The House of the Wicked

13





The Graves of Time





He was in awe at the ferocity of the storm. He had never experienced anything like it. The wind whipped off Stephen Denning’s hat as he emerged from Biddle’s house and sent it scampering down the dark alley and across the cobbles like a small black terrier. He ran after it but gave in when he remembered the excrement that lay underfoot and left it to the wind. Besides, his head was aflame again, his headache becoming worse – presumably brought on by a concoction of those terrible chemical smells in Biddle’s drawing room and that horrible, acidic sherry. He’d felt the first twitches of pain beginning to creep across his temples when he sat down to look at those photographs and it had gotten progressively intense as the evening went on. In the end he had no choice but to excuse himself. He needed to lie down, and quickly before it consumed him. Battling the wind and the rain only added to his discomfort.

The fishermen had finally given in an as he passed he saw them beaching their massive boats, their faces wet and sullen beneath the light of their struggling lanterns, their bodies bowed against the gale. He could sense their anger, hear vague curses above the roaring seas, aware that they had lost a good portion of their catch to the worsening weather. The women, he noticed, were streaming out of the palace with no more work to be had, the carts all emptied, the fish stacked and salted.

He had checked the time on leaving Biddle’s house: a quarter past ten o’clock, and everyone, it seemed, had the same intentions as he at this time on this bitter night, to seek warmth and shelter. All but one. A single woman stood on the shoreline, staring out to the black void beyond, the wind snarling around her, snapping at her dress, knocking against her so that she wavered. But he had little time for idle observances and Denning scurried on the seek out the dubious shelter of his own tiny cottage, cursing the weather, cursing Porthgarrow and cursing his damnable bad luck in all things.

From his place by the inn’s window, Terrance Wilkinson also looked upon the lonely form of the young woman, blurred by the rain hitting the panes. He drank deep of a large glass of brandy, a sudden gust sending a large torrent of water splashing on the window as noisily as if someone tossed handfuls of rice, and obscuring the woman outside altogether.

The fire in the hearth was kept damped down by the wind, every now and again the smoke being driven down the chimney and back into the room. The inn keeper had moaned loudly that it was too early to have lit a fire in any case, but his customers had moaned equally loudly about the chill so he had been forced to set it. Wilkinson had not responded to this round of ill temper, but merely asked for his glass to be refilled. He desperately wanted – needed – to blot out the world, but it appeared no amount of drink could do that these days.

The young woman outside turned and walked towards the inn, passed but a few feet under the window through which Wilkinson stared, then she was gone from sight. He was reminded of another, similar young woman. The one in Pont Aven. The one who had been murdered. Guilt knifed into him.

“Why, it’s Mr Wilkinson again!” spluttered a cheery voice from at his back.

Wilkinson spun around, at first his bleary eyes not fully comprehending. It was that man Croker. He put the glass to his lips and drained the last of the brandy. “I was just leaving,” he said shortly.

“Leaving? Ah, what a great pity! I thought you and I might enjoy a glass or two together, warm ourselves by the fire. I rather feel you and I got off on the wrong foot when we first met.”

Wilkinson put his glass down on a table. “I am tired. The only company I seek tonight, Mr Croker, is a bottle of fine wine I have with which to further drown my sorrows. I’ll bid you good night.”

“That is such sad company, Mr Wilkinson. And to have such sorrows at your age. Forgive me, I couldn’t help but notice you were watching a young woman outside a moment or two ago. Someone you know?”

“No.”

“A future model, perhaps? I hear the local common folk make good, honest, down to earth models. Cheap, too. Such women are easily bought, like many women are, especially French women, I hear.”

Wilkinson frowned. “What is it you get at, Mr Croker?”

“Why, I allude to nothing, Mr Wilkinson. An idle observation. Look, let us sit and share a glass.”

“What are you doing here, Croker?”

“Why, I am renting a room here.”

“In Porthgarrow, I mean. We seem to meet too often.”

“It is a small village. As is the world. Why, it as heavily beset by politics as ever it is in the larger world, Mr Wilkinson, don’t you find? One person vying for power here, another there. Are you a political man, Mr Wilkinson? You strike me as a man who would be.”

“I care not to talk of politics,” he said.

“No, of course, dry as a bone. Except that Equality League affair – remember that? The absurd plot to murder the Queen in her bed and start a revolution. That’s when politics gets very interesting, if rather sensational, does it not?”

For a moment Wilkinson said nothing. His eyes narrowed and he moved closer to Croker’s whiskered face. “I don’t know what your game is, Mr Croker, but I warn you to keep your nose out of my business. I don’t wish to speak with you again. Do I make myself clear?”

Croker shrugged apologetically. “You have me all wrong, sir. I merely make conversation, though I do say I appear to have upset you. Touched a raw nerve or two, perhaps?”

Wilkinson gritted his teeth, his jaw muscles working hard. He touched the bulk of the revolver sitting heavy in his coat pocket. Another squall hit the window. “Leave me be, Croker. I warn you.” With this he left the inn, someone complaining at the gust of wind that tore through the open door.

Croker waited a few moments then indicated with an abbreviated nod to a bearded man sat with a mug of ale in a quiet corner of the room, half-concealed by oily shadows. Croker went outside. Wilkinson’s dark form was hurrying away, his heels clicking on the cobbles. He heard the door to the inn open behind him and turned to see the bearded man raising his collar against the wind. His face was largely hidden by the dark, the light from the window streaking his cheek with a thin rim of gold. He passed only a cursory glance at Croker and then headed off in the same direction as Wilkinson.

Croker creased his nose at the foul weather, took out a cigar and walked jauntily back into the inn.



* * * *



He was bent over against the wind and rain, his clothing already soaked through, but he was hardly aware of the discomfort. Wilkinson’s mind was racing. This Croker had him worried. Who on earth was he? How came he to know, or to hint that he knows, so much? He took the revolver from out of his pocket, the cold metal soon dripping wet. God, this has to end soon, he thought. He could take no more.

Footsteps behind him. He stopped and turned; the cobbled street was empty now, everyone having long ago sought their own shelter. He was too highly strung, he thought, jumping at shadows now. He raced on, his own house not far away, his head swimming with the brandy.

Footsteps, clearly this time, nailed boots rapping on the stone. Heavy. A man’s. He turned to catch sight of a shadowy figure dart incongruously into cover. There could be little doubt he was being followed. A thief, perhaps? Or was his imagination running away with him, his mind in such a disordered state it was seeing demons where there were none. He walked on, swiftly. Thunder grumbled and lightning flashed across the sky momentarily lighting up a boiling heaven. He reached the door to his cottage and thankfully slipped inside, shrugging off his wet coat and tossing it over the back of a chair. He ran cold, wet hands through his black hair, shivering. He felt he was on the verge of madness.

The place was in darkness, but he could just make out the white, ghostly shapes of empty canvases propped up against walls, mocking him for the artist he was, or had once been. He’d had a bright career ahead of him. A shining career. Feted by the great and good. But all that disappeared when he met them. He groped his way drunkenly to the next room, heading for the small cabinet where he kept a small stash of wine and spirits. He uncorked a bottle, put the neck to his lips and guzzled greedily. He stood there, gasping for breath, trying to steady his nerves, trying to think things through.

The sound of the wind grew louder, as if the door had been opened. Then the distinct, soft thud of the door rattling against its frame, shutting off the outside noise again. His heart pounded and he took out the revolver, aimed it at the doorway. Had he left the door open, not closed it properly in his haste to get inside? Was the wind rocking it back and forth? He stepped slowly forward. “Who’s there?” he said, his voice sounding inordinately loud in the small confines. “Show yourself!”

Nothing. What are you afraid of? There isn’t anything there, you fool! You are indeed going mad!

Then a large figure burst into the room from the shadows and in a ragged blast of lightning Wilkinson caught sight of a blade being raised. He stepped aside instinctively but was hit bodily by the man who had lunged at him, missing him with the knife but lashing out with a meaty fist to catch Wilkinson on the cheek. He was knocked to the floor and hit his shoulder against a table. The man growled something incomprehensible and launched himself at Wilkinson. He raised the revolver and let off a wild shot. The flash lit up his attacker’s demonic face, rage suddenly transformed to shock at the sight of Wilkinson’s gun. He paused, as if expecting to have been hit, but on realising Wilkinson had missed he threw himself at him again, the knife lodging itself into a table leg close to the artist’s panic-riddled face.

He raised the gun again and fired, the noise deafening. The man screamed in pain and bolted from the room, blundering into things in the dark, knocking canvases and easels aside in his haste to get out. Wilkinson scrambled to his feet and followed, tried to let off another shot as the man exited through the door but found that the chamber was empty. The hammer clicked harmlessly three times before he gave up. He dashed to a set of drawers and scrabbled about inside till he laid his hands on a small cardboard box. He took out a number of cartridges and filled the gun’s chambers.





* * * *





Somewhere at the bottom of that black, heartless sea, were strewn the bones of her dear dead husband. On nights like this Keziah Polsue imagined what terror he must have endured as his tiny boat was battered by the storm, the fists of Baccan balled into waves that overturned his craft and plunged him headlong into the cold sea. On nights like this she felt she could hear his calling to her, his voice one of a thousand souls lost over the years to Baccan’s rage. But tonight she would see him again. Tunny had promised her it would be so and so it would come to pass.

She clasped the tiny bottle to her chest, stared up towards the cliff top, towards night-hidden ruins of the old monastery. Tonight she would see him again, and her heart, long shrivelled by grief and torment, now swelled with joy. At midnight she would be reunited with her husband. It was fitting she should see him on just such a night, the same as the night she lost him to the waves. It was an omen.

She turned from the sea and headed towards the cobbled road, noticing as she did so the warm glow from the inn’s windows, an indistinct, shadowy form of a man staring out at her; ghostly almost, framed by the light. It had been her husband’s only failing, the drink. This inn became his other love, his mistress. As she scampered past the window she looked up but could not make out any features on the man that studied her behind the glass. But for one heart-halting moment she fancied she saw her husband in him. In her grief she searched for him everywhere, and would bend another man’s form to fit if necessary; hear his voice in that of others; and faintly brush against a male arm simply to feel him next to her again.



* * * *



More rocks fell down from the cliff face and down into Baccan’s Maw. They splashed into the sea sending up huge fountains of black water. The creature was terrified. It dare not venture beyond the mouth of the cave. It whimpered at the sounds of the earth tearing itself apart, groaning, grumbling, creaking; the hellish sound of rock grinding upon rock. It did not appear to feel the biting cold through its filthy, raged clothing, crouched onto its haunches, watching in awe and terror as a huge part of the rock face crumbled and fell, hundreds of tons of mud and rock sliding down with a thunderous roar, the sound swamped by that of the storm, the debris tumbling like a mighty river down to the sea below.

Its screams amplified by the cavern, the creature bolted deeper inside, into the dark belly of the earth where it would find safety, where it would find sanctuary.



* * * *



Bats flittered between the trees, darted close above her head. She felt them more than saw the night creatures, for there was little light in and around the ruins of the monastery, the tiny circle of light from her lantern doing little to fight back the shadows. The briefest of glimpses and they were gone. There could be little to tempt them out on a terrible night like this, she thought, their insect prey, like all living things, having been battered by the tempest. Leaves, torn from weather-gnarled limbs, slapped against her face, clung to her clothing as if seeking comfort, looking like bats themselves, carried on the wind to flash through the air. Soon the few trees would be stripped bare of foliage, winter falling upon them. Another long and cruel winter for her to face alone.

Keziah Polsue felt the earth move, or thought she did. A brief tremor that shivered through the soles of her feet. And a distant noise, like thunder, like strong waves dashing against cliffs, but somehow subtly different. And then it was gone. She had imagined it. She shuddered, not least because up here, on the headland, she felt the full force of the gale. Even the clifftoppers had largely vacated their temporary roost and sought more sheltered spots to camp on the outskirts of the village. But she shuddered also at the intensity of the storm, and at the words of the men who’d had to abandon their boats, their catch, hearing them say they had never experienced anything as hard as this in living memory, and doubly lucky that no one had died. Their fear transferred to her. If they were afraid then they were afraid for a genuine reason. Everyone had locked themselves indoors and fastened the shutters to wait out the storm. To protect themselves from Baccan’s growing rage. There were all manner of rumours and suspicions circulating. Old uncertainties grew in strength. Old myths clawed their way out of the graves of time. The streets of Porthgarrow were not safe, they said, and so they had emptied of people.

It was close to midnight now and she was alone, save for the ancient spirits that haunted the old ruins, and though she did not dwell upon the vindictive presence of Baccan it was mainly this, she knew, that kept people behind their doors this night, though the villagers would only allude to such fears in the vaguest terms, because to utter his name only seemed to increase his hold over them.

She stumbled through bushes that snagged at her dress, bramble fronds that caught her legs, and paused with one hand resting on an ancient carved stone that was once a stone rib running high to a huge vaulted ceiling. In the dark it was easy to lose your bearings. But she made out the sweeping ruins of the great archway, like a single eye framing the heavens, and knew that her goal was a little beyond this.

Something caught her eye to her right. A shape that slinked through the undergrowth. Or perhaps she had imagined it. She lifted her lantern, streaks of rain picked out in its dull glow. Nothing but bushes agitated by the wind. Her fear rose hot within her. She did not like it here, the place of the long-dead. Beyond the ruins lay the graveyard. She had always been afraid of the headland, though she had spent many an hour up here after her husband had died, staring out to sea in the vain hope she might catch a glimpse of him, headed back to shore, picked up by another boat, alive and well and waving back to her from the prow. But he had never come back. It was all death and decay up here.

She reached the large stone slab, reputedly the site of the ancient shrine, the spot where Saint Feloc had summoned down the Archangel Michael. Though the place had been in ruins for many hundreds of years, this single stone slab had been revered by the people of Porthgarrow. A place that had attracted so many devout pilgrims had to do so for valid reasons. And the reasons, over the years, had multiplied. People swore they sat on the stone slab and been cured of a variety of ills; she had even heard that couples had made love on it and successfully conceived.

Tonight she sought relief from the overwhelming, debilitating, razor-edged grief that she could not shake of as readily as those around her thought she should. There was a time when to give vent to such emotions was right and proper, but beyond that it was simply morbid and soul-sapping, she had been told in no uncertain terms.

She sat on the freezing, rain-puddled slab, her wet knees tucked under her chin. She shivered uncontrollably, her fingers tight around the tiny bottle Tunny had given her. Keziah did not fully believe the contents would let her see her husband, but she desperately wanted to believe, so she uncorked the bottle and downed the bitter-tasting liquid in one long gulp, almost choking, throwing the empty vessel into the undergrowth.

Thunder rippled across the sky and she started at the hellish sound which appeared to break directly above her head. The liquid sat warm in her stomach. She closed her eyes and listened to the wind racing around the headland, blundering through the bushes and trees like an enraged child. She strained hard to hear, because she thought she caught the sound of a whispered voice in the air – at once soothing and fragile.

“Is that you?” she said, her own voice but a smoky whisper.

Her mind had but a little time to register the hand that gripped her hair, her head being yanked violently back, arching her slender neck. Then the brief, white hot pain as a blade slashed across her exposed throat. And finally, a fading, comforting whisper at her ear as she slumped down to the stone, her lifeblood spilling out to mingle with the rain.



* * * *