The Lazarus Vault

II

It’s raining on the morning we come to kill the count. The raindrops make rings on the flat sea, a labyrinth of interlocking circles. Our shallow boats glide across the surface and disturb the pattern. The hulls are so thin I can feel the water beneath, like horseflesh through a saddle.

The boats are little more than coracles. In a way, we are pilgrims. My scalp itches where Malegant cut me a false tonsure with his hunting knife last night. My skin crawls where the uncombed wool of the habit chafes it. We took the robes off a group of monks we surprised on the road near Rennes a week ago. The seams stretch around our shoulders: we’re broader than the average monk. And we’re wearing chain-mail hauberks underneath.

A mist has risen off the sea. It encloses us, a blank tapestry on the walls of our world. There are three hundred islands in this bay, but we can’t see any of them. The weather is perfect for us. Dark boats against a dark sea will be almost invisible to the watchmen. Even if they see us, bowstrings soften in the rain. Malegant says it shows God wills it, and we all laugh. We think we understand the joke.

There are eight of us, and each has at least a dozen battles notched on his sword. We have blood on our hands, scars on our faces and prices on our heads. We are not men you would want to meet on the road — as those monks found to their cost. But we all fear Malegant. He stands a head taller than any of us and everything about him is black: his hair and his eyes; the stone in the hilt of his sword; the screaming eagle painted on his shield. Even his armour has been alloyed black.

He pulls out his hunting knife and slices his habit open from neck to hem, as if eviscerating himself. It makes it easier to shrug off the disguise when the battle starts. We all do the same. The sound of tearing cloth rents the silent sea air.

A shadow appears in the mist ahead. I can hear the lap of water on land. The shadow grows over us. A bittern starts its mournful cry. The castle is built right against the sea here, extruded from the rock itself. We’re close enough now that I can see mussels and barnacles stippling the walls. Sticks poke out of the water to mark the lobster pots.

We follow the birdcall and find a stone ramp sloping into the sea by a water-gate. The gate has been opened: a Carthusian monk in a robe the colour of mist stands by it. He has his hands cupped over his mouth and is honking like a bittern.

He drops his hands. He has the youngest, cleanest face of all of us: he makes the most convincing monk.

‘Did they suspect anything?’ Malegant asks. Even his voice sounds black, as dry as soot.

The Carthusian shakes his head. ‘The count’s in his chapel at prayer.’

We scramble out — our feet get wet, but we daren’t risk scraping the boats on the landing. I take out my sword and unwrap it from its binding. The monks we killed had books with them, and parchment keeps the water out. I drop the pages in the water and watch them float away. The rain tries to drown them.

‘Guard the gate,’ Malegant tells the Carthusian. ‘When the fighting starts, no one escapes.’

He ties his belt in a loose knot over the habit. The pommel of his sword bulges at his waist like an obscenity. We all pull up our hoods and file through the gate.

It’s barely dawn, but the castle’s already awake. Grooms carry steaming buckets of manure from the stables to the kitchen gardens. Servants sweep out the rushes from the great hall and take them to the bakery to burn. Somewhere, falcons mewl as their keeper brings them fresh meat. A woman in a white dress leans out from a balcony in the keep. I turn my head to see her from the folds of my hood, but the mist wraps itself around her, making her insubstantial as an angel.

For a moment my imagination insists it’s Ada. I think I see a red cord tying back her hair, dark eyes brimming with laughter and the brooch, my gift, at her throat.

Don’t look, I beg her. Wherever you are, avert your eyes. There’s no question of asking her to pray for me.

The woman is not Ada. I pull my hood forward so that she disappears from sight.

The chapel’s a dark, sunken chamber, half-stone and half-rock. Many feet have worn the floor smooth. A lancet window pierces the rear wall and looks out to sea; three red roundels stain the glass like wounds. There is an altar under the window, and on the altar two branched candlesticks and a reliquary box, all gold.

The count kneels at the altar. He’s smaller than I expected: a thin, wrenlike man, with receding white hair and apple-red cheeks. He reads from a bible on a low lectern, while two rows of monks — real monks — face each other and sing the liturgy over his head.

Have mercy on me, Lord, sinner that I am.

I feel dizzy. I wish I could change my fate. Malegant strides across the room, the cloak slipping from his shoulders. There’s no challenge. His sword taps the count on his shoulder like a lord dubbing a knight, and as the count’s head turns he smites him.

The weight of the blow slices open the count’s collarbone all the way to his lungs. Blood fountains; his head lolls on his shoulders like a pig’s bladder on a string. Malegant puts his boot against the dead count’s back and pulls his sword free. Blood spills across the book as the count topples forward. One of the monks runs to the altar and smothers the reliquary with his body, but Malegant slits his throat and pulls the corpse away.

Shouts and footsteps sound behind us. Too late, the count’s guards have woken to the danger. Malegant picks up the reliquary and holds it aloft like a chalice. His face shines with triumph, while the others butcher the remaining monks.

And I? I know I should draw my sword, perform the service I’ve been hired for. At least protect myself. But a higher power has me in its grip. I remember the oath I took half a lifetime ago.

To defend the church, my lord, and the defenceless.

How have I come to this?