The War Hound and The World

Chapter II

I GAVE THE lady my arm and escorted her through her courtyard, up the steps and into her castle, while her horrid servants took horse and coach to the stables. Curiosity had me trapped.

Lust, half-appreciated as yet, also had me trapped.

I thought to myself with a certain relish that I was, all in all, thoroughly snared. And at that moment! did not care.

"I am Ulrich von Bek, son of the Graf von Bek," I told her. "I am a Captain of Infantry in the present struggle."

Her perfume was as warm and lulling as summer roses. "On whose side?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Whichever is the better organised and less divided."

"You have no strong religious beliefs, then?"

"None."

I added: "Is that unusual for men of my kind in times like these?"

"Not at all. Not at all." She seemed quietly amused.

She took off her own cloak. She was almost as tall as I and wonderfully formed. For all that she gave the impression of possessing a strong and perhaps even eccentric will, there was yet a softness about her now which suggested to me that she was presently defeated by her circumstances.

"I am Sabrina," she said, and gave no title or family name.

"This is your castle, Lady Sabrina?"

"I often reside here." She was noncommittal.

It could be that she was reluctant to discuss her family. Or perhaps she was the mistress of the powerful prince I had originally guessed as owner. Perhaps she had been exiled here for some appalling crime. Perhaps she had been sent here by her husband or some other relative to avoid the vicissitudes either of love or of war. From tact I could ask her no other questions on the matter.

She laid a fair hand upon my arm. "You will eat with me, Captain von Bek?"

"I do not relish eating in the presence of your servants, madam."

"No need. I'll prepare the food myself later. They are not permitted to enter these quarters. They have their own barracks in the far tower."

I had seen the barracks. They did not seem large enough for so many.

"How long have you been here?" She glanced about the hall as we entered it.

"A week or two."

"You kept it in good order."

"It was not my intention to loot the place, Lady Sabrina, but to use it as a temporary refuge. How long has your home been empty?"

She waved a vague hand. "Oh, some little while. Why do you ask?"

"Everything was so well-preserved. So free of vermin. Of dust, even."

"Ah. We do not have much trouble of that kind."

"No damp. No rot."

"None visible," she said. She seemed to become impatient with my remarks.

"I remain grateful for the shelter," I said, to end this theme.

"You are welcome." Her voice became a little distant. She frowned. "The soldiers delayed us."

"How so?"

"On the road." She gestured. "Back there."

"You were attacked?"

"Pursued for a while. Chased." Her finger sought dust on a chest and found none. She seemed to be considering my recent remarks. "They fear us, of course. But there were so many of them." She smiled, displaying white, even teeth. She spoke as if I would understand and sympathise. As if I were a comrade.

All I could do was nod.

"I cannot blame them," she continued. "I cannot blame any of them." She sighed. Her dark eyes clouded, became in-turned, dreamy. "But you are here. And that is good."

I should have found her manner disturbing, but at the time I found it captivating. She spoke as if I had been expected, as if she were a poor hostess who, delayed abroad, returns to discover an unattended guest.

I offered some formal compliment to her beauty and grace. She smiled a little, accepting it as one who was very used to such remarks, who perhaps even regarded them as the opening feints in an emotional duel. I recognised her expression. It caused me to become just a little more remote, a little more guarded. She was a gameswoman, I thought, trained by one or more masters in the terrible, cold art of intellectual coquetry. I found the woman too interesting to wish to give her a match, so I changed the subject back to my original reason for accepting her invitation.

"You have promised to explain the castle's mysteries," I said. "And why there is no animal life in these parts."

"It is true," she said. "There is none."

"You have agreed with me, madam," I said gently, "but you have not explained anything to me."

Her tone became a shade brusque. "I promised you an explanation, did I not, sir?"

"Indeed, you did."

"And an explanation will be forthcoming."

I was not, in those days, a man to be brushed off with insubstantial reassurances. "I'm a soldier, madam. I had intended to be on my way south by now. You will recall that I returned here at your invitation…and because of your promise. Soldiers are an impatient breed."

She seemed just a fraction agitated by my remark, pushing at her long hair, touching her cheek. Her words were rapid and they stumbled. She said: "No soul - that is no free soul, however small - can exist here."

This was not good enough for me, although I was intrigued. "I do not follow you, madam," I said with deliberate firmness. "You are obscure. I am used to action and simple facts. From those simple facts I am able to determine what action I should take."

"I do not wish to confuse you, sir." She appealed to me, but I refused to respond to her.

I sighed. "What do you mean when you say that no soul can exist here?"

She hesitated. "Nothing which belongs," she said, "to God."

"Belongs? To God? The forest, surely…?"

"The forest lies upon the"…she made a baffled gesture… "upon the borders."

"I still do not understand."

She controlled herself, returning my stare. "Neither should you," she said.

"I am not much impressed by metaphysics." I was becoming angry. Such abstract debate had caused our present woes. "Are you suggesting that some son of plague once infested this land? Is that why both men and beasts avoid it?"

She made no reply.

I continued: "Your servants, after all, suffer from disease. Could they be suffering from an infection local to this area?"

"Their souls…" she began again.

I interrupted. "The same abstraction…"

"I do my best, sir," she said.

"Madam, you offer me no facts."

"I have offered you facts, as I understand them. It is hard…"

"You speak of a sickness, in truth. Do you not? You are afraid that if you name it, I shall become nervous, that you will drive me away."

"If you like," she said.

"I am afraid of very little, though I must admit to a certain caution where the Plague is concerned. On the other hand I have reason to believe that I am one of those lucky souls apparently immune to the Plague, so you must know that I shall not immediately run quaking from this place. Tell me. Is it a sickness of which you speak?"

"Aye," she said, as if tired, as if willing to agree to almost any definition I provided. "It could be as you say."

"But you are untouched." I moved a pace towards her. "And I."

She became silent. Was I to think, I wondered, that the signs of that horrible sickness which possessed her servants had not yet manifested themselves in us? I shuddered.

"How long have you lived at the castle?" I asked.

"I am here only from time to time."

This answer suggested to me that perhaps she was immune. If she were immune, then so, perhaps, was I. With that consideration I relaxed more.

She seated herself upon a couch. Sunlight poured through stained glass representing Diana at the hunt. It was only then that I realised not a single Christian scene existed here, no crucifix, no representations of Jesus or the saints. Tapestries, glass, statuary and decoration were all pagan in subject.

"How old is this castle?" I stood before the window, running my fingers over the lead.

"Very old, I think. Several centuries, at least."

"It has been well-maintained."

She knew that my questions were not innocent or casual. I was seeking further knowledge of the estate and the mysterious sickness which haunted it.

"True," she said.

I sensed a new kind of tension. I turned.

She went from that room into the next and came back with wine for us. As she handed me my cup I observed that she did not wear a marriage ring. "You have no lord, madam?"

"I have a lord," she said, and she stared back into my eyes as if I had challenged her. Then, seeing my question to be fairly innocent, she shrugged. "Yes, I have a lord, captain."

"But this is not your family property."

"Oh, well. Family?" She began to smile very strangely, then controlled her features. "The castle is my master's, and has been his for many years."

"Not always his, however?"

"No. He won it, I believe."

"Spoils of war?"

She shook her head. "A gambling debt."

"Your master is a gambler, eh? And plays for good-sized stakes. Does he participate in our War?"

"Oh, yes." Her manner changed again. She became brisk. "I'll not be cryptic with you, Captain von Bek." She smiled; a hint, once more, of helplessness. "On the other hand it does not suit me to pursue this conversation further at present."

"Please forgive my rudeness." I think that I sounded cold.

"You are direct, captain, but not rude." She spoke quietly. "For a man who has doubtless seen and done so much in the matter of war you seem to retain a fair share of grace."

I touched the cup to my lips…half a toast to her own good manners. "I am astonished that you should think so. Yet, in comparison with your servants, I suppose I must seem better than I am…"

She laughed. Her skin appeared to glow. I smelled roses. I felt as if the heat of the sun were upon me in that room. I knew that I desired Sabrina as I had desired no one or nothing else in all my life. Yet my caution maintained distance. Far that moment I was content merely to experience those sensations (which I had not experienced in many years of soldiering) and not attempt fulfilment.

"How did you come by your servants?" I sipped my wine. It tasted better than any of the other vintages I had sampled here. It increased the impression that all my senses were coming alive again at once.

She pursed her lips before replying. Then: "They are pensioners, you might say, of my master."

"Your master? You mention him much. But you do not name him." I pointed this out most gentry.

"It is true." She moved hair from her face.

"You do not wish to name him?"

"At this time? No."

"He sent you here?" I savoured the wine.

"Yes," she said.

"Because he fears for your safety?" I suggested.

"No." Sadness and desperate amusement showed for a second in the set of her lips.

"Then you have an errand here?" I asked. Again I moved closer.

"Yes." She took a couple of paces back from me. I guessed that she was as affected by me as I was by her, but it could have been merely that my questions cut too close to the bone and that I was unnerving her.

I paused.

"Could I ask you what that errand can be?"

She became gay, but plainly her mood was not altogether natural. "To entertain you"…a flirt of the hand…"captain."

"But you were not aware that I stayed here."

She dropped her gaze.

"Were you?" I continued. "Unless some unseen servant of your master reported me to you."

She raised her eyes. She ignored my last remark and said: "I have been looking for a brave man. A brave man and an intelligent one."

"On your master's instructions? Is that the implication?"

She offered me a challenging look now. "If you like."

The instinct which had helped me keep my life and health through all my exploits warned me now that this unusual woman could be bait for a trap, for once, however, I ignored the warning. She was willing, she suggested, to give herself to me. In return, I guessed, I would be called upon to pay a high price. At that moment I did not care what the price was. I was, anyway, I reminded myself, a resourceful man and could always, with reasonable odds, escape later. One can act too much in the cause of self-preservation and experience nothing fresh as a result.

"He gives you liberty to do what?" I asked her.

"To do almost anything I like." She shrugged.

"He is not jealous?"

"Not conventionally so, Captain von Bek." She drained her cup. I followed her example. She took both cups and filled them again. She sat herself beside me, now, upon a couch under the window. My flesh, my skin, every vein and sinew, sang. I, who had practised self-control for years, was barely able to hold onto a coherent thought as I took her hand and kissed it, murmuring: "He is an unusual master, your lord."

"That is also true."

I withdrew my lips and fell back a little, looking carefully at her wonderful face. "He indulges you? Is it because he loves you very much?"

Her breathing matched mine. Her eyes were bright, passionate gems. She said: "I am not sure that my master understands the nature of love. Not as you and I would understand it."

I laughed and let myself relax a little more. "You become cryptic again, Lady Sabrina, when you swore that you would not be."

"Forgive me." She rose for fresh cups.

I watched her form. I had never seen such beauty and such wit combined in any human individual before. "You will not tell me your history?"

"Not yet."

I interpreted this remark as a promise, yet I pressed her just a little further:

"You were born in these parts?"

"In Germany, yes."

"And not very long ago." This was partly to flatter her. It was unnecessary, that flattery, I knew, but I had learned pothouse habits as a soldier-of-fortune and could not in an instant lose them all.

Her answer was unexpected. She turned to me, with a wine-cup in each hand. "It depends on your definition of Time," she said. She gave me my filled cup. "Now you probe and I mystify. Shall we talk of less personal matters? Or do you wish to speak of yourself?"

"You seem to have determined who and what I am already, my lady."

"Not in fine, captain."

"I've few secrets. Most of my recent life has been spent in soldiering. Before that it was spent in receiving an education. Life is not very brisk in Bek."

"But you have seen and done much, as a soldier?"

"The usual things." I frowned. I did not desire too much recollection. Magdeburg memories still lingered and were resisted with a certain amount of effort.

"You have killed frequently?"

"Of course." I displayed reluctance to expand upon this theme.

"And taken part in looting? In torture?"

"When necessary, aye." I grew close to anger again.! believed that she deliberately discomfited me.

"And rape?"

I peered directly at her. Had I misjudged her? Was she perhaps one of those bored, lascivious ladies of the kind I had once met at Court? They had delighted in such talk. It had excited them. They were eager for sensation, having forgotten or never experienced the subtle forms of human sensuality and emotion. In my cynicism I had given them all that they desired. It had been like bestowing lead on gold-greedy merchants who, in their anxiety to possess as much as possible, could not any longer recognise one metal from another. If the Lady Sabrina was of this caste, I should give her what she desired.

But her eyes remained candid and questioning, so I answered briefly: "Aye. Soldiers, as I said, become impatient. Weary • - -"

She was not interested in my explanation. She continued: "And have you punished heretics?"

"I have seen them destroyed."

"But have taken no part in their destruction?"

"By luck and my own distaste, I have not."

"Could you punish a heretic?"

"Madam, I do not really know what a heretic is. The word is made much of, these days. It seems to describe anyone you wish dead."

"Or witches? Have you executed witches?"

"I am a soldier, not a priest."

"Many soldiers take on the responsibilities of priests, do they not? And many priests become soldiers."

"I am not of that ilk. I have seen poor lunatics and old women named for witches and dealt with accordingly, madam. But I have witnessed no magic performances, no incantations, no summonings of demons or ghouls." I smiled. "Some of those crones were so familiar with Mephistopheles that they could almost pronounce the name when it was repeated to them…"

"Then witchcraft does not frighten you?"

"It does not. Or, I should say, what I have seen of witchcraft does not frighten me."

"You are a sane man, sir."

I supposed that she complimented me.

"Sane by the standards of our world, madam. But not, I think, by my own."

She seemed pleased by this. "An excellent answer. You are self-demanding, then?"

"I demand little of myself, save that I survive. I take what I need from the world."

"You are a thief, then?"

"I am a thief, if you like. I hope that I am not a hypocrite."

"Self-deceiving, all the same."

"How so?"

"You hide the largest part of yourself away in order to be the soldier you describe. And then you deny that that part exists."

"I do not follow you. I am what I am."

"And that is?"

"What the world has made me."

"Not what God created? God created the world, did He not?" she said.

"I have heard some theorise otherwise."

"Heretics?"

"Ah, well, madam. Desperate souls like the rest of us."

"You have an unusually open mind."

"For a soldier?"

"for anyone living at this time."

"I am not quite sure that my mind is open. It is probably careless, however. I do not give a fig for metaphysical debate, as I believe I have already indicated."

"You have no conscience, then?"

"Too expensive to maintain nowadays, madam."

"So it is unkempt, but it exists?"

"Is that what you would say I hide from myself? Have you a mind to convert me to whatever Faith it is you hold, my lady?"

"My Faith is not too dissimilar to yours."

"So I thought."

"Soul? Conscience? These words mean little, I'm sure you'd agree, without specification."

"I do most readily agree."

We continued to debate this subject only for a short while and then the discussion broadened.

She proved to be an educated woman with a fine range of experience and anecdote. The longer we were together, however, the more I desired her.

The noon meal was forgotten as we continued to talk and to drink. She quoted the Greeks and the Romans, she quoted poetry in several tongues. She was far more fluent in the languages of modern Europe and the Orient than was I.

It became obvious to me that Sabrina must be highly valued by her master and that she was probably something more than his mistress. A woman could travel the world with a little more danger but a little less suspicion than a male envoy. I formed the impression that she was familiar with a good many powerful Courts. Yet I wondered how her servants must be received if they accompanied her to such places.

Evening came. She and I retired to the kitchen where, from the same ingredients, she prepared a far better meal than anything I had been able to make for myself. We drank more wine and then, without thought, took ourselves up to one of the main bedrooms and disrobed.

Sheets, quilts, bed-curtains, were all creamy white in the late sunshine. Naked, Sabrina was perfect. Her pale body was flawless, her breasts small and firm. I had seen no woman like her, save in statues and certain paintings.

I had not believed in perfection before that night, and although I retained a healthy suspicion of Sabrina's motives I was determined to offer no resistance to her charms.

We went quickly to bed. She became by turns tender, savage, passive and aggressive. I turned with her, whatever her mood, as she turned with mine. My senses, which had become almost as dead as those of Sabrina's servants, had come to life again.

I felt my imagination coming back to me, and with it a certain amount of hope, of the old optimism I had known as a youth in Bek.

Our union, it seemed to me, was preordained, for there was no doubt that she relished me as thoroughly as I relished her. I absorbed her scents, the touch of her skin.

Our passion seemed as endless as the tides; our lust conquered all weariness. If it had not been for that nagging memory that she was in some way pledged to another, I should have given myself up to her entirely. As it was, some small part of me held back. But it was a minuscule fraction. It need hardly have existed.

Eventually we fell asleep and woke in the morning, before light, to make love again, A week or two went by. I was more and more entranced by her.

Half-asleep as one grey dawn came, I murmured that I wanted her to come with me, to leave her ghastly servants behind, to find some other place which the War did not touch.

"Is there another place?" she asked me, with a tender smile.

"In the East, possibly. Or England. We could go to England. Or to the New World."

She became sad and she stroked my cheek. "That isn't possible," she said. "My master would not allow it."

I became fierce. "Your master would not find us."

"He would find me and take me from you, be assured of that."

"In the New World? Is he the Pope?"

She seemed startled and I wondered if, with my rhetorical question, I had struck upon the truth.

I continued: "I would fight him. I would raise an army against him if necessary."

"You would lose."

I asked her seriously: "Is he the Pope? Your master?"

"Oh, no," said she impulsively, "he is far greater than the Pope."

I frowned. "Perhaps in your eyes. But not the eyes of the world, surely?"

She stirred in the bed and avoided looking directly at me, saying softly: "In the eyes of the whole world, and Heaven, too."

In spite of myself, I was disturbed by her reply. It took another week before I found the courage to make a further statement. I would rather not have pursued the subject:

"You have promised to answer my questions," I said to her, again in the morning. "Would it not be fair to tell me the name of your all-powerful lord? After all, I could be endangering myself by remaining here."

"You are in no particular danger."

"You must let me decide that. You must offer me the choice."

"I know…" Her voice died away. "Tomorrow."

"His name," I insisted the next day. I saw terror reflected and compounded, hers and mine.

Then from where she lay in bed she looked directly into my eyes. She shook her head.

"Who is your lord?" I said.

She moved her lips carefully. She raised her head as she spoke. Her mouth seemed dry, her expression strangely blank.

"His name," she said, "is Lucifer."

My self-control almost disappeared. She had shocked me in several ways at the same time, for I could not decide how to interpret this remark. I refused to let superstition attack my reason. I sat up in bed and forced myself to laugh.

"And you are a witch, is that it?"

"I have been called that," she said.

"A shape-changer!" I felt half-mad now. "You are in reality an ancient hag who has en-glamoured me!"

"I am who you see me to be," she said. "But, yes, I was a witch."

"And your powers come from your compact with the Prince of Darkness?"

"They did not. I was called a witch by the people who determined to kill me. But that was before I met Lucifer…"

"You implied some time ago that you shared my opinions of witches!"

"Aye…of those poor women so branded."

"Yet why call yourself one?"

"You used the word. I agreed that I had been called that."

"You are not a witch?"

"When I was young I had certain gifts which I put to the service of my town. I am not stupid. My advice was sought and used. I was well-educated by my father. I could read and write. I knew other women like myself. We met together, as much to enjoy each other's intelligence as to discuss matters of alchemy, herbalism and the like." She shrugged. "It was a small town. The people were small merchants, peasants, you know… Women are, by and large, denied the company of scholars, even if they resort to the nunnery. Christians do not permit Eve wisdom, do they? They can only suggest that she was influenced by a fallen angel." She was sardonic. Then she sighed, leaning on one bare arm as she looked at me.

"Scholarly men were suspect in my town. Women could not admit to scholarship at all. Men are afraid of two things in this world, it seems…women and knowledge. Both threaten their power, eh?"

"If you like," I said. "Were there not other women in the town afraid of such things?"

"Of course. Even more afraid in some ways. It was women who betrayed us, in the end."

"It is in the way of events," I said. "Many speak of freedom, of free thought, but few would want the responsibility of actually possessing them."

"Is that why you insist that you are a soldier?"

"I suppose so. I have no great hankering after real freedom. Is that why you let me call you a witch?"

Her smile was sad. "Possibly."

"And is that why you now tell me that Satan is your Master?"

"Not exactly," she replied. "Though I follow your reasoning."

"How did you come to be branded a witch in your town?"

"Perhaps through Pride," she said. "We began to see ourselves as a powerful force for good in the world. We practised magic, of sorts, and experimented sometimes. But our magic was all White. I admit that we studied the other kind. We knew how it could be worked. Particularly by the weak, who sought spurious strength through evil."

"You came to believe that you were strong enough to resist human prejudice? You grew incautious?"

"You could say so, yes."

"But how did you come, as you put it, to serve Satan?" Now I believed that she spoke metaphorically, or that at least she was exaggerating. I still could not believe that she was insane. Her confession, after all, was couched in the most rational terms.

"Our coven was discovered, betrayed. We were imprisoned. We were tortured, of course, and tried, and found guilty. Many confessed to pacts with the Devil." Her expression became bleak. "I could not, in those days, believe that so many evil people would pose as good while we, who had done no harm and had served our neighbours, were submitted to the most disgusting and brutal of attentions."

"But you escaped…"

"I became disillusioned as I lay wounded and humiliated in that dungeon. Desperate. I determined that if I was to be branded an evil witch I might as well behave as one. I knew the invocations necessary to summon a servant of the Devil."

She moved carefully, looking full into my face before she spoke next:

"In my cell one night, because I wished to save myself from death and further barbarism; because I had lost belief in the power of my sisters, upon which I had faithfully relied, I began the necessary ritual. It was at my moment of greatest weakness. And it is at that moment, you must know, when Lucifer's servants come calling."

"You summoned a demon?"

"And sold my soul."

"And were saved."

"After the pact was made, I appeared to contract the Plague and was thrown, living, into a pit on the outskirts of town. From that pit I escaped and the Plague went from me. Two days after that, as I lay in a barn, my Master appeared to me in person. He said that He had special need of me. He brought me here, where I was instructed in His service."

"You truly believe that it was Lucifer who brought you here? That this is Lucifer's castle?" I reached out to touch her face.

"I know that Lucifer is my Master. I know that this is His domain on Earth." She could tell that I did not believe her.

"But He is not in residence today?" I said.

"He is here now," she told me flatly.

"I discovered no sign of Him." I was insistent.

"Could you recognise the sign of Lucifer?" she asked me. She spoke as if to a child.

"I would expect at least a hint of brimstone," I told her.

She gestured about her. "This whole castle, the forest outside, is His sign. Could you not guess? Why do even the smallest insects avoid it? Why do whole armies fear it?"

"Then why did I feel only a hint of trepidation when I came here? How can you live here?"

Her expression approached pity.

"Only the souls He owns can exist here," she said.

I shuddered and became cold. I was almost convinced by her. Happily, my reason once again began to function. My ordinary sense of self-preservation. I stepped from the bed and began pulling on my linen. "Then I'll be leaving," I said. "I have no wish to make a pact with Lucifer or anyone who calls himself Lucifer. And I would suggest, Sabrina, that you accompany me. Unless you wish to remain enslaved by your illusion."

She became wistful.

"If only it were an illusion, and you truly could save me."

"I can. On the back of my very ordinary horse. Leave with me now."

"I cannot leave and neither can you. For that matter, because the horse has served you, neither can your horse,"

I scoffed at this. "No man is wholly free and the same, madam, may be said for the beast he rides, but we are both free enough to go from here at once!"

"You must stay and meet my Master," she said.

"I am not about to sell my soul."

"You must stay." She reached a hand to me. It trembled. "For my sake."

"Madam, such pleas to my honour are pointless. I have no honour left. I thought that I had made that perfectly clear."

"I beg you," she said.

It was my desire, rather than my honour, which held me there. I hesitated. "You say that your Master is in the castle now?"

"He waits for us."

"Alone? Where? I'll take my sword and deal with your ФLuciferХ, your enchanter, in my own habitual fashion. He has deceived you. Good, sharp steel will enlighten Him and prove to you that He is mortal. You'll be free soon enough, I promise you."

"Bring your sword if you wish," she said.

She rose and began to dress herself in flowing white silk. I stood near her, watching impatiently as she took pains with her clothing. I even felt a pang of jealousy, as a cuckolded husband knows when he sees his wife dressing for her lover.

It was odd, indeed, that such a beautiful and intelligent woman could believe herself in thrall to Satan Himself. Our times were such that human despair took many forms of madness.

I buckled my sword-belt about my shirted waist, pulled on my boots and stood before her, trying to determine the depth of her illusion. Her stare was direct and there was pain in it, as well as a strange sort of determination.

"If you are crazed," I said, "it is the subtlest form of insanity I've ever witnessed."

"The human imagination confers lunacy on everyone," she said, "dependent upon their condition. I am as sane as you, sir."

"Then you are, after all, only half-mad," I told her. I offered her my arm as I opened the bedroom door for her. The passage beyond was cold. "Where does this Lucifer of yours hold Court?"

"In Hell," she said.

We walked slowly along the passage and began to descend the broad stone steps towards the main hall.

"And His castle is in Hell?" I asked, looking about me in a somewhat theatrical fashion. I could see the trees through the windows. Everything was exactly as it had been during my stay there.

"It could be," she said.

I shook my head. It took much to threaten my rational view of the world, for my mind had been tempered in the fires of the War, by its terrors and its cruelties, and had survived the contemplation of considerable evil and delusion. "Then all the world is Hell? Do you propose that philosophy?"

"Ah," she said, almost gaily, "is that what we are left with, sir, when we have discarded every other hope?"

"It is a sign of Hope, is it, to believe our own world Hell?"

"Hell is better than nothing," she answered, "to many, at least."

"I refuse to believe such nonsense," I told her. "I have become grim and absolute, madam, in most of my opinions. We appear to be returning to the realm of speculation. I wish to see a concrete Devil and, if we are in Hell, concrete proof of that statement."

"You are over-economical, sir, in the use of your intelligence."

"I think not. I am a soldier, as I've told you more than once. It is a soldier's trait. Simple facts are his trade."

"We have already discussed your reasons for choosing to become a soldier, sir."

I was amused, once more, by the sharpness of her wit.

We were walking down the steps, alternately through sunlight and shadow. The shift of light gave her features a variety of casts, which had become familiar to me.

Such strength of mind or of body was not usually associated either with witchcraft or with Satan-worship. In my experience, as Sabrina had already hinted to me, those who sought the aid of demons were wretched, powerless creatures who had given up hope of all salvation, whether it be on Earth or in Heaven.

We were crossing the main floor now, towards the huge doors of the library.

"He is in there," she said.

I stopped, loosening my sword. I sniffed.

"Still no brimstone," I said. "Has He horns, your Master? A long tail? Cloven hooves? Does fire come from His nostrils? Or is His enchantment of a subtler sort?"

"I would say that it was subtler," she told me softly. She seemed torn between proving herself and wishing to flee with me. Her expression was challenging and yet fearful as she looked up at me. She seemed even more beautiful. I touched her hair, stroking it. I kissed her upon her warm lips.

Then I strode forward and pushed the large doors open.

Sabrina put her hand on my arm and preceded me into the room. She curtseyed.

"Master, I have brought you Captain von Bek."

I followed immediately behind her, my sword ready, my mind prepared for any challenge, yet my resolve left me immediately.

Seated at the central table and apparently reading a book was the most wonderful being I had ever seen.

I became light-headed. My body refused any commands. I found myself bowing.

He was naked and His skin glowed as if with soft, quivering flames. His curling hair was silver and His eyes were molten copper. His body was huge and perfectly formed, and when His lips smiled upon me I felt that I had never loved before; I loved Him. He bore an aura about His person which I had never associated with the Devil: perhaps it was a kind of dignified humility combined with a sense of almost limitless power.

He spoke in a sweet, mature voice, putting down the book.

"Welcome, Captain von Bek. I am Lucifer."

I was speaking. I believed Him at that moment and I said as much.

Lucifer acknowledged this, standing to His full height and going to the shelves, where He replaced the book.

He moved with grace and offered the impression of exquisite sadness in His every gesture. It was possible to see how this being had been God's favourite and that He was surely the Fallen One, destroyed by Pride and now humbled but unable to achieve His place in Heaven.

I believe that I told Him I was at His service. I could not check the words, although I recovered myself sufficiently to deny, mentally, the implications of what I said. I was desperately attempting to secure my reason.

He seemed to know this and was sympathetic. His sympathy, of course, was also disarming and had to be ignored.

He answered my words as if I had offered them voluntarily:

"I wish to strike a bargain with you, Captain von Bek."

Lucifer smiled, as if in self-mockery:

"You are intelligent and brave and do not deny the truth of what you have become."

"The truth…" I began, with some difficulty, "is not…is not…"

He appeared not to hear. "That is why I told my servant Sabrina to bring you to me. I need the help of an adult human being. One without prejudice. One with considerable experience. One who is used to translating thought into determined action. One who is not given to habits of fearfulness and hesitation. Such people are scarce, always, in the world."

Now my tongue was not thickened. I was allowed to speak. I said: "It seems so to me, also, Prince Lucifer. But you do not describe me. I am but a poor specimen of mankind."

"Let us say you are the best available to the likes of me."

A little of my wit returned. "I believe you think you flatter me, Your Majesty."

"Not so. I see virtue everywhere. I see virtue in you, Captain von Bek."

I smiled. "You are supposed to recognise evil and wickedness and appeal to those qualities."

Lucifer shook His head. "That is what humankind detects in me: the desire to find examples for their own base instincts. Many believe that if they discover an example it somehow exonerates them from responsibility. I am invested with many terrible traits, captain. But I, too, possess many virtues. It is the secret of my power and, to a degree, your own. Did you know that?"

"I did not, Your Majesty."

"But you understand me?"

"I believe that I do."

"I am asking you to serve me."

"You must have far more powerful men and women than I at your command."

Lucifer reseated Himself behind the desk. He seemed to give His full attention to every word that I uttered now. And this in itself, of course, was flattering to me.

"Powerful," He replied, "certainly. Many of them. In the way in which power is measured upon the Earth. Most of the Holy Church is mine now; but that's a fact well-known to thinking people. A majority of princes belong to me. Scholars serve me. Poets serve me. The commanders of armies and navies serve me. You would think that I am satisfied, eh? There have rarely been so many in my service. But I have few such as you, von Bek."

"That I cannot believe, Your Majesty. Bloody-handed soldiers abound in these times."

"And always have. But few with your quality. Few who act with the full knowledge of what they are and what they do."

"Is it a virtue to know that you are a butcher, a thief? That you are ruthless and without altruism of any kind?"

"I believe so. But then I am Lucifer." Again the self-mockery.

Sabrina curtseyed again. "My Lord, shall I leave?"

"Aye," said Lucifer. "I think so, my dear. I will return the captain to you in due course, I promise."

The witch withdrew. I wondered if I had been abandoned forever by Sabrina, now that she had served her purpose. I tried to stare back at the creature who called Himself Lucifer, but to look into those melancholy, terrible eyes was too much for me. I directed my attention to the window. Through it I could see the mass of trees that were the great forest. I attempted to focus on this sight, in order to preserve my reason and remember that in all likelihood I had been drugged by the accomplice of a man who was nothing more than a charlatan sorcerer of a very high order.

"Now," said the Prince of Darkness, "will you not accompany me to Hell, captain?"

"What?" said I. "Am I damned already? And dead?"

Lucifer smiled. "I give you my word that I shall bring you back to this room. If you are uninterested in my bargain, I will allow you to leave the castle unharmed, to go about whatever business you choose."

"Then why must I come with you to Hell? I have been taught to believe that Satan's word is in no way to be trusted. That He will use any means to win over an honest soul."

Lucifer laughed. "And perhaps you are right, captain. Is yours an honest soul?"

"It is not a clean one."

"But it is, by and large, honest. Yes?"

"You seem to place value on such honesty."

"Great value, captain. I admit to you freely that I have need of you. You do not prize yourself as highly as I prize you. Perhaps that is also one of your virtues. I am prepared to offer you good terms."

"But you will not tell me your terms."

"Not until you have visited Hell. Will you not satisfy your curiosity? Few are able to sample Hell before their time."

"And the few I have read of, Your Majesty, are usually tricked to return there soon enough."

"I give you my word, as an angel, that I am not about to trick you, Captain von Bek.! will be candid with you: I cannot afford to trick you. If I gained what I need from you by deception, then what I gained would be useless to me."

Lucifer offered me His hand.

"Will you descend, with me, to my domain?"

Still I hesitated, not entirely convinced that this was not a complicated and sophisticated enchantment wholly of human origin.

"Can you not bargain with me here?" I said.

"I could. But when the bargain was struck…if it was struck…and when we had parted, would you remain truly certain that you had negotiated with Lucifer?"

"I suppose that I would not. Even now I think that I could be in some kind of drugged glamour."

"You would not be the first to decide that an encounter with me had been nothing but a dream. As a rule it would be immaterial to me whether you decided you had experienced an illusion or were utterly sure that you had enjoyed a meeting with the Prince of Darkness. But I am anxious to prove myself to you, captain."

"Why should Lucifer care?"

A trembling of old Pride. Almost a glare of anger. Then it was gone. "Be assured, captain," replied Lucifer in deep, urgent tones, "that on this occasion I do care."

"You must be clearer with me, Your Majesty," It was all that I could do to utter even this simple phrase.

He exerted patience. "I cannot prove myself to you here. As you doubtless know, I am largely forced to use humankind for my purposes on Earth, being forbidden direct influence over God's creations, unless they seek me out. I am anxious to do nothing further in defiance of God. I yearn for freedom, von Bek." His copper eyes showed a more intense version of the pain I had observed in Sabrina's. "I once thought I could achieve it. And yet I know now that I cannot have it. Therefore, I wish to be restored."

"To Heaven, Your Majesty?" I was astonished.

"To Heaven, Captain von Bek."

Lucifer applying for a return to Grace! And suggesting that somehow I could be His agent in effecting this! If this were indeed a spell, a trance, it was a most intriguing one.

I was able to say: "Would that not produce the abolition of Hell, the end of Pain in the world?"

"You have been taught to believe that."

"Is it not true?"

"Who knows, Captain von Bek? I am only Lucifer. I am not God."

His fingers touched mine.

Unconsciously, I had stretched my hand towards Him.

His voice was a throb of pleading, of persuasion. "Come, I beg thee. Come."

It was as if we swayed together in a dance, like snake and victim.

I shook my head. My mind was too full of conflict. I felt that I was losing both physical and mental balance at once.

He touched my hand again. I gasped.

"Come, von Bek. Come to Hell."

His flesh was hot but did not bum me. It was sensuous, that touch, though immensely strong.

"Your Majesty…" I was pleading, in turn.

"Will you not have pity, von Bek? Have pity on the Fallen One. Pity Lucifer."

The urgency, the pain, the need, the desperation, all conspired to win me, but I fought for a few seconds more. "I have no pity," I said. "I have scoured pity from my soul. I have scoured mercy. I feel only for myself!"

"That is not so, von Bek."

"It is so! It is!"

"A truly merciless creature would not even know what it was. You resist mercy in yourself. You resist pity. You are a victim of your reason. It has replaced your humanity. And that is truly what death is, though you walk and breathe. Help me restore myself to Heaven, and I shall help you to come to life again…"

"Oh, Your Majesty," said I, "you are as clever as they say you are." For all that I was, at that moment, His, I still attempted to strike some temporary sort of bargain. "I'll come, on the understanding that I shall be back in this room before the hour's over. And that I shall see Sabrina again…"

"Granted."

The flagstones of the library melted away before us. They turned to mercury and then to blue water. We began to float downwards, as if through a cold sky, towards a distant landscape, wide and white and without horizon.