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Paul Doherty: Satan's Fire

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Paul Doherty Satan's Fire

Satan's Fire: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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The good sisters’ fears became more real as daylight disappeared and the undergrowth on either side of the road became alive with night creatures. A boar crashed across the road, his wicked tusks scything the air. Vixens yipped at the rising moon and, from some hamlet hidden in the trees, a dog bayed dolefully against the night. The two good sisters edged their palfreys closer. Secretly they comforted themselves. Who would harm two women consecrated to God? In actual fact they put their faith in Thurston’s thick club as well as the king’s impending arrival in York. Because of that, the highways and forest tracks had been cleared of outlaws and vagabonds. Moreover, the presence of so many sergeants of the great Templar Order also kept the villains, rascals and wolves heads well away from the city of York. It was the Templars about whom the two good sisters chattered: those iron-clad men with their sunburnt faces, their chainmail covered by great white cloaks of wool bearing a six-sided blood-red cross. The sisters had just passed the great Templar manor of Framlingham and its shadow-shrouded buildings had prompted their conversation about these strange men. The Templars were soldier-monks, virgins dedicated to war, but also the holders of great wealth as well as mysterious secrets. The two good sisters had learnt all this whilst staying at their mother house in Beverley. In the refectory there the sisters had gossiped about how the great Templar lords had swept into the convent courtyard demanding provisions for themselves and their horses. How they had guarded so securely a covered wagon bearing a six-locked coffer which, so Mother Perpetua informed them, must carry some great relic of tremendous force.

‘Why else?’ Mother Perpetua had concluded, ‘had the wagon been closely guarded by knights, foot-soldiers and crossbowmen all wearing the insignia of the Order?’

Dames Cecilia and Marcia had spent their long journey speculating on the many rumours about the Templars. Now, as the owls began to hoot, they wondered if these same Templars had brought a curse upon the land.

‘We are definitely living in dreadful times,’ Dame Marcia declared. ‘Look you, Sister; where else have we had rain at seed times to smother the young crops and rot the wheat in the ear of corn?’

‘Aye,’ Dame Cecilia replied. ‘There’s talk of famine and hunger. How the poor are mixing chalk with their flour.’

‘And other stories.’ Dame Marcia chattered on. ‘Outside Hull, a vicar saw three witches come riding towards him, a yard and a half above the ground.’

‘And at Ripon,’ Dame Cecilia interrupted, eager to show her knowledge, ‘the noon-day devil was glimpsed under the outstretched branch of the yew tree, glaring, with horrid eyes, at the priory gates.’

The two sisters heard a sound on the road ahead of them. Dame Cecilia gave a small scream and reined in. Thurston strode on, cursing under his breath at these chattering women. He stopped and peered down the road.

‘It’s nothing,’ he murmured in his broad Yorkshire burr, ‘though. .’ He hid his grin and scratched his tousled beard.

‘What?’ Dame Cecilia snapped.

‘Well,’ Thurston replied slowly, thoroughly enjoying himself, ‘there have been rumours. .’

‘Rumours about what?’

‘Well, ever since those Templars came back to York,’ Thurston continued, staring into the darkness, ‘there’ve been stories of devils, in the form of weasels, riding huge, amber-coloured cats along these roads.’

The two good nuns drew in their breath sharply.

‘Or there again,’ Thurston continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, ‘outside Walmer Bar, the Lord Satan himself has been glimpsed. He was clad in a purple gown with a black cap upon his head.’ He walked back and stared up at Dame Cecilia’s wrinkled face. ‘His face was terrible,’ Thurston continued hoarsely. ‘He had the nose of a great eagle, burning eyes, his hands and legs were hairy and he had feet like a griffin.’

‘Now that’s enough,’ Dame Marcia interrupted. ‘Thurston, you are frightening us. We should be in York.’

Aye, Thurston thought, and we’d have been there an hour ago if it hadn’t been for your constant gabble and chatter about imps, Templars, demons and magic. He looked up at the starlit sky.

‘Don’t worry, good sisters,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘Two more miles and we’ll be at Botham Bar; even sooner if you can make those palfreys trot a little faster.’

The two nuns needed no further urging. They dug their heels in, shouting at Thurston not to walk too far in front of them. Their guide strode on, quite pleased at teasing these plump, well-fed gossips who, ever since they had left Beverley, had spent more time talking about Satan than their devotions. Thurston stopped abruptly. A country man, a born poacher, Thurston knew the forest and could distinguish between what sounds and smells spelt danger and what to ignore. Now something was wrong. He lifted his hand, even as his neck went cold and his heart began to beat faster. A strange smell in the night air of smoke, fire and something else, smouldering human flesh. Thurston recognised that smell. He’d never forgotten the time they’d burnt the old witch in the market place at Guiseborough. The village had stunk for days afterwards, as if the old crone had cursed the air at the very moment of dying.

‘What’s wrong?’ Dame Cecilia shrilled, fighting hard to control her usually meek palfrey which had now become restless, as it too caught the smell.

‘I don’t know,’ Thurston replied. ‘Listen!’

The two nuns obeyed. Then they heard it: the mad galloping of a horse coming along the trackway ahead. Thurston moved them quickly to the side of the road just as the horse appeared, pounding along, neck out, ears flat against its head. Thurston wildly wondered whether he could stop the charging animal. The horse saw them and, skittering on the trackway, turned sideways then up, back on its hind legs, before charging on. As it did, Thurston’s blood ran cold: the severed legs of the horse’s former rider were still clasped firmly in its stirrups.

‘What is it?’ Dame Cecilia whispered.

Thurston crouched on the edge of the road, his hands across his stomach.

‘Thurston!’ Dame Marcia yelled. ‘What is wrong?’

The guide turned and vomited on the grass. He then grabbed the wine skin slung over the horn of Dame Cecilia’s saddle. He ignored their protests, undid the clasps, almost throwing the wine into his mouth.

‘We’d best move on.’ He put the stopper back, thrust it at Dame Cecilia and, without a backward glance, continued along the trackway. They rounded the bend and fearfully approached the fire burning so fiercely on the edge of the forest. Dame Marcia gagged at the terrible stench, her palfrey, unwillingly, drew close to the flames. Dame Marcia took one look at the fire greedily consuming the upper, severed part of a man’s corpse; she screamed and fell like a sack from her saddle, swooning in terror at the hideous sight.

Chapter 1

York. Lady’s Day, 1303

‘The Lord knows I need it!’ Edward of England ran a hand through his iron-grey hair then brought his fists down on the refectory table in the priory of St Leonard outside York. The crash echoed round the long whitewashed room. ‘I need money!’ the king yelled.

The commanders of the Temple, the principal officers of Christendom’s monastic fighting order, however, were not frightened by the English king’s play-acting. Indeed, all four looked to the other end of the table where Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of their Order, recently arrived from France, sat in his high-backed chair, hands linked together as if in prayer.

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