Second Night Read online

  Caz kept his attention pointedly on what he was reading. ‘It’s okay. I’m just checking something.’

  ‘Are you working in the armoury tonight?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Well, if there’s anything you think I may have in the study, don’t hesitate to ask.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Sir Jonas cleared his throat and coughed, at a loss to know how to engage this intractable potential initiate in the appropriate conversation.

  ‘Ah, was it my imagination, or was the Lady Sibylla rather more quiet than is usual this afternoon?’ he asked, referring to their ride in the forest. ‘I thought she seemed to be handling Rúna perfectly well.’ The blue eye peered up at Caz. ‘Has she mentioned anything to you about her little ceremony? I hope she came to no harm. She appeared rather frightened at the end of it. She is all right, isn’t she?’

  Caz looked down over the top of his book. ‘You’ve seen the footage.’

  ‘Have you checked it through for yourself?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What have you concluded?’

  ‘When she’s got something to say, she’ll say it.’

  ‘Very well.’ Sir Jonas looked around the vast room and tried another approach. ‘We should make a full inventory of all these books. It has never been done. But who could be trusted to do the work? Your mother has the required skills but she has more than enough to do, and I know of no other that I could bear to have in such close proximity to the study on a regular basis.’

  ‘What about Sara?’

  ‘Sara?’ Sir Jonas frowned, doing his best to add a face to the name. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry, my boy, but I really cannot recall who it is that Sara might be.’

  ‘Jasper’s girlfriend.’

  ‘Ah yes, the rather attractive young lady who accompanied Mister Jasper to the party last year. She has particularly colourful hair, if I remember correctly, and the most extraordinary green eyes. But does she have a talent for this sort of thing?’

  ‘She wants to be a librarian after university.’

  ‘Does she indeed!’ He paced the room, giving the idea some thought before he came to a halt once more beside the ladder, clearing his throat hesitantly. ‘Caspar, I wonder if I could ask a rather personal but, in this case, pertinent question?’

  ‘What about?’

  The blue eye blinked nervously. ‘I wonder, that is to say, is Miss Sara to be reliably considered as a firm candidate for the sharing of Mister Jasper’s future plans?’

  Caz grinned. ‘Do you mean are they going to stay together?’

  Sir Jonas nodded. ‘You see, it might be rather difficult if she were to be working here and doing well, and then they were rather violently to disagree. I’m sure you follow my meaning.’

  ‘I don’t think they have ever violently disagreed, as you put it.’ Caz made no attempt to conceal his amusement at the old man’s obvious discomfiture. ‘And to answer your question, I believe that Sara has always been the only candidate in Jas’s future plans.’

  ‘Good heavens! And are such laudable sentiments equally reciprocated?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Really?’ Sir Jonas was astonished. ‘But she is such a pretty girl!’ He adjusted the eyepatch and took another turn around the room. ‘But would such work be suitably stimulating as to encourage her to stay? It would be dreadfully distressing to have her leave just when we have all become used to having her around.’

  ‘It will be all down to what you are prepared to pay her. She’s stacking shelves in a supermarket right now to save for university.’

  The old man’s face brightened considerably. ‘So it may only be a question of cash, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Well, in that case I am sure we can come to an agreement whereby she will feel suitably reimbursed and what’s more, even appreciated.’

  Caz closed the book and selected another.

  Sir Jonas had no alternative but to take the hint. ‘I must not interrupt you further, my dear boy. I will write a little note to Sara asking her to visit me if you would be so kind as to undertake to deliver it a.s.a.p. Perhaps we could arrange to have tea together one afternoon next week.’

  All was not lost, however. Years of study had accredited the Master of the Guardians with a sound measure of the acknowledged guile of his God, which he was adept at putting into practice whenever the situation demanded.

  He crept back to the study and locked the door. He took the small key on its gold chain out of his waistcoat pocket and fitted it into the keyhole under the knot in the third panel on the right-hand side of the fireplace. The concealed door swung open. He tiptoed down the stairs to the vault at the foot of the tower and removed another, larger key from its hiding place. When he returned he left the door ajar and blew out all the candles except one. Then he sat down in the green club chair beside the fire, sipping at a glass of well-matured whisky and praying that the candidate would take the bait.

  CHAPTER 21

  It was Sir Jonas’s great-great-grandfather, Sir Julius Pring, who had installed the original, much smaller vault at the base of the tower when he was preparing for the construction of the observatory. In turn, his grandson, Sir Saxon Pring, had greatly expanded the area following the inauguration of the Guardians’ secret brotherhood. Under his auspices, the vault was extended into a whole complex of rooms tunnelled under the length and breadth of the house until they connected to the wine cellars that were situated primarily on the north side.

  In their initial flush of confidence after the first of the great runes was won, the present-day Guardians had persuaded Sir Jonas not only to update the security arrangements, but also to include a much-needed heating and air-conditioning system that would serve the whole underground area. At first the old man had baulked at the enormous cost of the highly sophisticated equipment. But as he gradually allowed himself to acknowledge that his priceless collection of artefacts was finally secured, he began to enjoy the greatly improved atmosphere that kept the complex at the recommended museum temperature and humidity levels. Alan explained this in detail to Caz when he first showed him around the rooms that the Guardians had agreed the rune-winner should be allowed to access.

  Entrance to the vault was achieved primarily through a small room in one of the wine cellars, which was always kept locked, and then by a big security door designed to respond only to individual code numbers and passkeys. It opened directly into the armoury and from there, by way of a fireproof door that could be completely sealed, into an arched central hallway.

  The second entrance led down the staircase from the secret door in the study. Only the holders of the two keys were permitted to use it. Sir Jonas had one, Caz the other – although he rarely availed himself of the privilege, preferring to keep his activities as separate as possible from the old man’s prying blue eye.

  The armoury was closed off from the rest of the complex by heavily reinforced concrete walls, floor and ceiling. The overall temperature was kept fractionally higher to allow for working comfort levels and a complicated extraction system took care of fumes and dust. Another security door closed off the gunroom where the Pring family collection of rifles, shotguns and handguns was stored.

  Caz had adopted the second of the two workbenches and made the most of every minute to learn from a master craftsman whenever Alan was working there at the same time. Sometimes they spent whole nights labouring at the forge in the wood yard, but everything that emerged from the fire was transferred to the armoury to be honed and polished and brought to perfection. No expense had been spared on the purchase of the fine tools for working silver and gold and precious gems. The bench-mounted grindstones and polishing mops, and the acid baths for etching complicated designs into metal, were the best that money could buy, as was the collection of punches and knives for leatherwork that was set up on a smaller bench next to a large floor-standing, industrial-sized sewing machine.

  The anti
que treadle whetstone had become Caz’s favourite tool. He loved the simplicity and the efficiency of the thing as he sat on the worn leather-covered seat, working the treadle to spin the stone set over the water bath that kept it constantly wet and cool.

  Alan had explained: ‘The treadle turns the stone more slowly than the modern electric-powered type, so you’ve got more control over what you’re doing. There’s nothing better for putting a fine edge on swords and axes and spearheads.’

  Working tirelessly to improve his skills, Caz asked John to give him all the garden tools to sharpen and Daisy made him responsible for keeping the kitchen knives in precision order. The spear was the only weapon that never needed any kind of maintenance. Whatever hand had forged it, and of what grade and type of metal, it defied analysis and spent the daylight hours locked in its case in the exhibition room.

  Unaware that once more he was about to be irrevocably manoeuvred by what he deplored as Sir Jonas’s most devious scheming, Caz let himself into the armoury through the room in the wine cellars. He left the heavy door to swing slowly shut behind him and threw the big power switch. The security light went out and all the main lights flooded on. An increase in the quiet background hum told him that the ventilation system was working. He checked the temperature and humidity levels. There were no changes, no problems, nothing to report. He looked at the clock on the wall. Lauren expected him sometime after eleven. There was still plenty of time to work on the chainmail before he had to leave.

  Alan’s bench looked as though he only just left it, called away perhaps by something he had seen on one of the security monitors. A double-headed axe without a shaft was clamped into one of the vices. An angle-grinder hung on a hook beside it. The lights on the music system were flickering. Caz pressed the button and laughed when he realised what Alan had been listening to.

  ‘Hey! He’s playing my stuff at last! No more howling cowboys!’

  By contrast, Jasper would never be impressed by his brother’s choice of music. He told everybody, ‘Bro’s a melancholy specialist rather than a seriously rocking man. He only plays stuff by dead people, or someone who sounds like they’re just about to snuff it.’

  The mail tunic hung on a dummy by the workbench. Caz ran his hands over the finely knitted, interlocking rings, loving how they moulded together and shone, but he would have to prepare a good many more before he could finish the sleeves. He had already coiled a long piece of steel wire around the length of the mandrel set in the jig on the bench. Selecting a hacksaw and a small hammer from the rack on the wall, he sat down and began sawing carefully through the individual coils. The rings were cut and the ends of the first one flattened, ready to punch the holes for the rivets, when he noticed that the door into the hallway had been left slightly open.

  Someone’s overridden the locking device, he thought. That’s weird.

  He laid down the tools and went to the hall to check the other doors. The archive room was locked, kept apart and out of bounds, as always. Alan never explained why. The door to the exhibition room was closed. He collected the spear from its case before he went to the security room to inspect the screens. The colt was looking out over his door in the stable yard. Alan’s old army Jeep was gone from its usual parking place beside the wood shed at the back of the stable block. The section overseeing the labyrinth was shut down but there was nothing unusual about that.

  When Alan had first showed him the surveillance system guarding Thunderslea and the forest, they had agreed that they would only turn it on when neither of them was out on the land, trusting at all other times to the horses and their own woodcraft to take care of any unwarranted event or intrusion.

  So Al’s on sentry duty but he would never leave the door open when he went out – unless it’s something to do with the old man? He went to the foot of the stairs and listened. There was no sound from the study. He’s probably dozing. He does a lot of that nowadays.

  He was about to return to the armoury when he saw a line of light showing under the door to what he had always been told was a disused cupboard. Immediately suspicious, he tried the handle. The door was no longer locked. The God was with the Master of the Guardians. The candidate had taken the bait.

  CHAPTER 22

  The black weapon warmed in his hand as Caz stepped into a narrow vestibule. It smelt of incense and beeswax, underlying the clinging odour of something sweet and alcoholic put down to mature in wood. Skilfully carved cupboards and chests of the finest quality oak lined one wall. A table and a bench of similar workmanship were pushed against the opposite wall. He opened one of the cupboards nearest the shell-shaped marble sink and discovered two small barrels, laid side by side on miniature trestles. A thick drop of golden mead hung on one of the taps.

  Another door fitted neatly into the curving wall on the other side of the room. Concealed lighting glowed faintly and grew brighter as he walked along a wide corridor lined on both sides with oak pillars following the curve of the wall. They were carved with intricately intertwined serpents and creatures of Norse and Anglo-Saxon myth. The cream-coloured walls between them were decorated with painted texts, mostly from Hovamol, The Sayings of the High One, Caz noted. Two of the wall spaces were left blank.

  The spear quivered, the rune glowing vibrant blue on the barbed head, as he came to a flight of stone steps leading down to a low door, hung on wrought iron hinges and let into the inner wall. Whatever it was that lay hidden behind the door was powerful enough to need to be kept buried deep underground at the foot of the tower. Caz sensed the manipulating hands of the old man in every move he was driven to make as he raised the latch.

  The door was heavy, a thick slab of seasoned oak that swung silently outwards, presenting the uninitiated with the leering face of a carved and painted giant brandishing a great, iron-bound club as the inner side was revealed. It was not meant to be welcoming. The room beyond was round and unfurnished, save for nine plain wooden chairs arranged in a wide circle at the centre. But that was not what took Caz’s attention.

  Spellbound, he raised the spear, holding it high above his head, the rune blazing as he paced the evenly heated flagstone floor, gazing in wonder at the vibrant images shining in sharp relief among the stunningly worked friezes covering the walls. It seemed that every story from the Old Norse legends had been brought to life in the concealed chamber at the foot of the tower – yet he knew they were not the source of the power that had inflamed the rune on the blade.

  The artist’s vision of World Tree dominated the design at the north point of the room, where the image of the tortured God hung impaled on his own spear. Wolves prowled at his feet. Red-eyed ravens hovered over his stricken head. The high-backed chair between the two floor-standing candelabras at the top of the circle had been positioned so that its occupant would be constantly overlooked by the gleaming, sky blue gemstone set into the God’s single eye.

  The three great roots of the tree extended in either direction around the lower half of the wall space. Baldr, the best of the Host of Asgard, lay imprisoned in Hel’s realm, the darkest of the nine worlds of the dead, below the first root. The head of Mimir guarded the well of wisdom beneath the second root, under the watch of the Frost Giants. The three Norns were depicted as crones crouching around the white spring of eternal life at the third root. The diamond-bright eyes of Past, Present and Future glimmered luminescent blue, reflecting the light of the spear.

  Where the branches extended upwards, reaching far into the domed ceiling, Caz saw runes picked out in gold. They were easily understood. Both Sir Jonas and Alan had often quoted the words hidden in the inscription: The God wills, the Goddess nurtures, the Fate-Spinners decide. Alan obviously knew a lot more than he was prepared to let on.

  Directly opposite the tree, the glory of the midsummer sunrise cloaked the white-armed Goddess where she gathered the clouds to spin her golden threads between the stars. Her distaff and spindle were set with gleaming aquamarines and rubies. Stars shone at her brow and shimmere
d through her red-gold hair. The necklace sculpted at her neck and breast had been set with giant cabochons of polished crystal. Her cloak was clasped in silver studded with amber. Two white cats were harnessed to a small, enclosed wagon at her feet.

  The great serpent curled and twisted where the frieze touched the edge of the flagstone floor, snatching at the bait dangled from red-bearded Thor’s fishing line. Dwarves laboured at the forges in their mountain halls, while Heimdall blew the Horn of Warning as fire giants and countless monsters, with Loki at their head, swarmed from Naglfar, the horror ship fashioned out of dead men’s fingernails. The great wolf howled and looked to Valhall where the God rode out on eight-legged Sleipnir, leading the great host flanked by the Valkyrs on their magnificent grey mares. The ranks of the chosen filed behind them, marching to the wide plain for the final battle where the fate of the God and humankind would be decided.

  The heavily stylised images were a spectacular celebration of human vision and skill, and that was all they could ever be. No mortal could capture the light or the immensity of the grandeur and the terror of the reality of World Tree. The gods were caricatures, mere products of meagre knowledge. The Valkyrs were cartoon characters, each of them blonde, beautiful and mounted on pale parodies of the Galdramerar. The warriors were nothing more than stick figures brandishing over-sized axes or spears. Caz thought that Haldor Vidarsson would be grateful that he and his riders wore no shape within the confines of the Shadowed World.

  CHAPTER 23

  The sound of the old man’s heartbeat, echoing like a stone dropped into the dark waters of a deep well, gave him away as he came creeping through the pillared corridor. The light of the spear dimmed and went out. Caz laid the great weapon on the floor beside the high-backed chair and sat down.

  ‘It’s pretty big for an “old cupboard we don’t use any more”, don’t you think?’ he drawled, as Sir Jonas shuffled into the room.