“What are you doing back here?” Jude said. “We know
there’s only one way in.”
“Barred and bolted,” she said. “I’m thinking there may
be some other entrance to the cellar under the turf, even if
it’s only a ventilation pipe. The first thing we should do is
locate Celestine’s cell.”
“How do we do that?”
“We use the eye that took you traveling,” Clara said. “Come on, come on, give it over.”
“I thought it was too tainted to be touched.” “Not at all.”
“The way you looked at it. . .”
“It’s loot, my girl. That’s what repulsed me. It’s a piece of women’s history traded between two men.”
“I’m sure Oscar didn’t know what it was,” she said, thinking even as she defended him that this was probably untrue.
“It belongs to a great temple—”
“He certainly doesn’t loot temples,” Jude said, taking
the contentious item from her pocket.
“I’m not saying he does,” Clara replied. “The temples
were brought down long before the line of the Godolphins
was even founded. Well, are you going to hand it over or ;
not?”
Jude unwrapped the eye, discovering in herself a reluctance to share it she hadn’t anticipated. It was no longer as unremarkable as it had been. It gave off a subtle luminescence, blue and steady, by which she and Clara could see each other, albeit faintly.
Their gazes met, the eye’s light gleaming between them like the glance of a third conspirator, a woman wiser than them both, whose presence—despite the dull murmur of traffic, and jets droning through the clouds above—exalted the moment. Jude found herself wondering how many women had gathered in the glow of this light or its like down the ages: gathered, to pray, or make sacrifice, or shelter from the destroyer. Countless numbers, no doubt, dead and forgotten but, in this brief time out of time, reclaimed from anonymity; not named, but at least acknowledged by these new acolytes. She looked away from Clara, towards the eye. The solid world around her suddenly seemed irrelevant—at best a game of veils, at worst a trap in which the spirit struggled and, struggling, gave credence to the lie. There was no need to be bound by its rules. She could fly beyond it with a thought. She looked up again to confirm that Clara was also ready to move, but her companion was glancing out of the circle, towards the corner of the tower.
“What is it?” Jude said, following the direction of Clara’s gaze. Somebody was approaching them through the darkness, in the walk a nonchalance she could name in a syllable: “Dowd.”
“You know him?” Clara said.
“A little,” Dowd said, his voice as casual as his gait. “But really, there’s so much she doesn’t know.”
Clara’s hands dropped from Jude’s, breaking the charm of three.
“Don’t come any closer,” Clara said.
Surprisingly, Dowd stopped dead in his tracks, a few yards from the women. There was sufficient light from the eye for Jude to pick out his face. Something, or things, seemed to be crawling around his mouth, as though he’d just eaten a handful of ants and a few had escaped from between his lips.
“I would so love to kill you both,” he said, and with the words further mites escaped and ran over his cheeks and chin. “But your time will come, Judith. Very soon. For now, it’s just Clara. . .. It is Clara, isn’t it?”
“Go to hell, Dowd,” Jude said.
“Step away from the old woman,” Dowd replied.
Jude’s response was to take hold of Clara’s arm. “You’re not going to hurt anybody, you little shit,” she said.
There was a fury rising in her the like of which she’d not
felt in months. The eye was heavy in her hand; she was
ready to brain the bastard with it if he took a step towards
them.
“Did you not understand me, whore?” he said, moving ,
towards her as he did so. “I told you: Step away!”
In her rage she went to meet his approach, raising her weighted hand as she did so, but in the instant that she let go of Clara he sidestepped her, and she lost sight of him. Realizing that she’d done exactly as he’d planned, she reeled around, intending to take hold of Clara again. But he was there before her. She heard a shout of horror and saw Clara staggering away from her attacker. The mites were at her face already, blinding her. Jude ran to catch hold of her before she fell, but this time Dowd moved to-wards her, not away, and with a single blow struck the , stone from Jude’s hand. She didn’t turn to reclaim it but went to Clara’s aid. The woman’s moans were terrible; so were the tremors in her body.