Free Household by Florence Stevenson Page B

incomprehensible words in a loud ugly voice, yet there was an odd rhythm behind this deliberate cacophony. Richard could actually feel the strange strident music coursing through his veins. His ears were ringing, and oddly he found himself moving in time to it. He cast a glance over his shoulder and found that the whole procession was infected by that shrilling, pounding noise.
    The wind had risen. The sawing tree branches were silhouetted against a huge round moon and shards of clouds skittered across its white face. Some of his dizziness had left him, and Richard realized that the drug from the wine was wearing off. Concurrent with that realization, his captor’s arms fell away but he was borne onwards by the surging crowd behind him—the roistering monks and the giggling nuns.
    “To the caverns... the caverns,” someone yelled.
    “The caverns... the caverns,” other voices echoed shrilly, eagerly.
    Richard was being pushed down. He tried to fight against the pressure but fell on his knees, feeling sharp jagged rocks through the silk of his cassock. He was being urged to crawl over this sharpness through a narrow opening that he could barely see in the darkness. He tried to rise but stumbled and fell against a boulder. He was yanked to his feet and saw moonlight through a hole in a rocky wall. Just as he realized he was in some sort of a cavern, he was urged forward again by those behind him. He stumbled and fell down again, swallowing a groan as he scraped hands and knees together on crusty protuberances rising from the floor, little stalagmites gleaming orange under the light from torches stuck in brackets along the craggy walls, throwing a lurid glow on the faces of the assembly as well.
    “Catlin... Catlin... Catlin...” Richard roared and thought he heard a faint reply coming from a cavity in the wall, a few feet away. Staggering to his feet, he took a tentative step in that direction only to be pulled back by a small, strong hand on his arm.
    “Richard Veringer, stay here with me,” a low, insistent feminine voice urged.
    He turned and looked down, finding one of the so-called nuns beside him. She was short and dark and her eyes seemed filled with fire, but that, of course, was only the reflection from the torches. Her body was slender and shapely but failed to stir his senses. He thought of Catlin’s small, round breasts, those beautiful fruits from the trees of Paradise! Where had they taken her? Was she lost to him? He groaned deep in his throat, needing the relief, the release of his passions so summarily denied him. His head was spinning again, and he coughed as perfumed smoke entered his nostrils. Incense! They were burning incense in the cavern. He had heard that the stuff was used in Papist ceremonies. And now he saw little prie-dieus, prayer benches, lined up across the cavern. Was he in some manner of church? Sir Francis had said he was a nonbeliever, but if one recognized the existence of Satan, conversely one also believed in God. He moved forward again and almost bumped into a statue of the Virgin. Staring angrily at it, he noted something wrong with its profile and coming around the front saw that the face beneath the traditional blue veil was that of a hog with a tremendous snout and small red eyes! Laughter bust out of him. Even in the midst of his worry over Catlin, he had to appreciate the impudence of that unknown artist.
    The small nun stepped to his side, whispering that a ceremony was about to begin and that he must come back to the others.
    “What others?” he whispered, wondering at her evident nervousness.
    “Come!” She grasped his hand, pulling him toward the back of the cavern. “You must not be conspicuous,” she warned. “You’ll anger them and they are already angry.”
    “Who are they, and why are they angry?” he asked. “They are always angry on these nights—angry and dangerous. They’re frightened, you see.”
    “Of what?”
    “You’ll understand