by Sarah Rayne
‘He will not fight the battle for us?’
‘He will not. You understand.’ Of course you do, said his expression. Aloud, he said, ‘He would not send warriors into the world to lead us against enemies, or armies to fight for us. He would expect the strength to come from us.’
‘I do understand,’ said Rumour. ‘Not completely. But a little.’ She looked at him, and thought: but for all that, your God has sent help, Andrew. He has imbued you with something that I am very sure you did not possess when you came to the Porphyry Palace. You are no longer the gentle, ascetic monk, the pale, unassuming young man who supped so quietly with the Amaranths, and who listened so politely as we chanted our rituals. I think he has gone for ever, thought Rumour. And in his place is a fiery-eyed adversary, a thin, dark-haired young man with a lean hard body and a burning anger.
She studied him, caught momentarily in fascination, and thought that even the black woollen robe no longer gave him the cool aloofness he had once possessed. He is awake and alive and he is feeling, thought Rumour, still curled into the dusty cellar corner. I suppose I did that. I suppose I tore aside the armour he had so carefully built up and made him live and hurt and care. But what was beneath the armour is infinitely stronger and infinitely more human. I wonder if his God finds him better like this? I wonder if I am indeed seeing the Samildanach reborn, she thought with a thrill that was half fear and half delight.
The sickness from the drugged food had been disgusting and humiliating. Sickness was something you hid, something you dealt with alone. You certainly did not inflict it on a lover. But it could not be helped, and since it could not be helped, she would try to turn it into something to smile at. It was important to remain brave and flippant, to find lightness in any situation, because these were the things that armoured you against the world. Rumour was aware of reaching for bravery and flippancy, rather in the way she might have reached for a gown appropriate to an occasion. The simile amused her, and with the amusement came a thin vein of courage that was no longer a pretence, but almost the real thing. She managed to dash cold water on to her face from the tin cup left for them, and to rinse her mouth. The water was cold and pure and untainted by any drug, and Rumour began to feel better. And if I had hair that I could brush out, I should feel ready to face anything! she thought. But she sat up determinedly, and said, ‘You have to admit, Andrew, that I could not be accused of showing a false picture of myself to you. You have seen me in every conceivable humiliation now.’ And thought that, if this was not quite her old mocking carelessness, it was not a bad attempt.
Andrew said, very gently, ‘None of it matters, of course.’
‘No.’ She looked at him, waiting, and after a moment, Andrew said:
‘Love is not a matter of silken gowns and perfumed bodies,’ and Rumour smiled the old smile, the cat smile that said: now I have made you admit it! And felt considerably better, because after all she was not so beaten by the Almhuinians; she could still present the glittering image; she could still look across at Andrew and feel the swift, secret delight at loving and being loved. They would get through this and they would find a way to escape.
After the first makeshift meal, she had left the food untouched, but Andrew, who had already wrestled with this one, said, ‘I believe the food is only lightly drugged. And you should eat a very little if you could.’
‘To retain strength for escape?’ Rumour was glad to hear that her voice sounded as much mocking as questioning.
‘Yes,’ said Andrew, seriously.
‘Very well.’ She regarded the food disdainfully. ‘It is quite disgusting, of course. I am not accustomed to plain bread and cheese. But I will get through the ordeal.’ She leaned forward, her eyes glowing. ‘When I was very small, Andrew — perhaps Theodora’s age — Nechtan once taught me that the best way to get through an ordeal was to visualise something that existed beyond the ordeal. On the other side of it. Something pleasant and familiar that you knew without doubt would happen after the ordeal was over.’
‘Yes?’ He smiled slightly, thinking that for all her dazzling extravagances, she was possessed of an unexpected ingenuousness at times.
Rumour said, ‘It was the best advice ever, but then Nechtan was the wisest, wiliest man I ever knew.’ She smiled in the dim cellar. ‘The thing you look forward to, the thing that you know lies beyond the ordeal can be something quite small. Perhaps as small as a favourite meal for supper. But the trick is to look beyond. To look forward to that favourite dish. Or perhaps to the playing of a new song.’ She looked at him, waiting for his reaction, thinking, as she had thought in Tiarna: and if he does not understand, or if he ridicules, the feeling I have for him will surely weaken. But let him understand, thought Rumour, and was surprised at the vehemence of her plea.
Andrew said, ‘My Order — that is, my religion — requires many hours of fasting and prayer. At the beginning, during the years of what are called novitiate, there is the scourging of one’s own flesh.’
He paused, and Rumour said cautiously, ‘To subdue the appetites of the flesh?’
‘Yes.’ Andrew frowned. ‘I found it immensely difficult,’ he said after a moment. ‘The scourge is a light whip with several knotted ends, and the novices had to apply it to their own bodies once every week for as long as it took to chant the Miserere — that is a prayer we find of particular strength. To me, such self-inflicted pain was a needless humiliation and a — a degradation.’ He sent her the sudden, sweet smile. ‘Also it was unnecessary,’ he said. ‘For then the lures of the flesh did not trouble me.
‘But I did it. I was obedient. But in order to get through it, I would set my mind on what always followed the scourging and the chanting of the Miserere.’
‘Which was?’
Andrew’s thin face lightened into the sudden smile again. ‘The one good midday meal of the week,’ he said. ‘Roast beef.’
Rumour laughed, because of course he had understood. She said, ‘Well, for now I am looking beyond this place, and I am looking beyond our visit to the Crimson Lady’s fortress.’ She leaned forward again, hugging her knees, the iron manacles dragging against the floor. ‘I am looking forward to being inside my own castle,’ she said. ‘To ordering up a banquet — roast swan and baked goose. Almond pudding and crystallised fruits piled high on silver dishes. And wine: the richest, sweetest, the most expensive wine there is. I shall believe it will happen, that banquet, and that is how I shall endure what is ahead of us.’
‘A banquet on the other side,’ said Andrew softly.
‘Yes.’ She leaned back against the cellar wall. ‘Will you be there with me, Andrew?’ she said, quietly. ‘Will you share that banquet?’
Andrew drew breath to answer, to say that they would share it — they would eat the rich food together and drink the strong, sweet wine — when a sound from above made them both look up sharply.
Footsteps came across the room over their heads, and the trap door was lifted and the iron ladder let down. Diarmuit, followed by Black Aed and some half a dozen of the others, climbed down into the cellar and stood grinning at them.
Rumour, staring, thought: of course they are Rodents. I never really doubted it, but down here, with barely any light, it is very obvious indeed. Rats and weasels and stoats. They are enjoying our captivity and what they believe is our humiliation. They are gloating. Horrid creatures! thought Rumour, and a tiny spurt of anger spiralled inside her, stinging her into renewed life. How dare they treat us like this! she thought, and waited, and there again was the anger, and the rushing strength with it. That is interesting, she thought. Anger is a — a reviving emotion. I shall remember that, she thought, and being Rumour, tucked the knowledge away until it might be of some use.
Diarmuit and the others clambered down the narrow ladder, and stood in the small cellar, eyeing their prisoners avidly. In the dimness their eyes glinted redly and their teeth were sharper, their features narrower, more vicious. Rumour was aware of the thick feral stench emana
ting from them.
As they pulled her roughly to her feet, one of them pressed her against him, so that she could feel the hard stalk of arousal between his thin thighs, and she shuddered in revulsion, because there was something so coarse, so unclean about feeling the swollen desire of a creature you found completely repulsive. The Almhuinian grinned at her, his teeth gleaming wetly, and thrust a hand into the bodice of her gown, fingering her breasts. Rumour turned her head away and struggled and the Almhuinian laughed gloatingly.
‘Modest, Madame Sorceress? Perhaps you will prefer the embraces of the Lady? For she is not particular whether she explores the flesh of men or women.’
The sick feeling and the slight dizziness left by the drugged food were not a deterrent to a show of courage. Rumour took a deep breath, and reached again for the core of anger, and found that it enabled her to stand firm and send the Almhuinian a haughty stare.
‘I am selective in my choice of lovers,’ she said, and Andrew heard with something approaching delight that it was once more the arrogant, I-am-beyond-the-law tone that had intrigued him from the beginning. Rumour continued icily, ‘I do not permit Rodent Creatures to touch me. Remove your hands, or I shall shrivel your phallus where it hangs.’
The Almhuinians laughed and nudged one another. ‘We’d like to see you try,’ said Diarmuit, and Andrew looked up, hearing the derisive, challenging note, knowing at once that Rumour would certainly make some attempt to meet the challenge.
‘The Lady has Almhuin wrapped safely in the Girdle of Gold,’ said one of them. ‘Nothing ever got past the Girdle of Gold.’
‘Did it not?’ said Rumour, and her eyes glinted.
Black Aed, who was watching and listening, hooked his hands in his belt and looked at the others. ‘She’s a haughty BitchHuman, this one,’ he said. ‘Shall we take her to the Castle now, or shall we — enjoy her ourselves first?’
‘Enjoy her first!’ cried the others, and at once formed a circle about her.
‘And Searbhan to have first taste!’ cried Diarmuit, and the Almhuinian who had grasped Rumour and fingered her breasts, chuckled lasciviously and moved forward.
‘And we’ll untie her,’ he said, and nodded to Diarmuit to do so. ‘Less restricting,’ said Searbhan, his voice thick with lust.
Rumour had backed away from the evil, greedy creatures, but Diarmuit untied the ropes that had bound her ankles, and unlocked the iron gyves that had tethered her arms to the wall, and then pulled her forward. The Almhuinians stood in a circle about her, grinning and nudging one another suggestively.
‘One at a time, remember,’ said Black Aed, already beginning to unbuckle his iron-studded belt. ‘And no tearing of her white skin, or we’ll have the Lady’s anger to contend with.’
‘Onwards then. Searbhan,’ cried another. ‘Or shall we warm her for you?’
‘I can do my own warming, friend,’ said the ugly, black-visaged Searbhan, unbuttoning his breeches and easing them downwards over his thin, hairy thighs. He eyed Rumour, who let her eyes wander over his body and then laughed contemptuously.
‘Weakling,’ she said. ‘I had thought you were proper men here in Almhuin. You will have to produce better flesh than that to satisfy me, milksops. I have been accustomed to quality in my lovers.’ She directed her gaze between Searbhan’s legs. ‘Also to quantity,’ said Rumour in a silken purr. She turned her back disdainfully, and Andrew, watching his every chance to help, wanted to hug her for her cool contemptuousness of these horrid, sly creatures.
Searbhan said, angrily, ‘You’ll regret those words, Madame Sorceress,’ and reached out to pull her to him. Rumour felt the hard, bony fingers dig into her skin, and the anger welled up again, swirling through her entire body.
She thought: how dare this weasel-faced Rodent speak to me thus! How dare these evil, ugly things humiliate us both and taunt us with their absurd puny necromancy! And although she knew, in the corners of her mind, that they were inside the fearsome Dark Realm and that they were in the dread Almhuin itself, still her mind sought and closed about a strong and vicious spell, just a little dark, read and learned in secrecy when she was studying at the Academy, tucked away in her mind, because you never knew … You never knew when a lover, a partner, a Human, might become importunate …
And if any spell would work in this dark, evil place, it would be a spell tinged with a little necromantic malice …
She seized on the incantation with delight — I knew I should need it one day! — and whirled about to face the weasel-featured Searbhan. With her eyes flashing angrily, she pronounced in a furious voice, a string of syllables in an ancient, ugly tongue.
A huge, whirling blackness reared up from nowhere, and the cellar was suddenly filled with the evillest, most gloating chuckling Andrew had ever heard. He shivered, and pulled his woollen robe more closely about him.
‘I am the Collector,’ said the chuckling, clotted voice. ‘I wear the phalluses of my victims about my waist … I collect lumps of flesh,’ it said. ‘I take them.’
There was the fleeting impression of an impossibly tall, skeletal-thin man, dark and cavernous-featured, with hands that reached and clutched. It darted across the cellar, its hands outstretched, the nails glinting, and closed about Searbhan’s groin.
He staggered back, flailing desperately at the air, trying to fight off the shadowy figure, screaming in pain and fear. As he fell against the far wall, his legs were suddenly forced wide apart, and blood and urine and thick, nearly colourless fluid spurted out, soaking his breeches and running down his legs to puddle on the floor. Shreds of pinkish skin and flesh tore in bloodied tatters and the greedy, chuckling laugh filled the cellar again.
‘A new piece for my collection,’ whispered the voice. ‘I have nothing from the Rodent descendants of Almhuin. I thank you, Madame Amaranth.’ The huge dark shape bent over, in the act of stringing a lump of pale, bloodied flesh on to a massive belt.
The Collector seemed to turn his huge head towards Rumour. ‘Madame Amaranth, I am indebted,’ he said in a soft, satisfied voice.
‘The indebtedness is entirely mine,’ responded Rumour with amused courtesy, and the Collector gave his fearsome laugh again.
‘There are few of your kind who know how to summon me,’ he said. ‘But I am always there for those who pronounce the incantation. Remember it, madame.’
‘I will remember it,’ said Rumour, and the Collector made another of his courtly bows, and vanished.
Rumour turned to face the Almhuinians. ‘Well?’ she said softly and challengingly. ‘Would any other creature care to make the attempt to rape me?’
‘What did you do?’ said Diarmuit, as two of the others went to help the sobbing, moaning Searbhan.
‘Summoned the Collector,’ said Rumour coldly. ‘As you saw.’
‘That is necromancy,’ said Black Aed.
‘Yes?’ What about it? said her tone. ‘I did warn you,’ said Rumour. ‘And it was a fitting punishment.’ The malicious grin lit her face. ‘Well, gentlemen?’ said Rumour. ‘Are there any more who would like to challenge me? The Collector will certainly return if I call. He will not be so very far off yet.’
And then Black Aed moved forward, Diarmuit and several more at his side, twisting Rumour’s arms painfully behind her back. Rumour felt the pain instantly cloud her strength, and knew herself unable to summon any kind of power. She bit her lip to stop herself from crying aloud with the pain, and concentrated on maintaining a cool disdain.
‘Into the tilt cart with them both,’ said Black Aed. ‘And then take them to the Castle.
‘We’ll let the Lady have her way with these two.’
Chapter Twenty-nine
The skies were heavy and dark and streaked with menace as the tilt cart jolted its way up the mountain path towards the Castle.
The Almhuinians seemed uneasy and Andrew, listening and watching for any chance that might present itself, realised that they were afraid of being seen.
When Black Aed
said, ‘Watch for the Harpies now,’ and Diarmuit replied, ‘Nasty spying things,’ Andrew knew he had been right; these creatures were engaged in War; they were fearful of spies.
They could hear, very faintly, the sounds of a battle somewhere beneath them. Andrew caught the thudding of hoofbeats, and several times the darkness was split by livid flashes of light. Once Black Aed halted and pointed to the east, where a line of what Andrew guessed to be more of the WarMongers were galloping hard through the night towards the Castle of Infinity. The manes of their gleaming stallions streamed out wildly in the night wind, and their ravaged silhouettes were black and menacing against the sky.
The path was steep and narrow and there was the feeling that you could travel this way for many cold, dark nights without meeting a single soul. As they went deeper into the mountains, the two prisoners felt a sour wind gust in their faces. The sounds of the faraway battle faded, and as it did so Andrew felt Rumour shiver, and understood that, compared with the wild desolation of the mountains, there had been something very nearly cosy about the noise and the clash of a battle being fought.
And then the Almhuinians pulled the tilt cart across the last rough patch of ground, and there was a sudden break in the great rearing mountain walls ahead of them. Directly ahead of them, set half into the mountain itself, was the Crimson Lady’s Citadel, the Mountain Fortress of the Beast Woman of Almhuin.
*
The immense shadow of the evil Fortress fell across the cart, and Rumour shivered again and pulled her cloak about her, staring up at the rearing Citadel, her eyes huge.
The great Stronghold of the Crimson Lady had been hewn from massive black stones, rough and pitted and harsh, with here and there pale, blind growths crusting the surface.
As they drew nearer, Rumour, still feeling sick from the drugged food, felt a creeping coldness steal over her. The evil that emanated from the Castle was Complex Evil at its strongest; it was noisome and filled with pulsating malevolence. Rumour could smell it and feel it and taste it; it struck at her senses with the wincing pain of raw flesh being scraped by a knife.