Rory Clements - The Heretics

Roag cursed beneath his breath. Winnow was a danger to them all. With sun-bright clarity he realised he would have to do without Dick. . and there was a way. He signalled to Ratbane and Paget, and spoke to them quietly.

‘Go after Winnow. Take him to the river and send him downstream. I do not wish to see him again.’

He watched them go. Two sullen, brutish men, the sort who did the bidding of their masters with a will; the kind of men who in a past century would have slit the throats of Frenchmen bogged down in a muddy field at Agincourt without blinking. Slaughterhouse men. Just the men he needed. He would have dealt with Winnow himself, but he had other matters to attend to in an abandoned plague parish church a few miles north of this place.

Winnow ran for his life. He knew that Ratbane and Paget would be sent after him. He ran deep into the woods. At last he came to an area of dense bracken and sank into it, certain that he must be invisible. He turned on his back and looked up at the canopy of leaves, panting heavily, like a dog in summer. He would wait there all night, and survive.

Shakespeare was barely conscious. His head, the only part of him not coated in gore, was slumped on to his bloody chest. His breathing was shallow and rasping. His lips moved and he spoke a single word. Live. That was all. That was all he had left. Live. He had no idea whether the word was in his head or could be heard.

Sloth wrenched his head up by the hair. ‘What do they know about Roag?’

‘Everything,’ Shakespeare said again, his voice faint and distant.

All he knew was that this man and this woman were all over him, crawling across him like clawed, frenzied reptiles, killing him bit by bit. Picking away at his body, scraping at his very soul.

‘What, specifically? If you know the plot, explain it to me and I will finish you with a sword-thrust and your children will be saved.’

Somewhere, on a distant portion of his body, he felt the stabbing of a needle. He no longer even recoiled at the pain.

‘He is full of demons, so full. They are without number.’

Beatrice was on the floor, on her knees, clutching at him with her long, narrow fingers, scratching the needle point along his skin until she thought she saw a demon, and then stabbing.

‘He is alive with the creatures. I hear them talking to me.’ She foamed and shrieked as she spoke. ‘They cry out their names: Pippin, Maho, Modu and Soforce. These are the captains. They have under-demons each, numbering three hundred. I stab them and they growl and wriggle and laugh like girls. Except Soforce, which does not laugh. Why do they not flee? Even the lesser devils, Hilco, Smolkin, Hillio, Hiaclito, Frateretto, Hobberdidance and Tocobatto seem not afeared. Father Sloth, Father Sloth. . give him more brimstone.’

Sloth was not listening. His face was so close to Shakespeare’s that he was like a bear, open-mouthed, preparing to devour a piece of flesh from its prey.

‘I will suck the truth from you. Speak, or be for ever cursed. Speak or your seed will die with you.’

Beatrice scratched her nails across the flagstone floor. ‘Molkin, Wilkin, Lustie Dickie, Nurre, Killicocam and Helcmodon. But Maho is the tyrant. If we can burn Maho, then all will flee. And so I prick here. .’

She stabbed again, in the sole of his foot.

Boltfoot Cooper stood inside the door to the little church with uncomprehending eyes. At his side was the slender young figure of Paul Hooft. Like Boltfoot, his blue eyes were wide in disbelief and horror.

‘Have they killed him, Mr Cooper?’

Before them, in the centre of the nave, a blood-drenched figure sat, bound to a chair. It was impossible to tell who it was, or even if it was human. A large man, swathed in ecclesiastical robes, was almost on top of the figure, enveloping it. A woman had curled herself around his legs. The whole horrible tableau moved and squirmed like grubs in a fisherman’s pot.

‘I don’t know, Mr Hooft. I pray he is alive. But I know this: it is time to put an end to this ungodly degradation.’

They had tethered their horses in the woods, then crept to the church. Pistols drawn and loaded, they had pushed open the door, unsure whom they would find, or how many. But there was no need for such caution. Beatrice Eastley and Ovid Sloth were too far gone in their lethal passion to notice the newcomers. Only the leashed dog saw them, wagging its tail and whimpering like a puppy.

Boltfoot limped forward and dragged Sloth off. He seemed surprised but did not resist. There was blood on his face, around his mouth. He looked at Boltfoot with recognition but no understanding. Boltfoot removed his weapons, then pushed him to the floor. Sloth tried to get up, but Boltfoot turned him over on to his front and placed a booted foot on his back.

Hooft pulled Beatrice away with surprising tenderness. She stood before him, shivering, full of loathing, but also triumphant. ‘Fly, Maho, fly down to the depths. You are conquered! Go to your master in hell.’

‘I am Paul. Do you not remember? You were to have been my wife.’

‘Your devil’s grease cloaks you in human form, Maho, but you do not deceive me. I escaped from you before. You will not snare me again. I am God’s instrument now and I hold dominion over you and all your worms.’

Hooft gazed at her with a mixture of sadness and disgust, then turned to Boltfoot and raised his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Look what the popish beasts have done to my bride, Mr Cooper.’

Boltfoot pulled her arm roughly and tried to wrench her down beside Sloth. ‘Help me get her on the ground, Mr Hooft, then train the pistols on them.’ He had a coil of cord slung around his body. He removed it and handed it to Hooft. ‘Bind them tight. If they try to escape, shoot them. I must look to Mr Shakespeare.’

He took his dagger from his belt and began to cut the ropes that bound his master, all the time speaking to him, seeking some response.

‘Can you hear me? All will be well now.’

He wiped the blood from Shakespeare’s mouth and tried to give him a drink from his water bottle, but there was no response. He cupped his hand and poured a little water into it, then dripped some on to his master’s lips.

He tried to decide what to do. They were four miles southwest of London, a third of the way to the Palace of Nonsuch. Mr Shakespeare was alive, but he was in a very bad way. He could not withstand a ride back to London, strapped across the back of a horse. This desolate ruin of a church stood in the middle of a field. The only other house they had seen in the vicinity was a farmhouse, half a mile away. That was their only hope.

‘Are they bound, Mr Hooft?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Then bring the horses. We must get Mr Shakespeare away from this place. I will ride ahead and you can follow with these two fiends on leashes. We must trust there will be a barn where we can hold them.’

While Hooft went for their mounts, Boltfoot cut strips of cloth from Sloth’s robes and, soaking them in water, cleaned as much blood as he could from Shakespeare’s torso. Where the bleeding was not already clotting, he staunched the flow. There were so many needle wounds, so much blood.

The farmwife was tall and strong, with power enough to restrain a struggling hog at gelding time. Though Shakespeare was six foot and well built, she took him in her arms and carried him like a child into the rambling old house, through to her own chamber. There she placed him on the large bed.

While Boltfoot and her children looked on, she began to tend to Shakespeare, cleaning and dressing the wounds with clean linen. After a while she turned to Boltfoot.

‘Best thing you could do would be to fetch a physician, if you know one.’