The Marks of Cain

11

David peered over the dripping ferns.

It was a horse. A small, shaggy-maned horse.

‘Pottok,’ said Amy.

The little pony regarded them with an expression of ageing melancholy, then it clobbered away into the woods; mysterious and wild, and ancient and gone.

The relief spread through David’s tensed and aching muscles. He gazed through the trees. The car was surely far down the hill. They were OK. They had escaped. He reached for a rock, to haul himself to his feet.

Amy whispered, fiercely: ‘Wait.’

He felt the jarring fear return.

Amy hissed again. ‘What’s that?’

She was pointing. David squinted, and froze. About five hundred yards away a tall, thin, shadowy figure was treading slowly through the mist, looking this way and that; the drifting fog made it hard to identify, but not impossible.

‘Miguel?’

Her question was surely unnecessary. It was surely Miguel. The black wolf, stalking them through the woods.

He grabbed her hand again. ‘Come on…’

She nodded, saying nothing; together they backed away, slithering into the deeper darkness of the woods; slowly, agonizingly, they retreated and crawled over damp mossy logs, trying not to break the smallest twig or scrunch the tiniest leaf.

David glanced behind but couldn’t be sure what he was witnessing. Was that really Miguel – still hunting them down? The mist shifted in the wind, black figures turned out to be trees, trees bent in the drizzly wind, with a forlorn mewling sound.

He turned and concentrated: searching out a route through the bleak, autumnal maze.

‘Down here -’

David had no idea where he was leading Amy – just away from Miguel. For sixty or seventy minutes they descended; the forest was thick and treacherous. Several times Amy slipped; many times, David felt himself skidding on the leaves and muck. Despite the cold of the dank mountain forests, he was sweating. Amy’s hand was clammy in his. And still he could hear, or he could imagine hearing, the soft, menacing crackle of someone behind them. Or maybe it was just another pottok.

The incline lessened, the black of the crowding wet trees yielded to whiteness – sky and light. They were approaching what looked like a path. An hour of crawling and fear had brought them to civilization.

‘Here…down here.’ He reached for her hand again. They were ducking under an old half-fallen oak. Brambles guarded the route. The rocky path turned and twisted, towards a little valley.

Amy spoke: ‘I know where we are.’

‘Where?’

‘Very near Zugarramurdi.’ She pointed at the clearing mists. ‘A village, it’s just over there, over the hill.’

‘So why are we waiting – let’s do it! We can go to a cafe and -’

‘No. Wait!’ Her voice was sharp, insistent, frightened. ‘He knows these forests…He’ll expect us to go there, to head there. We need…’ She was reaching in her pocket, pulling out her phone. ‘We need to hide,’ she said, ‘until someone can help, can fetch us.’

She clambered a few yards up the damp slope, apparently to improve her signal. He watched her key a number, heard her say Zara and por favor in desperate whispers; he guessed it was her friend the journalist, Zara Garcia. Moments later she pocketed the phone and gave him her attention: ‘OK, she’s coming to the village. It’ll take her half an hour.’

‘But where do we hide…until…?’

‘This way.’

She was already descending with an air of quiet purpose. Bewildered and clumsy, he followed behind, grasping at tree roots to stay upright. Finally the muddy path curved and widened – to reveal a forecourt of natural flagstones. And beyond that, the gasping mouth of a mighty cave.

Amy gestured. ‘The witch’s cave of Zugarramurdi.’

The enormous cavern was open at either end, a natural rock tunnel with a stream running along the bottom – like a trickle of sewer water in an enormous concrete pipe. Dim grey light bounced from the bubbling water, flickering on the elongated cave roof.

‘The what cave?’

Her expression was fixed.

‘The witch’s cave. Zugarramurdi. We can hide here. These cave systems are endless.’

‘Are you sure?’

She didn’t wait to give him an answer; and maybe, David surmised, she was right. Their escape through the woods had been exhausting, he yearned to rest; Amy looked utterly wearied, her face smeared with mud. They needed to hide out for half an hour.

Her careful steps led them along a secondary path that ducked beneath the roof of stone. It fed onto a flat rockshelf overlooking the main cavernous space, the vast echoing tunnel. All around, shadowy recesses ate into the soft white rock, speaking of further tunnels. Amy was correct, they had entered a labyrinth of passages and chambers. Beckoning them deeper inside.

They sat down. The dry warm stone felt like silk after the chilling misery of their escape through the woods.

David rested his head against the rock, exhausted. He closed his eyes. And then he opened them, alert and frightened. He shook the sleepiness from his head and gazed out over the cavern.

‘You said this is the witch’s cave.’

‘Yes.’

‘So, why is it called that?’

She shrugged, bleakly.

‘Quite an alarming story. José told me. He loved telling this story.’

‘And?’

Amy’s smile was replete with tiredness. ‘You always want to know.’

‘I always want to know. Please, tell me something. I don’t want to risk falling asleep.’

‘OK. Well.’ She moued: thinking, and remembering. ‘This cave, and the meadows beyond, this was the akelarre, the place where the Basque witches held their Sabbaths.’

He went to ask a question; she silenced him with a gesture. And explained.

‘About four hundred years ago Zugarramurdi was the centre of a huge witch craze. A French witch hunter, Pierre De Lancre, became convinced that…’ Amy grimaced. ‘He decided that all Basques were essentially witches. Because the Basques were so different, the easily identifiable minority. They were the other.’

‘You mean…like the Jews?’

‘Of course. It began around…1610. A Basque girl who had been working away from home, in Ciboure, near Saint Jean de Luz on the coast, she came back to her village in the hills. To Zugarramurdi.’

The reflected light of the stream bounced off the cavern ceiling. Stalactites pierced the emptiness.

‘The young woman’s name was Maria de Ximildegui. She began to denounce her friends and relatives – as witches. The local priests called in the Inquisition. Children were dragged from their families and interrogated. The kids started to report nightmares, dreams of naked greased-up witches who took them on strange flights, to the Devil’s sabbat.

‘Satan would appear as a huge billygoat, walking on his hind legs. He had intercourse with the women and children. He has, apparently, a very thick and icy black penis. Afterwards he would mark them on the forehead with his claw. The infamous marks of the Devil. Showing that he had possessed them.’

Amy stared at David, deadpan. He didn’t know what to say; whether to laugh or protest. She continued the story, her voice echoing softly in the cavern. ‘And so the craze began. The priests reported their findings, and the witch panic spread down the valley, into Elizondo, Lesaka, San Sebastian. Thousands were arrested, David, literally thousands of women, men, children…And then the priests went to work, putting people to the rack, pricking them for blood, torturing everyone.’

David was trying not to think about her scar. He said: ‘But…they did the same across Europe, right, it wasn’t that unusual? Around that time. It was like Salem, it was just a witch craze. No?’

‘No. Witch crazes were unknown on this scale, it was maybe the worst craze in Europe. They called it the Basque Dream Epidemic. The Inquisition mutilated hundreds. Dozens were lynched by villagers. Five were officially burned to death at Logrono.’

‘And De Lancre?’

Amy was staring into the grey cavern light. ‘De Lancre was even more efficient than the Inquisition. As I said, he was obsessed: he thought that all Basques were witches, an evil race to be exterminated. He burned hundreds, maybe more. It was a holocaust. Just over there, in Iparralde. The land beyond.’

She gestured at the little brook. ‘They still call this the stream of Hell. The irony of it all is that De Lancre was Basque. A self-hater.’

Her words dwindled away. David was about to ask another question, but his half-formed thoughts were crushed. By a very deep voice. Echoing.

‘Epa.’

He swivelled.

Miguel. Standing there. At the entrance to the witch’s cave.

David glanced left and right, rapidly calculating. The only descent from the rockshelf – further into the caves, or towards the light of the entrance – took them directly past Miguel. They were trapped.

‘Epa.’

David knew this one word of Basque. Hello. The terrorist’s smile was languid yet angry; his gun was pointing their way.

‘Euzkaraz badakisu? Ah no. Of course. You Americans only speak one language. Let me explain…in more intimacy.’

The tall Basque paced along the rocky ledge – the gun trained on them all the time. He slowed as he approached – and turned. David realized Miguel had an accomplice: following behind was a short, thickset man. Miguel gestured a request.

‘Enoka? La cuerda…’

The accomplice had a lauburu tattooed on his hand. And the same tattooed hand was carrying a rope. The short man, Enoka, came forward.

David shot a desperate glance at Amy.

They already had a rope? It was like they had been preparing.

The accomplice, Enoka, set to work. Tying Amy and David by the hands, behind their backs – while they sat there, mute and immobile, subdued by the terrorist’s gun. In a few seconds they had been trussed like dumb animals, headed for the slaughterhouse.

Then Miguel spoke, with a sad and frowning passion. His shadow was long on the cave roof, cast by the flickering light off the stream.

‘You know, you drive very well, Martinez. Very good. Very impressive. But you still don’t really understand these hills. You do not understand this place. Our language. You cannot understand that. Hikuntzta ez da nahikoa! Is it not so?’

Miguel half-smiled, and gazed around him at the cavern, his words resonant in the emptiness.

‘I told you what would happen when I found you again. And now I find you. In the witch’s cave! Of all places. The little witch and her big Gascon friend. Appropriate.’ He turned. ‘Remember, Amy? Our marvellous picnic supper?’

He was stooping now, looking very closely at Amy. David realized, with disgust, that he was actually stroking Amy’s face with the muzzle of the gun. Stroking her.

‘Mmm. Amy? Didn’t we? Remember the excellent blood sausage. The tripota. Your sweet marmatiko.’

She said nothing. He persisted.

‘Didn’t we have sex here? Or was that some other cave? It was here, wasn’t it? I forget.’

Her face was averted, but the killer was using the muzzle of the gun to tilt her chin, forcing her to look at him. He was quietly smiling. She was scowling. He was smiling.

And now she was smiling.

David stared, aghast.

Amy was looking up, smilingly, almost lasciviously, as Miguel murmured:

‘You know that I am going to kill him, don’t you?’

She nodded.

‘Yes.’

‘In that case, Amy, shall we have our fun first?’

She nodded again; he leaned very close:

‘Dantzatu nahi al duzu nirekin. Before we kill him.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Please yes? Fuck me here. Fuck me like before.’

Miguel laughed. A sad and gluttonous laugh. The terror iced David’s veins with tiny crystals of grief. What was happening?

Again the terrorist traced a line from Amy’s ear, to her lips, with the metal of the gunpoint – like a surgeon practising his incision, or a butcher marking out a fillet. Then he turned to his accomplice, skulking in the shadows.

‘Enoka. Vaya, Adiós!’

The squat little man scuttled away, an expression of relief in his gait. David looked from Miguel to Amy, to Miguel again. Searching their faces. His heart was cold with the horror.

Amy was still smiling, upwards, smiling at the terrorist: submissive, needy and desirous. The twitch in the terrorist’s eye was subtle. More obvious was the erection in Miguel’s khaki trousers.

Fear and disgust suffused David’s thoughts. He didn’t even want to look at Amy. How could she do this? Was it all some terrible joke on him? Was she just saving herself? Or did she really want Miguel? Was this some strange psychosexual game the two of them were playing – and he was the necessary spectator?

His heartbeat juddered with anger – and contempt – and inadequacy.

Enoka had disappeared along the rocky passage. They were alone. Miguel and Amy – and David. The terrorist was unlashing Amy’s hands. Immediately she was free, she reached for Miguel; she was unbelting his trousers, pulling them down, and then tugging at his shirt; she was kissing him under his half shaven chin, and caressing his jawline, like a concubine soliciting a sultan for a night of love. A witch imploring the goat for his favours.

David turned away, nauseated. He didn’t want to watch; he was stuck here, tied up, he would have to listen, but he didn’t have to watch.

A deep voice echoed across. ‘You!’

He opened his eyes.

Miguel was on top of Amy, the great tall figure arched over the small young woman, like a dark roof. But he was looking at David, and the gun was still in his hand.

‘You, Martinez. Watch or I kill you. Watch then I kill you.’

David was filled with a furious nausea. He narrowed his sullen eyes and watched.

Amy was on her back. She was naked from the waist down. Her lips were seeking Miguel’s bare shoulders, kissing him eagerly. David observed with a grisly repulsion – as Miguel entered her. Now they were fucking, now they were really doing it, Amy was kissing him. She was putting her fingers in his mouth and he was sucking, tasting her fingers. Biting and tasting. His hips bucking wildly, thrusting at her; his face in a rictus of pleasure. He was moaning.

‘My sweet red marrubi…The little girl. Sí? You love your Papa still…’

He was biting at her white breasts, his hands were dark on her white buttocks, he was a black overpowering shape on the whiteness of her flesh, nuzzling at her red nipples; his dark wolfish mouth consuming. David felt the blur of despair.

And then, grotesquely, the terrorist climaxed. His arms shivered and he slumped forward.

His head lay on her white naked breasts. She was stroking his head, caressing him.

And then she widened her eyes and stared at David with an unfathomable expression.

‘Let’s go.’

David was choked.

‘What?’

‘He’s asleep. He always falls asleep after sex. Always. The deepest sleep. We have a chance!’

She was gently pushing Miguel away. David realized, bewildered, that she was right: Miguel was snoring, utterly unconscious. The terrorist didn’t even stir as Amy pushed him aside, onto the sandy rockfloor.

David diverted his gaze as Amy threw her clothes on; the vortex of questions inside him was spinning: had she really done all this so they could escape? What kind of black and cruel comedy was this? As he looked away, he spotted the pistol, fallen from Miguel’s grasp.

‘My hands. Amy.’

Amy was already there, untying him. As soon as his smarting wrists were unbound, David leaned and picked up the gun; then checked Enoka was nowhere to be seen.

He had a chance to shoot the terrorist. Shoot the wolf. David looked at the sleeping head of his tormentor.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill a sleeping man, he couldn’t kill a man. He was a lawyer, not a killer, the whole thing was absurd, evil but absurd; and besides, even if he killed him, he couldn’t defeat him. The graffiti would still be scrawled on the walls of Basque villages. Otsoko. The Wolf. And the image of what he’d just witnessed would never quit.

Amy was imploring him. ‘Please!’

He surrendered to her urgency. They crept down the rockshelf, out of the cave, beyond the clearing. They were going to make it. David felt the thrill of escape even as his mind reeled at the harrowing scene he had been forced to observe; Amy was running ahead now, up a pathway, between trees and bushes.

‘Zara. She’ll be there – any minute.’

They raced to the end of the path, and then the path became a lane, and then the lane became a misty village road. The spire of Zugarramurdi church loomed across a desolate square.

‘There!’

Amy was sprinting towards a car parked up by the church. She flung open the door and David opened the other door; Zara was inside asking questions in frantic Spanish, but Amy just said: ‘Go!’

The car sped out of the square, out of Zugarramurdi, down another mountain road.

David looked across the passenger seat.

Amy was silent, but crying.