The Tower A Novel (Sanctus)

36





The Postillion Gate swung wide and the slow clip of hooves on cobbles echoed across the Public Square as the tribute cart emerged

from the seminary complex in the Old Town of Ruin.

Riding up front were two seminaries, dressed all in black apart from the white of their surgical masks. Usually the weekly

spectacle of delivering provisions to the Citadel was witnessed by large crowds of tourists who would gather along the route,

cameras in hand, ready to get the best view of this timeless ceremony. Today there was no one.

The cart passed through the stone arch onto the embankment encircling the base of the Citadel, heading towards the wooden bridge

spanning the moat of waving grass that grew where water once rippled. The wind flapped and tugged at the black cassocks of the two

seminarians, ruffling the cellophane round the many floral tributes that still covered the spot on the flagstones where the monk

had fallen.

The sound of the wheels changed to a deep rumble as they moved off the flagstones and onto the wooden bridge spanning the dry

moat. It jerked to a halt by the waiting wooden platform, secured at each corner by thick ropes that soared up the side of the

mountain and disappeared into the dark of an overhanging cave high above them.

Normally, the unloading would take four men about ten minutes to complete. Today it took the two of them less than five. The

amount of food had been drastically cut over the past few weeks, suggesting there were far fewer mouths to feed. The only things

they had requested more of – much more – were medical supplies.

The weekly bundle of correspondence was the last thing to be loaded. It was placed into the wooden box built into the corner of

the platform before one of the seminarians pulled hard on a thin, hemp rope, causing a bell to sound high in the mountain above.

They watched as the ropes creaked and tightened and the platform started to rise, relieved that there were still arms strong and

healthy enough to pull it up.

The platform rose steadily, three hundred feet up into the gloom of the tribute cave where it jerked to a solid stop. Hooded

figures wearing surgical masks peeled away from the shadows to unload it, stacking the crates of food in various stone shelves cut

into the walls and handing the medical equipment straight to the waiting brown cloaks who took it down into the darkness of the

mountain where the distant sounds of suffering could be heard.

Brother Osgood watched from the edge of the cave, fiddling nervously with the straps on his face mask. He had only recently been

elevated from the lowest order of monks within the mountain to the brown cloaks of the Administrata, not that the old system of

apprenticeship had much bearing since the first case of the blight had struck. He waited until most of the supplies had been

unloaded then stole forward, feeling the platform rock beneath his feet as he plucked the correspondence from its box and scurried

quickly away again, glad to be away from all the people in the tribute cave.

He moved through the dark corridors, clutching the bundle to his chest, probing the blackness ahead for signs of anyone else

coming his way. Since the blight had struck, the Apothecaria had advised everyone to minimize contact with others and movement

inside the mountain had been severely restricted.

Osgood passed a padlocked door with a handwritten sign nailed to it saying CAVE ROBIGO – BEWARE BLIGHT. Similar signs barred

routes all through the mountain, remnants of the initial attempt to contain the disease by sealing off different areas as each new

case occurred. No one had bothered to take them down, even though they were no longer relevant. There were far too many other

things to occupy the monks and everyone knew to ignore them anyway, at least the ones who were still rational.

A low, guttural moan wormed its way out of the darkness and the cotton mask sucked in and out of his mouth as his heart rate rose.

Even after a year he had still not got used to the dark of the mountain, and still had nightmares from time to time in the quiet

midnight of the dormitory. He would imagine the tunnels closing in on him, or dread creatures pursuing him down the labyrinthine

corridors, the sounds of their inhuman grunts getting closer and closer until he woke, breathless and slicked with sweat. And now

the nightmares had escaped into this waking world.

He clicked the latch on the heavy wooden door that led into the garden, shielding his eyes in preparation for the blinding

daylight about to hit him.

The garden filled a large central portion of the mountain and was surrounded on all sides by high walls of sheer rock, It was the

sunken crater of a long-extinct volcano that had bequeathed such rich and fertile soil that it had sustained the men of the

mountain for thousands of years, through drought and famine and siege. For so long it had been the living jewel at the heart of

the black mountain.

But not any more.

Osgood blinked as his eyes adjusted to the daylight and made his way past vegetable beds filled with the decaying remains of beans

and tomato plants, lying black and shrivelled among the sludgy remains of pumpkins that looked like rotting heads. The vines that

had covered the rock walls hung in withered curtains and broken branches littered the ground, buried in drifts of brown leaves

bearing the black spots that had first heralded the arrival of the contagion. And all around, the air that had once smelled so

strongly of earth and loam and life, now carried the bitter tang of wood smoke mixed with something Osgood would not forget for

the rest of his days. Through the broken trees he could see the source of the smell as well as the group of monks who presided

over it. It was the firestone, piled high with tangled branches through which hungry flames licked, and on top of them – three

bodies.

They had started to burn the corpses on the third day of the contagion when they began to run out of places to store them and

panic had already started to gnaw at the edges of the ordered life of the mountain. It had been decided that diseased corpses

posed too much of an additional danger to health and they had to be either buried or burned. Burning was quicker. The fire had

been burning constantly ever since, as the bodies kept on coming.

‘Brother Athanasius!’ Osgood called to the group, coming to rest as far from the heat and stink of the fire as he could manage.

‘I have brought the dispatches.’

A monk turned to look at him, his bald head and face marking him out in the otherwise long-haired and bearded community of men,

the pain and trauma of the last week, carved deep into his face.

Athanasius nodded a greeting and stepped forward, holding his hand out for the bundle of dispatches, sensing the novice’s

reluctance to come closer. Traditionally the letters could only be seen by the Abbot but the blight had swept through the mountain

with no regard for age or rank and most of the senior clerics and heads of the various guilds were now either dead or strapped to

beds in one of the many isolation wards set up throughout the mountain. The only ones left of any authority were Father Malachi,

the head librarian, Father Thomas, also one of the group by the fire, and Athanasius himself who, as the Abbot’s chamberlain, had

now assumed his duties.

He took the bundle and was about to return to the fire when he spotted his name written on the top letter. He tore open the

envelope and read the handwritten note inside.

Brother Athanasius,

The disease you told me about when last we spoke has spread. I have it and so do many others. I’m sure many in the Citadel have

it too. We must find a cure and stop it spreading further. In order to do this I ask you to allow the sick and their carers into

the Citadel. The more patients the doctors can study, the quicker they will be able to find a cure and by bringing the sick into

the mountain we can concentrate the infection and contain it. I understand the magnitude of what I am asking but I hope you can

help me again, as you once did before – for all our sakes.

Yours,

Gabriel Mann

Athanasius handed the letter to Thomas, his mind buzzing as he waited for him to finish reading it. In the entire history of the

Citadel, no one had ever been allowed inside the mountain who had not been strictly vetted and ordained. Even though the

circumstances they found themselves in were exceptional in the extreme, there were still those who would rather die than break

with tradition. And this would mean bringing women in too.

Thomas finished and looked up, his intelligent eyes registering the shock of what he had just read. ‘What do you think?’

Athanasius prompted.

Thomas stared into the flames now steadily consuming the latest victims of the terrible blight that no one had so far been able to

stop. ‘I think we need to talk to Father Malachi,’ he said. ‘We cannot sanction this without him, or the support of those he

represents. Unfortunately, I’m fairly certain I know what his response will be.’

Athanasius nodded. Malachi was as traditional and conservative as any in the mountain and the seemingly endless parade of recent

calamities that had plagued the Citadel had only made him more rather than less so. He would be a hard man to convince, but the

letter in Athanasius’s hand offered the first real glimmer of hope he had encountered in some time and he was not about to let it

go.

‘Then we will just have to convince him,’ he said, and smiled for what seemed like the first time in days as he strode away

across the blasted garden, heading towards the Great Library at the heart of the mountain.