The Lazarus Vault

XXXII

The Count’s corpse lies headless on the floor. Blood pools around the altar. At the door, two of our men are battling back the guards who’ve arrived too late. Malegant rips open the lid of the golden reliquary, peers in, then hurls it at the window. The glass cracks; bones and dust fall out of the casket. It’s not what he came for.

He gestures to a side door in the chapel wall.

‘Through there.’

Four of us follow of him into a tiny vestry. A ring of keys lies on the table. Malegant snatches them up, then leads us out by another door into the courtyard. To our left, the guards are still attacking the chapel. We fall on them like wolves: trapped between the men in the chapel and the men outside, they’re quickly slaughtered.

I feel something peck my face, too hard for a raindrop. A small crater’s appeared in the wall in front of me, gouged out by a crossbow bolt. I hurl myself to the ground. The man beside me isn’t so lucky: the bolt hits his shoulder, drives through the chain mail and lodges in his back. I think about pulling it out, but it would only make the bleeding worse.

More missiles rattle around us. They’re coming from the windows in the keep.

‘We have to get in,’ Malegant says. We don’t have shields, but Malegant grabs one of the dead guards and hauls him to his feet. He holds the corpse in front of him like a rag doll. Bolts prick it like a pincushion.

I have a better idea. I tip over a water barrel and roll it up the slope, crawling behind on hands and knees. Halfway to the tower, it no longer protects me: I kick it away and sprint the last few yards to the shelter of the wall. Crossbow bolts clatter off the ground behind me.

Malegant’s already there, an arrow-riddled corpse beside him. He’s lethal, but I want to keep him close. He has an aura, a sense of invulnerability that I hope will protect me.

The rest of the men are still back by the chapel. Malegant orders them forward. One of them carries the priest’s silver-bound bible as a shield; another tries to swat away the bolts with an oar. The rest have to take their chances.

But they’re only there as a distraction. Malegant leads me up a thin flight of stairs to the curtain wall. To our left, a small door goes through to the keep. It’s locked, but one of the keys Malegant took from the vestry opens it.

The archers didn’t expect us to get through. They’re standing by the windows, taking aim at their targets in the courtyard. Malegant and I have killed two of them before they even notice us. Another turns, a tensed crossbow pointing straight at my chest. If he loosed then, I’d be dead. But Malegant’s aura protects me. Fear makes the crossbowman’s hand quiver: the bolt goes wide, so close the fletches almost brush my cheek. I cut him down.

Malegant’s dealt with the others. There’s nothing in the corridor now except corpses and blood and unspent missiles — and, halfway down, a pair of double doors.

We enter into a great hall, with a fireplace in its centre, and wooden benches pushed back against the walls. At the far end stand two high doors, one black as mulberries, the other ivory-white: they remind me of the goldsmith’s chequerboard table in the vault in Troyes. One’s ajar — I can see a white-sleeved arm reaching around to close it. Malegant takes a knife from his belt and throws. The Devil’s with him today. There’s a scream from behind the door as the knife pins the hand to the wood. He can’t close the door now: his own arm’s jamming it.

Malegant wrenches the door open. The man within gets dragged out in its wake. Except it isn’t a man. It’s the woman in the white dress I saw from the courtyard. Blood’s running down her arm, soaking into the sleeve, spreading towards her elbow. She must be in agony but she doesn’t make a sound.

I don’t see her face — not as it really is. I’m back in Tourcy, at the chapel on the edge of the forest. Her hair and skin have become paler, her fine dress reduced to a torn shift. Ada.

Malegant pulls the knife out of the door and slits her throat.

Strange to tell, all I remember of that moment is what I see through the door. It looks like another chapel, though without saints or crucifixes. It must be built out on a promontory: clear glass windows on three sides look down to the sea, so that the whole room feels like a boat adrift. The ceiling is a rounded vault painted twilight blue, with golden stars in their constellations. At the far end of the room, under the windows, a white stone stands alone on an ivory table. A black lance hangs over it, suspended point down by a rope from the roof-beam. With the window behind showing only mist, it seems to float in space.

The woman sinks to the floor. Blood blossoms through her skirts like a rose. Something breaks inside me; I raise my sword. Malegant must be expecting it. He spins around — his sword strikes mine with a clang that echoes through the hall like a bell. My blade shatters. All that’s left is a fractured stump.

‘Peter of Camros.’ Malegant laughs. ‘I wondered when you’d remember yourself.’

I don’t know how he knows that name. I’m lost in a cloud, waking from a nightmare into something far worse. I can hear the sounds of fire and slaughter in the distance as the rest of the castle is devastated.

I hurl the broken sword at his face and run. Across the hall, into the main stair. More of our men are coming up from below — I can’t go down. I go up, chasing around until it ends in an ironbound door that — thank God — isn’t locked.

After the darkness of the stairs, even the fog is blinding. I’m in an open guardroom at the top of the tower. I stagger across to the rampart. There’s no bolt on the door, no way of keeping them back. Even if I could hold them, there’s only one way out.

I unstrap my helmet and pull it off. I can hear shouts, feet pounding up the stairs. How long do I have? I try to remove my armour, but the leather knots have shrunk in the wet. I take my knife and cut the cords. The hauberk falls to the ground like a broken chain. The footsteps are close, lots of them. I rip off my quilted coat. I’m left wearing nothing but a thin linen tunic.

I perch on the battlements. White-capped waves champ below me like teeth. I feel dizzy. The door bangs open.

I jump.