Marc Chadbourn - The Devil in green

'When I first talked about coming down here, the missis said I was mad. We'd prayed all the way through that bloody nightmare after the Fall, and nothing. People died, people suffered. No Second Coming. There were miracles all over the shop, but for us… Christians… not a tweet. But I said to her, "Don't expect miracles. Just know Jesus is with you. That's all we can ask of Him."'

'That's right. That's exactly right.'

'So she walked out on me and I came down here. But I kept my chin up… I kept my faith.' His voice turned disconsolate at the end.

'Mickey-'

'Now look what's happened — it's gone from bad to bloody worse. This was supposed to be the big shining example — a new start, spreading the Word, bringing hope to the people.' He laughed bitterly. 'And now we're trapped, and we're going to be starving, and winter's coming in, and the Devil's at the gates, and now some bastard's picking us off inside! The bishop, I ask you! Not even he's safe! What's the bloody point if God doesn't even save him? You know what it says to me? Either He doesn't care or He isn't there.'

'Mickey!'

'I've had enough, Glen. How long do you keep on praying before you realise no one's listening?'

There was something profoundly depressing in what Mallory had heard. He didn't hang around to hear the rest of the conversation.

By late afternoon, the wan, grey light had just about eked away. Blaine was locked in some meeting with the Church elders and Hipgrave was nowhere to be found, so the knights found themselves at an unusual loss. Most of them congregated in their dorms, trading rumours and making predictions, but Gardener pulled Mallory, Miller and Daniels over to one side. 'Fancy a party?'

'When you say "party",' Mallory replied wearily, 'do you mean a hymn- singing, praying kind of party?'

'No,' Gardener said. 'I mean a drinking kind of party.'

They all brightened, but he rebuffed their questions, insisting they had to follow him. There was a hint of snow in the air as they hurried outside and then into the sprawling complex. After a roundabout route, they eventually emerged through a door that led into the rear of the kitchens.

'How did you find this way?' Miller asked. 'I didn't even know there was a door here.'

'Did a bit of poking around earlier.' Gardener clapped his hands and grinned at the prospect of what lay ahead.

The kitchens were comfortingly warm with the heat of the ranges still radiating after that evening's dinner, and the fragrant smell of vegetables and herbs hanging in the air. Exhausted after their most hectic period, the cooks and their assistants lounged around chatting next to the massive open hearth on which a cauldron of water bubbled over a log fire. They looked up briefly when the knights entered, but were too engrossed in their conversation to pay them any more attention.

Gardener caught the eye of one of the cooks who slyly slid out of the periphery of the group to come over. He had a shaven head and acne scars that gave him quite a frightening demeanour.

'You'll have me for the bleedin' high jump, Gardener,' he whispered in a London accent.

Gardener pulled out a tobacco tin and waved it under his nose. 'Do you want this or not?'

The cook went to grab it, but Gardener snatched it back at the last moment. 'Oi!' the cook said. 'Don't you go pissing me about, you Northern bastard.'

'Just want to make sure you know the terms of the deal, laddie.'

' 'Course I bleedin' know. We went over them enough times.' His eyes lit up as he succeeded in snatching the tin. 'I haven't had a good smoke in a bleedin' year.' He nodded towards a door not far from the one through which they had entered. 'It's in there. Just keep it down. And if that fat bastard Gibson finds you, I had nothing to do with it, right?'

Gardener led them through the door and down some steps into a vast vaulted cellar filled with the heavy aroma of wine and wood. A single torch burned on the wall next to the door, but it cast enough light for them to see rows of barrels and racks of dusty bottles stretching into the shadows.

'Bloody hell!' Mallory said jubilantly. 'We've got about three turnips to go around the whole cathedral and enough booze to swamp the city. Talk about getting your priorities right.'

'I thought we needed a bit of cheering up, like,' Gardener said. 'It's the bishop's stash — for entertaining, I suppose. I think a load was brought in from all the local hotels when we set up here, but they've been brewing their own stuff for the last year, in case the water supply got polluted.'

Mallory plucked a vintage bottle from the rack and used his Swiss Army knife to crack open the cork. 'Here's to Cornelius, God rest his soul,' he said, swigging a large mouthful from the neck. 'A man after my own heart. Let them drink wine!'

'Should we be doing this?' Miller asked uncertainly.

'Yes, we should.' Daniels moved slowly along the racks until he found a year and grape to his taste. 'God's bountiful supply is for all men, not just the elite.'

'Look at you,' Mallory said, 'a connoisseur!'

'You wouldn't know good taste if it kissed you on the behind, Mallory.' Daniels sniffed the cork before letting the smallest amount settle on his tongue. 'Wonderful. I had my own cellar in the old life,' he added with his eyes closed, savouring the taste. 'I was building up a nice little collection.'

'Sorry for misunderstanding,' Mallory said. 'I just thought it was stuff you drank.'

'Philistine.'

'There's beer here too, y'know.' Gardener caressed one of the casks. 'Pretty good stuff according to that cockney bugger up there. They've done some nice porter, he says.' Black liquid flowed from the tap into a tasting cup. 'That hits the spot,' he said, smacking his lips.

'See?' Mallory said to Daniels. 'It isn't all bad. There are still plenty of little luxuries if you look carefully enough.'

They pulled up some old packing crates into a circle and settled down. Once they began to talk, Miller came alive, the gloom that had descended on him since the bishop's death gradually evaporating. He hung on every word the others said, joining in when he could, nodding his support, smiling so widely Mallory was convinced his face would ache the following day.

Over the course of three hours, they got through several bottles of wine while Gardener had made Herculean inroads into one of the casks. In his merriment, he appeared a different person, his laughter rich and constant, his eyes disappearing in crinkles every time he showed his humour. He would sit on his crate and rock backwards until the others were convinced he would fall off, but he always managed to catch himself with a jolt at the last moment.

They talked about music — Gardener loved the sixties sounds, Miller liked Slipknot and Marilyn Manson, Daniels preferred classical — about football (Daniels professed to know nothing about it), and TV, and radio (with Gardener wondering aloud what would be happening in The Archers right then), about food, and politics. And then, as they would have expected, they turned, in their cups, to their old lives, and the people who had meant much but were no longer with them. It wasn't maudlin in the slightest, just a fond remembrance of happier days, when problems existed without the stark simplicity of life or death.

Gardener spoke at length about his wife and a touring holiday they'd had in Scotland when they had finally reconciled themselves to never having children. 'We were sad, like, but in a way, it was like this big bloody weight was lifted overnight,' he mused. 'We could get on with life again, start enjoying things.'

Daniels discussed with unabashed joy the first trip he had made with his new partner, to the Greek Islands. 'He told me on the second night that he was giving up his flat so he could move near me, if that was what I wanted,' he said, with shining eyes. 'Can you believe that? Even at that stage he was prepared to sacrifice what he had. He knew… we both knew… instantly.'