by Sarah Rayne
‘Yes. I know also that it is told how, within this Castle, are rooms, dungeons, each one containing a worse torment than the last,’ said Rumour. She regarded the other. ‘I have always felt that rather obvious, but I daresay that having practised necromancy for so long, you are running out of new ideas.’ Poor burnt-out soul, said her tone.
The Crimson Lady drew back and hissed faintly. ‘You shall pay dearly for that, BitchAmaranth,’ she said, her voice sibilant and filled with hatred.
‘Dear me, how tedious,’ said Rumour at once, and the Lady turned back to Andrew.
The smile curved her lips again, and she said, ‘When I have done with the Amaranth Bitch, I shall introduce you to the pleasures of extreme pain.’
The taste of blood, Human …
‘You will be a worthy partner for a night for my bed,’ she said softly. ‘And when once you have tasted blood, when once you have felt it cascading over your naked limbs, you will know it for the sweetest, most potent wine you have ever taken.’ She studied him again, and Andrew stared back. The Lady said, ‘The line between pain and pleasure is a very fine one. Perhaps you have already found that? Perhaps you have already experienced arousal when flagellating yourself in your lonely, monkish cell.’
Scourging the flesh with the Miserere chanting all about your ears …
‘I am afraid you are going to be disappointed in my response, madame,’ said Andrew, with immaculate courtesy tinged with apology, and something dark and serpentine flickered in the Lady’s eyes.
She said, very softly, ‘I do not think so.’ She was standing directly in front of him, and Andrew felt the cold, sour evil billowing out from the creature, as if the door to an ice-house had been opened. She leaned nearer, so that Andrew smelt the fetid stench of her breath, and knew it must come from the constant imbibing of warm blood.
‘You will never destroy me,’ hissed the Crimson Lady, ‘although before we are done, you may wish to.’ For a moment, her great black eyes seemed to distend, so that Andrew had the sensation of falling down a deep, dark well.
The Lady stood back, regarding them both, and then, turning to the waiting Almhuinians, said, ‘They will do very well for a night’s pleasure. Take them to the slaughterhouses.
‘Make ready the silver troughs.’
*
The Almhuinians took their two prisoners through echoing galleries and narrow stone passages. Black Aed led the way, holding the torch aloft in the darkness, and Diarmuit and the other Almhuinians walked close behind, their knives unsheathed. Andrew knew that any attempt to escape would be useless. Their captors were armed and watchful, the tunnels narrow and dim. He glanced at Rumour, seeing that her eyes were in shadow and unreadable, but that her expression was calm, even rather disdainful. He saw her twitch the skirts of her cloak aside from a thick patch of dust at their feet, and grimace in disgust.
‘Keep moving,’ said Diarmuit harshly, and Rumour stopped and turned round to regard him, and said, in a faintly surprised voice:
‘You cannot expect me to walk through this filth? In slippers?’
‘You’ll endure far worse presently,’ said Diarmuit, and Rumour sighed, and said in a low, confiding tone to Andrew, ‘Do you know, I had always heard that the Crimson Lady was much more particular than this. Really, it goes to show that gossip is not to be trusted, because who would have thought that Almhuin would be so disgustingly dirty.’ She sent Andrew one of her sudden grins, and said, with a shrug, ‘But then of course, she is one of the Northern necromancers and they were never overly fastidious.’
‘Were they not?’ said Andrew, as if he found this interesting.
‘Oh my dear, disgracefully unclean.’ Rumour glanced back at Diarmuit, and leaning closer to Andrew, said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘They do say that after the Erl-King died — at the hands of a Human, naturally …’
‘Naturally.’
‘ … his entire Citadel had to be burned down, because no one would live in it.’
Andrew would have given all of his sparse possessions to have got Rumour away; he would gladly have rendered homage to any god who would take her back to the Porphyry Palace, even if he himself had to be left behind to face the Lady of Almhuin. But he was boundlessly grateful for her air of flippancy and her reckless, challenging bravery in front of these creatures.
For, he thought, I cannot be sure if I would have shown such courage without her. I cannot be sure if I could have faced the Crimson Lady so contemptuously and with such disdain.
The Crimson Lady, who would rake and stir up a man’s deeply hidden desires until he was bursting his skin with longing, and who would draw him across the thin line, the first threadline that separates pain from pleasure …
Pain … The scourging that had sometimes aroused a crude, throbbing lust … So strong, so hard that sometimes the only relief was to commit the sin of Onan … The spilling of the seed, scalding and sinful, shameful but exquisite … How had she known about that?
The stone passage widened, and there was the feeling of something ahead, waiting, watching … Something that had hungering black eyes and greedy, clutching hands, and that might already be seated on a black throne, with an immense silver chalice held in place, waiting to catch the gleanings from the bodies of the two new prisoners …
For someone will be quaffed tonight …
Yes, but before that, that someone will have been drawn down a dark and terrible path … How would it feel to lie alongside that alabaster skin, to feel its coldness drawing the throbbing heat from your own, to feel the icy flesh surround your desperate passion …
Andrew tugged angrily at the ropes around his wrists, and felt a stinging pain. With the sharp, scraping pain, the insidious pull on his mind ceased, and he knew his thoughts his own again. He thought: she is trying to bewitch me! The creature is sending out some kind of dark seduction, some kind of evil beckoning. She is spinning black necromancy about my mind! And he glanced at Rumour, and remembered how, in the Cavern of the Segais Well, Rumour had, just for a moment, stared at the Lord of Chaos, her eyes wide and dark. Yes, Rumour would understand about the evil, beautiful allure.
Rumour was not thinking about the Crimson Lady’s possible powers over Andrew. She had seen, for a fleeting moment that the creature was attracted to him, of course, and she had known that the Lady would almost certainly send out the Dark Beckoning to him, more or less as a routine. The Amaranth Charter forbade the Dark Beckoning of course but everyone had used it at one time or another. Rumour herself had woven her own version of it, but she had spun into it as many Enchantments of Light as possible, and her Lures had always been soaring, joyous things, filled with light and love and washed with music and wine and firelight.
She thought that Andrew was strong enough to resist the Crimson Lady’s dark, evil Lure. He might succumb briefly, but he would almost certainly recognise the Beckoning for what it was, and he would throw it off. And after all, thought Rumour, her mind going fleetingly back to that moment when she had responded so strongly and so shamefully to Chaos; after all, who am I to criticise, or even mind if he does respond to it? She glanced at him in the ill-lit passage, and knew an overwhelming gratitude that he was with her, and that his strength and his belief that they would escape flowed out ceaselessly. She thought: without Andrew, I could certainly not have faced the Crimson Lady as — as insolently as I did earlier.
Directly ahead of them was a massive double door, studded with iron nails, and with huge iron ring-handles. Black Aed reached to open them; they swung to with a soft, well-oiled whisper of sound.
‘Frequently used,’ he said, grinning the rat-grin at Andrew and standing back, holding the torch aloft for them to see. ‘Frequently used and carefully looked after. The Lady would not wish this place to be neglected.’
‘Indeed? Then how very sad she does not apply the same rules to the rest of her Castle,’ said Rumour, standing on one foot and then the other to inspect the soles of her slippers, and frowning.
‘Onwards,’ said Diarmuit angrily, pushing them forward. And there, ahead of them, was the place which every person in Ireland, the true, real Ireland, feared and spoke of in whispers. There, waiting for them, was the nightmare sanctum, the grisly temple of blood raised by the last daughter of the Northern necromancers …
The Lady of Almhuin’s slaughterhouse.
Chapter Thirty
It was larger than they had expected, and it was shadowy and dim, so that to begin with they could only make out crouching shapes, formless, sinister outlines. And then Black Aed moved forward, holding up the torch to the rusted wall-brackets, and flames leapt up, vivid orange and scarlet, illuminating the slaughterhouse to grisly life. A warm, faintly meaty scent hung on the air.
As the light steadied, they saw that at the far end of the chamber were four stone tables, oblong in shape — Human in shape, thought Andrew. The tables were waist-high, and set on thick, dark plinths engraved with symbols and runic hieroglyphs. Around the edges were culverts, deep narrow channels with drainholes at each comer, and at each of the tables’ corners lay iron gyves and manacles with long, snakelike chains hanging down.
At the sides of the chamber were deep stone troughs, each one placed directly beneath one of the evil-smelling wall-sconces. Andrew thought they were a little like the huge drinking troughs used for horses, but Rumour, whose eyes were still adjusting to the flickering torchlight, thought they bore a sinister resemblance to stone coffins. Each one was partly sunk into the floor, with stone steps, worn away at the centre, leading down.
The sunken blood-baths.
The symbols used on the tables were carved around the edges of the baths, and Rumour recognised them as belonging to the House of Medoc and the Erl-King. In her own terrible world, this creature is royalty of a very high order indeed, thought Rumour, with a cold trickle of fear.
The windows of the slaughterhouse were barred, but, as Andrew had seen earlier, they looked directly on to the bleak northern face of the Black Mountains. So that no matter what agonies were inflicted on you, no matter what mutilations you suffered, no one would see and no one would hear …
The roof was low and intersected by massive rafters, blackened with age and centuries of candlesmoke. Protruding from the central beam was a row of huge black iron hooks, glinting in the flickering torchlight. Butcher-hooks, thought Andrew, shuddering inwardly. At the room’s centre was a small, square platform some three feet from the ground. Steps led up to it, and a silver barrel, rather like a huge elaborate water-butt, with several small pipes protruding from its base, stood on the platform beneath the hooks. A gigantic earthenware jug stood close by.
Andrew, who had for a time been responsible for the fabric and the upkeep of his monastery, saw that the pipes ran from the silver butt along the floor to the stone troughs, and understood that their purpose was to discharge whatever fluids collected in the silver butt directly into the sunken troughs.
Set against the inner wall, facing the barred windows, was a squat iron brazier, cauldron-shaped but fashioned from thick iron, and resting on elaborately carved iron legs. Black Aed moved to it, holding a flaring torch to heat the bricks inside, and Rumour, remembering the whispered tales of the Lady’s methods of torture, felt a sick dread clutch her.
They could both feel the rising heat from the Almhuinians now, and with it, a feral scent, dry and warm, as if thick, unclean fur were standing before a furnace. Rumour felt a stir of sexual heat from their captors, and knew that the Rodent side of them was strongly and grotesquely aroused by what was ahead.
A door at the far end of the chamber was flung open, and the Crimson Lady, clad only in a thin scarlet silk wrap, stood before them.
*
The Crimson Lady moved forwards with a slow, snakelike grace, the wrap falling open to reveal pale, marbled flesh. Her hair was still drawn back from her white brow, but the snood was gone, and her hair cascaded over her shoulders in sinuous black coils. Her eyes were on the two prisoners and, as she approached them, her fingers curved in a predatory fashion, the great burning-pitch eyes unblinking. ‘So you are in my Temple at last, Humans,’ she said, softly.
‘We had little choice, madame,’ said Andrew.
‘We would certainly not have chosen to be here,’ said Rumour.
The deep hungry eyes flickered. ‘You are insolent,’ said the Lady. And then, turning to Andrew, ‘But you, Human, have a certain courtesy. I find it to my liking.’ Her eyes raked him. ‘I believe I shall enjoy you,’ said the Lady, her voice clotted and thick. ‘I shall find immense pleasure in your body and, at the end, when you are exhausted and begging for mercy, I shall enjoy seeing your agonies cross the line to the greatest sensuality you have ever known.’ She glanced briefly at Rumour. ‘Did you think this posturing Amaranth creature, this charlatan had given you pleasure?’ she said, her voice filled with amused disdain. ‘Did you think she had brought you to the peaks of fulfilment?’ She reached out a cold, long-fingered white hand and traced the lines of Andrew’s face. ‘Yes, you are lean and firmly muscled,’ she said, half to herself. ‘And I shall take you to the peaks of agony and the exquisite heights of the purest pain in the world. And when you have scaled those peaks with me, then I shall permit you to die so that my beauty will survive. And your death will be a whisper of sheerest delight to your exhausted body.’
Andrew said, quite calmly, ‘An interesting fate, madame.’
‘How tedious to have to continually feed beauty,’ said Rumour, bored.
There was the flicker of acknowledgement in the black eyes, as if the Lady might be relishing this interchange, and certainly as if she might be finding both Andrew and Rumour of more than usual interest. But she stepped back, turning her gaze on to Black Aed and Diarmuit and the waiting Almhuinians.
‘I see you are already excited by the thought of the blood and the pain ahead,’ said the Crimson Lady, in her soft, harsh voice. ‘I see that your bodies are already hardening and ripening with anticipation.’ She moved to stand before them. ‘Perhaps I shall permit you to play a more active part this time. Perhaps I shall even take one or two of you to my bed later,’ she said, and at once a low groaning murmur stirred the Almhuinians, and they glanced at one another from the corners of their eyes.
The Lady laughed, flinging back her head, so that the dark hair caressed the white flesh of her shoulders. ‘First,’ she said, ‘we must show these two prisoners what is ahead, for anticipation was ever a part of pleasure.’ She moved amongst them, studying each of them intently, coming to stop before Black Aed. A sudden hush fell on the Almhuinians, and Andrew and Rumour both felt their senses alerted, for something was about to happen, something unexpected, thought Rumour, and felt Andrew’s awareness. Was this the moment for them to stage an escape? A diversion?
The Lady was staring at Black Aed, and there was such black fury in her eyes that he flinched.
‘You have failed me,’ said the Crimson Lady, and her voice was suddenly cold and hard, and filled with such authority that the Almhuinians flinched. Black Aed stayed where he was, transfixed by the staring, pit-like black eyes.
‘You permitted that Amaranth creature to harness sorcery while she was in your keeping,’ said the Lady. ‘You permitted her to summon the Collector.’
‘It was not —’
‘Be silent, rat,’ said the Lady, and although she did not say it very loudly, or even very aggressively, Black Aed was at once still. But Rumour could see that his eyes were shifting uneasily, as if he were searching the chamber for a means of escape.
‘You are kept by me to ensure a supply of prisoners,’ said the Lady, and now she was standing very close to him. ‘You are kept very well by me to do that, Black Aed,’ she said. ‘And yet you sat drinking and carousing while that Amaranth creature laid her plans. And one of your number was killed by her sorcery,’ said the Lady, and from the waiting Almhuinians, there was a murmur of ‘Searbhan’.
‘Yes, Searbhan. His manhood torn from him to adorn
the Collector’s hoard. And now dead of his wounds. Simply for trying to spear the Amaranth.’
She looked at Black Aed again, who said, ‘It was — we had not expected —’
‘I keep you to expect,’ said the Lady. ‘I pay you to expect. And the summoning of the Collector was a very obvious ploy.’ She glanced contemptuously at Rumour, who grinned and said:
‘But it worked.’
The Lady’s eyes flickered with anger, but she turned back to Black Aed.
He had stood his ground. He eyed the Crimson Lady and said, ‘Searbhan ought not to have approached the Amaranth. It is not permitted that we should tamper with your prisoners.’ He said it in a cringing, unctuous way, as if he was reminding the Lady how slavishly they obeyed her laws, but his face was the colour of tallow and a faint sheen of sweat stood out on his brow.
‘Absurd mutant-creature,’ said the Lady in a tone of cold fury. ‘Did you truly imagine I did not know your little ways?’ She glanced back at the others. ‘Did you all believe me to be ignorant of your rutting and your crude, brutish lusts?’ She walked slowly round them, looking deeply into each narrow, rattish face as she did so. ‘Of course you sample my prey before it reaches me,’ she said. ‘All of you do so.’ She regarded them, her face white with fury, her eyes blazing such power that Andrew and Rumour felt the icy chill brush them. ‘Did you truly think I did not know of it?’ she said, and Diarmuit, whom Andrew had already seen to be the bravest of these people said, ‘Ma’am, the virgins are never —’
‘I know the virgins are never touched,’ said the Lady at once, turning back to face Diarmuit. ‘I feel them to be sure that they have not been touched before I embark on their torture.’ A rather terrible smile touched the sensuous lips briefly. ‘That is one of my pleasures,’ she said. ‘For once I have felt that the maiden’s veil is still between their thighs, I have other uses for them.’ She glanced across at Rumour. ‘Virgins’ blood was ever potent for many spells,’ said the Crimson Lady, and Andrew heard with horror, that she spoke in a suddenly crisp, businesslike voice, rather as one craftsman to another; rather as if she was saying: and of course, you will understand about that.