Voice Of The Demon (Book 2) (55 page)

Aiden drew in a deep breath. This young monk would one day make a fine priest. ‘Thank you for your insight, Brother.’

As he turned to go, Damien added, ‘Do you think you can help Martin, Father?’

‘I don’t think he’ll let me.’

Aiden walked alone back to the cloister. He wasn’t surprised to find Martin – or rather, Robert – absent from the garden. After last night, it wouldn’t be surprising to find the young lord had left Saint Germanus altogether. If he had, then Aiden was entirely to blame – but then, what else could he have done? Let the young man kill himself?

There was no point in trying to hide from himself. He’d handled the whole matter badly. Too many months in a prison cell had blunted his senses. Too many nights spent locked up in that damp place, too much time wasted. He’d forgotten how to talk to people, how to listen.

On instinct, Aiden sought out the peace of the chapel. He prayed for patience and wisdom, the same as always. He sat there a long time, long enough for his joints to start aching. Then, no closer to an answer, he left and wandered back to his room. As he passed the garden, he saw a familiar figure bend to the soil to plant a seed. A surge of relief swept through Aiden – but this time, he didn’t stop and watch. This time, Aiden left Robert alone.

*

He took in a short breath, shuffled his hands along the axe hilt and leaned back. He lifted the blade, then brought it down with a mighty swing. It bit deep into the wood and he eased it loose again. Once more, he took in a breath, moved his hands and leaned back. He swung the axe and propelled it downwards with exactly the same force as the last hit.

Swing and chop, swing and chop. Over and over, the same movements, the same breath, the same balance. He ignored the jar as the blade struck the timber, the sun on his back
and the sweat running down his brow. He watched only the log and the angle of the blade.

He thought of nothing but the task in hand. Nothing but the pitch and fall of the axe, the location of the next cut. He thought of nothing at all, just as he’d practised.

His mind silent, he bent his head and worked. Gradually the pile of logs grew beside him, stacked neatly with his own calloused hands. He worked away at the wood until his muscles began to shake with every strike and his breathing became heavy. When finally his body was beyond exhaustion, he stopped. His eyes remained on the ground, fixed on the wood chips and splinters. Then, with a sigh, he tossed the axe to one side and headed towards his bed.

*

Aiden picked up the book and glanced around his little room. For all that it was pleasantly presented – and there were no guards on his door – just being within four stone walls could still make his flesh crawl. Even though there was nothing to stop him walking right out of the Abbey, he would never survive alone in a country determined to execute him.

He sighed and went outside where the sun was working between drifts of clouds to warm the mountainside. He stopped beside a short stone wall surrounding the ruined storeroom. The Abbot had decreed the walls were unsafe to rebuild upon and so they had to come down. For the last three days, workers had laboured to bring the building to its knees. Some worked high on scaffolding, chipping away at the mortar, while others worked below in pairs, hauling the huge square stones out of the way so they could be used to build a new storeroom.

As Aiden settled himself on the wall to read, he paused to watch the work for a moment. Robert worked alongside the others. He lifted one block after another with no help, carrying them more than twenty feet to the growing pile.

Should Aiden stay, or should he find another place to sit and read? Would Robert be disturbed by his presence and leave? Aiden hovered in indecision for several heartbeats
until Robert glanced in his direction and continued working. Breathing easily again, Aiden cast his gaze back to his book.

After a while, a light breeze kicked up the pages. He heard the chapel bell ring midday, but he felt no need for food and kept on reading.

‘You’re a brave man.’

Aiden started at the voice and looked around until his eyes lighted on a pair of boots not six feet away. Slowly he looked up. Robert stood in front of him, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth. Swallowing, Aiden tried to think of a suitable response – one which wouldn’t send the young man away again.

‘It’s unintentional.’

Robert’s gaze didn’t waver. He finished with the cloth and shoved it into the pocket of his trousers. Absently, Aiden noticed the other workers had left to eat and they were alone.

‘How did you know?’

Aiden’s gaze shot back to Robert. Know? What? That he’d meant to end his life in that fire?

‘How did you know who I was?’

Aiden took a deep breath and clasped his hands together on the book. ‘I knew your father. The resemblance was too striking to be a coincidence.’

‘Only on the surface.’

What was that supposed to mean?

Robert didn’t appear to require a response. He walked to the corner wall and sat down, neither facing nor actually turned away from Aiden. For a long time they sat in silence. Aiden couldn’t think of anything to say now that the moment had arrived. He’d waited five weeks to be able to speak to this man and now that he was here, Aiden was dumbstruck.

This was stupid! ‘It wasn’t your fault, you know.’

Robert didn’t even glance at him. His response was idle, bored almost. ‘What?’

‘My arrest. The moment they elected me, I had a feeling it would come. If not that day, then soon. The synod had no idea how close I came to declining the Primacy.’

Silence again. Robert gazed out across the ruined building
and beyond, towards his garden. He seemed disinclined to speak – but if so, why was he here? Why didn’t he just go off and be on his own?

‘You shouldn’t have told me your name.’

Aiden glanced back and found Robert’s eyes were on him. For the first time he noticed the colour, a deep forest green, hard and flinty. There was no gentleness in that gaze, no conciliation within the whole face. No compromise.

‘It’s my name and I’ll tell who I like,’ Aiden replied without thinking. ‘Don’t start trying to place boundaries on who I can and can’t trust. Better men than you have tried and failed.’

‘I’m sure they have.’ Robert’s gaze returned to the garden in the distance. ‘But those you would trust could just as easily be those who would betray you. Your position here is not so secure that you can afford to be careless.’

‘I place my trust where my instincts lead me.’

‘Are they always right?’

Aiden paused before answering. ‘Not always, no. But I must trust someone, some time. Life would be intolerable without trust.’

‘Have you ever tried to live without it?’

‘No. And I wouldn’t want to. I let my instincts guide me, yes, and every now and then I am disappointed.’

‘Betrayed?’

‘Very well, betrayed. But for every man who would betray a trust there are a hundred who would not. Discovering those I trust and knowing them is worth the risk of betrayal. That’s part of what makes life rich.’

Robert’s eyebrows rose lazily at that, as though he might be amused at the thought. He came to his feet and glanced down at the book on Aiden’s lap. ‘You should look more to your safety than your riches in life, Bishop. You’ve listened to your instincts once too often. You’ve given your secret to a man you know nothing about. A man you have already misjudged by comparing him with his father. A man who can be trusted with nothing.’

It was no use. Aiden tossed and turned, but his mind was wide awake and showed no sign of slowing down. Moonlight filtered through the curtain; he could just make out the rough surface of the stone wall opposite, built two centuries ago and untouched since.

What did Robert mean, he couldn’t be trusted? Was he trying to make Aiden believe that he would leave here and send word to Selar? What on earth could a man like that have to run away from?

Suddenly impatient, Aiden threw off his blankets and got out of bed. He paced up and down between the door and window. This was not the first time he’d been unable to sleep in a cell like this. But he was free now – or as free as he could be for the time being – and freedom was wonderful.

So why would Robert deliberately imprison himself?

*

Aiden sat again on the same wall, a book on his lap. This time when the midday bell rang he put his book aside and waited. At first, Robert ignored him, finished the job he was working on. Then, with a glance in Aiden’s direction, he came across, but didn’t sit down.

‘Why did you call me a brave man?’ Aiden began without preamble.

‘Would you be happier if I’d called you a foolish man?’

‘I didn’t ask the question so you could make me happy. I want an answer.’ Aiden tried to subdue his curt tone. He needed to be calm.

‘You told me who you were without being sure I wouldn’t pass the information on to someone else. You were either brave or foolish. Take your pick.’

‘Oh? So you weren’t referring to me stopping you going back into the fire?’

‘No.’ Again, that bland, bored response.

Aiden wanted to kick him. ‘To bring about your own death is a sin.’

Robert shrugged and sat down. ‘Another one.’

‘And you have so many already?’

‘Doesn’t every man?’

‘Some more than others. No man can live an entirely faultless life. No matter how strong a man is, there will always be moments when the flesh is weak.’

Robert turned his head slowly and locked his gaze on Aiden. For long seconds, Aiden couldn’t move. Then the gaze shifted and he was free again. Before Robert could turn away again, Aiden said, ‘The gods made us that way and we must live with it.’

‘Ah,’ Robert murmured. ‘The gods. Of course.’

‘You’re not going to tell me you don’t believe.’

‘I don’t see how the gods can be blamed for a man being weak.’

‘They can’t be blamed. If a man is weak it’s his own fault – but even within weakness there’s a strength.’

‘Really?’ Robert replied dryly.

Was Robert mocking him? ‘With every weakness there’s the opportunity for strength if a man’s willing to take it. Weakness is there to be examined, understood and learned from. If I had a weakness for peaches but they made me ill, I’d learn not to eat too many, wouldn’t I?’

‘I don’t know, would you?’

‘I’d learn to be strong enough to deny myself the overindulgence. In that way, I would gain a new strength from my weakness.’

‘So simple.’ Robert should have smiled with that, but didn’t. Instead, he stood, ready to go back to work. ‘I have but one weakness, Bishop. I believed I was strong.’

*

The coming of the Sabbath meant there was no work done on the ruin for the day. Aiden knew not to look for Robert in the chapel and so found a quiet place under the apple trees and sat on a blanket. He really wanted to write some letters to his friends and family, to assure them he was healthy and free, but of course, it was impossible. He liked
the peace of the afternoon, the quiet of the orchard. It didn’t last long.

‘So how do you reconcile a man’s weakness with a belief in the gods?’

Aiden turned around to find Robert approaching almost silently, like a cat. ‘What?’

‘Why would they create us as weak creatures in the first place? As sport?’

There was something different about Robert today. But what? He wore a rough linen shirt with a worn black jacket thrown over his shoulders. In his hands he held a stoneware flask and two cups.

‘Brother Damien thought you might like to try some of the wine St Germanus is not even remotely famous for.’ He sat on the ground and poured them each some of the liqour, which was pale pink and smelt vaguely of roses. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

Aiden suddenly felt very nervous. There was a tone he’d not heard before, as though this time it was Robert who was baiting Aiden. ‘Are you asking me why we were given free will?’

‘Why? Is a man weak by his own will?’

‘No.’ Aiden frowned. He’d have to concentrate hard in order to get around this man. Robert had already come to his own conclusions. ‘I’m saying a man is weak by nature. If he wants to give into weakness he will. But the will to choose is free. Just like good and evil.’

‘So a man can choose whether to be good or evil?’

‘Of course.’

‘What if a man is evil by nature, but isn’t strong enough to overcome it? Where does he go then? Into the arms of Broleoch?’

‘Don’t say that name, even in jest,’ Aiden replied, with an edge of steel. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done, Robert, but you’re not evil. You’re a man of honour. If you’d not been, you would have let me follow you into the fire.’

‘Honour? Me?’ Robert looked up at this and for the first time, Aiden saw a breath of humour in the man’s eyes.
Robert came to his feet and towered over Aiden. ‘Now that’s interesting. And how did you come to that conclusion?’

Aiden quickly stood to meet the challenge. ‘Don’t take that tone with me.’ The moment the words were out, he regretted them. But it was too late.

‘Oh, tone now, is it? I thought we were discussing how I was a man of honour.’ Robert’s tone was light, almost playful, but there was an unpleasant edge to it. ‘You know nothing about it. You know nothing about me. You’ve heard people talk about me and you knew my father and you trust your instincts, but you know nothing at all. All you see is this shell which reminds you of a great man and you assume I must be the same. I’m not. I never was and, I assure you, I never will be.’

Aiden tried to swallow down his gall. Such arrogance in one so young! Such . . . ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Robert,’ Aiden snapped, his patience finally gone. ‘I don’t form my opinions purely on what other people have told me and I don’t judge you alone by your father. I see him in you. I see him in your actions. I may not have been at court with you, but I saw the work you did from Selar’s council. I saw you turn his hand from destroying this country time and time again. I saw you refuse to be drawn into breaking your oath to him. Few men of honour would be that strong.’