The Nostradamus Prophecies (34 page)

For some time now she had been wondering whether it would be worth testing the eye-man – letting herself fall on purpose. He was obviously waiting for Sabir and Alexi. So if they weren’t there to see her strangle, would the eye-man scoop her up and save her? Untie her, while she recovered, before using her again? Relax his attention for a moment? It would be her only chance of escape. But it would be an awful risk to take.

Maybe he would just amuse himself by watching her die? Then he might tie her back-up – string her from the noose – and nobody, at a distance, would realise that she was already dead.

‘I asked you a question. At what time did Sabir leave?’

‘I don’t use a watch. I don’t know the time.’

‘How far off from dusk was it?’

Yola didn’t want to antagonise him. He had already struck her once, after pulling her from the window. She was scared of him. Scared of what he was capable of doing. Scared that he might remember what he had threatened to do to her the first time they had met and repeat the threat to amuse himself. She was certain that the information she was giving merely confirmed what he already knew. That there was nothing new about it – nothing that could in any way prejudice Alexi and Damo’s chances of survival. ‘About an hour. I sent him off to catch another horse. He would have ridden off looking for Alexi.’

‘And Alexi would come back here?’

‘Yes. Without a doubt.’

‘And Alexi knows his way about the marshes? Knows enough to find his way back here in the dark?’

‘Yes. He knows the marshes well.’

Bale nodded. That much had been obvious. That had made all the difference. If Alexi had been travelling blind, Bale would have caught him. If only he hadn’t known about the Bac – then this entire charade would have been unnecessary. Bale could have taken the prophecies back to Madame, his mother and been acclaimed as a hero. The Corpus Maleficus would have honoured him. He, personally, might have been placed in charge of protecting the next Antichrist. Or of eradicating the bloodline of the New Messiah before the event. Bale was good at such things. His mind functioned in a methodical way. Give him a goal and he would steadily and painstakingly work towards it – just as he had done with the prophecies, over the past few weeks.

‘Are you going to kill them?’

Bale glanced up. ‘I’m sorry. What did you say?’

‘I said are you going to kill them?’

Bale smiled. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on how they respond to the picture I have created of you dangling from the end of a rope. You’d better hope they understand exactly what I am trying to communicate to them with my little piece of theatre. That they come in of their own free will. That they don’t force me to shout-out one of those stool legs.’

‘Why do you do all this?’

‘Do all what?’

‘You know what I mean. Torment people. Pursue them. Kill them.’

Bale let out an amused snort. ‘Because it is my sworn duty to do so. It can be of no possible interest to you – or concern – but back in the thirteenth century, my family and the larger brotherhood to which it belongs, was given a task by King Louis IX of France.’ Bale made a reverse cross, which began at his crotch and ended behind his head. ‘I am talking of Saint Louis, Rex Francorum et Rex Christianissimus, Lieutenant of God on Earth.’ He mirrored the sign of the reverse cross with the sign of the six-sided Pentacle, again going from the bottom to the top of his body. ‘The task he gave us was to be ours in perpetuity and consisted, quite simply, of protecting the French people from the machinations of the Devil – or Satan, Azazel, Typhon, Ahriman, Angra Mainyu, Asmodai, Lucifer, Belail, Beelzebub, Iblis, Shaitan, Alichino, Barbariccia, Calcobrina, Caynazzo, Ciriato Sannuto, Dragnignazzo, Farfarello, Graffi cane, Libicocco, Rubicante, Scarmiglione, or whatever else stupid people choose to call him. We have fulfi lled this bond for over nine centuries – often at the cost of our lives. And we shall fulfil it until Ragnarok – until the End of Days and the coming of Vidar of Vali.’

‘Why do we need you to protect us?’

‘I refuse to answer that question.’

‘Why did you kill my brother, then?’

‘Whatever gave you the idea that I killed your brother?’

‘They found him hanging from a bed frame. You had stabbed him through the cheek with a knife. You had broken his neck.’

‘The bit with the knife. The puncture wound. That was me. I admit it. Samana wouldn’t understand that I meant what I said. I needed to show him that I was serious. But your brother killed himself.’

‘How? That is impossible.’

‘I thought so too. But I asked him something – something that would have led directly to you. I think he realised, in his heart of hearts, that he would eventually talk. Everybody does. The human mind cannot conceive how much punishment the human body can actually take. The mind intervenes considerably before it needs to – it trawls through what it knows and it jumps to conclusions. It is unaware that – unless a vital organ is damaged – nearly all physical functions may eventually be regained. But the thought of all the damage being inflicted acts as a temporary catalyst. The mind abandons hope – and at that particular point and at that point only, death becomes preferable to life. That is the crucial moment for the tormentor – when the fulcrum point has been reached.’

Bale hunched forward in his enthusiasm. ‘I have made something of a study of this, you know. The greatest torturers – those from the Inquisition, say, like the Hangman of Dreissigacker, or Heinrich Institoris and Jacob Sprenger – even Chinese Masters like Zhou Xing and Suo Yuanli, who transacted their business during the reign of Wu Zetian – brought people back from the brink many times over. Here. I can see by your posture that you don’t believe me. Let me read something to you. To pass the time, as it were – for it must be very uncomfortable for you, balancing on that stool. It’s from a cutting I always carry about my person. I have read it to many of my…’ Bale hesitated, as if he been about to utter some infelicity. ‘Shall we call them my clients? It concerns the first man I mentioned to you in my list of torturers – he was called the Hangman of Dreissigacker. A true adept of the art of pain. You will be impressed, I promise.’

‘You make me sick. Sick to my heart. I wish that you would kill me now.’

‘No. No. Listen to this. It really is quite extraordinary.’

There was the sound of a piece of paper being straightened. Yola tried to shut her ears to the sound of the eye-man’s voice, but all that she succeeded in doing was to reinforce the thrumming of blood through her head, so that the eye-man’s voice intensified inside her like the clapping of a thousand hands.

‘You must try to imagine your way back to the year 1631. To the time of the Catholic Inquisition. Such a leap of the imagination is probably an easy thing for you to do inside that sack, is it not? A pregnant woman has just been accused of witchcraft by the established Church authorities – a body of men with the weight of both religious and secular law on their side. She is to be questioned – a perfectly reasonable course of action to take in the circumstances, you might agree? It is the very first day of her trial. What I am about to read to you now is how the great humanist, B. Emil Konig, describes the formal investigative processes of the Inquisition in his catchily titled Ausgeburten des Menschenwahns im Spiegel der Hexenprozesse und der Aoto da Fes Historische Handsaulen des Aberglaubens, Eine Geschichte des After-Und Aberglaubens bis auf die Gegenwart:

‘In the first place, the Hangman bound the woman, who was pregnant and placed her on the rack. Then he racked her till her heart would fain break, but had no compassion. When she did not confess, the torture was repeated. Then the Hangman tied her hands, cut off her hair, poured brandy over her head and burned it. He also placed sulphur in her armpits and burned it. Then her hands were tied behind her and she was hauled up to the ceiling and suddenly dropped down. This hauling up and dropping down was repeated for some hours, until the Hangman and his helpers went to dinner. When they returned, the Master-Hangman tied her feet and hands upon her back; brandy was poured on her back and burned. Then heavy weights were placed on her back and she was pulled up. After this she was again stretched on the rack. A spiked board is placed on her back and she is again hauled up to the ceiling. The Master again ties her feet and hangs on them a block of fifty pounds, which makes her think that her heart will burst. This proved insufficient; therefore the Master unties her feet and fixes her legs in a vice, tightening the jaws until the blood oozes out at the toes. Nor was this sufficient; therefore she was stretched and pinched again in various ways. Now the Hangman of Dreissigacker began the third grade of torture. When he placed her on the bench and put the I shirt on her, he said: ‘I do not take you for one, two, three, not for eight days, nor for a few weeks, but for half a year or a year, for your whole life, until you confess: and if you will not confess, I shall torture you to death and you shall be burned after all.’ The Hangman’s son-in-law then hauled her up to the ceiling by her hands. The Hangman of Dreissigacker whipped her with a horsewhip. She was placed in a vice where she remained for six hours. After that she was again mercilessly horsewhipped. This was all that was done on the first day.’

The room was silent. Outside, the wind soughed through the trees. An owl called in the far distance and its call was answered from one of the barns, nearer to the house.

Bale cleared his throat. There was the sound of paper being put away. ‘I misread your brother. I hadn’t realised how devoted he was to you. How fearful he was of losing face in front of his community. Few people, you see, enjoy the benefits of community any more. They only have themselves to think of – or their immediate family.

Rationalisations are possible. Shortcuts a temptation. But when wider communion is at stake, other factors become apparent. Martyrdom is one option. People are once more willing to die for an ideal. Your brother, in his way, was such an idealist. He used the position I had tied him in – the downward weight of gravity I had engineered – to break his own neck. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was most impressive. By the end of her first day of questioning, this self-evidently innocent woman whose ordeal I have just been describing to you would no doubt have willingly sold her soul to the Devil for the simple secret of its consummation.’ Bale glanced across at Yola’s standing figure. ‘One man in a million would have been capable of pulling off such a magnificent physical feat as the giving of death to oneself whilst in suspensory bondage. And your brother was such a man. I shall never forget him. Does that answer your question?’

Yola stood silently on the stool. The angles of her face were distorted by the sack. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

‘I’m not leaving you. If you stand up and lean against me, I will try to shunt you on to the horse. When we get to the Maset you can rest. Yola has made soup.’ ‘Damo. You’re not listening to me.’

‘I am listening, Alexi. But I don’t think the eye-man is some sort of super-being. The chances are that Gavril fell off his horse unaided – that he struck his head on the rock by accident.’

‘He had ligature marks on his hands and feet.’

‘He had what?’

‘The eye-man had tied him up before smashing in his head. He had hurt him. At least it seemed that way to me. The police will realise what has happened, even if you don’t.’

‘Since when have you become such a fan of the police, Alexi?’

‘The police deal in facts. Sometimes facts are good. Even I am not so ignorant that I realise that.’ With Sabir’s help, Alexi pulled himself back across the saddle. He rested wearily forward on the horse’s poll. ‘I don’t know what has come over you recently, Damo. The prophecies seem to have hypnotised you. I wish now that I had not found them. Then you would remember your brother and sister again.’

Sabir led the gelding in the direction of the house. Its hoof made pelting noises in the dew-sodden sand. Apart from that and the scurr of the mosquitoes, the two men were surrounded, like a cloak, by the silence of the marshes.

Alexi cursed long-sufferingly. He stretched out a hand and touched Sabir lightly on the shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Damo. Sorry for what I just said. I’m tired. And I’m in pain. If anything happens to me, of course I want you to know where the prophecies are buried.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen to you, Alexi. You are safe now. And to Hell with the prophecies.’

Alexi levered himself upright. ‘No. This is important. I was wrong to say those things to you, Damo. I am frightened for Yola. It makes my tongue misbehave.

There is a gypsy saying: “Everybody sees only his own dish.’’ ’

‘So now you’re viewing Yola as a dish?’ Alexi sighed. ‘You are purposely misunderstanding me, Damo. Maybe this is an easier expression for you to understand: “When you are given, eat. When you are beaten, run away.’’ ’

‘I get what you are saying, Alexi. I’m not trying to misunderstand you.’

‘The thought of bad things happening to her makes me sick with fear, Damo. I even dream of her – of pulling her from evil places. Or from out of mud-holes and quicksands that try to take her back from me. Dreams are important, Damo. As a community, the Manouche have always believed in the cacipen – in the truth of dreams.’

‘Nothing bad is going to happen to her.’ ‘Damo. Listen to me. Listen carefully, or I will shit on your head.’

‘Don’t tell me. That’s another of your gypsy sayings.’ Alexi’s eyes were focused on the back of Sabir’s neck. He was willing himself not to pass out. ‘To recover the prophecies, you must go to where I found Gavril. It is twenty minutes ride north of the Bac. Just before you get to the Panperdu. There is a gardien ’s cabane there. It, too, faces north, as protection against the blowing of the Mistral. You can’t miss it. It is thatched with la sagno and has a plastered and tiled roof and a chimney-stack. No windows. Just a door. With a hitching rail in front of it and a viewing pole behind it, where the gardiens can climb up and see far across the marshes.’