Deathscent

by Robin Jarvis

  A flesh-coloured shape shimmered before him and it was only when his mind started to clear and his vision rolled into focus that he realised he was looking at a face. It belonged to an olive-skinned man with a neatly trimmed black beard and intense, sparkling eyes. “There,” the richly dressed stranger said with a flashing smile. “You are well, no? Is good, is very good.”

  The man’s forehead crinkled for a moment as he put a hand to his cheek. “Such discomfort the teeth is having this day,” he moaned. “Holy Child of God, I no like this suffering. Englandia, it have no surgeons worthy of my mouth, is trusting none of them.”

  The face moved out of view as the man stepped around Adam to untie his gag and the apprentice stared groggily about the room.

  It was a fine, panelled chamber, with a sumptuously woven Turkish carpet covering half the floor. Colourful tapestries ornamented two walls, a large latticed window filled another with glass while on the fourth, in the bare space next to the closed door, was an object he had never seen before but had read about in Lord Richard’s library – a crucifix. The significance of that papist symbol had hardly registered when Adam remembered Henry, and he glanced quickly at the boy crouched nearby. He too was bound, but apart from a few minor cuts and scratches, he appeared none the worse.

  Cursing under his bad breath, the Count de Feria complained about the tightness of the knot which kept Adam’s gag in place. Then the gag was whipped away and Adam licked his parched lips while the Spanish ambassador set about removing Henry’s blindfold.

  “Where are we?” Adam demanded. “How dare you hold us to ransom? When our master finds out he will have the Queen send Her army to find us. Unfasten my hands and feet.”

  The Count paused and stared at him in bemusement, then chuckled and shook his head. “Ransom? Oh no, Don Gomez he no want money. You talk, that is all he wish. Little birdies must sing.”

  Having uncovered Henry’s eyes he concentrated his efforts upon the gag and suddenly the boy’s newly released voice yelled out, piercing every room in the building.

  “Stinking sweat rag! I do not want to know where that had been. A sewage wallower’s breeches would be like honey in comparison – ack!”

  Having untied all that he intended, the Spanish ambassador drew up a cushion-laden chair and settled himself into it. On a low table at his side there was a delicate glass of sweet wine and he sipped at it appreciatively.

  “Don’t sit there tippling!” Henry snapped, struggling in his fetters. “What about these?”

  Lounging on the cushions, the man wagged a warning finger. “No undo hands,” he said. “This way best for talk.”

  “You’ve got the wrong people,” Adam protested in furious indignation. “We’re not important, we’re just apprentices. We don’t even live on this island.”

  The ambassador shrugged. “I does not blame you,” he said. “Too much the hive of common rabble. As for the climate, in winter she so damp and chill is a miracle I not die, and in summer it stink. After this night, howsoever, Don Gomez Suarez de Figueroa – he leave for his home.”

  “You’re a foreigner!” Henry exclaimed with belated realisation. “Pope’s peaches – you’re one of them dirty Spaniards!”

  The Count leaned forward and the gleam in his eyes was enough to make Henry recoil. “Hear me, noisome child,” he threatened. “I not care for your insults but should you be speaking of his Holy Eminence again, I no wait for my new friend to join us – I kill you now.”

  “Go sit on a nun!” Henry retorted. “You don’t scare us, for all your weird ways. Coggy an’ me won’t be here long – we’ll be rescued.”

  De Feria raised his eyebrows. “Poor mad boy,” he sighed. “You is far from aid. This house, she away from road and there are being many guards here. Scream, please – nobodies are hearing this.”

  “We don’t have to shout,” Henry rallied. “Brindle will find us; if we were locked in a box and buried in the ground, he’d sniff and find where we were.”

  The Count’s eyes twinkled with keen interest. “Ah, yes, your angel messenger,” he drawled. “How good you make mention of he. Is why I inviting you here. You will be telling me every things you know.”

  “Me?” Henry roared in defiance. “Tell a filthy Spaniard about our fabulous Brindle. You can take a running jump out through the tidal breath – the plum of your head’s lost its stone.”

  “Good!” the ambassador beamed with pleasure. “You try to make the difficulties and bite your tongue – I like, I like.”

  Adam found their gaoler’s suave calm frightening. “But we don’t really know much about Brindle,” he said. “We can’t tell you anything.”

  “I be judging of that,” de Feria promised. “How many are to follow? What their shot and cannon like? Does he fight for Lizabeth?”

  Kneeling on the floor, Henry raised himself up as high as he could manage and threw his head back with insolent pride. “Brindle has hundreds of night boats,” he lied, “crowded with thousands like him, and they’re rushing towards your greasy countries already. Have your king polishing his own palace steps by the end of the week, they will. So you let us go now and we’ll not tell our angel what you done to us.”

  Pressing his lips together, the ambassador rose from his chair. Then, with the back of his hand, struck Henry across the face. The Count’s jewelled rings cut the boy’s cheek and Henry glared up at him murderously.

  “Is most serious,” de Feria warned. “You be learning manners and tell what I want knowing.”

  “All you need to know is where they’re going to bury you.”

  The Count made a faint chuckling sound and directed his gaze upon Adam as he took another sip of wine. “And you, you of the fair head. Will you be singing song I want hear?”

  In spite of his fear and the throbbing of his temple, the apprentice returned the stare and in a level voice said, “I’ve already told you – we don’t know anything about Brindle.”

  “Except that he’s from Heaven and will kick you into Satan’s pit!” Henry added.

  De Feria peered at them over the rim of his glass, turning the finely twisted stem in his fingers.

  “But you think he come to save you, no? You give me very good idea, yes is very good plan. You helping me a lot.”

  “I’d die first, you foul beggar,” Henry shouted.

  De Feria put the glass down and raised his hands in apologetic surrender. “I did do the trying,” he cried to the ceiling as if calling God as witness. “Was been very kind, very charityful. But no, they not polite – birds won’t sing. No choice is left.”

  Leaving the chair, he made for the door and crossed himself before the crucifix.

  “What are you going to do now?” Adam asked.

  “Do I not say?” the Count laughed in surprise at his forgetfulness. “I get new friend. He make tongues of birds trill with many pretty tunes. Oh yes, they always sing loud and lovely for him.”

  Again the ambassador chuckled, then he pulled open the door to reveal a small landing outside. It was the first clue the apprentices had as to where they might be. Adam glanced at the window and wondered how high it was from the ground, but all speculation was futile while their hands and feet were shackled together.

  Leaning upon the banisters, de Feria called down in Spanish, then half closed the door behind him when he returned to the room. “My men, they send new friend up to join us. What a happy group we is being then. Such music we will be having, no?”

  “Are all Spaniards as feeble-brained as you?” Henry asked. “Or did you have to toil at it?”

  De Feria returned to his chair. “Ho,” he grinned. “So soon you be sorry for that. I pity, I really do.”

  Henry opened his mouth to answer, but the impudent words never left his lips for an ominous, lumbering noise sounded abruptly beneath the room and he looked across at Adam.

  “What was that?” he murmured.

  The other boy shook his head as the alarming din moved through the chambers
below. It was a heavy clanking and, in his mind’s eye, he pictured some ungainly contraption walking towards the foot of the unseen stairs.

  “Is my new friend,” the ambassador informed them. “He very modern, very impressing – cost many ducats. I like very much.”

  “This friend,” Adam muttered. “It’s a mechanical?”

  The Count clapped his hands. “Yes!” he cried. “Is much special. Ah – he come to greet you!”

  A tremendous, rattling crash resounded beyond the door as a great hulking weight heaved itself on to the first wooden step. Another pounding clang erupted, then another and another as the unknown creation climbed ever closer. With every clamorous tread, the floorboards trembled and the half-closed door shuddered on its hinges. Unable to tear his eyes away from the shivering gap between it and the frame, Adam could feel his horror mounting.

  “What sort of mechanical is it?” he asked.

  De Feria sipped at his sweet wine, swirling it noisily around his mouth before replying. Returning the fragile glass to the table, he raised his brows and his coal black eyes glittered with malice.

  “Is Torture Master,” he hissed.

  With that, the landing reverberated under a juddering thud and a giant silhouette reared up behind the doorway.

  “Enter, my friend,” the ambassador called. “Come in and view these taciturn birdies.”

  The door flew open, shoved with a horrendous force that sent the timbers quivering, and the shape that was revealed behind made both boys cringe. There, framed in the doorway, was the most terrifying mechanical they had ever seen. Even the grotesque memory of Old Scratch withered before it. The wild boar of Malmes-Wutton had grown hideous over the years, but this evil creation was deliberately designed to instil fear and panic. Looking on it, Adam forgot all about the pain of his bruised temple.

  Made almost entirely of iron, the Torture Master was a crude parody of a man. Resembling a nightmarish, skeletal suit of armour, the huge mechanical was forged from many metal bands. With a clink of chains, it stooped under the lintel and came stomping into the room where it towered above everyone.

  The apprentices stared upward in awful disbelief.

  Thick bars, joined together by metal hoops, created each section of the legs and were connected to the lower body by great spiked wheels. Within the monster’s stomach, hot coals burned in a brazier which could be stoked and inflamed by a pair of iron bellows. Directly above this, the ichor vessels were protected behind a grilled chest plate and three pendulums maintained the monster’s balance.

  From the massive, spoked shoulders, long arms hung at its sides, but instead of hands and fingers, horrific-looking implements thrust down from the elbows.

  It was a walking cage of despair. Clamped on to a broad collar was a fiendish-looking head. More spikes formed a jagged crest upon the topmost band, but two curved spurs jutted out at the sides like horns, reinforcing the malevolent, diabolic aspect.

  Yet perhaps the most sinister element was its face. Hammered from two sheets of iron, it was fashioned into a primitive mask, the sort that occasionally embellished a scold’s bridle. Two narrow slits made the eyes and, beneath the ridged nose, a vulgar, leering mouth had been clumsily painted. Whatever ghastly crimes the Torture Master committed, it would always wear that same fixed smile – the last sight its victims would ever see.

  Shrinking as far from it as his manacled feet would allow, Henry could not look away.

  “Is fine, no?” the Count de Feria boasted. “So clever, the crafted makers of Spain. Is torture chamber on legs.”

  With a flourish of his hand, he indicated the deadly-looking devices built into the framework. “He lack nothing. Few castle dungeons are equipping better. Is most splendid, and so convenient for manoeuvring. I really not knowing what they think of next. I am wonders if it can also be doing the tooth extraction.”

  Excited by his degenerate toy, he sprang from the chair and pointed out his favourite tortures.

  “Pincers for the tearing of flesh,” he extolled. “Eye gougers, thumb screw in place of thumb – is funny, no? But see, put foot here and foot there – hand there and there – Torture Master raise arms and he is rack. Can stretch up a whole other yard, no spine survive. I specially mirthed by that. Oh, there is the foldaway scavenger’s daughter, and these are drawing hooks. What a pity is so hard to clean.”

  Stepping away from it, he tilted his head to one side as though viewing a work of art and murmured with adoring enthusiasm, “Altogether, is forty-seven different torments. This style very adept at prolong the agony but keep blessed release of death at bay.”

  Turning back to the terrified apprentices, the Spanish ambassador laughed impishly. “Every diplomat should have one.”

  Then he snapped his fingers. A rush of air issued from the bellows and the coals in the brazier glowed a fierce red as the mechanical took a clunking step forward. Henry and Adam cried out and the Count de Feria drained his glass.

  “Stop it!” Henry yelled as the Torture Master advanced, its gruesome instruments waving menacingly before him. “Call it off!”

  “No can stop him,” the ambassador replied. “Is no – oh, how you say? Is no stilling badge,” He looked on proudly as his merciless toy clumped towards them to begin its vicious work. There was another whoosh of air and the coals burned yellow. Adam and Henry wriggled to the corner, but the armoured horror reared over them.

  “I’ll tell you!” Henry bawled. “Whatever you want to know about Brindle – I’ll tell.”

  De Feria smiled indulgently. “I know,” he said. “Always they do. Now you regretting such nasty impolititude.”

  The cruel arms came reaching down and Henry screamed as great iron pincers clamped about his shoulders.

  “Get it off him!” Adam begged. “He said we’d tell you. Anything you want – just don’t let that thing hurt him.”

  The Count put a finger to his lips. “Not like to interrupt Torture Master now,” he said, scandalised. “Is rude, he must continue. He so artful, is joy to watch and I always learn – so ingenious. Anywise, your angel – he come seek you out whether you dead or living, no?”

  Shrieking, the Wattle boy was plucked off the ground and the mechanical plunged a long poker into the heart of its brazier.

  “No!” Adam wept. “Please don’t let it do that, please!”

  “Hot needles and brandings,” the ambassador cooed. “I am loving this. Skin, it scorch so easy, but what a smoke and smell it make.”

  Hanging by his shoulders, his shackled feet dangling above the floor, Henry could feel the intense heat blasting from the Torture Master’s stomach. The grip of the pincers was almost unbearable, but not too painful to make him pass out. The mechanical knew its job too well to permit that and the painted leer seemed to relish the boy’s terror. There was a rattle of metal and the poker withdrew from the coals, its tapered tip glowing brightly as it danced in front of Henry’s eyes.

  Lying helpless at the monster’s spurred feet, Adam tugged and wrestled with his restraints until the manacles grazed and scraped deep into his wrists. Turning his face away, he heard his friend cry out.

  “Brindle – save me!”

  But the Iribian was far off in Whitehall Palace, dancing with the Queen, and the reek of the apprentices’ intense terror never reached his refined senses.

  “Brindle!” Henry shrieked again.

  “Ho, your angel no answer,” de Feria scoffed. “Maybe you next see him in Heaven.”

  With taunting slowness, the poker moved closer to the boy’s face, scribing a burning circle in the hot, shimmering air as if trying to decide where to strike. Then it darted forward. The fiery point licked briefly across his brows and Henry felt his forehead boil and scorch. A noise like frying bacon filled the room. The ensuing screech was ghastly to hear.

  “Why are you doing this?” Adam cried. “It’s obscene – stop it!”

  The Count was too engrossed to answer. The Torture Master moved the smouldering pok
er clockwise before its victim’s face a second time. Unable to cover his ears to drown out his friend’s screams, Adam threw back his own head and shrieked with him.

  Suddenly, a different sound thundered inside those panelled walls and both voices were lost in an almighty blast of flying glass. Spangling shards exploded across the room in every direction. Yelping in Spanish, the Count de Feria protected his face with his hands and ducked behind the chair as shooting splinters clattered like hail against the Torture Master’s frame.

  Showered in broken fragments, Adam stared past the horrific mechanical and spluttered in amazement. Suspended in the pincers’ grasp and still sobbing from the pain of his burn, Henry flicked his eyes downward and hope instantly soared in his breast.

  The large window was utterly destroyed. Severed ribbons of lead curled inwards and, stripped of their panes, they looked like wintry twigs. Through this jagged opening the evening airs rushed in to swirl the eddying dust and sparkling powdered glass around the short, rotund figure which was now standing in the centre of the room.

  With a candle burning brightly in his hat and his round green eyes blazing with avenging anger, Doctor Dee’s secretary was an unlikely saviour, but the apprentices were overjoyed to see him.

  “Lantern!” Adam called.

  The copper mannequin came crunching through the shattered debris.

  Without relinquishing its hold on Henry, the Torture Master rotated its great head and looked down on the comical figure for the briefest moment before returning its macabre attention to its young victim.

  Marching right up behind the Spanish monster, Lantern gave one of its legs a hefty kick.

  A faint tremor travelled up the Torture Master’s iron frame and the large head swivelled about once more. Clenching his gauntleted hands, Lantern threw up his fists and pummelled the air with them while dancing on his toes, inviting the terrible creation to mechanical combat.

  The chains within his massive opponent clinked in mockery and its bellows blew with contempt. As Lantern delivered another puny blow, the Spanish ambassador rose from behind the chair and regarded the copper secretary fearfully.