‘Here, put this on,’ Usel said, handing Errol a robe similar to his own, only less stained. For the first time since being accosted in the corridor somewhere high above, Errol had the chance to see the man’s face properly and revised the age upwards by twenty years. Usel’s skin was pale and smooth, his mouth twisted into a permanent, quizzical grin that made him look like a mischievous schoolboy. His hair was flecked with tiny flashes of white, his eyes were pale grey and creased around the edges. They held Errol in a penetrating stare for long moments before releasing him.
‘Your father was a Llanwennog,’ he said. ‘From the north-east of the country if I’m not mistaken.’
‘I never knew my father,’ Errol said.
‘Of course not,’ Usel said. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. No doubt you were chosen to be a spy. It’s not a job I’d like. Who was at your choosing, Lentin? Old Father Crassock?’
‘Inquisitor Melyn came to my village, with Princess Beulah,’ Errol said. Usel raised an eyebrow.
‘Old Melyn actually got out there amongst the masses?’ He said. ‘And you’ve met the queen. Well, well. You’re an important fellow, Errol Ramsbottom. I can remember when Beulah was younger even than you. She used to wander the corridors like she owned this place. I guess now she does.’
‘What was Princess… Queen Beulah doing here as a child?’ Errol asked, pulling his robe over his head.
‘She was sent here by her father, just after her mother died. Melyn was her tutor.’
‘But I thought the secrets of the order were forbidden to women,’ Errol said, recalling the words of Father Castlemilk in his Introduction to the Order of the High Ffrydd.
‘Here’s a lesson for you then, Errol,’ Usel said. ‘It’s true that the order doesn’t let women into its ranks. But Queen Beulah, well. She’s royalty; one of only two descendents of the House of Balwen left. Gender’s not an issue when you’re royal. She can do whatever she pleases. Often does, from what I’ve heard.’
‘Two?’ Errol asked. ‘Who’s the other?’
‘Princess Iolwen, Beulah’s little sister,’ Usel said. ‘She was sent to Llanwennog as a hostage to continued peace. As far as I know she’s still alive. She’d be nineteen now, if memory serves. King Diseverin gave her over to the tender ministrations of Seneschal Padraig and his order. He was probably trying to appease King Ballah after Prince Balch died.’
‘Prince Balch?’ Errol asked, feeling like he was an echo.
‘Ah, now there’s a story,’ Usel said. ‘And it’s part of why we’re here. After all, Beulah wasn’t always first in line to the Obsidian Throne. It’s this poor girl should’ve been crowned last month, not lying down here unlamented on the fourteenth anniversary of her death.’ He turned, sweeping his arm across the room to where a wheeled trolley stood beside a narrow table and lit by a candelabra hanging on a chain from the dark recesses of the ceiling. On the trolley, no doubt placed there by a troop of strong men, lay a stone casket, ornately carved and with dried earth still clinging to it.
*
Benfro could see the ground getting clearer, closer, with every passing moment. Confusion addled his thinking more than fear. He couldn’t remember how to fly. But then he couldn’t fly, so that was hardly surprising. Except that he was airborne and had got here, wherever here was, using his wings. His magnificent, wide, powerful wings. His pathetic, thin scraps of leather that hung awkwardly by his side.
It all seemed unreal, yet at the same time he was certain that hitting the ground at the speed he was falling would hurt, albeit very briefly. He doubted he’d be alive long enough to feel pain for more than a few seconds.
Get a grip on yourself. Fly.
The words were deep within his head, though Benfro was sure that they were not his. With them came an sudden impulse to flex his wings, so powerful he could only watch in amazement as he righted himself, stopped his downward plummet and came to a hovering stop just yards above the flagstones. Once more he seemed to be in complete control; perhaps even greater control for he’d never felt so confident and strong before. The ground was not far away, but he had denied it.
‘Who are you?’ The voice startled him out of his daydreaming so suddenly that he almost tumbled the last few feet to the barren stony ground that surrounded the hall. Scrabbling for purchase against the slippery air, Benfro turned once more and looked at the open mouth of those two great doors. A small figure stood there, like a man only somehow different. But then the only man he had ever met was Gideon. Who was to say they all looked alike? This one was as tall as the wandering priest, but thinner. Something about it reminded him of his mother, Meirionydd, even Frecknock. He had never thought much about it before, but it made sense that there would be female men as well. This then must be one them, but who was she and how could she see him when he wasn’t really there?
‘Who are you?’ The figure asked again and Benfro was gripped with a compulsion to tell her everything. He began to descend towards the doorway and the long, wide flagstone path that led from it to the surrounding buildings. But he really didn’t want to do that. Like his earlier dream, something told him that to land was to surrender. That if his feet touched the ground they would never again leave it. Struggling, he rose once more into the air, feeling the fear that had gripped him turn into a hot rage. He was reminded of Frecknock in one of her more petulant outbursts and the memory of the young dragon gave him added strength. He had learned to live with her inexplicable hatred of him. He had even survived her latest attempt to make his life a misery.
‘You will come to me,’ the figure said. ‘You will tell me who you are, where you came from.’
‘I… will not,’ Benfro said, not without difficulty. The sound of his voice was almost an echo, as if it were far distant, but the familiar sound anchored him. Somewhere away from here he was safe. He just had to get back there.
‘Your time is over, dragon,’ the voice shouted. Benfro ignored it, wheeling around and scanning the horizon to try and find the way he had come. The sky which had been clear was now clouding over, great rolls of blackness speeding towards him like frightened animals, obscuring the distance and blotting out the hills.
‘You can’t escape me,’ the figure said. ‘I control this land. It’s mine.’
Benfro tried to remember his first view of the city. The hill rising up to the river had been the other way around, so he must have circled it. Then he realised, the river came down from the hills. He had followed it all the way here. All he needed to do was to retrace its course.
‘I’ll track you down,’ the figure said, its voice carrying despite the distance between them. ‘I’ll kill you. All of you. I am the only power here.’
Benfro tried his best to ignore her, but he could feel the waves of fear, anger and frustration boiling out from her. He beat his great wings hard, pushing the air from him as he tried to steer away from the city. Beneath him the river had turned a dull grey, reflecting the clouds overhead. Fat drops of rain began to splatter against his face, stinging his eyes and slicking his scales.
‘You can’t escape me,’ the voice said, too close to be still on the ground. Benfro didn’t turn, didn’t look. He shut his eyes against the storm and thrust himself onwards. It was no longer the wonderful feeling of freedom, the simple twist and flick of his tail, the flexing of his shoulders that effortlessly steered him through the air. Now it was like wading through sticky mud, swimming against a winter storm flood.
‘I am your master and you will bow to me,’ the voice said. Benfro was finding it hard to breathe now. It felt like someone had tied his legs with rope and was even now pulling him back towards that menacing black hall. Still he fought against it. This was not real. It was just a dream.
‘I… will… not,’ he said and put all of his effort into a last mighty downstroke.
Everything happened very quickly. He felt a pain in his back as if something had sunk sharp talons into it, then he heard a wail of surprise. With a deafening roar, h
e rushed forward at impossible speed. For an instant he opened his eyes and saw the darkened countryside flickering past him. He no longer had any control over his flight, no longer seemed to have wings at all. He just crashed head over tail, convinced he was falling to the stone road, knowing that any minute now he would smash into the ground, his bones popping and cracking. He clenched his eyes tight shut and waited for the end.
~~~~
Chapter Twenty-One
There exists above the mortal plane another place that mirrors it closely: the aethereal. Animals, plants, and even buildings occupy this space with a mindless certainty, but thinking creatures cannot easily enter it. To do so requires not so much a manipulation of the grym as the realisation of a perfect state of consciousness. It is a skill few will ever master, though all should strive so to do, for within the aethereal, the adept may communicate over vast distances with others so skilled.
As with all magic, there is a downside to this skill, for when an adept enters the aethereal, his mind leaves his body behind. The aethereal is a place of many wonders and distractions, of traps and unexpected dangers. And it is a place where time flows differently to the norm. Many a skilled warrior priest has entered the aethereal never to come back.
Magic and the Mind by Fr Andro
‘Captain Derrin of the Queen’s Guard left this here this morning,’ Usel said. ‘I’m sure they have their reasons for digging the poor woman up, but it seems a bit barbaric to me.’
‘Why’re you showing it to me?’ Errol asked.
‘Well, I can’t possibly do a proper post mortem on my own; I can’t get the lid off for one thing, and I need someone to takes notes for me as I go along. It’s much neater that way. I was on my way to the library to ask Andro if I could borrow one of his novitiates when along you popped. Couldn’t have been better, really.’
Errol thought that it could have been. He could have been out in the exercise yards enjoying the afternoon sun and practising his archery, not down in the bowels of the monastery, shivering and discomfited, with a slightly mad doctor and a royal corpse for company. On the other hand, Usel was a friendly enough person, quite unlike any of the other quaisters he had met. He also seemed to know a great deal and was happy to share his knowledge. He reminded Errol somewhat of old Father Drebble, who had always encouraged healthy curiosity and was happy to spend time with the genuinely interested.
‘What should I do?’ He asked and received a broad smile from the medic as a reward for his enthusiasm.
‘First we need to get the lid off. You take the bottom, where it’s lighter.’
Errol grasped the stone as well as he could and together they managed to half lift, half slide it off. It fell with a loud clatter that echoed in the empty hall, almost tipping onto the floor before coming to rest alongside the casket. A waft of foul air filled his nose and he stepped back, coughing before inching close again to get a better look.
The corpse was withered and shrivelled, its skin turned black and leathery with the years but not decayed. The princess had been buried in a long white gown of thin material, no more than a bed dress, really. Her bare feet were twisted around as if she were in terrible pain and the tightening of her skin had opened her mouth in a silent, agonised scream.
‘That’s strange,’ Usel said, peering into the casket at the body and sniffing. ‘She’s better preserved than I’d have expected.’
‘The casket was well sealed,’ Errol said.
‘Even so, her skin looks like it’s been tanned. If she’d just dried up I’d’ve expected her to be more grey. Here, help me lift her out.’
Errol stared, aghast for a moment, then thought about what he was being asked to do. It was no worse than dealing with some of the infected wounds and growths that his mother’s patients had brought to their little cottage in the woods. Better, in many ways, since Princess Lleyn had been dead for fourteen years. Something Usel had said suddenly registered in his mind.
‘When did she die?’ Errol asked. ‘You said it was fourteen years ago.’
‘Indeed I did. I guess you were too young to remember, but most people will tell you the story. Tragic, it was. She died on her sister’s birthday.’
‘Queen Beulah’s birthday?’ Errol asked.
‘Of course, Queen Beulah’s birthday. Why?’
‘That was the day I was born,’ Errol said, looking at the corpse with a strange feeling of connection. ‘I was born the day she died.’
‘Well don’t worry yourself about it, I’m sure a great many people died the day you were born. Now let’s have a quick look over this body. It’s amazing what you can discover after even this long in the ground. I can tell she was poisoned, for one thing.’
‘Poisoned?’ Errol asked.
‘Yes, and a very nasty potion too. I haven’t seen it used in a long while. It grows in Fo Afron on the other side of the Sea of Tegid. It’s called gallweed and it kills slowly, leaching all the life out of a person over time. They grow steadily thinner and weaker until they just don’t have the strength to live anymore.’
‘But how can you tell?’ Errol asked.
‘Well, first there’s a distinctive aroma to the corpse. You wouldn’t notice it when she was buried, but now her body’s dried out a little, you can smell it.’
Errol lowered his nose once more to the casket and sniffed. There was surprisingly little odour now that the initial stale air had been expelled, but the body did smell very faintly.’
‘It’s like spices. Ginger…no, cinnamon and cloves. No, that’s not right either.’
‘You’re in the right area though, Errol,’ Usel said. ‘Now let’s lift her out.’
Errol reached into the casket and put his hands under the thin calves. With that first touch, he shuddered involuntarily, as if someone were walking on his grave. A flurry of images flashed through his mind: a grey-haired man wiping his brow with a damp cloth; a woman dressed as a serving maid helping him out of bed; a lantern swinging with the rhythmic motion of a horse-drawn wagon; a cottage in a clearing in the forest, curiously large; a fully grown dragon peering down at him with a look of infinite sadness in her eyes. And then a terrible pain ripped through him, overwhelmed him. He felt his legs give out, and as he plunged into blackness, the crash of falling knives echoed in the stone-carved hall.
*
‘Where’s Inquisitor Melyn? Have him report to me immediately.’
‘Your Majesty, the Inquisitor left for Emmass Fawr at first light this morning.’
Beulah cursed herself for forgetting. There was so much to remember that even a conversation held just hours ago had slipped her mind. The servant who had come running at her call knelt before the Obsidian Throne gently shaking. His fear filled the great hall with an odious stench.
‘Leave me,’ Beulah said, then turned to the guards who stood either side of the dais, supposedly there to protect her from assassins, though any who made it this far would find her far from helpless.
‘All of you, leave,’ she said. ‘I wish to be alone.’
For a moment she thought one of the warriors was going to protest. No doubt if the Inquisitor found out that they had deserted their posts, even on a direct order from the queen, they would be publicly flogged and stripped of their ranks. She didn’t care. If Melyn was on his way back to Emmass Fawr that meant he would most likely be on the calling road. And that meant that she could contact him, with difficulty. She didn’t want soldiers and servants clogging up the calm of the Neuadd with their petty fears and worries, their endless thoughts about gambling, drinking and whoring.
‘You may guard the entrance doors,’ Beulah said to the captain of her guard as he marched his men from the hall. She had no doubt he would have done it anyway, supplementing the soldiers who already patrolled outside. It didn’t matter to her as long as they were on the other side of the walls.
‘Your majesty need only call and we will be here,’ the captain said, bowing deeply. Beulah scowled at him as he left, then pulled
herself together, gathered her wits about her and sank once more into the power that was the throne.
It felt like a warm bath, soothing away the aches and worries of her new reign. As she slipped from the physical world, so the discomfort of the cold stone seat evaporated, leaving her relaxed, poised, ready to embark on her journey.
She paused a moment to consider the Neuadd from this altered perspective. It was still the same hall, magnificent to the point of overkill. Its great pillars soared up into the carved arches of its ceiling; the mirror-smooth floor reflected the morning sun, filtered into a thousand different colours as it passed through the great windows to either side; the Obsidian Throne towered over her, black and threatening as a nightmare, yet alive somehow with the power of the world. And still there was something different about the hall that she couldn’t put her finger on.
Beulah came to this other place often. It was the starting point for her forays into the minds of her nobles and the rich merchants of Candlehall. She understood now why the House of Balwen had allowed the great city to swamp the hills surrounding the palace. From here she could eavesdrop on the thoughts and conversations of any of the city’s inhabitants. But it required skill and a mental discipline she doubted her father had ever mastered. Nor her grandfather before him. Beulah wondered what they had felt when sitting on this great throne. Both of them were of the House of Balwen. Both of them would have had some natural ability with the grym and the powers of magic. Yet both were to some extent weak-willed. Sitting on the throne must have been a kind of torture, hearing the constant chattering thoughts and anxieties of a hundred thousand subjects all around them. No wonder then that her grandfather had spent much of his reign in Ystumtuen and at hunt, like his father before him. And perhaps it explained why her father had resorted to drink. What had happened to the once noble line of warriors that it had produced three generations of such weak-willed men? False kings who would make peace with dragons, with Llanwennog; would even barter their own flesh and blood for a quiet life and a soft bed? She would restore the pride of the Balwen name and make the Twin Kingdoms great once more.
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