Marklin gave a quick, uneasy nod to those clustered around him and pushed through a tight press of men and women, and, nearly tripping over someone’s foot, landed finally at Tommy’s side.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Tommy demanded. He was looking at the ceiling. “For God’s sake, relax. We’ll be on the plane in a few hours. Then we’ll be in …”
“Shhh, don’t say anything,” said Marklin, conscious that his voice was no longer normal, no longer under his control. If he had ever been this apprehensive in his life, he didn’t remember it.
For the first time he saw that the black cloth had been draped everywhere along the walls. The two clocks of the great hall were covered! And the mirrors, the mirrors were veiled in black. He found these things totally unnerving. He had never seen such old-fashioned funeral trappings. When people in his family had died, they’d been cremated. Someone called you later to tell you that it had been done. That was precisely what had happened with his parents. He’d been at school, lying on his bed, reading Ian Herning, when the call came, and he had only nodded and gone on reading. And now you’ve inherited everything, absolutely everything.
Suddenly he was thoroughly sick from the candles. He could see the candelabra everywhere, such costly silver. Some of them were even encrusted with jewels. God, how much money did this Order have stashed away in its cellars and its vaults? A small nation indeed. But then it was all the fault of fools like Stuart, who had long ago willed his entire fortune to the Order, and must surely have changed that will, all things considered, of course.
All things. Tessa. The plan. Where was Stuart now-with Tessa?
The talk grew louder and louder. There was the tinkling of glasses. Elvera came again and poured more wine into his glass.
“Drink up, Mark,” she said.
“Do behave, Mark,” whispered Tommy, unpleasantly close to his face.
Marklin turned. This wasn’t his religion. This wasn’t his custom, to stand about feasting and drinking in black clothes at dawn!
“I’m going now!” he suddenly declared. His voice seemed to explode from his mouth and echo throughout the room!
Everybody else had gone silent.
For one second, in the ringing stillness, he almost gave in to a scream. The desire to scream was more pure in him than ever in childhood. To scream in panic, in horror. He didn’t know which.
Tommy pinched his arm, and pointed.
The double doors to the dining hall had been opened. Ah, so that was the reason for the silence. Dear God, had they brought the remains of Aaron home?
The candles, the crepe-it was the very same in the dining hall, another cavern of grimness. He was determined not to enter, but before he could act upon this decision, the crowd moved him slowly and solemnly towards the open doorway. He and Tommy were being almost carried along.
Don’t want to see any more, want to leave here …
The press loosened as they passed through the doors. Men and women were filing around the long table. Someone was laid out on the table. God, not Aaron! Can’t look at Aaron. And they know you can’t look at him, don’t they? They are waiting for you to panic, and for Aaron’s wounds to bleed!
Horrible, stupid. He clutched Tommy’s arm again, and heard Tommy’s correction. “Do be still!”
At last they had come to the edge of the grand old table. This was a man in a dusty wool jacket, with mud on his shoes. Look, mud. This was no corpse properly laid out.
“This is ludicrous,” said Tommy under his breath.
“What sort of funeral is this!” he heard himself say aloud.
Slowly he leant over so that he could see the dead face that was turned away from him. Stuart. Stuart Gordon, dead and lying on this table-Stuart’s impossibly thin face, with its bird-beak of a nose, and his lifeless blue eyes. Dear God, they had not even closed his eyes! Were they all insane?
He backed away awkwardly, colliding with Tommy, feeling his heel on Tommy’s toe, and then the swift removal of Tommy’s foot. All thought seemed beyond him. A dread took hold of him totally. Stuart is dead, Stuart is dead, Stuart is dead.
Tommy was staring at the body. Did he know it was Stuart?
“What is the meaning of this?” Tommy asked, his voice
low and full of wrath. “What’s happened to Stuart….” But the words had little conviction. His voice, always a monotone, was now weak with shock.
The others drew in all around them, pressing them right against the table. Stuart’s limp left hand lay right near them.
“For the love of heaven,” said Tommy angrily. “Someone close his eyes.”
From one end of the table to the other, the members surrounded it, a phalanx of mourners in black. Or were they mourners? Even Joan Cross was there, at the head of the table, arms resting on the arms of her wheelchair, her reddened eyes fixed upon them!
No one spoke. No one moved. The first stage of silence had been the absence of speech. This was the second stage, the absence of movement, with members so still he could not even hear anyone draw breath.
“What’s happened to him!” demanded Tommy.
Still no one answered. Marklin could not fix his gaze on anything; he kept looking at the small dead skull, with its thin covering of white hair. Did you kill yourself, you fool, you crazed fool? Is that what you did? At the first chance of discovery?
And suddenly, very suddenly, he realized that all the others were not looking at Stuart, they were looking at Tommy and at him.
He felt a pain in his chest as though someone had begun to press on his breastbone with impossibly strong hands.
He turned, desperately searching the faces around him-Enzo, Harberson, Elvera, and the others, staring at him with malign expressions, Elvera herself staring straight up into his eyes. And right beside him, Timothy Hollingshed, staring coldly down at him.
Only Tommy did not stare at him. Tommy stared across the table, and when Marklin looked to see what had so distracted him, what had made him oblivious to the perfect horror of all this, he saw that Yuri Stefano, clothed in proper funereal black, was standing only a few feet away.
Yuri! Yuri was here, and had been here all along! Had Yuri killed Stuart? Why in the name of God hadn’t Stuart been clever, why hadn’t he known how to deflect Yuri? The whole point of the intercept, of the bogus excommunication, was that Yuri would never, never be able to reach the Motherhouse again. And that idiot Lanzing, to have let Yuri escape from the glen.
“No,” said Elvera, “the bullet found its mark. But it wasn’t fatal. And he’s come home.”
“You were Gordon’s accomplices,” said Hollingshed disdainfully. “Both of you. And you and only you are left.”
“His accomplices,” said Yuri from the other side of the table. “His bright ones, his geniuses.”
“No!” said Marklin. “This is not true! Who is accusing us?”
“Stuart accused you,” said Harberson. “The papers scattered all through his tower house accused you, his diary accused you, his poetry accused you, Tessa accused you.”
Tessa!
“How dare you enter his house!” thundered Tommy, red with rage as he glared about him.
“You don’t have Tessa, I don’t believe you!” Marklin screamed. “Where is Tessa? It was all for Tessa!” And then, realizing his terrible error, he realized in full what he already knew.
Oh, why hadn’t he listened to his instinct! His instinct had told him to leave, and now his instinct told him, without question-It is too late.