The Book of Beasts (6 page)

She gazed thoughtfully across the table at the medieval tapestry covering the far wall. Known as
The Battle for Era Mina
, it depicted the Grendel, an ape-like monster, rising out of a dark swamp to devour the dead after a terrible battle. The central figure, a hooded monk draped in dark velvet, was riding a black stallion, exhorting ghastly troops of skeletons to do his bidding. It was awe-inspiring in its detail, its ferocity and its glowing jewel-like colours. Even more remarkable was the fact that it had been woven more than seven hundred years earlier, by the monks of Auchinmurn.

There was still no sign of Sir Charles. To pass the time, Henrietta left the table to study the tapestry in more detail.

The wool and silk threads criss-crossed in vibrant reds, blues and golds as it told its gory tale. Tapestries such as this one were like news reports for an event, the means by which a community recorded its history before cameras or mobile phones or mass-produced books. With the tip of her finger, Henrietta traced a single silk thread along the edge of the great stitched cloth, stopping to admire the complex pattern that had captured the drama of the battle.

Hearing voices in the outer office, Henrietta made to return to the table. As she lifted her fingers from the tapestry, the threads she had been tracing began to glow, faintly at first but then more brightly. Henrietta looked at her hand. It was clean and appeared normal. Was this her doing?

Another thread lit up, and another, and another. Soon the entire tapestry was illuminated as if it had been plugged in to the mains; an electrified Tube map with every thread a pulsing track.

Henrietta ran to the double doors and locked them before Sir Charles could come in. She stood back and watched the tapestry in awe.

The illuminated threads, first one at a time and then in patterns of three, four and five from every section of the narrative, unravelled, changing routes, taking new directions and twisting into new patterns as the entire tapestry was re-woven in front of Henrietta's eyes. In their new position, all the threads blazed, and then were dim again. The history that the tapestry was depicting had changed.

Henrietta stood absolutely still, absorbing every new detail. When her eyes rested on the imposing figure at the centre of the picture, she laughed aloud, and clapped her hands in rapturous applause.

She had just witnessed one of the most spectacular feats of animation ever accomplished. It would change everything.
Everything
. She didn't need Sir Charles or the Council of Guardians any more. It was time to move from the shadows into the light.

To give her only son the power he deserved.

‘I knew you hadn't abandoned me all those years ago, Malcolm my love, my dear boy.' Her voice was spiked with adoration, adrenaline and years of repressed ambition. ‘You have achieved the unimaginable. Done the impossible. Now let me help you.'

She could not leave the tapestry here. She could not let anyone else see how it had changed until she was ready.

Dragging a chair over, she climbed up, unhooking the cloth from its iron rod. It was heavy, and required all her strength. Hastily, she rolled it like a carpet, using the belt from her coat to keep it secure. She ran to the windows on the other side of the room and threw them open. Dragging and pulling the tapestry, she heaved it over the windowsill into a private courtyard below, where it fell to the ground with a weighty thud.

The door handles rattled.

‘Henrietta!' called Sir Charles through the wood. ‘Why is this door locked? Are you ill? Open these doors immediately.'

A euphoric Henrietta replaced her hat, grabbed her cane, and followed her prize out of the window.

Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages

Malcolm's cruel intentions were suffocating Matt, slowing him down. Beneath the bile, beneath the cold unyielding rage, Matt had sensed his father's true focus.

Malcolm tugged on the black peryton's antlers. The beast reared, racing through the clouds towards the blackened hillside and the feebly stirring form of the Abbey's housekeeper.

‘He's coming for you!' yelled Solon behind Matt. ‘Take cover!'

‘No, he wants Jeannie!' yelled Matt. He had left the soft sand now, and was scrambling to pull himself up and over the lip of the hill. ‘He needs her. I can feel it. Jeannie!' he screamed, clawing his way up the impossible slope. ‘Wake up! You have to move!'

Malcolm and the black peryton were flying fast and low across the surf now, the beast's hooves sparking against the outcropping rocks, the tips of its wings whipping the crests of the waves. Matt lunged at a tree root to heave himself further up the treacherous slope, but it popped like a loose tooth in his hands, tossing him desperately, maddeningly, on to the sand again.

Carik shot three arrows in quick succession at Malcolm and the demonic spectre. The wind and her terror distorted her aim, and her arrows veered harmlessly into the water. The beast was almost upon them, its ghostly form gleaming, its wide snorting nostrils and blazing eyes terrifying to behold.

Matt got to his feet, shaking and battered, searching hopelessly for some means of scaling the smooth, unforgivingly muddy slope that lay between him and Jeannie.

‘I'll hoist you up!' Solon shouted, cupping his hands.

With Solon's assistance, Matt finally made it over the lip of the muddy hillside. He scrambled to get a hold, shoving his hands deeper and deeper into the swampy ground, cold mud up to his elbows as he clawed his way forward. He couldn't slip again.

Up ahead, Jeannie fumbled to free herself from the tree. She wasn't making progress. Her hands were swollen and red and the knots in her apron had tightened with the water.

‘Son,' she called out groggily, seeing Matt pounding and slipping towards her. ‘This isn't yer fight. Find yer way home.'

A dark shadow swept over them.

‘Dad!' Matt was struggling to stand in the streaming mud. ‘Don't hurt her! Don't hurt Jeannie!'

Malcolm and the beast hovered above them, the wind from the peryton's wings forcing Jeannie back against the tree. He grinned, the stretch of his lips tearing into the powdery pink flesh, exposing the black roots of his missing teeth and dripping clots of ink from his chin on to the winged collar of his chain mail.

‘Don't hurt her, Dad,' Matt screamed.

Jeannie blinked up at Malcolm. ‘You hurt the wean, Malcolm Calder,' she hissed, ‘and it'll be your death too.'

Down below, Carik and Solon had waded out into the water for the motionless body of the Abbot as he drifted into the shore. Now they were lifting him from the waves.

‘I'll do anything you want, Dad!' Matt yelled, shoving his arms and legs deep into the mud to anchor himself.

Mesmerized, he watched his father tug the peryton higher, swinging some kind of lasso in tight circles above his head. A black orb the size of a football was attached to the end of the rope. It flew towards Jeannie's head where it whirred and clicked and popped open, dropping a mechanical net over her. The sides snapped against each other like teeth, locking Jeannie inside.

How is he doing this?
Matt wondered, lunging towards the swinging net.

But he wasn't fast enough. Malcolm and the beast galloped away through the air, dragging Jeannie behind them, vanishing into the clouds and leaving a ragged line of light like a scar in the sky.

Matt's body was caked in filth, his hair stuck to his scalp in thick clumps. A cut on his cheek was bleeding. But it was the pain inside his head that was making his teeth ache. He had failed.

He walked in defeat across the beach to where Solon was kneeling next to the Abbot.

Matt had never seen a dead body before. He slowed, unsure of what to expect.

Solon had pulled the Abbot's hood respectfully over his face, leaving only the old man's pale chin and wiry grey whiskers visible beneath the folds of cloth. His hands were tucked inside the sleeves of his robes and his arms folded in front of him. The wet material clung to his body like a heavy skin. It was clear that the fall into the sea from such a great height had broken him.

‘We must get his body somewhere dry and safe.' Solon's voice was thick with anguish.

‘After we find Brother Renard, we will lay the Abbot to rest. Then we deal with your father.'

Matt kneeled next to Solon, feeling more desperate than ever. ‘That man, that
monster
, is not my father. Whatever happened when I… I brought him here destroyed his mind… or whatever was left of it.'

‘No matter. He will pay.' Solon stood. ‘Help me carry the Abbot to higher ground. We must lay him somewhere safe, where animals can't reach him.'

Matt didn't reply but instead reached for a stick and sketched in the dry, hard-packed sand above the tideline. Within seconds, a simple plank coffin appeared.

‘You have broken the Rules again,' said Solon after a moment.

‘This is no time for the Rules,' said Matt.

Together they lifted the Abbot inside the coffin. Solon dug around in the rocks until he found two flat stones, placing them gently and reverently on the Abbot's eyes. Matt dropped the heavy lid.

‘It should keep out any animals until we can bury him properly,' said Matt.

Carik suddenly came sprinting round the rocky point.

‘RUN!' she screamed.

A line of knights in matching black armour, wings forged on their shoulders and silver spirals on their breastplates, was marching swiftly towards them behind Carik, their heads cowled in chain mail, each figure outlined in an eerie yellow light.

‘Animations!' said Matt in astonishment, scrambling to his feet. His father couldn't have imagined this army – he was a Guardian – so who had created them?

There were six knights, each one at least two metres tall, and marching with unnatural speed and an extraordinary choreographed precision, their bony joints visible through the chain mail. But it was their heads that horrified Matt.

Each had only half a face.

Matt's first idea was to imagine a machine gun, but he knew he couldn't. Gunpowder wouldn't make its way to the far corners of Scotland for another century at least, never mind rapid-firing guns. He'd already violated history enough. What could he do to fight these creatures?

Carik leaped up on to a ridge of rocks and released a flurry of arrows, hitting one or two of the knights in the back and puncturing their armour. The resulting wounds oozed a thick bubbling black liquid on to the sand, melting everything it touched as the knight dissolved to a hissing puddle.

‘Don't let that stuff touch you!' Matt yelled at Carik in warning.

It was too late. Carik screamed in pain when one of the creatures turned towards her, splashing the oozing tar on her hand and blistering the skin on contact.

‘It's some kind of incendiary ink, like sulphur and coal tar,' Matt began to explain to Solon. ‘It's burned her, though she'll be—'

But with a howl Solon had already charged among the five remaining skeletal soldiers, swinging and thrusting his broadsword, reducing one to fizzling liquid with a lucky stab to the image on its breastplate.

‘Aim for the breastplate!' Solon shouted, wiping the ink on his clothing.

Instantly the liquid ate through the wool of Solon's tunic. Matt could smell burning flesh as Solon screamed. Frantically the young monk ripped the cloth from his body and grabbed a handful of wet seaweed, pressing it hard against the smouldering wound.

The minions honed in on Matt, who had scrambled on to the jagged rocks that lined the shore. With no time to think, Matt used the tip of Solon's sword to scratch a weapon on the face of the rock.

This had better work.