Spook's Gold (39 page)

“Slow progress! We have been riding for twelve hours a day; does he suggest that we should ride in the dark?”

Lemele looked away, uncomfortable with what she had to say. “It is more a case of the lack of speed. You are not capable of keeping up a trot for any length of time and so we have not been covering as much distance as he first estimated. He told me yesterday that he was concerned about his wife and the baby and that he would have to leave us to go back.”

Marner alternated between anger and suspicion. “So when have you two been having all of these cosy chats?  And when were you intending to include me in this change of plans?”

Lemele was embarrassed at having been forced to confess to this apparent disunity, but equally angry at having been put in this position. After considering different responses to his accusation she cast them all aside, shrugged at him and moved Polenzara on without saying a word.

----

They did indeed stop an hour earlier than usual that evening, having found a tiny stone chapel at a crossroads in the forest. At first Loic had been wary, pointing out that such buildings were usually located close to habitation and he urged them to move on. This time it was Lemele who argued with him, insisting that they were all cold and wet; the opportunity to sleep under shelter and the possibility to dry some of their sodden clothes would be welcome. Loic glared at her for a moment, perhaps becoming frustrated with the constant dissent amongst his charges. Then he shrugged, ordered them back into the trees out of sight of anyone who might pass on the road and set off alone to check the vicinity. He came clattering back along the road ten minutes later and confirmed that there was no habitation within a kilometre. “But why build this chapel here, in the middle of nowhere?” queried Lemele. The others were too tired and miserable to share her curiosity.

The lock in the heavy oak door was ancient and the fact that it was rusted from decades of cold, damp air gave Marner some difficulty. He feared that the long pointed blade of his old pocket knife would snap under the effort, it being more adapted to modern, finer lock mechanisms. Eventually the lock gave with a squeak and a shudder and then required a hefty barge with his shoulder to get the door to swing open.

The interior was not welcoming. The small single-room chapel was spartan, containing only back-less wooden benches and a simple wooden table for the altar at the far end under the single window. The floor was covered in a thick film of dust that puffed up around their ankles as they stepped inside. Marner took down one of the lanterns hanging on the walls and confirmed that it had some oil in, that they could light it. Loic countered that it would be a stupid idea, that the light would be seen by any passing traffic, to which Marner responded by pointing out that the only window was at the far end, on the forest side and thus not visible from the road. Loic spat and clumped out. Marner silently revelled in one small victory.

Lemele had buried their single box of matches at the bottom of her bag. The carton was slightly damp despite having been well wrapped; fortunately the matches proved to be robust and the lamp was easily lit. She then went outside to help Loic with the horses whilst Marner made a quick inspection of the chapel. He found nothing of interest, the building proved to have been stripped of anything useful or valuable. Only the wooden furniture remained and that was riddled with woodworm. There were not even any prayer cushions that might have made a comfortable bed, although during its centuries of use this chapel had probably never attracted the type of penitent who could afford or cared about such luxuries.

The horses tethered, Loic re-entered the chapel to announce that he was going in search of food.

“Could you please be quicker tonight?” urged Marner, suddenly despondent at the thought of having to wait perhaps an hour for Loic to return, then another hour for it to be ready to eat. “I am starving. Does it really take so long to catch a few rabbits?”

Loic’s response was not quite what Marner was expecting. He sat down on a bench and pointed towards the door, “Fine. You take a turn and show me how quickly you can rustle up a meal, meat included, with just your bare hands.”  He folded his arms and turned to face the altar of the chapel, head slightly cocked, as if contemplating god or something infinitely more complex.

“Well,” spluttered Marner, wrong-footed, “Why don’t you just shoot them?  Here, take my gun and use that,” he suggested, pulling his pistol from the holster to offer to Loic.

Loic suddenly leapt up and turned on Marner, his manner and face so hostile that Marner automatically levelled the gun at him, fearing that Loic was going to attack him. Loic showed no awareness nor fear of the weapon, advancing towards Marner until the barrel was only centimetres from his sunken wet chest. “You stupid, damned city fool,” he snarled. “You know nothing. That gun is too large a calibre to shoot small game. You’d disintegrate the thing; nothing left to eat. Besides, you have to take a rabbit whole, not shoot it. If the bullet pierces the guts it spoils the meat. And anyway, do you actually think it is a good idea to be shooting weapons off, with so many of you damned Boche and your collaborator vermin crawling over the countryside like fleas!” he finished with a roar. Foam spittle now at his lips, he side-stepped around Marner and stormed out of the chapel.

Marner turned to Lemele, shocked and stunned, also disappointed that he had lost yet another argument to that damned runt. He switched to humour to make light of it, “He must be upset; you can tell because he didn’t even spit!”

Lemele turned away without replying and busied herself with unpacking her wet clothes from her bag.

----

When Loic returned he was sodden and dirty, but had a surprise in the form of a chicken dangling from one hand and some small potatoes tucked in the crook of his other arm. Lemele was overjoyed to see Loic’s treasures, even throwing her arms around his surprised neck, causing the potatoes to tumble to the stone floor. Marner was tempted to add his congratulations on this haul, but Loic’s face was stony so Marner remained silent.

A groundsheet was strung up outside against the back wall of the chapel and a fire lit underneath using one of the chapel pews. Marner broke it up by placing it against the wall and using his boot to snap it into progressively smaller pieces. The protests of Loic and Lemele against this vandalism were countered by Marner’s observation that the wood was so rotten and worm-eaten that it was no longer safe to sit upon anyway. The ease with which it crumbled under his foot convinced them.

Loic rapidly and expertly plucked and dressed the bird and then fashioned a spit between two mounds of rough stones, using a soaked green sapling branch that would withstand the heat to hold the chicken. The potatoes were placed in the base of the fire, directly under the meat where the juices would fall on them. Whilst Lemele squatted under the sheet tending the fire and the meal, Loic showered naked in the now pouring rain and then changed into his slightly dryer spare clothes. Marner sat alone in the chapel whittling on a piece of kindling, surrounded by the clothes that Lemele had spread over the pews and altar. It was too cold and damp to dry them effectively; it would have been preferable to light a fire but they could not do so in here because there was no way of venting the smoke from the tiny space.

When the chicken was pronounced ready it was placed on the altar, this item perhaps now returned to its original role as an ordinary domestic table, and two of the pews that seemed the most solid were selected to sit upon. The chicken was roughly carved using Marner’s dagger. The taste of the flesh was heavenly after days of dark gamey rabbit; only the potatoes left a little to be desired since they were not fully cooked. The entire bird and vegetables were quickly and enthusiastically devoured. Marner silently reflected on the fact that after just a couple of days away from civilisation they had been reduced to near savages, entirely focused on the next meal, nothing more.

The atmosphere was still strained, Loic and Marner ignoring each other except to insist with faux politesse that each have the last potato or leg of chicken. As if to fill the tense silence, Lemele kept up a childish banter that needed no input or response from either of them, finally pronouncing, “I have to say that that was the most delicious and most welcome meal that I have had in my entire life.”

Marner made noises of agreement but Loic had nothing to say, just sat slumped over the table on the verge of sleep.

The initial enthusiasm at being out of the deluge that had now turned into a thunderstorm was quickly waning. The chapel was profoundly cold and damp. Loic had gone outside to sleep under his groundsheet, citing the need to be near the horses during the storm. Marner suspected that he would be sleeping up close to the remains of the fire and therefore actually warmer than those sheltering inside the chapel.

After trying to bed down on the stone floor, which seemed to be leaching the warmth out of his bones like some malevolent spirit sucking away his life force, Marner threw the damp clothes off the altar table and used that as a makeshift bed. Lemele came to the same conclusion shortly after. He offered her the table but she declined, instead pushing together the two pews that they had used to sit on for their meal. It required a bit of work for her to find a spot on the uneven ground that would render the two platforms of wood at the same level, but finally this was achieved and the lamp was turned off, allowing her to fall into a dreamless void.

Chapter Forty Three

Marner was having a bad dream. One of the horses was standing on his stomach, its hoof firmly and painfully pressed into the right side of his belly. It was pitch black and so he could not see which of the horses it was. He willed his mind to release him from his half wakeful, feverish state and found that the pain was real. A terrible malaise had immersed itself in his stomach, lancing barbs of agony through him, as well as a general ache that infused his whole right side. He thought for a moment to force himself to vomit, to expel whatever it was that was causing it, but he did not really think that this would help. He wondered if perhaps it was a cramp from the position that he had been lying in, or the prolonged effect of days of sleeping out on uneven ground.

After lying still for several minutes waiting for it to subside, he rolled from side to side, sitting up and even getting onto his hands and knees on the rickety altar table, trying to find a position that would alleviate the pain. Eventually he was forced to concede that this was no muscle spasm, something was wrong inside him. Thinking through possible causes, the obvious suspect was the chicken that they had eaten for supper. Or was it something more serious, appendicitis perhaps?  This last thought flipped his mind over into panic. If it was something more than a simple reaction to badly cooked food, then what was he going to do?  They were far from civilisation and professional medical care, even if he dared to risk going to find it, even if he could find some way of reaching it. The idea of rocking and jostling about on horseback seemed impossible in his current state.

For a further thirty minutes he continued to writhe and fidget, trying to find a position that would ease the agony. He commanded his body to remain still, to hold a particular position for at least a few minutes to give it a chance to work. But the pain was such that after only sixty seconds he would groan, roll onto his other side and then curse, because the act of moving only made it worse.

Unable to stand it any longer, Marner rose with difficulty onto his feet, doubled over at the waist, and shuffled across to the sleeping dark form of Lemele to shake her awake. He was relieved to find that she instantly took him seriously, having feared that she would only chide him for being so childish over an upset stomach. She made him remove his tunic, shirt and trousers and lie down on the table. As he lay back on the cold wood, beginning to shiver uncontrollably due to both the early morning chill and the panic creeping through his brain, Lemele gently prodded and felt his abdomen. Despite the jolts of pain triggered by her probing fingers, the effect of her touch was immensely calming to his mind. He doubted that he had ever or would ever be so grateful or feel so soothed and reassured by the touch of another human being. “You should have continued your studies and become a doctor,” he panted through clenched teeth. “You have healing hands. I always wondered what that phrase really meant. Now I know.”

Lemele ignored the compliment. Her only response was to repeat that he should say yes or no as to whether the pain was particularly intense when she pressed here and there. Finally she finished and sat on the bench. “I don’t think that it is anything serious. I’m very certain that it is not appendicitis. Do you have any history of gallstones, either you or your family?  Any previous occurrences of this type of pain after eating a big or fatty meal?”

“I have! Only a couple of times in my life, I always thought that it was bad food or a reaction to something exotic. But I have had similar episodes.”

Lemele nodded. “It could be that you are passing a gallstone. A large percentage of people have them but never know. The pain will occur if you have a greasy meal whilst you are passing a stone in the bile duct. The bile that is triggered by your stomach to break down the fats in the food cannot get past the stone and pressure builds up, resulting in the type of intense pain that you have.”

Marner had been soothed by the massage of his abdomen and the pain had abated for a minute, although it was now returning in force, “So what can we do?”

“There is nothing that I can do. The best thing is just to let it take its course.”

The hinges of the chapel door creaked as Loic entered. “What is wrong?” he asked, although the tone of his voice did not indicate any real concern for Marner’s health or welfare. It was more a question asked out of curiosity.

“He has abdominal pains. We don’t know for sure what it is. But I think that he is not going to be able to ride or move for the moment, so there’s no hurry to prepare the horses.”