The Devil in Green (85 page)

It was only then that they saw the lines of brothers emerging from the cathedral with armfuls of books, some ancient with crumbling spines, many shiny leather-backed volumes, even modern pamphlets.

'The library,' Mallory said. 'He really did it, the Nazi.'

'Ah, they're only books,' Gardener dismissed

Mallory turned on him. 'They're not only books. They're ideas, thoughts, beliefs—'

Gardener interrupted with a shrug. 'That's right, but they're not our ideas, thoughts, beliefs.'

Mallory knew there was no point in arguing. He turned back to the sad sight until he noticed three figures watching the bonfire across the way, almost obscured by the drifting smoke. When it cleared for a moment, he saw it was James, his face drawn, shoulders hunched, standing between two upright, characterless young men who were clearly inquisitors.

The red flames contrasted starkly with the white of the snow. He watched for another moment, then trudged slowly back to the dormitory alone.

An hour later he was called to a fight in the refectory. Two brothers were brawling over the size of their portions at dinner. It was a stupid argument - there couldn't have been more than half a carrot in it - but in that claustrophobic atmosphere tempers frayed easily. One of the men had received a broken nose. The lower half of his face was stained red, and it was Mallory's job to escort him to the infirmary while giving him a caution. Miller was taking the other one for a dressing-down before one of the inquisitors.

As they left the refectory, the broken-nosed man was sullen and depressed; he'd lost his dinner in the scuffle and there would be nothing more until the thin gruel they laughingly called breakfast. Mallory didn't have the heart to deliver the caution Blaine had outlined for such occasions, so they walked in silence.

When they arrived at the infirmary, they were surprised to find the place in disarray. Warwick's surgical utensils were scattered across the floor, the contents of some herb jars had been emptied and the operating table was upended. Warwick sat on a chair in one corner, white-faced and uneasy. He was surrounded by two stony-faced Blues and a tall, weasley inquisitor who was brandishing Warwick's clockwork radio.

'It's not mine, I tell you,' Warwick protested.

'Your assistant said it was.' The inquisitor examined the radio as if it were filth.

'Well, he's wrong.'

'You know the punishment for hoarding banned technology.'

Warwick looked as if he was going to be sick. 'It's not mine!'

'Why was it hidden amongst your things?' The inquisitor plainly wasn't going to let up.

Mallory wanted to say,
It's just a little radio! We all loved them only a few months ago
, but he knew the object had taken on new meaning in the rapidly developing language of the cathedral. It was a nuclear bomb, an Ouija board, a letter filled with anthrax. He wondered if he was the only sane one in the entire place.

It looked as if the inquisitor was only just beginning, so Mallory abandoned the broken-nosed man there and wandered into the network of back rooms. He was taken with the desire to see Hipgrave, who hadn't been heard from in days.

The main ward was full. With the food declining, more and more people were getting sick and taking longer to recover, while others were being laid low by injuries they would normally have fended off. Every bed was also taken in a makeshift ward in an annexe. Beyond, there were several single rooms with occupants in various states of illness.

The final room was locked, but like the others it had a window of reinforced glass through which Mallory could see Hipgrave lying in bed, arms straight out by his sides, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling.

Mallory hesitated, then rapped gently on the window. Hipgrave's gaze didn't even flicker towards him. He appeared, to Mallory's untutored eyes, catatonic. A rigid man, the strain of all they'd experienced had finally broken him.

For the first time, Mallory felt pity for Hipgrave. Although the captain had been thoroughly disagreeable, he didn't deserve what had happened to him. None of them deserved it.

Back in the surgery, Warwick's radio lay smashed on the floor. Mallory found it hard to deal with the pointlessness of it all; no more information coming from across the country, no more messages of hope. All thrown away, for some stupid idea of religious belief that was as irrational as all the supernatural creatures pounding on the walls. He'd been consumed with thoughts of vengeance against Blaine and the Church authorities for all his suffering, but the pointlessness of everything in the cathedral had worn him down. Now all he wanted was to get away with Sophie. Stefan and the others could stew in the hell of their own making.

Warwick was nowhere to be seen. Mallory didn't try to divine what that meant, nor what it insinuated for all the sick brothers in the infirmary. There was no sense anywhere.

Leaving the infirmary, he had half a mind to go back to the dorm and climb into bed until he heard raised voices coming from the refectory.

He had expected to find another fight, but the atmosphere was much different. Most of the brothers were standing watching a scene being played out near the serving tables. More inquisitors and Blues were struggling to contain a slight figure throwing himself around in a wildcat frenzy. It was Lewis, Daniels' young boyfriend. When he found a gulp of breath, he let out another burst of shouting so filled with passion that Mallory at first had trouble understanding what he was saying.

'This is wrong!' Mallory eventually deciphered. 'I'm a good Christian!'

Eventually, the Blues got a grip on his arms and pinned him between them. His face was flushed and tear-stained. Inquisitor-General Broderick turned to the crowd, obviously feeling a need to explain the arrest of someone so young and unimposing.

'This one has committed a sin against the Lord,' he began.

'No sin!' Lewis shouted.

'A terrible sin, against the very order of things. He is a sodomite—'

Lewis shouted him down. 'I'm someone who
loves!
Is that wrong? No, it's God's message!' he added incredulously. 'Then why am I being punished for it?'

'Take him away!' some of the fundamentalists in the corner were shouting, their faces filled with hatred.

Mallory noticed Daniels standing in the front, not far from Lewis. He looked as if he was about to tear himself apart.

Lewis's eyes fell on Daniels. 'If you believe in love,' he proclaimed, seemingly to everyone, though Mallory knew it was aimed at his boyfriend, 'speak out now! Speak out on my behalf! Because if this is allowed to happen, this cathedral . . . this religion . . . will lose something much more important this day! And you'll all know in your hearts you turned your back on a
truth ...
on love . . . on me!'

In the candlelight, Mallory could see tears glinting in Daniels' eye. It seemed he was ready to go to Lewis's aid. Mallory prepared to restrain him, knowing that if Daniels spoke out, he would be dragged away with Lewis to an uncertain fate.

Daniels hovered for a second, then turned and pushed his way through the crowd, his head bowed. Lewis cried out as if he had been wounded, but even then he didn't say Daniels' name.

In the confusion of Lewis's arrest, Mallory forced his way through the mute crowd in search of Daniels to try to mitigate the blow. But Daniels was not at the back of the refectory, nor was he outside, or back in the dormitory. Mallory searched for half an hour and in the end was forced to give up. The day that had seemed hopeful only a few hours earlier was ending so bleakly he didn't want to see the morrow.

Wrapped in his cloak with the hood pulled low over his head, Mallory drifted around the buildings for a while, lost to his own dark thoughts, until he was drawn to the cathedral by the distant sound of plainsong drifting through the cold evening air. With the candles gleaming through the frosted windows and the blanketing snow casting the night white, a sense of peace and hope fell across him.

He felt an urge to be on his own, so he made his way to the kitchens, which he knew would be empty at that time. With the ovens burning around the clock, it was also the only continually warm place in the entire cathedral compound; the list of brothers seeking work there had been long ever since winter had come. But how long would the fuel last, he wondered?

The dinner pots and pans had been rinsed and lay gleaming on the work surface; the ovens had been stoked, the few vegetables trimmings put aside for composting. Dinner had been even more meagre than usual and Mallory's stomach was rumbling, but he resisted the urge to raid the larders out of responsibility to the others.

Instead, he found a space beside the furthest oven from the door and shuffled in. The temperature was just right to begin to ease the aching cold from his feet and hands. When he swallowed the warm air, the contrast allowed him to feel the permeating cold all the way down his throat into his lungs; it felt as though he hadn't been warm for months.

In the soporific atmosphere, it wasn't long before his eyelids began to feel heavy. He fought it - it would be embarrassing to be discovered there - but within minutes he had drifted off.

'You've all done a terrible thing.' Sophie walked slowly around the moonlit glade.

Mallory knew what she meant. 'The Fabulous Beast.'

'How could you do such a thing? It was something wonderful, Mallory.' The deep sorrow in her voice made his heart ache. 'It was more than just a living creature, it was a symbol, it was the manifestation of the Earth Spirit, the power of life given form. And you killed it!'

'I'm sorry.' That sounded pathetic against something so huge. He wanted to say that he hadn't joined in; it wasn't his hand that had helped bring the creature down. But he knew that was no mitigation. As she had pointed out to him before, he was complicit because he
hadn't
taken sides; there was no sitting on the fence. He had known that at the time, and he knew it now.

'We can't begin to guess the repercussions of what you did, Mallory,' she continued. 'The echoes will run through the universe, through time. Goodness knows what the end result will be, what price we'll all have to pay. And there will be a price, Mallory, make no mistake.'

'I wish it hadn't happened, Sophie, more than anything, but everyone in the cathedral is under tremendous pressure. They've been facing a siege for weeks now . . . they're running out of food, and fuel. They feel they're in a fight to the death against Evil, not just to save themselves, but to save the whole world. And they're completely powerless—'

'I know,' she sighed. 'But that doesn't justify—'

'I'm not trying to justify anything, just explain.' He walked over and took her hand; she let him, folding her cool fingers into his. 'If there's any way we can put this right, make amends . . .'

'I don't know. It's hard to think how. I'll have to petition Higher Powers, see what can be done.'