Sword of Justice Read online

  When he looked under the bed, he saw the sword was out of its scabbard completely, and the letters were blazing with white fire.

  He ran downstairs, and grabbed the poker from the fireplace; he was nearly at the foot of the stairs again when he thought he might need more defence, and took the coal scuttle too, holding it out like a shield in front of him, and the poker over his head ready to strike. He stood outside the bedroom door for a good half hour before he dared open it, wide against the wall, stepping forward ready to strike; but the sword was lying on the floor, innocent, just dead metal on which the inscription was hardly visible, let along legible.

  He did wonder for a moment if he were going mad; but just in case, he pulled a sheet off the bed to wrap the sword with, and put both sword and scabbard inside the case, and locked it, and then for good measure took an old leather belt he sometimes tied his suitcase up with when he travelled, and strapped it firmly round the case. Dreams and runes, runes and dreams; there was something wrong here.

  He went straight to Janssen; it was the only thing he could think of to do.

  ***

  Janssen said it was a sword with a bad conscience.

  No, said Lawrence, it's my conscience is bad. He told Janssen about his small crimes, his petty treacheries, his feeling of unease.

  Janssen just laughed grimly. There's been much worse than that, he said.

  Then Lawrence told him about the dream of the holocaust; the tall empty houses with their curled gables, the high spire glinting in the background, the bodies, the blood, the cobblestones. He remembered suddenly a house with a golden cockerel above the door.

  At that, Janssen seemed suddenly shocked; but then, Lawrence thought, it had been a pretty bad dream.

  Yes, Janssen said, it has a bad conscience. When is Camlet coming back?

  Tomorrow.

  Well, we'll both sit up tonight.

  Both of us?

  Yes, Janssen said, determined. I'll come to you and we'll spend the night together. A vigil, if you want to call it that. We can keep each other awake.

  It can't do anything if we stay awake?

  No, said Janssen, but his eyes slid away from Lawrence's.

  ***

  Past three in the morning and they were still up, Janssen on one side of the table and Lawrence on the other. The room was stuffy and warm; they'd lit twenty candles, and the oil lamp, to fill the room with blazing light. The sword was upstairs; Lawrence wasn't happy about that, but Janssen refused to have it in the room with them. Anyway, they'd left the door to the passage open, so they'd see anyone trying to steal in.

  Janssen was laying out a game of solitaire again. He'd not got it out once this evening. Lawrence was trying to read Pudgley's work on ecclesiastical architecture, but the chapter on symbolism was full of engravings of headless saints or martyrs undergoing torture, and when he flicked forwards to find a more cheerful subject the book fell open at a picture of Death, the pale rider on a white horse. In the end he put it down and simply listened to the slow ticking of the long-case clock, its weight slowly winding down towards the dawn.

  He felt as if the night was a long unlit road through a featureless landscape, and he was trudging slowly, interminably, down it, with no hope of ever arriving. Then he was dreaming the road, the wide blank plain under a bleak moon, the misty horizon which hid any destination;and he knew someone was walking by his side, but he could not turn his head to see who it was.

  Then Janssen was shaking him, standing over him and shaking him.

  Wake up, wake up, he was saying; you've got to stay awake.

  So Lawrence got up, and shook his limbs and stamped for a minute to get some life back in his body.

  Do the crossword, Janssen said. That'll keep you awake.

  I did it already.

  Do the quick one, then.

  That won't take long.

  Well, you could find better reading matter than that. Janssen prodded the corner of Lawrence's book with distaste, moving it across the table.

  I'll do that, Lawrence said, and went over to the bookshelf. He considered one book, then another, but he was too tired really to want to read; still, he had to do something. He looked at the clock. Quarter to four. As good this one as any, he thought, and pulled out a set of memoirs of some gentleman from the last century; he could remember having read them once, but could remember nothing of what was in them.

  He settled down again in his chair. He could hear the flick, flick, flick of Janssen dealing the cards. "In the spring, our maid drowned in the millpond. She was with child." He turned over a few pages. "Mr Mathewson of the Grange was killed on Monday when his horse fell on leaping a six foot fence." A gloomy book, Lawrence thought; did he have any that weren't? A soft swish announced the shuffling of the pack. On another page, the gentleman's fourth child expired, having drawn breath just five hours and twenty words. The clock struck four.

  About twenty past four, he was startled by a coal that rolled from the fireplace on to the floor. He picked it up in the tongs and set it back on the fire, which was burning down now, just crackling red embers left. He noticed about half the candles had guttered out.

  More deaths in the family. On page sixty-two, a boar got loose from its sty and ate two of a poor farmer's children before it was found and killed. The oil lamp began to flicker. Ten to five.

  He must have dozed again, for next time he looked at the clock it was daylight. The lamp had burned down, and only two candles were left alight. He stood up, thinking of hot coffee and feeling the tiny stabbing of cramp in his legs. Janssen was very quiet; he'd nodded off, his head on the table with one arm under it, and the other wrapped round his neck. But Lawrence saw the cards in a neat pile in front of him. He must have finished the solitaire before he'd fallen asleep.

  Janssen?

  He'd never thought Janssen was a heavy sleeper. Still, if he'd been awake all night... It would be kinder to wake him later, Lawrence thought, and went through to the kitchen.

  He was happy now, the stove stoked, the kettle whistling. He opened the coffee tin, and put his nose right up against the lip of the tin to smell the coffee; it was bitter and strong. One, two, three, he counted the spoonfuls into the coffeepot, and then on a whim, counted the rest in German, vier, fuenf, sechs, and a half to be lucky.

  Two saucers. Two cups. Milk for Janssen. None for him. A lump of the soft fudge-like sugar for him. None for Janssen.

  The water hit the coffee; his nostrils prickled with the dark aroma. A biscuit each; no, he thought, two, we've been up all night. It's not breakfast, really, but two biscuits, none the less.

  He went through, set the tray on the table, put Janssen's coffee in front of him. Janssen still wasn't awake.

  Come on, Janssen. We've made it. Time to wake up.

  There was no response. Lawrence sipped his coffee. He heard steps in the street outside. The clock began to chime; seven o'clock, no, eight, and as the silvery bell finished, he heard the cathedral clock begin its strike with a low, hollow tone.

  He reached across the table to Janssen's outstretched hand. It was completely cold.

  He'd thought the horror was over. He'd thought he'd hand over the sword and that would be it, he could get on with what was left of his life. The numismatic society on Tuesdays, and a drink in the Gog and Magog every Thursday, and his rescheduled day of research in the archives. The even tenor of his days. But here was Janssen, dead and cold, and this was worse than any of the dreams, unless this was a dream too; things had slowed down, he realised he was still holding on to Janssen's dead hand, things had taken on that dream-like quality, and now there was banging on the door and a voice shouting from a very long way away.

  "What kept you?" Camlet was saying. Then Camlet saw his face, and was silent, and put his arm very gently round his shoulders, and took him to his chair and sat him down and put his hands, which didn't seem to work any more, in his lap.

  At least it's him, not you, Camlet said, and
pushed a folded newspaper across the table.

  It took Lawrence a while to understand it. Van Tuyll Found, the headline said. Van Tuyll had disappeared like a wisp of smoke in the air, but it didn't stop the newspapers 'finding' him from time to time. He'd be an old man now, like Lawrence, and Camlet, and Janssen...

  You know, he would have died anyway, Camlet said.

  He was ill? You never mentioned it.

  Camlet shook his head sadly. Read on, he said.

  They'd found Van Tuyll here. Here in this city. Living under the name of Jan Janssen.

  He wouldn't have hurt a fly, he said, uncomprehending.

  Camlet's mouth quirked up at one side unhappily. You couldn't have called it a smile.

  But he did, he said. We know that.

  And they did; they'd read the stories, of the siege of Malines, and how the rune-writers had killed the entire population before the city was retaken. And they both knew Van Tuyll was involved - if Janssen really was Van Tuyll. There was always that hope, that Janssen was after all just what he'd seemed to be, an inoffensive Stranger who'd not achieved much with his life, who sometimes told lies just to seem that little bit more important, and not to hide any dark secret...

  But somehow Lawrence knew the truth. And when they went to fetch the sword, and Camlet unsheathed it, they knew for certain.

  The letters of the inscription glowed silver, not flickering but solid and strong; fides et iustitia, faith and justice. And the blade of the sword was covered in blood.

  About the Author

  A M Kirkby writes fantasy, SF, and historical fiction, as well as children's books.