Devil's Garden

Chapter 28

The sky was low that day when he arrived, the long causeway leading the way across the South Low where it meandered into the sea. At low tide there was a mile or more of mud flats here, until the causeway rose on the far banks of Holy Isle. At high tide the low was entirely submerged by the sea, cutting the island off from the greater shore of England to the west. To this day the tides dictated access to the isle, and now they had gracefully withdrawn for his Lordship, Sir Roger Ames, the Duke of Elvington, who passed quickly over the narrow way in his town car.

The bare windswept stone of the island greeted him, called whinstone by the locals. It was a hard and durable rock, and it had hidden secrets here from the world for many centuries. He passed beneath the Snook along the narrow neck of Holy Isle, following the narrow road as it hugged the coast through the village, past Riding Stone and Cockle Stone to the castle at Lindisfarne on Beblowe Crag. Cobblestone as it ended, it would take him all the way the boat houses, three herring boats cut in half and set upside down on the green earth. The gap was walled in and a door installed. How quaint, he thought.

There he would thank the driver, and have his effects moved up the long flat stairs to the lower battery of the castle itself, where he had so arranged it that he would have the entire facility to himself. If Mister Thomas was prompt, he should be waiting for him to move the luggage. The driver would be dismissed before high tide, and it would be just he and Thomas left alone at the castle, on the eve of their great adventure.

They would take their meal, all arranged and set out at that very moment on the long oval table of the dining hall. It sat at the edge of a great hearth stretching in a wide arch, with stolid brickwork rising to the vaulted ceiling. It was once an old bread oven, but it would hold a nice fire and warm their meal. He had a mind to tour the ‘ship room,’ where a rustic model of an old tri-mast frigate was hung from the arched stone ceiling, as if it were sailing there in formation with 17th century Dutch candelabra chandeliers. After that they would spend a few quiet hours of quiet in the upper gallery. There were some old books to pass the time, and a lovely cello he might play, listening to the sound echoing in the empty halls of the castle.

Ian Thomas got quite a kick out of the ship room. “My, look at that, it’s as if a ghost ship were sailing through the room, sir.”

“Indeed, Mister Thomas. Wouldn’t you be thrilled to ride on a ship like that?”

“I certainly would, sir.”

“Well, that may soon be arranged.” The Duke let that hang, a subtle clue to the business ahead, which had Thomas very curious to learn more. Yet he knew enough not to probe. He would be told anything the Duke decided he needed to know in good time. So instead he kept to the particulars of their immediate schedule. After a sumptuous dinner they shared a glass a brandy in the upper gallery until the Duke stood up, looking at his pocket watch.

“Will we be leaving the castle tonight, your grace? Shall I arrange for a car?”

“In a manner of speaking…but no, a car will not be necessary. I should like to walk the shore for a time and see if I might happen upon old Saint Cuthbert stringing his beads. Would you be so kind as to see the luggage gets up to the small bedroom off the long gallery? You’ll find it right on the landing at the top of a narrow stairway there, just outside the gallery on the upper battery.”

“Right away, sir.” Apparently they were staying the night there at the castle.

As evening fell the Duke walked in the walled garden, once a vegetable garden for the castle garrison, enjoying the cool sea air on this last night. He would end with a final walk on the stony shore as the darkness settled in, listening to the sound of the surf on stone and the cooing of the fulmars roosting there. At one point he thought he heard the distant barking of a dog and looked to see what he thought was a white shepherd roaming near the edge of the castle, but it seemed to vanish in the mist.

There had been an old priory on the island dating to the 600s, long before the castle was built many centuries later in the 1500s. Venerable saints like Adian and Cuthbert both preached the Gospel from the isolated island base, finding it a special place to withdraw from the world to commune with the sea, and their God. Adian died there and his remains were buried beneath the ruins of the old Abbey, and it was said that Cuthbert had a vision that night of the saint being taken to heaven by Angels.

Yes, the place has always been a portal between this world and others, the Duke thought as he walked. The Angels come and go, and the saints take their repose here while the monks painstakingly copy their glorious Gospels. He had always been fond of the Lindisfarne Gospel, and had even tried to acquire it at one point in his career. I may accomplish that yet, he thought to himself, but not here…not now.

The Monks fled when the Vikings came, and were said to have wandered for generations, carrying with them the body of Saint Cuthbert. The Vikings almost made an end of the place when they ravaged the shore, and Lindisfarne was uninhabited for all of two centuries until the intrepid Benedictine Monks returned.

The sun set very late that day, at well near eight ‘o clock, and the new moon was not yet up, so the night was thick after darkness came. The Duke walked alone on the quiet shore thinking of all he had done in the years past, the slow but steady rise to wealth and fame, his acceptance as a Peer of the Realm, which was most unusual for anyone outside the Royal Family in modern times. Yes, he thought, I will be hard pressed to do any better in the years left to me, but at least I shall have the thrill of the hunt back again. I was getting a bit jaded at the top of the tree. Time to live again.

He breathed in the cool sea air and quietly said goodbye to the life he had brought to this place, and to the whole of the world beyond the shores of that isolated, holy isle. Then it was up the long wide stairs to the castle again, the approach leading to the pantry on the lower battery and through the kitchen to find the stairway up to the second level. The castle as it stood that day had been lovingly restored by the noted architect Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1902, who fashioned an Edwardian home on the upper floors They would catch a few hours rest in the bed chambers there and then rise in the dark well before dawn, with the crescent moon low over the submerged tidal zone on the muddy shores leading up to Fulwark Burn and Buckton. It was the last moon, he thought, the moon of the Ninth Day.

Mister Thomas had placed their luggage in the small bedroom as directed. They warmed themselves with a cup of hot tea in the kitchen before they left. Then the Duke led the way to the back of the narrow room by the gallery where there was a small closet.

“I’ll just be a moment,” he said quietly, stooping to enter alone, his hand tucked into the pocket of his outer coat. He soon emerged, a wry smile on his face and a gleam in his eye.

“Well, Mister Thomas, are you ready?”

“Certainly, sir. I’ll take the bags downstairs right away. Will there be a car coming for us this morning?”

“No, my good man. You may bring the luggage this way.”

To Ian’s surprise the Duke was gesturing to the open doorway of the closet. His first thought was that his lordship intended to leave the bags there for safekeeping, and that they might then pass the day here sightseeing on the island. Yet as he entered the narrow door he felt a sudden chill, a distinct draft of cold air rising. The Duke was right behind him.

“I’ll take that bag,” he said, holding up a small flashlight that now illuminated a dark portal at the very back of the closet. “Two is a bit much to manage on this stairway. There’s a small landing just inside the entrance. Pause there, please, while I secure this door. And do mind your step, Mister Thomas. The stairway is somewhat treacherous, and it’s a long way down.”

Thomas had heard of secret passages in old castles-every boy had dreamed of them at one time or another. Well, here was a fairly good one right at his feet! He assumed it was a hidden back stairway that would take them to the north end of the castle. Why the Duke wanted to take this dark, narrow stairway he did not know. As they stepped through the entrance to the landing the jittery light revealed the topmost flight of stone cut steps, very steep and narrow. Cobwebs draped across the narrow way, and the place could have done justice to any haunted house. The Duke handed him a folded umbrella.

“There you are, my man. Swipe aside those cobwebs with this. If you would be so kind as to lead, I’ll light the way as best I can.”

“Very good, sir.” Ian lifted the bag he was to carry, still thinking this was an odd way to make their exit, with the Duke carrying the last of their luggage. The sound of the upper closet door closing behind them had a certain finality about it, though he didn’t know why he felt that way.

Down they went, thirty steps to another stone landing and a second door. The Duke set down his bag and stepped up, quickly inserting a small metal skeleton key into the lock there with a strange click and what sounded like a quiet electronic tone. “And yet another flight,” he said as the doorway creaked open on dry metal hinges.

The sound echoed up the dark stone stairway behind them, and Ian could now see that this second flight angled off to the left in a new direction. Well that will at least point us towards the cobblestone road when we get down, he thought. The door closed behind them again with a metallic click this time, and it was thirty more steps down, and very steep, growing colder as they went.

“Ground level,” said the Duke with a smile where there was yet another door, opening on yet another flight of stairs, darker and more foreboding than any they had traversed. How very odd, he thought.

“Now we get to the heart of the matter,” said the Duke, setting down his bag. “Mister Thomas…Are you certain you wish to accompany me on the journey that now lies before you? It begins here, and may not end for a very long time.”

“Sir, you have my full commitment.”

“The circumstances may be hard on us both at times.”

“I understand, sir. You may rely on me entirely.”

The Duke took a long breath, then spoke a quiet verse of poetry, as if to christen their adventure: “If there be spirits in the air that hold their sway between the earth and sky, descend out of the golden vapors there and sweep me into iridescent life. Oh, came a magic cloak into my hands to carry me to distant lands, I should not trade it for the choicest gown, nor for the cloak and garments of the crown…”

Thomas gave him a bemused look.

“Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, Mister Thomas. From Faust. We’re about to sell our souls to the devil, my good man. Good then. Let’s get on with it.” He gestured to the stairs, lighting the way again with his small LED flashlight.

Down they went, into dense, musty cold that seemed to find a way quickly through their coats and vests and chilled them to the bone. Ian felt a brief sensation of dizziness as they reached the bottom, feeling just a bit claustrophobic in the constricted space.

What’s wrong with me, he thought? I spent days and days digging out that narrow tunnel to fetch Churchill’s ashes for this man, and never felt a twinge of anything like this. Yet something about the space was deeply unnerving, the quiet, the dark, the cold of decades lying here in this narrow way. They were in a long stone hall now, and this time the Duke edged past him to lead the way. It curved round to the left again, and then began to slowly angle up in a gradual climb. Ian had lost his sense of direction by now in the dark, but he reasoned they must still be beneath the castle. Another door barred the way ahead, which the Duke quickly opened with his strange key.

“Quite a maze down here, your grace. I had no idea these passages were this extensive beneath the castle.”

“You’re in good company, Mister Thomas, because no one else knows about them either-at least no one that matters. Here now, the final door. Just let me get this key out of my pocket again and we can begin.”

* * *

Two other men were also on a narrow stairway at that very same moment, though they were thousands of miles and long decades away. Captain Volkov led the Englishman up the main stairway to his room, searching it quickly and then hustling the man down the dark back stairway. Where has that proprietor gotten himself to, thought Volkov as they went? Where are my men? This whole situation was very odd, and most irregular. Who were those imbeciles posing as NKVD? They paid a very high price for their little reenactment, whatever they were doing here. He was intent on locating his men and getting to the bottom of this mess. There would be a report to file now. The local authorities would have to be called in, and the coroner. Yet he was certain his position would absolve him of any wrongdoing here. Those men had interfered with a naval officer, and threatened him at gunpoint. They got just the same in return. It was purely self-defense.

The dining room they found themselves in was obviously the same room Volkov had been in before. He could tell by the window arrangement, but now it was all strangely different. The windows were shattered, and an amber glow from outside was illuminating the room. What was going on here? Where were the bodies of those idiots he had to deal with here a moment ago?

Volkov was tensely alert now, and Byrne could feel his hand tighten painfully on his shoulder. They moved to the front desk, and Volkov studied the situation carefully. No one was there, just a register open on the desk, a pen there as if it had been dropped at a moment’s notice. Where was that serving girl that had been cowering behind the desk? She probably ran off when things got violent. Gunshots will have that effect, so he thought nothing more about the fact that the lobby and foyer were deserted now. He squinted at the scrawled handwriting in the register, noting the names there: Lt. Hans Koeppen, Ernst Maas, Hans Knape, and the date was very odd in the registry, 30-6-08. Sure enough, he saw the name Byrne there as well. The Englishman was telling the truth.

“Koeppen,” he said aloud. “The thirtieth of June? The year is obviously wrong. 2008?”

“One of the contestants,” said Byrne, glomming on to the information as if to buttress his story with this strange and dangerous looking man with a gun.

“Contestants?”

“In the Great Auto Race, sir. The race I am here to report on.”

“What are you talking about, you fool? There is nothing of the kind underway here…” He had no knowledge of the famous historical event, a grueling race from New York to Paris, and not crossing the Atlantic, but heading west across the United States, the Pacific, Siberian Russia and all the way to Paris through Asia and Europe. The last three cars had endured the waist deep mud of Siberia, to get this far, and the German team was now in second place, trying to catch up with the speedy Thomas Flyer car of the American team.

The more Volkov looked about him, the stranger everything seemed. There was no computer at the front desk, the furnishings, lamps and chairs, were all antiques, though wonderfully restored. Everything was different, and the calendar… another oddity obviously there for decor. They were making this place out to be an old inn from centuries past.

“Where is everyone?”

“Probably out near the tracks, sir, where I should be. The Protos is leaving this morning. That’s the German team’s car. I was just running upstairs to fetch my notebook when I found the door locked on the upper landing and began knocking to see if I could gain access. Then you appeared with that other older man, and…well, I’m very confused, sir. Are you with Mironov?”

“What? Mironov? I am with the Russian Naval Intelligence, and I have had more than enough of this nonsense. Is this Mironov the associate you spoke of earlier?”

Byrne followed what Volkov said as best he could, in spite of the fact that his Russian was limited. Yet he heard enough to realize this man was an intelligence officer, and Mironov’s warning about the Tsar’s secret police, the Okhrana, rose as a warning in his mind now. “He was just another boarder,” he said, not knowing what else to say. “I had breakfast with him. I thought perhaps that you were with his party.”

He had seen Mironov go up the stairs after that other strange man left them, the one who called himself Fedorov. Then Mironov appeared again, a troubled look of astonishment on his face. He said nothing, striding quickly across the dining hall and out the main entrance there by the front desk.

Now Volkov seemed to be peering outside. “Through that door,” he said gruffly, nudging Byrne out. They emerged to find the northeastern sky still aglow with a strange light, as though there had been some tremendous explosion there and the whole taiga forest was set aflame. There was still a distant rumble of thunder in the air, as though from a cannonade, or more explosions.

“My God,” said Volkov as he stared at the sky. He could only think that a nuclear detonation could produce such a scene. “They’ve finally done it,” he breathed. “It’s begun.”