by Sarah Rayne
‘A marvellous sight indeed, Your Majesty,’ said one whose name was Fiachra Broadcrown.
‘It swept the skies,’ said the other, who was called Arca Dubh, and Inchbad had to pretend all over again that he had seen the Feargach Grian as plainly as the others seemed to have done.
The three Humans brought up by Caspar and Goibniu were standing huddled together in a corner of the Sun Chamber, and the musicians, seeing them, at once went into the ancient Fidchell March, which was a slow, pouncing, cat-after-mouse sort of tune, and which was greeted with shouts of delight.
‘And,’ said Goibniu, striding into the centre of the Sun Chamber, his meaty hands hooked into his belt, eyeing everyone with great joviality, ‘you all of you know the rules.’
‘No cheating,’ cried the giants, delightedly, forming a circle about the squares.
‘No prodding of the players with heated rods,’ said Fiachra Broadcrown.
‘No secretly heating extra squares,’ added Arca Dubh.
'No letting the Humans over-cook!’ cried someone else.
‘And no trading of forfeits!’ shouted everyone delightedly, and the giants nudged one another and said wasn’t the trading of forfeits, one for another, part of the fun, and didn’t they all of them know it for one of the best parts of the game.
‘Then,’ said Goibniu, nodding and beaming and eyeing the Humans with greedy eyes, ‘let the Fidchell commence!’ He began the grand old Fidchell Chant in his great rumbling voice, and at once everyone joined in.
Dance, dance, for the sizzling of the flesh,
We are the Lords of the Fidchell.
Squirm and squeal for the roasting of the meat,
Wriggle and shout for the cooking of your feet,
If a throw of the dice brings the sizzling of the heat,
That is the way of the Fidchell.
Fee and fie and foe and humdum,
Peg and pig and pug and rumkchin.
With a dree and a drum and a dray and a thumbkin,
Into the ovens you’ll go, my dears,
Into the ovens you’ll go.
‘Heat up the squares!’ cried Goibniu, his face shiny with anticipation. ‘Bring in the dice!’
Caspar thought that, as ordeals went, it could not have been very much worse. He managed to squeeze himself fairly inconspicuously into a comer of the Sun Chamber — he would have liked to leave the Chamber altogether, but one of the giants would be sure to notice, and fetch him back. And so he stayed where he was and he tried very hard to shut out the sounds of the sizzling gridirons, and he tried even harder not to look to where the three prisoners were waiting, held in chains, staring at the squares of black and red as if they could not believe what was about to happen. Caspar remembered that stories were whispered about the Fidchell in the villages surrounding Tara, but that they were generally believed to be no more than a legend. He sighed and wished they could be a legend, and he wished that he himself could be somewhere a very long way away.
The giants were shouting delightedly, dragging the squares into place, here and there yelping as they touched a heated one by mistake, blistering their fingers. Every time this happened, a rather horrid scent of roasting giant wafted to where Caspar was standing, so that he remembered the old legend about giantblood being different to Human. Coarser. Thicker. Smellier.
The squares were nearly all in place now, great shining wedges of black and red, laid to form one enormous square, nearly the size of the Sun Chamber, and set alternately, so that it was a bit like an old game which Caspar thought the Wolfkings had enjoyed, called chess. The Gruagach would not have had the brains for chess, because, according to most accounts, it had been quite intricate and extremely subtle. The Gruagach were many things, but subtle was not one of them.
One of the younger giants had brought in the dice; great pale glistening cubes of ivory and bone, which had been made from the compressed bones of their ancestors’ victims, together with a few teeth for good measure. Caspar had not believed this to be true, until someone (he thought it had been Fiachra Broadcrown) had taken him down to the sculleries and shown him the huge metal machine with the square mould, which was used to squash the bones into shape.
There were two dice, each one four feet square, and both painted with various symbols all of which meant that various things had to happen on the squares. A red dragon-creature with an erect two-pronged phallus meant that the victim had to move to the right. A squat, repulsive female with six breasts meant a move to the left.
The Gruagach had come up with several other symbols which they thought very funny: there was one of a wolflike beast lifting its leg and pissing on Tara’s Western Gate, and there was another of a Human with a wolfs head, staring helplessly at a long thin member which he was apparently trying to raise for the writhing wolfwoman at his feet. The Gruagach considered this extremely comical and there was always great competition to turn up this side of the dice, which gave you two moves to the fore, and nearly always landed your victim on a sizzling square of the board.
The squares were heating now, giving off tremendous waves of heat, and the giants were pointing and laughing, slapping their thighs with delight, telling each other that the Humans would soon be roasting, and there’d be Manpie for supper later.
Goibniu, who was still directing the proceedings, said in his loud rumbling voice, ‘But, friends, we have to ensure that the heated squares are sufficiently hot! Hey?’ And a great roar of delight, that made Caspar’s ears ring unpleasantly, went up, because everyone knew what came next.
‘Well?’ cried Goibniu, grinning from ear to ear. ‘How do we test the heated squares, my friends?’
‘By spraying water on to diem!’ shouted the giants, poking each other and slapping their thighs again. The giantesses, bunched together at one comer of the Fidchell board, shrieked with glee, and clutched one another with helpless mirth.
‘And,’ bellowed Goibniu, standing with his legs apart, thumbs hooked into his belt, ‘how shall we do that, friends?’
‘By piddling on them!’ shouted the giants, delightedly, and at once there was a scuffle and a jostling for places at the edges of the squares.
‘Ready?’ said Goibniu, and the giantesses shrieked with mirth again and dug one another in the ribs, and told each other not to look, and weren’t they all awful, and then said would they just look at that Fiachra Broadcrown, aiming before Goibniu had even given the word, shameless as anything.
‘Aim!’ warned Goibniu who had produced a stopwatch the size of a large turnip and was making a great play of consulting it.
Caspar shuddered and fervently wished himself somewhere else, as the dozen or so giants unfastened their breeches and stood holding their minuscule organs ready, looking down at themselves with concentrated expressions on their faces.
‘Go!’ cried Goibniu, and the giants stood straddle-legged, directing streams of thick yellow giant-piss into the centre of the floor.
There were shouts of encouragement, and cries of, ‘Pooh! Fiachra Broadcrown’s been at the onion wine again,’ which was an old joke, and ‘Arca Dubh couldn’t put out a candle flame with that,’ which was another old joke, and in one case, ‘Goll the Gorm’s splashing everyone’s boots.’
As the sour-smelling urine sprayed onto the heated squares, from all edges of the board, there was a furious sizzling, and steam rose at once, sending out a stench of rancid giant and too-strong excrement and old stale sweat. Caspar saw the three humans shudder and he thought that one retched, and he searched his mind for some way to stop the grisly ritual, and let the captives go.
Goibniu was chuckling heartily and nodding and Inchbad, who had not, of course, taken any part in any of this, smiled and nodded to the musicians to strike up again, because the Fidchell was far better played to a bit of music and, anyway, it would mask the cries of the Humans.
At last, they all finished and buttoned their breeches again, and Goibniu pronounced Goll the Gorm winner of the pre-ritual, said that the heat
was sufficient and turned to eye the waiting prisoners with his pig-like eyes. He gestured to the footmen to put the spikes in place.
‘Because,’ he said, the smile splitting his coarse red face like an over-ripe melon now, ‘we should not wish you to get away before the real fun begins.’
The footmen stepped forward, and lifted the three prisoners over the spikes.
Fiachra Broadcrown and Arca Dubh had started the chant again, and the giants were clapping their hands in unison.
‘The spikes, the spikes, spit the prisoners … ’
There were three footmen to each prisoner now and, as the clapping increased in intensity, they raised the prisoners shoulder-high, and positioned each of them above one of the gleaming needle-sharp points.
The prisoners were screaming now and struggling; Caspar thought one of them had fainted and remembered, grimly, that once the impaling began, he would immediately revive, and when his spike was moved by the footmen to one of the heated squares, he would begin to sizzle and roast. He felt sick and wished himself somewhere else all over again.
The musicians had started up again, and now it was the creeping, stealthy notes of the Fidchell March, that terrible slow inexorable music that built up and up, and continued to build up and up, until the prisoners were simultaneously impaled, when it erupted in a discordant clashing of drums and tin sheets and screeching horns.
The three victims were being hoisted aloft, one footman holding each foot, and spreading their legs over the massive waiting skewers.
Goibniu shouted out, ‘Avoid the backbone, footmen!’ and there was a general cry of agreement, because if you split the backbone too soon, the meat never roasted as juicily.
‘And don’t puncture their bums!’ cried Fiachra Broadcrown and everyone laughed very heartily at this, because everyone remembered the very unpleasant time in Gruagach, when two Fidchell players had suffered exactly that fate, and, as Goibniu had said, it had taken four footmen to clean up the mess, and the King’s favourite banqueting hall had smelt of Human dung for days, which was not something anyone wanted to remember.
The victims were in place now, and they were squirming and writhing, and trying to escape, but the footmen knew that to let go of a Human at this point was crucial, and they had a good firm hold of the creatures’ ankles. Extraordinarily frail ankles Humans had, but probably they looked all right to one another.
The three Fidchell players did not look all right now. Two of them were shouting and struggling; one of them was barely conscious, which was a pity, because it took some of the heart out of the game when that happened.
Of course, some Humans had no sense of fight, everyone knew that.
And then Goibniu raised his left hand in the signal, and the musicians began a terrific rolling of the skins of the drums, and one of them began beating the great deep-throated Fidchell drum steadily and rhythmically, and everyone started the clapping again, and the giantesses clutched one another in high excitement.
Goibniu brought his hand down, and the three Humans were impaled on the waiting skewers.
It was a very good banquet indeed. Everyone agreed that it was one of the best ever. The Manpies were particularly good this time; one or two people said they had splinters of backbone in their meat, and the footmen ought to have been more careful, but if there was one thing you could be sure of, it was that somebody would always complain about a backbone splinter at a Fidchell banquet. It was as much a part of the ritual as Arca Dubh not peeing as much as anyone else on the squares, or Goll the Gorm losing his place in the steps of the Fidchell Dance, which always followed the game.
And although three Humans did not make precisely a feast, the sculleries had eked the meat out carefully, and there was a good deal of nice rich gravy and huge dishes of vegetables, and everyone had a taste of Human, which was what it was all about anyway.
Goibniu made a speech and everyone cheered, and somebody else told them to lift their glasses to the Feargach Grian, because this was why they had celebrated the Fidchell, and somebody else again sang a song all about the Golden Age of the Gruagach, and everyone shouted that they were called Fomoire now, and there was a great deal of laughter and noise and banging of tables, and coarse jokes, which was exactly the sort of feast the giants liked.
Caspar managed to creep away just before the Manpies were served, because it would have been certain death to have been sick all over the table, which was what would have happened if he had stayed.
He sat in his bed-chamber with the south-facing view and the comfortable appointments and stared into the night sky. He wondered if anyone had really seen the Feargach Grian and, if so, how soon the Gruagach would send out a hunting party.
He wondered if the Feargach Grian really did herald the arrival of strange people from other worlds and, if so, where those people might now be.
Chapter Eleven
The four Renascians stood in the twilight, feeling the heavy heady scents of the Purple Hour close about them.
Fenella thought it was like nothing any of them had ever experienced, this sensing and scenting of a world that was laden with enchantments and filled with magic.
Magic … the word rippled across her thoughts, faintly disturbing, but also alluring and beckoning. We are in a world where magic is abroad. Probably we shall never return to Renascia. Probably there isn’t any Renascia to return to any more. Fenella examined the thought and wondered whether she minded any longer. Not while there is all of this to find out about, she thought. Perhaps, later, I shall mind very much. And perhaps, later, it will hurt very much, but for the moment there is too much here and it is exciting and a little bit dangerous.
Floy was looking about him, and Fenella saw the same delight, tinged with apprehension, in his eyes, and knew that, for Floy, this was becoming something marvellous and challenging; this was a world to be explored and discovered.
‘It’s not at all what I expected,’ remarked Snizort, staring about him.
‘What did you expect?’
‘Buildings,’ said Snizort, rather vaguely. ‘And people. Quite a lot of people. This is a forest.’
‘We’re on the edge of it, though,’ said Fenella. ‘If we walked in that direction, we’d come out of the trees.’ But she found herself not wanting to leave the trees and the deep blue shadows of the forest. They did not know what kind of creatures might be awaiting them beyond the safety of the dark trees and, although the forest felt strange, it had an unexpectedly safe feeling about it. What had Fael-Inis said? You will meet creatures who hunt Humans for sport …
‘There’s something over there,’ said Floy, pointing. ‘Through the trees and on the other side of the valley. Some kind of palace, perhaps.’ But his tone was hesitant, because none of them had ever seen a palace and no one was quite sure if one would look like this.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Fenella, following the direction of his hand. ‘It’s easily the size of our entire main square with all the buildings together. And it’s bathed in light. Everywhere you look at it, it’s shining and brilliant.’
‘I suppose,’ said Snodgrass, studying the distant building, ‘I suppose that this is the — what did Fael-Inis call it? The Ancient Ireland of the Wolfkings?’
‘I don’t know that I like the sound of that, you know,’ said Snizort, looking worriedly over the top of his spectacles. ‘In all of the Earth’s history, wolves weren’t what you might call trustworthy. I think we ought to be careful.’
‘Wolves were a legend,’ said Snodgrass firmly. ‘They never existed. They were myths. And I think we ought to find out what the building is.’
‘It might be anywhere at all,’ said Snizort hopefully. ‘It’s quite a long way off,’ said Floy, who had been narrowing his eyes and trying to gauge the distance. ‘It’s certainly on the other side of that valley. But if we’re going to go anywhere, I think we ought to go by night.’
‘Because it would be safer … ?’ said Fenella, in a half-whisper.
‘Well, wouldn’t it? We’d be less conspicuous,’ said Floy. ‘And we can’t stay here. We’ll have to find people. And we can study the countryside as we go. That might tell us a bit more about this place.’
‘This place,’ said Fenella. ‘Shall we ever get back to Renascia, do you think?’
‘Shall we ever want to?’ said Floy, softly, and Fenella heard the sudden delight in his voice. ‘It’s Earth, Fenella. This is Earth. The lost world of our ancestors.’
Fenella said, ‘I was never entirely sure that it existed, you know.’ She looked about her. ‘I know we could see it from Renascia, or we could see something we believed was Earth, and something we were told was Earth. But I was never sure that it was anything more than just a — ’
‘Myth?’ said Snizort.
‘Legend?’ said Snodgrass.
‘A myth and a legend, and a — a romantic daydream.’ Snizort said, very softly, ‘Utopia and Erewhon and Avalon and the Isles of the Blessed.’
‘Yes,’ said Fenella. ‘All of those. I hoped that, if it did exist, then it might be like this; blue and green and misty and with huge dark forests and shining palaces.’ She made a quick gesture with one hand, encompassing the dark wood behind them and the strange landscape before them, blurred with dusk, purple fingers of twilight stealing towards the glowing castle across the valley.
Floy said, very gently, ‘You don’t expect daydreams to materialise so very exactly,’ and Fenella turned to him gratefully, because, of course, Floy would have understood.
‘And yet,’ said Floy, his eyes still scanning the valley and the strange wild beauty of it all, ‘and yet, here it is. The Ireland of the Wolfkings.’
‘I don’t believe in wolves,’ said Snodgrass again, and a cool, rather amused voice from behind them said, ‘Do you not indeed?’ and they turned at once to see a slender, dark-haired young man, leaning against a tree, watching them.