, mockingly. Pablo looked confused and the Corporal added, “The Priests. A personal entourage?”
“They’re Priests from my local church.”
“Are they now?” replied the Corporal, pursing his lips and considering the comment with suspicion. Pablo noticed that the Corporal’s eyes kept dropping to look down at his hands, and surreptitiously the young man hid them behind his back. The Corporal clapped suddenly and his face broadened into a smile. “Anyway, Private Gilda, we are forgetting our manners. Welcome! Hope you brought your climbing boots?”
Pablo looked about his person anxiously. By now the Sergeant Major had crossed the ravaged dry limestone ground and joined the circle of soldiers. “Leave him alone, Corporal Abelli,” the Sergeant warned. “You’ll do well to ignore this idiot,” he went on to say to Pablo.
“Catholic Priests,” offered Abelli, taking out a large unlit round-bellied pipe and sticking it into the corner of his mouth. “Delivering our recruits now.” He shook his head, and searched in a pocket for a match. “Looks like we’re being honoured by the presence of the almighty, Sergeant Major? An army from God?” There was a trace of cynicism in his voice.
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