Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

visibly falling behind its gaping windows. The other wing is more hopeful, though there is no light to be seen, no welcoming plume of smoke.

They draw up. Monsieur About and Mr Featherstone beat at the wooden door between the towers. Looking out, the Reverend does not believe the door will open. Yet open it does, though by whose agency he cannot see for the moment until Mr Featherstone comes trotting back to the coach. Even then it is hard, among the piling shadows, the last of the daylight, to see more than that it is a man, aged, and carrying a tiny light which somehow contrives to endure the plucking of the wind.

Mr Featherstone and the Reverend carry the postillion between them. Behind, like mourners, come the others: Dyer bare-headed; Mrs Featherstone shivering inside her fur; Monsieur About, humming under his breath, now and then declaring: 'Everything shall be charming. Just wait and see!'

Silent corridors. Unlit empty rooms. Everywhere the reek of damp and cats.

'I believe', whispers the Reverend to Mr Featherstone, 'that this fellow is on his own here.'

Featherstone concurs, says: 'So long as he has a fire and something in the pot. Are they not under obligation to share what they have?'

There is a fire, though it is almost lost in the great stone hearth. Also a pot, which the old monk peers into, stirs, and hangs from a tripod over the flames. They lie the postillion on the table, a noble piece of furniture that may, fancies the Reverend, have served once as the abbot's desk.

'Is he dead?' asks Mrs Featherstone.

The Reverend says: 'He lives, and yet his signs are very faint.'

There is a laugh from Dyer, sharp and humourless. The Reverend says: 'Perhaps, sir, you would examine him. If, that is, you feel able.'

Dyer comes over to the table, looks quickly at the wounded man, goes to his green bag, pulls out a roll of bandages and tosses them to the Reverend.

'You seem to like the part.'

The Reverend, very conscious of his audience, binds the postillion's arm. He is tying the knot when the man lets out a piercing scream, half sits up, then faints away, his head banging heavily on the table. The Reverend steps back like a stage murderer. Everyone except Dyer peers at the man on the table.

Is he dead now?' asks Mrs Featherstone.

Later, with the postillion on a couch of old straw in the corner of the room, they eat from the monk's smoke-black pot. Some manner of gruel flavoured with pork fat. They drink goat's milk from a communal bowl. The old monk, in the patched and faded habit of a Benedictine, heavy wooden crucifix around his neck, observes them with his small, incessant smile. With him is a boy, fat, fourteen or fifteen years old, the wide open face of an idiot.

About, the polyglot, attempts to draw them into conversation. When language fails, he mimes and sketches maps on the palm of his hand. The monk nods amiably, mutters a dozen words of some incomprehensible dialect, then points to the boy, grins, and says: 'Ponko.'

Tonko?'

Tonko.'

The boy slavers, churns his tongue, points at himself. Tonko. Ponko.'

Mr Featherstone belches. His wife says: 'Ain't there no beds to be had?'

About leans his head on his hands: a child's mime of sleep. The old monk speaks to Ponko. Ponko goes out. The travellers look gloomily at the cones on the fire. Now and then snowflakes come

down the chimney and sizzle in the embers. James Dyer touches his head, says: 'Madam, you possess a looking-glass?'

Mrs Featherstone does not. Monsieur About does. A travelling mirror in a snakeskin case. Dyer, from the green bag, takes a candle-holder to which is attached a curved plate, silver, highly polished. There is a stub of candle in the holder which he lights from the monk's lamps. Further rummaging produces a needle and thread. He arms the needle. He says: 'Monsieur, I should be obliged if you would hold the candle, so, that the light may reflect from the shield. And the mirror, so, that I may see what I am about.'

Mrs Featherstone says: 'What are you about, sir?'

Dyer looks at her. 'That, madam, I should have thought self-evident.'

He begins to sew up his head, drawing together the ragged lips of the gash, and with such swiftness, such unconcern, it is - as the Reverend later writes to Lady Hallam - as if he were sewing only the head in the glass. Everyone, with the exception of the old monk, who looks on as if this were a conjuring trick he has long since fathomed, is vastly impressed.

'Bravo!' says Monsieur About.

The Reverend says: 'Remarkable.'

'I do not', says Mr Featherstone, 'think I could have stood it so well.'

Dyer ignores them. Ponko comes back. The monk rises from his stool, grasps with cramped fingers one of the lights, and leads the party to their rooms, cells of the former brothers. The Reverend remains, sitting up with Ponko and the postillion. The monk returns, shuffles to his stool, sits. Stiff as old wood. The Reverend smiles at him. They nod to each other. Then the Reverend folds his arms on the table, lays down his head and sleeps. His last conscious image is James Dyer, plying a curved needle through his own flesh. His own flesh!

Remarkable.

When they gather next morning, somewhat tatty from a night on cold pallets, they discuss their predicament. James Dyer insists they push on. To hell with the snow. Are they afraid of snow?

The Reverend says: 'Have you seen the snow, sir?'

Dyer says: 'You intend to stay the next week here? The next month?'

'Better here', says Mr Featherstone, 'than what would happen to us out there.'

About says: 'I must agree with Mr Featherstone. It would be folly to make an attempt at travel in such conditions.'

'I do not travel idly, sir,' says Dyer. 'I am not here for my health.'

Mrs Featherstone says: 'For my part I shall not set a foot out of