by A. E. Moorat
Behind her the hellish thunder of the hooves. She daren't look back. Even to gaze upon an Acherider is to hasten your own death, she had been told...
On the other hand, perhaps it was the followers of Astaroth that one should never gaze upon? No, they had terrible breath; you should never inhale, for fear of making their breath your last. Then was it the Nephilim? She grinned despite herself, thinking of her old teacher burying his head in his hands, exasperated, ancient demonology texts tossed to the wall in frustration. Then the moment was gone as from behind she heard the whinny of something that was neither human nor horse.
They were gaining. She urged Helfer forward, tearing into the night, bringing Kensington Palace closer. Behind her, the cacophony of hooves closing in; ahead of her open space.
How far now? A couple of miles? It must be, she estimated. Once there she would be safe; they couldn't follow her inside.
But they would surely be upon her soon. Helfer had given her everything he had but it wasn't enough-he couldn't out-run an Acherider. It had been madness to believe otherwise.
Then-salvation!
Perhaps. She dared hope so anyway. For ahead of her, appearing slowly from the gloom like a defeated, retreating army, she saw a treeline, trees crowded together colouring the grey night black.
Here she might have a chance in combat. The Acheriders would be denied the room to manoeuvre. It was true that she faced the same problem, but then she was Maggie Brown and she was used to fighting in such conditions. It was what she did. (There had been no exasperation from her combat tutor, oh no. Just praise, admiration, then stolen kisses, love, marriage: 'Block and parry, Maggie, block and parry.')
Now her lips came to the ear of Helfer, who altered direction at her command. Behind her it was as though her pursuers perceived her intentions and their efforts to catch up with her redoubled. There was no other sound apart from that of the galloping hooves, her hair out behind her, as she clutched Helfer hard, urging him on, on. Make the wind your minion.
She felt something. As though her hair had become entangled in a branch, though there was none. Something reaching for her, grabbing at her. She pulled away and in doing so looked behind herself.
And saw it. An Acherider.
It was a man-no, not a man, a thing-that was somehow joined with beast-a beast that most resembled a horse-so that they were one, and it seemed to quiver and ripple like a mollusc as though constantly forming and reforming.
At first she thought it had no features, then realised it was a trick of the darkness. Features it had, but they were black, a smooth, oily black: eyes, eyelids, everything. Black lips were pulled back in a snarl to reveal ebony, pointed teeth, rows and rows of them like fangs, behind them a void for a mouth. Then came its shoulders and arms, but it had no legs. Instead its body, ribbed like that of a whale, seemed to spread at the hips with the consistency of mucus, as though resolving itself into its mount.
One hand was outstretched toward her, nails like talons. With a lurch of disgust she saw strands of her hair stuck to its fingers; in its other hand it held its sword, the only thing about it that was not black. Instead it was bleached white, gleaming and sharp, the blade smooth and razor sharp and not at all like bone, though she fancied she saw knuckle joints at the hilt.
It took but a second to drink in the sight of the Acherider then she was facing front again. 'Go, Helfer, go,' she gasped, 'they're close now, breathing down our necks!'
Perhaps it was the note of panic in her voice that spurred him on, for their speed seemed to increase and from behind them came a squeal of displeasure that was as music to Maggie Brown's ears. But even that was not as gratifying as the sound of the hooves receding a little as she and Helfer pulled forward, faster and faster now, tearing across the plain towards the trees.
Lightning split the sky and there was a clap of thunder. She felt droplets of rain splat onto her bare arms. Good. Let it rain. The conditions would suit her. She didn't suppose they had the rain where they came from.
She dared another glance back and saw the three of them riding in a line some forty feet behind, their swords drawn, almost in a salute. She grinned and returned the gesture with one of her own, a two-fingered salute, eliciting another squeal of frustration from her pursuers.
Now they crashed into the trees and Helfer was pulling up, slowing down but not enough, so that for an instant she feared he might impale himself on a branch and she sat up in the saddle taking the reins.
She needn't have been too concerned, however; Helfer was nimble, their adventures together having taken them across similar terrain, and behind them she could hear the Devil's riders coping less well. How sweet it was, the sound, and as they crashed forward she allowed herself to hope: 'Hang tight, there, wee lassie,' she murmured to herself, 'we're on our way.' There were enemies already resident at the Palace, she knew, one in particular; however, there were friends, also, and she offered up a prayer that it should be the latter who was the first to act.
They came upon a clearing and she allowed herself another glance behind, grinning again to see two of them thumping forward messily, ungainly in the undergrowth and losing ground.
The third, though.
She tensed. Her smile faded. Where was the third?
Another squeal. This one triumphant.
Stupid Maggie. Lazy, arrogant Maggie, she realised. She reached across herself, fingers seeking out the grip of her broadsword, but too late...
The third rider appeared on her blindside, streaking into the clearing with its sword raised before she'd had a chance to react.
She saw the sword sink deep into her shoulder, and saw it withdraw from the wound, a chunk missing from its blade.
She tumbled backwards from Helfer, and as she fell and hit the soft forest floor, scrambling to her feet in one fluid movement, she saw him rear up, hooves kicking and nostrils flaring.
The Acherider reared up also, the two facing one another for battle. Dimly realising what was going to happen Maggie Brown screamed a warning 'Helfer' as the remaining two Acheriders thundered into the clearing from behind her, coming upon her brave horse from behind, and they hacked him down.
She saw all of this before she felt the pain.
Agony, white-hot, shot through her. Her hand went to her shoulder and she spun back into a tree, feeling her fingertips brush something hard and jagged in the wound left by the Acherider.
Bone from the sword blade, draining the life from her.
She dropped to her knees, incapacitated by the pain, wet hair falling in front of her eyes. She heard her horse whinny and scream in agony, its feet kicking as the Acheriders slashed at him. Their bodies slid to the side of their mounts like globules of aspic, so that they were able to reach Helfer now that he lay dying in the dirt.
The rain fell, hard.
After some time, Helfer's cries stopped, though the Acheriders continued working on him with their swords, a dull, wet sound, like men tenderising meat. She tried to control the pain, tried to focus. Her fingers went to the shard of blade lodged in the wound, to the fire there. As she touched it she felt it grind against her collarbone and the pain intensified.
The Acheriders finished their business and resolved themselves, drawing up to their full height and forming a line on the opposite side of the clearing. They regarded her, defeated and dying, on her knees, the life leeching from her. Blood dripped from their swords. Helfer's blood.
Through her soaking wet hair, through tears of pain and grief, she saw the mutilated body of her horse, then looked at the Acheriders. She saw their lips pull back from their teeth, their laughter dry in the watery night.
Her fingers gripped the shard of bone and with a shout of pain she pulled it from her shoulder. And flicked it toward the hell riders.
The laughter died.
She drew her broadsword, held it two-handed, hardly able to lift it, the tip of it digging into the wet mulch and dirt of the forest floor.
'Not going down that e
asily,' she managed. 'I'll be taking at least one of you with me. Which is it to be, eh?'
They charged.
V
Earlier
Kensington Palace
With the beds prepared, the lady-in-waiting departed. She would return when the Princess and the Duchess had retired, when the candles would need extinguishing and removing (the stubs distributed amongst the servants), ready for fresh ones to be placed there in the morning.
Victoria watched her go, deciding she must find out the lady's name, and thanking all their lucky stars that the Duchess had not been roused from her slumber; there would no doubt have been an outcry at the breach in protocol and her mother would have summoned her comptroller and private secretary, her confidante and conspirator, the dreaded Sir John Conroy.
Her mother spoke often of how she would be lost without him. Sir John, she said, had been a dear and devoted friend of Victoria's father, her late husband, the Duke.
Victoria had never known her father. She had been just eight months old when, during a reinvigorating holiday to bracing Sidmouth, he had caught a chill, contracted pneumonia and died, leaving the Duchess and her daughter penniless, without the funds even to return to London. It was then that Conroy had offered his services as organiser, and the Duchess had gratefully accepted: she was desperately short of money, she spoke no English and felt she lacked allies in a country that was not her own.
All of which, Victoria now knew, were circumstances exploited by Sir John Conroy in order to further his position way beyond that of his birthright and put him in a position to plan a most audacious attempt at gaining Royal influence. Musing upon it now, she knew she had nothing to thank him for save that: a lesson in the cunning of men who see an opportunity to seize power and would exploit others to do so. Hers was a baptism of fire in that sense.
As though in response to her thoughts, the room was lit with lightning for a second. Victoria glanced over at her mother, watching her sleep, her figure illuminated by the flash of the lightning.
'How could you have been taken in?' she murmured.
Oh, much as she disliked him, she had to admit that he gave off a certain air of confidence. She could at least see the qualities in him that were admired by her mother. He was handsome. She would very much liked to have denied the fact, but it was true. He wore his hair long, very much against the fashion; he had sharply defined cheekbones that were the envy of many a lady-in-waiting and his eyes could appear quite black at times, seductively so.
These were traits he knew how to use, and Victoria felt as if it was only her who saw through the man: to the fact that he was manipulative, devious and that his temper was not born of romantic passion, but rather spoke of a petulant and tyrannical nature, and it was this aspect of his personality that had allowed him to so completely dominate the Duchess.
For dominate her he did.
His reason to do so? Victoria. The death of King George III (Poor, mad Grandpa, she thought, they said he had spoken nonsense for fifty-eight hours before his death!) had made her third in line to the throne, behind two men well into their middle age, neither of whom were likely to produce an heir. Victoria, of course, was but a child. Should her accession take place before the occasion of her eighteenth birthday, a Regency would be established, making the Duchess the proxy ruler.
And who would be advisor to the Duchess?
Who would be the 'power behind the throne'?
Why, her loyal comptroller and private secretary, of course.
Conroy was able to dominate others, too. It was said that he had acquired his rank by such means. However, the one person he had never managed to charm, win over, or otherwise influence, was the Princess Alexandrina Victoria.
Not that he hadn't tried, of course, but his gifts, such as they were-and one had to admit that he had a certain charm and could exude a definite charisma-did not extend to the beguiling of children. Thus he had tried to win the affection of the young Victoria with teasing and cruel practical jokes that not only failed to impress her much, but had the opposite effect. She grew to despise him and he never gained her trust-something he had obviously hoped to do while she was still an impressionable young girl-before she was aware of her destiny.
That day came when she was aged eleven, when the Baroness Lehzen had placed a family tree in one of her books. Reading it, she saw that after George IV and the Duke of Clarence (who would, of course, go on to become King William IV who now lay so desperately ill with hay fever at Windsor Castle) she was next in line for the throne.
She would be Queen.
Victoria remembered the moment well, how she was suddenly suffused with a great sense of duty (she had to admit, also, of importance, but then she was only human and after all it was mainly duty) and of a desire to do the right thing-by her country and by God.
'I will be good,' she told Lehzen, and never had she meant any words as much as she meant them then.
Still, to her great vexation this momentous knowledge did little to change the monotony of her daily life, a routine made so much harder and vastly more dull by the rigorous application of the Kensington System, for which (who else but) Sir John Conroy was an enthusiastic advocate.
These rules dictated that she should never travel anywhere in the palace alone, nor even ascend or descend stairs without accompaniment. At nights she was to sleep with her mother and during the days she was supervised and monitored at all times; the Duchess was continually present, and she was not permitted to converse with anybody except in the presence of a third party, that person preferably being her mother.
Worse, under this system she was prevented from playing with children her own age and was instead surrounded by adults. Many of whom, she now knew, used the rules as an excuse to sequester her from the world. To segregate her from outside influences.
The room went suddenly a little darker and looking over to the fireplace she realised that one of the candles had snuffed out. Should she call the maid for another? Perhaps, but on the other hand, she could manage with four, and if they were still having staffing problems she wasn't sure she wanted to add to them. She decided against, her mind going back to Conroy.
As Victoria's eighteenth birthday drew near, he made repeated attempts to have her ratify documents appointing him her private secretary. She had demurred, repeatedly. Even when she had been ill and feverish he had tried to take advantage of her reduced health to try and persuade her to sign, but Lehzen had intervened. Lately, since she had come of age, there had been further attempts. How could Mother have allowed them to happen?
How?
Because he was the 'demon incarnate'. Or so she told her diary.
Shortly afterwards, she wrote, 'Today is my eighteenth birthday! How old! And yet how far I am from being what I should be.'
Hm.
Maybe she had, without consciously intending to do so, invested in the idea promoted so enthusiastically by Conroy and her mother, that she was not ready for the monarchy. 'You are still very young,' her mother had written to her, and Victoria wondered if he had been standing looking over her shoulder during the composition of that particular missive. Thinking back to that diary entry, perhaps his strategy had been a successful one.
No. She would show him, she thought. And she cast her mind back to that day when she was eleven years old and she had thrust out her chin and told Lehzen, 'I will be good.'
She was resolved then, as she was now. When it happened, she would be ready.
Ready to rule.
She turned to a new page in her diary because it was time to put away childish thoughts of hating turtle soup and perfumed wigs. No doubt both were to figure in her future, so she had better get used to them. It was time to think like a sovereign.
She closed her eyes a moment, in order to better compose the first entry on the page...
Then awoke, suddenly.
To wetness...
Blood?
She reached a hand to rub her eyes and it was wet, both
on her hand and on her face.
Oh God, had she inadvertently cut herself?
She stood from her seat, a little shaky and panicked, instinctively wanting to cry out for her mother but checking herself in time. Nothing was hurting, she told herself. Don't be so silly now. Whither all that talk of putting away childish things? It was probably a nosebleed, that was all. Certainly nothing serious.
The room was much darker than it had been when she...
Of course. She'd fallen asleep. For how long? All but one of the candles had burned themselves out. Goodness only knows the time. She moved to the fireplace and reached up to take the one candlestick, bringing it down and in the process casting light on her fingers. She saw now that it was not blood on her hands, nor indeed was there much of it-it was ink.
She laughed and moved to the mirror where she held up the candle close to the glass and confirmed that it was indeed ink; she had a spot of it on her cheek.
The room was lit by lightning and that was followed by an explosion of thunder. In the sudden brightness she saw the mark clearly. Quite a beauty spot, she mused, and walked back to the writing desk to confirm that she had indeed knocked over the inkpot while she slept. Thank goodness she had been so prodigious with her words this evening, there was so little of it to spill.
Now, for how long had she slept? She offered up her candle to the clockface. Goodness, it was three o'clock in the morning. There she was, covered in ink; her mother still asleep in her chair, and just one candle left to light her preparations for bed. There was nothing for it: as much as she hated to do so she would have to summon the maids. She only hoped the chief butler and the housekeeper had been able to resolve the rota issue.
They had not, as it turned out. For after she had rung the bell-mere moments later, in fact-there was a knock at the door and a lady-in-waiting entered. Just one. The same one, thought Victoria, though she couldn't be certain, the light being so dim in the room now, and oh, what a silly girl! She brought no light with her!
Silently, the lady-in-waiting closed the door behind her and moved into the chamber, staying towards the back of the room. The only sound was the rustle of her skirts.
