by Sarah Rayne
For a moment he had thought that the cave creatures were now going to turn their attentions to him, and he had crouched motionless in his corner, unable to turn and run, quite unable to think of how he might defend himself. And there had been John Grady, lying in his own blood and vomit, a nasty sight if ever there was one, but Muldooney was not the man to leave a fellow creature alone in a place like this. It was not something you did.
But the sidh had faded, dim blue and green forms, dissolving into early morning mist, dissolving into the rocks, so that you wondered if you had in truth seen them.
Oh, you have seen us … you may see us again, for we are in the oceans of all the worlds, and we are in the music of all the ages, and in every century we fish for souls for our music …
And now here they were, on a dark road that might go anywhere or nowhere, and Muldooney had not the remotest idea of what had happened. He admitted, if only to himself, that they were quite hopelessly lost, and he certainly admitted that they had quite clearly strayed rather a long way from Tugaim. If it would not be fanciful, he would almost have begun to think they had somehow got themselves into one of those ancient legends that people sometimes told of. Muldooney knew that people spoke well of legend-telling, but when you were a pig farmer you did not have very much time for that.
He considered the matter carefully, because it was as plain as a pig’s bottom that John Grady was not going to be of any help, and he rather thought that he would do well to concentrate on practicalities. This made him feel better than he had expected, because hadn’t he always been the great one for the practicalities? People often said so. Ah, Muldooney the pig farmer’s the man for the practicalities, they said. It was entirely true.
The first thing to do was to decide about Grady, poor tormented soul. There he was, as witless as a chicken, and it the middle of the night! Muldooney knew that a number of people might call pigs witless, but pigs were solid, sensible creatures. They were predictable. Whoever heard of a pig that went running about the yard like a banshee after its head had been cut off! There was never a pig yet born who would be so ridiculous, but anyone who had seen a newly decapitated chicken knew precisely what to expect! Witless!
John Grady, who had kept chickens, was witless now. He was wild-eyed and empty-eyed, and he was floundering all over the road, not seeming to recognise Muldooney or their whereabouts, although to be fair, Muldooney did not recognise their whereabouts either, only he knew it was certainly not Tugaim any longer. But there were the practicalities to be thought of before anything else, and there was Grady reeling and grunting. If anyone came along and saw him, it was sure that there would be a vacant seat on the Council of Tugaim’s Elders! Of course, Muldooney himself would not be at all averse to just stepping into place. Not if he was asked in the proper manner, he would not be. And then he remembered that no one could come along from Tugaim, because Tugaim had somehow inexplicably vanished.
Blood and spittle dribbled from Grady’s mouth, and he kept emitting animal grunts of pain. Every now and then, he spat, rather sickeningly, and Muldooney, who was inclined to be a bit squeamish, tried very hard to repress a twist of nausea, because to be sure, the poor man could not help it. The pity was that there was nothing at all that Muldooney could do. It was not even possible to give the tormented soul a cup of water to rinse his poor wounded mouth. Muldooney felt helpless, and began to feel angry with himself for feeling like that, because surely there was something he could think of. Wasn’t there?
If only someone would come along …
And then, entirely without warning, someone did come along. Just as Muldooney was thinking that perhaps after all they were in the middle of some kind of nightmare, and trying to calculate what ought to be done, a light appeared, a little way off, and Muldooney felt the most enormous relief he had ever known in his life. It would be altogether grand if it was someone they knew, but anyone would be welcome really. At least the burden could be shared. Muldooney, who had rather thought he liked a bit of solitude — because say what you would, most people were empty-headed chatterers — thought it would be altogether grand to share this problem with another human being.
He sat down and took John Grady’s hand in his because you had to give the man some bit of comfort, and watched the bobbing light draw nearer. He thought it was probably a lantern, being carried by someone, and he was certainly more thankful to see it than he had ever been to see anything in his life.
The lantern was held by a lady, rather tall and pale, cloaked and hooded, and apparently prepared to be extremely helpful.
Muldooney, remembering his manners, got to his feet, and made haste to explain. A shocking accident, he said … His poor friend hurt and bewildered … And the both of them hopelessly lost.
At the back of his mind, there flickered the vague hope that the lady might be able to point them in the direction of Tugaim, but when he suggested this, she only said, in rather an odd voice, “Tugaim? Dear me, I have never heard of it. I fear you are quite hopelessly lost, my friend.”
And then she lifted the lantern aloft and studied the two of them for a moment. A rather satisfied smile curved her lips. “But if you will allow it, I will help you,” she said. “I am abroad very late, and should be glad of some company. My house is not very far distant. If you will come there, you will see that a welcome is always kept for travellers.
“And my two sisters will be so pleased to see you.”
*
It seemed to Joanna that the carrion crows got nearer all the time.
“That’s nonsense,” said Gormgall, but Dubhgall said it was not nonsense at all.
“Her Ladyship knows,” he said.
“Yes I think she does,” said Cormac.
Joanna did know. She knew that every time they saw the birds the sun slipped behind a cloud and a chill settled on the mountain. She could feel the Nightcloak stirring uneasily.
“Spies?” said Cormac.
“Something much worse,” said Joanna and shivered.
Cormac took her hand. “We are nearly at Gallan,” he said. “Cait Fian’s Mountain Palace —”
“I don’t think we’re going to reach it,” broke in Joanna, her face white and strained. “I don’t think we’re going to be allowed to reach it.”
As they rounded a curve in the path, there was the sound of laughter, and a dreadful, dry, rattling-bone noise.
“Indeed you will not reach it, my dears,” said a voice, and there, barring the way, was Morrigan, with Scald-Crow and Macha behind her.
There was no point running — “Even if there was anywhere to run to,” thought Joanna wildly. The Morrigna would catch them, they would easily outpace them; Macha’s army of monsters would fall on them and claw them back; Scald-Crow would turn into some loathsome thing that would pull them into Morrigan’s waiting arms.
At her side, Gormgall said, “The cloak — use the cloak!”
Joanna gave an angry sob: “I cannot! ‘Never twice against the same enemy!’ And the Nightcloak was used in Morrigan’s house in Muileann!”
“Against the Miller!” said Dubhgall. “Try it!”
But the cloak was dead, as Joanna had known it would be.
“Of course it is,” said Morrigan, coming forward — Joanna saw the white Bonds of the Hag form and reach out to trap them. “The High Queen knows that her cloak may not be used twice against the same enemy. You destroyed that oafish fool the Miller with it, and since he acted under my direction, it was as if you had used it against me, Your Majesty.” She reached out and snatched the Nightcloak from Joanna’s shoulders.
“You cannot wear it!” yelled Cormac.
“Watch me,” said Morrigan, swirling the cloak over her shoulders.
Behind her, Scald-Crow let out a wail and jumped up and down. “I wanted it! You promised! Let me have it!”
“Silence, Sister, or I will allow Macha to send the Hags to devour you!”
Macha grinned and lifted her arms as if to summon them at o
nce, making Scald-Crow droop her lip … and droop it and droop it, until she became one enormous drooling lip, slimy and glistening with saliva.
The four travellers were bound tightly now, and Joanna wondered how she could have forgotten the horrid stickiness of the Bonds.
“You will have plenty of time to reacquaint yourself with them,” said Morrigan, standing close to her, and Joanna thought that her saurian look was more pronounced than she had remembered it. Morrigan seemed to tower over them, easily eight feet high, and Scald-Crow spiralled up from her lip shape and became an overripe corpse, with juices bursting through the skin. Joanna shivered and looked away.
Morrigan walked round the group, in a slow thoughtful circle. At length, she said softly, “And so we face each other again, my friends.” She looked at Cormac. “A pleasure to see you all once more.”
“Where are you taking us?” asked Cormac.
“You will join my other prisoners,” said Morrigan. “A little something I gathered up for my Master. He will enjoy them, but not half as much as he will enjoy you, Wolfking … the choicest morsel of all. I shall serve you to the Erl-King on a jewelled platter, and we will sup your blood and dine off your flesh.”
Silver platters and golden goblets … of course there was never any escape, not really. How foolish of us to imagine otherwise, Joanna thought.
“Foolish indeed,” said Morrigan, and the snake-tongue flickered. “You are all my prisoners once more; you are bound by the Bonds of the Hag, and you are going to the Erl-King’s Citadel.
“And this time there will be no escape!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
An air of dark menace hung over the Erl-King’s Citadel and over the little straggling township that had grown up around it. We do not choose to live here, the people of the walled city seemed to say, but we know no other life. We have to live. Our families have to eat.
They all knew the tales, and all of the legends about the Erl-King. They knew about the silver platters and the golden goblets — were not their silversmiths and their craftsmen kept busy by the fashioning of them? They knew about the great vaulted sculleries below the Citadel where the ovens were set with massive brick buttresses, and where the fires were kept burning for days sometimes, and the pots were left simmering for nights on end.
For human fat takes a long time to burn down, and human bones take a long time to dissolve …
“Light the fires and heat the pots …”
They knew better than anyone the truth of all the stories whispered about the Gentleman; they preferred to call him that, they said, their eyes sliding away. They knew about the windowless cells cut into the rock, and the cages in the bowels of the Citadel, cold dank dungeons where prisoners might languish for years. Except that prisoners did not live very long at all in the Gentleman’s cages. They were brought up to the Banqueting Chamber each evening for the Gentleman’s pleasure. The Hall was always lit by wall sconces — human fat slowly boiled down on the brick ovens made the Gentleman’s candles — and there would be knives, pincers, needles. It was whispered how the Gentleman sometimes gouged out his victims’ eyes and ate them; how he ordered thin slices of flesh to be cut from their arms and then forced that flesh down the poor creatures’ throats; how he slit their throats and drank the fresh warm blood direct from their veins as they died.
It made them feel less than men to know themselves powerless to help the poor wretched victims. But we have to live! they cried despairingly. Our families have to eat!
And it was rare for the Gentleman to seek his prey in the Walled City itself. He went farther afield, sending his hunchback servant to scour the countryside on the black sledge pulled by jackals; or he extended hospitality to the Three Sisters of Muileann.
The Master needed them, said the townspeople. He needed their craftsmen and their artisans. Boys and young men — never young girls — were sent to the Citadel to work, and good honest work it was as well. The Citadel needed constant maintenance; it needed carpenters and stonemasons and scullions. The Gentleman kept his own sentinels and guards and chariot horses. Chariot horses had to be cared for and cleaned and fed; sentinels and guards had to be fed as well. They had their own kitchens, a little apart from the Citadel; it was no shame to cook for the Gentleman’s guards, and it could be rather useful as well, because there was frequently a surplus of food, which could be taken down into the town. You could feed a family very well indeed on the leftovers of the guards; sides of ham, barely cut into, a dish of brawn, roasted meats of all kinds. A family could live very comfortably in the shadow of the Citadel. And on the nights when the Gentleman drove out of the Walled City, his hunchback whipping up the team of jackals, a sense of freedom so great gripped the entire town that all manner of revelries went on.
And so it was not so difficult to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear on the nights when frightened screams pierced the quiet, or when running footsteps rang out in the cobbled streets. They were used to it, said the townspeople, huddling together in their little houses. None of our concern, they said when the handcarts came rumbling through the streets under cover of darkness. None of our concern; lock the doors and shutter the windows and do not, on any account, hear if the knock falls on the door …
For although the Gentleman did not as a rule take his prey from the Walled City, there were nights when the countryside was in the grip of winter; when the jackal sled could not get through the city gates, and when the frozen highways and the moonless nights permitted of no journeying in or out.
On those nights, the hunchback would come loping down into the town, just as dusk was creeping through the streets, dragging the handcart, his lumpish swart face avid and searching, and full of ugly mirth.
My Master has the hunger upon him tonight!
And someone will be devoured …
It was whispered that the hunchback also had hungers; that he rutted with young boys and forced young girls to pleasure him in unnatural ways; that his Master turned over to him the drained corpses of the victims, so that he might relieve his lusts on the lifeless mutilations.
It was better not to know. It was better not to listen for the hunchback’s shuffling gait.
And if the next morning, the town’s ditches ran with reddened water, it was nobody’s concern — even if somebody’s child, somebody’s sister, or wife, or love, was missing. It was no one’s concern but their own; griefs skinned over in time, ditches could be cleared.
Silver platters could be polished and golden goblets could be cleaned.
Flight was impossible; rebellion was not to be considered. There was not a one of them who had not, at times, dreamed of marching in torchlit procession up the hill, and razing to the ground the towering evil fortress; there was not a one who would not have liked to drive the Gentleman’s own torture weapons into his black heart, but there was not a one who did not know it to be impossible. You did not need particularly good eyesight to catch daily glimpses, daily reminders of the tremendous Girdle of Gold that circled the Walled City; you did not have to be possessed of especially quick wits to know that the Girdle of Gold, the most marvellous enchantment ever created, rendered the Gentleman forever safe from enemies. It circles the Gentleman’s fortress and his town — and it circles us as well, thought the townspeople. We are shut in with him. And while he has the Girdle, no one can get into the Walled City without him knowing. Nor could anyone get out of the Walled City without having the jackals on his trail. You would not get ten leagues, said the people. The hunchback would whip up his sled and you would be caught and taken to the Gentleman’s stone Banqueting Chamber.
And then?
Better not to think about it, said the townspeople, and went diligently and unseeingly about their daily business.
They were accustomed to the Gentleman’s prisoners being brought into the Walled City by the handcarts, and at such times they knew what was expected of them. And although it was not in their natures to cheer the miserable captives, they knew that the hunchbac
k would be on the watch with his sly darting eyes, that he would mark — and mark out — anyone not seen to cheer. To displease the hunchback was almost as dangerous as to displease the Gentleman himself, for it was the hunchback — and sometimes the Three Sisters — who kept the Gentleman’s dungeons filled, kept his ovens stocked.
And so it was prudent to line the streets when the handcarts came rumbling through the Walled City on their way to the Citadel. It was sensible and wise to jeer and poke fun at the poor wretched creatures who lay bound and terrified in the carts. Not to do so might earn you a place in the cart yourself, and then who would look after your wife and your children? And so the townspeople learned how to jeer and mock, and how to humiliate the already humiliated prisoners. They learned to sing the Goblin Song of Muileann.
Light the fires and heat the pots,
Sizzle the fat in the waiting vats.
Mince and stew and roast and batter,
Pour the juice in the Erl-King’s platter.
They learned to exult in the Gentleman’s powers.
*
The four prisoners brought in by the Sisters reached the Walled City midway through a bright afternoon, the Girdle of Gold strong and iridescent above the City walls, sunlight sending diamond sparks from the windows of the houses — too beautiful a day to go to your death. Far too beautiful a day on which to know yourself bound for the silver platters and the golden goblets.
A second cart followed, containing two men roped and bound, but the townspeople did not spare them a second glance once they had seen the figure in the first cart.