‘You got it,’ said Jyp. ‘Can’t you just see it, them and the Wolves squabbling over our chitlings? Me, I’d sooner feed the Caribs – any day.’
‘Would you?’ Stryge spat in the dust. His voice was venomous with contempt. ‘When they slashed open your sides while you still lived, to stuff you with herbs and peppers for the spit? They worshipped cruel gods, that tribe, preying on their hapless neighbours to feed their observances. When slaves mingled with them, raised in cruelty, shaped with the lash and the brand – oh, they understood such worship all right. Some took it, mingled it with their own Congo witchcraft and the brutalities their masters taught them. They worshipped a new god then, one who set himself above the rest, whose rite could bind and bend them to his will. A cult of wrath and anger and revenge, drawing its strength from all things common men call vile.’
He turned to me, his gaunt face working with strange emotions. ‘You, boy – do you hear those drums? Do you? You who would not leave well enough alone, you who would meddle in the affairs of forces past the scope of your empty dreaming! They are the drums I made you hear, far away, beyond the ocean and the sunset, the tambours maringuin. They speak a name, softly yet; soon, more loudly, till the hillsides throb with the beat, and all in town or village tremble and bar their doors, clasp their charms tight against loup-garous and mangeurs moun. For this is the cult of Petro, the dark way of ouanga, the leftward path of vodun that can twist and deform even the Invisibles themselves into shapes of vicious evil. And this, tonight at these ancient stones, this is its ancestral tonnelle, the temple where it was first proclaimed.’
I felt deadly cold; but I was running with sweat. ‘You mean – that it was a ceremony like this? In the boiling water? That they were going to sacrifice –’
‘Triple idiot!’ raged the old man. ‘Crétin, can you not listen to a word I say? It was not some such ceremony! It was this ceremony! Here! Tonight, child of misfortune! A rite of sacrifice – and something more! And all your fool’s labours have served only to lead us to it! Not only she you sought to snatch back – all of us! To share her fate!’
He spoke loud enough for Clare to hear. I looked up in alarm and met her eyes, wide and wild with fright – and yet searching, I could tell, for some word to say. ‘You tried!’ she choked. ‘You tried – that’s what matters –’
But the others were silent, even Jyp; and Strgye laughed coldly. ‘You may think little enough of yourself to say that, child! But a chit’s life, or this hollow shell that calls itself a man, what are they to mine? I for one did not live in the worlds so long to be turned out of them on such a fool’s errand, and left to wander my own way back again!’
‘Then do something about it!’ barked Jyp. ‘Or go choke on your own forked tongue, you old copperhead –’
‘Stay!’ said Le Stryge, very sharply, and the fire gleamed on his greasy coat as he leaned forward, listening. Or was he listening? He seemed intent on some sense; but it was not one I shared. Then, very coldly, he laughed. ‘Do? What can I do, fettered in cold iron? No strength in me will pass it. Find me a force from outside, now … But for that, even could it be done, it is too late. Something comes, some other approaches …’ Suddenly the sweat stood out on his high brow and he cried out softly. ‘Evil is here! A strength – an evil ancient and strong. Not of my kind –’
He rounded on me, wild-eyed and panting, so hard he almost pulled Mall over. ‘You! You starver of your soul, you waverer between good and evil, taster of neither – you worshipper of emptiness, of gauds and trinkets! This is your doing, this you have brought on us! It draws nearer … nearer …’
Chapter Ten
I twisted my head away from the old man’s spitting vehemence, like a cobra’s venom. I could have felt ashamed, or angry, I suppose; in fact I felt almost nothing. A little nervousness, a little queasy uncertainty – but at the heart of it all an absence of feeling, a numbness. It was like looking out of a window into a deep black pit. An awareness of failure, maybe; I didn’t know. I wasn’t used to it.
But the poisonous old voice dropped suddenly to a whisper and fell silent. The drums, too, sank to a shuddering mutter, the jabbering commotion of the crowd collapsed into an awed murmur, the sounds merging into a soft, uneasy threnody. Even the flames seemed to bend and dwindle, though the dank air was still and cool. Then the crowd parted suddenly, men and women scuttling hastily aside, clearing a path to the fires and the stone beyond. For a moment it stood empty; then something moved across the flames. Along the barren ground towards us a long shadow fell. What cast it was no more than a shape, a dark silhouette like the outline of a man swathed in hooded robes, like a medieval monk almost; or a leper. Along its own shadow it came gliding towards us, black and impenetrable, as if no more than a deeper shadow itself. It halted smoothly a few feet in front of us – in front of me. And then in one fluid movement it bowed.
Bowed from the waist, with a dancer’s grace, almost to the ground. For a nicely calculated instant it remained poised, steadying itself on a tall slender black cane; then it rose unhurriedly upright, and brushed back the shadowing cowl. Bright dark eyes glittered into mine, with an impact that was almost physical – a shock so sharp I didn’t immediately see there was any face around them. Let alone a face I’d seen before.
Not a Wolf’s face, or a native’s. A European face; but naturally swarthy, deeply tanned, and tinged with an unpleasant yellow, jaundiced and unhealthy, nothing like the golden-skinned Caribs. The high brow was deeply furrowed, the face unlined save for the deep channels that flanked the narrow hooked nose and shaped the black moustachios like fangs around the thin dark lips and jutting, arrogant chin. Black hair only slightly tinged with grey swept back from that frowning forehead to ripple elegantly about the neck. Blacker still were the eyes it hooded, curiously empty despite their glitter, as if some vast void lurked behind their bright lenses; and the whites were yellowed and unhealthy. All in all, a strange, striking face, now I saw it clearly. Proud as a king’s, almost – and yet too marked with concern, cunning, malice to look royal. A statesman’s face, a politician’s – a Talleyrand, not a Napoleon. And with a hint of sickliness that I hadn’t noticed, in that New Orleans street, leading me astray; or behind the wheel of that car nobody but me seemed to see. Or on Katjka’s cards …
Not a king, then – a knave.
For an instant he seemed to hesitate. Then long fingers rippled in an elegant salute, gems flashing in the firelight; and he spoke.
‘¡Muy estimado señores y señoritas!’ Softly, deferentially; and mainly to me. ‘I beg your most gracious forgiveness that I am forced to receive you in such a fashion, without announcement or proper introduction. Such, however, are the circumstances of the hour.’ Sometime around the eighteenth century they must have made a big fuss about his perfect English. To me, with his lisping accent, it was heavy going. ‘May I therefore take the liberty of presenting myself? I have the honour to be the Don Pedro Argote Luis-Maria de Gomez y Zaldivar, Hidalgo of the most Royal Order of … But a mere recitation of honours would no doubt weary folk of your station! To these our poor observances let me bid you a most sincere welcome.’
Nobody said anything. The Knave seemed to be waiting.