Watson, Ian - Novel 08 by The Gardens of Delight (v1.1)

breast where the
unicorn must have thrust against her to free its long horn.
                 “Dead. She’s dead!”
                 “I
can see that,” snapped Muthoni. Kneeling, she rubbed her fingers in the grass
to clean them. She swung round. “Is she really dead, Jeremy? I mean, dead for
ever?”
                 The
once-Captain shook his head. “Not unless God hasn’t got you in his register. You being strangers—new arrivals.” “But if He has . . . registered us?”
                “Oh, so now you do want to believe
in Him!” Jeremy seemed to have been overcome by a mood of argumentative piety
since his sojourn in the grotto—as though he was about to be saved, though from
what (or for what) was hardly clear, perhaps least of all to him. Denise’s
death at least proved to him that something important was about to
happen—unless it already had, in his absence ... He grinned crookedly. “She’ll
have to pass through Hell, that’s what.”
                 “He’d
send her to Hell? Why, the vicious—!” Muthoni stroked Denise’s Primavera hair:
her joy upon awakening, her gift from the cold. Then she closed her eyes
tenderly with finger and thumb.
                 “You
have a warped understanding of the purpose of Hell.”
                 “Isn’t
Hell painful, then? Doesn’t it hurt? How can it be Hell if it doesn’t hurt?”
                 “Meeting
one’s own deep self is often a painful thing. One must step into that furnace.”
                 “Don’t
be so goddam holy about murder!”
                 “You
want me to tell jokes? Here’s one: perhaps Denise is feeling a bit holy herself
right now? She has a big enough hole in her chest! Which is a
bit of a holy joke in the circumstances. ” Jeremy laughed asininely.
There was a bitterness in his laughter as though he
had just been elected to play the buffoon at the foot of a crucifixion. Or was
it ... a fear? A fear that he might also be so honored?
                 “We’ll
hunt that bloody unicorn,” vowed Sean, ignoring him. “We’ll nail it. It’s the
danger-beast.”
                 “But
it’s innocent,” protested Jeremy sweetly. “It was only an instrument in His
hands.” It was impossible to tell whether he was being serious or sarcastic.
                 “It
killed Denise. So we’ll hunt it. We’ll take Knossos at his word—we’ll hunt danger. Come on,
it’s getting away.”
                 “But what about Denise? Do we just leave her here for the hyenas?”
Muthoni clenched her fists. “What hyenas? Nothing here eats flesh.”
                 “Look,”
pointed Jeremy. “Look before you leap.”
                 A
gaggle of men had appeared over the brow of the hill, on the run. They were
bowed down under the weight of a great black half-open oyster shell. The shrike
flapped ahead of them, leading the scrum with its cries. Ignoring Sean and
Muthoni, it landed upon Denise. It bent its neck and, with its beak, deftly
reopened her sightless eyes. Grunting and puffing, the men arrived. They laid
the open bivalve down beside Denise then stood back, grinning and mopping their
brows. Both valves of the oyster were plump with milky flesh. The nacre around
the shell rim shone iridescently blue and silver.
                 “Who
are you people?” screamed Muthoni.
                 Paying
no attention to her, then thrusting her back when she
actively got in the way, three of the men picked Denise’s corpse up and slid it
right into the open shell. They pressed down on the upper valve, closing this
coffin lid upon her.
                 “Where
are you taking her?”
                 Grunting and heaving, but with no explanation, the undertaker team
hoisted up the oyster shell again, maneuvering it on to their backs. Thus bowed down,