Wulfyddia (The Tattersall Trilogy Book 1)

by Steele Alexandra

  “Cicely!” Daphne and Lorna hugged her one by one, and they had scarcely released her before she was spinning again, pausing every once and a while to glance out the window at whatever lay below. She did not look up as they spoke to her, but swayed back and forth, absorbed by her own task, humming quietly.

  “How are you?” Daphne asked, shifting from one foot to the other as she spoke. Spencer bent to examine another tapestry as the sisters murmured to each other. This one was also a night scene. It appeared to be deep in a forest, and a young woman was standing, bow drawn, arrow pointed at a stag that stood in a patch of silvery snow, nose down, breathing warm steam into the cold night. The woman’s face was in profile, so Spencer did not recognize it at first, but then the cloak gave it away. It was Anise, the Royal Heir, with her bowstring pulled taunt and her face just as tense, focused in a way that made her look like the maiden huntresses of old.

  He turned to the next one; this one was a rich, warm tapestry depicting an indoor scene. The Queen sat, not on her throne, but on an expensive armchair, perhaps somewhere in her royal apartments. She was surrounded by her Ladies, and attended by Dimity, whose face was serene as she embroidered at her grandmother’s side, save for her eyes, which had the same focus that Anise had displayed while she stalked the deer. The gold circlet Dimity wore matched the gold of her thread, and the rich red of her dress was the exact shade of blood… the same shade of red that Cicely had used on the next tapestry, this one a dark depiction of someplace that Spencer had never seen, though it didn’t take him long to guess that it was the wing of the Castle dungeons that was in present use. Many of the cells were full, few were empty, several had huddled occupants in such dire conditions that it was impossible to tell if they were living or dead. Every room had a drain, and it was the swirl of liquid at that drain that Cicely had captured best, with the red oil of blood, every drop glowing against the sloped stone floor.

  “So,” he heard Daphne saying from behind him, “we decided to come see you.”

  “How kind,” Cicely said. Outwardly she seemed calm, though there was a strange echo to her voice, not quite sadness, something else, maybe…

  Spencer was still analyzing her tone when her newest tapestry caught his eye, and he stopped dead. He recognized the narrow footbridge over the Chasm before he noticed anything else, and that alone brought him up sharply. She was depicting the Haligorn in great detail, as if the roof had blown off and allowed some giant to peer into his home like it was a dollhouse. As usual, she was showing great skill, but it was when he saw the figures that she was embroidering there that his heart nearly stopped.

  Cicely had stitched a golden-haired figure in blue and white bedclothes. Over his shoulder hovered a pale figure, sewn of whitest thread. The spirit! But how could she possibly know about that?

  “We have something to ask you,” Daphne said carefully. “It’s about a book.” Cicely did not say a word, but her shoulders stiffened noticeably under the blue fabric of her gown. “You probably know all about what we’ve been doing. We still have the book. We told the librarian that Mollfrida couldn’t find anything, and we still have it hidden. We’re holding onto it because we know that it’s important. What we can’t figure out is why. Tell us why, Cicely.”

  Cicely finally ceased her weaving, but she could not quite meet her sister’s eyes. Daphne knelt at her sister’s side. “Cicely, you must tell me. You must make an exception, just this once.”

  “Go now, you’re young and can do whatever you will. Don’t be bothered with me. I have my weaving.” Cicely gazed at the tapestries around her and the expression on her face was like a mother gazing at her children.

  “Cicely…”

  “You don’t need me,” Cicely said, “of what use could I be? You have all the books in the library, the papers in the stateroom… Go now, and leave me be.”

  “But—”

  “Daphne!” Lorna interrupted. When Daphne threw her a questioning glance, Lorna shook her head. “Leave her alone.”

  “Very well,” Daphne said shortly. She moved to squeeze Cicely’s hand, but her sister’s weaving made that impossible, so she squeezed her shoulder instead, and then backed slowly from her sister’s room. Spencer and Lorna followed her, and then they were all retreating down the stairs, hearts heavy.

  “This is ridiculous,” Daphne complained as they reached the bottom. “It’s not like we’re going to lock someone up based on her prophecy. She probably knows everything that’s going on, and she won’t tell us anything.” Next to Spencer, Lorna muttered something under her breath.

  “What?” He asked.

  “The stateroom,” Lorna repeated aloud. “Cicely said we had the books in the library and the papers in the stateroom. What papers? The stateroom is for documents of state.”

  “Mostly,” Daphne agreed, nodding. “There are some other papers though. Mostly old letters of political significance, that kind of thing.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to tell us something. Maybe there’s something there we can use.” Lorna suggested, hope lighting her eyes.

  “Maybe,” Daphne agreed, but she didn’t sound convinced. “I’ll look, if I can get in. Sometimes I wonder if she even has the gift anymore.”

  But Spencer remembered her depiction of his meeting with the ghost, and his chest tightened a little. Whatever Cicely’s talent, it was nothing to scoff at.

  Chapter 13

  His boots echoed in the haze of the black alley. The fog from that morning was back, and combined with the shadows of the growing night, he could hardly see his hand in front of his face, let alone make out the face or figure of the one who pursued him. He was too old for this kind of exercise, too old to hurtle down back alleys in a city where he had no allies and no safe harbor to retreat to. But this was very likely a matter of life and death, and so the old priest ran, ran though his thundering heart could hardly take it, ran though his knees were weak and his bones brittle. He fled because it was more than a matter of life and death, because there was Truth at stake, a truth that should not die with him, a truth that was owed to the world, and he would see the debt paid, if only he could make it to the break of dawn alive.

  He ran with the best of intentions, but his body was betraying him, showing its age, longing to cease, longing to rest, and if that meant that the Great Rest came a day sooner, then so be it. The Priest ran until he could not any longer, until the blood was pounding through his spidery old veins and thrumming in his ears, until it almost drowned out the cry from behind him, the voice of a child.

  “Who are you?”

  The voice was far more girlish than he had expected, surely not the tone of an assassin or guard sent to slay him. He slowed, and the change of pace brought more agony than even the running had. She halted when he did, her breath coming in billows of steam as she pushed back her hood and stared at him.

  “Who are you?” In the moonlight she looked even younger than she was, but despite her wide eyes there was something in her bearing vaguely reminiscent of the Queen, some echo of a command in her tone that brought him up short. She had the Queen’s eyes, that much was immediately clear to the man, even though he was old and it had been a long time since he had last locked gazes with Tryphena of Wollstonely.

  “Why are you watching us?” She was recovering much faster than him, her breathing slowly evening out as she cocked her head, expecting an answer from him.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “Don’t lie to me. I saw you from the Haligorn. I’ve seen you before, many times. What are you waiting for?”

  “The Haligorn.” He stared at her, startled, and saw her regret when she realized that she had revealed herself. “You’re the child she keeps locked in the tower.”

  She recovered quickly, tossed her head. “What of it?”

  “You’re not supposed to be out.”

  “I go out sometimes at night. Not often, so no one has ever noticed.”

  “You could be
punished.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “No. No you’re not,” he agreed. “She’s afraid of you.”

  “Who?” The girl said, unconvincingly, for they both knew who. She hesitated. “Why?”

  The priest didn’t answer at first, instead he glanced over his shoulder, as if he worried that there might be someone standing there. He caught her curious gaze, and smiled faintly. “There is a man hunting me— I thought you were him. But I think I am free of him for tonight. Walk with me, child, and I will tell you a story.” Justine stared down at the hand he offered, unconvinced. “Come now, you want answers, don’t you?” She hesitated a moment more, then took his hand. There was a full moon shining down on the black mass of Castle Wulfyddia as the old man and the child wandered off into the night.

  ***

  The Ratcatcher boy knew first, as always. He could feel something bad in his bones, could sense it in the way that the rats suddenly came scuttling through the sewers towards him, even scrambling over him in their panic. Something was terribly wrong if they feared anything more than him, more than the one who devoted his entire existence to their demise.

  Though the Ratcatcher was just a child, and a small one at that, he had encountered many horrors in his endless travels through the tunnels and sewers of the castle, and he knew that there were times when he could not explain the evil, only shelter himself from it and hope that he lasted the night.

  He could not know whether the danger lurked within the sewers or outside of them, but he knew which way the rats fled, and he scrambled along with them, bloodying his knees on rough stone as he pulled himself along, unfazed by the ghastly, bony little rats and their sharp teeth. He had been bitten by them before and survived. But something in the night was making a wretched snarling sound, like a mad dog but somehow more human in its ferocity. He had never heard that sound before, and that in and of itself was cause for terror, for he had been crawling through the tunnels for so long there was little that was new to him. At first he could almost feel the hot breath of the beast on his ankles as he pulled himself towards the mouth of the sewer.

  But as he neared the grate that separated him from the rest of the castle, he realized that the sound was muffled, not quite clear enough to belong to a creature that was inside of the sewers with him. It was muffled by the wall. The beast, he realized, was above him, above the sewers. It was loose in the Castle, and while it was indeed drawing closer every minute, it was still separated from him by thick stone. The sewer meant safety. It was the world on the other side of the grate that was dangerous. The Ratcatcher boy stopped crawling and sat back on his haunches as he neared the grate. The room above had windows and so silver moonlight filtered down into the grate, illuminating a silver sphere on the bottom of the sewer tunnel. The boy halted just short of that circle and blinked up through his eyelashes at what little he could see of the room above, as the rats scurried past him, heedless of everything in their terror.

  Whatever the creature was, it had to be almost directly above him, for he could hear the scrape of its claws just over his head. Then there was another sound, softer and somehow more dreadful. It was the tinkling of a little bell, chilling in its purity, and oddly familiar. His mind could make no sense of the sound, but it frightened the boy for some reason that he could not articulate, for he shrank back against the stone tunnel, his heart seeming to shrink with him, to contract painfully in his chest. His pulse thudded beneath his ear and he could hear the creature above him sniffing. There was a low growl, and the sniffing intensified, accompanied by the sound of nails scraping on stone, as though as it was eager to get to something or someone.

  The beast, he realized, with a sudden, horrifying certainty, was trying to find him. It could smell him, and it was trying to get to him, but the Ratcatcher could not imagine what sort of beast it could possibly be, for he could not reason away the conviction that the creature was going to lift the grate to get to him, and what animal could do that? Then he heard another sound, a set of human footsteps. The beast growled low in his throat as a man approached the scene. Isolated in his little tunnel, the Ratcatcher’s eyes grew wide as he realized that whoever was coming had no idea what waited for them.

  Turn back. He thought frantically.

  Turn back turn back turn back.

  But the footsteps continued, slow and leisurely and he heard a man whistling easily. It was likely some member of the castle staff, released from duty and finally returning to his own bed in hope of a quiet night’s sleep, much as the Ratcatcher did every night when he was finally finished. But rather than end his evening in bed he was going to end it on the cold stone floor at the mercy of a creature that had now fallen completely silent, waiting for its unsuspecting prey. The little boy’s mouth opened to shout some warning to the unsuspecting man, but then a shadow fell on the grate and he grabbed his own throat instead, silencing himself, his nails digging into his flesh as he realized that warning the oncoming man would tell the beast where he was.

  The child, not unused to making difficult decisions even at his tender age, struggled with himself. He was a brave boy, but too young to have the inclinations of a martyr, and his stout heart faltered at the thought of the creature that loomed above. The whistling grew to a crescendo, and the Ratcatcher’s face sank into his grimy palms, his shoulders shaking.

  “What the…” the man’s startled exhalation and his murmured expression of wonder was barely loud enough for the Ratcatcher to hear, but he heard the screams that came next. He heard the struggle, the man’s incoherent cry and the roar of the beast. The beast must have lunged for the man then, for he heard them both tumble to the ground, and the sounds of a struggle filtered down to him through the grate. Then the man cried out, in fear and pain, and the Ratcatcher boy knew that it was almost over. He wanted to cover his ears to protect himself from the worst of it, but the terrible guilt in his heart kept his hands on his chest, and he heard the man’s last scream and the horrible wet sound of his bloody death. There was a great slurping from above, and the Ratcatcher stared at the grate above him, for in the midst of the struggle, as the man and the beast grappled with each other over his head, he had caught sight of the creature. Garish face paint and a coat of many colors, fangs in a familiar mouth, flesh rending claws and that hat…

  Oh God, there was a hat still clinging to that malformed head, and there were bells on it. That thing had once been a human… what’s more; the Ratcatcher boy knew which human it had been. But there was no trace now of the person it had once been. It was only a creature now, seemingly driven only by mindless hunger. The little boy waited in that tunnel, longing for the moment when the sun would come up, but he could not bring himself to wait that long, and the minute that he heard the beast move away, vanish down some distant corridor, he lifted the grate himself with shaking arms, pulled himself out of the tunnel, and ran the entire way back to his room.

  Chapter 14

  The atmosphere in the library was grimmer when Spencer next visited. When he arrived Daphne and Lorna were conversing in hushed tones. As he entered they studied him, searching his face for some awareness that they did not find.

  His heart sank. “What happened?”

  “One of the cooks was attacked last night,” Daphne said. “They found his body this morning.”

  Spencer felt sick. “You think it was the beast?”

  Lorna shook her head solemnly. “Worse.”

  “The Ratcatcher boy saw the attack,” Daphne said. “He was in some sort of… drain, or something.”

  “So?” Spencer asked, when the sisters seemed reluctant to say any more.

  “The Ratcatcher said it was the Fool,” Lorna said. “He’s said to have sworn his life on it.”

  “He swears that it was a beast.” Daphne said grimly. “He claims that the Fool has become some sort of monster.”

  “But… But the Fool was killed.”

  “We thought so. But the Ratcatcher boy is so sure…”
/>   “Could he be a ghost of some kind?”

  “Can a ghost rend flesh? Can a ghost maim a man?” Daphne asked.

  Spencer shook his head. “So the fool has become the thing that killed him?”

  “If it did kill him.”

  In Spencer’s opinion the noises they’d heard from behind the door had left little room for interpretation, but perhaps the Fool had clung to life somehow. Was he now a beast himself, doomed to walk the halls, killing at will? Most importantly, would he be coming for them?

  “What does the Queen think?” He asked.

  Daphne shrugged. “She doesn’t seem to care. She has turned management of the affair over to my father and Anise. Right now they’re operating under the assumption that the fool has gone mad and starting killing people. They’re putting together a hunting party for him even as we speak.”

  “You think they’ll find him?”

  “I have no idea.” It was an unusual admission on Daphne’s part.

  Silence reigned for a moment, and then Daphne shook her head as if to clear it and reached into her pocket. “I’ve found something. Something very strange.”

  “To do with the Fool?”

  “No.” Daphne said. “Cornelia. Thanks to the chaos this morning I was able to push my way into the stateroom. They had a few documents from the year Queen Domitia and her daughters died. Most were ordinary, accounts and so on. One was not.”

  “What is it?” Spencer and Lorna crowded closer to Daphne, peering over her shoulders at a large scroll, yellow with age and slowly flaking away. She gently unrolled it, and Spencer caught a glimpse of what looked like an official seal stamped at the bottom. Lorna took one look at the scroll and gasped. Spencer squinted, trying to make heads or tails of the flowery writing. He could read, but he was used to normal print and not this archaic script. “What is it?”