Behind him, the village burned, transforming the tor into a giant’s bonfire. By morning, all that would remain would be the pile of stones that marked the site of an ancient shrine.
Who would care for them now?
Fifteen
Gonda paced the dungeon floor in anxiety and frustration. She had woken up with a sore head, her thoughts dull from whatever drug had robbed her of consciousness. The pacing helped to clear her thoughts. She would wear a path through the filthy flagstones if she could, if it would mean escape and reunion with Tiggy. And her father and the grumpy warrior too, of course. Were they looking for her? Of course they were. Was Tiggy upset? He was bound to be - although the child rarely betrayed any trace of emotion of any kind.
It couldn’t be true, what they were saying about him. He couldn’t be a malgrim. Not Tiggy. He was just a helpless little boy.
A key turned in the lock and the heavy wooden door scraped the floor as it was pushed open. A guard filled the opening.
“At last!” Gonda cried. “You’ve realised your mistake. It was that other girl that wants locking up. She attacked me!”
The guard said nothing. He stepped back and gestured for her to come out.
“I should think so too!” Gonda snapped. She emerged into a corridor of only marginally less dampness and mustiness than the dungeon and followed the guard up slimy stone stairs. She stopped when she saw who was waiting for her at the top. The girl from the marketplace.
“There she is!” Gonda pointed for the guard’s benefit. “Arrest her!”
The guard did not move. He blocked Gonda’s passage back the way she had come. The girl seized her by the wrist.
“Get off me!” Gonda wriggled. The guard unsheathed his dagger. Gonda decided perhaps it were better to comply with the girl’s wishes. She allowed herself to be led up and away from the dungeons and along corridors of increasing finery and cleanliness.
“The palace?” Gonda blinked at the imposing display of opulence and grandeur. The girl pulling her along did not say a word - she couldn’t, Gonda remembered.
Oh, what predicament am I in now? Is this what frightened the fortune teller so?
The girl shoved Gonda into an apartment, where a copper bath tub lay steaming, scenting the air with aromatic oils. Am I to be drowned? Gonda puzzled. The girl bowed her head. She nodded to a day bed on which a simple, white robe was laid. She nodded to the tub and plumped up a pile of towels on a nearby chair, before backing from the room and locking the door.
So, Gonda turned around on the spot, I must say I like this prison better than the last one.
The fragrances and the hot water proved irresistible. Gonda shucked off her clothes - how grimy and dusty they were! - and lowered herself into the tub. Her limbs were immediately grateful. She hadn’t realised how sore her feet were, how tired her muscles. She lay back and soaked, and dozed. Perhaps there was something in the oils, something that soothed her thoughts. She was able to nap, her mind untroubled by cares and woes, until the water began to cool and woke her up again.
She rose and stepped out onto the plush rug that was surely worth more than her entire home village, and reached for a towel. She dried herself off and wrapped her hair in a loose turban. Perched on the day bed, she wondered what was next.
A soft tapping on the door heralded the turning of the key. The mute girl let herself in, bringing with her an ornate, lacquered box. She smiled at Gonda and there was something of an apology in that smile. She opened the box and Gonda saw it was crammed with delicate instruments and tiny bottles. Gonda stiffened - Am I to be tortured now? Now that I am softened and mellow from the bathing?
The mute picked up on Gonda’s apprehension and performed a mime that involved flicking a finger over the fingernails of her other hand. Presently, Gonda caught on.
“You want to clean my fingernails?”
The mute nodded enthusiastically.
“Will it hurt?”
The mute shook her head. Gonda held out her hand. “Go on then. I’ve never had anyone touch my nails before.”
While the mute worked away, filing and buffing, Gonda relaxed. When the mute indicated she would like to perform the same offices to her toenails, Gonda laughed. She sat back, lifting her legs onto the bed. “I could get used to this,” she said.
The mute looked up and Gonda saw a flash of sorrow in that glance.
“What is going on?” the goose girl asked. “Why is this happening to me?”
But of course, the mute could not tell her. She removed the towel from Gonda’s head and focussed her attention on combing and plaiting the hair. Gonda watched all this in a mirror. She couldn’t remember ever being so clean and so - pretty. Am I pretty, she wondered? No one had ever told her so. Not even her father.
“I want to see my father. Will you let me go?”
The mute looked helpless and Gonda understood it was not her decision.
“Who do you work for? Is it the Duke?” New ideas presented themselves: she was a prisoner of the Duke. He was having her tarted up - for what? She was to be his concubine!
The mute was shaking her head emphatically.
“Not the Duke then,” Gonda was relieved. “Then who?”
But the mute didn’t respond. She packed away her manicure set and bustled from the room.
Gonda stood and inspected the furnishings. Everything spoke of wealth unimaginable. Gold trimmed every object but among the trinkets and gewgaws there was nothing that could be useful to her in an attempt to escape. Not unless she aimed to smother everyone in her path with the soft, delicately embroidered cushions that occupied every chair.
Her stomach gurgled. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten. As if on cue, the door opened and the mute reappeared. She beckoned to Gonda, nodding at a pair of flat slippers at the foot of the bed. Gonda put them on and padded out. The mute signalled that Gonda must improve her posture and walk with her head held high. Gonda followed the mute’s instructions and strode along, under the noses of portraits of the Duke’s ancestors, scorning their disdainful looks and imagining what it must be like to own the place.
They crossed a huge vestibule where the floor was as reflective as a lake of still water. The scale of the place was staggering to the humble goose girl. She craned her neck to take it all in and the smooth soles of her slippers almost landed her on her backside.
The mute stopped at a pair of tall double doors. She indicated that Gonda must wait and made final adjustments to the goose girl’s hair and posture. Steeling herself, the mute turned a golden handle and opened the door. Gonda followed her through and was confronted by a table as long as a lane, in a great hall with vaulted ceilings from which hung massive chandeliers like inverted mountains of glass.
The mute led Gonda to a chair at one end of the table, where the heat of a magnificent fireplace would warm her back. She gave the goose girl one last appraisal and, satisfied, backed out through a service door that was disguised as part of the wall.
Alone in the cavernous banqueting room, Gonda felt very small. She occupied the time by counting the other chairs around the table, giving up when she passed two hundred. Were they all to be filled, these chairs, and by whom? Girls like her? Or members of the Duke’s court who would look down on her, or force her to be their entertainment - whatever that might entail?
Every place was set with an intimidating array of cutlery, all tooled from gold. Ornate goblets and napkins rolled in rings awaited use. Candlesticks stood unlit and floral arrangements all of them gold and dripping with precious stones - Gonda was astonished at the display of wealth and therefore power before her.
Just one - just one of those candlesticks would see her father through his retirement. She was considering secreting one about her person when a door opened and a woman of staggering beauty glided in. Her hair was b
lack, shining and luxurious, offset by a simple tiara. Her dress was crimson, cinched by a belt with rubies at the buckle, but it was her eyes, large and gleaming like coals that commanded the attention.
“Good evening,” the woman smiled, parting sumptuous scarlet lips to reveal the whitest teeth Gonda had ever seen. “Welcome to my table. My name is Carith Drombo.”
***
Dinner was served. Silent, bewigged footmen brought in shining silver cloches and revealed sumptuous dishes like conjurors performing tricks. Gonda marvelled at the delicate artistry of the presentations: the intricately carved vegetables, the salad leaves fanning out in an array of colours, and the glistening skin of the bird that was the centrepiece. It all looked and smelled delicious but her hostess could see something was amiss.
“You do not like goose?”
Despite herself, despite feeling overawed by her surroundings, Gonda laughed. She explained that she had been surrounded by geese her entire life.
Carith’s mouth twitched in a wry smile. “Then you must have something else.” She shook a tiny glass bell; Gonda didn’t think its tinkling would be loud enough for anyone else to hear but within seconds a footman appeared. He took away the roast goose with a curt nod and a click of his heels.
“So you’re a goose girl,” Carith Drombo prompted, filling Gonda’s goblet with claret.
“Yes,” said Gonda. Even the smell of the wine was heady. “Or at least I was. Until I left home.”
“You look troubled.”
“Oh, I am! I’m sorry, My Lady, but I really must go. I am expected.” She made to stand but the hostess fixed her with an imperious stare.
“Sit. Please. Dine with me. It is so rare I get to meet interesting people.”
Gonda could not believe this to be the case. Living in the palace? There must be interesting and exotic visitors all the time. “Oh, I’m not very interesting, I’m afraid.”
But she sat down again.
“On the contrary,” Carith raised her goblet and encouraged the goose girl to do the same. Gonda took a sip of the wine. It was bitter and yet fruity and not altogether unpleasant. She took another. “Now tell me: who is expecting you? You have a paramour somewhere in the town?”
“A what?” Gonda was scandalised and amused by the idea. “No! I’ve never had a - I mean my father. He was expecting me back - oh - ages ago.”
“A toast to your father!”
“Hear, hear!”
They drank - or rather Gonda did. Carith Drombo barely put the rim to her lips.
“And is he a goose girl too - I mean,” Carith laughed, “What’s the term? A goose boy? A goose man?”
“Gooseherd,” said Gonda. “Yes, he’s been one for generations. I mean his father and his grandfather.”
“I see.” Carith topped up her guest’s goblet. “He sounds fascinating. I should like to meet him.”
“Who?”
“Your father!”
“Him? Fascinating?”
“Is he not?”
“Well...” Gonda drank and considered her answer. “He’s... just my dad. He’s a good dad - man - He came looking for me. All this way when everybody else was against me.”
“Oh, really? And why would anyone possibly be against you?”
“Oh, it’s a big mish - a mish - a misundershtanding.”
“You must tell me all about it.”
The door opened and the footman appeared with a new platter. He lifted the lid to reveal an iridescent fish with butter melting on its silver scales.
“Better?” asked the hostess.
“Better!” said the guest.
They ate - or rather Gonda did for Carith Drombo did little more than push her serving around the plate. She ordered a second bottle of wine to be opened, and later a third, and made sure to keep the goose girl glugging from her goblet.
After a dessert of exquisite spiced fruit tarts with custard, Gonda appeared (and felt) more relaxed. Her cheeks were ruddy and she slouched back in her chair, gesticulating with her goblet as she spoke. Out it all came: the rescue of Tiggy, the death of her pursuers, meeting the warrior, being followed by her father...
Carith Drombo listened attentively, asking for further details and clarification intermittently. “This warrior. Describe him.”
Gonda did.
“The child. Whose is he?”
Gonda frowned. She did not know. She had barely given the matter any thought until that moment and her mind was hardly in a fit state for clear thinking.
“I - know not. But they could not have cared much for him, to leave him in a burning house like that. Sterrible.”
“Yes. The things people do.”
“He’s all right now though. My dad’s looking after him, even though he thinks he’s a whatsit. A you-know.”
“I don’t know. What is he?”
“He’s just a little boy!” Gonda cried. Carith was somewhat taken aback by the ferocity of the girl’s response.
“I mean, what does your father think he is?”
“Who?”
“The little boy. Wiggy?”
“Tiggy. He thinks he’s a - a - malgrim.”
“Oh.” Carith’s eyebrows rose just a little.
“Yes! It’s ridiculous.”
“Yes.”
Carith became caught up in her own thoughts while the girl prattled on about the boy’s innocence. It was apparent the goose girl was ideal for the renewal: the right age and untouched by the hand - or anything else - of man. And now this additional bonus! The girl has access to a malgrim! I must establish the best way to capitalise on this stroke of good fortune.
But first I must do my homework.
Carith Drombo was not entirely sure what a malgrim was. It was a word dimly remembered from bedtime stories and midnight frights. She had never suspected that they might be real.
But, of course, the girl could be right. All this talk of malgrims could be nothing more than the ravings of a superstitious bumpkin.
She would have to find out.
But it was no good asking the goose girl where her father and this precious Figgy or whatever might be found, for Gonda had fallen asleep, face down in her pudding bowl.
***
She had the servants put the goose girl to bed and then stole into the palace library. Most of the books were merely for show and, she suspected, many of them were not books at all but decorated boards to create the illusion of books. Not that Carith Drombo was against illusion. Quite the contrary!
She hurried to a far corner and depressed such a false book. It operated as a lever, causing a section of artificial bookcase to swivel around a central axis, revealing a space behind it with steps leading down to a dank and musty cellar. Carith availed herself of a candelabrum and tripped down the stairs, pausing only to close the secret door behind her.
The stairs took her down to a vaulted cavern of curving ceilings and shadowy alcoves. Each of these nooks was lined with shelves and each of these shelves was crammed with books - real books, things of weight and power, their covers and spines faded and mottled by age, their pages foxed with age and dog-eared from centuries of use.
She paused to browse, letting the candlelight play on the mildewed tomes - she knew she ought to find a more amenable place for their storage but it was too great a risk to remove them from the cellar. Most of the volumes had been banned by the Duke’s ancestors. Possession of them was punishable by death.
The book she sought was fairly innocent by comparison, although she was not sure its binding was actually leather. She told herself it was pigskin and tried not to think about legends of mystic authors who, having completed their great works, had their books bound in their own skin. To increase the power of the incantations, she supposed - and I thought I
was trying not to think about it!
It is brown ink these words are written in, she tried to persuade herself, not blood. Not blood at all.
The book was a gazetteer entitled A Categoricale Hystorye of Ye Beastes and Beings of Manye Realmes. What the unknown writer lacked in skill at spelling he made up for with knowledge of the arcane and the supernatural.
Carith ran her finger along the lines of densely written text, cursing herself for not bringing more light. The letters were almost uniform in size and shape, their language archaic - she had to reread several phrases more than once in order to decipher their meaning but the more she read, the more interested she became.
“Ye Mallegrymme,” the heading said in illuminated characters decorated with grinning skulls. “Ye Mallegrymme is a most pitiable creature,” Carith murmured as she read, “For they shall never know Love nor must never be shown it for they are treacherous beasts and bring naught but destruction and ruin upon the land. A malgrim is a changeling child and appears without warning or provenance and has no parents of any kind. And it will attach itself to its victim like a cuckoo in the nest. And it must not be suffered to live and to reach full growth for if it reacheth maturity it shall fain destroy all and everyone in its path, for a malgrim owes no allegiance nor loyalty to those who give it succour and it will burst forth with thunder and those nearby shall be cast down and the buildings made level as though an almighty wind had torn them asunder.
“If a child is suspected to be a malgrim it must be killed before it grows. Place the child in a house and shut it in and lay fire to the house until it be naught but ashes. Attend not the cries of the child for it is no child but a foul creature from the very pits of Hell.”
Carith raised her head and stared at the candle.
“Golly,” she said.
Navarin, Thunder and Shade Page 18
