At first, my mind was so preoccupied that I thought I must have imagined the sound. When it came again, it was faint and my ears strained to fully catch it. It was a cat, surely? Or maybe a fox had strayed into the gardens beneath my window. The hoarse, yipping sound could only have come from a wild animal.
I rose and drew my elegant new dressing gown tighter. The casement window creaked as I opened it. The moon was full and threw its benign silver-gauze veil over the unfamiliar scene. The sound grew louder. It became a croaking, screeching banshee wail that broke on a note of wild laughter before dying away to an embittered moan. Frozen into immobility, I stood by the open window, as the soulful lament—urgent and frenzied—went on and on, branding its madness into my brain. No emotion so effectively robs the mind of all reason, or the feet of all action, as fear. But my terror was not induced solely by the haunting desperation of the sound. It was also because its source was here inside the castle. In the corridor outside my bedchamber.
* * *
“I trust you slept well, Lucy dear?” Demelza slid an arm about my waist and briefly pressed her lips to my temple. Her gaze lingered in concern on my wan countenance. We entered the breakfast parlour, a small room directly off the great hall. Long windows curtained by gold velvet drapes looked out over the garden. The recent addition of embossed floral wallpaper jarred oddly with the wood panelling and tapestry of most other rooms. It was an attempt at modernisation that had not quite worked.
I joined Demelza at the table. “Did you not hear it, aunt?” I asked in some surprise. I felt stupid and woolly-headed from lack of sleep. Adrenaline had finally prodded me to leave my sentinel’s pose at the window and run to lock my bedchamber door. Did I hear, or just imagine, the guttural snicker from the other side of the oak panels as the key rattled loudly in its home? Either way, it was dawn before the longed-for morphia of sleep finally claimed me. Even then, my dreams were demon-plagued and toxic.
“Hear what?” Demelza poured tea and regarded me with mild interest.
“It was laughter…” I found myself struggling to explain under her steady gaze. In the cold light of morning, it sounded absurd, even to my ears. “But it was not normal laughter. It was…wild, hysterical, but also sometimes low and malevolent…animal-like… Oh, I am not explaining myself properly!”
“No, you are not.” She smiled affectionately at me. “But I expect you were quite overwrought with tiredness and the newness of it all. And the wind, you know, can make the oddest sounds when it catches the ramparts.”
“No,” I insisted. “It was not the wind. It was laughter, but—” I dropped my voice “—it did not always seem human.”
She clapped her hands together delightedly. “My dear Lucy!” She laughed. “I fear you have succumbed to one of the several curses that are said to afflict the residents of Tenebris. Oh, do not be alarmed, I beg you. It is merely that those who have not lived here all their lives do tend to indulge in fanciful imaginings. We Jagos are not similarly affected because the eerie mood is not new to us. It is, on the contrary, part of who we are. Fear not, my dear. It will pass. You are such a quaint, sensible little thing. I vow you will not long be afflicted.”
“So I am the first person to have ever heard this noise?” I asked, trying to keep the sceptical note out of my voice.
“What noise?” Uther pulled a chair out and took the seat next to me. Reaching across the table, he poured himself a cup of strong, black coffee, shaking his head at Demelza’s offers of food.
“Lucy thought she heard laughter—wild laughter—last night.” The swift look that passed between brother and sister troubled me. Were they perhaps wondering what sort of odd, overimaginative creature they had invited into their home? Last night I had been so sure of what I heard. This morning… Well, I was starting to feel foolish.
“I’m sure you are right, Aunt Demelza,” I said quietly, hoping to deflect their attention. “It must, as you said, have been the wind in the eaves.”
“The northerly gusts can create the strangest effects,” Uther confirmed. “I remember once, as a child, being convinced I could hear singing from the room next to mine. It went on for several nights and I caused uproar, sending my father hither and thither to track down its source.” He laughed. “This old place plays its tricks on us all. You are no exception, Lucy.”
“Well, really, Uther!” Demelza protested, laughing. “Here am I trying to convince Lucy that there is nothing to be afraid of, and you come along with a fanciful story fit to keep us all awake and quaking in our beds.”
“Did you ever find the source of the singing?” I asked, noticing that Uther had left the tale unfinished.
“Never.” He grinned, revealing perfectly formed white teeth. “With the benefit of a considerable distance of time, and a less active imagination, I’m inclined to believe one of the servants had been making indentures into the brandy.”
I began to feel somewhat reassured. Demelza must be right, surely? Even someone with as little romance in her soul as I could not fail to be affected by the grim, Gothic atmosphere of Tenebris.
The subject changed as Demelza asked if Uther had visited his nephew. “Yes, indeed,” he replied. “I think he is a little better today. Although,” he continued with a slight frown, “it has been a particularly nasty attack and I have advised him against leaving his bedchamber today. Do you have a key to your bedchamber door?” he asked with an abrupt change of subject as he rose to leave the table some minutes later.
“Yes,” I said, surprise pitching my voice higher than usual.
“Then you will oblige me, please, by locking your door each night.” It was undoubtedly a command. There was no trace now of the teasing expression he had worn earlier.
“Why?” I asked suspiciously. That swift, secret look passed between them again.
“To indulge me.”
I had no defences against Uther Jago’s smile. I nodded in instant capitulation.
* * *
After breakfast, I accompanied Uther on the promised guided tour. The strange combination of languor and restlessness he had induced in me on the previous evening returned. I was bemused by it—and by him. He was, after all, old enough to be my father. Yet I was already a moth to his flame…and there was nothing remotely paternal about his manner toward me.
“These dungeon walls are seeped through with centuries of blood,” he told me, stepping aside so that I could peer into the tortuous maze of tunnels and caverns that ran below the castle. I shivered, drawing my shawl closer about my shoulders.
“Are you squeamish, little Lucy?” he asked, quirking an amused eyebrow in my direction.
Two Lucys fought within me as the endearment tripped lightly from his tongue. Staid, practical Lucy battled a new, wanton Lucy. This wild usurper wished to hurl herself into his arms and beg him to allow her one brief taste of those aristocratic lips. “Not as a rule,” I replied seriously, relieved that the Lucy I had known so well for over twenty years emerged the victor from the skirmish. I would need more time to get to know her nemesis before I allowed her to show herself. “But I cannot help thinking it might not be conducive to a peaceful existence.” He gave me a look of enquiry and I explained further, “To know, for example, that there were prisoners suffering cruelly just one floor below the family dining room.”
His mouth twitched slightly. “No, indeed,” he agreed courteously. “It might even put one off one’s dinner. But my ancestors—and, indeed, yours—walked past severed heads on spikes every time they left or entered the castle gates. So I imagine they probably grew inured to the thought of a little light torture.”
We were nearing the end of our peregrinations. I had obediently followed Uther along galleries and up stone staircases. We climbed tower and turret to watch over wild seascapes, gain a bird’s eye view of whitewashed villages tucked into smuggler’s coves and glimpse distant hamlets slumbering in fields of corn. My mind was awhirl with the names of the myriad rooms within this feudal fortress. Th
e bower, the minstrel’s gallery, the oratory and the casemate. A solarium with a glass roof was a recent addition. The castle even had its own tiny chapel with blue slate flags, an altar and two rows of pews. I was informed that it was seldom used these days.
“We Jagos are a singularly unchristian lot,” Uther informed me with nonchalant pride.
Grand relics of the past hung on every wall and stood in every corner. I learned about the Jago coat of arms, a stark black shield emblazoned with five bright gold stars and the legend that gave the castle its accursed, poetic name. Lucent in tenebris.
“Where does it come from?” I asked Uther as I traced the flowing script on a heraldic plaque with one fingertip.
“Anglo-Saxon chronicles show that the first Jago lord was granted these lands early in the ninth century by Egbert of Wessex.” His face reflected a fierce pride in his heritage. “A few centuries later, Peder Jago joined King Harold’s forces and fought with immense bravery against the Normans at Senlac in 1066. Peder, it would seem, was something of an opportunist. When he saw that there was no prospect of an English win, he crossed the battlefield and daringly presented his sword to the Conqueror. He acquitted himself in the role of turncoat with bloody valour, killing many of his former friends that day. King William is said to have described him as ‘a beacon shining in darkness.’ Peder was rewarded with the title of earl. He spent some time clashing violently with William’s half-brother, Robert de Mortain, who became Earl of Cornwall, but subsequent Jagos were more insular and happy to confine their fiefdom to this peninsula, known as Athal,” he explained. “When William ennobled him, Peder Jago chose this motto. And it has proved oddly prophetic, for wherever there is darkness, it would seem we Jagos are at our best. Despite the blackness in our souls, however, we, like most good Cornish men, are renowned for our prowess in war, love and song.”
Now, as we returned to the great hall, Uther pointed out a circular grille in the thick stone floor. “The oubliette. From the French ‘to forget.’ This is almost an exact copy of the one that graces the Bastille. Prisoners were thrown into its depths and left to rot in darkness and filth.”
We paused before a medieval portrait of a woman. She wore a gown with a tight bodice, decorated all over with gold embroidery and tiny seed pearls. A circlet of rubies held a veil in place atop her glossy dark hair, and a matching necklace enhanced the alabaster purity of her throat. “Lady Gwendolyn Jago. A lady whose very soul was tenebrous,” he said. Her face gazed down at us, frozen in half-smiling serenity. “To preserve her youth, she bathed in ewe’s milk. Rather than waste this precious commodity, she then used the milk to soak bread, and had it distributed amongst the poor.” I grimaced, and he chuckled. “Then, so legend would have us believe, when age continued to encroach, she progressed to the blood of virgins. At first, the local populace was decimated by her activities. Later, it was afflicted by an outbreak of promiscuity, as virginity became a somewhat undesirable condition. On her death, there was much rejoicing.”
“I should think there would be.” I studied Lady Gwendolyn with interest. “She looks like Demelza,” I pointed out, and he nodded.
“Her beauty was said to be so great that strong men wept when first they saw her. So, despite Lady Gwendolyn’s less than attractive proclivities, my sister is quite happy to suffer the comparison.”
We moved on. The next portrait was of a heroic-looking knight on horseback with the black-and-gold Jago pennant flying proud behind him. Uther watched my face as I stood back to view the picture. “Nicca Jago, fourth Earl of Athal. Famous for the occasion on which he found his young wife ‘entertaining’ three shepherd boys in her bed. He made her watch as he turned the bed, with her guests still on it, into a funeral pyre.”
“Do you have any nice ancestors?” I asked, and he laughed. I liked his laugh. It was low and silvery like a brook rushing up to meet a river.
“Very few,” he confessed. “Over the years, murder has worn armour, cassock, gown and lace. It has snarled and charmed, poisoned and slashed, but never has it been far from the Jago hand. It is the curse of Tenebris, a loose connection, an unhinged bolt, passed down through generations.”
“But not, I trust, in recent times?” I asked. Instead of replying, Uther indicated several smaller portraits, the subjects of which, he informed me, had indeed led unremarkable lives. “A pack of dull dogs,” he said dismissively.
He stopped in front of a full-sized canvas of a man in the robes worn by restoration priests. “But this, I am told by many, is the Jago I most closely resemble—in looks alone, I must stress! Arwen Jago. Younger brother to the seventh earl. Himself the eighth. A nasty piece of work even by the standards prevailing in our illustrious family.”
The now-familiar tiger eyes stared contemptuously at me from the painting. “What were his crimes?” I looked away, straight into an identical pair of eyes. The sensation made me feel decidedly odd.
“Well, with the delightful Arwen here, it is difficult to know where to start. He is said to have made extensive use of the oubliette. Indeed, anyone who crossed him was destined to end their days in that stinking pit. Despite his cloth, he had a veritable harem of mistresses. These, apparently, were not enough to satisfy him. Out hunting one day, he came across a beautiful young girl in a forest glade and fell instantly and violently in love with her. When she refused his advances, he abducted her by force, keeping her imprisoned here in the castle and constraining her to submit to his desires. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, she escaped. And who would blame her?” While his tone was light, there was an undercurrent, an odd, mocking bitterness that lent it a metallic tang. “Arwen discovered she had gone and, in a blazing fury, hunted her down. He found her again in the glade where he first saw her. His revenge was to use her for target practice. Shot an arrow straight through one of her eyes.” His gaze devoured my face as I listened to his gory discourse. I could not tell if he was pleased or disappointed that I did not react to the horrors he described. “Her name was…”
“Lucia,” I finished the sentence for him.
“Your name,” he stated quietly.
“My mother, of course, knew of the family legend,” I explained. “She told me that, when she came here as a child, Lucia’s story fired her imagination. She remained lustrous and pure, in spite of her evil captor. I think she hoped I would always be as strong and true as my namesake.”
The light in his eyes made me shiver slightly. “A fitting tribute. Poor Arwen was afflicted with the curse of the second son,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “It affects us all in different ways. The story darkens. Devastated by the loss of his love, Arwen began to dabble in the occult in a series of wild attempts to bring her back. After he succeeded to the title on his brother’s untimely death, he murdered more than one hundred peasant children as part of a satanic pact. Perhaps the oubliette was full by that time, because he threw the bodies into the well, by all accounts.” He jerked a thumb in the general direction of the courtyard.
“Was that wise? I mean, would it not have poisoned the castle’s water supply?” I wondered.
He threw back his head and laughed. I studied him in bewilderment. “What have I said to amuse you so?”
When he had collected himself, he shook his head. “It is simply an expression of my pleasure in your delightfully prosaic view of my mad, bad family, sweet Lucy! I have heard many other comments about him, but I have never encountered anyone who has questioned Arwen Jago’s ‘wisdom’ until today! I hope to God you never lose your down-to-earth approach!”
“I don’t suppose I will,” I remarked, after considering the matter. “My father used to quote Byron, describing me as—”
“Let me guess.” He slid a finger under my chin, tilting it up so that he could study my face. Apart from my father’s embrace or a formal handshake, I was unused to being touched by a man, even in a manner as detached as this. I hoped it was this fact, and not something personal to Uther Jago, that made my breath cat
ch in my throat. “He said you were ‘unbent by winds, unchilled by snows.’” He finished my sentence for me.
“Yes!” I smiled, unable to disguise my delight at hearing my father’s well-loved words on his lips. “But really,” I continued, masking my pleasure with a grumbling tone, “my girlish dreams of romance were cruelly dashed, to be the subject of such a dull accolade! It is much more attractive, I believe, to allow the winds and snows to bend and chill!”
“I think it would be a great pity if you were to change in any way, sweet Lucy,” he said. I thought how easily heart-stopping compliments tripped from his lips. “Particularly to conform to other people’s ideals of femininity.”
We were approaching the last few portraits by this time. Uther’s father stared at us from under lowered brows. His mother, even on canvas, wore a somewhat distracted air. “Probably wondering which of his many mistresses her husband was visiting on that particular day,” her son remarked.
The final painting was the only one to depict a group. A slender blonde woman sat on a high-backed chair holding in her lap a baby clad in a long lace gown. A young man, unmistakably a Jago, but lacking somehow in the power and ferocity of others in his family, leaned over the back of the chair. His hand rested on the woman’s shoulder in a proprietary gesture.
“This was commissioned to commemorate Tynan’s christening.” Uther’s tone was bland, the bantering note banished.
“Your brother,” I stated, regarding the man in the picture.
“Ruan Jago, eleventh Earl of Athal, and his wife, Eleanor.” The words fell like raindrops between us.
“How did he die?”
He was silent for a long time. “He killed himself,” he said at last. “After beating his wife to death.”
Unexpectedly, he grasped my hand and held it against the cold stone. “These walls have memories of their own. Feel them, Lucy,” his voice rippled through my mind. “Lords and ladies in their jewelled velvets…sunshine warming pennants and spears…shouts of the joust…the maiden meeting her forbidden love …”
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