Perfect Shadows (34 page)

“Well, Dickon my lad—it is Dickon is it not? Come along my lad,
my lord wishes to speak to you,” he said jovially, but there was a dry
insinuating rasp to his tone that sent his victim cringing against the wall.
The crippled man darted forward, caught the chain between the manacles that
encircled the prisoner’s wrists, and hauled the boy to his feet. Sommers half
dragged him up two flights of stairs, through twisting passages and into a
large vaulted room that might once have been an old chapel, where he shoved the
boy down into the rushes at his master’s feet. The earl, sitting in a large
chair at one end of the room surveyed the prisoner with a smile.

“You see, my little Welsh lamb, you really cannot escape me,
after all,” Northumberland said softly. “But you need not fear me, boy, I will
not hurt you, unless I am forced to do so. I am your friend, you know. I will
protect you from him.” Richard struggled to his feet and flicked a glance at
Sommers who lounged against a nearby wall, warming his hands over one of the
braziers that served to heat the large room. “Oh, no, child, Sommers will not
hurt you. I meant the man who names himself Prince Kryštof. You know what he
is, do you not? How he preys upon the living, drinking their very blood? Yes, I
thought so,” the earl’s voice had dropped even lower, so that Richard had to
lean forward to catch the words. “He is a servant of Hell, Richard. He would
seduce you, drive you into sin and madness, as he has done my pretty young
cousin. But we will stop him, and you will help us.” There were little flecks
of spittle on the thin lips, and that serpent’s tongue flicked over them,
driving Richard back in disgust.

“No,” he heard himself saying, clenching his fingers over the
chains that bound him. Like a cat, Sommers crossed the room behind him, and
drove a fist hard as a stone into his kidney. Richard folded to the floor,
blinded by the pain, and realized with humiliation that he had lost control of
his bladder. The earl laughed softly.

“Oh, I think yes.” He motioned to Sommers, who hauled the boy
over to an alcove and there fastened his shackles to rings set into the floor.
“Come now, Sommers,” he added when the man had finished his task, “we must
ready ourselves for tomorrow night’s masque. The lad will do well enough here,
for the time being.

Richard tossed on the polluted rushes beneath him, the worse for
the filth he had perforce added himself, itching from the vermin that swarmed
over him. Tears ran unchecked from his eyes, and he needed to blow his nose. He
had never been so dirty, so utterly wretched, in his life. A light shone softly
from the door, and a draft of clean outdoor air struck him. A woman crossed
swiftly to him, and his heart leapt, thinking that she had come to free him.
She set the candle she carried on the floor near him, and turned to examine him
by its flickering light. She was young, he saw, and very nearly as dirty as he
was himself. Her tongue flicked over her lips for a second, then she leaned
over him, bringing her mouth to his and thrusting her tongue deep into his
mouth. He flinched, jerking his head away from the obscene touch, and she
laughed. Sitting back on her heels she threw back the surcoat that was her only
garment. She fondled her breasts then leaned forward again, and when he turned
his face from her she jerked his head around by the hair, shoving her nipple against
his mouth as he opened it to cry out at the sudden pain. Anger flooded over
him, and he bit hard, tasting her blood and spitting it into the rushes as she
rocked away from him. He saw a figure behind her, and recognized the man
Sommers, whose fingers closed around the woman’s throat, dragging her back and
away from her intended victim.

“You stupid slut,” the man muttered under his breath, “you want
him to kill us all?” He tangled one hand in her hair, and fumbled at his own
clothing with the other. Freeing himself from his breeches he slapped her hard,
sending her sprawling to the floor beside Richard, who watched in horror and
revulsion as the crippled man violently plunged himself into the small woman
again and again. She clawed at him, not to fight him, but to goad him to
further violence, Richard realized, and he began to retch uncontrollably, the
bile spilling from his mouth to pool under his head.

Sommers had barely uttered the bellow that marked his release
when Northumberland strode cursing into the chapel, thrusting the torch he
carried into a bracket near the door and motioning the men who followed him to
pull the two apart and stand them before him. “Goddamn you, Sommers, if you’ve
allowed this whore to ruin the boy, you’ll take his place tomorrow night, and
you know what that will mean. You’ve seen what happens when the offering is
defiled, and this time it will be you!”

The earl, quivering with rage, knelt by the boy and began to
speak soothingly to him. When the boy had calmed, he began to question him.
Satisfied, he turned back to the lewd pair. “No real harm done, this time,” he
admitted grudgingly. “But keep that slut locked up! No one is to touch him
until after the ceremony tomorrow night. Did you hear me, Dickon? You must be
virgin when the demon comes for you. Your sister was not, you know,” and his
voice sank to a whisper as he recounted to the helpless boy the horror of Eve’s
last hours. Richard was crying uncontrollably as Percy rose stiffly to his feet
and turned to one of the grooms. “You, Amyas, stay here and watch him. If he
starts to sleep, wake him. He is not to sleep, do you hear?” Assured that his
orders would be obeyed, he motioned the two holding Sommers to release him, and
the company left the chapel. The man designated to stay and watch Richard sat
himself comfortably close by, and settled in to wait for the morning.

It was nearly noon before Percy returned to the chapel. Well fed
and rested, he stood for a moment just inside the door to listen to the quiet
sobbing of his captive, nodding his approval. With a few words he made his
wants known to the guard, and began to turn the narrow irons and adjust the
small crucible of molten lead in the brazier that the man moved near to the
prisoner. A pity, really, that he had such a short time to enjoy questioning
the boy, but he doubted that anything he could devise would make the slightest
impression on the lad when this night’s work was done, supposing that he in
fact survived it. Sommers entered shortly with pen and ink, and began to take
down the answers in the barely legible scrawl that was all his untutored hands
could produce. By late afternoon they had some twelve pages, as brutal a tale
of witchcraft, sodomy, and bestiality as the earl’s twisted mind could devise.

Richard had lost consciousness, his chest a mass of burns, but
his face untouched. Percy hauled himself stiffly to his feet, noting the time
with dismay. Without ceremony he jerked Sommers off the floor and shoved him
towards the door, pausing only long enough to rouse the boy and allow him a
deep drink from a prepared cup. They had to make the chamber ready for the
ceremony, then dress and ride to Whitehall. Cecil would be waiting for the
results of the day’s labor.

Northumberland, dressed as the Grand Inquisitor, a costume that
afforded him no little amusement when he recalled that afternoon’s occupations,
made his way to Cecil’s chamber, with Sommers, dressed as a devil, in tow.
Robert Cecil, in his usual sober attire, allowed himself a slight smile at the
sight of his visitors before turning to business and reading the pages Percy
thrust into his hands. “Yes,” he said, as he perused them slowly. “Yes, this
will do nicely. You have the girl safe? I will send for her after the arrest
tonight. I think that the boy had best be—unavailable. I am informed that the
prince intends to grace us with his presence tonight after all. My lord
Almsbury knows his part, and the trap is set.” Almsbury stepped out of the
shadows near the window, dressed in Southampton’s costume, with an auburn wig
hiding his bright hair. Percy nodded in comprehension. This night would prove
interesting indeed. He only hoped that the trap could be sprung before he had
to return to Malvern Hall, to complete the ritual that he and Sommers had prepared
before they left. Dark of the moon and Twelfth Night was not a combination to
waste.

Maudie slipped naked through the cloister towards the chapel. It
had been an easy thing to escape her cell, an invitation to the guard, a clout
behind his ear. She was small, but strong, and the Devil had promised her all
she wanted. And she wanted him, that pretty, unhappy boy who did not want her.
It did not matter, the Cloven Hoof had taught her well, and she could make him
rise to her purposes. She licked her dry lips and vanished into the chapel like
a small white ghost.

Essex’s costume was a great success. The flowery speech he made
to old Bess took her by surprise, disarming her temper even as the gifts of
gold and topaz and amber, laid at her feet as the tribute of the sun, engaged
her greed. He only half listened to her extempore speech of acceptance as the
familiar classical references and phrases in Latin and Greek rolled over him.
He was waiting, straining every nerve to hear the signal that would mean the
trap was ready to spring. He would take the foolish old woman by the hand and
lead her to the chamber where her foreign favorite practiced his unnatural
lusts on another man, stand by her as the sodomite was arrested, and his
servant’s accusation of witchcraft was read aloud before the court. He thought
uncomfortably of Hal for a moment, those glaring eyes over the scarf that kept
him silent, bound as he was to a bed in a locked room at Essex house. But he
could be made to understand the necessity later: he could not appear at the
Masque in the costume that Almsbury would wear later for the prince’s arrest.
It would do Hal no good if the Queen deduced precisely whom the prince thought
he was meeting in that room. Almsbury had his own reasons for playing the
victim, reasons that Essex did not care to plumb. There, she’d finished at
last, and he took his place at her side, scanning the crowd for the foreign
prince. Would the cur never appear?

Richard awoke from a drugged and feverish half-dream of pain and
despair to a reality that was worse. He could smell her in the darkness even
before he felt her hands upon him. He had been given another drink of the acrid
tasting liquid before being tied to the bare floor in the center of the large
room, spread within some hastily chalked lines, and left there as the light
grew dim, and dimmer still, until finally the darkness was absolute. He had
given up any thought of rescue when the previous night had brought none, and
now he was willing himself to die.

He was a failure at that, as well as everything else he had
turned a hand to, he noted bitterly, as his heart went on beating and his lungs
kept pushing his tortured chest up and down. Then he had felt the slight breath
from the door, and smelled the madwoman’s unpleasant musk as she reached him,
touching him and muttering in the dark. With horror he felt himself rising to
her skilled fingers and mouth, felt a biting pain as she bound his stiffened
manhood with a cord, then pushed herself down onto his unwilling but responsive
flesh, her nails raking the raw burns on his chest. His body arched beneath
her, a muffled scream fighting the silken stuff they had used to gag him, and
he thought that he would black out then. He prayed to a god he no longer
believed in to free him somehow, to let him die before the earl returned and
fed his defiled and living flesh to the vengeful demon. She fumbled behind her,
jerking away the cord that bound his manhood, and the sudden sharp pain brought
the release he fought against. He felt his seed shooting into her, dooming him
irrevocably to the ultimate horror that had claimed his sister’s life and
eternally damned her immortal soul.

Malvern was dark, except for the kitchens where the servants
held their revels. I slid from the saddle, ground-tying the horse near the door
to the chapel. The wolves flowed around my feet as I made my way to the massive
door. I expected to find it locked, but it swung open silently at a touch.
There were sounds in the darkness within.

My vampire’s sight picked out the scene in the middle of the
chapel floor as though it were bright moonlight. I recognized the madwoman from
the forest, and I crossed the room swiftly and silently, to pluck her from the
tormented body she mounted; with a deft twist I broke her neck and let her
fall. The wolves were all around now, nuzzling and licking at Richard, who had
fainted as his tormentor was pulled free of him. I examined the shackles that
held the lad, pleased to see that my strength was more than adequate to free
the boy. Jehan and Rhys had assumed their human forms, and Rhys gently gathered
his half-brother into his arms, wrapping him in the cloak that I slipped from
my shoulders and wordlessly handed over. Sylvie and Eden, with a female’s
intuition of what had occurred and its probable effect on Richard, kept to
their wolf shapes and took up posts on either side of the door.

Jehan helped me fit the dead girl into shackles, stuffing her
slack mouth with the gag taken from Richard, then gathered whatever he could
find that would burn, piling the soiled rushes around the body while I made a
swift survey of the earl’s library. I could not tell one from another, and
though I hated burning books, hated it with a passion that knotted my guts, I
knew I must. I could not take both the boy and the books on a single horse. I
shrugged and poured the oils and aqua vitae from the worktable liberally over
the books and the rushes. I added a trail of black powder from my flask, then
pulled the unloaded snaphaunce pistol from my belt and used it to strike a
spark. I ran from the chapel, and swung into the saddle, reaching to take the
boy from Rhys and arranging the unconscious form in front of me before spurring
the agitated horse away into the darkness. Scarcely a minute had passed before
the shouts and turmoil behind us told me that the fire had been discovered. I
settled the boy more firmly against me and urged the horse on, with the surging
shadows of the wolves at our heels.