Pip Vaughan-Hughes - Relics

Gilles swore. You are right,' he admitted. 'Never mind. Help me.'

There was obviously some system governing the cargo. Gilles clambered into the heart of it, moved a large rolled carpet and tugged out another crude coffin. He set it down next to the open one and pried the lid off. 'The nineteenth woman?' I guessed. 'No, twenty-third,' Gilles replied, absently.

She was a far better prospect, but still not perfect. The hair would pass in bad light. The face was battered but intact and in proportion. She was also the right height. While Gilles had paced nervously in Tula's shrine he had measured out the reliquary and guessed the size of her body, and this cadaver would fit.

‘We can work on the face,' Gilles explained. 'That is not so hard. The priest and probably some of the older women will have spent time with Tula and will notice details, but the truth is that most people do not like to study dead people. Who can blame them? But it makes this sort of thing a little easier. Anyway, this is just to cover our tracks until we have put a good few sea leagues between us and Koskino.' 'Is this easy, then?'

'For me, you mean? Yes, I think it is. I have seen a legion of corpses in my life, many of them people I loved. The body is simply a shell made by the Evil One, but still Death's work is never easy to contemplate. This one, poor dear, left this life many, many years ago. Her soul… that is not right. Her essence is long gone. She is merely a thing.'

And then I remembered the smell. It brought me back to the night in Gardar when the Captain had shown me the heart of St Cosmas. 'She is from Egypt,' I said. Gilles looked surprised. 'That she is. How did you know?'

I told him of my evening in the Gardar tavern. 'So you know all our secrets, then,' he said when I was finished. 'I greatly doubt that,' I said, and he smiled.

'But Egypt is our greatest secret,' he said. 'It is where we hunt for our stock-in-trade. We can make a relic if need be: it is not hard. But for quality and true age, the tombs of Egypt are where you must look.'

'So are they all counterfeit, the relics that we deal in?' It was a question I had wanted to ask the Captain, but I had never had the chance after we sailed from Gardar.

'The answer is twofold. No is one of them. Many genuine relics pass through our hands. You are sitting on the shroud of Saint Lazarus' wife.' He laughed as I jumped to my feet. 'There is a great trade, a legitimate trade as it were, in relics, and we are at the very heart of it. But the second answer is, what is counterfeit? That shroud, for instance. It is indeed genuine. We found it last year in a monastery in the Sinai desert, where it has laid for generations. Another monastery in Alsace is awaiting its delivery. The monks of Sinai were glad of the money from Alsace to redig their failing well. A business transaction, all above board. The shroud is really a Coptic burial tunic in good condition, but several centuries younger than Madame Lazarus. I know that. No one outside this boat does, though. It is my business, and I have studied long. But most people do not care for history, or the study of ancient things. They require easy answers. For perhaps eight centuries folk have believed that the wife of Lazarus wore this shroud, and that makes it a fact. We are certainly not going to be scrupulous about it: no one would welcome the truth. Faith is more powerful than truth, and that is how we can earn our living from the dead.' 'I think Cordula is real, though. You do too.'

Yes, you are right; that is most unusual. But it makes our job easier – a straightforward sale, no deception needed.' I left Gilles with the Egyptian corpse. He had fetched an inlaid box such as women use for their beautifying and was busy working on the face with a pallet knife and a pot of some sinister black paste. It felt like resurrection just to walk on deck again. The immediate problem in hand was whether I could climb that almost sheer spur up to the shrine with the substitute Tula strapped, as Gilles had explained, to my back in some sort of wooden frame that was at this moment being built. There would be no moon tonight, and yet again I realised that I was the one who knew least about this plan -and probably about anything at all – out of the whole crew of the Cormaran.

The island – it was called Hrinos, Pig Island, as it took the vague shape of a boar's back – was coming up ahead. It would be dark in three hours, and then we would sail back, beating across the channel to Koskino. With a bit of sailor's luck, the night wind would still be strong and would carry us north with Cordula. I was trying not to think about the hours in between, so I climbed up to where Nizam stood at the tiller.

'I will be sorry to leave this sea,' I said, as we watched Hrinos slide towards us.

'And I,' said the Moor. 'It is my sea too. Sometimes I believe that every ocean is a mere road to bring me back here.'

'But I will not be sorry to have this night's work over and done,' I muttered. 'Oh, my friend: it is in your blood.'

I had the same answer from Rassoul, from Pavlos, from Isaac. According to them, I had nerves of iron and this would be easy. But I was beginning to feel less sanguine about volunteering for this endeavour. It was less the mechanics of the thing: the climb, the theft. Rather, it was Kervezey in the shadows. But when I closed my eyes I could see Will's lips pulled back in his death-smile. I would not back down now.

I think I wanted Anna to make a fuss. But she did not. She had tucked herself into her favourite spot alongside the bowsprit and was letting the salt spray stiffen her hair again. When I leaned beside her she put an affectionate hand on my chest. 'Brave boy,' she said. 'The Captain wants you.' That was all. She went back to studying Hrinos, coming up fast now. I could only shrug and take a lonely walk back to the Captain's cabin.

'I should think you are ready to soil yourself with terror,' he said as I ducked through the door. They were the sweetest words I had heard all day. 'Something akin to that,' I admitted.

'Good lad. Only the lunatics feel no fear. It is a good thing: it keeps your mind sharp and open. Now, here is my plan.'

We would anchor off Hrinos, out of sight of any watchers on Koskino. The shore party would row across in the gig. There would be six of us: four to row, one to steer, and me, saving my strength. The five would wait on the beach until I returned, and we would row back. Very simple.

'But what will I do in the shrine?' I asked. 'How careful should I be about making the switch?'

'As careful as you can be, which might not mean very much in the dark. Gilles will have our stand-in looking as much like Tula as he can. It will be good, I can tell you that. He has a phenomenal memory, that one. Our own relic will be wrapped like Tula. You will simply replace those ghastly red slippers, the pectoral and the rings – do not worry. They will come off easily enough. Now, you will need this.'

He pulled a small, cloth-wrapped bundle from under his seat. It held a tinderbox, a stubby, thick-bladed chisel and the smallest lantern I had ever seen. Blind on three sides, it had one window of thick yellowish glass. You'll use it with these,' said the Captain, showing me two squat candles. 'Smell them: beeswax,' he said. 'That way you won't leave any odd smoke odour. It is the kind of detail which someone like that priest might notice.' 'I should take my sword.'

'No, just your knife. That way you won't spit yourself if you lose your footing. I do not think you will need it. Your mind is on Kervezey, but he is on the other side of Koskino. His men will hardly have got back to the town, and even if Kervezey cared to, he could not reach the shrine before morning. No, I am more worried that you will meet a shepherd or a hunter. If you do, run. Make your way back to the sea, and keep signalling towards the Cormaran with your light. We will find you.' He patted my arm. 'It is a simple task, Petroc. But I am proud of you, and we will all be very grateful. Now prepare yourself.'