The Silver Blade (13 page)
‘Serreto,’ said Mr Tull. ‘How are you?’
‘As well as these topsy-turvy days allow.’ He opened the ledger in front of him and wrote something down. Pointing his quill at Anselm he said, ‘He knows the rules, does he?’
Mr Tull nodded. ‘He’s here on probation.’
‘I see.’
Anselm had the feeling from the look Serreto gave him that he had just been measured for a coffin.
They were taken through the curtain into an antechamber lined with row upon row of cloaks and masks. Bunches of unlit torches stood in wicker baskets, waiting to be used. Mr Tull lit one and opened another door that led to a flight of stairs descending to the cellar - or so Anselm thought, yet the further they went the more he began to realise that no cellar could possibly be this deep. The stairs, made out of limestone, became narrower and spiralled, step after step, round and round. The light of Mr Tull’s torch flickered, throwing shadows across the white stone walls, and still they kept going down without end.
The air began to smell musty and damp and finally they reached the very bottom. They were in a cavernous room that led to a tunnel, lit with torches as far as the eye could see.
‘Are you ready?’ said Mr Tull.
Anselm was quiet. Mr Tull turned to check his companion.
‘A lot of people couldn’t stand it down here,’ he said, ‘but you get used to it. You still with me?’
Anselm nodded, following Mr Tull into the labyrinth of tunnels. He took a deep breath of stale air and said out loud, ‘This is a new beginning and nothing is going to stop me.’
‘What did you say?’ said Mr Tull, turning round.
‘Just that I wanted … I want to thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For giving me this opportunity. I owe you, I do.’
Mr Tull walked on. ‘Better hope that my master likes you.’
What he didn’t say was: if he doesn’t, you will never see the light of day again.
Chapter Ten
O
f all the chateaux Anselm and his father had robbed over the past year, nothing compared to this.
f all the chateaux Anselm and his father had robbed over the past year, nothing compared to this.
The first chamber had a higher ceiling than the passageway they had walked through. Anselm later discovered that it was only a prelude to what lay beyond, a waiting room of sorts, a place to contemplate one’s own mortality. If he had been able to read the motto above the door he might have been more worried:
Enter here if you dare and you fear not death
. The words, no more than a pattern to Anselm, didn’t interest him. What fired his imagination were the painted walls which, though he didn’t know it, depicted Dante’s
Inferno
. The ceiling too had been decorated so it looked as if the chandelier had been spewed out of the mouth of the devil. Three golden bowls stood near the far end of the chamber, and flames like forked tongues flickered menacingly. He was enthralled by the idea that tonight he would meet the great man himself. The master, as Mr Tull called him. Count Kalliovski.
Enter here if you dare and you fear not death
. The words, no more than a pattern to Anselm, didn’t interest him. What fired his imagination were the painted walls which, though he didn’t know it, depicted Dante’s
Inferno
. The ceiling too had been decorated so it looked as if the chandelier had been spewed out of the mouth of the devil. Three golden bowls stood near the far end of the chamber, and flames like forked tongues flickered menacingly. He was enthralled by the idea that tonight he would meet the great man himself. The master, as Mr Tull called him. Count Kalliovski.
Mr Tull, unlike Anselm, seemed oblivious to his surroundings, as he paced to and fro, fiddling with his watch. Seeing Anselm studying the walls he hissed at him, ‘Remember, not a word about our other business, understood?’
‘Of course, Mr Tull. My lips are sealed.’
Mr Tull was beginning to have his doubts about bringing Anselm here. His lack of breeding showed. He looked what he was: nothing more than a pretty boy, a small-time crook from the Place du Carrousel.
‘Stop staring at everything,’ Mr Tull said tartly. ‘Look at the floor if you’re going to look anywhere.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I say so, and because there are eyes behind them there walls.’
Anselm spun round, examining everything with even more relish than before.
‘Are you trying to show me up or what?’ said Mr Tull through gritted teeth. ‘Just stare at your bleeding shoes.’
A door opened and into the room came a man who looked as if his skin had been patched together. He had one white fish-eye, a dead pupil staring through what looked like a film of rancid milk. His good eye, green and eager, surveyed the room. He was taller than Mr Tull and in the pecking order of thugs there was no doubt who was the superior. Mr Tull seemed almost sheepish as he introduced Milkeye to Anselm.
Milkeye, ignoring the boy, said, ‘My master will see you now.’
Anselm followed Mr Tull. Milkeye stopped him, his hand held out like a barricade.
‘Not you, you stay.’
Anselm, seeing he had no alternative, waited until Milkeye returned and led him down a corridor ablaze with candles. Each was held in a skeleton hand which had been gold-leafed and decked in jewels so that light was caught in the brilliance of the gems and reflected across the walls in radiant sparks of colour. A way off he could hear water.
‘Where’s that coming from?’ he asked.
‘You don’t speak. You don’t ask questions. You do what you’re told,’ said Milkeye, pushing open a heavy iron door for Anselm to slip through. ‘Now you wait until you’re called for.’
There was a finality, like being locked in a prison cell, to the closing of the door. For a moment Anselm was disorientated. When his eyes adjusted, he could see walls covered in a mosaic of human bones, the design punctuated by skulls, their eye sockets inlaid with a myriad mirrors, so that he was surrounded by fragments of his own mindless image. It had a giddying effect.
When a similar door at the opposite end of the room swung open apparently of its own accord, to Anselm this was an invitation to investigate. Curiosity, the killer of cats, drove him ever onwards, regardless of the words above the threshold:
The point of no return
. The door led to a gallery beyond which he could hear voices. Slowly he slid snake-like across the wooden gantry floor towards the carved banisters. From there he looked down into a vast domed hall, its walls made from human bones stacked like logs, bare and yellowed. The ceiling blazed with a multitude of chandeliers made out of bones, lit with hundreds of candles. The floor was laid with slabs of stone, dipping slightly towards the centre where there appeared to be a small hole like a navel, stained brownish red.
The point of no return
. The door led to a gallery beyond which he could hear voices. Slowly he slid snake-like across the wooden gantry floor towards the carved banisters. From there he looked down into a vast domed hall, its walls made from human bones stacked like logs, bare and yellowed. The ceiling blazed with a multitude of chandeliers made out of bones, lit with hundreds of candles. The floor was laid with slabs of stone, dipping slightly towards the centre where there appeared to be a small hole like a navel, stained brownish red.
Figures stood waiting, dressed in cloaks and masks. A chair hovered just off the ground, as if suspended on invisible wires.
Anselm lay welded to the spot as he heard boots click-clack across the stone floor below. A man faced the assembly, his back to the gantry. The gathering bowed deeply. He was immaculately dressed in black with red kid gloves, and wore no cloak or mask. Instinctively Anselm knew it was Count Kalliovski. The man turned and looked up as if he were aware of another’s presence.
Now Anselm could see him clearly and he shuddered as he remembered once, long ago when he was still a child, having been taken to see the waxworks in a passage off the rue St-Jacques. This man looked as if he belonged more to the waxy, embalmed dead than the living.
‘I am the Terror incarnate, the engine of fear, I am your end and your beginning. Your salvation lies in my power, as does your damnation. You are my inner circle. If anyone here betrays me they will never escape my wrath.’
The hall was graveyard silent.
‘I, the bringer of darkness, will soon possess the power of light. That day I will rise from the ashes, a phoenix, to reign supreme.’
He walked to the chair and sat down. ‘To the business in hand. Bring forth the Seven Sisters Macabre.’
Anselm was hypnotised. Seven beautifully dressed women glided into the chamber. They were youthful and elegant, their faces hidden from him. They too bowed before Kalliovski; then one by one they began to leave the ground to be suspended in mid air, just as his father had been. Slowly they spun and now he saw why they had been given their name. They were hideous apparitions, ghastly harpies.
The chair in which Kalliovski was sitting rose higher.
‘I am the Master,’ he said.
The Seven Sisters Macabre began to chant.
‘Calico and corpses.’
‘We have a traitor among us,’ Kalliovski said.
‘Damask and death.’
‘All of you know the penalty for betrayal.’
‘Velvet and violence,’ hissed the Sisters Macabre.
‘I call on Balthazar to reveal the spy in our midst.’
‘Brocade and blood!’ Their voices reached a crescendo.
There was a rustling of fabric as the cloaked and masked figures pushed further into the bones of the wall as if hoping they might disappear.
The silence that now took hold of the chamber had a sound, just as wine has a smell. It was the high-pitched scream of terror. And then suddenly Anselm heard the howl of a beast and a shadow, liquid as molten iron, flashed past.
Anselm felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. He buried his head in his arms, imagining the great black dog was coming for him. He was certain this was the same beast he’d seen at the Duc de Bourcy’s estate, that the diabolical creature had followed him here and would smell him out.
Through screwed-up eyes he saw the beast sniff its way around the room before singling out one of the cloaked and masked figures. The poor man started to shake and his teeth chattered in fear. The hound leaped at him, pulling the mask from his face. The victim’s screams were without echo, as if the walls were greedily swallowing the sound of misery; his cries for mercy lost in dead men’s bones. He was torn to shreds like a rag doll, the floor ran red. The beast licked it clean, then with a deep growl turned and vanished from the chamber.
Kalliovski’s voice made Anselm jump.
‘Those foolish enough to speak about our activities will, like Levis Artois, find their lives cut short. Anyone here who feels the necessity to discuss what is said within these walls will go the same way.’
Anselm felt his insides turn to water as he was hoisted to his feet.
Milkeye said nothing as he led him away.
K
alliovski’s living quarters were even more spectacular than the previous chambers. They had the luxury of windows, and Anselm almost forgot they were so far underground that there would be nothing to see. Yet through the windows were vistas of gardens, of gravel drives which looked real until he realised they had been painted, while an artificial sun shone into the chamber. He even recognised some of the furniture he and Mr Tull had taken from noble houses, now put to great effect.
alliovski’s living quarters were even more spectacular than the previous chambers. They had the luxury of windows, and Anselm almost forgot they were so far underground that there would be nothing to see. Yet through the windows were vistas of gardens, of gravel drives which looked real until he realised they had been painted, while an artificial sun shone into the chamber. He even recognised some of the furniture he and Mr Tull had taken from noble houses, now put to great effect.
As Anselm waited with Milkeye, Count Kalliovski entered the room followed by Mr Tull. The Count’s waistcoat was embroidered with silver skulls and close up he was even more intimidating. Anselm stared transfixed. This man acted not in the rage of the moment like his father used to. He killed in cold blood.
Count Kalliovski stood, lost in thought, his back towards Anselm.
‘Tell me, do you believe the Governor of the Universe created the world?’
The question was one to which Anselm had never given much thought, and he wasn’t sure if he was expected to answer. He looked beseechingly at Mr Tull, who stared resolutely at his shoes.
Kalliovski turned to look at him. ‘Well?’
Mr Tull nudged Anselm.
‘Yes,’ said Anselm uncertainly.
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