Dark North mkoa-3

by Paul Finch

  “There’s nothing else, my lord,” Lucan replied tautly. “Nothing at all as important to me as this. If you could see your way to making a judgment now?”

  “Now, sirrah?”

  “In a year’s time, it won’t matter either way.”

  “Excellent,” Bedivere said. “Then in a year’s time we’ll give you our decision.”

  “Enough, Bedivere,” Arthur interjected. Bedivere sat back, gripping his butchered arm with a grimace. Again, Arthur pondered, watching Lucan from under kneaded brows. “Wait outside,” he finally said. “Until I summon you.”

  Lucan bowed curtly and strode from the pavilion.

  Outside in the sunlight, the royal enclosure operated with its normal efficiency. Servants ran errands, squires polished armour, cooks cut vegetables and stirred broth. Alaric was seated nearby on a barrel, but jumped to his feet as Lucan approached. Lucan clasped hands behind his back and paced. He sought to look firm and resolute, but saw how he must have looked to his former squire: lost, worried, his future beyond his control.

  “I’m sorry all this has happened, my lord,” the lad said. “No-one deserves this less than you.”

  “Everything happens for a reason, Alaric. All we mortals can do is search until we find that reason. If the search takes us to perilous places, so be it.”

  “Nothing I can say will convince you to return home to Penharrow?”

  Lucan glanced at him, and briefly it seemed as if he was contemplating it. “No, lad. Penharrow no longer exists, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Alaric’s shoulders sagged, but he tried not to show it. “Wherever your search takes you, I’ll be there too. Every step of the way.”

  Lucan gave a forced smile as he paced, his thoughts already elsewhere.

  “All things considered,” Kay said, sipping wine, “I see no problem. He does have the right.”

  “Right to what?” Bedivere asked. “To murder his wife?”

  Arthur was surprised. “You think he’ll kill her?”

  “Don’t you, sire?”

  Arthur seemed unsure. “Has he done such a thing before?”

  “No,” Bedivere admitted. “But he’s never been slighted like this before.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Kay said. “Lucan is a savage on the battlefield, but there’ve been no complaints about his governorship of the March.”

  “Not recently,” Bedivere countered.

  “Besides,” Kay said to Arthur, “this Tribune Rufio is another of those Roman bastards on your death-list, isn’t he? He was at Camelot. He did his bit for the Emperor. How better than to send Lucan after him?”

  Arthur turned to Bedivere. “What is the basis of your concern?”

  Bedivere had no obvious answer prepared. “Well… he’s still wearing that damn wolf-fur. The battle’s over. What’s the purpose of it?”

  “It’s his insignia,” Kay replied.

  “His insignia!” Bedivere scoffed. “He inherited that mantle from his father, a monster by any standards. I’ve long feared he’s inherited more than that.”

  “Haven’t you yourself argued that he’s mellowed in recent times?”

  “Yes, but more recently still, Lucan was bitten by the Penharrow Worm,” Bedivere said. “Who knows what kind of effect it’s had? I mean, he even looks different.”

  “Looks can be deceptive,” Arthur replied.

  “I hope you’re right, sire.”

  “What this boils down to, Bedivere,” Kay sneered, “is concern for your family’s reputation.”

  “And concern that my brother’s soul will be lost,” Bedivere said.

  “Well,” Arthur rejoined. “As his earthly overlord, I can’t legislate for something he might do. He’s a knight of the realm — I can’t restrict his movements because he may commit a crime. Answer me this, Bedivere… if I were to refuse Lucan leave to go, would he not just go anyway?”

  Bedivere rubbed tiredly at his brow. “I fear he may, sire.”

  “Even though his lands, castles and titles would be forfeit for disobeying me?”

  “You may make such a ruling,” Bedivere said. “But the Northern March would beg to differ.”

  “Exactly my thoughts,” Arthur agreed. “I’ve just lost a sizeable part of my armed forces. I can ill-afford a civil war. Your brother’s been dishonoured and he needs to clean his name. Let him find his wife and kill the wretch who stole her.”

  “And if he causes havoc in the process, sire?”

  Arthur chuckled grimly as he poured himself a goblet of wine. “Beyond this tent, there are sixty thousand unburied corpses. Could your brother do worse than that?”

  Lucan was summoned back and informed of the King’s decision.

  “Of course,” Arthur added, “you may not take the entire northern host. That would denude my army too much. This war isn’t over yet.”

  Lucan nodded. “That’s as I expected, my liege.”

  “So how many men do you propose to take?” Arthur asked.

  “Thirty should be sufficient. All will come from my personal household.”

  “You have volunteers?”

  “I will have. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Very well.” The King nodded and waved Lucan away. Lucan withdrew, but glanced back when the King called after him: “Sir Lucan… I’ve given you leave to undertake this quest, but I want you to remember that you are a knight of the Round Table. You carry our status with you. It will not please me if it comes back tarnished.”

  Lucan regarded them coldly before bowing and leaving.

  When he got back to his own camp, Alaric had got there ahead of him, and was busy at the hewing block with his longsword.

  “Has Maximion returned?” Lucan asked.

  “He has, my lord. It seems he found his son slain in front of the stakes we used as baulks on the infantry line. He made a pyre from broken pikestaffs.”

  Lucan found Maximion sitting, hollow-eyed, on an upturned bucket.

  “At least you’ve returned,” Lucan said, “which means that your other sons will live.”

  Maximion nodded vaguely. “Now we’ve both lost someone close to us.”

  “You have the consolation that he was lost to a valorous deed.”

  “I’ll try to remind myself of that whenever I picture my youngest boy with his face cloven, his limbs dismembered, his chest laid open to the heart and ribs…”

  “You’re not devoid of guilt in this matter,” Lucan advised him. “You were happy enough to serve Rome when the conquests were easy. Presumably your sons were following your example?”

  Maximion glanced up at him. “And what part, I wonder, did you play, Earl Lucan, in your loss? Perhaps you’re not devoid of guilt yourself.”

  “Perhaps not.” It was easy to admit that now, Lucan reflected — to his own surprise. “In any case, if your son’s heroism is no consolation, you must find something that is — because duty calls. We depart for Castello Malconi first thing tomorrow.”

  Maximion rose to his feet. “Good.”

  “That pleases you?”

  “Most certainly. You think I wish to linger in this blighted place?”

  Twenty-Three

  Castello Malconi sat atop a pinnacle crag overlooking a deep, trackless valley; a great cleft through the Ligurian mountains filled with a rubble of fallen rocks.

  There was no access to it except from the north, via a passage wide enough for a coach and horses to pass along, which snaked for several miles between walls of rugged granite. Heavy iron portcullises were located along the passage at regular intervals, with guard posts on top of them. The passage ended at the edge of a cliff, and admittance could only be gained to the castle by a drawbridge spanning a terrifying crevasse. The entire structure was surrounded by an outer rampart built from massive slabs, crenellated and reinforced every hundred yards by turreted barbicans and raised timber platforms on which arbalest and ballistae were placed. The loftiest portion of Castello Malconi was the central spire, from w
hich streamed the family emblem — a black boar with a burning eye. From outside, Castello Malconi was faceless and sheer with no apertures or windows, scarcely even an arrow-loop. Inside, it was similarly soulless, its jumbled inner buildings forming a horseshoe around the deep inner courtyard. Cold stone was the order of the day, much of it black with age and mildew.

  But there was much more to the castle than met the eye.

  Back in the days of the first Caesars, when the Malconi family had constructed their stronghold as a bastion against the Germanic tribes beyond the Alps, they had mined deep into the virgin rock on which it was perched, creating subterranean barracks in which hundreds of soldiers could be billeted. A tunnel spiralled down to an extensive undercroft, where horses could be stabled and armour and weapons stored. Deeper still lay a suite of work-rooms and laboratories, wherein Malconi alchemists produced potions, poisons, gases and other mysterious, quasi-magical weapons for use against the insurgent tribesmen.

  In those days, Castello Malconi had echoed to the sounds of a Roman fort: trumpet calls, hobnailed sandals crashing as squads were called to attention, the clink of hammers, the grinding of whetstones. Now it stood in silence; at night, barely a candle-flame flickered from its parapets. As ruler of these lands, Duchess Zalmyra had baronial duties and a military obligation, but these responsibilities had been rendered null and void by the same Imperial decree that had stripped her battlements of their personnel and marched them off to war in the service of Lucius Julio Bizerta.

  There was only a handful of domestic servants; exclusively cripples, mutes and hunchbacks — the sort of unfortunates who could find employment nowhere else — with the one exception of Duchess Zalmyra’s monstrous personal bodyguard and valet, Urgol.

  Even now, as the hot July night brought thunderclaps and gushing rain, Urgol was hard at work in the bowels of the grim fortress. Here, at the deepest point, there was a place called the ‘Pit of Souls,’ a brick well of origins unknown, though from the sulfurous smoke constantly drifting up it, it surely descended to the mouth of Hell.

  The well was girded around its rim by a wooden walkway, little more than a ledge, with only a single rail to prevent one falling into it. Sconces had been carved into the encircling rock walls, green chemical fires writhing in each one, casting liquid patterns of light far down into the shaft and far above it, where cobwebs clustered as thick as dusty fabric, and spiders the size of dogs hung motionless in the shadows.

  The walkway was accessible from a single arched passage, which connected with Duchess Zalmyra’s work-chambers. Beside this entrance, a steel-grilled platform jutted out several feet over the Pit of Souls. Urgol was on top of it, his furry shape clad only in a leather loincloth. He had erected timber saltires — diagonal crosses — at either end of the platform, facing each other. When firmly in place, he checked the manacles at the tops and bottoms of their crossed beams, to ensure they were screwed in tightly. Behind him, from the arched passage, echoed the voice of his mistress.

  “Reged anthraloggabar… more-ud uvusona anaxus… torrodona laggo-tyburr…”

  It was a language he had never understood, though he had heard it many times. Even now it sent chills down his spine. On completion of his task, he ducked down the passage. At its far end, a fiery glow marked the entrance to the duchess’s chambers, somewhere he never entered unless he was specifically bidden.

  “Pegfal vus ga ravalax… stevros thralanto paiador…” the duchess incanted, her voice rising to a shriek. “More-ud uvusona anaxus!”

  He turned right and passed along another gallery, to the dungeons. Most were empty, their bars rusting. But in two of them were captives. The first was a woman in her mid-twenties, once a handsome creature but now naked and brutalised, covered with welts and grime, filthied by her own soil.

  Despite her piercing screams, Urgol entered the cell, took the woman under his arm and lumbered back towards the Pit of Souls. There he bound her to the first of the two saltires, her arms and legs spread-eagled. She wept and wailed piteously, jabbering that her name was Magdalena, that she was a good Christian and that she had a husband in the service of the Empire. They were simple folk, who had never done anyone wrong.

  It meant nothing to Urgol. His mistress’s commands were all.

  The second captive was a younger woman — little more than a girl, in truth — but of hardier stock. She too was naked and brutalised, but she fought him as he dragged her from her cell, spitting on him, calling him an “inbred freak.” She only began to weep again as he shackled her to the other cross.

  The two captives faced each other, only two yards between them. They were bathed in green light and dimly aware of the yawning shaft beneath their feet. Duchess Zalmyra emerged from the passage, her tall figure clad in a simple sleeveless robe of black cotton, belted at the waist. Her hair hung in loose, tar-black ravels. In the eerie light, her pale flesh was almost luminous. Urgol stood back as she surveyed the two prisoners. Briefly, they ceased their caterwauling; their tear-swollen eyes fixed on the beautiful, severe figure who would be the agent of their doom.

  Zalmyra produced a long, crooked knife, razor-sharp and glinting, and the two prisoners set up a new wailing and gibbering. Magdalena interspersed her floods of tears with stammered prayers.

  Duchess Zalmyra also prayed. “Pegfal vus ga ravalax… stevros thralanto paiador!” She joined her hands, the crooked blade pointed upward. “More-ud uvusona anaxus… BABI!”

  She swept out with the weapon, slicing Magdalena’s throat without a sound. The woman’s eyes goggled, and her head tilted backward as a frothing red tide cascaded down the front of her naked body, pouring through the grille and into the blackness below.

  Zara bit down on her tears and she too tried to pray. She had not lived a good life, short though it was. She had pleasured many men and women, and had imbibed foul and forbidden substances. She had cut purses and taken the Lord’s name in vain, but now, if there was time, she would implore His…

  The blade slit her windpipe as surely, swiftly and silently as it had Magdalena’s.

  “More-ud uvusona anaxus… STYMPHALIUS!” Zalmyra cried. Her eyes closed in ecstasy as the hot blood sprayed over her.

  Urgol watched from the green-tinted shadow as the sorceress hacked the two bodies open down their fronts, at last prying the ribcages apart and rending out pulsing hunks of crimson muscle. She slid the knife into her belt, and stood by the edge of the platform, a heart clutched in each hand, blood and steam jetting out of them. “Pegfal vus ga ravalax!” she called shrilly, dropping her gory offerings.

  A sudden shocking silence followed, lasting an age, the echoes of her exultation fading as she gazed down the shaft. An intense cold enveloped them, and Urgol stirred uneasily.

  “What ails you, my friend?” Zalmyra asked, not looking at him.

  “It is nothing, mistress,” he replied in his guttural voice.

  “Don’t lie to me, Urgol.”

  “I told you my fear before.” Even though she had specifically asked him, it was often difficult to gauge her mood, and the truth was not always appreciated. “These women might be missed. I’ve heard that Emperor Lucius is a pious prince, and that he will seek out the perpetrators of heinous acts…”

  Zalmyra smiled. Blood patterned her neck and face, and her emerald eyes shone with fanatical zeal, yet she was calm. There was no rage in her voice when she replied: “There is nothing heinous about what we have done. The strong take everything. That is the only law in times of strife.”

  “The Empire is strong too…”

  “The Empire has died, Urgol. This last week. Emperor Lucius is slain, and he took his empire with him.”

  Urgol did not ask how she knew this. His mistress had many complex devices: scrying-stones, crystal orbs, mirrors filled with swirling mist which gave glimpses of the future. But this was troubling news to him.

  Duchess Zalmyra held that she lived outside the laws of men, but it had long been a benefit to her family that the
y were grandees of the Roman Empire. He personally had no love of Rome. In the old days it had persecuted his people, chaining them to the oars of galleys or forcing them to fight to the death in the Great Circus. When the Christians came to prominence they had halted such cruelty, only to try and force his tribe to convert, driving those who refused into the hills, to live as wild men. But despite all this, a strong Rome was a useful ally in times of crisis.

  “Not that it would have stopped me, anyway,” Zalmyra said. “We Malconis have always forged our own path. I had no need for the Emperor’s approval. And no human life which is not of our lineage is worth any more to me than its sale-price.”

  An eerie, ululating howl rose from the depths of the well.

  “Speaking of which,” she said, “it seems the transaction is complete.”

  A chorus of inhuman squawking and shrieking carried up from the pit.

  “Step back, Urgol, into the far corner,” Zalmyra instructed. “Lest you share the same hideous fate I have arranged for the Black Wolf and his cohort.”

  Twenty-Four

  Earl Lucan’s party made their departure from Arthur’s encampment without fanfare.

  They were thirty in total, including himself and his scout, Maximion. The rest were his household knights and their squires, and a handful of longbowmen originally recruited from the Penharrow demesnes. Dawn mist still flooded the land as they rode out.

  The only person to see them off was Bedivere. He stood by the stockade gate, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Lucan reined up alongside him and dismounted.

  “Let her go, brother,” Bedivere advised quietly. “Haven’t you been tortured enough? You can’t force her to love you by violence.”

  Lucan pondered. “It’s not about love anymore.”

  “So what is it about… hate?”

  “You don’t understand, Bedivere. Because…”

  “Because what?” Bedivere interjected. “Because I’ve never suffered?” He held up his bandaged stump. “I’m a lesser man now than I was before.”