By Sylvian Hamilton (24 page)

'Madame,
I mean no harm! I'll not hurt you.'

The
babbling stopped on a catch of breath, and a thin strong hand clamped
on his arm, making him jump.

'You're
real,' she said. 'I can touch you! You're a man!'

'Of
course I'm real,' he said, puzzled. 'Did you think I was a ghost?'

'No.
I know all the ghosts here,' she said. 'They do no harm. Poor lost
things. When I die, shall I join them, do you think?'

'I
don't know,' he said, disconcerted. 'Are you the Lady de Soulis, wife
of Lord Rainard?'

'Oh,
hush,' she said sharply. 'Don't speak his name! He'll find us, if you
speak his name. Naming calls, has no one told you that?'

'No,
Lady. I don't know what you mean.'

'That's
why I lie here in the dark. I could have lights, you know. I could
have hundreds of candles if I wished; he is rich enough. But even he
can't see in the dark, he can't see me here.'

FitzCarne
was right, he thought, the poor woman was wood-mad. Gently he patted
the hand that quite painfully gripped his wrist. 'Madame, I am
looking for my daughter, Gilla. Is there a child here at Crawgard?'

'Your
daughter? No, no child here. Why should she be here?'

'I
think Lord Rai-- your husband, I think he has her.'

'Not
here. Perhaps at Soulistoun. Is she young? That creature of his,
Pluvis, he's the one who steals children. Ugh! He used to bring them
here, but I forbade it. That was long ago. Is it spring?'

'It's
June, Madame.'

'Summer
already? I've not seen a summer day for seven years.'

'Are
you too ill to leave this room?'

'I'm
afraid, afraid to be out there, under the sky. It isn't heaven, you
know.'

'What
isn't?'

'The
sky! It's hell. Holy Church teaches that the devil and his realm are
under the earth, but that's wrong. Hell is in the sky, among the
stars.' Her free hand began patting about on the smelly quilts.
'Where is it? Have you taken my charm?" She began to cry, a thin
weak sobbing.

'What
charm, Madame? Let me strike a light, then you may find it.'

'No!
No light! I told you! Here, here it is!' She clutched something and
touched his hand with it--it felt like a warm stone.

'Yes,
you're just a man. I thought you were, but I have to be sure.'

'Madame,
are you certain there is no child here?'

'No
child, no. My son was here a while ago, but he's no child, and he's
gone away again. He came to say goodbye to me. He begged me to have
candles, you know. But he has never seen the devils. I've seen them.
They come down from hell, when that infidel wizard summons them. I
heard him a little while ago. I felt their bitter breath.'

'Madame,
I must leave now,' Straccan said, gently trying to prise her grip
loose. She resisted.

'I
can't let you have my charm,' she said distractedly. 'It's the only
one I've got.'

'I
don't want it, Madame.'

'Don't
you? Are you another of his creatures, then?' She snatched her hand
away. 'Flesh and blood, no demon, but you're one of his people! I
should have known! He sent you here!'

Straccan
stood up and backed away from the bed. 'No, Madame, I'm not one of
his people. I am sorry to have disturbed you. God be with you.' He
shut the door behind him, glad of its thickness, for even if the mad
woman cried out, no one would hear, not with the racket downstairs.
So that was Soulis's wife, poor lady. And she was sure Gilla was not
here. But she might not know. How could she know, shut in that room
in the dark? A hundred children might be brought and slaughtered here
without her knowing.

Up
the stair again. Another door opening into another bedchamber. No one
there. Two small rooms in the thickness of the walls full of chests
and boxes, some roped, others standing open, books and clothes
inside, the dry smells of fleabane and lavender. He reached the top
floor. The door opened silently on to a muffled darkness. Straccan
tugged the heavy curtain aside. A reek of spices overlay a smell of
rottenness. The room was high, narrow and hot –two glowing
braziers accounted for that. At one end of the room was a low bed, a
tumble of soiled cushions and grubby blankets. At the other end, a
table was littered with parchments and books, and a small shrivelled
man sat in a big painted chair. He held a pen in one hand; the other
rested on the open pages of a massive volume. He wore the robe and
corded headdress of a desert Arab, and with revulsion Straccan saw
that although the hand wrote steadily, the man's eyeballs were rolled
back and only the blind whites showed.

There
was no one else in that foetid place, and certainly Gilla was not
here.

Straccan's
boots made no sound on the rugs, nor did the old man look up to see
who had come in; he went on writing. When Straccan drew his dagger
and laid its point to the writer's scrawny neck, the scribbling hand
did not cease and the blind eyes did not flicker.

'Who
are you?' Straccan spoke in the tongue of the desert people. The
wizened little mummy went on writing. Straccan looked at the pages,
not recognising the script; it was similar to the Arabic he was
familiar with but not the same. He took hold of the wrist of the
writing hand and lifted it. The flesh was cold and dry, and he felt a
nauseating dislike of the skin he touched, dark yellow, wrinkled and
papery like a shed snakeskin. The fingers continued to wag, the pen
to write invisible signs in the air. Straccan dropped it. The man
must be drugged. An empty beaker lay on its side among the
parchments. He sniffed it. A pungent smoky odour, but no drug that he
knew.

He
walked round the table, looking at the scattered parchments. Many of
them were very aged. There were bundles of that curious Egyptian
stuff, papyrus, and wax tablets, as well as some ancient-looking
dirty clay slabs covered with impressions like the tracks of birds.
Among the clutter, he spotted a familiar bronze cylinder, green with
age, engraved with a spiral of strange symbols. He reached for it and
fingered the star on the lid. How in God's name did that get here? It
must be the same one, there surely couldn't be two! He twisted the
lid off, and yes, there was the icon.

A
yellow hand shot out and grabbed the cylinder. Straccan, shaken, saw
the white eyes move and turn black, shark-like, lightless. The old
man gabbled something he did not understand and scrambled to his
feet, making not for the door but for the nearest brazier on to which
he flung a handful of black glittering powder. Thick smoke rose.
Straccan felt his sanity waver as shapes from nightmares and beyond
nightmares began forming in the smoke. The chamber, so hot a few
moments ago, suddenly seemed winter-cold. The old horror was
giggling, drool on his chin. Straccan, chilled to the bone, snatched
the cylinder back from the feeble hand, tore the door curtain aside,
saw a key hanging beside the door, snatched that and got out of the
room.

He'd
moved faster, he thought, than he'd ever moved in his life. He locked
the door behind him and leaned against the arrow slit in the stair
wall, sucking in clean air. He'd not breathed in much of the
hallucinogen, and his head cleared quickly.

He
crept down the steps, past the open door into the hall where the
gambling had reached the rancorous stage and was promising to get
physical, and ducked out of sight through the outer door. As he
crossed the yard he heard the sharp scrape of a pike against stone
atop the tower, and the watchman began to cough, ending with a curse.
A few minutes later he was back in his bed, listening to the
champion's peaceful snoring.

Chapter
29

Straccan
left at dawn, with just the yawning champion to see him away,
naturally unaware of the Arab's whirlwind departure an hour later,
escorted by two of Crawgard's bowmen who'd almost rather have been
skinned and salted than ride with Lord Rainard's pet sorcerer. They
were even more unhappy when they realised which road he was taking.
He didn't utter a word, and no one could have understood him if he
had.

When
the kitchen boy, bringing breakfast, unlocked his door, the old man
had pushed past him and scuttled down the steps straight out to the
stable, where a frightened groom found him saddling Sir Bertran's
prized Arab mare.

As
he spurred furiously through the gate, two of the garrison, less
lucky than the others, grabbed bows and helmets and followed cursing.
If any harm came to him, Lord Rainard would have them killed.

Straccan
made his way along the river path to where Miles and Larktwist had
camped overnight. All was peaceful, Miles shaving while Larktwist
fished; there were already four trout lying on a leaf-lined bark
platter, and as Straccan arrived Larktwist pulled out a fifth.

'What
news?' Miles called, waving his razor.

'Cilia's
not there.'

'I'm
sorry,' said Miles. 'There's no doubt?'

'No.'
He recounted what had happened at Crawgard, but did not mention the
strange episode the previous night when the summer evening had turned
to mid-winter for a few fleeting moments. He was almost sure he'd
imagined that, but now and then, on the very edge of his disquieted
vision, the nightmare shapes of the old man's lair lurked. When he
tried to look straight at them, like faint stars they were gone.

Before
long they heard the rumble of Magnus's wheels and the wagon lumbered
into view.

'Have
you had breakfast?' Straccan asked Bane, when Magnus, pocketing his
second sixpence, had rattled away with an occasional pig-like squeal
of ungreased axles.

'If
you can call it that,' said Bane grumpily. 'That oatmeal just makes a
man hungry.'

'How
about some fine fresh fish?' Larktwist said, bearing the platter, now
with eight trout, up to their fire.

'Jesu,'
said Bane admiringly. 'That's what I call a catch!'

'The
river's full of them,' Larktwist said. 'You could pull them out all
day. You want to help me clean them?'

'Not
especially,' said Bane, 'but if it means they'll be cooking quicker
...' He and Larktwist went into a private huddle: Bane returned the
borrowed dice and counted out a share of his winnings.

'So
what do we do now?' Miles asked, as they packed up their camp after
breakfast.

'We'll
make for Soulistoun,' said Straccan. 'I asked FitzCarne about it.
It's Soulis's chief demesne, east of here towards Edinburgh. I don't
know what else to do. Gilla may be there, please God.'

They
rode east, and in the late afternoon, to Straccan's frustration,
Miles's horse cast a shoe, which slowed them down. Luckily the road
was soft, and after a couple of miles they saw smoke over the trees.
A farm perhaps, or a village. A village it was, and a blacksmith in
it, cheerful at the unexpected business coming his way.

'Bane
and I'll ride on,' said Straccan. 'We'll keep to the road and find a
place to camp tonight. You follow when you're done here.'

The
smith gave them an uneasy glance. 'It's a bad road, noble Sirs,' he
said.

'Gets
rough, does it?'

'Rough,
aye, but that's not what I meant. It's a bad road for travellers. You
gentlemen should go back towards Crawgard, and north from there to
Hawick, and then turn east.'

'But
it's much shorter this way,' said Miles.

'It's
dangerous, Lords,' the smith said.

'Bandits?'

'Some
say so, but none's ever been caught. People just vanish. It could be
wolves, of course, but...' He crossed himself and kissed the little
brass crucifix that hung round his thick neck on a plaited cord. 'We
call it the devil's road,' he said.

'You
think the devil snatches travellers?' Straccan asked.

The
man lowered his voice. 'There's an ogre,' he said.

There
was a thoughtful silence. Then Bane said. 'Seen it, have you? This
ogre?'

'No,
Sir, and please God I never do. But it's there, and it eats people.
Well, I've said my piece. Do as you please, but don't say I didn't
warn you!'

The
family numbered thirty creatures; eight males, twelve females and ten
juveniles from infants to about ten years of age. At fifty, Sawney
was an old man, but unlike other folk he had never gone hungry. There
was always meat of a sort to fill his belly, so instead of being
half-starved and feeble like most outlaws, he was a powerful brute,
heavy and surprisingly, dangerously fast. His was the blind savagery
of the boar, bowling down prey with a grunting irresistible charge.
All flesh was his family's prey, but their choicest delicacy was
human.