by Sarah Rayne
*
And now their voices mingled more strongly and more evocatively than before: Andrew’s rising and falling in the warm, comforting rhythms of Christianity, Rumour’s in a lighter, more musical chant.
The common ground. The two beliefs, one so new it had barely made its mark yet; the other immeasurably ancient, its genesis lost in the dark that existed before Time dawned. Blending and mingling, running from one mind to the other, until it was impossible to know where one began and the other ended.
Two streams of wine joining to make one …
When Andrew reached the part that he always thought of as the heart and the core and the great living centre of his religion, he felt the answering response from Rumour.
‘“This is my Body which is given for you … This is my Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you … ”’
In the same moment, they heard the fiery sounds of the great Amaranth Seals fusing over the cell door and, from within, a terrible shriek that rent the air with agony.
Andrew stepped forward and wedged the crucifix between the tightly layered bricks and, as he did so, a small, pale face with great burning-pitch eyes appeared framed in the tiny hatch opening.
‘You will pay dearly for this, Human Monk and Amaranth Sorceress …’ Maniacal laughter exploded in the quiet dungeons, and Andrew fell back, feeling vicious hatred slice his mind.
Rumour caught him as he fell against the far wall, but he stood unaided, the ash stick supporting him. There was a moment when he silently regarded the prisoner, black eyes meeting grey, and then with Rumour at his side, they went from the unbroken darkness and the lonely dungeons, clinging to one another for warmth and comfort.
*
Rumour moved closer to the leaping fire they had kindled in the small stone room. She said, ‘Andrew, you will have to be extremely careful of this one. She would kill us and eat our hearts if she could get out.’
‘Yes.’ Yes, for she will reach for my mind, and there may be limes when I shall be lonely or despairing, and in need of the sound of another creature’s voice … And she would be learned in the legend and the lore of this strange, evil Realm, said the tiny treacherous voice within his mind. She would surely know much of its history, and all of it would make interesting hearing …
He shut his mind to the slithering, treacherous thoughts, and passed Rumour the chalice of wine.
‘I am aware of the dangers,’ he said, sipping the hot, fragrant wine gratefully. ‘I shall be on my guard.’
Rumour’s eyes were shadowed and her face was drawn as she stared into the leaping flames. But she only said, ‘You will be able to construct a hatch over the opening in the bricks?’
‘Yes.’ They had left the opening deliberately, so that food and water could be passed through. It was a small oblong aperture, perhaps eight inches square, near to the ceiling, and Andrew considered it, glad to concentrate on the practicalities of the situation. He said, ‘Once my wound has healed a little more, I believe I could fit a small door with hinges.’ His mind sped on, thinking that there must a stout lock, strong spring-hinges that opened outwards only; planning how he could pass food and water through with a long hooked pole, rather like the one the Almhuinians had used in Diarmuit’s cellar.
‘Once a hatch is in place,’ said Rumour, ‘the cage can be withdrawn. But until then, it will hold her.’ She looked at him, her face serious in the fire glow. ‘Your ritual — your prayer — was very powerful. I could feel the power and the strength.’
The power and the glory and the strength … Andrew smiled and thought: yes, of course, that is what I shall hold on to. That is what will give me the courage to endure this task.
He said, ‘I was adding the beliefs of my people to the beliefs of your people,’ and smiled at her.
‘I think that this is something both our gods would unite over,’ said Rumour seriously.
‘Yes.’
‘She seemed to recognise the symbol of your Leader. The wooden carved emblem you left.’
‘There may have been other travellers who passed through here,’ said Andrew. ‘Or she may simply have recognised it as a symbol of light.’ He leaned back, grateful for the wine and the fire, trying to visualise a pattern, a shape to the formless time that lay ahead of him.
As Guardian to the Crimson Lady, the BeastWoman, Almhuin’s necromancess …
He could not be sure that she would not work some terrible dark seduction. He could not be sure that he would be able to resist it if she did.
*
Rumour said, ‘No emotional farewells, Andrew. I cannot bear it. Let me simply go, let me just saddle one of the Lady’s horses and ride away. Let it be as if I am simply going into another room.’
‘If you wish.’ He handed her the small casket containing the sidh’s music. ‘You will return it to Tiarna?’
‘Of course.’
They looked at one another. ‘I shall await your return, Lady,’ said Andrew at length.
‘In my world,’ said Rumour, ‘there was once an expression which has now fallen into disuse. But its meaning is still potent.’ She reached out and touched his face, tracing her fingers lightly across his eyes. ‘You will be in my thoughts for a part of every day, Andrew,’ she said very softly.
Thank you.’ He looked at her. ‘In my world, in my religion, we also have an expression,’ he said. ‘It is that you will be in my prayers every day,’ said Andrew.
‘That is … more than I could wish for,’ said Rumour, and bit her lip so hard that it bled, because she would not cry, she would not …
He took her face between his hands then, and stared down at it very intently, as if he was trying to learn her, as if he wanted to imprint her face on his memory for ever.
Only that I shall never forget you, my love, you will always he with me, you will always be a part of me, even when I cannot recall your face …
Rumour, fighting back the tears — stupid, emotional, she would not give way — stared at him, and saw how far removed he was now from the gentle, ascetic monk. His eyes burned with a fervour and a belief in what he was about to do in Almhuin, and Rumour recognised fully, at last, that he must make his peace with his strange God and he must make the reparation he believed was necessary.
But you no longer wear the mien of an ascetic or a celibate, she thought. The passion that swept us so fiercely has left its mark. It is there in your eyes, my love, and in the curve of your lips …
I wonder if your brethren would recognise you, Andrew, thought Rumour. I wonder if you would recognise yourself, even. He still wore the black robe of his house, but he had grown thinner, and beneath it his body was as lean and as hard as whipcord. Only the ash stick, propped close at hand, betrayed the terrible mutilation that the Crimson Lady had inflicted on him. His dark hair tumbled about his brow; his eyes were glowing and filled with passion — whether for me or for his strange, self-imposed hermitry I cannot tell, thought Rumour. But this is no true hermit, this is no austere pietist or anchorite. This is a fiery-eyed man of the real world, an activist, a militant, a player rather than a watcher. A Man of Each and Every Art …
I wonder how long Almhuin will contain him, thought Rumour.
She thought that he heard none of this. She stayed where she was, holding his eyes steadily, trying to imprint his face on her mind, as he had done with hers … You will always be a part of me, even when I cannot recall your features; and in the end was beyond caring about the ridiculous tears that had spilled over, and that were pouring down her cheeks.
She went then, running out to where the laden horses waited in the courtyard, running from him before he could stop her, before her stupid, senseless emotions betrayed her completely, out into the dark world that waited, and on to the lowering mountains that girdled Chaos’s Castle of Infinity.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Rumour approached the Castle of Infinity, riding one of the Crimson Lady’s gleaming black stallions. She led a second, which bore the rob
es she had brought out of Tiarna and the precious cask containing the sidh’s music.
As she drew nearer the great, gleaming Fortress, she saw that it was not dark and sombre and forbidding as she had expected, but shining and sleek. ‘And extremely well looked after,’ thought Rumour, whose own Castle of the Starlit Night had always been carefully maintained, but at considerable expense.
It was so vast as to be almost a small township, set within high walls; gold-tipped gates led up to its central entrance, and glinting diamond chippings shone from its hundreds of windows.
Rumour thought: somewhere inside there is Theodora. She touched her mount’s flanks and rode on towards the entrance.
She had expected to be questioned, and she had certainly expected to be barred from entering. She had evolved a rather sketchy plan, deliberately not making it too precise, because anything might lie ahead and she must be prepared to adapt to the moment.
But she had donned the most dazzling of all the dazzling outfits she had brought out of Aillen mac Midha’s store of robes, and she was wearing a shining blue-green robe of pure, soft silk, with a sleeveless garment, a little like a surcoat, of midnight blue velvet over it. After deliberation she had donned only the plainest of headdresses: a thin circlet of silver studded with sapphires.
‘Plain but good,’ she had said to Andrew before that last soulsearing farewell. ‘I do not wish to be taken for a second-rate sorceress, you understand. If Chaos accepts me, he will be accepting me as an enemy; but I will at least be an equal enemy.’
Riding up to the Castle gates, she derived confidence from the plain but good headdress and the slither of silk against her skin. I am tipped with silver and wrapped in the gown of the sidh High King, and I have a whole store of enchantments at my beck. And if you welcome me, Chaos, Lord of the Dark Realm, then you will welcome me as a very high-ranking sorceress indeed.
She approached the entrance with her head high and a look of faint boredom. They might repel her and they might imprison her, but they certainly would not ignore her.
*
Inside the Castle of Infinity, the great banqueting hall was laid for one of the Lord of Chaos’s immense elaborate feasts. Gold plate glistened the length of the huge banqueting table, and every place was set with pure golden chalices, and ruby-studded eating implements. The deep red jewel flowers, grown and tended in the Saraigli, where Chaos’s concubines were kept, glowed brightly at every place.
There had been some competition over the picking of the flowers. The concubines had all wanted to have the arranging of them, because wasn’t it a known fact that Chaos noticed these things, and wasn’t the whole point of being in the Saraigli to get noticed? They had all drawn sketches of how the tables could be arranged, and what colours could be used. They had thought the designs very imaginative, and had asked Meirdreach, who oversaw the Saraigli, please to be sure to present them to the Reachtaire who held sway in the Castle kitchens and dining halls. The Reachtaire would be glad to have such good ideas.
Several of them, who thought that food should be arranged prettily and temptingly, had thought up ideas and decorations for the food itself. There were all kinds of things that could be done, they said, very busy with the thin paints they had coaxed out of Meirdreach, anxiously consulting with the Reachtaire’s servants as to whether there would be lobster or crab, which you could not do a great deal with, or whether it might be Twilight Fish and salmonidae, which could be made to look very attractive indeed.
One or two of the concubines had affected to disdain such slavish attempts to attract Chaos’s attention, and had turned their attention to the selecting of gowns and jewels and to the perfuming of their pampered bodies for the banquet.
‘As if they think they are already selected to attend,’ said Meirdreach, grumpily. She stood at the centre of the warm-scented rooms, and glowered at them, arms akimbo. The concubines sighed for poorest Meirdreach, who was fat and grey-haired and had the tiniest strain of Giantish blood in her, poor soul. You could see it in the incipient beard and in the thick coarse hair and you could hear it in the flat, heavy tread. They tried to be sympathetic because it must be a shocking thing to have to be seen abroad looking like Meirdreach. AnCine, who had been fourteen when she came to the Saraigli and had therefore seen a bit more of the world than the others, whispered that Meirdreach had certain unwholesome appetites. If you wanted to get to Chaos’s bed, you might first have to go to Meirdreach’s, said AnCine, and the concubines had listened round-eyed, but opinions had been divided as to whether it was true or simply one of AnCine’s lurid stories.
But when Meirdreach said they would not all be going to the banquet, her chins wobbled crossly, and the concubines did not know where to look for fear of giggling. ‘Don’t think that more than one of you will go,’ said Meirdreach, regarding them all grimly. ‘Have you understood that, you bed-cats?’
They all said they had, and nudged one another and whispered behind their hands that Meirdreach was stouter than ever, and that a new sprouting of black hairs had grown from her chins. They curled up on their silken couches and velvet beds, and eyed their own sleek bodies and shining hair with pleased complacency.
AnCine said loudly, wouldn’t Meirdreach be plotting and intriguing away on her own account, and maybe soliciting her nasty favours from those of the Saraigli who were that way inclined. Some people, said AnCine, tossing back her long hair, would do anything at all to get a place at Chaos’s table for the evening.
This was extremely bold of AnCine, and the concubines had looked uneasily at one another in case there should be a row. You had to be careful about that, because rows sometimes led to fights, and fights usually meant disarranged hair or even scratched faces.
Meirdreach said that was as maybe, but hadn’t she the running of the Saraigli, nasty thankless task it was, nobody need think it was a sinecure, and hadn’t Chaos himself given her the complete controlling of it?
The concubines did not know what a sinecure was. They giggled together after Meirdreach had stumped off and said that, as for the suggestion that only one of them would be on display at the banquet, pooh! didn’t they all of them know perfectly well that the Lord of Chaos was easily capable of dealing with eight or ten of them in one night!
AnCine said that Meirdreach was a Leispiach and the concubines shrieked at such daring, but wished AnCine would not use such a word in front of the little one.
AnCine did not care. ‘She will learn what a Leispiach is if she is in Meirdreach’s hands for very long,’ she said, and picked up a hand-mirror to study her reflection. Hadn’t there been the suspicion of a spot forming that morning; you could not be having a spot with a grand banquet ahead of you and Chaos’s eye to be caught.
The concubines had made rather a pet of the little girl that their Lord had brought back with him from the Beyond Ireland. She was a pretty little creature with her huge dark eyes and soft white skin. It was rather like having a kitten or a baby. Something to stroke and pet and dress up. They fed her with sugared fruits and devised games for her, and tried the effect of scarlet ribbons — no, emerald green! — in her hair.
She had very nice manners. She listened to their stories of how they had all come to the Saraigli with polite interest, occasionally asking questions, not saying very much about her own world.
The concubines liked to tell the stories of how they had come to the Castle of Infinity. They all told Theodora, taking it in turns, listening quite politely to the others, but in reality only waiting for their own turn. They held little secret feasts of their own, bribing the Reachtaire’s servants to smuggle in extra food and flagons of rich, syrupy wine; and they giggled a great deal, and peeped out of the tiny high windows, standing on chairs to reach, making sure that no horrid guards were lurking below and listening.
They were mostly daughters of chieftains whose lands lay on the hinterlands between the two Irelands, where allegiances were apt to become a bit blurred. Most of them had been captured or sold wh
en they were very young indeed. Theo thought it was probably a bit uncharitable to think that they did not seem to have grown up.
Their lives consisted of perfuming their bodies and painting their faces and learning the small, rather useless skills which they remembered or had devised, and which might make Chaos notice them. They taught one another the skills because, between them, they had really rather a great deal of accomplishments, they said, tossing their hair vainly.
‘Some of us have secret skills,’ said AnCine, whom Theodora found the most interesting of all the concubines. It was AnCine who had called Meirdreach the bad name. AnCine had long red hair and soft white skin, and had once spent three nights in a row with the Lord of Chaos, which the other concubines regarded with awe, because wasn’t that more than anyone else in the Saraigli had ever done?
Theodora tried very hard to be quiet and polite to them all, because Mamma had said that this was something you should always do. You never knew when you might be glad that you had been polite and gracious, said Mamma. Even when it was the oddest of people, you had to remember that you were a daughter of the House of Amaranth and therefore required to behave well at all times. Great-grandfather, putting it a bit differently, had said with a chuckle that you never knew when you might need to make use of somebody.
So Theo had been polite and quiet; she had listened attentively to the stories that the concubines told, and she had thanked them when they included her in their little feasts, and when they gave her hair ribbons (which she thought made her look like a dressed-up doll, but which it would have been very impolite to refuse) and fed her with the sickly sugared berries and the sweet sticky cordials they liked to sip from jewel-encrusted chalices.
She had not said anything about the Porphyry Palace, and she had especially not said anything about being an Amaranth. She was unsure how the concubines would feel about her being an Amaranth, and stolen away solely on account of it, and so she pretended that she had lived in a quite ordinary place with a quite ordinary family. This was telling lies, which was not something you ought to do, but it was a lot safer than the truth.