Scott Mariani - The Martyr’s Curse

The other side of the door was a small kitchen. Seated alone at a scarred pine table, listening to a radio and holding a mug that said ULTIMATE WARRIOR, his host in this strange place flashed him a brilliant smile. Suddenly, Ben’s fragmented memory was beginning to slot miserably back together.

‘Hey, big man,’ his host chuckled in French, rising to greet his guest. Maybe he was being modest. Six-six at the very least, with skin the colour of burnished ebony, he wasn’t the smallest Nigerian guy Ben had ever seen. He made the muscle-bound oaf Ben had beaten up the day before look like a dwarf. He was somewhere in his late forties, his hair grizzled at the temples. A tattered Gold’s Gym T-shirt showed off his weightlifter’s shoulders and powerful, vein-laced arms.

Ben stared at him, struggling to recall the name. ‘Omar,’ he said at last.

The dazzling grin widened. ‘Brother, I’m surprised you remember a fucking thing.’

Ben slumped in a wooden chair. ‘That’s about all I do remember.’ But the rest was slowly coming back. He wasn’t sure he wanted it to.

Omar filled in the missing pieces with obvious amusement. How he and his bar-room buddies had found a new drinking companion the previous evening when this already toasted English guy had wandered into their regular haunt clutching the remains of a bottle of scotch. It had turned into quite a night.

‘Did I say anything?’

‘Just kept rambling on about some woman. You got it bad, my friend. I know how that goes, believe me.’

‘Nobody got hit, did they?’ Ben dared to ask. He looked at his knuckles. No sign of fresh bruising, and they didn’t hurt. Still, that didn’t prove anything.

‘Didn’t get that far,’ Omar told him with a booming laugh. ‘Not quite. Shit, I never saw anyone put away that much whisky before. Me and the boys were taking bets on when you’d drop, man. Incredible.’

‘Yeah, it’s a real talent,’ Ben muttered. ‘I hope you won your bet.’

Omar shook his head, still beaming. ‘Nah. You cost me big time.’

‘Sorry to hear it. Did you bring me back here?’

‘Wasn’t going to leave you lying in the gutter for the cops to scrape up, now was I?’

‘I appreciate that, Omar.’

‘Hey, no worries. How’d you like the room?’

‘Interesting,’ Ben said, rubbing his eyes. ‘Especially the wall decorations. I don’t mean the posters.’

‘Oh, that,’ Omar replied dismissively. ‘Just a few souvenirs.’

‘That’s a G2 FAMAS. You won’t exactly find one in the local gun shop.’

The bright grin again. Ben was going to need sunglasses for the glare. Omar said, ‘That one came home with me from a little spree called Opération Daguet.’

‘You fought with the French Army in the Gulf?’

Omar shrugged it off. ‘Long time ago.’

‘1991,’ Ben said. ‘Around the time I joined up.’

‘I knew there was something about you.’

‘British Army. Special Air Service. Long time ago, too.’

‘Want a coffee, bro? Look like you could do with it.’

‘And a favour,’ Ben said, nodding and then wincing at the pain the movement cost him. ‘I need a lift. Have you got a car?’

Omar looked at him. ‘Shit. Have I got a car?’

Omar’s pride and joy was a H1 Hummer, the civilian version of the M998 US Army Humvee, the nickname that was the nearest anyone could pronounce to HMMWV or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle.

The last time Ben had been inside a real one had been on a classified SAS mission in the Middle East. The demilitarised version might not have been bristling with heavy armament, but it was still a monster of a truck that dominated the road by sheer force of intimidation. Painted a deep, gleaming metallic gunmetal that was halfway between charcoal grey and black and all tricked out with mirror-tinted glass and oversized wheels and crash bars and enough auxiliary lighting to fry an egg at thirty paces, it could have been custom-built to suit Omar’s own huge frame.

‘Won it in a poker game,’ he explained loudly over the roar as they muscled their way across Briançon with all the noise and presence of a tank battalion, scattering lesser traffic into the verges. ‘I can hardly afford the insurance, but what the hell, I like it.’ Ben might have appreciated it more if every jolt of the off-road suspension hadn’t sent another arrow of pain through the middle of his skull.

The garage opened for business at 8.30. As the Hummer roared up on to the forecourt, Ben saw the Belphégor truck sitting waiting there for him.

‘Thought you weren’t coming back,’ the mechanic said. ‘Had her all fixed up and ready for you yesterday afternoon.’

‘Don’t ask,’ Ben replied.

The mechanic tossed him the keys. ‘Wouldn’t take her on a grand tour of Europe, but treat her kind and she’ll do fine.’

Ben waved a final thanks to Omar, and the Hummer took off with a large hand extended in a goodbye wave from the window. Ben watched it roar away. Now he just wanted to get out of Briançon as fast as possible and try and put this shameful episode behind him. He paid the repair bill from his own money, and clambered into the truck. It rumbled into life at the first twist of the key. As long as it got him back, that was all he could ask.

It was coming on for 8.45 as Ben set off. His thoughts were dark and brooding on the drive back to the monastery. It was another bright and sunny morning, but he was too swallowed up in self-loathing and penitence to take much notice. He’d let himself down, and not just himself. He’d turned his back on the monastery for just a few hours, and look at the result. This relapse meant there was a lot more work to do.

His stomach felt queasy and his blood alcohol level was probably still too high for him to be driving. He swigged down an extra-large emergency dose of Père Antoine’s tonic en route, thinking it might somehow purge the toxins from his system, or at least help clear his head. It did neither, but was a small comfort to him nonetheless. The greater comfort was knowing he’d be home soon.

Home. It really was beginning to feel like that to him. Secure, closeted. A safe zone. He yearned to be there.

He drove doggedly on. The mountain road lifted him up and up, until the pine forests were far below and he could taste the pure mountain air that whistled in through his window. The closer he got to the monastery, the more the darkness in his mind seemed to lift. When at last the walls came into view, he felt a surge of optimism.

But as he neared the gates, he sensed something that unsettled him. Because the gates were normally shut, and now they were open. Maybe the monks had been anxious about his return after all, and had left them open as a gentle hint to God to speed him safely home. Or because everyone was at prayer. Or maybe not. It wasn’t that. There was something wrong.

Then he got closer to the gates and he saw what was wrong. The gates themselves, for a start. They’d been built to open outwards, but now they were hanging open inwards. Ben saw shattered wood. Buckled hinges. One of the gates was listing at an angle where its mountings had been ripped from the stone pillar.

Ben stopped the truck. He stared at the smashed entrance. Something had happened here while he’d been away. Something significant and irreversible and not good.

Those gates had withstood centuries of weathering. The steel-banded oak was eight inches thick, age-hardened, tough as slabs of slate and locked from the inside by an iron deadbolt you could have hung a battleship from. To smash them open would require an immense force. An extremely violent impact from a very heavy object moving at quite some speed. Like a seriously large and powerful battering ram.