by Sarah Rayne
‘Someone has been quaffed tonight …’ Rumour could not remember when she had first heard the grisly expression, and she did not know by whom it had been coined. Had there once been a fearsome necromancer about whom it had been said? The Erl-King, was it?
They moved forward, Andrew carrying Rumour again, keeping to the shadows, seeing the yellow squares of light lying across the cobbled streets of the tiny mountain village.
Andrew paused, and looked about him, scanning the mountainside. ‘The road leads out of Almhuin as well as into it,’ he said. ‘Do you see? Almhuin is clustered about the mountain path itself. If we can once get this place behind us, we would be able to walk straight through the Mountains to the centre of the Dark Realm.’
‘And so to Chaos’s Castle of Infinity,’ said Rumour, nodding.
‘But first there is Almhuin to be traversed. I think we must approach someone here — perhaps enter the inn over there — and rest,’ said Andrew. ‘Perhaps we have to stay here for the night, or what passes for night here. And then we must go on.’
‘It is possible that the Lady and her servants are so involved in the battles that they are not thinking of victims for the bathhouses,’ said Rumour, looking at Andrew hopefully, and Andrew said, blandly, ‘It is a useful thing, a war,’ and Rumour grinned, and was glad that he had a dry sense of humour, this strange monk.
‘I had not until I knew you,’ said Andrew softly. ‘I had thought life a serious and a solemn thing.’ Rumour looked at him sharply, because although she had been able to hear a little of his thoughts, this was the first time he had heard hers.
But he simply grinned at her, his teeth very white in the darkness, and Rumour studied him, and saw how his hair had grown a little since their first meeting, and how it tumbled over his brow, dark and untidy. He had not shaved since they left the Porphyry Palace, and a dark, silky beard framed his face now, emphasising the lean, strong bones, making him look altogether tougher, harder, more worldly. She thought: I wonder whether any of your Order would know you in this moment, Brother Andrew? I wonder if I know you, even. I can barely see the gentle, serious young monk who ate and drank so sparingly and who eschewed the pleasures of the flesh … All I can see is a rather reckless young man who has already vanquished one fearsome enemy, and who looks as if he might almost enjoy vanquishing another … and who makes love with gentle, fierce passion, and has begun to find humour in danger. And who is even now regarding the terrible Fortress of Almhuin with a speculative light in his eyes. I believe he would almost welcome an encounter with the Lady of this place, thought Rumour, torn between exasperation and admiration.
The mountain village was larger than they had thought. There was a central square, with an iron pump and a well: ‘Spring water from beneath the mountain,’ said Rumour. There were two or three narrow streets leading away from the square, and little huddles of houses. Looking out on to the cobbled square were buildings which plainly carried on trades of various kinds: they picked out a blacksmith’s with a forge and benches, and a bakeshop and tiny wine shop, which Andrew had pointed out earlier.
‘So they are permitted a little relaxation, these people of Almhuin,’ murmured Rumour, her eyes on the inn.
‘So it seems. That, Lady, is where we must seek sanctuary.’
‘Yes.’ Rumour was finding the little village reassuringly ordinary. There was something normal and everyday about a place that had a forge and a village pump, and that had a rather friendly-looking inn with a brightly painted sign over its door. The bakeshop had jutting bow windows, with a display of wares: crusty loaves and gingerbread men and dark, rich fruit cakes. Next to it was what looked to be a sempstress’s, with bales of silk and velvet and swathes of lace arranged colourfully.
They looked across at the square of yellow light that shone from the inn’s windows and, as they did so, someone walked across the window, and a hand — an ordinary white Human hand — unlatched the window and pushed it open to the night. To Andrew and Rumour there was suddenly something heart-warmingly reassuring about the normality of a person who could reach out and open the window of an over-heated room to let in the cool night air.
With the opening of the window, the scents of food drifted out to them: roasting meats and newly baked bread and simmering soup, and they heard a shout of laughter followed by derisory cheering, as if somebody within the room might have told a good joke, or perhaps as if a game of some kind had been in progress, and somebody had scored an unexpected point. There was a brief burst of music, and several voices raised in a snatch of song.
At length Andrew said, ‘It sounds very ordinary and normal.’
‘Yes.’ Rumour frowned. ‘But we have to think of a story to tell them. They will surely ask us. What could we say?’
‘Are there not quests of any kind here?’ Andrew was thinking of the pilgrimages made by his Order; of the arduous but rewarding journeys several of the monks had made to the Eastern Lands to learn more of their Founder. Would there not be pilgrimages here? Dark pilgrimages, but still involving journeys?
‘I don’t know,’ said Rumour, when Andrew asked this. ‘But a pilgrimage, by its very nature, is an arduous and long undertaking. The Crimson Lady and her people would not comprehend the concept of hardship in return for reward.’ She frowned, thinking.
‘Could we simply say we are in pursuit of the Gristlen who has stolen an enchantment from our people?’ said Andrew, thinking that the closer they could keep to the truth, the less chance there would be of being caught. He was rather horrified to discover that he was having less regard for truth itself than for a credible tale. But he said, ‘I believe we could tell them that and be believed.’
Rumour said, slowly, ‘I think you are right. And Gristlens are outcasts in any world. They are sometimes spoken of as the damned of the Black Ireland.’
‘They would surely know that here. If we told how we had been cheated by one, and said we were seeking to be revenged on it; and that you had been injured by a rockfall …’ He stopped and looked at her. ‘Your injured foot would be more than sufficient reason for our seeking shelter,’ he said.
Rumour grinned suddenly, and Andrew saw again the reckless, extravagant creature who had dazzled him in the Porphyry Palace.
But she only said, ‘Trust a monk to find a truthful solution, Andrew. I should certainly have spun an elaborate web of deceit.’
‘And been caught out the sooner,’ said Andrew.
‘Yes, but I should have had fun spinning it,’ said Rumour. And then, sobering, ‘But you are right, Andrew. We should keep our story simple and near to the truth if we can.’ She looked across at the tiny inn. ‘There are lights in the windows,’ said Rumour. ‘And there is food and wine, and there are people. All I need is an hour or so to quench the pain, and then I could pronounce the healing spell. And it is a quiet, gentle spell; I think no one would even hear it.’ She studied the tiny, low-roofed building, and the familiar glint of humour showed. ‘Of course, I have never before been in such a humble place,’ said Rumour. ‘And after the splendours of Tara and the Porphyry Palace it is very modest …’
She grinned at him, and Andrew said, thoughtfully, ‘I have never been in a wine shop of any kind,’ and sent her a sudden, sweet smile that said: but I should rather like to experience it. ‘Shall we go in, Lady?’ he said.
Chapter Twenty-three
The people of Almhuin were not altogether unaccustomed to seeing strangers in their mountain village, but it was a rare occurrence. Travellers shunned Almhuin — the Almhuinians knew why, of course. The Lady’s ways and her appetites were well known, and even better known were her revelries.
Better not to admit to too much, they said, glancing at one another from the corners of their eyes and grinning. Better to simply do the work you were assigned; shoeing horses, baking bread for the Castle, laundering, maintaining the Castle’s fabric. It was nothing to do with outsiders what else they might do for the Lady, and what other needs they might help her to s
atisfy.
And it was all of it work which put food on your table and clothes on your back. Since the War, times had been prosperous. The Lady had martialled her Armies. Just as Chaos — they would no longer give him the courtesy of calling him Lord of Chaos — just as Chaos had called up the WarMongers and the NightMare Stallions, so the Lady had summoned the Rodent Armies: the ancient, half-vermin creatures who dwelled in the Caves of Cruachan, but who would serve any master who would pay them enough. They had been Chaos’s servants for a very long time, said the Almhuinians proudly; although the Lady had not lured them all to fight for her, she had lured a very great many of them. Those of the Rodents who still swore allegiance to Chaos and his henchmen could soon be dealt with.
Almhuin had done pretty well out of the Rodent Armies. There had been the feeding of them and the housing — a whole section of the Castle had been turned into barracks for them before the immense Battle of the NightFields had been fought. There had been the fashioning of armour for it, which had been very profitable indeed. Halberds and spears and breastplates and javelins. Silver and black helmets with the Lady’s emblem etched deeply into them had been the design, which the Almhuinians had thought very tasteful. There were places within the Army for the Almhuinians as well, for the younger ones who had a taste for blood and fighting, as who in Almhuin had not? You did not grow up in the Lady’s service without learning about the dark pleasures of pain and torture … And although this was a War of Necromancy, and although black powerful sorcery was being used, the Lady and her opponents had not been able to do without plain, ordinary broadsword battles. Most of the younger men had ridden out, either on the march to Chaos’s Castle of Infinity, or in the Battle of the NightFields itself. Very nasty, that had been, with the Fomoire riding for Chaos, galloping hard across the battlefield on the NightMare Stallions, and summoning up the creatures of people’s nightmares as they went. The outcome had been indecisive, neither side managing to claim total victory, but it had been a fine battle. It had set the tone for the entire war. Fierce and bloody and merciless.
Chaos’s Armies had used the ancient magical NightCloak of Ireland’s first High Queen to call up the NightMares, of course: it was one of the Dark Lord’s most jealously guarded possessions, and it had taken many years of intrigue and scheming to acquire it. That was how he had been able to call up the NightMare Stallions: fearsome and strong creatures that trailed with them the terrible aura of the NightMare Domain they inhabited. They had ridden into the fray, dozens of them drawing the NightMares across the battlefield, and hundreds of people from both sides had been slain and left to die in their own gore and that of their comrades.
And now the Lady wanted the Amaranth Princess whom Chaos had brought out of the Other Ireland. She wanted the pure Dawn Flame of Sorcery that the child possessed, and she would stop at nothing to get it. She was using every spell and every strength she possessed, but she had not been able to compete with the NightCloak, and Chaos still held the Princess deep within the Castle of Infinity.
And so there would be no more revelries at Almhuin with Chaos the honoured guest, and the Lady presiding over the banqueting tables. There would be no more nights with the villagers cudgelling their wits to think up new ways of entertaining Chaos and his train.
But the Lady was generous to those who served her faithfully. She was gracious and benevolent to those of her people who scoured the Mountains for lone travellers, and who sometimes even slipped through the Gateways into the Other Ireland to bring back plump young maidens for her. As for the war, hadn’t she already bestowed honours on those of her people who had ridden out in the great siege on the Castle of Infinity and been wounded in the battle? Hadn’t she sent down money and the deeds to land for the families of those who had been slain fighting for her against the Lord of Chaos and his henchmen? She was a fearsome and powerful necromancer, their Lady, and terrible tales were whispered about her in the Other Ireland. But she looked after her own, and when you had wives, children, perhaps elderly parents to look to, it was a grand thing to have your own bit of land and a house on it.
The war had made extra work, of course. The Lady must still have her victims; she must still have her plump, fair young virgins to tease and torture (yes, and do other things to!) and finally to suspend from the great black hooks in the bathhouses. They dug one another in the ribs and said, slyly, hadn’t there been nights when the Lady had thought she had true untouched virgins gushing their fluids over her limbs, but hadn’t she been very much mistaken! It was a hard old life if you couldn’t relieve your own needs on the Lady’s victims at times. A man on Castle night duty got ragingly frustrated watching the Lady work off her passions on the poor pretty fools that they captured for her; best just take one or two of them for yourself before the Lady’s attentions rendered the poor creatures so mutilated that they were scarcely recognisable as Humans at all. Not that the Almhuinians differentiated particularly between Humans and other creatures. If Humans couldn’t be found, (and occasionally there was a shortage), the Lady had been known to make do with young deer or the silken-skinned panthers that sometimes roamed the mountains.
And when you had a frustration on you the size of a gatepost, where was the difference between Human and beast? You could strap down a panther or a deer and ply your stalk between its rear quarters as easily as a Human. You could still steal along to one of the Lady’s cells and bring out the manacles and the muzzles. Panthers fought and bit, but deer were gentler, apt to freeze into immobility in fear. Humans screamed and struggled and implored to be set free, which could be a good game, because you could pretend to bargain, and see their gratitude. It was a game that could be played indefinitely before you finally did whatever you wanted to. Every creature was different. It all made for interest.
*
It had made for great interest when the Summoning had come from the Other Ireland. To begin with, opinions had been divided as to the wisdom of answering it, especially with their own War here to be fought. But Black Aed, whose wife was said to be an illegitimate descendant of Medoc himself, and who therefore ought to be able to judge such things, had said it sounded perfectly genuine. A matter of a rebellion, so Aed’s wife believed; a mutiny within the Porphyry Palace itself, and the rebels wanting a little dark assistance.
‘Necromancy?’ said one or two people suspiciously, because there was no use pretending that any of them had a shred of power between them. Fighting and serving and spying, that was what the Almhuinians did, and very thoroughly too! But they had not a smidgen of necromancy anywhere in them, and it would not have done to say they had. These things had to be made clear at the outset.
But it had appeared that it was the Black HeartStealers who were wanting assistance, and as Black Aed had said, didn’t they all know perfectly well that the Black HeartStealers had their own necromancy? They simply wanted a show of force, he said. A smallish but strongish Army to lead against the Amaranths. The leader of the Black Hearts, who as they all knew was the Fer Caille, was prepared to pay extremely well, said Aed, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together suggestively, and people said, oh well, if it was only fighting that was wanted, they could very likely get through a Gateway and help out a bit. So long as it was understood that they were properly paid.
Black Aed cracked his knuckle-joints happily, and told everyone they would all do very nicely out of this, what with the Black HeartStealers being such a very prosperous branch of the Royal Sorcery House. They were an actual branch of the Amaranths, a bastard branch, added Black Aed’s wife, sniggering; and everyone chuckled slyly, because didn’t they all know exactly what she meant: a necromancer had somewhere or other inter-married with the Black HeartStealers, and infiltrated a vein of dark sorcery into the line. And very nice too.
As Diarmuit, the innkeeper, had pointed out, wasn’t it high time that they sneaked a few of their own kind in to rule the Amaranths? And wouldn’t it be the Amaranths’ own fault if they were soundly and roundly beaten and driv
en from the Porphyry Palace? Old-fashioned in their ways, said Diarmuit wisely; old-fashioned and narrow-minded. It would be a fine thing to have their own Black HeartStealers serving the High King, he said with one of his sly, gravelly chuckles, and everyone had chuckled with him and agreed.
And so there was plenty to discuss on the night that the Lady sent over the Blinding Lightning, and told them all to stay safely indoors. There was the progress of their own War to chart, and whether or not Chaos could be beaten, and if not, whether the Almhuinians might not be better to change sides altogether because you had to watch your own interests.
They had taken shelter in the inn, because you might as well have a bit of company and a bite of supper while necromantic forces were rampaging across the skies outside; they were engaged in drawing up a bit of a list of the younger ones who could be spared to send through a Gateway in answer to the Black Hearts’ summons, and debating the merits of using the Moher Gateway, which was guarded by the Flesh-eating Trolls, as against the tunnels of Tiarna, which were guarded by the sidh, when the two travellers came into the inn.
This was intriguing, because most travellers who had to pass through Almhuin scuttled through the streets without stopping. But these two — a dark-haired, bearded young man and a lady — seemed not to care or perhaps not to know about the Lady’s legend. They came quite openly into the inn, the lady limping from an injury to her foot, coming up to the tables where the wine flagons and the bite of food that was always available were all set out.
They asked for wine; ‘And if you could provide us with a bite of supper, we should be grateful,’ said the young man.
‘We will pay you well,’ said his companion, and people looked up at the sound of her voice, because it was a soft, rather attractive voice.
They were served with wine — very good wine they would find it — and bowls of steaming soup with newly baked bread and wedges of creamy-yellow cheese, and slices of roast beef. There was a dab of freshly made horseradish to go with the beef.