Chapter Sixteen
“Sin by inaction is as venal as sin by action in the eyes of the Lord.”
The bishop’s voice boomed out from the front of the chapel, loud enough for Beth to hear him from outside. She wanted to be in there, standing beside Andrew but there was no chance. The place was absolutely packed. Not only were most of the clan inside but two dozen MacLeishes had turned up and space had somehow been made for them but it took all the room there was to do it.
She had left Derek in the earthworks looking up at the castle walls. There was something odd in his manner and she was glad to be away from him. She had never fully trusted him since he slapped her that time in the tower and he had behaved particularly oddly the last couple of weeks.
Andrew had told her what he’d said about the beggar guiding her to the old hall but she had her own suspicions. After all, the words of the dying man had sounded like “Dirk,” which could have referred to the knife sticking out of him but could just as easily have been the word Derek.
She tried to put him out of her mind, taking a step back to admire the chapel. It had been a labor of love, taking up almost every waking hour as she’d wanted to get it just right for the bishop’s visit. Something told her this was the reason why she’d come back in time. God had a purpose for her and this was it. She had completed a new chapel and she had done it in time for the bishop’s visit.
He had originally been coming to check on the progress but with some quick calculations she realized it might be possible to finish it in time for his visit.
Sure, the mortar hadn’t set and the roof was still a work in progress but what the eye didn’t see, the master mason got away with. He wouldn’t mind the falsework anyway, he would understand that mortar wasn’t something you could will into setting. It took time but once it was done, if done right, it would last for centuries.
She thought of the old hall before the fire. She’d stood under her own vaulting work in the future and that had looked as good as on the day it was built.
The bishop was still talking. “Those that by their own inaction allow pain and suffering are as guilty in the Lord’s eyes as those who inflict it by their action.
Inaction would have left the old chapel standing but we stand today under this superb vault, glorying God above man with its simple grandeur and as I look up at the vault there is nothing between it and us, nothing between our prayers and God himself.”
Nothing but the falsework, Beth thought, trying once more to squeeze through the crowd in the doorway, hoping for at least a glimpse of Andrew. She could picture how he would look, so proud of what she’d done.
He loved her. The thought had woken her every morning and it had been the last thing on her mind before she slept each night. Etiquette dictated they remain apart come the night but she had not yet had to sleep in the hall with the majority of the castle residents. Instead, she’d been given a room at the top of the tower, eventually to become a guard room when the keep was finished but a place of her own until she went home.
The voice of the bishop faded away as she thought about going back. She had tried not to think about it, easy to do as she dedicated her every waking hour to getting the chapel done in time. Now it was done, the thoughts were creeping back in. She would have to go home to find her mother and look after her.
She wanted to stay but she couldn’t. She wanted nothing more than to lay in Andrew’s bed with him and feel those strong arms of his wrap around her, keep her safe from the perils of this time. After he rescued her in the wood, she felt as if nothing bad could ever happen again as long as he was around.
Something brought her out of her thoughts. A noise in front of her. Above the sound of the bishop she heard it again. A creaking groaning sound. It faded away to nothing.
The people inside the chapel hadn’t moved but she had a worrying feeling that the sound was that of stones shifting, pulling the wooden falsework with it. At least the falsework would stop any damage from occurring but once the service was over she would need to get the ladders out and examine where that noise was coming from.
“We bless this chapel and I bless personally the master mason. Where is Beth Dagless?”
“She’s here,” a voice said in front of Beth. People turned and looked at her, squeezing aside as best they could to let her walk into the chapel. She had to force her way forward and she was more than halfway through to the altar when she happened to glance up. She looked down, her stomach suddenly lurching as she glanced up for a second time. She hadn’t been imagining it.
The falsework was gone. The arches were not being supported. It was the stonework that had groaned and it was groaning because the mortar hadn’t set. How long had the falsework been gone? Who removed it? She froze in place, the bishop calling her over from a long way away.
“We have to get out,” she said at once.
It was like a bad dream. Everyone just looked at her but no one moved. Did they think she was joking?
“We have to get out, now!” she shouted, waving toward the door.
“Come and be blessed, my child,” the bishop said behind her. “God praises you for your glorious work on His chapel.”
She scanned the crowd quickly as the ceiling above her groaned again. A quick look up and she saw the cracks spreading, the keystone right above her head had shifted two inches downward. Any further and it would come out, taking the rest of the ceiling with it.
Andrew suddenly appeared next to her. “What is it?” he asked. “Why do you look so worried?”
“The ceiling,” she said, pointing upward. “It’s coming down. You have to get them all out of here right now.”
He looked where she was pointing as the people continued to stare without moving. There was a louder noise and a few of the crowd looked up, spotting the stones starting to shift and shake, dust beginning to fall from them.
“Dinnae shout,” Andrew said to her. “They’ll panic and be crushed in the doorway. “This way.”
He grabbed hold of her and pulled her through the crowd toward the open door. As they went he spoke low to the people nearest to him. They began talking to others and a ripple spread through the crowd.
