The Winter Ghosts - By Kate Mosse Page 0,52

above my head, I inched my way through, sideways on.

‘Take it steady,’ I said, hating the rock pressing on my shoulders. ‘Steady now.’

In the event, the conduit wasn’t so long, and after only a few paces it opened out into a small, self-contained chamber. Unlike the barren outer cave, there was evidence this cavern had been occupied. In the gloom, I could make out a few belongings, the remains of a camp, what might once have been blankets, a snatch of blue and maybe grey, hard to tell the difference in the yellow light of the torch.

‘Fabrissa?’

Why did I call her name once more? I’d already decided she could not be there. But I called out to her all the same, as though a part of me even now hoped she might be there waiting for me.

I walked closer. The torch picked out fragments of red cloth, green and grey and brown. An earthenware bowl and the stump of a tallow candle burnt down to the wick.

My pulse sped up. My subconscious mind knew what I was seeing, but I could not yet let myself face it head on. I could not accept it. Did not want to accept it.

There was something else now, an acrid smell. Like in church, when the congregation has departed but the scent of stale incense from the thurible has not yet faded. I dug in my pocket for my handkerchief and slapped it over my nose and mouth. It reeked of dried blood and oil, but even that did not completely mask the smell of the cave.

Then I heard it. The whispering. But this time, a multitude, not a single voice, the words layered one upon the other like plainsong at vespers, the harmony holding in the echo.

I stared around. There was nothing to see. Nothing moving in the shadows. Nothing. But the whispering was all around me now, behind, in front, above, a sibilance of voices weeping and calling, desperate to be heard.

‘We are the last, the last.’

‘Where are you?’ I cried. ‘Show yourselves.’

I stumbled forward, nausea rising in my throat. I was being drawn to the furthest corner of the cavern. I did not want to go, but I could not turn back.

Now another voice. Clearer. Distinct. Intended for my ears only.

‘Bones and shadows and dust.’

‘Fabrissa?’ I called out into the darkness.

I staggered on, closer to the epicentre of the sound, until my feet came to a halt of their own accord.

I needed to go no further. I didn’t want to, but I made myself look. Made myself focus on what I knew I did not wish to see. I was standing in a city of bones, men and women and children, all lying side by side, as if they had lain down to sleep and forgotten to wake.

I bowed my head, my eyes smarting, undone by the sight of the humble objects, treasures. Candles, cooking utensils, a pitcher lying on its side. Grave goods for those who had no more need of them.

At last, my head acknowledged what my heart had told me all along. Now I understood the story Fabrissa had told me, though I had not wanted to hear it before.

Had not been able to hear before.

Here were fragments of the long green robe of Guillaume Marty, scraps of something still attached to the leather belt around his waist. Here, the royal-blue robes with red stitching, rags now, worn by the Maury sisters. Here, a remnant or two of Na Azéma’s grey veil pulled up over her face. No longer people, but skeletons. Skulls half-concealed by a hood or a fold of material or by shadow, the bones glowing green-white in the pale beam of my torch.

Swallowing down the bile rising in my throat, I walked on. Now I could see the bones were clustered in groups, where families had died together. How many bodies lay here entombed? Fifty people. A hundred? More? Had anyone escaped this living death? Fabrissa said no one came back. A refuge that became a tomb. A mass tomb for the people of Nulle.

But the worst was to come. The whispering was getting louder, the pleading, crying for someone to help them. Begging for release. And joined now by another sound, superimposed on the whispering. A scratching on the stone. The rattle of bone on the rough and uneven ground. I wanted to turn back, but I could not. I could not look away for to do so would be to abandon them once