Midnight is a Lonely Place

XXXIX

He had been hiding in the reeds, lying on his stomach where he had a good view of the proceedings, close enough to see the rivulet of drugged mead running down the man’s chin, dropping into the hollow of his collar bone and on down his chest. As the garotte tightened, he stood up, slowly, in full view, his hands on his hips. He saw Nion’s eyes open; he saw the realisation dawn, saw the man’s hands flail towards his throat as he tried to tear away the ligature and he began to laugh. ‘It was not the gods who ordered your death, Nion, prince of the Trinovantes!’ he shouted into the sunrise. ‘I arranged it all, I and the priests I bribed. You die to avenge my honour at the expense of your own.’ He could see the flesh bulging on either side of the knotted cord around the young man’s throat. He could see the trickle of blood as his struggles grew more frantic. ‘No man lies with my wife and lives. Not prince, not druid, not Briton, not Roman! And no god will greet you and lead you across the Styx. You die dishonoured.’

‘Marcus!’

The scream from the far side of the sacrificial site sounded like that of a wild bird. He swung round, numb with shock, as behind him the priest plunged the knife into Nion’s back. For a second his wife’s beauty stunned him, illumined as she was by the rose gold rays of the rising sun, then the hatred congealed again in his breast and he stared at her with cold loathing as she gazed wildly past him, towards Nion.

For a moment the young man straightened, his dying gaze fixed on the sun. His hands dropped away from the garotte around his throat. As the light died from his eyes his knees buckled and he fell forward into the waiting mud.

She was standing knee deep in the rushes, her blue gown wet, clinging to her body, her hair unbraided, loose on her shoulders, her face crazed as she ran towards him, her arms upraised, her nails clawed like those of an animal.

‘May the gods of all eternity curse you, Marcus Severus, and bring your putrid body and your rotten soul to judgement for what you have done here this day!’

As her cry echoed across the marshes a flight of duck rose from the reeds, soaring above their heads and setting off towards the rising sun, a vee of glittering green and gold as they rose into the fresh light of the new morning.

Greg was running. His breath was catching in his chest, rasping in his throat as he propelled his feet forward through the soft sand, the weakening torchbeam moving wildly back and forth in front of his pounding feet.

‘Allie!’ His cries were almost inaudible. His throat was dry and there was no breath left for shouting. ‘Allie, for the love of Christ, where are you?’

The sea was coming closer. His feet were wet. There was a trail of seaweed clinging to his shoe. He splashed on, feeling the icy water immerse him to the knees, then draw back, leaving the cold against his flesh under the wet cloth like a burn. ‘Allie!’ He veered away from the sea, feeling his feet on firmer sand now, pounding up the beach. ‘Allie!’

The man had gone again. Twice he had glimpsed him, a shadow in the greater darkness, and each time the torch had picked out the blade of the knife.

Stumbling to a standstill he stared round, his chest heaving, feeling the ice in the hail rasp against the delicate linings of his nostrils. His face felt raw, as though it had been flayed of several layers of skin. He bent forward, switching off the torch for a moment as he rested his forearms against his thighs, his whole body heaving with the effort of drawing in those painful, shuddering breaths. Beside him another wave toppled onto the beach, racing towards him, stopping just short of his feet, showering him with spray. He straightened, his ribs a straight-jacket of pain, and stared round. Without the narrowing, confining point of light from the torch, the horizon had suddenly enlarged. The darkness was no longer so absolute. He could see the tangled luminous lace of the white water on the heaving darkness of the sea; he could see the glint of the wet sand, the heavy umber of the clouds bellying over the water. His head throbbed and spun and he staggered as his eyes focussed in horror on the man who had appeared again only a few feet from him now. He could see him clearly. The strong, patrician face, the hair plastered to his forehead by the rain, the heavy, sodden garment clinging to his body, the forearm naked beneath a swathe of darker material with the raised dagger clutched in his fist.

ANGER

HATE

Probing, thrusting, expanding, rage whirled within the confines of Greg’s brain. The torch fell from his fingers as he raised his hands to his head and tore at his flesh, trying to free himself from the pain. He stepped backwards. His foot, tangled in a lump of gelatinous weed, slid and turned over. The sudden shaft of agony in his ankle forced him down abruptly onto one knee and he felt his arms flail sideways.

The figure was suddenly closer. It was smiling and the deep-set cavernous eye sockets, which for a fraction of a second had seemed empty, blazed with light.

Greg felt all the air wrenched out of him. He could feel the suspension of his lungs – rigid, straining to take in another breath which would not come. His head was whirling. His eyes were growing dim. The white had gone from the sea. All he could feel was the cold. A strange, all-encompassing cold which came from deep inside him and was working its way, layer by layer through his body towards the surface. When it reached his brain he would die. He knew it clearly. And, just as clearly, he knew that this was what had happened to Alison and to Bill. He would die here on the beach of hypothermia and no one would ever find him because the tide was coming in. He raised his eyes to the face of the man who stood over him but the figure had gone. The night was empty. High above the bulbous obscenity of cloud a waxing moon sucked at the sea and spewed the tide ever higher across the land.