by Sarah Rayne
“Anyway,” said Sean briskly, “here we are. The Sun Chamber. You’ll remember to keep the Mindsong quenched, won’t you? I know you’re not traitors — at least you don’t look like traitors and you don’t smell like traitors either. But the King’s very acute now and again. Remarkable really. But I mustn’t say that. People do gossip and I wouldn’t put it past Bricriu to have the sidh in his pay. It would be easy to secrete them into the palace wouldn’t it? And you know what sidh are; they’ll do anything to get into a man’s bed for a night. We all know where that leads! Not that there aren’t some who’d argue that it’s a preferable end to the Miller’s cages and the Erl-King’s banqueting table.
“Well, here it is, my friends. The Sun Chamber of the High Kings of Ireland. Medchuarta. The heart of the Manor of Tara.” He swung the doors wide and a blaze of light streamed before their eyes.
*
To Flynn and Amairgen, coming from the darkness of the Forest and the comparative dimness of the gatekeeper’s room, that first glimpse of the great Sun Chamber was a massive assault on their senses. Blinded and made breathless, they were sent gasping and helpless into a whirling maelstrom of living colour, breathing light, and pulsating beauty. Flynn thought: I am drowning in a sea of brilliance. I am smothering in light.
He took a deep breath and the world steadied, and although his eyes were still dazzled and sunspots and starbursts danced against black velvet in his mind; although his senses were still intoxicated and reeling, he managed to square his shoulders and look about him.
The Great Sun Chamber of Tara had been built when Tara was raised out of the rock by the sorcerers. It was told how Dierdriu of the Nightcloak had somehow bargained with them to create for her a Hall of Light, a marvellous glittering banqueting hall, a Grianan which would dazzle and bewitch everyone who ever entered it, and which would make Tara into a palace so brilliant that its fame would spread half across the world.
The sorcerers had been loyal and earnest in those days; Ireland’s magic had still been young, and Dierdriu’s sorcerers had willingly bent their minds to the task and had woven the spell that had finally and marvellously given birth to the Bright Palace.
“And,” Dierdriu had said, knowing that the sorcerers served her loyally, “Tara must be the most perfectly beautiful and the most beautifully perfect seat in the world, and travellers in far-off lands must tell stories of it, so that people of all the creeds and all the cultures will come to it.”
And at the end, when the sorcerers had taken the Queen by the hand and led her to the shimmering radiance that was Tara, Dierdriu had stood motionless and speechless, her eyes drinking in the beauty and her mind soaking in the brilliance.
“At the heart, is Medchuarta,” said the sorcerers. “The living breathing core.”
“A Grianan,” said Dierdriu, her eyes glowing. “The Sun Chamber.”
The Sun Chamber was strong magic now; the Court sometimes said that it was impossible to spend more than a few hours a day in it, for the light could hurt your eyes and the beauty could sear your soul. But they told, with pride, how Dierdriu had been able to stand it for days and nights together, and how she would stand at the crystal windows, looking down on the countryside. The Sun Chamber drew down the sunlight and the starlight; it absorbed it and reflected every sliver of sunlight and every flicker of candlelight. The old men of the Court told how it had looked in Cormac’s day when the Samhailt had been unchecked. Marvellous days. And now they had Eochaid Bres, the usurper, who was frightened of the Samhailt and who could not be inside the Sun Chamber for more than a couple of hours without getting a headache. Oh dear.
Flynn and Amairgen, knowing none of this, stood helplessly in the doorway, their eyes adjusting, their senses ravished. At length, Flynn became aware of Sean still at their side, prodding them forward.
“To the High King,” he said. “And don’t let him see that you are dazzled by anything. That would never do.”
Flynn, recovering a little, murmured, “But how could we not be dazzled?”
Sean shushed him and said crossly, “That’s the trouble. People won’t be told. They all think they know best. Well I can’t do anything about it,” and took himself off.
It seemed a very long journey across the shining silver floor to where the High King sat, half sprawled at the head of the banqueting table, watching them with unblinking tawny eyes. Flynn looked at him and felt a stab of the purest disappointment. This was to be the master of such glory! This handsome stupid beast to be overlord of such magnificence! He looked away quickly — “Quench the Mindsong,” Sean had said — and began to study the people who lined the long oak banqueting table. They had all stopped eating and talking, were all seated motionless in their chairs, every eye on the two travellers. Flynn, whose every sense was alert and alive and whose every nerve ending was stripped and exposed, thought: they are beautiful. They are the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen. And they are the wildest and the most unscrupulous and the strangest as well. I wouldn’t trust any one of them.
The people of Tara, gathered in the Grianan of Dierdriu, feasting and paying court to their High King, were wild and beautiful and just very faintly sinister. There were faces that had a three-cornered, pointed-eared look, and some that had slender, hawklike profiles, and others that were rounded and soft, but a bit sly. There were creatures with tawny eyes and russet hair, with sleek black pelts and sensuous limbs; there were others with eagle faces and jutting aquiline noses. They wore silks and velvets and fur-trimmed robes, and they had been daintily eating the feast set out for them. They had a thin veneer of civilisation, but Flynn and Amairgen, staying very close to each other, thought they were not civilised in the least. There was something in the slant of their eyes, in the curve of their fingernails, in the thin smiles they wore. Velvet gloves concealing iron fists; silk gowns covering greedy talons; velvet cloaks over cruel claws and teeth. Flynn caught the tail end of a thought from Amairgen: don’t trust a one of them, Flynn! We are in very great danger! And then they were approaching the head of the table.
Eochaid Bres watched them without once moving, and Flynn thought: I was right, he is stupid. He is certainly no ruler for these untamed lovely creatures — I wonder are they entirely human? And remembered in the same moment the old old legend, never quite believed, of how humans could never own Tara.
He had time to notice that the High King was richly dressed and time too to notice that the figure at the King’s side was reddish of hair and beard, and clever-looking and a bit cunning.
And then he looked at the lady on the King’s right. Mab the Queen Mother, Medb, who twenty years earlier, at the Court of Cormac Starrog’s father, had been named the Intoxicating One, and who was said to have had every single man at Court in her bed.
Mab was looking at Flynn with the sudden alertness of a predator scenting a new and interesting victim.
CHAPTER NINE
Joanna had passed from being frightened into a kind of mesmerised dream where nothing seemed quite real.
She had stood, white-faced and motionless, as Macha and Scald-Crow summoned servants to bind and make helpless Cormac and the two Cruithin, and she had shuddered at the sight of those servants, who were little goblin men, no more than two feet high, but with dark hungry faces and slitted red eyes, and bald pointed skulls. They overcame their three captives easily, chanting and hissing and prodding at them with long bony fingers.
“Oho,” they said. “Oho, here’s a fine fat feast for our Master. A grand sizzling dish to set before the Erl-King. Light the fires, my dears, and heat the pots.” They linked hands and danced round Cormac who snarled and lashed out at them.
“Oho, a fine strong dish,” said the goblins, dodging out of the way. “A rare good feast. This one for the ovens, my dears. Oh there’s nothing so fine as the sound of human fat sizzling. To the cages, my dears, and then to the ovens, and to the millwheels with the bones.” And they grinned at Joanna who was trying very hard not to shudder. �
��There’s nothing so fine as flour made with the bones of humans,” they said. “Light the fires, my dears.”
Cormac was growling and clawing, and Gormgall and Dubhgall were laying about the goblin men with their bare fists.
“Catch us if you can,” cried the goblins, leaping and darting out of reach. “Catch us if you can. Spin the Bonds, Mistress, spin the Bonds.” And they surrounded Morrigan, and stood watching eagerly as strings of saliva issued from her mouth, solidifying in the air. The goblins seized on the strings and ran about with them, pulling and twisting and braiding until they had long sticky ropes which they bound about their three captives.
“Bind them tight and string them strong,” cried the goblins, running this way and that, spinning three cocoons. “That’s the way, my dears. No escape for these. Oho, there’ll be rich pickings from the Erl-King’s table tomorrow, my dears. There’ll be bones to suck and ribs to gnaw. To the cages, my dears, and then to the ovens, and then to the millwheel. Human bones to human flour, my dears.”
Cormac and the two Cruithin were bound so tightly now that they could not move, although Joanna believed that Cormac had clawed one of the goblins rather severely, and Dubhgall had certainly winded another. But the goblin men were too strong and too many; they danced and cavorted, never quite close enough to be caught, and they made obscene gestures and several times they turned their backs and bent their knees and broke wind loudly and horridly in their captives’ faces.
“That’s our opinion of High Kings,” they said. “That’s what we think of High Kings,” and Joanna shuddered.
“Squeamish, my little bird?” said Morrigan, smiling. “Do you not care for my servants? Perhaps I should give you the opportunity to know them a little better.”
At once the goblin men ran up to Joanna and unfastened their breeches, thrusting their little jutting penises at her, and Morrigan laughed again.
“You see, my pigeon? They are eager to get to know you.
“Well, my little men?”
“She’s a pretty one, this,” said the goblin men. “Oho, we’ll have fun with this one. Prick up your appetites, my dears, and rub up your pricks. A plump pigeon for the plucking. A fat fantail for the fucking. Rub up your pricks, my dears, and prick up your appetites.”
“You see how friendly they are?” said Morrigan in a slimy purr. “Well, when I have done with you we shall see.” She parted her lips and the snake-tongue flickered. “They deserve a reward for bringing you to me. They live in the Street of the Whisperers, you know, and they are ever on the lookout for victims. But they have brought me a rare prize this time. They are loyal servants,” said Morrigan, “and they have voracious appetites. As you see.” The goblin men laughed and one or two rubbed themselves suggestively, and several more turned round and farted again.
From the other side of the room, Cormac snarled and tore at the white cocoon.
“Once I am free of this filth, Morrigan, you and I will settle all our scores!”
“Dear me,” said Morrigan in a light amused voice. “I have scarcely begun yet, Wolfking. Sister, show him a little taste of real filth.”
At once Scald-Crow drew in one of her immense breaths and began to dissolve, until a column of thick white slime stood before them. There was a low bubbling chuckle, and the column slid to the floor and oozed towards Dubhgall who was nearest.
Joanna screamed and thrust a fist into her mouth, because she would not give these creatures the satisfaction of seeing how repulsive she found all this. Dubhgall stood, unable to break free of his bonds, and the thick white liquid that was Scald-Crow slithered across the floor with a soft wet squelching sound and covered his feet.
Cormac said through his teeth, “Madam, if you have any shred of decency —”
“Not the merest rag, Wolfking. Watch.”
The glutinous fluid flowed silently upwards, over Dubhgall’s knees and between his legs, and Joanna thought it was not just her imagination that made her fancy that white stringlike fingers caressed his thighs and what lay between them.
Gormgall said urgently, “Morrigan — direct your filth to me!” Morrigan laughed and said, “Chivalry! And I had thought it long since dead! No, son of servants, you shall watch your companion suffer! Onwards, Sister!”
The stuff oozed higher, surrounding Dubhgall’s waist, and Joanna saw him become so pale that his skin took on a greenish tinge. “Oh dear God, this is unbearable — Morrigan —” and at once Morrigan smiled, and said, “Sister, leave him be.”
Scald-Crow slid away and stood grinning at the prisoners. “You favour her above me always,” said Macha sullenly.
“Because I am more powerful,” said Scald-Crow.
“All outside show,” said Macha. And then, to Morrigan, “Let me call up the Hags and the Harpies, Sister. Let them fasten their claws into the flesh of our prisoners and scoop out their living eyes to devour, and nibble away their faces.”
“All in good time, Sister,” said Morrigan. “There is sufficient for us all to feast on.”
Dubhgall, whose colour had gone from green to grey moaned, “I’m going to be sick,” and leaning forward, he vomited into the fireplace. “Forgive me, Your Majesty —” Another bout of retching seized him.
“Oh poor Dubhgall,” said Joanna. “Can’t we do something —”
“He will recover himself,” said Morrigan. “And my sister Macha will care for him.”
Macha moved to Dubhgall and reached out her long plump white arms and Dubhgall said, “If you come near me, madam, I shall be sick all over you. My aim is very good.”
“Shall I not wipe your fevered brow, poor human, and give you suck from my breasts?”
“Begging your pardon,” said Dubhgall, faintly but determinedly, “and if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be comforted by a giant slug.”
Joanna said, “Oh Dubhgall, don’t give her the idea —”
“Easy!” said Scald-Crow, and there, as they looked, was a great black glistening slug, six feet in length, and with great sinews of iron in its haunches.
“How childish and effete,” scoffed Macha. “Wars are not won by such cheap tricks.”
“Kingdoms are not taken by armies of crones,” retorted Scald-Crow, turning back into herself. “We shall see who is the better by and by.”
“I recall that it was your peacocking ways that lost us the Battle for the Trees.”
“And I recall that it was your harpies who were so concerned with the corpses left by Dierdriu’s armies, that they failed to hold the Plain of the Fál against the Fiana.”
“Enough!” said Morrigan. “Do you not see — we are boring our guests.”
“I’m not bored,” said Gormgall. “Are you bored, Dubhgall?”
“No. I feel sick, but I’m not bored.”
“Nevertheless,” said Morrigan in a soft slimy purr, “nevertheless, I believe we are guilty of discourtesy. And my little men are very eager.” She moved closer to Joanna, and ran a finger across her cheek and down into the bodice of her jerkin.
Joanna stood very still and touched in her mind the golden core of anger she had felt earlier: still there. While I have this I am safe. She said, icily, “Do not touch me, Morrigan,” and Morrigan smiled the snake smile.
“I will touch you, my little bird, my pigeon for the plucking; I will touch you in places you never dreamed anyone would touch you. There are nine openings to a human’s body, Dierdriu, and I shall enter into every one. I shall spin the Bonds of the Hag, and they will fill you until you are bloated and begging for mercy. Until you are spilling and leaking with the fluid of my Bonds.
“We have an old, old debt to settle, Dierdriu, and this time I shall be victor. I shall humiliate you, madam, and I shall explore you, and I shall sate myself on you. And when I have done, I shall give you to the goblin men for their entertainment — and heed me, Dierdriu, they have an insatiable desire for the bodies of humans.
“And then when they have had their fill, I shall take you down b
elow to the cages and my sisters and I will call up the Giant Miller of Muileann, and no one looks upon that terrible creature and lives, Dierdriu.
“You will share your wolf lover’s fate, madam, and you will end up on silver platters and in golden goblets on my Master’s table.
“This way, Your Majesty.”
*
The not-to-be-quenched fury that had filled Joanna earlier — “Is me Dierdriu de shiúl oiche” — “I am Dierdriu of the Nightcloak” — she had said, was still with her. She thought it came from somewhere outside of herself, and then she thought it came after all from within. But it is someone else’s fury, she thought, and it is someone else’s courage. No matter, she would make use of it.
It sustained her throughout the dreadful hour when Morrigan and her sisters taunted their prisoners; Scald-Crow hissing and undulating and changing shape every few minutes; Macha quieter and more watchful.
The goblin men seized Joanna last, and with many sly pinches and nips drove her to Morrigan’s bedchamber at the heart of the house. The anger flooded her again. How dare these loathsome creatures try to humiliate her! And within the anger was a glowing centre of immense courage. A world within a world. Courage inside anger. Strip away the anger and there is the courage. Strip away the courage and there is a heart, a core, a centre, and within that centre I am hiding, thought Joanna. I am at the centre and I am surrounded by courage and anger. I am distanced from this creature and her servants, thought Joanna; I am protected and armoured. She touched the courage in her mind as a soldier going into battle will touch his armour. A carapace?
She was able to stare coldly at Morrigan who was watching the goblin men. “Spread her legs, chaps, that’s the way. Let the Mistress in. A plump pigeon, this one” — and she was able to look haughtily at the goblin men as they finished their work.
Even so, thought Joanna, looking back to Morrigan, even so, she is very terrible. I wonder if I shall be able to outwit her.