Time of the Beast Read online

  Cadroc’s eyes bulged at me in a look of astonishment, then his expression turned to one of scorn.

  ‘Go back to your refuge, Brother,’ he answered. ‘And the secure drudgery of your lonely prayers. You do not have the look of a holy warrior to me.’

  ‘We are all the warriors of Christ!’ I protested. ‘I can assist you… I can be of service.’

  ‘Your ardour is admirable. But I fear I have failed to impress upon you the great danger…’

  ‘I understand, yet I believe the danger is sent to test me – to prove my faith. That it is sent by God in answer to my prayers.’ Now I fell to my knees before him, as if I would make my confession, and the words poured from me in a frantic whisper. ‘The darkness is always with me. I am in torment because I do not know finally if I am a man of God or else one of the wretched damned. I only know that I do not know! And I came out here alone so that I might cast this pernicious doubt from my heart, but shadow-like it eludes me and defeats me, driving me forever back into hopelessness and despair. But now my darkness has become a thing of solid form, an enemy I may pursue and fight and – with God’s help and yours – overcome. You, Brother, are too resolute in your faith to understand this – a thing that fills me with the sinful impulse of envy – yet I hope that within you pity may take the place of understanding. I beg you to grant me what I ask.’

  His dark eyes studied me closely for long moments, and I believed that beneath his stern look I saw something there to encourage me – some sign of inner hesitation or uncertainty. But this was only momentary, before he turned from me, saying:

  ‘Go home, Brother. Mine is not a pleasant pilgrimage. I have no place for passengers.’

  He strode off after his companion, and I stood dejectedly as I watched him depart. But my heart was filled at once with the overpowering conviction that my words were absolute truth, and with sudden unshakeable determination I started to follow them.

  Chapter Eight

  We walked throughout the morning, and I followed precisely their arduous path through the mud and bulrushes as we circled the borders of the deeper marshes where men dare not tread, while a thin mist rose up, making it difficult for me to mark time. Occasionally Cadroc would look around and I heard his voice boom out over the open wetlands, commanding me to turn back, yet I kept moving doggedly onward, keeping them always in my sight. After a time I began to study my surroundings: the eerie, silent miles of dull grey reeds and steaming swamps. We encountered not another soul as we went, and I was struck once more by the sheer size and emptiness of this land, whose twisting tortuous pathways might turn the journey of an hour into a day and where a man feels he is led ever farther from the sight of God. It chilled me to my bones.

  It was probably around noon that I felt the ground sink as I followed them into a kind of hollow, and the mist grew thicker as it swirled up to surround us. Soon I saw that a wide lake stretched before us. We skirted its edge, until a small collection of rotting huts appeared up ahead. As Cadroc and Aelfric approached them I saw dimly that an old man sat outside the door to one of these, his attention fixed upon the repair of a fishing net.

  ‘Greetings,’ Aelfric called to him. ‘We come here in peace.’

  Suddenly aware of their presence, the old fellow cried out in fear and jumped to his feet, snatching up a spear from the ground beside him, straining with rheumy eyes to peer at them through the mist as he began to yell out at the top of his voice.

  ‘Good man, be calm,’ I heard Cadroc say. ‘Be assured that we mean you no harm.’ But the old man continued with his caterwauling, shouting out desperate threats as his spear remained defiantly raised. Then another, younger man appeared behind him, his own spear pointed at them, and he too began to yell and bluster, excited by the older man’s panic. Now Cadroc’s voice thundered out at them.

  ‘Fools! We are here upon God’s work. Do not dare to obstruct us, or you will suffer His wrath!’ He stepped forward and raised his arm, his finger pointing at them, then he swept it down in a masterful gesture as he cried out: ‘Lay down your spears!’

  Their weapons fell to the ground, as if forcibly torn from their hands, and they quailed visibly before Cadroc’s words, until the younger one fell to his knees and I heard him hiss:

  ‘Father! Be still. It is Aelfric. He comes with a holy man! Forgive father,’ he implored. ‘He is old… your coming alarmed him… his sight and hearing are poor… he did not recognise you in the mist. You come to us in bad times. There is much fear everywhere.’

  ‘That is all right, Alfhere,’ Aelfric said cheerfully, and clapped a hand onto his shoulder. ‘Now get up. We need you to take us across the water.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Alfhere nodded eagerly. ‘But first you will eat and drink with us?’

  ‘No time,’ Aelfric shook his head. ‘Our mission is urgent.’

  ‘Then come,’ Alfhere replied. I approached as he led the others along the lake’s shore to where a coracle lay upon the mud. And as he dragged it into the water I knew with a sense of desperation that we had reached the point where I could follow Cadroc no further, and that I would be left here, many perilous miles from home, stranded in this desolate, hostile place. I moved to the side of the boat, waiting silently as Cadroc and Aelfric clambered into it, my gaze simply fixed upon them. Alfhere, assuming me to be their companion, looked up at me and said: ‘Do you seek passage?’

  I did not answer him but only looked to Brother Cadroc. His eyes would not meet mine, but now Aelfric shot me an angry stare, which in moments changed into a look of amusement; then he began to laugh as he whispered something to Cadroc. Now the monk turned to glare at me indignantly, but I must have looked like the proverbial lost lamb, as once more I received the impression that something within the man was uncertain and divided, for after a moment his anger subsided, and he appeared to relent.

  ‘Come then,’ he said, and shifted to make a space in the boat beside him. ‘For now, at least.’

  ‘Thank you, truly,’ I said to him as I climbed in, feeling a flood of incredible relief.

  ‘And I say truly that you should not thank me,’ he muttered. ‘You would be safer abandoned on the marsh, Brother.’

  But I also turned to give Aelfric my thanks, for I felt his words to Cadroc had perhaps been instrumental in my acceptance into their company. In that moment I came to regard Aelfric as a friend.

  As Alfhere rowed us over the lake, and I felt the sudden exhilaration of freedom and the cool wet breeze on my face, it came to me that by embarking on this voyage across the water I had passed over a boundary from which I could not turn back. Whatever might lie ahead, it had now become my fixed path into a strange and mysterious world of darkness and great danger. But I was convinced that here burned the fire that would temper my soul: a chance to serve as a companion and perhaps even an apprentice to an exorcist monk and learn the secret ways of battling with the Dark One. I prayed my courage would prove equal to the task. But then I thought of Ailisa, and I questioned whether what had prompted my actions was courage at all. I wondered if, in my coward’s heart, I might have run away anywhere to escape my responsibility to her, to place some distance between us and make our parting easier.

  When we had crossed the lake, to the point where the beds of reeds grew too thick for the coracle to go further, we climbed ashore, and Aelfric said:

  ‘Now we must continue north. This will bring us to the settlement called Meretun where we will find welcome and lodging tonight.’

  We walked for hours on snaking pathways across a series of small islets which rose and fell out of the marshes, following tracks over thin ridges of firm ground which formed a connection of narrow causeways between them, while gulls soared and cried above us. But all else was deathly quiet and still except for the wails and shrieks of the marsh birds which sometimes rose, like the unearthly sobbing of lost damned souls upon the sharp salt winds that blew in from the distant sea and merged with the pervading stench of rotting slime, which drift
ed everywhere in clouds of vapour from out of the oozing depths of the mud. At first Cadroc did not speak but only trudged onward as his eyes held a faraway look, which made it seem that as he travelled he simultaneously traversed some inward realm of his own, and I sensed how heavily the burden of his responsibility must lay upon him. Eventually I began to converse quietly with Aelfric as he strode in front and held his spear, pausing occasionally to test with the blunt end of its wooden shaft the firmness of the ground ahead, saying to him:

  ‘Are you not afraid to journey through the fens on the trail of this killer?’

  He smiled and raised his spear with both hands as he answered.

  ‘I do not fear. The Fenland is my home. And life spent in fear is no life.’

  ‘But you must have confidence in Brother Cadroc’s powers. Are you a Christian man?’

  ‘I have made worship to the Christ-god,’ he said briefly. I understood his meaning. Most of the fen-men respected our faith, but to them the Christian god remained only one among many. As Cadroc had confided to me, it was by his mission here that he intended to change that situation. But it was also clear to me that he had other motivations beyond this, and these I determined to discover.

  My thoughts distracted me, and my muscles had grown tired and aching from my long travail. It was now, as I followed Aelfric down an uneven slope from an islet onto the marsh, that I lost my footing and tripped, then lurched to one side, stumbling away from our path. The ground there looked firm, and no different to me from where I had walked before, but as I stepped onto it my legs sank instantly down to my knees in soft viscous mud. I shifted my weight and fell onto my backside to stop myself from sinking further, then slipped and scrabbled as I tried to free myself, but my hands found nothing solid to grip beneath me, and a sense of panic came over me as I realised I was hopelessly stuck.

  ‘Keep still!’ Aelfric called out, as he began to approach me, making his way forward with infinite care. Then he lay down flat on his stomach, stretching out across the ground behind me to spread his weight there evenly, and reached out his arm towards me. Slowly I twisted around to clutch at his outstretched hand, but my own fingers were slippery with mud and at first I could not gain a firm grip. Finally we managed to grasp each other about our wrists, then I clung to him with both hands as he began to crawl backwards, pulling me with him while I squirmed and kicked, my body sweating with fear and exertion until slowly I felt myself torn loose from the mire’s deadly grip. Then a loud squelching noise came out from the mud, as if it protested to be robbed of its prey.

  As I clambered to my feet, Aelfric stood before me, his look at once growing hard and stern as he told me:

  ‘You must be watchful. The marsh is always hungry for those who are not wary. This time you are lucky, but next time…’ and at once his face broke into its customary grin as he slapped my arm ‘…you might lose your boots!’

  ‘Indeed we must be vigilant!’ Cadroc spoke to me now, his voice like gravel in his throat and his eyes sharp with warning. ‘Death surrounds us on every side. It is truly said that the right path that leads to life is narrow and hard, yet many and wide are the wrong paths that lead to suffering and darkness.’

  ‘I will be careful, I promise,’ I said, feeling a stab of fear as I nodded to show him that I understood his meaning: of things deeper and more terrible still than the black quagmires of the Fens. But now it occurred to me how absurdly ill-matched my two companions were: one forever smiling and good-humoured, the other so relentlessly grim, as if between them they stood to represent the opposite extremes of human nature. In other circumstances their partnership might have seemed almost comical. Yet upon that journey, as I studied Aelfric in unguarded moments when his thoughts were silent and his face grew still, I began to sense that perhaps his good-nature was an affectation which served him as a mask, or as a defence against the world, and I wondered if a different man existed beneath it.

  Now that my misadventure had roused Cadroc from his silent musings, I took the opportunity to speak with him.

  ‘I thank you again,’ I said respectfully, ‘for allowing me to join you. May I ask what it was that changed your mind?’

  ‘I have been debating that matter to myself,’ he replied. ‘Your words outside your hermitage have remained in my thoughts. I find myself wondering if there is any truth in what you say, and whether indeed some divine purpose might accompany you. But I may come to decide otherwise’ – his brow grew furrowed for a moment – ‘in which case I will arrange to send you back. For the time being your show of great determination has impressed me.’

  ‘I remember your own words,’ I said, ‘which implied some secret knowledge of the enemy’s true nature. Will you tell me this story?’

  He considered for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘Indeed I will tell you both. It is well you should know it. In my homeland, when I was a very young man, in the days before King Penda invaded but after the Britons under King Cadwallon had liberated Elmet from the overlordship of the Northern Angles, the rule there had reverted to the native British lords, of whom my father was one. At this time the peasants who lived on the edge of the forest came to us to say that the dark spirits who dwelt in the forest’s depths had begun to emerge to plague their homes. These were not mortal creatures, they claimed, not men but monsters led by the Devil, for his form might be seen in the shadows among them, bigger and greater than all the rest. Before this, they explained, they had dutifully said their prayers and hung the symbol of the Cross inside their huts. Until now this had always kept the dark ones at bay. But no longer. Now they came at night with inhuman howls and cries, attacking and killing and driving men to flee from their homes. And when the men returned in the daylight, they found their dwellings ravaged, their possessions destroyed and their stocks of food stolen. Soon they would starve, they cried, and even the Holy Cross no longer had the power to protect them. My father listened to their ravings doubtfully and concluded that a pack of bandits must be hiding out in the forest. He sent men to search there, but no trace could be found of a large outlaw presence, only the usual motley collection of a few thieves and cut-throats, who were duly rounded up and executed. But still the attacks in the night continued.

  ‘This situation went on until our land lived in a state of constant terror, but the cause of it remained unknown, and my father was at a loss to know what to do. Then one day the captain of the guards came to him to report that he had captured a wild man from the forest, who remarkably had come to surrender himself and was now imprisoned in the dungeon of our fortress. Yet our captain said this creature had carried with him a fine sword and seemed to be something other than a mere savage. I went with my father to investigate, and we came upon a fearsome-looking figure of great height and size. At first in my shock I thought we had captured the Devil himself. But he stood before us, presenting himself in a way that suggested dignity and breeding. And as I inspected him I saw his body and limbs were perfectly in human proportion and that beneath his raggedness his face seemed both intelligent and attractive. Now he spoke in what we recognised to be the Anglish tongue – it was before I became conversant in your speech – but in my father’s service was a man who had some understanding of the language, who was summoned to act as our interpreter.

  ‘The story we heard was therefore necessarily brief and simple. The stranger claimed he had discovered, deep in the forest, the existence of a secret lair of devils. He would lead us there, he said, if we swore oaths that we would return his sword to him, that he should go in the vanguard of our attack and that the life of the chief devil was to be his alone.

  ‘My father and I went away to discuss his proposal. We knew we must take this chance to rid our land of its curse, but if the accounts we had been given were true – if what we faced were really devils – then we doubted our power as men to overcome them. We would need spiritual help. So we went to our local community of monks to seek advice.

  ‘The monks took us into the presenc
e of the oldest man in their order, a man named Brother Albinus. When he heard our words, he threw up his hands to the heavens and appeared transported with joy.

  ‘ “Throughout my life,” he said, “I have been tormented many times by an evil dream, a portent of damnation which is God’s punishment for a great sin committed in my youth. But when I was a boy, I once heard it said that deep in the forest lies a secret cave known to be an entrance into the underworld. It is a place once sacred to the ancient priesthood called the Druids, who long ago fled there seeking sanctuary from the proscription against them by the old Romans. Here they conjured dark magic filled with hatred and vengeance against their foreign persecutors until they opened up a mouth into Hell itself. But their sorcery was so powerful and dreadful it entirely consumed them, driving them to degradation and madness, and making them into demonic spirits, half men and half beasts forever bound to this world by their eternal thirst for revenge. In my dream I am taken by night into this place, and I wander through the cavernous darkness to the gates of Hell, hearing beyond me the groans and cries of many damned souls until I fear I will die of fright and join them. Always I awaken in a state of horror and hurry to my devotions, forever dreading that the next night will be my last. But now you have made it clear to me that God offers me my chance of redemption. It is a sign which tells me to go out and lift this curse from our land; and this will be to lift the threat of damnation from my own head. Ask your stranger if the lair of these devils lies inside a cave. If it is so, then we will go with you, for we know a rite of exorcism which will seal these foul spirits forever inside the earth.”