A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwall

'Tell her who betrayed him, Thammuz.'

  'I did!'

  She sobbed. His hand wrenched her arm higher.

  The whispers seemed to mock her, to laugh at her, to echo about the cold marble of the big chamber.

  'Who deceived her, Thammuz?'

  'I did!' He shouted it, startling her, shouting it in a yell of victory, and the yell seemed to provoke a great crash that was like the world's ending, a ringing, clanging, grating, hammering clash that echoed in the marble walls like all the thunder of a season's storms poured into one room and one moment.

  The candlelight went out with a crash, plunging the room into blackness, leaving only the tiny spots of light where the holes were drilled in the false marble.

  She screamed.

  The scream echoed and she fed it with another, filling the room with her fear, rivalling the noise of the great iron shutter that had fallen over the candles.

  Instinctively, though they could see nothing from within their small chamber, the three robed men looked up. Marchenoir frowned. 'The chain must have broken.'

  'Open the doors.' Lucifer's voice was crisp.

  The scream still echoed as Marchenoir and Larke pulled back the doors, spilling a softer candlelight onto the sunken marble floor where the girl, who looked so pitifully pale and frail, stood in her captor's grip.

  Campion gasped. She looked at the Fallen Ones; three robed men, two in black and gold, and one resplendent in silver. She could not see their faces that were hidden by the deep cowls. This was trumpery, she knew it, yet they were oddly impressive as, on silent feet, they came to the top of the marble steps.

  The silver cowl tipped as Lucifer stared up at the shutter. She saw the glitter of his eyes, then he raised his right arm and gestured one of his companions forward.

  The man seemed hugely bulky beneath his gaudy robe. He pulled back his cowl and Campion saw the face that gave Europe its bad dreams, the enemy of kings and courtiers, the heavy, savage, triumphant face of Bertrand Marchenoir. He walked down the white marble steps and his eyes, that had looked on so much death, were bright with the anticipation of this moment.

  He stopped four paces from her. 'I am Moloch!'

  She said nothing.

  'I am your death.' He stared and felt his anger stir. The girl, even dishevelled and frightened, was more beautiful than he had dared hope. 'Daughter of Auxigny! You thought me an animal. You made me bow to you. You thought me dirt.' His face twisted in a spasm of hatred as he spat at her. The spittle flew past her head.

  'I never knew you!'

  'Knew me! I was the peasant! But you will know me, by Christ's blood you will know me!' His voice was rising in a passion of hate to fill the echoing chamber with his threat. 'Let us see you, girl! Let us see what you are!' He raised his arms and stepped towards her and he reached with his huge, strong hands for the neck of her clothes to rip them in rage from her body that he knew would be like white silk and on which he would spill his awful revenge until he panted and was slaked. 'Now,' whispered Christopher Skavadale.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  'Scream!' he had said as soon as he appeared in the small room. 'For Christ's sake, scream!'

  She stared at him in horror.

  He seemed to ignore her. Instead he went to the table, stooped, and felt beneath it. 'Scream!'

  'Scream?'

  'Scream!'

  She screamed.

  'Louder, for Christ's sake!'

  She screamed as though she wanted to wake the dead.

  He groped under the table and brought from the hooks that were screwed there his two pistols. He had hung them by their trigger guards when he had undressed, praying that Toby had remembered to put the hooks in their place. 'Turn around.'

  She frowned.

  He hissed at her. 'Hurry, woman! Turn! Scream!'

  She turned and she felt his hands tugging her blouse from her skirts and then the cold barrels of the pistols were next to her skin, were being rammed inside her waistband, and he was pulling the blouse down to hide them. Her throat hurt from the screaming. 'Where's Toby?'

  'If he killed Dagon, he's downstairs. Scream!'

  She screamed. He turned her round, looked at her with a look of pure joy on his face, that same look that she had seen in the autumn woods behind Lazen when he had killed for her, and he smiled. 'Listen!'

  —«»—«»—«»—

  He had told her exactly what they would do. As the light went out in the great crash he had tugged the pistols from her belt. He pushed one pistol into her right hand and she felt his fingers warm on her skin as he pulled back the flint.

  His voice whispered in her ear as the doors were pulled back. 'Courage. Keep your eyes open as I taught you.'

  He had taught her by taking her to the guillotine. There were times when horror had to be faced.

  The three men faced her.

  Skavadale's voice was softer than wind on fur. 'I love you.'

  She almost smiled. This was why she loved him, not because he was a difficult man to be tamed, but because he thought her worthy to walk the lonely paths with him. She saw it at that moment, as clear as the sun reflected from Lazen's lake, that love had bound them, that it was not she who gave a gift by stooping from her rank to marry him, but that he, from his competence, loved her. She was filled with love for him, she sensed the happiness that waited for them, because she too thought him worthy. All that she wanted, all that she dreamed of in her life, this man would help make possible. He trusted her. Love, as nothing else can, filled her and made the difficult possible.

  Then the silver-gloved hand gestured the big man forward, and she saw the face revealed, knew it was Marchenoir, and the brutish, smiling, gloating man came towards her and she listened to his ravings and her fingers gripped the pistol which felt slippery in her palm. He stepped forward, his hands rising to tear the clothes from her.

  'Now,' whispered Christopher Skavadale.

  Skavadale moved away from her, moving to the left, and she brought the pistol round in her right hand and she saw the eyes of the big man glance down and she hurried, stepping back, pushing the pistol forward and his hand seemed to strike down as his mouth opened in a snarl.

  She pulled the trigger.

  It was harder than she could have believed.

  She had fired many guns, but the pistol trigger seemed to resist like a stuck key, his hand was coming down to knock the gun away and she jerked her finger, trying to remember what Christopher Skavadale had told her, and then it seemed as if a mule had kicked her.

  The noise exploded in the room.

  The gun jerked back, her wrist flaming with pain. She was half dazzled by the fire, stunned by the noise and the kick of the gun, and she kept her eyes open as he had told her, stepped back, and she saw the Frenchman stumble. He pawed at her with his right hand, bellowed like a clumsily gelded calf and fell onto his left knee. His hands clasped his hip as blood welled between his fingers.

  She stepped further back. Her ears rang with the echo of the shot, Christopher Skavadale was walking forward, his pistol pointing at Belial and Lucifer who stared at the sudden blood and hazing smoke.

  Marchenoir was on his knees, shouting in pain, his blood staining the floor. Skavadale had told her to bring the pistol up beneath his chin and blow his head off, but he had been too quick for her, the trigger too stiff. He was helpless, though, his hip shattered. He looked up at her, anger and astonishment mingled on his face, then Lucifer moved.

  He took one step, just one, and he had placed himself behind Valentine Larke.

  There was one bullet in Skavadale's pistol, a bullet that, if he fired, must hit Larke. Lucifer smiled. 'Who are you, Gitan?'

  'Your enemy.'

  'Then you are a fool. You will die a fool's death.'

  There was a sound in the passage behind the shrine, a scraping sound like a beast dragging itself on stone. Campion saw a shadow there, a shadow within a shadow that seemed monstrous in the darkness, and in the shadow's hand wa
s a great, brass-mouthed gun and Lucifer, turning to the shadow, laughed. 'Had you forgotten Dagon, fool?'

  Skavadale fired.

  The bullet entered the shadowed cowl, struck it back, spraying blood high in the air to spatter the marble wall of the chamber, and Valentine Larke, his forehead holed by the ball, fell back into the silver robes of Lucifer.

  'Dagon!' The silver-robed man screamed at the deaf mute and raised his arm to point at Skavadale and Campion. 'Dagon!'

  But Dagon was dead, his throat sliced so that his great head hung bloody in the crypt, and the man who held the gun turned it on Lucifer and Campion laughed aloud.

  He had red curls, unruly and uncut, and he grinned at her with the same old mischief and delight. 'Hello, sister.'

  Le Revenant had come back from the dead, and Campion, the sudden blood and horror wiped out by his presence, ran to him, eyes bright, laughing, and put her arms about his neck. 'Toby! Toby!'

  Skavadale took the big, brass-mouthed gun from Toby's hand. Campion hugged her brother. 'Toby!'

  He had tears in his eyes, tears of joy, and he laughed because he seemed unable to say anything. With rough affection he stroked her head with hands scraped coarse by tearing down the stubborn stones of the blocked passage.

  Behind them, like a broken animal trailing a red slime, Marchenoir pulled himself over the floor. He looked up at Toby Lazender and knew that this was his enemy come back from the grave. Marchenoir, forgetting that he had preached a dead God, crossed himself.

  Christopher Skavadale, the gun held easy in one hand, walked to Lucifer.

  The silver-clad arms tried to fend him off, but he was helpless against the Gypsy's strength. Skavadale pushed the cowl back and Campion, at last, saw her enemy.

  This was the man who, with a subtle thread, had drawn her over the sea.

  Toby let go of Campion. He turned on Lucifer who, without his hood, looked ludicrous, like an awesome judge who, stripped of his wig, is seen to be a frightened, weak man. Toby frowned. 'Why?'

  Lucifer said nothing. He looked from Toby to Campion, back to Toby. He had thought Toby dead, and now, seeing him alive, he knew that he had been outplayed by a cleverer hand. He shook his head, as if the gesture of denial would make Toby go away. 'No! No!' There was horror on Lucifer's face, the face of a man outwitted who prided himself on his wits. 'No!'

  Toby pushed the silver-robed man, making him stumble against Larke's body. 'Why?' His voice was louder. 'Why?'

  The man in silver went back from the anger, back into the main chamber, down the marble steps to his bleeding half-brother, the son of the town whore, the half-brother with whom, in Auxigny's shadow, he had found a childhood companion in resentment and with whom he had learned mischief and learned mischief's pleasure that became evil. He looked at Toby. 'You would not understand!'

  Beneath his silver glove Campion could see the lump made by the ring that had belonged to the Bishop of Bellechasse.

  'Why?' Toby shouted again.

  Uncle Achilles ignored him. He pointed at Campion. 'You! I warned you! I told you not to come, but you had to come!' He laughed suddenly, the sound like a flare of madness in a marble chamber built for madness. 'I knew you would disobey. I told you, but you wouldn't listen! Society? You wouldn't enter it. You're a woman, but you work like a housekeeper! You're not worthy! I warned you but you preferred him!' He pointed at the Gypsy, and his head shook in a spasm of disgust. 'I tried to save you! I tried! But you wanted your own way!' He screamed this last at her.

  Toby, Campion, and the Gypsy stood silent, transfixed by the sudden frenzy. Achilles, with a curious gesture of pride, twitched his silver robe into place and looked at Toby. 'Do you know what your precious sister is doing? She's rogering a gypsy! Did you know that, Earl of Lazen? That your sister is being tupped by the servants' hall? By a peasant! She forfeited her nobility with her virginity!' He pointed at Skavadale. 'To that!'

  Toby said nothing. He stared at the raving man who had always seemed so gentle and cynical, but who now spat his words in a shrieking, shrill voice. 'I told her not to come, but she would have her own way, wouldn't you?' He looked at Campion. 'I always knew how to manipulate you. I would tell you one thing to make you do the other. You could have been a queen, but no! You had to bed yourself with that!'

  'Uncle!' Campion's cry was not in protest. It was a cry of pain and affection as if she saw a sick man, but he shook his head at her and raised a silver-gloved hand against her tentative step forward.

  'Don't call me uncle! You're not noble! You don't have nobility in England! It's bastard blood, tainted! You don't know what civilization is.' The hand pointed at Toby. 'Earl of Lazen! Look at you! In Auxigny you wouldn't be fit to scrub stone!' He suddenly shouted as if in great pain. 'I wanted Lazen! I would have made it beautiful! I would have made it a refuge in this world, the one place where music and poetry and refinement could live! I would have given England an aristocracy! I would have dazzled your peasant country, your crude King, your beer-sodden people, your sottish women, your sluts, your whores, your fox hunting fools!' The last was spat out. He looked with disgust at Campion. 'Look at her! The English got to her, didn't they? In love with a gypsy! She's not fit to open her legs to an ape. I would have made Lazen great!'

  Marchenoir looked up at the man who was his half-brother, who had been his companion in boyhood bitterness, who had been his Bishop. 'It was all for you? Just for you?'

  'Don't be a fool, Bertrand.' Achilles' voice was suddenly and curiously affectionate. 'I gave you what you wanted, I gave you Auxigny!' He laughed suddenly, his eyes bright. 'Auxigny should have been mine. I was fit for it! I could have made Auxigny into the brightest jewel of the finest aristocracy in the world, but no! I was the youngest son! I was the monkey who should have been drowned at birth! I was fobbed off on the church!' He was shouting again. He pointed at Toby. 'You don't deserve Lazen! She doesn't! She's a whore! Making the two-backed beast with a gypsy! Where's the grace? The exquisite detail? Tell me?' He asked the questions with a terrible intensity.

  Toby looked horrified. 'You're mad!'

  'Mad? I fooled all of you!' He stopped, his eyes going from one to the other, his head suddenly jerking in denial because he had been fooled too. 'Mad? Look at her! She's mad! In love with a peasant! Love?' Achilles laughed. 'Messy love? Sweat on the sheets? Spilling, sticky, messy, slippery, filthy, sweaty love?' The anger came again. 'Your place was to be beautiful! To be a woman, a mystery, a gesture with a jewelled hand, a smile! Not heaving on a peasant's body, sliding in his slime!'

  Toby went down the steps. He shook his head. 'You could have lived at Lazen, uncle.'

  'Lived! And listened to your endless talk of horses! Horses! What does the English aristocracy think it is? Do you think of nothing but horses and farming?' He backed away from Toby. 'There's no manners in England, no elegance, no fineness. I could have given it to you! I could have brought it to you like a gift, you could have shone in the world like a great crown, the inheritor of all that those bastards took away from us here. And you spoilt it!' He cried it in mad agony in this marble hall built for madness.

  Campion stared at him in horror. 'You ordered me raped!'

  'Jesus Christ!' He looked at her with pure scorn. 'You were throwing Lazen away! Your footmen slouch! It had to be saved!' His voice was rising again. 'There has to be one place where the best of our world can live and grow and dazzle. Don't you understand? If you had gone into society, girl, if you had tried to be worthy of it, I would have let you live! How many chances did I give you? How many? Go to London, I said, but no!' He wailed the last word, his head shaking, and then he stared at the horror in her eyes and gave a casual laugh of pure insanity. 'Rape? Yes. Yes. You should have been raped. Your brother should be dead. But I would have looked after you!' He nodded eagerly at Campion. 'It was a small price for the glory of Lazen, don't you see that? But with a gypsy? A peasant?'

  Bertrand Marchenoir, his robe stiff with blood, stared up at Lucifer. 'My mothe
r was a peasant!'

  'Don't be a fool, Bertrand!' Achilles laughed. 'It's not the same for men! Men can spawn what they like, but women are different!'

  Marchenoir shook his head. 'You betrayed us!'

  'Betrayed you! Betrayed? I gave you France, Bertrand. All I wanted was Lazen!'

  Toby stepped closer. 'You're mad, uncle, you're like your father.'

  Achilles stared at Toby with disdain, looking from Toby's unruly hair down to his shabby boots. 'I am a duke.' He said it with great dignity, then raised his hand to point at Campion. 'And she is a whore.'

  'You're just a mad bastard.' They were the first words Christopher Skavadale had spoken in minutes, and the sound of his strong, careless voice seemed to jar Uncle Achilles. He looked at the huge gun in the Gypsy's hand and suddenly, with a swirl of his silver robes, he turned and ran to the doors of the shrine. 'Colonel! Colonel!' His voice echoed from the lobby where he struggled with the huge metal ring-latch. 'Colonel!'

  Skavadale moved with his cat-like speed. He crossed the sunken floor, past the blood trail, and he stopped at the inner doors and raised the gun. 'Lucifer!'

  Lucifer turned his head. He stared into the oddly light eyes of the man he had thought he was using for his ambition. He shook his head and the Gypsy fired.

  The scraps of iron lifted Achilles up and slammed him against the huge bronze doors that his mad father had put there.

  The silver robe was twitched flat on his body. It was spotted with scarlet.

  His head, silver hair flecked with his blood, was thrown back.

  He sighed, he slid, and his twitching, gloved hands smeared trails through the blood on the bronze doors.

  He fell, he rolled on his back, and his belly, where the iron scraps had torn free, looked as if dogs had torn at him. He had been opened from the crotch to his neck, he was ragged tatters of silk and blood and bone and flesh. He was the last Duc d'Auxigny, who had thought himself Lucifer, and he was dead.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  Colonel Tours, standing beyond the drawbridge, heard the shot and heard the rattle of metal on the bronze doors. One of his Captains frowned. 'Should we go and look?'