‘We’ll have to try.’ Declan began scrambling towards the jutting piece of rock, with the barred window just out of sight beyond it.
‘No!’ said Colm. ‘We’d be better to go back up to the tower and get him out that way.’
‘There’s no time!’ said Declan angrily, and even as he spoke a column of flame shot upwards. ‘The fire’ll be raging – we’d never get to that underground room. We’ll have to get him out through the sea window.’
But they were both remembering that the window was only two feet square, with three thick iron bars. A cat could not get through the space, let alone a grown man.
‘We’ll have to try, though,’ said Declan. ‘The fire might have loosened the bars.’
Negotiating the rock spur was difficult, but there were footholds and crevices and also thick clumps of rock vegetation to cling to. The wind shrieked around them and tore at their hair, and they were both drenched from the sea spray, but eventually they got round the rock. A few feet ahead was the window to the underground room.
Nicholas Sheehan was peering through it, his face slicked with sweat and his eyes wild with terror.
‘We’ll get you out!’ shouted Declan. His words were snatched away by the sea, but he thought Sheehan heard.
‘The door’s wedged,’ said Sheehan. ‘I can’t get out of here. You must get help.’
‘There isn’t time. We’ll try to knock out the bars and get you out this way.’
‘You’ll never do it. You bloody villain, Colm Rourke, you thought you’d left me for dead, didn’t you?’ The words came raggedly but they were filled with hatred and fear.
‘Yes,’ panted Colm. ‘But we’ll put it right – I swear we will.’
They were on each side of the barred window now, but when they grasped the bars, intending to pull on them, Declan yelped with pain.
‘They’re as hot as a griddle,’ he said, gasping.
‘Of course they are, you fool, this whole room’s heating up,’ cried Sheehan. ‘The stone walls are acting as a conductor to the fire – this room’s turning into a dry oven. If you don’t get me out I’m going to bake to death. For Christ’s sake, do something!’
‘I’ll go for help,’ said Colm.
‘There isn’t time! Oh Jesus, it’s getting hotter by the minute. Oh God, I never meant to die like this!’
‘You won’t die,’ said Colm. ‘We’ll get you out.’
‘Then bloody do it!’
Working on the side of the cliff face, in the gathering darkness shot through with fire streaks, was appallingly difficult, but they managed to fashion a rope from Declan’s sweater and Colm’s scarf, and to tie it round one of the bars. But the bars were glowing so hot their hands blistered, and the first attempt to secure the makeshift rope caused the wool to shrivel.
‘Again!’ cried Sheehan. ‘Wait, use this as well.’ His hands shaking, he passed them a length of cord – Declan thought he had torn it from one of the tapestries.
This time the makeshift rope held and they were able to get purchase on the bars and pull.
‘It’s still no use,’ gasped Colm after several minutes. ‘They’re stuck fast.’
Sheehan was gasping and sobbing, and waves of intense heat were belching out from the room. Declan and Colm were starting to realize with horror that they were not going to succeed. Nicholas Sheehan was going to be slowly roasted alive.
It was already happening. Sheehan’s skin was flushed and shiny, and he was breathing harshly and painfully. Then, quite suddenly, he said, in a clearer voice than he had yet used, ‘You won’t succeed. I’m going to die. And it’ll be a dreadful death—’
‘No, it’ll be fine,’ cried Declan, still furiously working to loosen one of the iron bars.
‘People will have seen the fire,’ said Colm eagerly, ‘and they’ll be coming out here.’
‘It’ll be too late. You aren’t going to get me out. But there’s one thing you can do – and this is a request from a dying man . . .’
‘What—?’
‘Absolve my soul from all its sins.’
They stared at him, not understanding.
‘No,’ said Colm. ‘You need a priest, and we’ll never get one out here in time.’
‘There’s another way – it might be an empty superstition, but it’s one of the oldest beliefs known.’ Sheehan was standing as close to the window as he could; his hair was drenched with sweat and his eyes were violently bloodshot. ‘And it might save me from damnation—’
Without thinking, Declan said, ‘Then you did do it? The stories are true about you beating the devil.’
‘Let the legend live,’ said Sheehan, and incredibly a smile twisted his face so that for a moment they both saw the urbane, slightly mocking man they had met hours earlier. ‘And if it’s proof you want . . .’ He thrust a hand through the bars, seeming hardly to notice that the fierce heat from the iron burned his fingers. ‘Take what’s left.’
‘What . . . ?’ Declan began, then saw it was the black King from the chess set.
‘Take it and do what I’m asking,’ said Sheehan urgently. ‘I daren’t die with my sins all still with me. I daren’t. Don’t you know the devil never keeps his side of a bargain?’
Declan hesitated, and it was Colm who nodded and reached out a hand to take the carved figure. Declan thought he shuddered as his fingers closed over it.
Sheehan was doubling over, gasping and moaning. Mingled with the sweat pouring down his face were drops of thick yellow fluid. Exactly, thought Declan with horror, like when you bake an apple in the oven and the skin starts to split and the juices leak out. Then with what was clearly an immense effort, Sheehan said, ‘The old ritual – the ritual performed before Christianity even began. The ritual that’s in the Old Testament – you’ve had the monks’ teaching, you must know it. The Hebrew ritual of the scapegoat?’