James Forrester - Sacred Treason

Clarenceux wiped his face, gasping for breath in the musty air. He could hear nothing now except a distant moaning somewhere far off. One of the men who had fallen into the shaft had not died instantly. Then the moaning stopped.

Clarenceux stood up in the tunnel and listened. He started to move back up the slope, toward where he guessed the staircase must be which led up into the house. He moved forward carefully, slowly running his hand along the left wall, mindful that from this side there was nothing to stop him falling into the shaft if he lost count of his steps.

Suddenly a burning torch appeared in front of him, having come down the stairs from the house. Clarenceux froze. Can this be one of Julius’s men? He crouched, praying wordlessly with all the will in his heart that it was someone from the house come to find him. The figure was advancing. Still all Clarenceux could see was the flaming point of light. On it came, bobbing up and down with each footfall.

If that is a friend, his gait shows he is keen to find me.

But that is not the way a man walks normally.

That is not a normal man.

And with that thought Clarenceux realized he was looking at the dark hair of Richard Crackenthorpe in the torchlight, just fifty feet away. The man had gone through the house and terrorized the old servants within into giving him a light and revealing the staircase. Now he was striding down the tunnel, sweeping the torch from one side to the other with his left hand, a drawn sword in his right. His gait was bold and spoke of fury. But he was not reckless. Clarenceux could see him slowing and inspecting the ground carefully.

Crackenthorpe moved the torch up and down the walls on either side. Then the torch swept around the passageway-and he saw Clarenceux crouched ahead of him.

Clarenceux rose, turned, and ran. He rushed straight down to the foot of the passage, reaching out for the rock, hearing the heavy footfall of Crackenthorpe running behind him. The light of the torch behind was too weak to see the cavern wall at the foot of the tunnel, and he crashed into it hard, twisting his fingers and hands, scraping his shin and bashing his head against the rock. But he pulled himself to his feet and pushed himself toward the right, remembering that there were several passageways leading off.

He ran down another tunnel in total darkness, hands outstretched, feeling the curve of the chalk wall and hoping to find a turning. On he went, tripping here and there on the uneven floor, realizing that there was no hope of remembering his way back. The tunnels curved-he did not know whether he had turned a corner or simply followed the passage. Soon he was hopelessly lost, running and turning without reason or logic until he slowed and stopped, and struggled to calm his panting, listening out for footsteps.

He heard them. Crackenthorpe had been able to run much faster by the light of his torch. He was not far away.

Clarenceux stretched out his arms again and started running-running endlessly, it seemed, in a dream-like darkness. Patterns appeared of shapes and colors, as if he had pressed his fingers into his eyes. And still he heard the chasing steps. On he went, knowing he could run faster if he did not play the blind man with his hands out, bashing into walls as he went, twisting in the tunnels as if escaping from a devil in a labyrinthine hell.

He turned a corner. Suddenly Crackenthorpe was there in front of him, and Clarenceux was blinded by the torchlight. “Halt!” yelled Crackenthorpe, as he lunged toward him, sword at the ready. Clarenceux turned and started running back the way he had come, hearing Crackenthorpe’s heavy footsteps close behind. With the torchlight so near, he could see the mouths of tunnels curling away into the unknown; but then he would take a turning and be plunged into the dark until Crackenthorpe caught up.

Turning after turning he took-splashing through the cold water of a shallow underwater stream at one point-only to hear Crackenthorpe keep up the chase.

When the man with light meets the man with the sword, the man with the sword always has the advantage-but here the man with the light is the man with the sword. If only I could find my way out of these tunnels. O Lord, save me. Christ have mercy! He is almost on me again. I cannot carry on much longer.

Water. Julius never mentioned that there was a stream down here. That was a landmark. I should remember, so I can use it to navigate.

He hastened down a tunnel and decided he would return to the stream. He had run on ahead in darkness now for a minute or more, with the torchlight appearing only at intervals behind him. Now he dived into another tunnel and felt a sharp corner with his hand. He hid immediately around the turn, in the shadow. He waited, breathing heavily. Too heavily. Crackenthorpe would hear him and stab around the corner with the sword.

But Crackenthorpe did not come.

Clarenceux listened fearfully. There was no sound of footsteps. Just the slow drip, drip, drip of water.

He looked back around the corner.

Darkness.

I cannot even hear him. Could he have fallen and let the light go out?

Clarenceux went around the corner and crept back along the way he had come, sniffing the air for signs of the burning pitch of the torch. He tensed himself, fearful that Crackenthorpe had put out his light on purpose and was waiting for him, sword drawn.

He felt another corner with his fingers and turned, heading back through the tunnel he had run along only a moment before. Again he paused, listening. More dripping water, this time falling not onto rock but into an underground pool or lake. And then he heard something else, like a faint shuffling of feet. The sound of two pieces of metal knocked together.

Clarenceux took a deep breath and moved in the direction of the sound. He stepped carefully, not wanting to trip and fall. There ahead, perhaps forty yards away down a tunnel, was just the faintest hint of light. Quietly he inched forward toward it, listening, prepared to run at the slightest sign of Crackenthorpe’s being aware of his presence.

The light was growing stronger. It is coming from around that corner. What would I do in Crackenthorpe’s position? I would place the light somewhere to attract my enemy, like a moth, and then I would hide where he cannot see me. In the darkness of one of the adjacent tunnels.

But at that moment Clarenceux heard the clang of something metal hitting another metal item. It was followed almost immediately by the sound of another metal item striking the floor, hard.

He crept closer, coming to the opening, his back pressed against the wall of the passageway. The flickering light was just around the corner, illuminating the far side of the passage. He crouched down, listening, fearing the darkness at his back but fearing the light even more.

He inched forward until one eye could just see around the corner.

Crackenthorpe had found the long, chapel-like chamber. Clarenceux recognized the columns of chalk and the aisles on either side: the shadowy niches around the long nave. Crackenthorpe was examining a gold or gilt-silver flagon on the altar at the far end of the room. He had lit several candles and propped his torch against a carved crucifix in the middle of the hall. He looked at the jeweled crosses on the walls and the chests of treasure saved from the monasteries, lost in a golden glow of his own. Then he set down the flagon, returned to the torch, picked it up, and saw Clarenceux.

Clarenceux did not run. Instead he slowly entered the nave. He stood there openly, bold and unarmed.

Crackenthorpe’s eyes were fierce in the torchlight. “You have no sword.”

Clarenceux took another step forward, along the stone nave, and then another and another. And as he walked forward, creeping from the shadows in the aisles around them came men on silent feet. Several of them were bearing swords, others holding knives. There were servants in old doublets, grooms in old tunics, and two men wearing breastplates.