Call of the Kings Read Online Free PDF Page B

them was her former husband.
    Soon everyone in the party was shouting for Patrick Delaney and his wife to be cast into the infamous Devil’s Pit. The abbot used his good hand to hold the book up for silence. ‘So be it. The good people of Skellighaven have spoken.’ He turned to his monks. ‘They are both locked up securely in the monastery?’ ‘They are, Holy Father,’ four monks replied together. Turning back to the crowd the abbot beamed at them. ‘They shall be cast into the Pit at daybreak tomorrow morning. We would appreciate some volunteers to help us with the task.’ Once again Kate’s mother and her former husband eagerly pushed themselves forward to assist with the gruesome task.
    ‘May God bless you all for your strength and fortitude. We will meet here at first light.’ The abbot smiled beatifically at all of them, stepped down from the wooden box, and with his monks falling in behind him walked slowly back into the monastery with his head bowed.
    Later, back at the Avebury compound Katre spoke scathingly.
    ‘It’s nice to know that nothing changes and the same old treacherous deeds are still going on. There’s a hidden story here that I can shed a little light on. I’ve known Patrick Delaney and his wife, Nell, all my life. They’re good people and wouldn’t know a pagan image if it jumped up and bit them. Somebody, and I have a pretty good idea who, has planted such an image in their hovel and told that evil abbot and his nasty monks about it.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘My mother and that rat’s dropping of a former husband of mine.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Patrick and Nell have a nice big hovel and some good, well-watered land down by the river where they keep a big herd of breeding cattle. It was left to them by her father, who worked hard all his life to build it up to what it is today. They also have a nice copse of willow for weaving and a deep, clean water well. They’re after that, and with the evil abbot on their side they’ll get it.’
    Twilight looked at Tara and nodded encouragingly.
    ‘Oh no, they won’t,’ she said forcefully. ‘I remember Mister Delaney and Nell - they were always very kind to me and let me talk to their animals and roam around their land whenever I wanted to. That grandma and father of mine are evil people who I’ve punished before, obviously not enough for them to take notice. If anybody deserves to go into the Pit it’s them and that evil abbot.’
    Twilight chuckled.
    ‘We’ll see what happens in the morning then, shall we?’
    As daylight broke over the crashing waves of the Devil’s Pit the following morning, Katre, Tara, and Twilight once again arrived over the scene. Below them the villagers of Skellighaven, Kate’s mother and former husband prominent among them, struggled with Patrick and Nell Delaney. With their hands tied behind their backs and ropes looped around their necks, the doomed husband and wife were being dragged and kicked along the cliff path toward the highest point of the bay. Walking in front of them with his head bowed over his book as he chanted for the salvation of the pair was the abbot and four monks. His hooded cowl was back from his head and he shook his monk’s fringe with a great display of ardent fervour as he chanted. His words and those of the accompanying monk’s replies were whipped away on the strong, early morning breezes that came off the angry sea.
    Almost unconscious with grief and bewilderment at what was happening to them, Nell Delaney was being carried by an assortment of villagers, whilst her husband, who was being dragged along at the front, struggled to look back and offer some words of comfort to her. The monks arrived at the casting place followed by the struggling, carrying group. Marked by a small circle of stones, one of which the still chanting abbot mounted with his back to the sea, the group pushed Patrick to the front and carried Nell and removed the thick ropes around their necks. As Patrick Delaney and