Empire of Fear

by Brian Stableford

  ‘You do not believe in the vampire sabbat, then?’ asked Langoisse, in his ironically challenging fashion. ‘It is not so that the devil himself is summoned by Prince Richard to the Tower, appearing in the form of a great beast, to offer the privilege of vampirism to those who have done most evil in his service? Was it not argued by some learned schoolman that a man need only be fed the flesh of a new-born babe and allowed to plant a blasphemous kiss on Satan’s arse, in order to be recruited to the ranks of the undying? And are there are not other versions of the sabbat, too, in which the devil makes men vampires by buggery?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Noell, ‘but those are fevered fantasies, spread in order to rouse the horror of ordinary men against the vampires, if any such rousing were needed. My father used to say that Satan’s presence explained far too much, and nothing at all.’

  ‘A riddler, too! What a man of many parts Edmund Cordery became, under the tutelage of his great lady! And yet, I beg to doubt his omniscience, if you will permit.’

  Noell had no alternative but to permit it. They were approaching the town gate by now, and the crowd had thickened to the point where they might easily be overheard. It was not wise to discuss vampires where spies might lurk.

  They went down the hill once they were in the town, away from the castle and toward the harbour, where the masts of the fishing fleet were clustered.

  ‘We must look in the waterfront inns,’ said Noell. ‘There we will find the men we are looking for.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the pirate. ‘And there we might find the truest news, and discover whether any know that I am not dead and drowned.’ His voice was suddenly low and bleak; he could not feel safe on land, in a port where he had never been before, not knowing whether those who sought him had given up the chase or not.

  Noell led him first to the Mermaid, where two good captains indebted to the abbey usually lodged, but neither was there to be found when he inquired after them. Noell bought beer for them both – better beer than came from the Abbey’s brewery, as it chanced – so that they might sit in a shadowed corner, playing the eavesdropper themselves. They heard nothing of import, though, and Langoisse soon told Noell to lead on to another place. They went next to the Three Cups, and there they found the captain of a herring buss: a man named Ralph Heilyn, who stood second on the abbot’s list of men who could be trusted to help. He was a rough, grey man of sixty years and more, but stout and strong, and a gentleman of sorts.

  Heilyn had never seen Noell, but when Noell showed him the abbot’s letter he promptly took the two of them up to the room above a corviser’s shop, where he lodged his mistress. He dispatched the slattern about some errand, and bade his guests be seated. He seemed ready enough to discuss business with mysterious strangers, and Noell judged that he was not entirely unused to the carrying of extra cargoes of one kind or another.

  Noell explained that discreet passage to Ireland was sought for fifteen men who were friends of the Welsh Church. He did not say so, but attempted to imply that they were heretics in whom the Dominicans had taken an interest. Heilyn looked at Langoisse, though, and Noell saw that he was suspicious. Though the Welshman could not tell a pirate merely by his face and manner, he could surely see that this was a man of action, who had far more likely offended the vampires by his deeds than by his thoughts.

  The only complaint which Heilyn immediately made was that fifteen was too many, and Noell was quick to counter that with an assurance that the price paid would be appropriate.

  ‘You can pay in gold?’ asked the captain.

  Noell hesitated, but Langoisse quickly cut in. ‘A little,’ he said. ‘We do not have much, and need most of what we have in Ireland, but I will gladly give you ten sovereigns, which is a full fifth of what we carry.’

  ‘Too little!’ said Heilyn, but there was no force in his refusal, and Noell saw what Langoisse intended by stating that he would be carrying more gold than he was able to give. Heilyn was thinking that he might ask a higher price, once away from the shore, and temptation was distracting his attention from the question of how to make certain that he could collect any fee at all.

  ‘Do not forget, Master Heilyn,’ said Noell, ‘that the abbey will be in your debt when you have done this, though while we speak it is the abbot who is the creditor.’

  Heilyn made a show of looking again at the letter which Noell had brought, but only said: ‘It might be dangerous work. I have no wish to offend Wellbelove or the Dominicans. I am an honest man.’

  ‘Master Heilyn,’ said Noell, ‘it is because of your honesty that we come to you. I have the abbot’s authority to implore you. The good monks would be in your debt, and would make good your debts to them.’

  ‘I do not know your name, Master Scholar,’ said Heilyn to Noell, ‘but I think I know your kind. True Faith you may name your calling, but you’d draw the devil to the heels of such as I. I wish no ill to the brothers, and I stand in their debt, ’tis true, but they must know I’ll not thank them for work like this.’

  ‘They will thank you, Master Heilyn,’ Noell assured him.

  ‘There is a troop of horse from Swansea in the castle,’ said the captain, uneasily, ‘and marines from the Firedrake are on their way here from Milford Haven. I want no trouble with such as these, if they are in any way concerned with you.’ His wary eye was now directed at Noell’s companion.

  ‘They are not,’ lied Langoisse. ‘Our business is entirely secret, and need expose you to no risk. You need make no unseemly haste, but should provision the ship as you would for a normal sailing. You need not take us aboard in sight of the town. What is the safest place where we might be fetched from the shore by one of your boats?’

  Heilyn hesitated, but answered. ‘There is a tiny inlet four miles to the north of the Abbey. It is Evan Rhosier’s land. The abbot will know it, and will show you on a chart.’

  ‘You must send a boat to the shore there,’ said Langoisse. ‘At four in the morning, the day after next.’

  ‘We’ll have no fair wind for the Irish shore,’ said Heilyn. ‘And I cannot do it so soon.’

  ‘Who knows where the wind will lie, after tomorrow?’ countered Langoisse. ‘And the sooner it is done, the better for us all. I will double the price; it is all that I can do. You have the abbot’s good will to add to that.’

  ‘I must know who you are,’ Heilyn said. ‘I cannot do it otherwise.’

  ‘Do you know Meredydd ap Gawys?’ asked Langoisse, before Noell could give any answer. The man named was a Welsh gentleman, currently secured in Swansea jail, awaiting the Great Sessions, when he was likely to be condemned to death for treason. It did not seem likely to Noell that Langoisse knew the man, but Heilyn certainly would.

  ‘You are not one of his men,’ said Heilyn, carefully.

  ‘I am his friend,’ said the pirate.

  ‘But are you not a Norman?’ asked the Welshman.

  ‘If I were a Norman,’ answered Langoisse, grimly, ‘I would not be asking the help of a loyal Welshman. I tell you that I am friend to Meredydd ap Gawys, and you have the abbot’s letter. If you refuse to help us, your own countrymen will curse you in time to come. Now, enough of this haggling. I would have this matter settled. How big is your ship?”

  Heilyn hesitated, but in the end he answered the question. ‘Thirty-five last,’ he said.

  ‘How many crew?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘And what weapons do you have aboard?’

  Heilyn frowned at this, and Noell did not like it. The shipmaster tried to stare down the pirate, but could not. ‘Five half-pikes and four muskets,’ he eventually replied, ‘with six pounds of gunpowder and two pounds of leaden bullets. Do you think that we will need them?’

  ‘If you tell no one what you are doing,’ said Langoisse, ‘we will all be safe in Ireland without so much as the speaking of an angry word. Do not be anaoyed because I question you. We are in your hands, now, and at your mercy. I must put my trust in an unknown captain and his ship;
you need only trust in the Abbot of Cardigan, whom you know, and in God, who is kind to honest men.’

  ‘I will do it,’ said Heilyn, sullenly. ‘I am a man who can be trusted, as the abbot knows.’

  When they left, having confirmed once again the details of the appointed place and time, Langoisse insisted that they made their way to the wharf where Heilyn’s buss was berthed. He said that he must satisfy himself that the ship was sound, though Noell never doubted that she would be. As far as his untutored eye could judge, she was. Langoisse admitted that he could see nothing amiss, but observed that the passage would be lacking in comfort, given the fee which had been agreed.

  ‘She will serve,’ said Noell. ‘You should not have asked him about his weapons. You might have frightened him off.’

  ‘He is greedy enough not to be easily frightened, ’ muttered the pirate. ‘He knows there is danger in it, and ’twould have been a mistake to be too careful. A man like that must be bullied as well as bribed, if he is to be persuaded.’

  ‘It is your business,’ said Noell, with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘You are the one who needs the passage … though the monks will be very glad to see you gone.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ replied Langoisse. ‘You lovers of peace want only to see me gone. But I’ve to think further ahead than that. While your abbot seeks to make an end of his part in my affairs, I’ve to make a new beginning as well.’

  ‘We have made that beginning,’ Noell told him. ‘Now we must hasten back to the Abbey, to wait for the appointed time, and pray that naught disturbs our peace until it comes.’

  Langoisse looked down at him from the shadow of his straw hat, and favoured him with a wolfish smile. ‘The waiting will not be heavy,’ he said. ‘We are friends, now, are we not? We shall find ways to amuse ourselves, I do not doubt.’

  SIX

  That, night, Noell slept soundly for the first time since the invasion of the Abbey. He had a sense of everything being in order, because it seemed now that the nightmare might pass, and leave the Abbey and his life there intact and undisturbed. He had come to the point where he wished simply to be let alone, with no one demanding promises which he had to give and could not keep. He thought ill of himself for this craven desire, but that did not stop him desiring it. Sleep came to him as a welcome release: a surrendering of the duty of thought.

  But he was not to be allowed to sleep through the night. Some time in the small hours, after the end of the night-office, he was awakened by a touch. Despite his tiredness, the touch was enough to startle him and bring him instantly back from sleep.

  By the light of a single candle which she carried he could see the face of the person who had roused him. It was Leilah, the gypsy, her features softened by anxiety and her lips slightly apart. For a moment, his mind was crowded by lust-driven images, but she had not come to climb into his bed. Her expression had more fear in it than lewd intent.

  ‘Master Cordery,’ she said, in a voice not much above a whisper, ‘I would that thou might do a favour for me.’ She reached out to touch his shoulder with her fingertips, imploring his concern.

  The words might have been taken as a rude invitation, but for her face. Noell stared at her, unable to guess what it was which had so alarmed her.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Have the soldiers come to take Langoisse?’

  ‘He is with the lady,’ she said. ‘I beg thee to come. She has said that she would curse him. I heard her tell him, before we came here, that if he hurt her, she would have her revenge.’

  Noell realised that Leilah was very much afraid of the vampire lady. She was a Mohammedan, and belonged to a nation where vampires were not tolerated. She could never have seen any other vampire than Cristelle d’Urfé, and all that she knew of vampires must have come from fantastic tales of magic and villainy.

  ‘I do not think that she has any power to hurt him,’ Noell said.

  ‘And thou dost not care what he might do to her?’

  What lay behind the question he could not tell. Might it be a snare set by the pirate? And what, in any case, was the true answer? ‘Why do you care?’ he asked, harshly.

  She did not reply. Perhaps she was jealous as well as afraid and had called him in order to spoil a rape. But her fear was real. It was the fear of dire magic, of evil incarnate - a superstitious dread of the unleashed power of the devil, in whom Mohammedans believed no less than Christians, though they knew him by a different name.

  He could not bring himself to tell her to go away. He dressed himself hastily, not knowing what he intended to do. He owed no debt to the pirate’s mistress, and had no reason to think that he had any greater influence with Langoisse than she had herself. Nor did he owe any debt to the vampire sufficient to make him intercede on her behalf with a bitter man who would do her harm, and yet he felt compelled to go. Perhaps it was because of the futile promise which he had given to Mary White.

  Leilah took him quickly to the cells. The small man who had once held a knife to Noell’s throat was on watch by the outer door. He seemed greatly surprised by their arrival, and moved to stop them, but Leilah moved ahead of Noell, and put her hand upon her dagger. The man hesitated, but he let them go forward.

  The door to Mary’s cell was shut, and there was no sound from within, but the other door was open wide. Langoisse and the Turk were both inside. They had brought a lantern with them, and a brazier of coals from the kitchen.

  They had bound the vampire’s wrists with cords, passing them through a ring set in the walls, to which shackles had once been attached. In the ancient days before the Normans had built their castle, the Abbey had been the only secure place which could provide Aberteifi with a jail for its felons.

  The lady was uncomfortably stretched, for the ring was set high on the wall; only parts of her feet could touch the floor, and her face was pressed to the cold wall, quite hidden.

  One or other of her tormentors had furiously lashed her back with a knotted rope, and the flesh was badly torn. Blood was coursing down her thighs in long streams. There were two knives balanced on the brazier’s rim, their blades warming in the coals, and the Turk was blowing air from the kitchen bellows to make them glow more fiercely.

  Langoisse was at a pause in his work, waiting for these knives, with which he intended to burn the lady. He did not seem surprised by Noell’s arrival, but rather amused, though he looked with some slight displeasure at his mistress.

  ‘Master Scholar!’ he said. ‘You are most welcome to join us at our play. Perhaps you have a stroke or two of your own that you’d like to pay back, and a question or two that you’d like to put, in the hope that it might be answered.’

  The Lady Cristelle was still and silent. She did not turn her head to see who had arrived. Noell could not tell whether or not she had escaped into trance.

  ‘This is a fool’s game,’ he said to the pirate, trying his best to sound stubbornly reasonable. ‘She can control her pain, and will tell you nothing.’

  Langoisse laughed. ‘How do we know what she feels?’ he asked. ‘’Tis true that she will not scream or beg for mercy, but her body recoils under the lash, and I’ll warrant that her flesh shrieks just a little when I burn her. Perhaps she is indifferent, after her fashion, but I am sure that she does feel, and knows what it is that is happening to her. She is conscious still, I know. She may yet think it desirable to tell us a little about how she was made a vampire, and what elixir of life it was which gave her the gift of undying.’ Langoisse turned his eyes again to Leilah, who cringed from his stare. ‘She cannot hurt me, little fool,’ he said, scornfully. ‘Do you not think that I’m as good a servant of Satan as she could ever be? Why should he let her curse me, or come to her rescue? Do you think, if she’d magic of her own, she’d not have taken wing rather than fall into our hands? I am not tempting fate; it is fate which has made me this present, so that I may collect some debts which I am owed.’

  ‘What debts?’ asked Noell.

  Langoisse stared at the
glowing coals, and the blades of the heated knives. ‘I have faced torture and humiliation at the hands of her kind,’ he said. ‘They sent me to the galleys, despite my station, like some beggarly street-thief. It was not enough that they scourged me while I plied the oar; they had me flogged upon the coursier of that hellish galley with all the Arab slaves and the scum of Marseilles looking on, rejoicing with every cut. Then they sent me to the stinking hospital where my wounds might fester, where men without noses screamed while their faces were consumed by great running sores. And they promised me that if I was not meek, they’d slice my nose from my face, to make me prettier for the day I met the devil.’

  Noell could make no reply. The tone of the pirate’s voice, both utterly cold and desperately angry, admitted no objection.

  ‘Do you know, Master Cordery,’ Langoisse went on, in a lighter way, ‘that they cauterise a galleyman’s punished flesh with hot pitch? I have none here available, but I think hot blades are a fair substitute. Do you think I healed as easily as she will? I would reclaim the pain which I felt, too, if only I could, and in the fullest measure. And will you say, either of you, that I am not due this settlement?’

  ‘It was not she who hurt you,’ answered Noell, bluntly, finding courage enough to say so.

  Langoisse came close to him, then, and met him eye to eye with an expression full of simmering wrath. ‘Was it Carmilla Bourdillon who hurt your father?’ he shouted into Noell’s face. ‘Do you not know that all who share the privilege of tyranny must bear the guilt of its cruelties? Does not Rome’s own Inquisition assert, when they burn old crones for witches, that a witch once proven guilty of any maleficia is guilty of all the crimes which her kind commit? How can we say less of vampires? Each acts for all, and this lady must stand trial for all. She answers not only for what was done to me, but for all that has been done to Englishmen in the name of the peace and prosperity of the Imperium of Gaul. I’d rather torment lionhearted Richard or some mighty warlord like Vlad the Impaler, that I own, but Cristelle d’Urfé is all I have, and I will not be softened by her fairness, which is a siren mask hiding a wicked soul.’