Kate Sedley - The Green Man

‘First, we’ll slake our thirst,’ he said, ‘before we make our pilgrimage to the church. I don’t doubt the ride has given us all dry throats. I’ll request you to do the honours, Murdo.’

‘Can I ask what we’re doing here?’ I demanded, suddenly finding both courage and voice.

Albany raised his eyebrows slightly at the bluntness of the question and the lack of his title to decorate it, but made no comment.

‘Patience, Roger,’ he said, smiling. ‘All will soon be revealed.’ He pushed one of the overflowing beakers towards me. (Murdo had poured out with a generous hand.) ‘Drink, now.’ He broke into a laugh. ‘It will cure you of the sullens.’

‘Before I do, my lord,’ I said, dragging the piece of rag-paper from my pouch, ‘I want you to look at this.’

The duke took it, puzzled, then glanced up for enlightenment. ‘It appears to be a recipe for something.’

I nodded. ‘A recipe for herb broth that I obtained from Mistress Callender, Master Sinclair’s next-door neighbour. A recipe written by Maria Beton who, according to your friend cannot read, let alone write. Moreover,’ I continued relentlessly before Albany had time to think up a reply, ‘you will find that the writing is identical to that of Aline Sinclair’s supposed diary. She didn’t have a secret lover, nor was she planning to murder her husband. It is a highly ingenious plot to cover the fact that it was Master Sinclair who killed his wife, deliberately and in cold blood.’

There was a long silence. No one around the table moved. Albany himself sat staring at the piece of paper as if turned to stone, his face expressionless. Finally, after what seemed an age, he shifted in his chair, expelling his pent-up breath and turning his gaze in my direction.

‘So … Well, this must certainly be looked into, without delay, as soon as we return to Edinburgh. Meantime-’ he raised his beaker — ‘drink up. A toast, gentlemen! To Roger’s ability to uncover the truth!’

Flattered — fool that I was — I lifted my beaker and, being thirsty, swallowed half the contents in almost one gulp.

There were lights everywhere.

At first, they were simply a golden glow, spreading inside my eyelids, adding to the confusion of mind as I struggled to recognize where I was and what had happened to me. My body felt like lead and, for the second time, I felt as though a mule had kicked me in the back of my head. I tried to lift my arms, only to discover that something was preventing movement, but at that point I wasn’t particularly worried as I teetered once more towards the edge of sleep. Unconsciousness seemed eminently desirable, and I let my body go slack, greeting oblivion like a welcome friend …

Then, suddenly, I was wide awake, my heart pounding in unison with my throbbing head as I realized that I was bound upright to some sort of pillar by several coils of rope — ankles, calves, thighs, waist and chest — my arms pulled behind me around the pillar and my wrists lashed together in a very painful fashion.

I opened my eyes and it was then that I saw the lights; what seemed like a myriad candles illuminating the interior of one of the most extraordinary buildings I have ever seen. Everywhere I looked was a riot, an abundance of imagery. Dragons, imps, angels, what appeared to be Judaic and Arabic symbols cheek by jowl, fruit, flowers, sea-serpents, not painted but carved from stone. Heaven knows who were the masons who had done such work; I have never seen anything in the whole of my life to equal it, not even in some of the greatest churches. They had used the stone as if it were clay to be moulded at will to the greater glory of God.

But as I continued to stare around me, I began to wonder uneasily if the glory was indeed to God. In whichever direction I looked, a head of the Green Man met my eyes, an abundance of foliage spilling out of his mouth. The chapel — for I had guessed by this time that I was inside the chapel built by the Sinclairs forty years earlier — was lit by six windows on either side, and every one was surrounded by mouldings of this ancient spirit of renewal and replenishment as he spewed his bounty on to the earth beneath. But there were others, everywhere …

The sudden awareness of acute physical discomfort dispersed my awe and amazement. The pillar to which I was bound was also a marvel of the stonemason’s art, being not only ribbed, but also carved with great swathes of vegetation that spiralled around it, standing proud and digging into my shoulders, back and legs or any other part of my anatomy they happened to touch. As the drug with which my drink had been laced wore off, the pain grew increasingly intense. I struggled to free myself, knowing full well that it was impossible, whilst my bolting senses told me that I was in an exceedingly dangerous predicament. Not to overstate the matter, I was probably going to be killed.

But why? And who were my potential killers?

The second question was easily answered. It had to be Albany and his bunch of henchmen. They had brought me here, to Roslin, but their motive was still obscure. All the same, a nasty suspicion was beginning to form at the back of my mind as I recalled someone — exactly who I could not now remember — telling me that this pillar was thought to be modelled on one that had supported an inner porch of King Solomon’s Temple and, in the same breath, had mentioned the slaying of Hiram Abif, the architect, as a ritual sacrifice. And hadn’t the apprentice who built this pillar also been killed by a blow to the head?

I closed my eyes against the lights and tried to rid myself of the images of death swirling inside my brain. Why would Albany want me dead? What for? He had always claimed me as a friend. Indeed, I had been a friend to him in the past, a fact he seemed to have acknowledged with becoming gratitude for one in so exalted a position. But there, of course, was the rub. ‘Put not your trust in princes’ was a maxim I fervently believed in, yet on this occasion I had let myself ignore it; not completely, it was true, but I had been sufficiently careless to overlook certain warning signs. And, as a result, here I was, in a situation of extreme peril from which, I felt sure, I would be lucky to escape alive.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to lift my back away from the swag of stone foliage that was cutting me between the shoulder blades. My feet and hands were starting to go numb, while a lesser, but more humiliating discomfort began to occupy my mind. My bladder was full to bursting point with the quantity of drink I had taken, and the urge to relieve myself where I stood was overwhelming. But that would be assumed by my captors to be an indication of fear — quite rightly as it happened — and I wasn’t prepared to give them that satisfaction. I gritted my teeth and attempted to give my thoughts a different direction.

That wasn’t difficult. Where on earth were Albany and the rest? Why didn’t they come and put me out of my misery, at least if it was only to tell me what they intended, and what this charade was all about?

The thought had hardly formed before I heard the chapel door creak open. The candle flames tore sideways in the draught, then steadied as the door was closed again. There was the soft pad of booted feet across the flagstones and they stood before me; six men, their features concealed behind masks of the Green Man.

I knew them at once, of course: there had been no other attempt at disguise. Their height, their girth, the shape of their hands and feet, above all, their clothes, still mud-spattered from our morning’s ride, all proclaimed their identity. A sudden surge of anger replaced, if only for a moment, my fear.

‘You might as well take off those damned comic masks,’ I snarled. ‘If you think I can’t recognize you, you’re very much mistaken.’ I let the fury take hold of me. ‘If you knew how crass, how stupid you all look …’ I let the sentence hang as terror once more rendered me silent.