Wulfyddia (The Tattersall Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

“Send
him in,” Felunhala called from the next room.

Melisande
jerked one thumb over her shoulder, pointing the way to her mistress’s rooms.
She wasn’t required to show him any formality. The Court Fool made his living
from making an idiot of himself. No one was required to treat him with any
dignity whatsoever.

“Fare
thee well, Melisande.” His voice was an unnerving whisper. It was
extraordinary, the things he could do with his voice when the rest of him was
so…common.

“Good
riddance,” Melisande muttered under her breath as he disappeared into
Felunhala’s private rooms, the bells on his slippers tinkling with each step.

The sound of the water was omnipresent. It
bled from the stone above Rathbone’s head, trickled down the drain and beaded
on the wall as if the very rock of Castle Wulfyddia perspired. The sound of it
made him shudder.

Rathbone’s cell was hideous, dank and cold,
and he had been furnished only with a pile of straw to keep him warm. It was
fortunate that he had been snatched with his coat and a full set of travelling
clothes on; otherwise the situation might have been deadly.

Yet it was hard to feel thankful for anything
as he stared up at the dark rock above his head and listened for any other
sound, some sign that he was not alone in the darkness. The guards had reopened
an old wing of the dungeon for him, and he was its only inmate. Initially it
had seemed a blessing, to be imprisoned apart from the other men, away from
those who had hooted and screamed and babbled, pressing close against their
bars, as the guards brought him through. Now he thought that perhaps the
occupied cellblock was warmer than this one; perhaps the sounds of other
prisoners snoring around him would have induced him to slumber as well.

He was too edgy for sleep, too painfully
aware of the bewildering situation in which he found himself. He was new to
Castle Wulfyddia, but he was not new to the terrifying rumors about brutal
Queen Tryphena and her heavy-handed justice. Many who were flung into the
dungeons of Castle Wulfyddia never saw the light of day again for as long as they
lived. That couldn’t be him. He had to go home. He had to see his mother again,
to tell her that she was right about this horrid place.

Restless and twitchy with fear and
resentment, Rathbone huddled on his side with arms wrapped around his body for
warmth. He thought of calming things, of happy moments, of memories that he
didn’t want to lose. He thought of – what was that sound? It had been faint,
but quite distinct from the other sounds of the night, the falling water and
the creak of the dreadful old castle around him. It was sharper, and harsher.
It was a whine, like the noise made by a neglected dog. It was repeated twice
more, and each time Rathbone was racked with shivers. It was nonsensical to
fear the beast, whatever it was. It wasn’t as if a large dog could get through
the bars, and a small one that did manage to slip through might provide warmth
and company. Maybe he would finally get some well-needed sleep. Rathbone
cleared his throat as the plaintive sound came once more. “Here boy.”

There was no answer.

“Here. Here boy. Nice pup. Come now. Let me
see you.”

Still silence.

“Come on boy.”

Now there was a sound, a kind of dull
scratching, as though the creature had moved closer. Then it answered him, with
a growl. Oh, but what a growl. Rathbone sat bolt upright at the sound, stricken
to the bone. It was loud, too loud for the hungry, mangy mutt he had pictured.
This was the snarl of a wild animal, and yet at the same time it was also the
cry of a man, harsh with anguish and fury. Rathbone scrambled back from the
bars, arms instinctively going up to protect himself as the scratching came
again, like the sound of claws on stone. It was coming for him. He could hear
it drawing closer; he could hear its limping, lurching steps and the ghastly scrape
of its claws. It roared, and there was such violence in the sound that he
pushed himself back against the stone wall of his cell, biting his lip to
prevent a panicked whimper from escaping.

It was not a man. It was not an animal. It
was a vision— a feverish, devilish hallucination, a visceral experience of
slavering, slicing fangs and hellish, rolling eyes. It grasped for him with
malformed fingers, bent and crowned with claws. The scent of blood washed over
Rathbone, the low, forbidding taste of rust rising in his mouth. A livid bruise
bloomed on his brow as he dashed his head against the bars in fright. His
fingernails cracked and broke as he scrabbled against the stone, desperately
seeking an escape. The beast was almost silent now, except for the horrid
rasping gasp of its breath as it inserted a single arm through between the bars
and reached for him, snarling in frustration when its claws slashed air and not
his throat. More horrifying was the way it drew back and stared at him, with a
very human cunning shining in its bestial yellow eyes.

Knowing now that it could not reach him, he
curled in upon himself, cradling his face in his hands and rocking to and fro,
desperately hoping that the nightmare would recede back into the shadows and
leave him in peace. But the creature did not retreat, and throughout the long,
black night Rathbone could smell the blood on its breath.

***

“It just
keeps raining and raining...” Lorna stared out of her garret window, watching
the pale flashes in the distant darkness with her brow furrowed. Night had
fallen, swallowing the storm into its black belly. The thunder was softer now
but still omnipresent, and the rain continued to fall in sheets. She turned to
her sister, dark eyes gleaming out of her pale face. “They say the Lake’s
rising, you know. Pretty soon it’ll swallow us all.” Daphne was standing on her
own bed, with her eyes closed, head tilted back and arms outstretched, as
though she were conducting the thunderous orchestra. Lorna looked back at the
window. “If only the rain would stop. If it’s still raining tomorrow I don’t
think I’ll get out of bed.”

Daphne
came to her side, wrapped an arm around her sister’s bony shoulders. “Grandmamma
would make you,” Daphne told her sister regretfully, and then she was off
again, whirling across the room, her white nightdress swirling around her bony
knees. In the darkness their white nightdresses looked luminescent, lending Daphne
a ghostly air as she danced around with characteristic vitality. Lorna would
have liked to light some candles for light and comfort, but Daphne enjoyed the
melodrama of a dark room on a stormy night.

Given
the size of the castle it was hardly necessary for them to share rooms, but
they had both suffered nightmares as little children, and since their mother
and father slept many halls away, the two girls had been moved into the same room
to comfort each other. Lorna pressed her forehead against the cold windowpane
and wondered what Justine did on nights like this. She hoped her little
sister’s new governess, Mrs. Tattersall, was a kind woman. Lorna certainly
hadn’t cared much for the son, Spencer. She had found him inhospitable and
generally quite disagreeable, glaring at them over the pages of his book like
they were trespassers. Though, despite all of that, he still hadn’t deserved
what Daphne had done to him.

“I hope
he’s all right,” Lorna said aloud.

“Who?” Daphne
asked from across the room, where she appeared to be waltzing with some
imaginary companion.

“That
boy. Spencer. We shouldn’t have left the book with him.”

Daphne
waved her hand as though swatting away her sister’s concern. “He’ll be fine.
He’s already survived the worst of it.”

“What if
he tells someone?”

“Are you
mad? He doesn’t want anyone to find out any more than we do. Anyway, you told
me you didn’t want that book anymore. Remember? Or do you forget what started
happening?”

Lorna
turned back to face the window. “I remember.”

“We
should get a good night’s sleep tonight,” Daphne announced, climbing back onto
her obscenely high bed with the aid of a small footstool and flopping back
spread-eagle on the quilt. “She won’t be back.”

“She
might be.” Lorna’s voice was very low.

Daphne
sat up, all traces of a smile gone from her face. “She won’t be.”

“I can
still feel her.” Lorna’s breath became mist on the glass. “She’s out there
somewhere.”

“Good, I
hope she stays there.” With her usual abruptness Daphne rolled over onto her
side, tucking her braid over her shoulder and resting her hands under her
cheek. In minutes Daphne was asleep, but Lorna lingered for a while by the
window. Sleep had not come easily to her since they found the book four nights
ago. She was ready for the dawn, for a bright morning of rambling in the castle
gardens with her sister. She didn’t want to lie down between her cold sheets
and try to sleep, or lie awake wondering whether they had done the right thing
today. But she grew cold standing there alone, and eventually her bed beckoned
to her, reluctant as she was. She slipped quietly beneath the covers and rolled
over so that she was facing her sister, and eventually they were both wrapped
in dreams.

***

Spencer was sleeping soundly, the book tucked
under his mattress, when a footstep and a whisper summoned him to wakefulness. His
first thought was that those girls had come back to make more mischief. In his somnolent
state it took him a minute to realize that it was probably his mother, up for
some water or to use the washroom. Reassured by this explanation, Spencer
rolled over on his cot, winced at the loud squeak as he shifted his weight, and
closed his eyes. But as he lay there, waiting for sleep’s return, it occurred
to him that the footsteps were quite slow, almost as though his mother was
wandering the halls rather than making a trip to the washroom. And the steps
echoed. There wasn’t usually an echo.

Aware that he was probably letting his
imagination get the best of him, Spencer pushed his blankets aside and climbed
out of his cot, stumbling a little on the cold stone floor. The chamber was
likely due to be scrubbed, because he smelled wet, rotting soil. Beneath that
powerful scent, was the fainter, softer perfume of a flower, teasing his nose,
there one minute and gone the next.

He padded softly toward the door, aware that
at the same time, the footsteps were drawing nearer. Come to think of it, the
woman was walking in the opposite direction from the washroom. Her slow, faint
footsteps were the only sound breaking the silence of the Haligorn. He couldn’t
even hear the omnipresent ticking of the clock in the hall. Had it stopped? Spencer
quietly reached for the doorknob, and as his fingers closed on the cold metal,
the steps suddenly sped up, as though the woman were breaking into a sprint.

Spencer jerked the door open and peered out
into the hall. The stench of earth and flowers was stronger there, as though he
was closer to the source. It sounded as if the woman was running, and Spencer
looked sharply left. As he turned his head he thought that he caught a glimpse
of a figure in white vanishing around the corner, but what startled him most of
all was the moonlight. It was everywhere, spilling down the halls, illuminating
the height and grandeur of the old walls in a way that Spencer had never seen
before. That was because he had never seen the corridor lit by moonlight.  And
that was because the corridor had
no windows…

The moonlight was everywhere, silvery and
unmistakable, yet it had no origin. The walls in the corridor were very thick and
lacked even the arrow slits that were in many of the rooms, yet the entire hall
was bathed in a soft glow. Spencer took a step forward into the silver light
and the still air of the shining hall, and it struck him how silent the
corridor was, how abandoned. His courage almost failed him, but then there was
a sound, a breathy whisper that seemed to come to him as if on a breeze and
over a great distance.

“Sssspencerrrrr.” Perhaps she wasn’t running
from him. Perhaps he was meant to go to her. He followed the sound of her
retreating footsteps down that bright hall, his toes curling against stone that
was impossibly cold. He smelled another scent now, wafting over the earth and
the flowers. He could taste brine and feel the bite of salty wind against his face,
though there was no breeze in the corridor.

As he turned the corner he realized where he
was going. She was leading him to the great hall, one room that had remained
almost entirely undisturbed since Spencer and his mother moved into the
Haligorn. The great hall unnerved him, and usually he took great pains to avoid
it, but this time he was driven by a strange single-mindedness. All he wanted
was to catch a glimpse of the one who had whispered his name.

He almost thought he could hear her: in a
sigh that echoed through the castle, in a faint whisper that sounded in his
head. She was reaching out to him, drawing him to her. He padded into the great
hall, expecting his mother to call out to him at any minute, to order him back
to bed. There was no sound. This room too was impossibly illuminated by
moonlight, turning the room so very white that Spencer could see everything,
every detail of the chamber, every mark on his own white skin.

There was no figure to be seen in the hall,
no woman in white, but he could feel her in the air around him, watching him
and waiting. He hadn’t been in this room more than once or twice, so he had
never noticed the enormous silver framed mirror that was set into one wall. It
was so large that it would have been good for a party, because all of the
guests would have been able to see their reflections at once. For a moment Spencer
could imagine that: an entire ball of ghostly figures dancing their way around the
white, white hall. Ladies turning over their shoulders to catch glimpses of
themselves as they waltzed, men bowing to their reflections….

“Ssssspencerrrr…”

“I’m here,” he told her, and his voice echoed
in the hall. There was a flicker in the corner of his vision, and he looked up
and caught sight of his own reflection in the mirror. He was not a very grand
sight, in his striped bedclothes with bare feet and messy hair. But behind him…
behind him something strange was happening to the moonlight. It almost seemed
to be binding together to form a column. No, a figure, swathed in white, too
blurry to see clearly, except for one long, thin hand reaching for his
shoulder.

Spencer jumped and glanced over his shoulder.
There was nothing there, only empty floor and bare moonlight. He stared back
into the mirror, but her reflection had vanished from there, too.  He looked
from side to side, trying to sense her presence, but suddenly he felt cold and
alone in that big, empty hall. Right before his eyes the light seemed to be
fading, sucked from the air and replaced by darkness. Chilled, he started back
towards his room on tiptoe. It was harder to get back to his room than it had
been to leave it, since the hall grew progressively darker with each step he
took. By the time he was back at his own door there was no sign that it had
ever been illuminated by some unearthly glow. Spencer took a deep breath and
pushed the chamber door open.