Kronos, p.17
Kronos, page 17
I shove him back and try to run past him. His hand shoots out and snatches at my hair. He keeps some of it but I’m still free. There’s a pitchfork leaning against the back wall. I snatch it and turn to face him. I tried to run away from a fight once. It didn’t end well and I am determined never to do it again.
‘You don’t understand,’ Kronos says, his teeth clenched. He is angry. And well he might be. But he’ll be bloody furious in a minute.
I thrust the prongs of the pitchfork at him, making him tumble to one side rather than be impaled.
‘Carla!’ he roars. ‘You have no idea what you’re doing.’
‘Never held me back before,’ I reply as I follow him and raise the pitchfork. I thrust it forward again and actually catch his side this time. He gives a shout of pain and his shirt tears open to expose a bloody wound.
‘I dare say Marcus’s wounds were more painful,’ I say. ‘And you’re more of a monster than he ever was.’
‘Yes,’ Kronos replies, snatching at the pitchfork. ‘Much more.’
He manages to yank the implement from my grip and I turn and run, not stupid enough to stay close to him.
Maybe my best hope is to get outside and shout for Grost. Surely he can’t be a part of this? Grost is no monster, I’m sure of it, would stake my life on it. That’s exactly what you’re doing, my girl, says my mother’s voice in my head.
I make it to the door and my hand is on the bolt when Kronos grabs me from behind and lifts me up into the air. I fight back, swinging my arms and legs, determined that I will not be an easy victim.
‘Enough!’ he says and throws me across the room where I am lucky enough – at least, I assume it’s luck, maybe he just has a good aim – to land in the hay. I am winded but not really hurt.
‘I am not a vampire,’ he says.
‘No,’ I reply. ‘Of course not. You’ve been bitten on your neck and you sleep in a coffin but you’re not a vampire …’
‘I fought the infection,’ Kronos replies. ‘With Grost’s help, I fought it and won. The scar remains. And that’s good, because it reminds me exactly why I do what I do.’
‘So as not to get bitten again?’
‘So as not to let others suffer,’ he replies. Given what he’s done to Marcus this evening, that seems the most absurd thing he’s said so far. I tell him so.
Kronos is silent for a moment. He hunches his shoulders and stares at the toes of his boots.
‘It was my sister,’ he says finally. ‘The one who bit me. I had been in Ireland, fighting under Cromwell’s orders. I never imagined that my family would be in danger without me.
‘As you can tell from my accent I wasn’t born in this country. We travelled here when I was small, escaping from Wallachia where my mother and father had been in service to one of the ancient families, that of Lord Varishku, a man so corrupt that he had killed his own brothers to secure the throne. Killed my father, too, though I did not know that until later.
‘My mother had taken my sister and me, and we travelled across the country in fear for our lives. From Hungary we made our way to Venice where, she bartered for space on a merchant ship and thus we came here, to England.
‘I grew up here, treating this country as my home. I enlisted in its army and I fought its battles. And while I was away …
‘He was a trader, so he said, from the old country. He met my mother in the market and they got talking of how things had been back home. He was not what he said he was. He infected my mother and sister both. The three of them roamed the area at night to feed.
‘When I returned it was to find that a nest of vampires were roosting in my home.
‘I killed him easily. His bloodline was susceptible to steel, a problem when you are fighting a man who has a sword.
‘Which left my mother and sister. I hesitated.’ Kronos points at the wound on his neck. ‘As you can tell. But there was nothing left of the people I loved: they were creatures, animals, nothing more.’ He pauses, shuffles his feet slightly. ‘So I did what had to be done.
‘The bite was shallow. And she had not drawn blood. For a vampire to change you, for you to become like them, they have to drink some of your blood and you, in turn, must drink some of theirs. It is an exchange, a contract. I was just poisoned, contaminated as if by the venom in the fangs of a serpent.
‘I did not stay in the house. I couldn’t bear to be under that roof, not knowing what he had done to them both and what they themselves had gone on to do.
‘I walked, heading across the fields and into the night, becoming more and more delirious with every step.
‘Grost found me, lying under the stars and howling at the moon, quite out of my mind, He brought me back to myself. He saved my life. And my soul.
‘Whatever you may think of what happened to Marcus, he was my friend. I did only what I had to do. He had been turned – nothing can save a man then. In a short time everything that had made him what he was – his personality, his soul – it would all have gone, swallowed by the hunger of the creature he would have become. I could not allow that to happen or I would have been no friend at all.’
I don’t say anything. Because I have no idea what to say. Eventually, I speak.
‘So why do you sleep in a coffin?’
Kronos hesitates for a little while.
‘It makes me think like they do.’
Sometimes men can be so bloody literal.
Forty-Two
Lorrimer’s Army
SO IT COMES down to this. Arming ourselves with whatever we can lay our hands on and marching through the village to the doctor’s house with vengeance on our mind.
He was a good man, the doctor. I know the others always laughed at me for going on about it but he was. When my Mary was struck down with the plague he didn’t hide from her or lock her away like I know lots of doctors did with their patients. He sat with her, risked catching the disease himself, so he did. Rather that than let her be uncomfortable, than let her die in pain.
Like he did himself.
He was just too trusting, that’s the beginning and end of it. He couldn’t see the darkness men held in ’em. You only have to look at that foreign savage to see there’s something wrong, right at the very heart of the man. When he smiles it don’t quite reach his eyes, when he laughs the sound has an edge of cruelty, when he acts sincere you can tell he wants something. He is a dark, dark soul. I tried to warn the doctor of that but he wouldn’t listen and now he’s dead.
There are maybe twenty of us in all, gathered at the White Hart for a drop of courage before we go. Luke Hopkins, Bert Frimpton, Ted Somerton (and he’s worth three other men that’s for sure), Saul Wilkins, his hefty blacksmith’s hammer in his hands … all the men what would act.
‘We’ll have to strike quick,’ says Hollis as he pours us all a drink. ‘Don’t forget I saw him when he killed Kerro and his men. Like lightning he was, barely saw him move.’
‘If we all take him at the same instant,’ I say, ‘crowd him, like, he won’t have much of a chance.’
‘I’ve a better idea,’ says Luke, holding up a tatty-looking bow. ‘I can get him with this from a good step away.’
‘With that thing?’ I laugh. ‘You’ll be lucky if you can hit the doctor’s house.’
‘Kept me and Ma fed for months, this has,’ Luke says. ‘It may not look up to much but I’ve a good aim and there’s plenty of power in her.’
‘All right then,’ I say, ‘we’ll give it a go. You get your shot in and if that don’t kill him then we’ll be right behind it.’
It’s not a long walk and we’re outside the doctor’s house in no time.
Of course, Luke’s found the first problem. ‘Where is he?’ he asks. ‘I can’t shoot him if I can’t see him.’
‘Didn’t think of that, did you?’ I say, rolling my eyes at him. Of course, I didn’t think of it either but there’s no point in going on about it.
‘He must be asleep,’ says Saul. ‘If we’re quiet maybe we can sneak up on him – cut his throat before he even has time to open his eyes.’
‘No,’ says Ted. ‘That’s not the way this is going to work. I want that bastard to know what’s happening. I want him wide awake and scared.’
‘Easy for you to say, you big ox,’ replies Hollis. ‘You didn’t see how quick off the mark he is. I say we stove his head in while he’s snoring and have done with it.’
‘Look,’ and now Ted’s grabbing Hollis by the scruff of his neck, ‘we’re not all as cowardly as you. Some of us want to do this honourably.’
‘There’s no honour in it,’ I tell them. ‘This is just about putting a dangerous man down before he kills anyone else. Now let’s get on with it.’
We move as silently as we can into the courtyard, weapons ready in case the bugger bursts out of the shadows at us.
Luke trips over some of the firewood I chopped earlier. He lands on the cobbles, cursing.
‘Brilliant, lad,’ I whisper. ‘If he didn’t already know we were coming he probably does now.’
Kronos has been sleeping in the stables, I know that much. Still, I doubt he’ll stay there tonight. Now he’s done for the doctor he’ll have Marcus’s bed, won’t he?
I lead everyone to the doctor’s front door.
‘A couple of you come with me,’ I whisper. ‘The rest of you stay outside in case he comes sneaking up behind us.’
I test the door. It’s not bolted. I open it and me, Luke and Ted walk inside. I’m glad Ted’s here: if any of the others stand a chance against the foreigner it’s him. I’ve seen him break men just by squeezing ’em. I notice the axe I use for the firewood and, preferring it to the old sword I’m carrying I give Luke the sword (well, his bow and bloody arrow ain’t worked out as much cop, has it?) and I take the axe.
‘Unless you want it?’ I ask Ted.
He shakes his head. ‘Better off with just my hands,’ he says. And I believe him.
He’s a noisy sod on the stairs, though. There’s too much of him for the floorboards not to creak when he steps on them.
‘Here we are,’ I say, pointing ahead to the doctor’s bedroom at the top of the stairs.
Ted pushes his way to the front, which is fine by me. As long as we get the job done I don’t much care who it is that gets to do it.
We all step into the bedroom and we can tell by the faint light that creeps through the window that Kronos is lying there in bed. We can see the shape of him beneath the sheet.
We all stand there for a minute.
‘Well?’ I say. ‘We going to do this or not?’
I take a deep breath and raise the axe.
‘Wait,’ says Ted, shoving the body in the bed with his foot. ‘I told you I want him awake. I want him to know what’s happening, what he’s brought down on himself.’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘So he’s awake – nobody sleeps through you kicking ’em a few times.’
I bring the axe down on him, relieved and disgusted in equal measure when I feel it embed itself in his forehead with a solid crunch.
The axe is stuck.
I climb on the bed so that I can get a bit of leverage.
‘Luke,’ I say, ‘how about a bit of light so I can see what I’m doing?’
He strikes his tinderbox and lights a candle. He brings it over to the body and I let out a sob as I realise I’ve just put my axe into Dr Marcus’s corpse.
‘Nice work,’ says Ted.
‘Piss off, Ted Somerton,’ I say. ‘You were giving him a good kicking earlier, if you cast your mind back.’
It’s Luke who asks the only important question. ‘Where is he, then?’
Outside there suddenly comes the sound of shouting, cries of pain and the clang of steel against cobbles. The ruckus lasts all of maybe ten seconds and then the night is quiet.
‘Oh shit,’ I say, wondering exactly how we’re going to get out of the trouble we’ve walked into.
Forty-Three
Brothers in Blood – The Memoirs of Professor Herbert Grost: Volume One (Unpublished)
ONCE WE HAD finished, Kronos helped me lift the body of our departed friend upstairs. We laid him out on his bed and I took the opportunity to say a few words.
‘He was a God-fearing man,’ I said. ‘He’d probably want a bit of Bible verse.’
‘He didn’t fear God,’ Kronos said. ‘He loved Him. Hopefully, that love was returned.’
He stepped out of the room, leaving me alone with the body. I didn’t mind. Sentiment is just another of those things in which I outperform my friend.
I found a Bible next to the bed and read aloud a few of the most cheerful passages I could find. Once done, I pulled the sheet over Marcus’s face and left him to his rest.
As I stepped out of the door I spotted something familiar lying on his dresser. Stepping back inside to examine it I realised it was the purse of silver coins.
‘Waste not, want not,’ I murmured. Then I slipped the coins into my pocket and went downstairs.
As I left the house I became aware of a ruckus coming from inside the stables. It sounded as though Carla and Kronos were fighting. She didn’t understand. But that was good: a young soul like her shouldn’t have to. I sat down in front of the door and listened as Kronos began to explain to her about his mother and sister.
I’ll never forget what he had been like when I found him.
I had been working nearby, tutoring a couple of land-owner’s children in a little Latin and Greek. Teaching was by far the most successful way I had found of sustaining myself on the road. I was good at it and, more importantly I think, I looked right. People don’t like funny old hunchbacks offering to groom their horses for them or dig a few drainage pits. People that do jobs like that should look young and fit. Teacher? Oh yes … you can smell the books on him, that one. Hire him at once! I think it was probably the only time my appearance actually helped me to get work.
I rented a room in a farmhouse at that time, a nice enough little place though the cows woke me up every morning. I was on my way back to it, having stopped off for a little food at the local tavern, when I saw Kronos running wild through one of the fields. The poison hadn’t sapped him of his energy, certainly – he was running as if the Devil himself were on his heels. I suppose in many ways he was.
If he had been heading away from me then we would never have met. I couldn’t possibly have caught up with him. As it was, he was likely to cut across the road in front of me at any moment so I simply waited. Then, when he ran directly into a tree on the verge and fell to the ground in a complete faint, I felt it was only my Christian duty to try and nurse him back to consciousness.
It took some time. I managed to convince my farmer landlord that I should be allowed to keep Kronos in my room. (Yes, like a pet dog.) When I explained that, no, I didn’t know the gentleman but that I saw it as my duty to try and help him recover, he looked at me as if I were mad.
The first few days were by far the worst. When Kronos was awake he made the fact quite clear by screaming. This did not go down well in the house: my landlord was quite convinced that such a racket would curdle the milk inside the cows.
‘Not to mention disease,’ he said. ‘How do I know that we’re not all going to catch what he’s got?’
I pointed to the mark on Kronos’s neck.
‘He was bitten by something,’ I explained, ‘and poisoned, He’s not suffering from the plague or anything like that.’
‘So you say.’
‘I can assure you,’ I said, ‘that however foolish you may think I am, I’m not so foolish as to share a room this size with a plague sufferer. I have no more wish to die than you do.’
In the end I agreed to pay him extra and money succeeded in convincing him where common sense had failed.
Which meant that I had to leave Kronos on his own for a good deal of the day while I continued giving my students their lessons. After all, if I didn’t teach I didn’t earn and if I didn’t earn then that was Kronos and me both out on our ears.
I also spent a little extra time reading in the library of one of my clients. He kept a large selection of books on folklore and witchcraft.
‘Old Oliver hasn’t much time for this sort of thing,’ he joked. ‘If the local magistrate knew I had these I’d swing for sure!’
He was the local magistrate.
It was the mark on Kronos’s neck that made me think of vampires of course. They had fascinated me ever since I was a child and the wound was too suggestive for me to ignore. Unfortunately it seemed almost impossible to get a consensus opinion on what exactly you should do to cure a man who had been bitten. Some said that there was no cure and that the victim would just die slowly. Some said you had to kill the original vampire: doing so would neutralise the supernatural poison present in the bite. Some said that victims were bound to turn into vampires themselves sooner or later and the best thing was to run away very quickly before they did.
Kronos did not turn into a vampire.
In fact, after a few long weeks he began to improve considerably.
‘I owe you my life, Grost,’ he said one night, ‘and I shall never forget it.’
To be fair, he never has.
I pressed my ear to the stable door. It sounded as though Kronos and Carla had finished their arguing for now. Good – we had much more important things to do than bicker among ourselves.
I knocked on the door.
‘Well?’ I shouted. ‘Is somebody going to let me in?’
Carla appeared, an apologetic smile on her face. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I forgot the door was still locked.’
‘No, my dear,’ I replied. ‘It is me who is sorry, sorry for letting you witness the awful incidents of the evening.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. And she was right, it wasn’t, but I was nonetheless glad to hear her say so.
Kronos was seated in the open doorway of the coach.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Heard all about that, have you?’
