Ariana Franklin - Mistress of the Art of Death

So that what?

Lying prone, with her head over the pit, Adelia considered her choices with the chill logic of despair. She could run for help, which, considering how long it would take, was no option at all-the last habitation she’d seen had been Sister Walburga’s auntie’s farm-and now that she was close to Ulf, she could not leave him. She could descend the shaft and be killed, which in the end she must be prepared to do if, thereby, Ulf could escape.

Or, and this had considerably more merit, she thought, she could descend and kill the killer. Which entailed finding a weapon. Yes, she must look for a stick, or a stone, anything sharp…

Beside her, the Safeguard shifted suddenly. A pair of hands seized Adelia’s ankles and raised them so that she slid forward. Then, with a grunt of effort, somebody threw her down the pit.

What saved her was the ladder. It met her fall halfway down, breaking some of her ribs on impact but allowing her body to slither the rest of the way on its lower rungs. She had time-it seemed quite a long time-to think I must stay conscious before her head struck the ground and she wasn’t.

AWARENESS WAS A LONG TIME coming to her, traveling slowly through a misty crowd of people who insisted on moving about and shifting her and talking, which irritated her to the point where, if she hadn’t been in such pain, she’d have told them to stop. Gradually, they went away and the sound of voices dwindled down to one that persisted in being just as irritating.

“Do be quiet,” she said and opened her eyes, but the effort hurt so much that she decided to stay unconscious for a while, which was just as impossible because there was horror waiting for her and someone else, so that her mind, determined on her own and the someone else’s survival, insisted on working.

Stay still and think. God, the pain; her head was being trepanned. That would be concussion-how severe it was impossible to estimate without knowing for how long she’d been unconscious; the length of time would indicate the severity. Damnation, it hurt . And so did her ribs, possibly two fractures there but-she experimented with a deep breath, wincing-probably no puncture of the lung. It wasn’t helped by the fact that she seemed to be standing with her arms over her head, causing compression on her chest.

It doesn’t matter. You’re in such danger, your medical condition doesn’t matter. Think and survive.

So. She was in the shaft. She remembered being at its top; now she was at its bottom; her brief glimpse had shown enclosing whiteness all around. What she couldn’t remember was getting from one to the other-the natural result of concussion. Pushed or fallen, obviously.

And somebody else had fallen, or had been brought down before or after Adelia herself, because the attempt at opening her eyes had shown a figure against the opposite wall. It was this someone who was ceaselessly and so irritatingly making a noise.

“Save-and-preserve-me, dear-Lord-and-Master-and-I-shall-follow-Thee-all-my-days-I-will-abase-myself-unto-Thee. Punish-me-with-Thy-whips-and-scorpions-yet-keep-me-safe…”

The babbling was Sister Veronica’s. The nun stood ten or so feet away on the other side of the ceilingless chamber that was the pit of the shaft. Her wimple and coif had been torn down to her neck and her hair hung over her face like wisps of dark mist. Her hands were stretched above her head where, like those of Adelia, they were manacled to a bolt.

She was out of control with terror, spittle running down her chin, her body shaking so that the iron manacles about her wrists rattled an accompaniment to the prayer for release issuing from her mouth.

“I wish you’d be quiet,” Adelia said petulantly.

Veronica’s eyes widened with shock and, a little, with justified accusation. “I followed you,” she said. “You’d gone, and I followed you.”

“Unwise,” Adelia told her.

“The Beast is here, Mary, Mother of God, protect us, he took me, he’s down here, he’ll eat us, oh, Jesus, Mary, save us both, he’s horned. ”

“I dare say he is, just stop shouting.”

Enduring the pain, Adelia turned her head to look around. Her dog lay sprawled at the bottom of the ladder, his neck broken.

A sob forced itself out of her throat. Not now, not now, she told herself; there’s no room for it; you can’t grieve now. To survive you must think. But oh, Safeguard…

Flames from two torches stuck into holders at head height on either side of the chamber illuminated rough, round walls of whiteness marred here and there by a green algae so that she and Veronica stood as if at the bottom of a massive tube of thick, dirty, crumpled paper.

They stood alone; there was no sign of the nun’s Beast, though leading off from either side were two tunnels. The opening to the one on Adelia’s left was small, a crawling space barred by an iron grating. The one to the right was lit by unseen torches and had been enlarged to admit a man without bending. A curve in it blocked her view of its length, but just inside the entrance, propped against the wall and reflecting the chalk opposite, stood a battered, polished shield engraved with the cross of crusade.

And in the place of honor, in the center of this torture chamber, midway between her and Veronica and the dead dog, stood the Beast’s altar.

It was an anvil. So ordinary in its rightful place, so awful here; an anvil heaved from the thatched warmth of a smithy so that children might be penetrated on it. The weapon lay on its top, shiny among the stains, a spearhead. It was faceted-as were the wounds it had inflicted.

Flint, dear God, flint. Flint that occurred in chalk, seams of it. Ancient devils had labored to dig this mine in order to reach flint that they might shape it and kill with it. As primitive as they, Rakshasa used an implement made by a dark people in a dark time.

She shut her eyes.

But the bloodstains were dull; nobody had died on that anvil recently.

“Ulf,” she shrieked, opening her eyes. “Ulf.”

To her left, from far up the darkness of the left-hand tunnel, deadened by the porous chalk yet audible, came a mumbling groan.

Adelia turned her face up to the circle of sky above her head and gave thanks. The sickness of concussion, nausea from the smell of obliterating chalk, from the stink of whatever resin it was the torches were burning, gave way to a waft of fresh, May air. The boy lived.

Well now. There, on the anvil, just a couple of yards away, lay a weapon all ready for her hand.

Though her hands were tethered, from what she could see of Sister Veronica’s situation and if it resembled her own, the manacles holding their upstretched arms were attached to a bolt that went into the bare chalk. And chalk was chalk; it crumbled-as much use for retaining a fixture as sand.

Adelia flexed her elbows and pulled at the bolt above her head. Oh, God, oh, hell. Pain like hot wire through the chest. This time, she’d surely, surely punctured a lung. She hung, puffing, waiting for blood to come into her mouth. After a while, she realized it wasn’t going to, but if that blasted nun didn’t cease moaning…

“Stop gibbering,” she yelled at the girl. “Look, pull. Pull, damn you. The bolt. In the wall. It’ll come out if you tug it.” Even in pain, she’d felt a tiny give in the chalk above.

But Veronica couldn’t, wouldn’t, comprehend; her eyes were wide and wild like a deer facing the hounds; she was gibbering.

It is up to me.

Another full tug was to be avoided, but wiggling the manacles might shift the bolt sufficiently to create a cavity around it and enable it to be eased out.