Rhiannon

by Vicki Grove

  The others rose to their feet, staring in frightened bewilderment at the painting Rhia’d pointed out. Even Maddy and Frederique stepped from the nether shadows where they’d sought privacy and peered fearfully in that direction.

  “What the devil?” Roderick whispered, his eyes gone abulge.

  “Yes, yes—indeed!” Thaddeus blathered, pulling his hair. “The devil has sent his hellhounds to avenge some crime! They come! Don’t let them take me, for I am but dimwit and crimeless since my birth!” Thaddeus chased in circles, wringing his hands.

  “Be quiet, fool!” Leonard demanded, unsheathing his sword as he proceeded toward the painting that had caused such a scene.

  If he crept slow and seemed rattled, who could blame him? For those two Devil Dogs painted above the window had suddenly begun to shine bright as the full moon. They had been so pale in their ancientness as to be invisible to all before, but now looked forged by some hellish smithy from brimstone and flames. They glowed and strobed in every part of them—their fangs, their claws, their serpent tails, their hideous eyes.

  “What magic is this?” Beornia whispered, crossing herself.

  “Fred!” Maddy wailed. “There are enchantments here, and evil ones!”

  Frederique tore her arms from about his neck. “Quit choking me, wench!” He looked to Roderick, muttering, “This is strange stuff. We should just freeboot out of here, you know? I mean, look at those fangs. This can’t be good.”

  Leonard grunted and wiped his face on his sleeve as he manhandled the heavy stone bench, moving it under the window. “Fred, you stand as usual useless as some toad. For God’s sake help me with this, man!”

  “They’ll tear my gizzard from me and eat my kidneys whilst I watch!” Thaddeus moaned, trotting tiptoe amidst the others assembled there.

  Leonard now looked angrily over at Frederique. “Fred, I can’t do everything around here! If you won’t move the bench, at least kill the babbling idiot!”

  Rolling his eyes at being thus put upon, Frederique drew his sword and slouched toward Thaddeus.

  “No, no!” Rhia pleaded, running to kneel between Thaddeus and Fred. For a moment she wondered what to do now that she was positioned so strategically, then she bent and wrapped her arms hard around Frederique’s legs. He swayed like that, nearly tottering to a fall, and she held all the harder. “We here are witnesses, remember?”

  Leonard, meanwhile, had climbed upon the moved bench, and now he carefully reached one gloved hand toward the glowing pair of hounds.

  “As I cannot move my legs to walk, come closer here, nitwit, so I may kill you,” Frederique requested of Thaddeus. To Rhia he said, “Your death, lady, might have gone down hard were it witnessed. This fool will not be missed. We do the world a favor.”

  And at that moment, with Rhia kneeling and Leo reaching and Fred requesting and Thaddeus trotting, there came the sound of massive stone scraping against massive stone.

  Everyone froze in place, then all eyes turned in the direction of that solemn reverberation. For the scrape and crunch of an old tomb being slowly opened is a distinctive and very unsettling sound. And when a tomb is opened from the inside . . . well, moreso, of course.

  About time, Jonah! With the tiniest sigh of relief, Rhia let go Frederique’s legs and stood to feign horror at the black hole that now yawned wide in the corner of the wall.

  “ ’Tis the tomb of the ancient hermit!” she uttered in a rush. “He’s broken the seal put upon it long centuries ago!”

  By then all could hear the clatter and scrape of old bones pulling themselves together to drag through that stony threshold. The glow of their two candles began to reveal the hoary outline of something no longer human, yet almost certainly once inclined that way. It shuffled along, groaning as it came, dripping grave cloths turned to putrid rags.

  “Whose transgressions have aroused me from my just sleep?” the thing moaned.

  Beornia covered her mouth with her hands, and Maddy made a low squealing sound.

  Rhia dared to glance sideways and saw Roderick and Frederique huddled together, openmouthed. “This isn’t happening,” Roderick pronounced, but his chin quivered. Indeed, he looked close to tears.

  And still the hermit progressed in his moldering way, shedding worms from his loathsome head and leaving slime and ashes as he moved clear of his sepulcher.

  He then stopped, held up one finger bone, and pointed separately to each of those six who stood in a loose arc before him, none of them daring to move from their spot.

  His ancient eyes sparked with righteous indignation as he asked, “Who dares bring the smell of unconfessed blood crime into these holy chambers?” His loathsome voice gurgled and sucked like swampy quicksand. “Who stands here unconfessed of black deeds? For there will be no exit from this place for those unshriven. Repent, I say! Fall to your knees and tell of your murderous sins!”

  “Yip, yip, yip!” Thaddeus pranced about on his toes. “ ’Tis a good night to be witless, as some crimes must confound all who are witted! Who may have the wit to understand it when a child dies of a whip purposely mishandled by a rider? Why? asks the fool.”

  Rhia saw something new and hard enter the hermit’s eyes. “A child?” he whispered.

  Roderick dropped to his knees, then reached a shaking hand to pull Frederique down as well. They folded their hands and bowed their heads in attitudes of earnest piety.

  “Sir,” Roderick meekly addressed the sainted hermit, “I make full confession in the sight of God that it was not I who thought of running down children to teach their parents to better clear the road, but that indeed—”

  “Shut up, Roderick, you fool!” Leonard called out.

  All gasped and turned toward the stone-cold voice.

  Leonard jumped to the floor from the bench where he’d stood. He came toward the hermit while the others parted for him. The knuckles of one hand he had planted on his hip, and the other gloved hand he held up for the inspection of all present. He smirked as he came, and swaggered.

  With a sinking heart, Rhia saw that the fingers of his extended glove were glowing.

  Leonard stood in front of the group with the hermit at his back, giving all a chance for closer inspection of the glove. “It’s paint, never fire and brimstone!”

  He whirled around then and with three great strides came eye to eye with the hermit.

  “And so I conclude this holy man is but a sham as well! I’ll grant it’s a good costume, friend. You even smell the part.”

  With a flourish of his glove, Leonard swept the elaborate worm-ridden headdress from Jonah’s head. It lay a squirming mass upon the floor, and Jonah stood with but a woolen hood pulled taut around his living skull. He dropped his head and wordlessly stared at the floor.

  Thaddeus gave up his fool’s act then and fell to his knees, his face in his hands.

  “And why would you have us confess to things we had no part in, eh?” Leonard queried, pacing before Jonah. “You’ve heard rumors, no doubt, and wished to entrap us.” He walked quickly to Rhia and took her chin in his hand. “You make a third in this conspiracy, don’t you, sweet girl? You, the fool, and the actor over there. Bad acting it was, though the fool acted well, since I doubt he acted. He was a great fool to be involved in such a dangerous game against the king’s own men.”

  Roderick and Frederique laughed with relief, and Leo walked to them and threw his arms around their shoulders. “Draw your swords, men. For once, you’ll join me in cleaning up a mess. Who’ll take care of the girls? After they’re neatly run through, we’ll throw them from the cliff and none will be the wiser. Beltane revels surely yield drunken missteps on a regular basis.”

  Rhia saw there was no way to move the candle from window to window, as those three blocked the way and held all in the room frozen with their swordblades. Besides, by the time Almund saw that signal and charged here with his men, they’d only find them all run through. It would go that quick now, for certain.

  “Kill me
first, then!” Beornia called out. She strode to stand face-to-face with Leonard, her arms crossed and her chin high. “Upon my son’s beating heart, I will not see murderers go free to kill again, especially when your freedom is purchased by my own dear father’s life. So make a beginning to your further damnation with me!”

  The three squires looked at her oddly, then shrugged.

  “Suit yourself,” Leonard said. “I’ll honor your courage by making you the first.”

  Beornia closed her eyes and he drew his sword. Maddy screamed. Thunder crashed. The mists rose thicker, as if the resident gang of monkish souls were outraged, though helpless.

  Rhiannon moved closer to Thaddeus and put her head upon his shoulder, and he reached to cover her face with his large hand.

  Rhia mused that her last thought would be how much he smelled of paint.

  Chapter 29

  Time can be dreamlike when it’s running out. Upon the bluff they’d had plenty of experience with dying folk, of course, and many claimed each moment seemed to them now to be a day. In those last dreamy moments some even told that they had time to see their life performed before their eyes, the whole of it in a swish of color and sound.

  Yes, Rhia knew that time played shifty tricks near the end, but this seemed ridiculous. She feared that if they didn’t kill her soon she’d have to change position, as her left leg had gone asleep. She didn’t want to, though, as Thaddeus might then move his comforting hand. And another weird thing—the place had gone so still. Too still. Even Maddy’d quit her carrying on. And if Beornia had been killed, wouldn’t they have heard her fall? And what of the squires, their brags and shuffles and swaggering talk? No one was talking or moving one whit, which sent a shiver up Rhia’s spine.

  She could think of but one explanation. “Thaddeus?” she finally dared to whisper. “Are we . . . dead?”

  After a moment, he whispered back, “I dare not open my eyes to find out.”

  She took a breath. “We’ll open our eyes together when I count three. One ... two ...”

  But before she reached three, there was a large clanking and clattering, and she and Thaddeus both looked up in time to see the last two swords of the three squires thrown down upon the floor. They gleamed by the nether candle, though the squires were some ways back from there, grouped in much the same place they’d been when Thaddeus had closed Rhia’s eyes with his hand, except that now instead of standing with drawn swords and murder in their eyes, they kneeled. They also looked as if they’d seen a ghost—a real ghost, that is.

  Even Leonard had lost his brash expression and wore a strained and baffled look upon his face. A sweat had broken across his brow—the candleflame caught the beads of it.

  Thaddeus nudged her with his elbow. “Look at Jonah,” he breathed, nodding toward the hermit’s crypt.

  She took her eyes from Leonard to check where Jonah’d stood last she’d seen him. Then he’d been bowed in defeat. He’d looked humiliated and smallish after Leonard’s saucy dispatch of his wormed hat. She’d assumed he waited humbly for death, and that of the five of them, counting brave Beornia and silly Maddy, he’d be the only one who’d welcome it with wide arms, as death had been his wish all along.

  But now he was so utterly changed it took her breath away. In truth, he’d only advanced a step or two from the stony threshold and had pulled off the rough hood that somewhat had contained his bright and shocking hair. He’d picked up the nearby candle, too, which showed his strong bones, all the angles of his face.

  But mostly, he’d taken on some new spirit, absorbed it with his breath.

  “I knew he’d dare it, once we’d told him of the whipped child,” Thaddeus whispered from the side of his mouth.

  Dare what? And how’d the poor child figure in?

  Roderick then cleared his throat and spoke, though his voice trembled. “Are you . . . ? Uh, that is, your majesty, forgive me, but are you ... ?”

  Jonah placed the candle upon the floor and folded his arms as though he’d converse in a leisurely mode. “Speak freely, cousin, for we’re all friends here, and you and I are distant family, are we not? Do you wonder if I live?” He opened out his arms and turned once round. “Well, what do you say? Am I rough flesh or refined spirit? And which do you fear the most in me, cousin? Man, or ghost?”

  Jonah then took a teasing quickstep toward the three, clenching his hands to claws and uttering a small “Boo!” The squires shuffled backward upon their knees.

  Beornia Gatt laughed. Jonah looked at her and grinned, then instantly got solemn again. He moved in eight long strides to stand before the kneeling squires, fastening his bright and piercing eyes upon each of them in turn.

  “I have but two questions, then I’ll leave you forever and you may consider me a phantom,” he said quietly and grimly. “First, which of you killed my squire and boon companion Aleron of Chartres upon the water’s edge? The second question goes with the first. Why . . . why was it done?”

  This last sentence came from him in a rush of grief and longing. He dropped his head and Rhia knew he struggled with the overwhelming anger that was ever his nemesis. Presently, he turned and strode to the swords, snatching one up.

  Frederick put a foot upon the floor and made as if to rise. “Sire, I know not who you can mean, as I have never been privileged to meet your squire, but I can explain every—”

  “On your knees!” Jonah bellowed, rushing toward him with the shining sword directed at his throat. “How dare you stand in my presence without my consent! You’re certain to have some weapon concealed upon you, and indeed may be up to any sort of vile treachery! I’ll tell you this—I trust none of you to behave honorably, not after what I’ve heard, and . . . and seen, this night!”

  Rhia took Thaddeus’s arm, trembling at Jonah’s shifty mood. He would ever be their friend, and he would ever scare her, both. If the squires noted his unbalance, would they rush for the remaining sword and finish what they’d planned? How would this play?

  Jonah caught himself, breathed deep several times to bank the flames inside him, then lowered the sword, though he kept it at the ready. “Roderick, as you have the high status within this group, I’d have my questions answered first by you,” he said sternly.

  Roderick jerked, startled and dismayed. He patted his streaming forehead with the lace sleeve of his shirt, then bowed. “Sire, you must believe that I have never killed the slightest flea! This thing was done completely without my participation, I swear it upon my dear mother’s soul! We rode merely for pleasure that night, to take the air on a spring eve. And, well, your friend was apparently thrown from his steed. With all respect, it’s likely he was not paying attention, and—”

  “And he fell upon seven sharp knives?” Jonah boomed.

  Roderick pressed his sleeve to his mouth, and Jonah turned to Frederique.

  “Let’s hear your version,” Jonah commanded. “And if you value your life, you will not again insult me with the phrase ‘I can explain.’ I seek confession only, as there can be no explanation under heaven for such a vile thing.”

  Frederique squinted and chewed his lip, then bowed. “Uh, we were riding really fast, see? And Leonard slammed into the fellow in the dark, like he ofttimes does collide with those who will not yield. Pow! The fellow died, so Leo made us stab him.”

  Rhia swallowed down bile at this flat answer, but Jonah sadly nodded.

  “This has the ring of truth,” he murmured, taking a small step over so that he now stood glowering down at the central squire.

  Leonard raised his own hot and angry eyes to meet Jonah’s. The sweated curls of his yellow hair fell back so that Rhia could see his jaw-bones were set hard as well, and he ground his teeth. When Jonah did not speak, Leonard put a foot upon the floor to stand, and Jonah did not stop him. The two presently stood eye-to-eye, facing each other in silence so fraught, Rhia thought the air between them must ignite and burn them all.

  After some moments, Jonah said, quietly and coldly, “Bow
your head.”

  Leonard smiled a small, snide smile, then bowed his head, though there was no respect in this token stance. His every look and movement held outrage and scorn—she could even hear it in the hard breaths he breathed.

  Jonah shifted the sword to his nether hand, then slowly reached for the end of Aleron’s blue scarf and began unwinding it inch by inch from Leonard’s bowed neck.

  “After you’d killed him, why take his scarf?” Jonah asked, his voice little more than a ragged whisper. “Your father is rich enough to buy you your own colors. So why?”

  Leonard snickered. “Why not?” he murmured coldly. And then, he dared to raise his head so he looked eye-to-eye with Jonah again. “I have now had time to untangle this thing in my mind, though at first you gave me a shock, I’ll admit it. I have seen Prince William Aethling at court, and you bear a striking resemblance. But the prince is dead. And so you are either his ghost or an impersonator. I think impersonator, given the trickery we’ve already witnessed this night. But if you are indeed his spirit, I’d say to you that you are no better than I, sir. Yes, I rode too fast the night of your squire’s death. Yet all in the realm know of your enormous folly. If I was selfish, how much more were you, to lose so many at the price of showing off with a drunken party and a fast race upon the waters? You killed a boatload of your friends with your recklessness, have you forgot?”

  Rhia heard herself gasp, and felt Thaddeus’s arm go stiff. Indeed, Roderick made a whimper and Frederique put his long and moony-eyed face into his hands. All despaired of what was to come, and braced themselves for Jonah’s final, violent response.

  Jonah swayed where he stood and his breath came in a fast pant. A sheen of sweat had broken out upon him, and his eyes bored even harder into Leonard’s own until Leonard dropped his gaze, overcome with the intensity.