The Iron Tempest (33 page)

“Finally, she hit upon a scheme. It was an elaborate one and I won’t burden you with all of its artistic details. The simple upshot was that she persuaded an old servant woman who had loyally remained with her to prepare a virulent poison and mix it into a bottle of Tanacre’s favorite wine. Meanwhile, she told him that she’d decided to finally accept his hand and he immediately announced a ball in honor of the occasion.

“At the height of the festivities she filled a chalice with the deadly wine, drank half and handed Tanacre the remainder. With a happy smile he drained it to the bottom, threw the empty vessel aside and held out his arms for his fiancé. Instead of rushing into them, as he expected, she pushed him away with a snarl, her face and eyes ablaze with anger and triumph.

“‘I’ve just killed you!’ she cried. ‘Killed you with these very hands! I only wish that your death weren’t to be so easy—no torture would be cruel enough to wipe out the crimes you’ve committed. But I’ve killed you as best I could and if I can’t watch you suffer in this world, I can at least console myself with knowing that I‘ll witness your torment in the next one!’

“Tanacre, with a cry of horror, grasped his burning throat with his hands and fell, lifeless, at the feet of his father. Having seen this, Drusilla also died, smiling at the knowledge that she had wiped a plague from the face of the earth.”

“Marganor must have gone berserk!” said Marfisa.

“He did indeed,” agreed the old woman. “He had once had two sons and now he had none—and both were stolen from him by women, or so he saw it. Not knowing whether Drusilla’s grinning body were alive or dead, perhaps not even caring, he vented his insane rage on her poor corpse, savaging it like a mastiff might savage its lifeless prey. Not satisfied with mutilating the body, he turned to his guests, flailing left and right, mowing down every woman he saw like a farmer scything hay. There was no escape. Thirty died in that first onslaught and a hundred more were mortally wounded as they tried to flee. His friends—at that time he still had many—finally restrained him, managing to calm his bloodlust, otherwise he would’ve continued his slaughter until not a woman was left alive. It was on that very day that he issued his cruel edict, banning every woman from his domain.”

“But what was his excuse for tormenting these three ladies?” asked Rashid. “They were strangers.”

“They fell afoul of the other part of Lord Marganor’s vow: that if a woman is found in the company of a man they are both slain forthwith. He personally slits their throats over the tomb of his sons. If a woman is found alone, she is whipped and sent away, but not before the lower half of her clothing is torn away. He knows that the humiliation is worse than death.”

Bradamant was so impassioned by this story that she would have set off for Marganor’s castle then and there, had her friends not convinced her of the desirability of waiting until daylight.

She did not sleep well that night, her thoughts torn between the mission she had sworn and the disturbing knowledge that Rashid slept not two feet away, on the other side of a wattle-and-daub wall she could have plunged her arm through. She thought she could smell him, but it was probably just the damp mud. Nearby, Marfisa lay curled on a blanket, tucked into a corner where the feverish moonlight would not shine on her. She was snoring softly and steadily, wholly undisturbed by her roommate’s sleeplessness.

When she dozed, Bradamant was haunted by strange dreams; when she was awake her brain spun out of control, like a leaf caught in the eddies and vortices of a rushing stream.

The morning awoke grey, damp and dreary. A thin, chilly mist sifted down from the featureless overcast. Bradamant, who had awakened long before the others, had their horses ready and waiting when her companions appeared. They had only just emerged from the doorway when they heard the sound of approaching horses. All three drew their swords and waited to see what the noise would bring. Around the sharp turn where the road entered the hamlet came a band of about twenty heavily-armed men, half of them mounted and half on foot. In their midst was an elderly woman, mounted on a horse, her thin face grey as slate. With her tattered clothes fluttering she looked like an ailing heron.

“That’s old Jaudenes!” said the knights’ host, emerging from the doorway behind them.

“Who?” asked Bradamant.

“Jaudenes. Drusilla’s old servant.”

“The one who mixed up the poisoned wine?”

“The very one.”

“What are they doing with her?”

“I’d heard she’d fled the castle before the tragedy. She knew full well what Lord Marganor’s reaction to the death of his son would be. They say she’d gotten as far as Austria—not that it matters, since Lord Marganor’s men apparently found her anyway.”

As the procession drew nearer, Bradamant saw to her horror that the frail old woman was tightly bound from neck to waist and that she was tied to the saddle like a sack of meal. Her hands and bare feet were dead white from the lack of blood and a filthy gag had been thrust into her toothless mouth.

Just as the majestic Po River, arising from Mount Viso, fed by the Ambra, Ticino, Adda and other tributaries, increases in might as it rushes toward the Adriatic, just so did the ferocious wrath of Bradamant increase with every new outrage. What she had heard of Marganor’s evil was bad enough, but this visible evidence of the hatefulness of his crimes so provoked her anger that she decided that he must be punished no matter how large an army he might be able to muster. And he would be deserving of no quick death, either, she decided with a lack of charity that was less Christian than it was Bradamantine.

“We must save that old woman,” she cried to Marfisa and Rashid, “before we do anything else!”

Without turning to look, confident that her companions would do as she did, Bradamant leaped into her saddle, drew her sword and charged the men.

It’s unlikely that Marganor’s men had ever before experienced an attack so ferocious, so savage, so bloodthirsty. It was as though a furious tiger had descended into a pen of sheep. In the brief moment it took for Rashid and Marfisa to join her, Bradamant had already strewn the road with a half dozen bodies, some clutching at their escaping entrails or at fountaining stumps, others still and lifeless. The remaining men, seeing that the screaming she-devil was about to be reinforced, dropped their arms and bolted. Just as a wolf, surprised by a hunter, will abandon its prize and flee, these cowardly ruffians leaped from their horses, stripped themselves of their armor, threw their swords and daggers to the ground and vanished down the muddy road, into alleys or over the precipice that surrounded the town, preferring their chances with the jagged rocks below to the certainty of disembowelment by the Fury in their midst. In less than two minutes, Bradamant found herself in possession of two dozen horses and an old woman.

She approached the latter and, as gently as she could, removed the gag that had been tied so tightly she had to cut the knot away.

“Will you come with us?” she asked as she unfastened the ropes that bound the skinny arms. “We’re going to Lord Marganor’s castle to rid it of its vermin and to avenge its crimes against women.”

Old Jaudenes, whose rheumy eyes had gazed with unfocussed incomprehension and whose raw mouth hung open, slack and drooling, gasped at the sound of Marganor’s name. A spark kindled in each dull eye—first the right, then the left—as she grasped Bradamant’s arm; the latter was surprised at the strength in those fleshless fingers. It was like being gripped by the talons of some large raptor. Jaudenes began weeping, which distressed Bradamant, as she begged the knight not to take her back to Marganor’s castle.

“Come on, old woman,” interrupted Rashid with rough kindness. “Don’t you want to see your mistress avenged?”

“We’re wasting time,” grumbled Marfisa. “She’s just an old servant-woman. Whatever her role in this affair might once have been, we’ve no use for her now. Peel her off Bradamant, Rashid, and let’s get going.”

Rashid agreed and, none too gently, pulled the hysterical woman away from his lover and, lifting her weightless body from her own half-dead mount, placed her on Frontino, behind him, where she immediately latched onto his back like a limpet. As soon as she was in place, he spurred the great horse and galloped down the road, Marfisa close behind. Jaudenes’ shrieks rapidly disappeared among the echoes of clattering hooves.

Bradamant chose three likely-looking mounts from among the abandoned animals and led them back to the lodging-house, where Ullania and her handmaidens waited. “Take these,” she said, “and we’ll be on our way.” The two maids stared at Bradamant’s blood-splattered face and armor with patent horror, but the icy Queen looked upon her with an expression that could only be described as admiration—and even affection.

It took only a few hours to cover the two leagues that separated the women’s hamlet from Marganor’s castle, so it was still well before noon when Bradamant found herself looking down upon a sizable, prosperous-looking town or two or three score large, elegant houses. There was neither a wall nor a moat surrounding them. From the center rose a precipitous crag, like a crooked tusk, and balanced atop this was an opulent castle. Without a word between them, the avenging band spurred their mounts and descended into the town. At the first steps down the trail, old Jaudenes had begun to wail but a few short but vivid words whispered into her ear through Rashid’s clenched teeth served to shut her up, leaving her shaking and sniffling no less than before, but silently.

As they approached the town, Bradamant saw that, though there was no wall, entrance was limited to two or three heavy gates. No one obstructed them as they rode through the nearest one of these; nevertheless, the thick wooden door was swung shut behind them and barred. She turned and looked all around at the surrounding street and houses. Both seemed deserted until she began to catch glimpses of furtive, pale faces, like fish peering from their dark grottoes. The atmosphere was rank with fear.

They turned a corner and there, at the base of the crag, waited Lord Marganor and a horde of brutal-looking men.

“Halt, there!” he cried and Bradamant, Marfisa and Rashid, having nothing better to do, did as they were told.

“You’re my prisoners!” Marganor continued. “You’ll dismount immediately and surrender your arms. Those women with you . . . those women . . . By God!” he cried as he recognized Ullania, “you dare to return here? What insolence! Well, by God! I’ll guarantee you’ll regret
that
mistake! You’ll suffer more than a beating and a little embarassment this time! In the meantime, you three knights! Surrender, I say!”

Bradamant and Marfisa, who together had been leading their little procession, removed their helmets and threw them to the ground, shaking their hair so that it spilled over their broad shoulders. The sight of those two lovely faces—one dark and surrounded by a black cloud over which highlights shimmered like lightning, the other golden, like an ivory icon framed in liquid bronze—inspired Marganor to a blustering frenzy.

“You!” he spluttered. “You! You
women! You
dare challenge
me?
”

“I certainly do!” cried Marfisa, digging her heels into the flanks of her magnificent Arabian. The animal leaped faster than the eye could follow, a ruddy blur like the trail of a rocket. The Saracen warrioress did not deign to draw a weapon, but instead caught Marganor a blow on the side of his helmet with her fist. He slumped senselessly in his saddle, held there only by his stirrups.

When she saw Marfisa launch herself, Bradamant did likewise, with Rashid right behind her. The latter, without removing his lance from its socket, immediately slew five men, skewering them one after the other as easily as one might select cocktail shrimp. The sixth went down carrying the point of Rashid’s shattered lance protruding three feet from his back. With her golden lance flashing like lightning Bradamant was as devastating as a thunderbolt let loose among the enemy, shattering and leveling everything it touched. Those few that survived the touch of her invincible weapon ran for any available door, pounding down those that would not open. After five minutes only the three knights and a streetful of corpses remained. Marfisa had climbed from her horse and was busy trussing the still-groggy lord. She tied his hands behind his back and then, grasping his bound wrists, hauled him to his feet. The man shrieked and cursed as his shoulders threatened to tear from their sockets, but Marfisa only shook him all the harder until he shut up. The man looked at the carnage that surrounded him with dumb astonishment.

“Here,” the Saracen said, handing a dagger to Jaudenes, whose expression had taken on a kind of diabolical glee at the sight of her helpless tormenter, “if he so much as sweats too heavily, stick this in his heart. Well,” she said, turning to Bradamant, “what’ll we do now? If you’d like my suggestion, I’d be in favor of burning this unholy town to the ground.”

“We’ll do just that,” was the reply, “if its citizens refuse to repeal Marganor’s laws and accept ours.”

This proved to be no particular difficulty once the three knights were able to ferret out the town’s leading citizens, most of whom had buried themselves as far away as possible from the zealous warriors. They had all heard Marfisa’s bloodthirsty proposal and, having seen her, had no doubt that the woman was not only serious but anxious to implement her threats. Indeed, she seemed more than capable, once released, of escalating the carnage past simple arson and wholesale slaughter. No, no, they hastened to assure their liberators, they loathed Marganor no less than anyone else, to say nothing of his ridiculous mandates. And why shouldn’t they? It had been no more pleasant for them here, without their wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and lovers, than it was for the women, deprived as they were of masculine company. Bradamant doubted this, looking around at the luxurious dwelling-places, inns and shops, comparing them with her memory of the squalid little village the women were forced to occupy. Besides, she harbored a suspicion that none of these men truly wanted for female companionship, Marganor or no Marganor. But at that they were neither better nor worse than anyone else, she concluded, cynically. They had done nothing that another wouldn’t have done in similar circumstances: kowtowing to the very one they loathed the most to save their lives. They all lived in fear of each other, trusting no one, not daring to denounce Marganor or his laws, silently watching as here a man was exiled, there one slain, this one deprived of his belongings, that one his honor. Yet, she thought, the cumulative plaint of those unhappy hearts must have been heard in Heaven after all, for didn’t just retribution in the form of herself and her friends finally descend upon this evil town? It might have been a long time coming, but once it did it made up for its tardiness with a punishment that was proportionally massive.