Before Winter. Nancy Wallace K.
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Название: Before Winter
Автор: Nancy Wallace K.
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Героическая фантастика
isbn: 9780008103606
isbn:
Devin thought of supper. “Those are beautiful. Are they …”
“No!” Marcus snapped. “They’re not. They’re Amanita muscaria and they are poisonous!”
Devin raised his eyebrows. “That’s good to know.”
The steps ended, lost in the deep shadow from the walls above. In places part of a floor remained, cut from massive squares of stone and fitted together almost seamlessly. In the corner, there was a door, arched at the top as the original church door might well have been, too. There was no ornate locking mechanism, just a simple keyhole. Marcus gave it a hefty yank but it didn’t budge. Devin slipped out the tip of his knife and fitted it into the lock, feeling it jam after half the length of the blade had entered.
“It’s locked from the inside,” he said. “I can feel the key.”
Marcus looked askance. “I had no idea you’d trained as a locksmith.”
Devin laughed. “Oh, never a locksmith, Marcus, but I didn’t get through the université without learning how to pick a lock.”
Marcus went down on a knee and ran his finger under the door. He turned to see if Lavender was watching. “Can you give me a piece of parchment from your jacket?”
“The only parchment I have is Tirolien’s Chronicle,” Devin hissed.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Marcus whispered. “If I slide it under the door do you think you can loosen the key enough that it will fall onto the parchment? We can slide it out under the door.”
It was easier said than done. Devin tried manipulating the knife but the blade wasn’t long enough. The blades on two of Marcus’ knives were too thick to enter the keyhole but the third one, that he withdrew from his boot, looked long, slender, and deadly.
“What’s that one for?” Devin asked.
“If you have you to ask, you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” Marcus remarked lightly. He stood up stiffly. “Here, you get down on your knees with the damn parchment! You’re less than half my age.”
Marcus fit the narrow knife into the keyhole, jiggled it several times and gave it a practiced twist. The key dropped but when Devin started to withdraw the paper, he could hear it bump the door.
“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” Marcus cautioned, extending a hand. “Let’s see if we can dig out under the paper a bit and give it more room. It’s probably a thick key.”
They cautiously brushed dirt away from the threshold as the sun rose higher in the sky. Not once did Marcus comment on the time of day or urge their departure. He lay with his eye on ground level, carefully shifting the parchment back and forth. Finally, he maneuvered the parchment forward, bringing a heavy iron key with it.
“Got it!” crowed Marcus, swooping to grasp the key from the parchment. Holding it aloft, he squinted over his shoulder at Devin. “Would you like to do this or shall I?”
Devin bent to retrieve the parchment, brushing it off before returning it to his jacket. He took a step back and motioned to Marcus. “You can open it.”
As Marcus turned it, the key rasped in the lock, metal scraping metal. Devin heard something rattle and shift, sending a chill up his spine, and the door cracked open. A dry draft of air billowed outward as though it had been trapped there for centuries, and both of them seemed frozen in time for an instant: Marcus, so strong and confident, gripping the key in one hand and the knob in the other, and Devin, tense with a strange suspicion of what they would find inside. He stooped quickly as the door fell open, cradling the skeleton in his arms, lest it crumble on the stone floor.
“God!” Marcus whispered. “The priest! Did you know he was in here?”
“I had a feeling,” Devin answered, afraid to move for fear part of this man of God might shatter in his arms.
“You might have warned me,” Marcus grumbled, bending over. “Let me help you.”
Only scraps of his clerical robes held the bones in place. The priest’s skull seemed to drop naturally into the crook of Devin’s shoulder. Devin doubted if he lived to be a hundred that he would ever forget the feeling.
Marcus seemed to be at a loss. “Where shall we put him?”
Devin nodded toward the open door. “Back inside? He died there. It seems we have disturbed his tomb. Perhaps we should restore things to the way they were.”
“He must have died leaning on the door,” Marcus observed. “Let’s prop him against the wall instead.”
He slid a hand carefully under the skeleton’s lower half while Devin supported the top, feeling bones loosen and shift as fabric and leathery strips of skin fell away. They moved him into the dark interior of the tunnel, arranging the remains as reverently as possible against the far wall.
Devin stood up, tried to restrain a violent shudder and failed.
Marcus retrieved the spruce branch. “My flint?” he asked, holding out his hand.
Devin tried to pull it out of his pocket but was unsuccessful; his hands were shaking so badly. Marcus reclaimed it himself and struck a spark to their spruce branch, the torch throwing its flickering light into the darkness.
The “tunnel” consisted of one austere room: a shelf held empty bottles of communion wine. The floor held only the tatters of a decayed blanket, a Bible and a small leather-bound book. Devin bent to pick the book up, disturbing a quill that rolled off across the floor. An empty ink well rocked back and forth on its side.
Devin opened the cover, his eyes squinting to keep the words from blurring: Father Sébastian Chastain, 12 Avril 1406. “God,” he breathed. “Can you believe this? It’s a journal, Marcus!”
“And this is nothing more than a safe house, Devin,” Marcus replied, gesturing with the torch. “You were right. It doesn’t connect to the other tunnels but it must have served as a secure place to hide someone who might have been running for his life.”
Devin barely listened; he turned the pages reverently, tracing the writing that grew more spidery and shaky toward the end. Not only did the writing itself change but so did the ink. Devin swallowed, hardly wanting to put his observations into words. He’d seen two other manuscripts like this once before in the Archives. He cleared his throat but it didn’t stop his voice from shaking. “He finished this by writing with his own blood, Marcus. Imagine having something so important to say that you …” He couldn’t finish.
“I think we need to leave,” Marcus said firmly. “Take the journal with you. Hide it in the lining of your jacket with Tirolien’s Chronicle. If Father Sébastian died recording all of this, then it needs to be preserved and remembered.”
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