Free The Sin Eater by Sarah Rayne Page B

Sheehan’s skin was flushed and shiny, and he was breathing harshly and painfully. Then, quite suddenly, he said, in a clearer voice than he had yet used, ‘You won’t succeed. I’m going to die. And it’ll be a dreadful death—’
    â€˜No, it’ll be fine,’ cried Declan, still furiously working to loosen one of the iron bars.
    â€˜People will have seen the fire,’ said Colm eagerly, ‘and they’ll be coming out here.’
    â€˜It’ll be too late. You aren’t going to get me out. But there’s one thing you can do – and this is a request from a dying man . . .’
    â€˜What—?’
    â€˜Absolve my soul from all its sins.’
    They stared at him, not understanding.
    â€˜No,’ said Colm. ‘You need a priest, and we’ll never get one out here in time.’
    â€˜There’s another way – it might be an empty superstition, but it’s one of the oldest beliefs known.’ Sheehan was standing as close to the window as he could; his hair was drenched with sweat and his eyes were violently bloodshot. ‘And it might save me from damnation—’
    Without thinking, Declan said, ‘Then you did do it? The stories are true about you beating the devil.’
    â€˜Let the legend live,’ said Sheehan, and incredibly a smile twisted his face so that for a moment they both saw the urbane, slightly mocking man they had met hours earlier. ‘And if it’s proof you want . . .’ He thrust a hand through the bars, seeming hardly to notice that the fierce heat from the iron burned his fingers. ‘Take what’s left.’
    â€˜What . . . ?’ Declan began, then saw it was the black King from the chess set.
    â€˜Take it and do what I’m asking,’ said Sheehan urgently. ‘I daren’t die with my sins all still with me. I
daren’t.
Don’t you know the devil never keeps his side of a bargain?’
    Declan hesitated, and it was Colm who nodded and reached out a hand to take the carved figure. Declan thought he shuddered as his fingers closed over it.
    Sheehan was doubling over, gasping and moaning. Mingled with the sweat pouring down his face were drops of thick yellow fluid. Exactly, thought Declan with horror, like when you bake an apple in the oven and the skin starts to split and the juices leak out. Then with what was clearly an immense effort, Sheehan said, ‘The old ritual – the ritual performed before Christianity even began. The ritual that’s in the Old Testament – you’ve had the monks’ teaching, you must know it. The Hebrew ritual of the scapegoat?’
    â€˜Yes – Aaron confessed all the sins of the Children of Israel over the head of a live goat,’ said Declan. ‘Then they sent the goat into the wilderness to die, believing it bore all their sins.’
    â€˜It’s in Leviticus as well,’ said Sheehan. ‘The sins of one are transferred to another. Do that for me now. Take on the burden of my sins.’
    â€˜But – how?’
    â€˜They’d do it with bread and wine,’ said Sheehan. ‘But if the stories are right, any piece of food and drop of liquid will serve.’
    Declan said, ‘I have an apple. And a wedge of soda bread.’
    â€˜Apples have juice. And bread is the staff of life. Do it, Declan.’
    â€˜Me?’
    â€˜Colm’s already half tainted with murder. The sin-eater has to be as innocent as possible. But oh God, hurry,’ said Sheehan. ‘I’ll be beyond sanity very soon.’
    â€˜Declan, you can’t,’ said Colm in an urgent whisper. ‘This is wrong.’
    â€˜But he’s going to die. He’s facing screaming agony. He
knows
he is. So if this makes him feel better, it can’t be so wrong. And he’s a priest, or he was once. Wouldn’t that mean he knows what he’s talking about?’
    â€˜Wouldn’t the devil