by Paul Finch
“Well, you’re a pretty enough little thing,” the duchess commented. “You’d fetch a good price in a whorehouse.”
“Fie!” Gerta cried. She’d been quiet and pale in the cheek for the tail-end of the journey, but now her old spirit returned. “This is the Countess of Penharrow! How dare you address her so!”
“This harridan’s tongue offends me,” Zalmyra said to her servant. “Take it from her.”
Urgol grabbed Gerta’s throat in a single paw and lifted from her feet. The maid squawked in terror. Trelawna screamed and tried to intervene, while Marius stood by, helpless. But then another voice was heard.
“Mother... desist!”
Rufio and his last officer had emerged on horseback from the entry passage. Both men and animals looked utterly drained, and were caked with dirt.
Zalmyra raised a hand, and Urgol released Gerta, who collapsed, gagging, into the arms of her mistress. Trelawna was at first too astonished that Rufio was alive to even speak. After lowering Gerta onto her haunches, she hurried over.
“Mother... this is the woman I love,” Rufio stammered. “What’s more, she and her party have come here as our guests.”
“Guests show invitations and bring gifts,” Zalmyra said coldly. “These, I suspect, have brought only trouble.”
“I brought the trouble,” he retorted, taking Trelawna in his arms – as much to support himself as to show affection. “If you want to reckon with someone, reckon with me.”
“Don’t tempt me, Felix,” the duchess said, turning on her heel and leaving the courtyard, Urgol and her candle-bearer trailing after her.
“We rode hard to catch up with you,” Rufio gasped.
“I felt sure you’d be dead,” Trelawna replied, tears glazing her eyes.
“I may as well be.” He extracted himself from her embrace. “It was none of my doing.”
“Does that mean Lucan is alive, too?”
“You sound as if you hope he is,” he said. Trelawna was surprised by that – more so because it was true. If Rufio suspected it, he seemed too exhausted to care. “I can only tell you that he was still alive when I left him.”
He went on to explain about the aerial monstrosity that had attacked mid-way through their duel, and how he had seen it tear at least one of her husband’s followers to bloody rags. But there was no joy in his face as he recalled the horror.
“He gave me a chance... can you believe that?” He chuckled with bewilderment. “Your husband. He bade me pick up my sword after he knocked it from my hand. But I don’t think it was out of kindness. I think he just found it impossible to imagine that a man like me had walked away with his prize possession. At the very least he wanted to see a warrior in me.” Rufio’s face twisted in self-loathing. “I’d rather he’d run me through.”
Trelawna tried to take him in her arms again, but he pushed her off.
“Lucan is an expert fighter,” she said. “That is why Arthur rewards him with lands and titles. There’s no shame in being defeated by him. At least you’re alive...”
“I’ve not been defeated yet!” Rufio snarled. “If Lucan’s still alive, things will only get worse for him the closer he comes to Castello Malconi. Nearly all his men are dead. He himself is a battle-scarred relic. But mother won’t stop there. No-one challenges our family and lives. Which reminds me... keep out of mother’s way. I don’t think she sees any value in our relationship.”
Unsure how she should respond to that, Trelawna tried to take his hand, but he waved her away and strode towards the nearest door. Apparently, he was too tired for further conversation.
“Welcome to your new home,” Gerta said wearily.
Thirty-One
LUCAN’S PARTY ASCENDED doggedly over ever steeper, more rugged terrain, and through drifting palls of mist. There were terrible sounds from the high places around them: screeching and what sounded like multiple roaring voices echoing down the great, rocky gullies.
In due course, their road led up onto a narrow ridge with sheer slopes dropping into bottomless voids. They traversed it in single file: Lucan at the front, Wulfstan behind him, then Maximion, Davy Lug, Alaric and, last of all, Malvolio, whose horse drew the archery machine at its tail, the great mechanism groaning and creaking. The ridge road rose and fell through troughs and peaks, and its surface was rutted and uneven. The going was slow and difficult. At last, Malvolio’s beast, which was the most encumbered, halted in its tracks and no amount of spurring and whipping would urge it forward.
“My lord,” Malvolio called weakly. “This animal cannot continue. The arbalest is too much for her.”
Lucan glanced back along the line. Malvolio’s horse’s head drooped. Froth seethed from its quivering nostrils. “Cut it loose,” he shouted. “Let the animal follow at its own pace. You walk.”
More crestfallen than he had been at any stage so far, Malvolio turned in the saddle, seeking to unfasten the tether connecting it with the archery machine.
And with a searing screech, the Stymphalianus swooped.
Its target was the man who had hurt it so grievously.
Davy Lug had turned in the saddle, when the great, leathery body flashed past him, a single talon slicing his throat from ear to ear. He sagged sideways from his mount, eyes wide, clawing at the gaping wound from which a crimson torrent already spouted. Still screeching, the Stymphalianus wheeled and surged back down, wielding Heaven’s Messenger like a lance, aiming directly at Lucan’s heart. He parried the first stroke with the Roman sabre – with such force that the longsword was knocked free and thudded point-first into the ground – yet at the same time the monster caught a clump of his hair, hauling him out of his saddle. Lugged ten feet in the air, Lucan slashed upward, cutting cleanly through his own black locks. He landed back on the ridge road, the wind crushed out of him.
The Stymphalianus swooped again, its massive wings beating like battle-drums. Anyone who looked closely – and the men did, still mesmerised by the speed of the attack – would have seen that its wounded eye-socket was now a yawning crater, glutted with green gore, where it had yanked the arrowhead loose, taking bone and flesh with it. A broken shaft still protruded from its thigh. Alaric launched a javelin, but it glanced from the monster’s scaly hide. Its ravaged, demonic face twisted with glee as it struck down at him. He hefted his shield, stopping the beast’s claws, but was hurled from his saddle.
The winged horror now launched itself towards Maximion, who ducked frantically. Its claws raked across the back of his scalp and neck, drawing gouts of blood. Wulfstan was next in its path, although he had wheeled his horse around and was facing it with broadsword drawn. It halted directly above him, snatching and slashing as he hacked at it. With a chunk, his blade made contact with its left foot, and two of its clawed toes were severed. Howling¸ it veered away and bore down on Malvolio, who still sat goggle-eyed.
Lucan, who had got back to his feet, flung the sabre. It spun past Wulfstan and struck the monster on the wing, slicing the taut green membrane. The beast veered leftward, squawking in pain, but grabbed at Malvolio’s shoulder with its uninjured foot, fishhook claws sinking through mail and into flesh, and then hoisted him kicking and shrieking into the air – except that, thanks to its wounded wing, it no longer had the strength to soar away.
It was an advantage Wulfstan could not ignore.
He dropped his sword, stood in his stirrups and, using his saddle as a springboard, hurled himself upward, grabbing for his squire’s feet, but missing those and instead catching the strip of bloody skin hanging from the monster’s wing.
The Stymphalianus swerved from the ridge, the ground plunging steeply away beneath it, the two men still dangling, but it again failed to gain height – in fact, it was slowly dropping. Its screeches of rage became squeals of pain as a great portion of its wing was gradually torn from the bone. Wulfstan knew that he was finished; the fleshy flap he clung to was only attached by a thread of tissue. Just before it broke, he caught a last despairing gli
mpse of Malvolio’s face, bloodless and terrified.
“Hang on!” Wulfstan bellowed. “Just hang on!”
And then he was gone, turning over and over, his limbs flailing as he tumbled into the abyss. Malvolio had no time to scream. The claw fixed into his shoulder seemed to be weakening, so he took a firm grip on it, both hands locking around the ankle-joint. The Stymphalianus was falling ever faster; they began to spiral downward. The creature’s squawks became choked gurgles. Malvolio could barely catch his breath. From his perspective, the world was cavorting end over end – rocks and sky, rocks and sky.
It was pure fortune that when they struck solid ground, the creature was beneath him. Even so, Malvolio received a massive jolt. He rolled away, agonised, each breath rasping through his chest like the blade of a saw, but knowing that his peril was not passed. Whimpering, he managed to lever himself up into a crouch. He was on a steep hillside comprised mainly of rocks and spiky grass. He was unsure how many hundreds of feet down from the ridge he’d fallen, but close by him the slope ended in a precipice, and he could see clouds passing below.
He turned again – and saw the Stymphalianus, prone and senseless, tangled in the tatters of its own wings, one of them a mangled wreck. One of its legs had folded beneath it at a gruesome angle. It glanced up at him, but its one remaining eyelid fluttered as though barely conscious. Gasping, Malvolio grabbed up the nearest stone, a heavy disk of granite, and heaved it towards the monster, which gave a thin, keening wail. He raised the stone high and brought it down on the fiendish skull, not once, but three, four, five times – brutal, bone-crunching blows, which systematically flattened it to a pulp.
When he’d finished, he sank to his haunches again, his chest heaving and aching. A few minutes later, his sobs of pain became sobs of grief – twenty yards higher up the slope, he’d just spied the body of Wulfstan. The old knight lay jack-knifed backward over a tooth of rock. His mouth had frozen open, and his eyes were lifeless.
Thirty-Two
DESPITE THEIR FATIGUE, Trelawna and Gerta did not sleep well in their first night at Castello Malconi.
The guest-chambers they had been allocated were austere but not uncomfortable, comprising a small privy and a sleeping area, its walls hung with woven cloths, its floor covered by a carpet. It contained a double-sized bed and two armchairs, facing each other across a bearskin rug laid in front of a hearth that was already crackling. The narrow window, which looked down over the courtyard, sat at the end of a deep embrasure, behind a tapestry depicting naked nymphs at play in a spring, with satyrs peeking slyly from the surrounding foliage.
On first seeing this, Trelawna was briefly reminded of her imagined home in the sun-drenched south – troubadours, poetry and the Cult d’Amor. But then the night came, and their fire and candles winked out, and a deeper darkness than they’d ever known fell over Castello Malconi.
They had seen neither hide nor hair of Felix Rufio or Centurion Marius since first being led up here by another of the duchess’s hunchbacked servants, this one female and very ancient, with abhorrent, lopsided features. Though she had told them that a bathroom could be found at the end of the passage, they only dared venture that way once, and it was so dark that they soon scurried back. The entire fortress now droned to the mountain wind. From unseen regions, above and below, they fancied they heard voices – groans of pain alternating with malicious, tittering laughter. Once there came a whispering at their keyhole. Whatever it was, it spoke in an unknown tongue, though they felt certain the message it imparted was obscene. Trelawna attempted to re-light the candles, but unseen breaths blew their flames out. The two women, neither of whom had ever felt this vulnerable or alone, could do naught but huddle beneath the quilt and embrace each other, shivering with fear.
After what seemed an eternity, Trelawna slept, only for a knock at the door to suddenly rouse her. On the pillow next to her, Gerta remained deeply asleep.
A voice sounded. “Countess? It is I, Marius.”
When Trelawna opened the door, she could have cried for joy at the sight of the soldier waiting beyond, even though she barely knew him.
Centurion Marius was of the yeoman class, but he possessed a simple courage and honesty, which appealed to her greatly since her world had fallen into such turmoil. He was middle-aged, of squat build and heavily muscled; his complexion was beef-red from long hours spent outdoors, and his face disfigured by many old cuts. But by simply attending to her needs during the journey here, he had won her over. He was now stripped of his arms and armour, wearing only his maroon breeks and a coarse woollen under-tunic. But it was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms.
“Forgive my absence last night,” he said. “I would have stood guard, but I was shown to a barrack-room and once darkness fell I didn’t know my way around.”
“That’s quite understandable,” she replied. “We couldn’t find our way around, either. We didn’t even get the chance to bathe.”
“There’s a bathing area not too far from here. Would you like me to escort you?”
“What time is it, Marius?”
“Almost eight of the clock, ma’am. The sun is up, though there’s heavy cloud cover and I can hear distant thunder.”
Trelawna was unconcerned about the weather. The fact that daylight was spilling along the passage was enough for her. She gathered the towels. “If you could show me to the bathroom, Marius, I’d appreciate it.”
DUCHESS ZALMYRA HAD risen early that morning to observe her scrying-orbs.
Nothing she saw pleased her, so she ascended to Castello Malconi’s main reception hall. This was octagonal in shape, its black marble floor carved with astrological symbols, its pillars cut with the heads of esoteric figures. There she waited impatiently until the two guests she had summoned attended her. They were her son, Tribune Felix Rufio and her brother, Bishop Severin Malconi. Both were tousled by sleep and only partly dressed. She had ensured, before their arrival, that their apartments would contain none of the luxuries they were used to.
She regarded them from a raised, high-backed seat. Over her normal garments, she wore a trailing house-robe stitched together from the tawny hides of lions, their manes lying thick and lush across her shoulders.
“Zalmyra!” Bishop Malconi cried. “My quarters are infested with cockroaches!”
She arched an eyebrow. “I hoped it would remind you of your house on Capri.”
“And my room is the last word in asceticism!” Rufio complained. “It has nothing in it save a truckle-bed!”
“A reminder of the life you perhaps should have had.”
The bishop was still spluttering with indignation. “But why? What is...”
“Enough gabble!” she said sharply. “This Knight of the Round Table you have managed to offend is apparently quite dauntless. He comes on apace. I forecast he will be at our gates in the next few hours.”
Both men looked dumbfounded.
“Destroy him!” the bishop finally said.
“No qualms now about my summoning the things of darkness, brother?”
“This man seeks to do murder. He must pay whatever price is deemed fit.”
She pondered. “He and his band have already dispatched two powerful guardians. It now falls on me to call something far more terrible. But these are complex rituals and will require time and sacrifice. All your Praetorians are positioned in the gatehouse?”
Malconi nodded. “All of them.”
“Send a message. When Earl Lucan arrives, they are to fight him to the last man.”
“How many does he have with him?”
“One.”
“One!” Malconi looked even more startled, though not disagreeably so. He’d been expecting Lucan to have an army.
“But he and his companions have thus far displayed exceptional courage,” she added.
The bishop shrugged. “My men fear no-one. And rightly so. They are easily the most vicious...”
“Enough bragging, Severin! You are
partly to blame for this disaster.”
“Me?”
She leaned forward. “This house cannot fall just because the Roman Empire has fallen. If you had not failed to curtail the lusts of that hot-blooded fool next to you, the war would now be centred on the capital. Our fastness would remain unmolested.”
“Zalmyra...” Malconi tried to laugh it off. “Entire barbarian hordes have perished attacking this fortress. Do you expect two men to...?”
“Do you not hear what I say?” she thundered, her face a livid scarlet.
He drew back, abashed.
“They have come this far, haven’t they?” she shouted. “And they have beaten every obstacle I’ve put in their path. Now stand your men in readiness, Severin... and advise them that any who run will die in my dungeons over decades! Go!”
The bishop headed glumly for the exit, closing the door behind him.
Zalmyra rounded next on her son. “And you!”
“Never fear,” he said. “I will fight too...”
“You will do no such thing. I observed your first pathetic attempt to stop this man.”
“I’ll do better next time,” he said, determinedly.
“Next time he will kill you. It was only my intervention that saved you before.”