Throne of Darkness: A Novel

by Douglas Nicholas

  Jack tapped Sweetlove twice with his index finger, and the dog turned about and slumped into a coil, shifting about in small increments until she was once again hard against Jack’s thigh. She sighed ostentatiously; a moment or two later she began to snore in a high tenor.

  Molly sipped thoughtfully at her beer. She looked at the newcomer. “Is it a priest you are, then, and a Moor or Berber as well?” she asked. “Are they not followers of Mahomet?”

  Father Ugwistan, in whom the pale brown skin and dark tight-waved hair of northwest Africa was set off by light blue-green eyes, leaned forward, his gaze dancing from face to face and a not-quite smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I am a priest, madam, and I have the honor to work for His Holiness through Monsignor.” Here he put his hand to his heart and inclined his head slightly toward da Panzano. “We are an old people: we are the Imazighen—‘the free and noble ones.’ Some have called us Berbers, but we do not like it. Yes, most have been led astray by the false Prophet, but some are true Christians. The great Saint Ugwistan, for whom I am named, was an Amazigh.”

  “We are knowing him as ‘Augustine,’ ” put in the papal legate.

  “Ah!” said Hob. Father Athelstan had often mentioned Augustine in Hob’s lessons. Molly and Nemain, those pagans, looked uncertain, and Jack, that casual Christian, nodded amiably, which meant nothing.

  Here there was another interruption, as the innkeeper’s son appeared and asked their pleasure. Da Panzano ordered red wine and the lad looked confused.

  “We’ve nobbut barley beer an’ honey beer an’ apple wine,” he said in his thick Derbyshire accent.

  The legate closed his eyes as though in pain. “Barley beer, then.” He looked at the other two, and they nodded.

  “I’ll bring ee a rissom o’ boohter fra yon, as weel,” the boy said, nodding at the loaf of bread.

  Da Panzano, his face a mask of utter incomprehension, gave a twitch of the head that might have been a nod.

  The younger priest resumed. “We—the Imazighen—were at one time mostly pagan, even after Saint Ugwistan, but then the Mahometans are coming with the sword, seeking to convert, and we are resisting.” Apparently da Panzano had told him something of Molly, for he went on: “There was a woman like you, madam, a great queen and a true warrior. She held to the old beliefs. Her name was Dihya, and she fought the Arab armies to a standstill. The Arabs called her al-Kahina, the soothsayer priestess; it was said she could see the future. She was a big woman, with very long hair: something like yourself, madam.”

  He sounded more and more enthusiastic as his tale went on, while Monsignor da Panzano made a moue of distaste, and grew more and more impatient.

  “Tell her what you have learned of the lupi mannari,” he said brusquely.

  “I was in Marroch on Monsignor’s business,” said Ugwistan, “and I am lurking in some very low places: I make believe I am a beggar, and I sit against walls and pretend to sleep, or in stables, or where men gather to argue and to gossip, and I hear ‘the Cousins, the Cousins,’ and rumors of this sorcerer, Yattuy—I do not know if this is his name, or only what they call him, for it means ‘the Tall One,’ and he is very tall.”

  “ ’Twill not be his true name,” said Molly. “Sorcerers do not want their true names known, for names give one power over the named, and it can be dangerous for them, when they strive against other sorcerers.”

  “Madam . . .” began da Panzano—tense, unhappy with this direction that the conversation had taken, this veering into casual blasphemy and forbidden practices.

  But at this moment there was an interruption: the innkeeper’s son returned with three mugs of barley beer, which he set before the newcomers, and a small wooden dish with butter on it, which he set beside the bread.

  Da Panzano drew breath to resume his complaint to Molly, but thought better of it—Hob felt that he could almost see the legate’s thoughts: Not now, not now. The legate reached for the bread, tore off a chunk, and morosely began to butter it.

  Father Ugwistan took a sip of his beer, and resumed.

  “Finally, I am hearing that King John is sending for these Cousins; they are coming in small groups, not to make the big fuss, and he is assembling them at Chester Castle. The number I have heard is tenscore.”

  “Tenscore!” said Molly, a bit shocked.

  At once da Panzano bent forward, his keen eyes searching her face for portents. “What will you do against such an army, such a macabre army, madam?”

  But Molly was not to be prodded into a rash promise. “I’ll be seeing them at Chester Castle, and it may be soon or it may be late, but I’ll know the way to deal with them when it comes to me, or when the Mόrrígan sends me Her aid.”

  Reflexively the two priests crossed themselves, da Panzano scowling openly at Molly. He might deal with her from expediency, but he plainly did not enjoy hearing of unholy practices.

  Father Ugwistan hitched his chair forward. He was younger than da Panzano, and of a more openhearted disposition. Hob thought that, priest or no priest, he had to some extent formed a degree of admiration for Molly: perhaps because of what he had heard of her from da Panzano; perhaps because of the legends of his people, the heroic resistance of the woman called the Kahina by the Arabs; perhaps because of the attractiveness of Molly’s person.

  Now he asked, “This Mόrrígan, it is a thing you worship?”

  “It is the name of the Great Queen, who is also sometimes three queens: Badb, Macha, and Nemain, like my granddaughter here.”

  “This is away in”—he gestured vaguely to the west, the name in English escaping him for a moment—“Ireland; three queens in Ireland?”

  “ ’Tis: three queens in Erin,” said Molly. “Queens and more. And all of them the One Queen, the Mόrrígan.”

  “It is like the Trinity, yes? Of which our Saint Ugwistan—Augustine, you say—has written so well.” He looked around, actually smiling with pleasure at this comparison, only to encounter the icewater stare of da Panzano, a man who thought of himself as flexible and pragmatic, but who was not amused by pagans and heretics and Satanists, and who was convinced that Molly must be at least one and perhaps two of the three.

  Father Ugwistan’s manner sobered immediately; he looked down at the table, tapped his fingers a moment, and cleared his throat. “So, then,” he said, “I have been to Chester Castle—I present myself as a Maltese, which island I am very familiar with, and I stay at Chester, at the castle, with Father Maurice—he is the chaplain to Sir Ranulf, but he is also . . .”

  He faltered, and looked to da Panzano for permission. The legate nodded, and Father Ugwistan resumed. “He is also secretly in Monsignor’s service. I say to the people of the castle that I have made a vow: that I am to say Mass in as many countries as I can travel to, and I beg my food and lodging, as did Our Savior. This allows me to stay awhile—I say two Masses in the Chapel of Saint Mary de Castro. It is a little chapel in the gateway tower to the inner, the inner—yard?”

  “Bailey?” said Hob.

  “Yes, yes, it is the bailey. Up the winding stair, to the next level. Two Masses I say there, and in the afternoons I walk in the outer . . . bailey, on the wide dirt. I am walking about but I am also saying my daily office or my beads, so no one is attending me closely. When I walk around, I tell this one and that one I am from Malta, but I dwell in Rome, so everyone is confused, and no one suspects I am Amazigh, not even the Cousins, although they make me fearful, with their noses that seem to be questing in the air, like so many dogs.”

  That reminded Hob of something—what was it? But now, up at the front of the long room, there were raised voices. Jack looked a question at Molly, but she made a patting motion down by her side with her right hand: Ignore it.

  She had been pensive for a while: now, obviously troubled, she asked the Berber, “And is it yourself who saw this great number of these conriochtaí, these werewolf blacksmiths?”

  “Worse than wolves,” muttered da Panzano.

&nb
sp; “I have seen them; they have their tents set against one wall of the outer, outer . . . bailey, and they have set up forges also, and they are beating out swords and such for King John, but everyone I talk to thinks they are there for something else, and they are much hated and feared. Sometimes a group of them goes out, with a leader, a bouda captain, on horseback, and one of King John’s men as a guide. They are away for a few days, and they come back, and settle, and in a little while another group goes out. They are doing some errands for the king, I think.

  “They keep to themselves, and every day the magus, this Yattuy, comes from his quarters in the keep, and goes to visit them, and stays with them awhile, and speaks to them in Tamazight, our language.”

  Nemain could tell that Molly was not pleased with the description of the task before her, and the young woman, ever impatient and obviously beginning to become irritated with Ugwistan and his gradual approach to explaining the situation, clenched her hands into fists and sat very straight, the blood suffusing her pale, pale face. She said through gritted teeth: “And what might it be, then, that they’re saying in Tam—in, in your language?”

  The Berber priest lost his generally amiable expression; he became somber on the instant.

  “I dare not approach when Yattuy is there; he is a frightening and powerful man—he speaks to kings and they listen—and I feel he can look once at me and see through my little mask. But later, when he is not there, I go close, my eyes down and my beads in my hand and my lips moving, and I listen. And what I hear—these bouda are to be used against the king’s enemies. King John, he will invite the northern barons to a parley, and when they are all in one place, these men will change, and pour down upon the nobles, and they will be helpless against them. You know that ordinary weapons will not avail against them?”

  “We do that,” said Molly grimly.

  “There is some uncertainty—Yattuy will tell them when it is time, and they will move as one at that time. Some said it was the midpoint of June, others said it might be later than that. There are many things that must come together, and so there is this uncertainty. But it will be June or soon thereafter.”

  “Father Maurice also will tell me if he should hear a time discussed, by Sir Ranulf or John Lackland or the kitchen maids or whoever you will,” said da Panzano. “I am sending Father Ugwistan back as well, but he—and you, when you come there—must be ready to slip away quickly, for this sorcerer is no fool, and his followers, even in their human form, have senses more keen than ours, and at any time might discover your true nature.”

  Again something tugged at Hob’s memory, something about the conversation that reminded him of—what? It slipped away from him, as when dreams, so present to him just as he awoke, departed when he opened his eyes and saw Nemain—all that beauty, and so close beside him.

  “I will have to return tomorrow,” said Father Ugwistan. “I am telling the story, God forgive me the lie, that I am going to walk into Wales and there to say Mass somewhere. But I go out and turn away from the Bridge Gate; instead I turn, quietly, and go past the tanners’ yards. What terrible odors! How do they endure it? It is between the castle and the Dee, so I fear every moment someone looks from the walls and says to his fellow: ‘Ho! There is that Maltese priest; why does he go past the tanners instead of crossing into Wales?’ and so I try to scurry like the mouse while looking calm like the cat.”

  “But were you seen?” asked da Panzano, frowning.

  “I do not think so. I hope not.” He laughed. “But with the smell of the tanning vats I know the Cousins could not detect me with their beast noses, even with the breeze off the river.”

  And with that Hob had it. The way the Cousin had come up to Jack, and seemed to be trying to get hold of Jack’s scent. He sat forward and said to the Berber, “Father Augus—Ugwistan, one of the Cousins said something to Jack. Could you tell us—” He paused to get it right, relying on his excellent memory for things once heard. “What does gema mean, in your language?”

  The Berber blinked at him. “Why, brother. It means brother.”

  CHAPTER 10

  MONSIGNOR DA PANZANO leaned in, put his forearms on the table, and looked from Father Ugwistan to Hob, and then to Jack. He seemed intensely interested: he was a man who existed to learn secrets, to keep secrets, to discover the truth behind things—and to use what he had discovered to further his power and that of Innocent III. Here was an oddity, and he wanted to understand it.

  Hob had felt a chill run through him the moment he had heard the Berber’s translation: plainly the Cousin had sensed that Jack was a shapeshifter as well, and perhaps someone who would be an ally. But how had he sensed that? Could the Cousins actually scent that other Jack, that Jack that lurked beneath his skin, Jack-the-Beast?

  Hob, by temperament an open and honest person, found it hard to dissemble ignorance, but he made a great effort and kept a faintly puzzled expression on his face; Molly and Nemain, with their great self-control, were the very definition of innocence, and Jack’s normal expression was stolid and uncommunicative.

  “But why is he saying such a so-strange thing?” asked da Panzano of the table in general.

  “Perhaps because Jack is such a dark man, he’s thinking ’tis some one of his kin,” said Molly smoothly. This struck Hob as less than convincing: Jack was dark-haired and dark-eyed, and even swarthy for an Englishman, but could hardly be said to look like kin to the Cousins.

  Da Panzano took a sip of his beer, grimaced, and put down his mug. He drew a white cloth from his sleeve and wiped his lips, then he folded the cloth, folded it again, and sat looking at it, his eyes far away as he worked and worked at the puzzle. At last he sighed and tucked the cloth back in his sleeve.

  “I feel that it means something, but what? I cannot think what, but it is an odd occurrence, and I do not like these odd occurrences.”

  Hob, behind his mask of innocence, was thinking hard. So da Panzano knew that Molly had dealt with Sir Tarquin, and perhaps had heard some rumor about the Fox, but was not aware of Jack’s secret. This was important: it was one less vulnerability that the papal agent might exploit.

  The noise from up at the head of the room was growing louder—one voice in particular, thick with drink, was raised above the others, a voice of protest and outrage at some ill treatment. The innkeeper and two housecarls were shoving a tall portly man wearing a broad-brimmed traveler’s hat, impelling him toward the door. He staggered, recovered, turned and cursed them, and walked backward a few paces so that he could hurl a few more maledictions at his tormentors. Then he strode down the room in a kind of controlled stumble, knocking over a chair here and slapping a mug off a table there, out of rage and spite.

  Sinibaldo came out of his chair with a smooth silent movement; he stepped close to Monsignor da Panzano but left the aisle clear for the man to pass. The bodyguard’s cloak was open a slit; his right hand flashed inside for a moment, and then was held down by his side. The banished drinker swung a blow at a peasant sitting too close to the aisle, but missed. The papal legate was seated with his back to the center of the room, and his chair withdrawn a bit from the table, so that he intruded, although minimally, into the pathway through the tables. Hob saw what might happen, although da Panzano, mulling over the Cousin’s word, did not seem to be completely aware of the ruckus.

  The drunken traveler’s eyes alighted on the back of the papal legate’s head, nominally in his way, and he cocked a fist. From Sinibaldo’s side a streak of gold and gray flew toward the man and curled like a live thing about his wrist. Sinibaldo gave a skillful jerk, and the man was pulled off balance by his snared arm. As he fell, the bodyguard gave a sharp and powerful yank, and Hob could clearly hear the man’s wrist snap. He yowled with pain, rolling about on the ale-stained floorboards, and the coin was whipped back to Sinibaldo’s side. The bodyguard whirled it thrice to gain speed, producing a momentary illusion of a gray wheel with a golden rim; then it flew out again and struck with surprising force ag
ainst the man’s temple. He subsided, groaning, only partly conscious, and now here came the innkeeper and his men, and hauled the offender to the front door, and heaved him through into the road outside.

  Da Panzano nodded at Sinibaldo; some small signal of gratitude passed between them, and the bodyguard stepped smoothly back, seated himself, and leaned against the wall again, immobile, a venomous lizard sunning itself upon a rock.

  The incident had had the virtue of distracting da Panzano from his contemplation of the bouda’s odd remark to Jack, and Molly sought to move to other topics.

  “If you’ve no more to tell us of these strange men,” she said to Father Ugwistan, “perhaps ’tis time we made an early night of it, so to be away in the morning. ’Tis not well for us all to be met here, huddled like plotters—and we are that!—and so to be noticed by John’s spies.”

  “You have the right of it, madam,” said da Panzano, “and one more thing—at the castle you are not to know one another. Father Ugwistan will contrive to get word from myself to you: maybe he stops and prays near you, maybe he pets your little dog, but do not be seen to converse. Remain at the castle a few days, a sennight—whatever you need, to plan destruction for these evil ones. When I am near, I will send a young man to tell Father Ugwistan where we may meet, that you may report to me.”

  “We are off to our wagons for the night,” said Molly. “Will you stay here at the inn?”

  “A quick meal, a few hours’ sleep; we will be off before dawn. Father Ugwistan must return to the castle before there is talk, and you should not come there at the same time, but a little after, a day or so later, perhaps. Sinibaldo and I also must be away: I have affairs I must tend to, affairs in many other parts of this so-rainy land.”

  CHAPTER 11

  THE WAGONS ROLLED ALONG BENEATH a darkening sky. The trail, a track of beaten earth winding between stands of yew and oak and hedges sprinkled with dog-roses and red campion, began to show small puffs of dust where the first fat drops of rain heralded the beginning of the storm that had threatened all afternoon. The road veered rightward, to run closer to a stream bank. Reeds fringed the river; a rushing sound filled the air; a sweet cool freshwater mist drifted off the surface toward them.