The Nostradamus prophecies

34

Alexi had been just about to return the statue of Sainte Sara to its plinth in disgust. This had all been a grotesque waste of time. How did Sabir expect things that had happened hundreds of years before to carry over into the modern-day era? It was madness.

For his part, Alexi found it almost impossible to imagine himself twenty years back in time, let alone five hundred. The jottings that Sabir had so confidently decoded seemed to him nothing but the ramblings of a madman. It served people right if they insisted on writing everything down and communicating that way. Why didn’t they simply talk to each other? If everyone just talked, the world would make considerably more sense. Things would be immediate. Just as they were in Alexi’s world. He woke up every morning and thought about the way he felt now. Not about the past. Or the future. But now.

He nearly missed the cork of resin. Over the centuries it had weathered to a similar walnut sheen to the rest of Sainte Sara’s painted plinth. But its consistency was different. When he gouged at it with his penknife, it came up in spirals, like wood-shavings, rather than as powder. He levered away at it until it popped out. He felt inside the hole with his finger. Yes. There was something else there.

He stuck his penknife inside the hole and twisted. A gob of fabric came out. Alexi spread it across his hand and looked at it. Nothing. Just a motheaten bit of linen with worm holes in it.

He peered down the hole, but couldn’t see anything.

Intrigued, he tapped the statue sharply on the ground. Then again. A bamboo tube fell out. Bamboo? Inside a statue?

Alexi was about to snap the bamboo in two when he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the broad stone stairway to the crypt.

Swiftly, he tidied away the marks of his passage and returned the statue to its place. Then he prostrated himself on the ground before it.

He could hear the footsteps approaching him. Malos mengues! What if it was the eye-man? He’d be a sitting duck.

‘What are you doing here?’

Alexi levered himself up and blinked. It was the watchman. ‘What do you think I’m doing? I’m praying. This place is a church, isn’t it?’

‘No need to get shirty about it.’ It was obvious that the watchman had had run-ins with gypsies before and wished to avoid a recurrence. Particularly after what he had just seen in the square.

‘Where is everybody?’

‘You mean you didn’t hear?’

‘Hear what? I was praying.’

The watchman shrugged. ‘Two of your people. Arguing over a woman. One threw a knife at the other. Caught him in the eye. Blood everywhere. They tell me the eye was hanging out on a string down the man’s cheek. Disgusting. Still. Serves people right for fighting on a holy occasion. They should have been down here, like you.’

‘Thrown knives don’t pop eyes out on to cheeks. You’re making this up.’

‘No. No. I saw the blood. People were screaming. One of the policemen had the eye on a pad and was trying to put it back in.’

‘Mary Mother of God.’ Alexi wondered whether it was Gavril who had lost his eye. That would queer his pitch. Slow him up a little. Perhaps he wouldn’t be quite so keen to laugh at other people’s deformities now that he was missing an organ of his own? ‘Can I kiss the Virgin’s feet?’ Alexi had seen some resin shavings still on the floor – a quick puff of air would lose them beneath Sainte Sara’s skirts.

The watchman looked around. The crypt was deserted. People’s attention was still obviously focused on what was happening up in the square. ‘Okay. But make it quick.’