A Wolf in the Dark

by S E Turner

  'It's me, Domitrius. Meric.'

  'Come in, Meric, and please excuse the mess. There has been a bit of an accident here.'

  The first thing Meric saw was Corbulo slumped against a wall, his confused head in bloodied hands. He then looked about the room at the smashed up furniture.

  'Are you all right, Domitrius?'

  'Yes, I am, I have had a bit of a shock that's all.'

  'Your hands, let me look at them for you.'

  'No, we don't have time. I will be all right.'

  'If you are sure. But I am sorry to inform you that the Emperor has passed away. He was not strong enough to fight the poison.'

  The General hung his head again. 'I think I know who did this to us.'

  'Oh good, that saves me the task of finding out. So, who did it?'

  'The maid. She did it, the unthoughtful, unappreciative wretch.'

  'How do you know it was her?'

  'Because when I came in here, the girl who I was looking for had gone, and the imposter was in her clothes on this very bed.'

  'So where is the girl and where is the imposter?'

  'I don't know, Meric. I don't know where the girl is. The imposter has been taken away to be burnt.'

  'I take it that the imposter was already dead.'

  The General looked at the physician with a glare that took umbrage at the question.

  'I'm sorry, Domitrius. I had to ask.'

  The General continued to stare ahead.

  'Would you know where the maid's room is? I would like to look around.'

  He suddenly made the connection. 'Of course!' The General stood up and wobbled. Meric went to help him but was pushed away. 'That's where she has hidden the girl. Come with me.'

  The General wasn't thinking straight, Meric knew that. Nothing at this stage meant any sense at all.

  'It's this way, Meric.'

  The physician followed the distraught man down the staircase, through the kitchens and down further into the basement. Eventually they came to a row of stone storerooms. the type of room that was cool in the torturous summer months, but in the winter, it would be worse than freezing.

  'I think it's this one.' The General slowly opened the door, hopeful of seeing Skyrah waiting for him on the other side. He was sadly disappointed. They looked around the cramped room that was barely six-foot square. Just about big enough for a bed, a chest of drawers and a small earthenware brazier with a pan on top. 'It's not this one, it must be the next room.' He tried all six rooms, frantically searching in all of them until he reached the last one. 'This is it,' he called out to the physician who was still rummaging in the first room.

  'How do you know? Have you found the girl?' Meric sprinted to the last dwelling.

  'No, but I recognise these.'

  Stuck to the stone clad wall were eight paintings of flowers, beautifully executed with copious amounts of attention to detail, each one so perfect that it looked like all the colours of nature had been peeled from the earth.

  'Did the maid paint these?'

  'No, she didn't, I have a number of paintings done by the same artist. '

  'And who might that be?'

  'The girl, my friend. She did them.'

  'And who is this girl you call a friend?'

  'A savage, but unlike any savage I have seen before. She is my muse, my property, and my dancing companion in the evening.'

  Meric raised an eyebrow. 'If it's alright with you, I would like a thorough search of both rooms.'

  'Both?'

  'The maid's and the girl's. I don't want to leave any stone unturned or any floorboard untouched.'

  'But it can't be the girl. She was shut in her room all the time, and the only time she came out was with me. The maid had access to everything and look how close she is to the kitchen.'

  'I'm not convinced, Domitrius. I need further proof.'

  'As you wish. Just find the girl for me.'

  The men climbed back up the stairs and exited through the kitchen. Meric stopped at the large wooden table and invited Domitrius to see what he had discovered.

  'This is what I found in the cooking pots.'

  The General peered at the unlikely suspects: a spew of pitifully limp and faded plants.

  'These are what killed most of the people in the palace,' Meric declared.

  'Weeds?' Domitrius scoffed. 'I have never heard such nonsense.'

  'They are very poisonous plants, Domitrius. Extremely powerful and deadly. '

  'But I didn't have anything from the kitchens this morning. I didn't have time.'

  'Which makes it all the more important to search the rooms. Something other than these poisonous plants affected you, Domitrius.'

  The bristling General and mystified physician went quickly in search of some guards who could ransack the rooms. Most of them were outside disposing of the bodies.

  Then two anxious figures ran up. 'Master, the captives have gone!'

  'What!' Domitrius bellowed so loudly that even the physician cowered. The back of his hand cracked across the informant's ear, slamming him to the ground. 'You wait till now to tell me!'

  The soldier reached up to his head and hunched around trying to dodge the General's fist. The punches hammered hard into his chest, shoulders, and back.

  The physician winced and turned away.

  'We tried to find you, master,' stuttered the other guard, giving the reason for the delay but tensing his body for a vicious attack. He closed his eyes and hunched his neck. His body went into spasms as he waited for the blow. But it didn't come. He opened his eyes. He searched for the fist. The General was not there. He was halfway on route to the dormitories.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  There were soldiers moving about everywhere, searching the barns, the stables, the hedgerows—anywhere that a savage could hide. The depleted force of the palace worked tirelessly. Most of them were barely fit to search, but they had already been at the end of the General's sadistic fist, so carried on regardless. The remainder stacked firewood in the wagons and shuddered at the consequences.

  'May the gods have mercy on them should they be discovered,' said one grim soldier.

  'And us if they aren't,' said another.

  The General was beside himself when he found out that all the horses were gone as well. 'Where is my horse. Where is she? If they have taken her, I will round up all the stable lads and burn them in those wagons, then I will burn their families on top of their disfigured bodies, and then burn one guard a day until I get her back.'

  'The soldier's horses are safe in the meadow, master. Yours is with them. '

  'Are you sure?'

  'Yes, I have checked myself,' said the guard. 'I had to get one from the field when I went to get the physician.'

  'Was it you who got Meric?'

  'Yes, sir, it was sir.'

  'Good man, good man, but I still want to question the head stable boy.'

  More soldiers were deployed to track down the head stable lad. It wasn't difficult. Everyone knew that he lived in the village outside of the town.

  'Where are you taking him?' cried his mother.

  'I'm sorry, ma'am. We're under orders.'

  'It's that General isn't it? That evil man, he's a curse on the palace,' wailed the boy's mother, crying into her apron.

  'It's all right, Mother. I shall just tell the truth.'

  'When has that ever saved anybody, Macus? You know as well as I do that anyone who crosses him doesn't survive his brutal fist and the burning wagon. I still remember that awful day. It's imprinted in my memory, the awfulness of it all. His own guard, and her family, burned alive because his fancy girl escaped.' She shook her head into her apron again.

  'But I haven't crossed him, have I?' her son comforted.

  The two soldiers looked at each other, not daring to utter what they were really thinking. 'We have to go, Macus. We are sorry. The General is in a foul temper and we can't provoke him any further.'

  The General was waitin
g and seized him by the throat, half throttling him with one hand, and with the other drove three sharp blows into his belly. Macus closed his eyes and doubled over in pain. The deranged man seethed within a hair's breadth of the groom's face. 'Now listen very carefully, boy. Unless you want to die right here right now and never see your family again, you will answer my questions.'

  'Yes, master,' he groaned.

  'Sometime today, the horses were taken from the stables. Who took them?'

  'It was a girl.'

  The General punched him again in the pit of his stomach. 'Stop lying, boy, otherwise I will burn your family to a cinder, and then have your head severed from its neck and secured to a post.'

  'I'm not lying, master. She was beautiful with long dark hair. She had a lovely voice and seemed so kind. She looked like a maid.'

  'Why did you think she was a maid?'

  'She was wearing a maid's dress.'

  'Was she with any boys?'

  'I didn't see any at first. She said everyone was dying because of a curse. Because of witchcraft. She told me to go. She told me that she would look after the horses.'

  'When did you see the boys?'

  'When I was putting out the warning signs to traders and travellers. I didn't want any more people getting hurt.'

  The General spat through his teeth as he punched him again. 'So why didn't you come and tell me?'

  'The boys were stable lads like me. She said she would look out for survivors and take them to safety. I thought that's who they were...' his voice trailed off .

  'Well you thought wrong, you imbecile, you half wit. I should feed you to the pigs ...' The General fumed and went to raise his hand again, but Meric stopped him.

  'Enough, Domitrius. He's had enough. He's told you the truth. You know what happened now.'

  The two soldiers ordered to ransack the rooms came running up to the physician. 'Sir, you need to see this.'

  The General let Macus drop instantly and followed Meric and the soldiers upstairs into Skyrah's room. They stood at the doorway gawping, amazed, hardly believing what was in front of them. It was in a worse mess than before. All the furniture was precariously balanced in an uneven stack. Women's clothes were strewn on top of the mound. The carpet was pulled right back to the window, and all the floorboards were up. Meric followed his nose to his left and looked down. A graveyard of laburnum and azaleas greeted him, their coffin still wet from the soaking. Poppies, aconitum, white snakeroot and hemlock lay in their regiments; and in nice neat piles alongside the official ranks were the offcuts from the clothes she had made.

  'Did you have a drink at any time today, Domitrius?'

  'Yes, I did. We all did, all of us, We all needed a drink, and it was so refreshing.'

  He stopped short. He now realised. The paintings. The request for flowers. The dead maid. The empty dormitories. But how had she done it? Then he remembered Meric showing him the plants in the kitchen. 'She ran back to get her bag on our dancing evening last night. I remember that she took ages and I was angry with her. How stupid of me. How could I have trusted her? '

  'You were lucky not to have had anything from the kitchen today. I suspect all the dead had consumed both.'

  'How though?'

  'The palace guards and maids would have been hit first and that was the main part of her plan. Last night, on your dancing evening, she ran back to get her bag, but she also ran to the kitchen and left the toxins to fester in the cauldrons. First thing this morning, half the workforce was dead or dying, after consuming their oatmeal and drinking water from the pan. With them out of the way she could go on to phase two. She got her maid to drink the laburnum and azalea concoction, by a means we do not know. But she managed it and changed clothes with her as well, even putting her hair up so as not to be recognised by you. The maid had a key to this door, which the girl took, and went about unnoticed as she slipped round the guards and guests with a tray of poisoned drinks. She got the dormitory keys from a dead guard, let out the boys, and you know the rest from the stable lad. Quite clever, really.'

  'What about these?' and the General grabbed handfuls of material from its lair.

  'She made clothes that would make the prisoners look like stable lads. Macus has already told you that he thought she had rounded up the grooms.'

  'But she's a savage, Meric, a stupid savage. How would a stupid savage know how to do all of that?'

  'A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that the knowledge of a clan woman, then you have something extraordinarily unique. '

  'What are you talking about, man?' seethed the General.

  'I suspect she had planned this for months, Domitrius. She is a clan girl, not a savage girl, and she's a very clever woman, not stupid at all. She had you fooled and the maid fooled. She has been trained from a young age to recognise plants. She has been taught to sew and paint using earth's apothecary. They live by the land. They know the soil and every fibre in it. They feel its beating heart and how it breathes.'

  'How do you know all of this, Meric?' The General's eyes narrowed.

  'I just know. I recognised the style of paintings and the type of flowers that she chose. She probably doesn't even realise that she's killed more than half the palace. They kill carnivores that attack their livestock and vermin that spread diseases, but they don't have the need to kill people. But there are many types of plants out there, and they need to know which are poisonous and which are not.'

  'I gave her everything, Meric. Everything she wanted, she only had to ask.'

  'Except her freedom. The two most important things in her life are her freedom and her clan. You took them both.'

  But Corbulo had switched off and was thinking about Skyrah. How could he hate her? There was something so very special about her. Of course, she was beautiful—she radiated charm and was exceptionally sophisticated for a savage. She excited him. And she was clever, so very clever, and that excited him even more. She had brought a whole palace to its knees and killed so many people: men and women, guards and soldiers, servants and maids. She even killed the Teacher and the Emperor. How very devious and cunning. He liked that. He imagined her smile and that softened him. He caressed his bruised knuckles and widened them as if holding her close to him. He could still smell her, and she smelt so divine. He imagined her lips forming into a kiss. He closed his eyes and remembered their last dance. He began to sway with the imaginary music in his head.

  'You must rest now, Domitrius. It's been a very tiring day and you are still unwell,' urged the physician, bringing the General out of his moment. 'Tomorrow we have to deal with the Emperor's assets and make arrangements for the funeral.'

  But the General was planning how to get Skyrah back, and to do that, he would have to get rid of the parasitic clan scum, once and for all.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  There were many stories shared that night, spectacular tales of bravery and courage, but mostly despicable tales of depravity and despair. Everyone now hoped that Skyrah's concoctions were strong enough to fatally poison the guards, all the palace officials, but especially the Emperor and the General. She felt a pang of sadness for Roma, though. If she was dead, she hadn't meant to do that, for she had no way of knowing the levels of toxins she was administering. But the boys were her main concern now, though, and she shared out the cakes that she still had on her person to be sure they had a good night's sleep.

  'Do you ever remember falling asleep?' Lyall remembered Lord Tanner saying. 'You never do, because the night air is mysterious like that. It descends on you like a heavy shroud, its long black fingers slowly concealing everything in its path. Mist and darkness hover like a hideous veil, bewitching its prey and stripping it bare of energy and life.' He would dramatize his voice and curl his tongue around every word. 'Sneaking up and sucking the life from the victim who is unaware and unprepared. It's impossible to fight back the aroma and stifling effects of dusk and nightfall. Leaves shake and whisper t
o each other as the cold night air descends. Branches creak and crane, and twigs seem to snap unprovoked.' Wild searching eyes added to the terrifying rendition. 'Who knows what goings on occur under this engulfing spell, who knows what tricks are played and acted out, when the eyelids drop so heavily over tired eyes. Who knows what demons come out to play under the blanket of the night?' The voice in his tired head trailed off as Lyall fell asleep and began to dream of Canagan, the King of Durundal.

  'Son, you have shown such strength and such courage, you took it upon yourself to destroy the enemy, and in so doing have secured the future of Durundal and the safety of the Seal of Kings. And to you, brave soldiers of the realm, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your allegiance and bravery. My son, it is time you took the crown and led these people into a safe future. I hereby renounce my claim to the throne, and proclaim you, Lyall, King of Durundal.'

  Lyall kissed his father's hand and stood by the dead General. He picked up the discarded war flag of the deposed Ataxatan army and broke the standard in two across his thigh. The raven embroidered white silk totem, now stained with the blood of a thousand men, was unceremoniously discarded on top of the deceased General's body. He then drew out his sword and shredded the bloodied material into several pieces before he delivered his message to his people. 'This is the end of the Emperor's rule, This is the end of the General's domination, and this is the end of fear and retribution. No longer will our clans, tribes, and villages be persecuted; no longer will our people live their lives in terror.'

  'Hear, hear! Hear, hear!' came the collective response, and he found himself lifting his eyes to a brand new day and the welcome sound of a dawn chorus.

  A mist settled round the dense forest and weaved its way round the massive oaks. The low rays of the sun exposed freshly spun cobwebs glistening with dew, and the ground was covered in patches of nature's jewels. In the distance, a few twigs snapped, some leaves rustled, but the horses remained settled, so he sank back with hands behind his head and allowed the time to breathe.