The Blackthorn Key

“All right, fine,” I said. “It’s left.”


Tom folded his arms. “We should put the bird in charge.”

? ? ?

The bird was right. Going left led us along a path through the maze that exited directly in front of the pillars. Behind the wrought-iron fence was the private garden, which looked a lot like the one where Lord Ashcombe had found the buried body on Oak Apple Day. The gate here was closed, too, but not padlocked. At the top of each pillar that flanked it, the stone lions faced the mansion beyond, one paw raised.

“What now?” Tom said.

I held out the ledger page.

below the lions the gates of paradise He looked at me. “And that means . . . ?”

There was a gate between the statues. Were these the gates of paradise? I couldn’t see anything special about them. The pillars looked like large gray slabs stuck together with mortar. I ran my hands along them. They remained large gray slabs stuck together with mortar.

Beyond the fence, a path of cracked slate led from the gate and forked around a boxy granite structure, eight feet high and twelve feet across, ivy crawling up its walls. A plain stone cross adorned the top. Bridget waited for us there, preening an outstretched wing.

The path ended at the rear door of the mansion. On either side of the slate, the grass grew unkempt. The once-cared-for bushes had lost their trimming, their branches sticking out in misshapen lumps.

I unlatched the gate. “Let’s check it out.”

“We’re not allowed in there,” Tom said. “It’s private.”

The house’s windows were dark. The only sound in the garden was Bridget, cooing at us from atop the cross. “I don’t think anyone’s lived here for weeks.”

We walked along the path to the other side of the stone structure, which turned out to be a mausoleum. The front, facing the house, had a wooden door with an iron latch. Vines crawled upward around the sides, sprouting bright white flowers that flared out like horns. Above the door was a brass plaque, tarnished to a mottled green by centuries of weather.

IN MEMORIAM

GWYNEDD MORTIMER A.D. 1322

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

I frowned. “Mortimer. Why do I know that name?”

“Henry,” Tom said. “Lord Henry Mortimer. He was the third man killed by the Cult.” Tom went over to the mansion and peered in the window. “You think this was his house?”

Bridget flapped down to the grass. When I picked her up, she stuck her beak into my fingers, looking for food. “I didn’t bring anything,” I told her.

“Christopher.”

Tom stared back the way we came, head cocked to one side.

“Come here,” he said.

I did. He turned me so I was facing the garden. “Look.”

From where we stood, the mausoleum blocked most of the iron gate that led back to the maze. We could still see the lions on the pillars above it. The way they were posed, they appeared to be guarding the corners of the shrine. Behind the houses that backed onto the enclosure—all of whose windows had been bricked up, I noticed—was the window to Hugh’s bedroom, where we’d first spotted the hidden garden. Beyond that was the steeple of a church. Even from this distance, I could make out the statue on the spire. It was a bearded man with a halo, right hand raised in blessing, his left hand holding a key.

“That’s Saint Peter,” Tom said. “Keeper of the Pearly Gates.”

Saint Peter hovered directly above the mausoleum, lions at his feet on either side. Vines trailed around the door, flowers blooming white.

Below the lions, the gates of paradise.

We’d found it.

? ? ?

The mausoleum was dark and cramped inside. A marble sarcophagus, six feet long, rested in the center. It had no markings except water stains and a Latin inscription on the side.

DOMINUS ILLUMINATIO MEA