[Sir Richard Straccan 02] - Pendragon Banner

by Sylvian Hamilton

  ‘It’s the truth. He will believe it.’

  ‘What good will it do after all this time?’

  ‘It will lift the burden of guilt from his conscience.’

  ‘They say he doesn’t have one.’ There was a strange crackle from inside the leper’s hood. ‘Gamier, are you laughing at me?’

  ‘No, Sir Richard. I’m laughing at God, but He’s used to it. Will you undertake to do this?’

  Straccan sighed heavily. ‘If I live to speak to the king again, all right, I’ll tell him.’

  ‘What do you mean, if you live?’ Sulien broke in. ‘You’re not going to fight Breos now, surely?’

  ‘Oh yes I am. Why should this make any difference?’

  ‘He must face the king’s justice! This was high treason and I don’t know what else! You can’t fight him! If you kill him the king will have you put to death!’

  ‘He’s right, Sir Richard,’ Gamier said. ‘This is too high a matter for you to take into your own hands. Kill him, and the king’s wrath will consume you.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  In the Womb of the Mother the firelight woke a million quartz points to silver glinting, so that the cave seemed full of stars. The jewelled points sparkling from the rock, red and gold, green and purple, started to spin around Janiva, slowly to begin with, then faster, until she lay at the heart of a whirlpool of diamond fire.

  The aftertaste of the drink still clung to her tongue and throat but no longer seemed foul; now it warmed her from head to foot and filled her with energy. Suddenly alert, she raised her head, listening. What was that?

  She heard a woman’s laugh, and smelled perfume: cinnamon and heady roses. The scent was drenchingly sweet but beneath it was a taint of rot, of putrid meat, of cesspit and the gases that bubble up from marsh mud.

  With no warning an avalanche of hatred and venom rushed upon Janiva, but even as it threatened to sweep her away she found strength, here in the Womb of the Mother, to withstand it; and the first surge of her enemy’s rage broke against the rock of Janiva’s will, its force dissipated. She braced herself for the next onslaught.

  It came in images of death and ruin to those she loved: images of pain and horror, of rape and torture and burning, blood and desolation. Richard lying lifeless, arrows in his body — Gilla violated — Sybilla imprisoned, starving — Osyth a twisted bundle of agony — Roger fallen to an enemy’s blade, crows picking at his eyes ...

  There was a prickling sensation at her ankle; she brushed at it. There was another on her calf and on the back of her hand, and suddenly the itch was unbearable. With loathing Janiva saw her feet and arms black with ant-like crawling things. They swarmed up her legs, her thighs and belly, all over her body. Writhing, she slapped at them but she they were smothering her, filling her eyes and nostrils, slipping between her clamped lips.

  Julitta was stronger. She had braved the flames for nothing… Yet she had braved them; she remembered that fiery exaltation as the flames sprang from her fingertips. She coughed, choking on the bugs, tasting their foulness.

  ‘No!’ They were… What had Osyth called them? Illusion. That was a weapon Janiva could also use. Fire erupted from her mouth; she breathed out flames like a dragon in a wall painting, scorching and shrivelling the crawling horrors. Flame poured from her fingers; she washed her hands in fire, drawing the flames around her like an enveloping cloak. Bugs cracked and hissed, popped and fell, blazing sparks, and were gone, leaving no ash.

  Clean and whole, she stood, ablaze from head to toe, and heard her enemy’s frustrated cry.

  Next came a whining buzz, like angry bees, louder and closer until the ugly sound filled the cave and a host of flying, stinging things, not wasps or any creatures of true Creation but black and yellow streaks of poisoned malice, fell upon her like needles. She felt their venom thicken her blood so that every pulse-beat was agony.

  Maggots and bugs, she thought, these are her weapons. And fire was the answer to these, too. She became a creature of fire with a core of flaming bone, and blood like molten metal coursed through her fiery flesh. The stinging tormentors flared and vanished.

  Now there was only darkness, silence and numbing cold.

  ‘Show yourself,’ she cried.

  From the shadows came a thick throaty giggle that made her skin crawl. Something was forming there, taking shape, human shape… but it was not human. Whatever had made her think Julitta would fight fair, face to face? The demon took on the witch’s form but its skin was scaly as a lizard’s, its eyes the colour of pus, and it had teeth and claws like a wolverine. Springing on Janiva it sank its teeth into her shoulder and raked her back with talons an inch long.

  She cried out and fell to her knees under the demon’s weight. Her dream-body had no substance in the real world, but here it felt pain, and its wounds, deep and ugly, bled. Her hands scrabbled weakly at the demon’s arms, feebly trying to pull away the cruel claws and the teeth grating on her bone.

  She was so cold. Her strength was draining away, she could no longer summon fire and she had no weapon that could injure this spawn of Hell. If she lost consciousness now, in this world, she would never wake again in her own.

  Oh, Richard, she thought, too late, I love you.

  The demon picked the thought from her mind and shrieked with laughter, mimicking her voice in a mocking echo. ‘Oh Richard ... I love you ... I lo-o-o-ve you . . .’

  Who loves you, you black-hearted bitch? I am loved. Richard loves me, and Gilla. My mother loved me… Dame Alienor and Sir Guy… the folk at home…

  She called to mind their faces, the people she had grown up with at Shawl. Their love for her, and hers for them, was a reservoir from which she could draw power: Father Osric, Roger, Tostig, Sybilla, the boy Peter, and the baby she had not been allowed to see but loved because he was Roger’s son.

  Strength filled her. The demon whined — she had it by the throat, tearing its claws from her flesh, its teeth from her shoulder — it twisted, squealing as she tightened her grip. Changing shape it became a great snake, its throat as thick as her thigh, coils flailing to encircle her. Illusion, she told herself, lies, as it transformed again, this time to something beaked and feathered, stinking of garbage on a hot day, slashing at her legs with taloned feet. Lies, all lies….

  ‘Janiva! Don’t!’ It was Gilla’s voice. Her hands were crushing the child’s throat; the slight body struggled feebly against her, hands clutching at her wrists. ‘Janiva, you’re hurting me!’

  ‘Gilla!’ She could not help herself; she let go and clasped the child in her arms. Gilla nestled close, sobbing softly against her breast. As Janiva stroked the soft fair hair the girl raised her tear-wet face to Janiva and smiled… and bit her in the breast.

  Fool! Tricks, lies! Pain transfixed her as the demon, a lizard-like thing with leathery wings, hung from her breast, grunting as it gnawed her flesh, seeking her heart while its small clawed hands kneaded obscenely at her, like a baby’s.

  On her brow the rune Osyth had marked, Eihwaz the yew-rune of magical defence, grew burning hot, and on her breast the rune Nauthiz, whose virtue was to disempower adversaries, scorched like a brand. She clutched at the neck of the squamous horror greedying on her flesh, but the creature’s knife-edged ruff of scales cut her fingers, sliced her palms.

  She felt the drag of her sleeping body, a desperate need to wake. If she abandoned the fight now she would never wake; Julitta and her demon would have won. ‘Christ help me!’ she gasped aloud. ‘Mother of God, Mother of all, help me now!’

  Her hands closed around the demon’s narrow skull and squeezed. The creature squirmed, chewing at her. She clamped her bleeding fingers together and dug her thumbs into its eyes, fighting to keep her grip as her blood, like oil, made the scaly head as slippery as a peeled egg.

  It seemed then that many voices, many faces, all the servants of the Mother who had dwelt in this sacred place, echoed her prayer. The cave rang with their shouting and her own as with a great cry she wre
nched the demon’s teeth from her flesh and squeezed with the very last of her strength. Its skull shattered. She heard the bones crack, felt them break between her hands. The creature squealed like a pig, then, horribly, whimpered like a mortally hurt child and hung lifeless, twitching, in the grip she could not slacken.

  She heard far off a furious screaming, cry after cry that finally died in a despairing wail.

  Tearing her locked fingers apart was like breaking the grip of a clump of ancient roots, but at last she shook off the shrivelling leathery carcass, now no bigger than a dead hen and its flesh — or whatever clothed its skeleton — fallen and dry, parchmenty skin over the disturbingly childlike bones.

  ‘There were noises, my lord, and she cried out. She may be ill or hurt. The door’s barred.’

  Thibaut had fetched Breos from his bed, and the tentative light of dawn showed Lord William unbarbered and unwashed. For the first time Thibaut noticed streaks of white in his lord’s grey hair.

  ‘And my lord, that’s not all. There’s a man outside swears that the wi— that Lady Julitta has stolen his baby son.’

  Lord William unclipped his purse. ‘Give him this. Shut him up. Get rid of him.’ He hammered on Julitta’s door with his closed fist.

  Just risen from their pallets, half awake, half dressed, his men — all but Bevis de Rennes, who wanted nothing to do with it and snored determinedly — avoided his eyes. Any one of them could have broken the door down, but not after what they’d heard. They had fought in battles and skirmishes uncounted — give them an enemy and these were happy men — but the sounds from the lady Julitta’s room had put the fear of God into them.

  Lord William kicked the door in.

  Craning over his shoulder Thibaut saw Julitta’s body sprawled across the bed. Dead, he thought, but no, she was breathing. Her shift was ripped and her throat purpled with the bruises of manual strangulation. Lord William had seen, had inflicted, marks like that and knew she hadn’t done that to herself. There was no one else in the room. No one could have got out, unless he could pass through the slit-window, and only a kitten could squeeze through that.

  ‘Who was in here?’ Breos demanded.

  ‘No one, my lord,’ said Thibaut. ‘We were just getting up when she started screaming; we all heard her.’

  Lord William’s foot knocked against something on the floor: Julitta’s iron and silver box. The nerve in his jaw began jumping again. He heeled the door shut in Thibaut’s face and stamped on the casket. There was a gush of cold foetid air and, he thought, a thick gloating chuckle that lifted the hair on his head.

  He raised his foot. The crystal had cracked in halves and, as he looked, dissolved into dust.

  Julitta coughed feebly and opened her eyes. Something was wrong. Her limbs felt leaden, her head ached violendy and her throat hurt. She had been dreaming; a frightening dream full of confused images — flames, crawling things, voices echoing in a cave — and Agarel had been there.

  Agarel…

  It was an effort even to slide her hand under the bolster, groping for the reassuring solidity of the casket. It wasn’t there. She sat up, gasping at the pain in her head, and pushed the bolster aside. It had gone. The floor…

  She slid from the bed, her legs giving way under her weight. What was wrong? A sickness? She’d never been ill in her life. Crouching beside the bed she stared underneath, and her reaching hand grasped curls of dust, a crust of ancient bread, and nothing else.

  ‘Are you looking for this?’

  Lord William stood in the doorway, dangling the casket on its chain. Broken. Crushed.

  ‘The stone…’ She clutched her throat, croaking like an old woman. ‘What have you done with it?’ Grabbing the bedpost she pulled herself up, swaying on her feet.

  ‘It broke. Some kind of stink came out of it and it turned to dust.’

  Her eyes were shocked pools of darkness, face and lips bloodless. Shivering, she pulled one of the sheets off the bed and wrapped it round herself like a mantle.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘What have you done, bitch, you and your devil in a cage? Used me to get the Banner, promised to save my wife, and all the while driving me mad with your filthy spells and potions in my wine! God rot all sorcerers! There’s talk against you out there. A baby missing,’ he said, ‘and a man who’ll swear you stole it. Can you produce it, my lady, alive?’

  ‘What do you mean? You were there, you know what we did!’

  ‘I know what you did.’

  ‘For you! At your command! I’ll tell—’

  ‘Who will believe you? You’re already condemned to death, remember? The king was displeased with you for practising your devils’ arts on him.’ He stepped forward, and she backed away.

  ‘Don’t touch me! I swear I’ll—’

  ‘You’ll what?’ he jeered. ‘Strike me blind? I don’t think you can. I think you’ve lost your powers.’ He looked at the smashed casket with disgust and tossed it on the bed.

  Julitta began to panic, trying frantically to remember even the simplest of spells to stop this nightmare, but her thoughts moved sluggishly as if through glue, and all the while at the back of her mind a voice murmured, ‘All that you are, all that you have, all that you love you shall lose.’ It sounded like her own voice.

  Lord William ripped a length of linen from the sheet and pushed her onto the bed, flipping her onto her belly to bind her hands at her back. With another strip he stopped her mouth, cramming material in until he could force no more between her teeth, and winding the tail end of the strip tightly over her mouth, knotting it hard.

  ‘I was going to give you to my men,’ he said. ‘But you’re too rank for their taste and I’ve got a better idea.’

  He hauled her outside, his men watching silently from the doorway. No one protested or followed as he dragged her into the willows in the direction of the lake. Sir Bevis, who’d got up at last, said, ‘Good riddance,’ spat, crossed himself and went back inside to his breakfast, and presently the others did the same.

  A coracle carrying two hooded figures was making its erratic way across the water from Ynys Gwydion for the day’s supplies. As it neared the shore Julitta began to struggle, a dreadful awareness in her eyes. The lepers jumped out and beached their craft.

  ‘Good morrow,’ said Lord William. They bowed awkwardly, and one grunted by way of response.

  ‘Poor fellows,’ Breos continued, smiling. ‘Such a lonely life. No family, no friends, no women.’ To Julitta he added casually, ‘That’s the thing about lepers. As long as they still have men’s parts they have men’s desires. You do, don’t you?’ he asked the silent pair. ‘And to add to their misery their desires are stronger, oh, much much stronger than those of living men. They cannot be satisfied, I’m told.’

  He picked her up like a child. Over the gag her frantic eyes implored him. She thrashed in his arms like a great landed fish and he nearly dropped her, but staggered to the coracle and threw her in.

  ‘There,’ he said to the lepers. ‘You fancy her? She’s yours. I’m sure you know some quiet and private place where you won’t be disturbed. She’s fair, I promise you, under the gag. You might want to leave that on, by the way, if you don’t want her screaming for help.’

  The hooded heads nodded eagerly. Their errand forgotten, they shoved the boat back into the water and scrambled in. One of them thrust the woman down with his feet to hold her still, and the other wielded the paddle furiously, but instead of returning to Ynys Gwydion he steered the little craft around the western end of the island. Squinting against the sun, Breos watched until it was out of sight.

  Bevis de Rennes was waiting with news. ‘Word has come from Fishguard. The king has returned. He’s on his way to Bristol.’

  ‘What will become of her?’ Janiva asked, warming her cold hands on the cup Osyth gave her. She sniffed the hot brew. ‘What’s in this?’

  ‘Rosemary and gentian to comfort your heart, valerian to ease your mind, and honey
: that’s good for everything. You had a hard struggle. As for her, if she lives she’ll be powerless. She’s broke; the curse she put on you is broke, and every other curse she wrought.’

  And indeed, in the distant mountains of Razes bells were ringing for the miraculous recovery of the Duchess Urraca, new-woken from her deathly sleep; and the ill fortune and ill health of many folk, men and women both, wherever Julitta de Beauris had dwelt, mended from that hour.

  Janiva sipped her drink. She was utterly exhausted and longed only to sleep. The marks of the demon’s teeth and claws had almost disappeared, fading from her flesh as if they had never been. The drink coursed through her body, warming and strengthening her.

  ‘It is all your doing.’ She set the cup down and took Osyth’s worn old hand, its skin like pleated silk, and kissed it. ‘How can I ever thank you enough?’

  ‘You did your own fightin, once you knew the way of it. Now you can go back to your home and your lover.’

  ‘He’s not my lover.’

  ‘Ain’t he? Well then, the man who loves you, and you don’t love.’

  ‘You’re right. I do love him.’

  ‘Wants to marry you, don’t he? How long are you goin to keep sendin him away, tearin your own heart like that nasty imp of hers tore at you, eh? You’re young. You should be wife and mother, teachin the old ways to your own daughters while you grow in your power.’

  ‘There’s so much I want to learn!’

  Osyth snorted. ‘Call down rain when fields lie dry, hold off storms to save the harvest? Bring the sick to wholeness, take pain from the world?’

  ‘Yes!’ Janiva longed to do all that: to turn the wind, to drive the clouds, to shape-shift and run through the fields as a hare or soar above the trees on hawks’ wings. She could almost feel it, that power, tingling in her hands and so nearly hers, hers for the asking and for the price. There was always a price. The sudden hunger shook her body and soul, and in that moment she understood Julitta de Beauris and the greed for power that didn’t care what the price was or who paid it.