The Heart of Darkness

by Odelia Floris

  ‘’Ee look weary,’ Merewen interrupted his reminiscences at last. ‘I think ‘tis time I let ’ee get up to bed.’

  He pulled himself back into the present. ‘Yes, you’re right; it’s time we turned in.’ He smiled at his hostess. ‘Thank you, Dame Merewen, you have been a great help.’

  ‘It’s no trouble at all.’

  * * * *

  A short while after the sound of seagulls and ocean waves rhythmically breaking onto the shore had alerted Rowena to the fact that she was now nearing the coast, the cart stopped for some time.

  Rowena had managed to scratch a hole in a part of the enclosed cart’s floor that was afflicted with dry-rot, and shortly after she saw it was dark outside, the cart lurched forward again.

  It travelled a short distance, the waves becoming ever louder, and stopped again as if waiting for something. The sound of the sea crashing onto rocks was now deafening, and she could see bright moonlight falling onto the sandy ground beneath the cart.

  Rowena hated the cart. It was basically a large wooden box on wheels. There was only enough room to stand up if you bent almost double, and the only comfort provided was a little straw to sit on. The two days of bumping, jerking, bone-rattling travel in the stiflingly airless near darkness, with only the constant squeaking of the wheels for company, had been sheer misery. Even when they stopped for a few hours at night, she could still hear the squeaking and rattling of the cart ringing in her ears.

  Being handcuffed and set on a horse as it travelled that high mountain pass had been terrifying, but at least she had been able to take in the view and breathe clean air.

  Although she would have been glad of the cart’s shelter that night of the storm. Her two captors had refused to stop at the cave in the gorge, and when the storm struck, the three of them were high up on the mountain. The few stunted bushes had provided virtually no cover, and by midnight, the trickle running down the rock-face they sheltered against turned into a torrent. While the captors spent the night hanging onto their terrified horses, she had lain, bound hand and foot, in the pouring water. She had never been so cold. To have been struck down by one of the lightning bolts exploding all around had started to look like it would be a merciful release. The very memory made her shiver.

  Rowena heard footsteps padding softly around to the cart’s bolted door. She shrunk into the corner furthest from the door and crouched there, almost shaking as the key clicked in the lock and the bolt was drawn back.

  The door screeched open and a dark, hooded figure stood there in the moonlight, his eyes glittering at her and a length of rope held taught in his hard, bony hands.

  He then stepped into the cart.

  She did not attempt to fight him or escape. She knew there were at least four of them. Resistance would be futile and was only likely to end in her getting hurt.

  ‘Turn around and put your hands behind your back!’ he ordered her roughly.

  Rowena did as she was told.

  The rope bit painfully into her wrists as it was wound tightly around them, and a cloth bag was placed over her head and knotted securely in place.

  Then she was half lifted, half pulled out of the cart. The wind was strong and cold. She shivered, wishing not for the first time that she was wearing a cloak. But she enjoyed the salty freshness of the air none the less.

  Having no sight was a frighteningly disorientating experience, and when she was suddenly grasped around the upper legs and swung up onto a broad shoulder, she let out an involuntary shriek and kicked her still-free feet vigorously.

  A hand instantly seized her feet and bound her legs together. Then the man carrying her started walking.

  The sound of waves crashing onto rocks started to get even louder. The captive guessed that she was being carried to the edge of a cliff-face with the raging sea below.

  She felt a rising wave of panic. Why were they carrying her to a cliff’s edge? Upon first hearing the sound of the sea, she had thought they were going to put her on a ship. But you cannot board a ship from a wave-bettered cliff. The only reason for carrying things to the edge of cliff faces overlooking the ocean was to throw them over.

  Her head told her no one would haul their kidnap victim for days across country just to throw them into the sea. If they had wanted to kill her, they could easily have slit her throat and buried her deep in the forest back in Chaucy.

  But her heart would not listen to the cold voice of reason.

  The waves now sounded as though they were directly below, and she could feel the sea-spray falling on her bare hands. ‘Please, no!’ she screamed. ‘I’m begging you to let me live; I’ll never tell anyone what happened if you just let me go!’

  She was given a rough jerk that made her scream. ‘Shut your stupid mouth, bitch! You’re worth more to us alive than dead.’

  The rhythm of her captor’s strides changed, becoming shorter and jerkier. She was almost certain he was carrying her down a steep path. A steep path down the cliffs to the sea.

  Her panic subsided somewhat, but she was still fearful. The path was probably very narrow, and likely there was a steep drop down into the raging sea on one side. She kept very, very still, not wishing to cause her carrier to lose his balance and send them both plunging to almost certain death in the boiling waters or on hard rocks below.

  After a heart-stopping descent, her captor’s gait evened out again. His feet made hardly any sound as he moved slowly and rather laboriously across the ground. She was certain he was now walking on a sandy beach.

  Then he started wading into the sea. The roar of the breakers was deafening. Surely he was not carrying her out to a boat?

  His pace slowed as he waded deeper into the sea. Rowena felt water on her skin as the salty spray being thrown up by the waves hitting her bearer soaked through her clothes.

  The sea became deeper still, and water closed over her feet, then her ankles, and then was nearly up to her knees. When a big wave came along, she was drenched with water. The now-sodden cloth bag covering her face was beginning to suffocate her.

  ‘This bag—I’m drowning in here—I can’t breathe!’ she gasped, starting to panic again.

  ‘Stop your whining, woman!’ came the gruff, unsympathetic response.

  Rowena made a determined effort to calm herself. The more she panicked the faster her heart would beat, and the faster her heart beat the more air she would require.

  To her immense and everlasting relief, the sea did not get any deeper, and a short while later she was being carried up some steps. She was then dumped onto her feet.

  The sound of voices could be heard not far off. Two men talking, she thought, but could not make out what they were saying above the roar of the sea. The rope bound around her ankles was cut, and she was marched abruptly forwards by a rough hand placed on her shoulder. She could tell she was now inside. The sound of the waves was muffled, and her footfalls and those of the men with her sounded loudly on the stone floor and echoed hollowly around.

  After being pushed along endless corridors and through numerous chambers, and dragged up countless flights of steps with a ruffian’s hand under each arm, they came to a halt. There was a metallic jingling, followed by the sound of a key turning in a lock, and a heavy door creaked reluctantly open.

  The cord binding her wrists was then cut, the wet bag undone and whipped off her head, and she was pushed violently from behind.

  Rowena was thrown forward and landed in a heap on the cold, hard flagstones. Mocking jeers rang out as the door slammed shut behind her.

  The lock clicked and someone on the other side said, ‘They’ll be queuing up for her,’ as their footsteps and scornful laughter receded into the distance.

  Rowena slowly lifted her face up off the floor. From a window high above, a small beam of moonlight cut through the darkness. When her eyes had adjusted themselves to the conditions, she saw she was in a high-ceilinged stone chamber. The roar of the sea came from far below and the mournful cry of gulls sound
ed through the stone walls on all sides.

  The seagulls were like old friends to her. She loved hearing their cries above the sound of waves. They reminded her of her girlhood in Cornwall. One day an ancient mariner had told her how the souls of sailors drowned at sea turn into seabirds and sail the ocean currents forever. Sitting high up on the cliffs above her mother’s cottage, she had spent many happy hours watching the waves rolling in and the seabirds circling, pondering the wizened old seaman’s strange, haunting tale. Oh to see such happy, happy hours again…

  Then a noise suddenly reached her ears.

  She spun round to face the dark corner from whence it came.

  In the dim light were four shadowy figures dressed in long robes.

  Rowena quickly got to her feet. ‘Who are you?’ she cried out fearfully, shrinking against the wall.

  The ghostly figures moved towards her. When they reached the centre of the chamber, the beam of moonlight fell onto their faces. They were deathly pale, wan-faced maidens with hollow, staring eyes whose vacant expression contained more than a hint of madness.

  Rowena shot like a frightened mouse into the corner furthest from the ghoulish maidens. ‘Who are you?’ Her words echoed back to her, repeating over and over in hollow, ringing tones.

  But still the deathly maidens advanced.

  .18.

  The Castle of the Skull Receives a Ludicrous Challenge

  THE RHYTHMIC sound of waves lapping the pebbled shore outside had lulled Sir Richard to sleep like a soothing lullaby. He had not had a sleep that satisfying for he could not remember how long.

  Riding along the seashore on Lucifer in the dawn light with his sergeant beside him, if not actually cheerful, he felt a sense of buoyant optimism that he could not explain. He was sure the castle at the end of the Devil’s Finger must be the lair of the felons who dared to come raiding in his shire so boldly. And now their day of reckoning had come. The vile bastards would not be carrying any more poor maidens off if he had anything to do with it. No. This was the pagans’ twilight hour.

  When they reached the end of the small beach in front of Hamlin, the two men turned their horses up onto the path leading out along the cliffs of Brightwater Cove and round to the Devil’s Finger.

  The flat, sandy ground provided an excellent surface, so Sir Richard urged his well-rested steed into a canter. He was eager to see the dreaded castle with its rumoured hellish occupants for himself.

  As Lucifer bounded along the sandy cliff-top with rocking, perfectly controlled strides, Sir Richard revelled in the feel of a good horse beneath him, bracing, salt-laden air in his lungs and the wind in his hair.

  The big horse quickly swallowed up the distance, and before Sir Richard expected it, a castle came into view ahead. It was not a large castle, but it covered the whole top of the rock jutting up out of the boiling sea at the end of the headland. Perched precariously on its very own rock, the heavy stone fortress looked menacingly out over everything around it as if to say, ‘No one enters me without permission’.

  The Devil’s Finger narrowed to less than fifteen paces wide at its tip before plunging more than two hundred feet down a sheer cliff-face to the roaring sea below. Sir Richard rode right up to the edge of the point.

  Facing him at eye level from across the raging waters, he almost felt as though the castle was watching him. The two round towers set at the front corners each had a high-up window that gave it the appearance of possessing a pair of eyes, and the large iron gate in the middle that of a mouth.

  The gate opened out onto what clearly used to be the causeway to the mainland, but was now ruined rubble that stretched some precarious fifty paces towards the point of Devil’s Finger before plunging down into the sea. In the centre of the castle was a tall tower with a roof rising to a point. It looked like a hat sitting atop the watching castle. It really was uncanny, and it gave him the creeps. No wonder Hamlin’s old wives told such terrifying tales about the place.

  A short while later, Gallagher reached the spot too and halted next to his comrade. He stared out at the place in grim silence for a good while, and then pointed a finger. ‘Isn’t that a flag flying from the top of that central tower?’

  Sir Richard looked hard. ‘Yes, I do believe you are right there, old friend.’ He squinted across at it even harder. ‘Yes—it’s a banner; a red background with a black skull, and—’ He looked some more. ‘A black bat with outstretched wings above, just like this.’ He produced the brooch Rowena had found near the body of the murdered Thomas.

  ‘Aye, so it is...’

  When the knight fixed his eyes on the castle again, something else caught his attention. Surely that red thing had not been fluttering from the central tower’s high window when he was looking at it only moments before?

  ‘Gallagher, what’s that thing blowing in the wind just below the roof of that tower?’

  His sergeant shielded his eyes from the sunlight with his hand and looked intently over at the place. ‘Aye, there’s definitely something there… You know,’ he declared firmly after another long, hard look, ‘I do believe that thing flying from the window is the sleeve of the gown Rowena was wearing the day she was carried off.’

  ‘By the Virgin’s bones, you must have the eyesight of an eagle!’

  Sir Richard stared so hard at the thing he started to see stars, but all he could make out was a red blur—hang on, Gallagher was right; she had been wearing a red velvet gown of just such a colour under that nun’s habit!

  After staring at the castle in silence for a good while longer, both men finally turned for Hamlin.

  As Sir Richard rode away from the menacing fortress, he felt the unnerving sensation of malevolent eyes watching his departing figure intently. He kept looking back over his shoulder, but there was no sign of any human figures either on the battlements or at the windows, just the red flag with the black skull and bat flapping furiously and defiantly in the wind.

  * * * *

  Seated on a bench in the front corner of the Mermaid Inn, Sir Richard had been brooding thoughtfully for the past two hours over a mug of the rather nice spiced, honey-sweetened drink Merewen served. The golden late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the front window opposite him was pleasantly warm, but he still felt a chill run down his back when he thought of the castle on Skull Rock and of Rowena being held captive there.

  He was now more certain than ever that it was the lair of the villains who had been terrorizing Chaucy and who had carried off Rowena. But the problem was that the fortress looked to be truly impenetrable. Even an army would be hard-pressed to breach the place.

  Seated opposite him across the table, Sergeant Gallagher looked equally thoughtful as he mulled over his mead, and from her station behind the bar, where she was filling pottery mugs with ale from the cask lying atop the counter, Merewen was talking animatedly to a weather-beaten old mariner.

  Ever since Sir Richard and Sergeant Gallagher had told her the tale of their travels and purpose in Hamlin, and of the kidnapped Chaucy maidens, she had been relating the story to every single one of her customers. By the next day, there would not be one man, woman or child in Hamlin who had not heard the tale at least once.

  The odd word of Merewen’s drifted over to the seated Hartfield men. ‘War heroes…young brave… (Sir Richard assumed that was himself) Will be rescuing captive maidens…taking on demons…cleansing that place of evil…’

  After a good while of listening to this, the pressure started to get too much for Sir Richard. The people of Hamlin would not be talking about him in such glowing terms if he was forced to go home with his tail between his legs having done no more than stare the foul fortress in the face. And it hardly took a lion-heart to do that. The castle seemed like an unreachable prison that was impossible to break into. He and Gallagher had talked it over all afternoon and failed to come up with any plausible plans for rescuing Rowena.

  But just as he was about to get out of his seat and slink outside, an ol
d man slipped silently onto the bench beside him. The venerable gentleman looked as old as Father Time himself, with a fuzz of snow-white hair that had the appearance of fluffy clouds encircling the summit of some ancient, sacred peak.

  The old man sat beside the knight in companionable silence for a while, but at last he spoke. ‘I know about a way you might be able to get inside that castle.’ His voice was very feeble, and as he spoke he did not look at the knight seated beside him.

  Sir Richard’s attention was fixed on the old man in an instant. He looked at him like a treasure-hunter who had just unearthed a king’s ransom. ‘You do?’

  ‘Aye. My trade was that of a mason. I worked on building that castle on yonder headland.’

  ‘You did?’ cried the delighted knight. ‘Tell me more!’

  ‘When we built the fort we put in shafts on the outside walls for the privies to drain down into the sea. The shafts were large enough for a man to fit through, and the rough stones mean it can be climbed. Of course, I do not know if they are still there. It was many, many years ago now, and the new occupants may have changed it when they rebuilt the damaged sides. ’

  ‘Where are these shafts situated?’ Sir Richard asked intently.

  ‘There were four of them, one on each of the castle’s sides. We made them a little long, and at low-tide water was sometimes forced up them like a blowhole when the seas were particularly rough.’ The old man chuckled, but had to stop when it brought on a coughing fit. ‘Ahem, aye, the men garrisoned there were not too impressed by that…’

  ‘So are the ends of the shafts always submerged beneath the waterline?’ asked Gallagher.