Thirty-Three
After she had bathed and dressed in a fresh gown and kirtle, Trelawna ascended to the high battlements, Marius keeping her company. She combed out her tresses as she strolled to the parapet and was faced by a nightmarish vista of barren peaks, deep ravines and razor-topped crags.
“The magnificence that was Rome,” she mused. “It doesn’t look like much of an Empire from here, does it?”
“This isn’t the Empire, ma’am,” Marius answered. “Just an outpost of it. Though I doubt, when your King Arthur is finished, there’ll be much else left.”
“My King Arthur? I think you’ll find, centurion, that in my homeland I’m now as much an enemy of the state as you are.”
“I can’t believe that in a chivalrous land a damsel like you will be punished.”
“Oh, in our chivalrous land, damsels like me — who plot against their husbands — are severely punished.”
A moment passed before Marius asked: “Did you plot?”
“It could be construed that way,” she said. “I consorted with the enemy.”
“How will they punish you?”
“We call it petty-treason, and the penalty is to be burned at the stake.”
Marius looked genuinely shocked. “King Arthur imposes such a barbarous law?”
“He hasn’t, thus far. But King Uther did many times. And the law still exists.”
“Forgive me for saying so, my lady, but you seem fearless in the face of this threat.”
She continued to comb her damp locks. “I suspect my husband will not permit it.”
“Even though he is the one who seeks to return you to face justice?”
Trelawna’s mouth curled into a half-smile. “He doesn’t seek to return me, Marius. Neither to face justice, nor anything else.”
“Is he truly so vengeful?”
“At one time I’d have said ‘no.’” She looked thoughtful. “There was always a darkness inside him — his father was a devil in human guise. But things had changed. Lucan had mellowed. And then I did what I did, and now everything has changed back.”
“Don’t concern yourself.” Marius straightened up. “I will protect you.”
“You are a brave and honourable man,” she replied. Under her breath, she added, “But who, my gallant Roman, will protect you?”
Louder, she said: “Where do you come from, Marius? Surely you have a wife and children?”
“I do, my lady. They are at home now — ” His words were cut off sharply, with a heavy thud.
Trelawna spun around.
Centurion Marius fell at her feet, blood streaming down his face; what looked like a hand-axe was buried in the top of his skull. Behind him stood Duchess Zalmyra’s giant servant, the one called Urgol, now wearing only a leather loincloth. “You must come with me, countess,” he growled.
Horror-struck, Trelawna backed against the battlements.
“No… no…” Marius stammered. Eyes rolling, delirious with pain, he tried to get back to his feet, snatching at Urgol, seizing handfuls of silver-grey fur. “I won’t let…”
Urgol took Marius in both hands and tossed him over the parapet.
Trelawna leaned through an embrasure, watching in horror as the body cart-wheeled down the cliff-face, somersaulting as it bounced from obstructions. A massive paw caught her shoulder; she attempted to pivot away, screaming, only for a second paw to clamp over her mouth. The monstrous figure regarded her.
“Even to eyes like mine, you are well-made for bedding,” he growled. “But now you have a real purpose.”
She bit hard into the thick leathery pad of Urgol’s palm, and he yanked it away.
“Murdering brute!” she spat. “You are a disgrace to your nation.”
Urgol showed ivory teeth. “What do you know of my nation, little white ewe?”
“You are a woodwose. Your people were once the princes of Europe.”
“And then the Romans came. And they drove us to near extinction.”
“My people suffered the same fate.”
He grabbed hold of her, and threw her over his shoulder. “You are all Romans to me…”
Trelawna wailed and kicked, drumming her fists on his broad back, but he ignored her, descending from the battlements via a dark switchback stair. For minutes on end they forged downward, until, at the bottom, deep in the castle’s bowels, they came to a colossal oaken door studded with nail heads. Urgol drew a key from his belt and unlocked it. Sensing that only horror lay beyond this portal, Trelawna renewed her struggle, finally catching Urgol a blow in the middle of his nobbled spine. He grunted, and slapped her on the buttocks. She cried out with pain, and his Herculean shoulders shook, a guttural rumble sounding from his belly as he laughed at her. He slapped her again, and again, laughing louder and louder.
Though there was no light down there, Urgol strode with confidence, making each turn readily. Trelawna clung to the apelike fur in terror as they descended another steep stair, this one made from iron and dropping through open space. It was dizzying; she felt that if she fell now, she would never stop falling. They entered another enclosed corridor, passing rooms filled with eerily coloured lights. Bare chambers glimmered blood-red; book-lined workshops shimmered in aqua-blue. Other passages meandered away, some indigo, others ochre-yellow. And always the darkness was present — clotted oily blackness filling every niche. She passed a wall of bars on her left, behind which the firelight illuminated three rotted corpses; little more than bones and gristle, suspended against the far wall by high wrist-shackles. To her disbelief, they looked up, their desiccated skulls turning to watch as she was carried past.
“Countess Trelawna!” a sepulchral voice called after her, from one of the corpses. “Your treachery has found you out… just as ours did!”
Too numbed to reply, Trelawna craned her neck around to see where she was being taken to. Through the colour-streaked darkness a chilling figure was coming towards them: vast of height and girth, with a visage that was a cross between a devil-mask and a demented ape. She spotted the pale oval of her own face peering over its shoulder, and realised it was a mirror; but when they reached it, her reflection in the mirror grinned and pointed at her.
“She who is fairest of them all will not be so for much longer,” it cackled.
The next door they came to was almost rusted into place — so stiff that even Urgol had to force it with his shoulder. And this was the moment Trelawna had been awaiting. Feeling him relax his grip, she threw herself sideways and was free. She alighted on the passage floor and ran blindly, ducking through the rainbow-hued labyrinth, sobs of terror caught in her throat, eyes streaming tears — and running hard into a tall figure blocking her path.
She fell backward, gasping — and found herself gazing up into the coldly beautiful features of Duchess Zalmyra. The tall noblewoman wore a sleeveless gown of semi-translucent black silk, held at the shoulder with a dragon clasp and cinched at the waist with a slender gold chain. Her hair still hung in a single glossy braid. But this time she was smiling gently.
“Countess?” She put a hand on Trelawna’s shoulder. “Something distresses you?”
“That creature…” Trelawna stammered. “The woodwose… he tried to abduct me.”
Zalmyra frowned. “How dare he? You are my guest.”
“And he killed Centurion Marius.”
“Marius?”
“My bodyguard. The one posted by your son. Urgol killed him with an axe, and threw his body from the battlements.”
“So as well as giving up his life to protect your honour, that brave soldier of Rome also gave up any chance of a Christian burial?” But now there was something in the duchess’s tone which seemed a little mocking. “No matter on that score, countess. The carrion birds of this valley have become very used to our table-leavings.”