I told her I was ready.
But she did not start. She continued staring. ‘You may turn back now . . . if you do all will be forgotten and you will resume your life as it was. But if you continue, everything will be altered, and you will never put it to rights again . . . it is your choice.’
It was an inexplicable feeling that came over me at that moment. I was full of dread and fear but also overcome by a desire to fall . . . a vertigo of the soul.
I nodded for her to continue.
She gave a deep sigh, looked once more to the lime trees, and continued, ‘Remember . . . the Wolf.’
THE FIFTH CARD
WORLD – UNDERSTANDING
40
WOLF
Came from the North the wolf to lure from the wood to the wound
Prose Edda of Snorre Sturlason: SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL (The Poesy of the Skalds)
Etienne, with the long sword in his hand, came down the steps swift as a sparrow to where stood Gideon, Delgado and Jourdain. They must also have heard the silent communication and were stood listening into the silence and looking to Etienne who made a signal to quiet and to move towards the door.
Outside, a wind had picked up and swirled the leaves upon the trees and scratched at the sides of the wooden building. They listened. There was the wretched cry of a child then and Etienne moved to the stable door, but at that moment it opened like a sail with the wind behind it. Revealed in the wake of this gesture was the figure of a man standing in the waxing light. Etienne knew his form, but he could not see his face. A moment later four others came to stand behind him. Etienne could smell blood.
‘Who are you?’ he said to the dark face.
‘Do you not know me?’ the voice said.
Etienne stood as though slapped in the face by a strong hand, and struggled to remain upright. When he spoke it was low and guarded. ‘Yes . . . I know you.’
He did not wish to think of the woman, he would not think of the child and of Iacob the old man. He would leave his mind still and vacant and ready.
‘Yes, you know me and I know you, but I am changed, Etienne de Congost. I am without loyalties, like your mercenaries, on hire for good money, and I will kill you, so you are best to give me what I have come to take from you.’
Etienne looked at that form, now more comprehensible, and he recognised it better than he recognised the eyes which, staring from out of that shock of grey hair, seemed glassy and lifeless beneath a shadowed brow full of longing. The face jumped then, in convulsive twitches, and the mouth moved as if drawn by this contradiction of forces to a grin humourless and stale.
‘You look old,’ Etienne said to him.
There was a wild laugh that made the animals nervous. ‘I am ruined! Yes, ruined! And spoilt! Like old meat left out in the sun! Maktub! ’ he shouted. ‘And yet I may be younger now than you!’ He paused then, relishing his transient humour. ‘In body I am decayed and in soul I am made young, is that not a wondrous thing? My ruination and my youth? It began upon that beach at Famagusta and then at Tomar and finally when I drowned the gold. I warned you, Etienne, that I should lose a wit.’
Etienne looked askance to the men at his flank. Jourdain, Delgado and Gideon stood in that grey near-dark waiting for a signal from him.
‘Who seeks us?’ Etienne said to him.
‘There are many hunting you . . . you are wanted for something you have, and I have a task to find it.’
All was stillness but for the wind outside in the trees.
Etienne stared hard. ‘How you have come down in the world, Marcus.’
The man grinned from ear to ear as if this were the most lavish compliment. ‘I am come down to earth, that is certain! But I have not always been so high and mighty, Etienne . . . not like you in your heaven! I came to know how low I had always been upon that beach in Scotland, while I watched the Order fall into the chasm of the sea! I came to know how much of my soul I had put away behind it – or how much it had kept hid. When the Order was gone and, finally, when the gold was lost, there was nothing to prevent me from seeing the vision of my worthless soul! It was bared to my eye, Etienne, bared! I wished to die then but I was called to a new master . . .’ He looked at Etienne. ‘He has seen my worth and delights in talents not worthy of God.’
‘The Devil?’
The man laughed until his voice was hoarse and he was close to tears. When he stopped his face was a carnival of movement. ‘Let us say that we sit on different benches, you and I. Yes, you on one side with your worthless faith, and I on the other, with my faithless worth! It amuses me this paradox between us!’ He took in a breath and paused, turning practical. ‘But amusement is one thing and business, my friend, another. I have been tracking you a long time . . . and I’m beginning to know what it is they want from you.’