Graynelore (14 page)

Instantly, my nose was filled again with a stench akin to that of a rotting corpse. I had expected – in all honesty I am not sure what – to be met by fighting-men at least, a single standing guard for certain; or else, the scurry of servants, members of the house taking to flight, raising the alarm. There was none of it. The lower chamber was deserted. I see it now. The business of the Council was a private affair not to be overheard. I was always a dead man from the very start. And I had been carefully watched into that hole. No one in that tower-house expected me to come out of it again. Not alive.

I made the wooden steps to the Great Hall and thought to find it likewise empty. Only, it was not. Not quite…

Lowly Crows cried out, gave me a reminder of her continued presence, safely sat upon her makeshift perch within the high ceiling. She stayed put, not yet ready to make a move.

There, in front of me, was the Old-man, still sitting at the head of his table. Though he was unattended by any guard or servant or Council – the earlier courtly display had been a mask solely for my benefit – a golem, a fetch, needs none. I would have taken him for a dead man if it was not obvious he was looking towards me. His eyes were still vacant and unfocused, but he made a slight, deliberate movement of his head at my approach.

The deception played upon me at our first meeting was a game still a-foot. I had been slow at seeing this ruse for what it was. However, the Council had, unwisely, disclosed the truth in its debate. I was certain of its origin now.

‘Norda? Norda Elfwych, you will reveal yourself to me! Where are you hiding? I know it is you.’

The Old-man’s head twitched. His eyes appeared to take me in more seriously; he was considering something. Then his jaw moved, his mouth fell open as if he was about to speak. A string of bloody spittle caught ungainly between his lips.

I waited.

‘I am here…inside the closet,’ he said. ‘I mean…I…’ His words trailed off. His head suddenly lolled awkwardly to one side and then nodded forwards. His arms, resting on the table, gave way and his body slumped sideways. It looked, for the world, as if someone had been holding him in his seat, and now they had let him go. He had been dropped like a babbie’s toy; a mere puppet.

The Graynelord’s lifeless body crumpled and slipped to the floor. Only now could I see the great wound at the back of his head, splitting his skull. For certain it had been his death blow.

Above my head, Lowly Crows shifted anxiously upon her perch, disturbed by the revelation.

‘I am here, Rogrig,’ said Norda Elfwych, stepping out from behind a curtain that disguised the door of a night-closet. As she did, the distant shadow-tongues returned, between us, calling out to us both.

And their weak cry was…
pity
. And their weak cry was…
sin
.

And their voices bled tears.

I hardly recognized her. She looked gaunt; her face was drawn, thin and frail. Her eyes were black and set deep within her skull. Her red hair was a skein of ugly tats. Worse than unkempt, bedraggled; it stood awkwardly off her head, as if it had been used for a rope, or her leash (which is as close to the truth as we need to go). She had been dressed – I fear this was not her own choice – in a long, shapeless shift. It was spattered with blood and a mixture of other stains, less identifiable…Her feet and legs were bare. There were ugly broken bruises, blue and yellow welts; there was dirt. She stood lopsided, keeping her weight on one foot; as if to avoid the pain of a deeper, internal wound.

At her throat there was a cruel, jagged cut, showing signs of deep infection, where her gold amulet had been forcibly torn off.

I understood her pain…Truly. Only now was not the moment for my sympathy or sorrow. Let the shadows wail! For the man must not show it. Forgive my stone heart. Think me cruel. But I had seen worse treatment of a Pledge…She would live and that was enough. There was much else to discover here; little time to do it in.

‘What is this mischief?’ I said. ‘My Graynelord lies dead and it seems his Council are the architect and you their…their what? Their
principle
? I see the trick played here but I am at a loss to understand why it was done.’

Moving slowly, Norda Elfwych came and stood over the body of the Old-man. ‘It was I…I, who killed him,’ she said, without emotion or effect.

‘You! You? But, how…why? You pledged yourself to him, to my grayne, for the security of your own kin. What sense is there in that?’

‘I dropped a bowl upon his head,’ she said. She was shaking her head as she spoke. Was it vacant disbelief; confusion; both? The distant shadow-tongues gave me no clue. She glanced towards a stone doorway, to the stone steps at the rear of the Great Hall that surely led up to the balustrade and the bed chambers.

Did I understand as much as I thought?

‘Eh? You dropped a bowl – no, a bloody pissing pot – you hit him on the head with a bloody pissing pot?’

‘I did not mean to do it,’ she said. ‘It was full…unsteady…It slipped from my hands. I did not know he was standing beneath the balustrade at that very moment. We had only just…there had been…we were about to…’ She was searching for a way to explain her cruel ordeal. She left her words unfinished. I did not need them.

Old-man Wishard, Headman of the Wishards, Graynelord of all Graynelore, was dead. His death had been a silly – a petty – domestic accident: he had been killed by a pot of piss.

Killed, by a bloody pot of piss!

What, my friend? You think it an ignoble end for a fighting-man? Would you rather I lied, and gave you instead a wild, heroic invention? An iron pot will crack your head as well as any sword. Mind, it was a tale the Beggar Bards would long be telling, to raise a laugh and feed their empty bellies upon a cold winter’s night. Aye, and at a Wishard’s expense!

I almost laughed in spite of myself.

‘The eldest of the Council came and set upon me then,’ she said. For certain, the man I had named Stiff Brittle. ‘And not alone. He may appear an aged crock, only do not let that image deceive you. He left me, again, in fear for my life…aye, and for that of all my kin. There was ever bad blood between us: Elfwych and Wishard. Whatever the circumstances of this death, whatever the intent, the outcome was certain to be the same: a terrible blight upon my house. These Wishards would take their revenge upon us, and we have already suffered so…Can
you
tell me that it would be otherwise?’

I stayed silent, for I could not.

‘I have no doubt I would have been slain…Their anger for the death of their Graynelord was terrible…Only, something stayed their hand; there was a deeper expression revealed within their faces. Dread, it seemed. Aye…dread. Not for the loss they had suffered. Rather, these men were more concerned for themselves.’

I needed no explanation. It was clear enough to me. With the Old-man dead his brother would rightly step into his place. He, with his own house and entourage, his own Council, his own politicians. These were men who had gone soft: who had bought their favours from the Old-man with flattery and quick minds. Sly as foxes. Scribes, who could twist simple words into serpents…as deadly as needs be.

I could see it all. With this death they were instantly displaced. Their title, rank, protection, influence, and wealth were all gone. (Had they not said as much themselves in their close confidence?)

‘And I was the weapon of their downfall,’ said Norda Elfwych. She raised her hand as if to touch the inflamed wound at her throat, only to stop herself short.

‘And?’ I saw in her face there was yet more to this.

‘I could not let it happen,’ she said.

‘What then – you did not wish to die?’

‘Me? Look at me! See what your kin have already achieved. How much more could I suffer? My death! Ha! What little would that matter? No. This was not done for me. My love is for my family, my sisters, and my grayne – what few of them remain – as much as my hate is reserved for the Wishards.’

She suddenly stopped, and gave me a meaningful look. Perhaps she was wondering where my loyalties truly lay…(Perhaps I was too.)

‘I told them what I am,’ she said.

‘Eh?’

‘I…told…them…Rogrig…’ She drew out her words. There was a new despair in her voice; a terrible guilt. She seemed to shrink visibly under its weight. ‘I said I could disguise his death. I said I could revive him. Oh, and how easily, how very quickly those old men saw the advantage in it; took the bait I offered them and made the idea their own…

‘The Council began to argue among itself then. Though, not over the right or the wrong of it, but over how best it could be achieved. Was The Graynelord to be stuffed like a trophy, or embalmed, or else tied up with ropes and strings and handled like a puppet? It both shocked and enthralled them to learn that I could at once conceal his death and animate him without such barbarism. For all intent, I was to bring him back to life as much alike his former self as ever he was: enough to fool all but the closest of his kin.’ She bowed her head, the memory become too difficult to bear. Her voice, already slight and trembling, grew ever less distinct. ‘How eager they were…Yet on another day my revelation would have earned me my death. For certain, they would have burned me for a wych and enjoyed my roasting as an entertainment. How duplicitous are the minds of men, eh Rogrig?’

Norda paused, looked directly at me, though still I made no answer.

‘It was decided he should be kept apart from all but the most loyal members of his household: from the people who knew him too well. His common kin recognized him only at a distance – if at all – and could be the more easily fooled. What nobody misses nobody notices. They would believe whatever deception was put before them.’

Again she paused. Her sore eyes wandered despairingly, as if she might find an easier route, a way to avoid making her explanation. There was none.

‘This was no simple enchantment, Rogrig. I let go of my living spirit, fetched it out before them and laid it down upon the Old-man’s cold remains; that fetid corpse. I used my Glamour to lift him up, to give his body a semblance of life, and warmth, and to disguise his death. They dragged my body to the night-closet. They dropped it clumsily upon the stone floor, though I breathed still and knew myself to be there…

‘And in this state I have remained, betwixt the two; the living body and the dead. The one in stiff confinement and mortal agony; the other, its flesh peeling, its very innards seeping, rotting away…’

She stopped there, and would say no more.

I looked down at the corpse of the Old-man. Released of its faerie Glamour it had quickly begun to decompose. Pools of stinking liquid ran freely across the stone floor, finding its way into cracks, congealing there. Turgid flesh lifted from his bones, split, burst open and spilled its contents.

I, like the babbie of my distant childhood, felt myself sickened by it – though I was a hardened man – and the bile rose in my throat. I swallowed firmly, held it down. I owed Norda Elfwych that much, if not my heartfelt sorrow.

Lowly Crows, who had stayed well apart from us all this time, no doubt carefully watching our performance unfold, suddenly ruffled her feathers, stretched her wings, and flew down from the ceiling, landing on my shoulder. Her arrival was enough to remind me of our true purpose in this tower. She did not need to speak. And yet I hesitated, still…

Norda had allowed herself to be degraded, abused, hurt beyond reason, worse…Even now she was steeling herself to take up again the fetid body of the Old-man; for the sake of her family, her grayne. Her wasted eyes betrayed her. Only, I was come here to steal her away, to stop her from that very purpose. Why?

Because I was embroiled upon a bloody, faerie tale!

She saw my intent, suddenly revealed. For inside my head the shadow-tongues were crying out to me. I knew she heard them too!

‘I will not go with you, Rogrig,’ she said. ‘Nor with your pretty bird here…(Who I see just as clearly…) Would you, of all people, expect me to?’

On my shoulder, Lowly Crows began to beat her wings in exasperation.

‘You will die then, just as certainly,’ I said. ‘Take a look at yourself! And we might not be discovered as yet, and this house still quiet, but I do not expect it to remain so.’

‘But these men are
your
kin,’ she said. ‘Would you not rather be dead than a broken man?’

‘When we first met…upon the fells, upon the killing fields…you already knew of this fey task we are about. I am certain of it, Norda Elfwych. It was I who was the ignorant fighting man, hardly aware of himself; only half alive until that very moment…Yet here I am, all the same, and in earnest. Truthfully, I cannot say how this will turn out. I only know I must see it through to the very end…’

‘Even if you have to kidnap me to do it? You are ever a true son of your grayne, then!’ She attempted a laugh, only the shot of pain was too cruel. ‘Oh Rogrig, if my Pledge is struck, you know what will happen. You have seen the broken walls of Staward Peel. Would you have me invite yet another open conflict upon my family? My sisters are mere babbies. My poorly brother is no leader of men. He hardly knows which way around to sit upon his warhorse. I fear my grayne will not survive it. I have made my bargain with the Council, and I would keep it…’

Norda began to shuffle awkwardly towards the fallen Graynelord, her crippled limbs, stiff with pain, finding the movement difficult.

‘Listen to me, and let the dead be!’ I said. I put myself between Norda and the remains of the Old-man. ‘Surely, Norda, you must see there is no stepping back from this? There is no safe way out. I ask you to come with us freely, but I cannot lie. I would use main force – let the blatant deceit of this Council be exposed for what it is.
There
is the hope for your grayne!’

‘Indeed. The Headmen of the ruling houses of Graynelore would not take kindly to it,’ said Norda. There was little strength left in her voice.

‘It will mean an utter debacle, an open war between
all
men!’ added Lowly Crows. The agitated flapping of her wings throwing up loose feathers.