Midnight is a Lonely Place. Barbara Erskine

your putrid body and your rotten soul to judgement for what you have done here this day …

      She stared at the words blankly. She did not remember writing them. She hadn’t written them. They appeared in the text suddenly, arbitrarily, half way through a description of eighteenth-century Aberdeen.

      Pushing her chair back she stood up abruptly, conscious that her hands were shaking. Turning away from the screen she went back to the stove. Opening the doors she knelt in front of it and held out her hands, trying to warm them. It’s just a phrase that’s been whirling round in my head. I must have read it somewhere and it’s somehow lodged in my brain and I typed it out. Idiot. Idiot.

      Her eyes went unwillingly to the table drawer. For several minutes she tried to resist the urge to go over to it, then, giving up, she rose and went to switch on the lamp.

      Picking up the torc she took it back to the fire and, sitting down on the floor in front of the blaze she turned the piece of metal over and over in her hand. She was no expert, no archaeologist, but she knew enough to be fairly certain that this was a Celtic ornament; almost certainly silver and therefore once the property of a wealthy man; a man not a woman, judging by its weight and size. It was certainly not Roman, whatever Alison thought. So it did not belong to Marcus Severus. Had not belonged, she corrected herself at once. So, whose was it? What was it doing buried in the sand on the edge of Redall Bay? The British tribes who opposed Rome had been Celts. The Celtic world, which today is linked in the popular mind purely to Wales and Scotland and Ireland and Brittany, once covered the whole of Britain – the whole of Europe. East Anglia had been as Celtic as Gwynedd or Galloway. It had been the Saxon invasions that had overridden their traces in folk memory.

      She sat back, leaning against the sofa, drawing her knees up, the metal in her hands. It was warm now. The places where she had rubbed and scratched it glinted faintly in the firelight. She closed her eyes. This part of the country – this part of Essex – had been as Alison said the land of the Trinovantes, the tribe who had joined Boudicca and the Iceni in their revolt against Rome. Disillusioned and cheated by their Roman overlords in Colchester, they had not hesitated in rising up against the foreign oppressor. Had this torc belonged to one of them? A highborn Celtic lord? A prince? Was that his burial mound out there on the beach, lashed by the winter sea?

      And what had Marcus Severus Secundus to do with him?

      The sound of hail rattling against the window made her look up. It had grown quite dark outside. The lamplight reflected in the glass and suddenly the room felt very cold. She glanced at the fire. With the doors open the stove had consumed the logs she had thrown on earlier. Only ash remained. Rising to her feet she put the torc back into its drawer, closed and locked it, then she went to the window and, shading her eyes against the reflection she looked out. The glass was cold against her forehead. Cold and hard. The evening was totally black. Against the rattle of the rain and the howl of the wind she thought she could hear the crash of waves on the beach. With a shudder she stepped back and drew the curtains across. Then for the third time that day she built up the fire.

      She awoke in the early hours with a start. Her bedroom was very cold. The wind had risen and she could hear the sea clearly now. The waves crashing on the beach, the rush and rattle of shingle, and from the other side of the cottage – the western side – the thrash and creak of trees.

      She peered across the room. She had left the landing light on – a relic of that old fear of the dark – and she could see the outline of the door, the comforting wedge shape of light. For a minute she lay there staring at it, then she reached for the bedside lamp. Propped against the pillows, huddled beneath the blankets with her book and her glasses she felt warm and safe. She half relished the battering of the storm.

      A stronger than usual gust of wind flung itself against the window and she heard the groan and rattle of the glass and suddenly she was aware of the smell of wet earth. Bitter sweet, cloying, pervasive, it filled the bedroom. It was the smell of gardens, of newly-dug flower beds, of ancient woodlands.

      Groping for her dressing gown she reached for her slippers and padded across the room. Opening the door fully she peered out onto the landing. It was ice cold out there and unbelievably draughty. Frowning she went towards the stairs and looked down.

      The front door stood wide open.

      For a moment she stood transfixed. It was the wind. It must have been the wind, but the front door was on the sheltered side of the house. She ran down the stairs and threw the door shut. She had bolted it. Surely she had bolted it the night before? Sliding the bolt hard home she turned the key in the lock as well.

      The kitchen and the living room doors stood open, the rooms beyond, dark. She glanced at them with sudden misgiving. Supposing it wasn’t the wind that had thrown the door open? Supposing it was a burglar?

      Come on, Kennedy. Who would burgle this place? She went to the kitchen door and switched on the light. The room was empty, just as she had left it a few hours earlier, her dishes stacked in the sink, the kettle still – she put her hand on the metal and saw it cloud fractionally beneath her palm – a little warm. Switching it on she turned and went back to the hall. Immediately the smell of earth grew stronger. She paused for a moment, sniffing. The front door was shut and the smell should have lessened, but now it seemed to be coming from the living room.

      It was as she put out her hand to the light switch that she realised that there was someone in the room. Her mouth went dry. She held her breath, listening, aware that the other person was doing the same thing, painfully conscious that she was standing silhouetted against the bright light of the hall.

      It was a woman.

      She wasn’t sure how she knew; she could see no one, but suddenly her terror wasn’t quite so sharp. ‘Alison?’ Her voice sounded ridiculously loud and shrill. ‘Alison, is that you? What are you doing here?’ She found the light switch, clicked it on and stared round, her heart hammering under her ribs. There was no one there. The windows were closed, the curtains drawn as she had left them the night before and the woodburner was glowing quietly in its hearth, nicely banked – this time it would last easily until morning. But if the fire was alight, and the glass behind the door of the stove glowing, why was the room so deadly cold and where was the strange smell coming from? Biting her lip, she stared round again, before going cautiously into the room and looking quickly behind the sofa, behind the chairs, in the corners, even behind the curtains. All was as it should be.

      It was a last minute thought to check the drawer where she had put the torc.

      The lamp was no longer central on the table. Had she pushed it to one side like that, so it overhung the edge? So that one small push would have sent it toppling to the ground? She put her hand to the handle of the drawer and then drew back. The knob was covered in earth. Wet, rain-soaked earth. Cautiously, with two fingers, she pulled open the drawer. The torc and the piece of pottery were still there. They did not appear to have been touched.

      So it was Alison. She had suspected Kate’s theft and come back for her treasure. She probably had a key to the cottage. Hearing Kate moving about upstairs she had lost her nerve and run away. Shaking her head angrily, Kate wiped the handle of the drawer and pushed it closed. She gave one final look around the room and walked to the door.

      She was about to switch off the light when she became aware of another scent in the room beyond the smell of the wet earth. It was rich, feminine, musky. The scent a sophisticated woman would wear. She gave a wry smile. Perhaps even rude, boisterous, teenage girls showed signs from time to time of one day growing up.

       XII

      The decision was made; the sacrifice would be at Beltane. So would the gods be placated at last; the choice of victim to be given to them; he who took the burned bread from the basket would be the one who would die the threefold death.

       Nion laughed when he heard. He was young and strong and invincible. And he was in love. His body coursed with the red blood of passion. His skin took fire each time