by Sarah Rayne
He watched as the men inched forward, seeing how they dropped to all fours as they neared the immense gate, pleased at the way they were obeying orders exactly and precisely. A good team. He was proud of them, although he did not very often tell them so. You could not risk complacency in the department.
The men were not complacent now. They were crawling, ready to slither under the narrow gap. Once inside they would make a stealthy search, while Bremner and Burghen went in at the rear. If the men attracted attention, then at least Bremner and Burghen would be unnoticed. It was not the best plan in the world but, taking the extremely difficult conditions into account, it was not bad.
And then they were there, the shadow of the iron portcullis had fallen across them, and they were crawling flat on their fronts under the immense grille.
Wagner felt it happen before it happened. A sudden glint of grinning steel; something iron catching the flickering light from the castle depths . . .
Something iron . . .
There was the whirring of massive machinery, and the portcullis gate crashed down, the iron spikes, each one easily the thickness of a man’s waist, ramming down into the gaping holes beneath.
The eight men, the good team who had never been complacent, who had not been praised as often as they might have been, were impaled like insects on pins. Probably even almost severed in two. Wagner’s mind spun into shocked disbelief, and he wasted several seconds before going forward, knowing he must try to help them, knowing that there would be nothing he could do . . . Radio for help? Ambulances? But how? The isolation of their situation slammed into his mind. Cut off by the mountains, and prevented from ordinary radio or mobile phones by them. And even the Romanian police had believed them to be pursuing an ordinary, routine felon.
Horror and guilt engulfed him, but he started to run towards the castle, snatching his own radio from his belt, and gasping instructions into it as he ran.
‘Hilary . . . Something terrible . . . See if you can . . .’
A shadow lurched out of the darkness – a squat, misshapen thing, like a stunted tree-trunk, barely four feet in height. Something came swinging out at his head and there was an instant of explosive pain in his head and a blinding light before his eyes.
And then nothing at all.
Hilary was gripping the walkie-talkie so tightly that she had drawn blood from her fingers.
That last frantic message – ‘Hilary . . . Something terrible . . .’ – had been snatched away by the darkness, and a terrible dead silence had descended. She clicked the switch on and off frantically, listening for a response, but feeling only a blank black silence at the other end.
Hilary . . . something terrible . . . Hilary sat for a moment, staring at the phone as if she could penetrate its depths and see what was happening on the mountainside, and then she laid it down on the seat beside her and turned to look into the darkness.
Something had happened to Wagner and it sounded as if something had happened to his men as well. Hilary sat in the dark car, summoning up courage, her mind tumbling with indecision. To venture out on to the hillside? To climb that eerie dark path once more? Or to drive hell-for-leather to the nearest phone-box and get help. The Romanian authorities? But how long would it take to explain the situation to them, and could she make herself understood? She remembered Wagner’s wry comment about forgetting to tell the Romanians everything about this mission. What about the Viennese police force? Her heart sank as she remembered that it would take at least two hours for them to get here. Perhaps they could summon help from somewhere nearer.
The sensible thing would be to go for help anyway. She would find a phone – there was the garage where she and Michael had stopped for petrol. There would be a phone there she could use. Because if she went up to the castle she might walk into whatever took Herr Wagner. And if nothing had taken Herr Wagner’s men, if they had got inside Csejthe, she might spoil the whole plan by crashing in.
She was clambering across to the driver’s seat when the image, vivid and accurate, flashed across her mind.
Wagner, preparing to get out of the car, explaining the simple mechanics of the walkie-talkie to her.
Turning the steering wheel until the automatic-lock clicked as all drivers did without thinking about it.
And also, as all drivers did without thinking about it, pocketing the ignition keys.
Then there was only one thing left to do and that was to go after Wagner. Hilary could see no other course of action. She would try to find out what had happened, and if she could she would get the car keys from him, or the keys to one of the other cars. And then she would come back down the mountain and drive like a fiend to the nearest phone.
She would do it all extremely quickly and incredibly quietly, and there would be absolutely no danger whatsoever.
She heard the chanting before she reached the castle, and remembered fear closed in. But it was important to go on, and it was important to remember that whoever was in the castle would be so taken up with what was happening that she would not be seen.
The portcullis was down, exactly as Wagner had said. Hilary supposed that the castle’s occupants would have closed all doors and sealed all entrances. It remained to be seen if she could find Herr Wagner. There were thick lumpish shadows at the foot of the portcullis, which Hilary found disconcerting. But shadows were eerie anywhere and shadows up here were a hundred times worse. She skirted the castle carefully, thinking she would make for the little scullery door she and Michael had found on their earlier visit, and which Bremner and Burghen had planned to use.
As she rounded the side of the castle’s western walls, a hand came out to cover her mouth, and she was pulled into the deep shadow cast by Csejthe itself.
‘Don’t scream,’ said a voice. ‘It’s me – Bremner.’
He removed his hand cautiously, and Hilary took in a deep breath of air.
‘I was afraid you’d scream. I’m sorry if I frightened you.’
‘You did,’ said Hilary a bit sharply. ‘But I daresay I’ll recover. What’s happened? The radio cut off and—’
‘Yes, something’s happened to the others.’
‘What?’
There was a brief pause. Then Bremner said, awkwardly, ‘They tried to slide under the portcullis – it wasn’t completely down. Only something happened and they – it came crashing down on them.’
Hilary stared at him. ‘Dear Heaven, no . . .’
‘It was probably an accident – old machinery. Unsound—’
Hilary heard her voice say, ‘That’s absolute nonsense. If the gate came down it was because somebody brought it down deliberately.’ A pause. ‘They – are they dead?’
‘Yes.’ Bremner was not going to tell this gentle-voiced nun who could sometimes be very ungentle, and who had amazingly beautiful eyes, how he had managed to creep up to the huge entrance and search for his colleagues’ heartbeats and pulses. He knew quite well that his hands were smeared with their blood, which was a shocking thought to have if you let yourself dwell on it, and he feared, as well, that they had not all died at once. But Bremner had rather old-fashioned ideas about protecting ladies, and he would not have dreamed of telling Sister Hilary any of this. He said, ‘Yes, they were all killed.’
‘And the Chief Inspector?’
‘He’s vanished,’ said Bremner, and Hilary felt him make a swift, bewildered gesture. ‘He was out here somewhere. Burghen and I were going to enter the castle at the rear and he was going to stay out here to keep an overall control—’
‘Yes, I know that. Where’s Burghen?’
‘Looking for a way in at the rear. We’re going on with the plan. That’s always the arrangement on a – an assignment. If somebody gets hurt you do what you can or you summon help, but you go on. So we did. And then we heard you coming and I doubled back. We didn’t know who you were.’
‘Shouldn’t one of us go for – for reinforcements?’ It sounded silly. Like the old joke about the soldier whi
spering, ‘Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance,’ only by the time it got through, it had turned into, ‘Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance.’ Hilary gulped in a deep breath of cold night air and the threatening hysteria receded. ‘Couldn’t I drive one of the cars to a phone?’ she said.
‘Have you got the keys?’
‘No, Wagner took them. But there’re the other cars . . .’ She stopped. ‘Oh,’ said Hilary. ‘The other keys are in the pockets of the – the ones who’ve been killed. And you daren’t go to the front of the castle again in case you’re caught by—’
‘By whatever took the Chief,’ finished Bremner. ‘Exactly. We daren’t expose ourselves again—’
‘Because whoever’s on watch knows we’re here and is probably lurking somewhere.’ Hilary saw the logic of this. ‘Could I walk along the road until I reach a phone?’ she said, but even as she said it, she glanced uneasily over her shoulder.
‘Certainly not,’ said Bremner at once, because no matter what anyone else thought, you did not let a solitary lady – and a nun at that – go wandering off into the dark night.
‘Well, then I’d better come in with you,’ said Hilary.
‘Would you? I mean – do you mind?’ This was not really in accordance with correct procedures, but Hilary said firmly, ‘It’s better than sitting in the dark by myself. And we’ve got to find your Chief. Come on Bremner, the game’s afoot.’
‘What . . .’
‘A quotation. Never mind. Let’s find Burghen and get inside.’
Burghen had levered open a small scullery window, and he and Bremner went through first.
‘Because we don’t know what might be waiting on the other side,’ said Bremner, solemnly. ‘Can you manage, Sister?’
‘I can manage perfectly well, thanks, Bremner. By the way, do you think you could drop the “Sister”? It’s a bit formal when I’m wearing cords and a pullover and we’re scrambling through windows and holding hands in the dark.’
‘Hilary. All right.’
They stood for a moment in the shadowy scullery, listening. The castle felt different and Hilary knew at once that a great many people were here, in the way that you knew if a house was empty or occupied as soon as you entered it. As they went stealthily through the sculleries and along a narrow unlit corridor towards the castle’s heart, they heard voices raised in a rhythmic chanting and Hilary shivered, remembering how the corpse-creatures had crept up from the dungeons. But this was much louder than the corpse-things’ chanting had been; it was magnified as if a great many people were joining in.
She scanned the shadows as they went, because surely at any minute they would be caught, at any second somebody would spring out into the narrow passage and confront them. But nobody came and nobody seemed to hear. Because they were all too intent on whatever was going on in Csejthe tonight? Might it all be a trap? I wish Michael was here, thought Hilary, suddenly. It seemed odd to be sharing this new danger with someone other than Michael. Almost like being unfaithful. No, I mustn’t think like that. But please God, whatever he’s doing, let him be all right.
Light was spilling out into the corridor now: flickering red light that came from somewhere up ahead, and that showed their way more clearly and washed the dark cold stones to warm glowing colour. Ahead of them was a narrow doorway and beyond the doorway must be the stone hall. Was it? Yes, the chanting was louder now; it must be coming from the hall itself. Bremner pointed and then laid a finger on his lips, and Hilary understood that he was saying if they huddled silently in the shadows they would be able to see what was going on.
The flickering candles and the firelight illuminated the stone hall of Elizabeth Bathory’s castle to grisly life. Grotesque, fantastical silhouettes leapt and pranced across the walls, and to Hilary it was as if they stood on the threshold of one of the Middle Age conceptions of after-life: the stone-built iron-hued Malebolge of Dante . . . Milton’s brimstone sea of boiling fire . . . Hell with its fire-drenched dungeons and molten pavements.
The corpse-creatures were ranged at the head of the long table, their shrunken features lit from below, lending them a diabolic countenance. Behind them surged a crowd of people – Hilary thought there was easily a hundred, and the firelight fell over them so that she could see that they had the silken dark hair and the high, slanting cheekbones of Catherine and her family. Then they must all be Elizabeth’s descendants.
The man she recognised as Pál was standing before them, with Anna at his side, and every head was turned to the great archway leading to the courtyard. They’re waiting for something, thought Hilary. For someone? Is Catherine here? Dare I lean out a bit further?
From outside the hall was some kind of commotion: a scraping sound, as if something heavy and cumbersome was being brought across the cobbles of the courtyard. A great stillness fell on the hall and, although no one moved, every head craned forward and in every face fevered anticipation showed.
Something’s coming in, thought Hilary. Something that has an immense meaning. Something handed down to them by Elizabeth, could it be? She remembered the grinning iron cage with the glinting spikes that the gerons had used that night. Was it the cage they were bringing in? She touched Bremner’s arm and said, very softly, ‘I think this might be the exemplum,’ and saw him nod, as if the same thought had occurred to him.
Elizabeth Bathory’s descendants, bringing forward one of her old torture machines, so that the renegade in their ranks might be punished?
And then from out of the night, came six of Csejthe’s granite-faced attendants, bearing at shoulder height a long coffin-shaped casket, roughly seven feet long and perhaps three feet wide. It was rounded at one end, and as the guards carried it under the flaring wall brackets, Hilary saw that the lid had been shaped or carved to represent a slumbering female figure, the arms crossed on its breast, rather in the way that Egyptian sarcophagi and mummy-cases were carved. An iron coffin, thought Hilary, and at once, horrified memories of the medieval Iron Maiden flooded her mind: the terrible instrument of the Middle Age torturers who forced their victims to lie inside, and then slammed the spiked door impaling them. Hilary leaned farther out, trying to see better. Would the carved door swing open, showing glinting spikes . . .?
The silence in the stone hall was absolute and Hilary thought you could feel the anticipation and the fierce emotion as if it was a solid thing.
The attendants set the coffin down so that the round head-part was uppermost, propping it carefully against the chimney wall. Pál and Anna both moved at once, coming to stand on either side of it. The attendants stepped back, and Pál reached out to touch the smooth surface as if in a caress. As the wall sconces directly over his head flared, Hilary saw that the coffin was not, as she had thought, iron, but soft pure silver. There was a moment when Pál and Anna regarded one another, and the thin cruel wolfsmile showed on their faces. And then Pál turned to Ladislas and in his once-beautiful voice, said, ‘You have done well, Ladislas.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ladislas, but he, too, was staring at the coffin as if hypnotised by it.
‘And now we are all gathered,’ said Anna, a note of deep satisfaction in her tone. She turned to survey the assembly and in a voice suddenly sharper, said, ‘Where is LaBianca?’
‘At CrnPrag,’ said Ladislas. ‘Ensuring that an innocent façade is presented if the wretched snooping police enter. She will be here in good time for the ritual.’
‘A pity if she misses it,’ said Pál, thoughtfully, but Anna said in the same sharp voice, ‘Bianca has taken part in too many rituals to mind overmuch about missing this one.’
‘And,’ said Pál, thoughtfully, ‘perhaps she has discovered an unexpected streak of squeamishness. Well, we shall not delay for her. As Anna says, we are all gathered.’ He reached out to the coffin lid and Hilary dug the nails into the palms of her hands. This would be it, this would be the glinting spikes, catching the red firelight as they moved, only you would be unsure of whether it
was really firelight, or whether the points were still dripping with blood from the last victim . . .
The lid came away slowly, reluctantly and with a little sighing sound as if whatever lay within regretted the intrusion.
Whatever lay within . . .
A low murmur went through the hall, so charged with emotion that it was very nearly sexual. The inside of the silver coffin that Hilary had thought resembled a sarcophagus was the same smooth silver as the outside. There were no traces of tarnish anywhere, as if every inch of it had been polished and quite recently. At the heart, in a scooped out hollow, lay a small figure, swathed and bandaged in the way that the mummified bodies of the ancient Egyptians had been swathed and bandaged. A faint musky odour of bitumen and gum rose in the warmth of the hall and a sick dread began to uncoil in Hilary’s mind.
Pál said, ‘The exemplum has never been used in all our history.’ He looked round the hall, and then back at Anna. ‘But it will be used tonight,’ he said. ‘The renegade Pietro and the bastard Franz-Josef will both be brought up presently, and they will both suffer it.’ With another of the aristocratic gestures, he pointed to the frail embalmed creature in the silver tomb.
‘But we could not proceed with the exemplum without the presence of the Lady of Csejthe herself,’ said Pál, and Hilary felt the horror uncoil and then lash stingingly across her mind. She stared incredulously at the silver coffin, her mind tumbling with disbelief.
This was not one of Elizabeth’s torture machines.
It was Elizabeth herself.
Hilary knew that the thing in the coffin could only be a shell; she knew it logically and sensibly and practically. Shrivelled and husked and long since juiceless.
But as she stared at the swathed bandages, she found that she was not thinking: that is only a poor dead body, but – this is the monster of Csejthe Castle.
Elizabeth Bathory’s mummified body, embalmed and shrouded in the perfumed linens and the natron and bitumen of the Egyptians, encased in its grisly silver tomb. Hilary felt sick and dizzy because this was completely and wholly dreadful. That shrivelled scrap of mortality in its lumpish pitiful bandages, was the creature who had tortured and killed hundreds of girls for their blood. And who had handed down the terrible legacy to the people gathered in the hall tonight.
