Lord of Slaughter

35

‘You said I should come here at this hour if I needed you.’

Beatrice knelt in the little chapel, lowering herself carefully. She felt so hot, so heavy and so tired with the baby. She desperately wanted to give birth so she could just walk without wheezing again. Everything had been so new and difficult since she arrived in Constantinople she had hardly had the time to think of the danger she was in simply by being an expectant mother. Plenty of women died in childbirth. The care at the palace was excellent but still women died, and regularly. She put it from her mind. Azemar had disturbed her too greatly for her to dwell too long on that.

The chapel was the Lady Styliane’s private space for worship but the guards had been told to admit Beatrice.

The lady knelt beside her in front of the candles on the little altar and an image of Christ preaching.

‘What is it you want?’

Beatrice was no fool and realised that by going behind Loys’ back to this woman she was taking a great risk. Lady Styliane had said she herself knew ‘a little’ of magic and pagan practices, which Beatrice recognised as a coded invitation to talk about these things.

‘My husband is greatly burdened by his task of office.’

‘It is no surprise. The waters of this court seem still to the outsider but they teem with dangerous currents.’

‘Quite so. But there has been a development.’

Could she trust the lady? She had no one else to turn to. The Church? The priests of this place were strange and did not speak her language, and anyway she had always needed to be dragged to church by her maid. It was not her instinct to confide in holy men but in other ladies.

‘What sort of development?’

‘Someone has come looking for us.’

‘You are under my protection, and in the palace no one can harm you.’

‘I just need your advice. Your husband made a study of demons.’

‘He wrote a book on them before he died.’

‘Is it possible a demon can come out of hell to walk the earth as a man?’

‘Demons are full of tricks. I think it might be.’

‘I have dreams. I have always had dreams, and they concern something that is looking for me. In the dream it is a wolf but it is also a man at the same time.’

‘Half man, half wolf?’

‘No, not exactly. It appears as a wolf but in the dream I know it to be a man, or it appears as a man but he has a violence in his eyes that tells me he is a wolf.’

‘This is the development?’

‘No. My husband’s friend came here to warn us of an assassin stalking us. The friend was cruelly imprisoned. I had never seen this man before he came here but I know him. He is the one from my dreams. He is a wolf and a man at the same time.’

‘Your husband released the scholar Azemar from prison as a quaestor conducting an investigation. I have no power to put him back in there.’

‘It was you who imprisoned him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘ “Why?” is not a question guests of the palace address to great ladies.’ Her face was stern in the candlelight.

‘You are angry he has been released?’

Again the lady said nothing. Beatrice needed to confide in her.

‘I left my home to get away from him. I had a fever that nearly cost me my life, and in it I saw him, in terrible dreams. I wonder if Loys’ investigation into these magical abuses hasn’t called him forth by error.’

‘When one gazes into hell, hell gazes back at you,’ said Styliane.

‘Exactly,’ said Beatrice, ‘so is it possible hell regards Loys as an enemy and is moving to stop him?’

‘I thought this man was his friend. He has done nothing to hurt him so far.’

‘Demons are in no hurry, so my nursemaid told me.’

The lady thought for a moment.

‘My brother’s choice of your husband seemed at first to me to be a political one.’

‘In what way?’

‘He is a foreigner and an outsider. Difficult for a man like that to make any progress here. Lady Beatrice, your life is under many threats; to add one more would seem only a small matter.’

‘I don’t understand you, lady.’

‘If I confide in you and you betray my trust — to anyone, including your husband — then you will not live to see the dawn, should it ever come under this black sky.’

‘I am trustworthy.’

‘I find it interesting my brother chose your husband. I find it interesting this man you perceive to be a wolf has come.’

‘He is working for your brother too?’

‘There are greater bonds in the world than those of money, or of duty or of kin.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The wolf is important to my brother. It’s something he spoke of many times when we were growing up. Is it possible there is a magical bond between my brother and your wolfman?’

‘How so?’

‘Well, there’s the question. It might be useful, given you seem central to all this, to ask some questions of you, to explore why this man has troubled your dreams.’

‘Any there are, I will answer gladly.’

‘It is not easy, though it could be done tonight if you are willing.’

‘What done?’

‘What do you believe of God?’

‘In one God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God-’

Styliane put up her hand. ‘Spare me the creed. In God, Jesus his son and the holy spirit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you find it possible to believe God was worshipped in this way for many years before Christ?’

‘No, because Christ was born one thousand years ago. He could not have been worshipped in that way before.’

‘Perhaps the Bible is only one telling of a much longer story. It is not so much about people and things — how Jesus was sent by Pilate to die — but of the fundamental nature of eternal God. How the divine nature is threefold, how God suffers for his power.’

‘I am not a philosopher, lady.’

Lady Styliane raised an eyebrow. ‘But you know sacrilege when you hear it?’

Beatrice bowed her head. ‘I only want an answer to why I feel such dread when I look at the man my husband has rescued.’

Lady Styliane put her hand on Beatrice’s.

‘I am willing to help you. I have examined that man before. I saw him coming here too. It is no surprise to me he is free. Imprisonment was only ever a temporary measure. What to do? What to do?’

‘How did you see him coming here? In dreams?’

‘In something like them. It is possible to choose to dream if you know the way. When I was brought to this palace I was three years old — a child of the slums. I was raised correctly and in the ways of Christ. There are other ways and ideas here. My brother arranged for me to be adopted by a noble family, but perhaps the chamberlain, arranger of fates, was himself arranged. I was taken in by one of the city’s oldest families. They were Christian people but their slaves had been with the family for generations. They had come from Egypt years before and kept some old traditions in secret. I was raised to understand the things my mother would have taught me, had she lived.’

‘Your mother the sorceress?’

‘Hardly. Just a woman of insight who kept the old ways, from what I’m told. I heard the rumours about our family. When I came of age my family’s maid took me to the hillside and under the sickle moon she showed me the rites I had been denied by my adoption.’

Beatrice crossed herself.

‘So it is you who is in league with devils?’

‘No. I believe in Christ, who died for our sins but I know God cannot be limited to one form or one expression. So I know too he walks with the moon as his lamp in the form of Hecate, goddess of the gateways, lighting the way to the lands of the dead, lighting the way from the lands of the dead.’

Beatrice made to get up but Styliane stopped her with a gesture.

‘Remember my warning, Lady Beatrice. It was not a joke. This sky, these deaths, are nothing to do with me. I only foresaw calamity. Your father’s court must have had fortune tellers and seers visit for your amusement. Think of me, then, as like them. I saw this fellow who comes to you before he arrived. I had him captured and interrogated and I visited him. I tried a rite of divination but I could not go through with it. I saw only death around him and, like you, I was terrified.’

‘So why did you not kill him?’

‘Because he has the protection of a mighty god, or a demon. He cannot be trifled with without extreme peril to those who move against him. It was not clear, the vision was not clear. I put him into a dungeon so I could have time to think. Your husband released him. This only confirms what I thought. Something is protecting him.’

‘What?’

‘We could find out. Or endeavour to.’

‘How?’

‘Let me perform the rite with you. Let us both explore your dreams. I will go with you there. I will see what you see.’

‘That is sorcery.’

‘Think of it as prayer. I will not ask you to pray to any devil or goddess. Pray to Christ. Ask him for his guidance. Do so with me, tonight, when the hidden moon is full and the labyrinth that leads us to truth is bathed in a light no cloud can obscure. There are paths we can walk that may lead to an understanding of this man of dread. We can go together to the gardens of heaven where Christ walks in his many forms.’

‘It will imperil my soul.’

‘No. Could you go there unless Christ wished it? Could you stand before the face of the creator if he didn’t wish you to? Come, my dear, have more faith in God.’

Beatrice thought of the man in her chambers. Her husband had called him friend, but she remembered the carnivorous smile that lay upon his face as he slept, the horrific dreams that had consumed her in her fever, that strange shape that seemed to writhe and slink and howl in her heart.

‘I will go with you,’ she said.

‘Then follow.’

The lady extended her hand to help Beatrice to her feet and led her out of the little chapel, down a corridor. They turned left past another guard and walked through more corridors decorated with forest scenes. They were empty of people. Everywhere else in the palace eyes followed you. Here, in Styliane’s quarters, they did not.

Eventually they came to a plainer corridor and then to a door where a guard stood. Styliane simply lifted her finger and pointed to the door. He went through it and closed it behind him. The draught of cold air told Beatrice it led outside. On pegs on the wall hung three dark cloaks. Styliane passed Beatrice one and put another on herself, pulling up the hood.

‘We wait for a while,’ said Styliane.

‘Gladly.’ Beatrice leaned against the wall, trying to get her breath. ‘What are we waiting for?’ she said.

‘Transport,’ said Styliane.

‘I cannot ride a horse.’

‘A boat, not a horse.’

The women stood silently in the corridor. Shortly, the door opened again and the guard came back through, saying nothing, just resuming his post. Styliane stepped through the door followed by Beatrice.

A long damp jetty ran down to a gate. The night was dark and they had only the light of a small lamp to guide them. Beatrice’s ears and her nose, though, told her where she was — by the sea. They went down through the cold air to the gate. The bolt was stiff and Styliane struggled to pull it back. Beatrice could not think what secret would make a great lady of the court struggle at a gate like a common guard.

When the gate was open, Styliane pointed away from the palace. Beatrice peered into the night. Two lights hung in space. The smaller light moved. It took a while for her eyes to work out what she was seeing, but then Beatrice realised it belonged to the promised boat. They went down to a small beach, Styliane bowing three times as she passed through the gate.

Beatrice found the gesture very disquieting, with its pagan overtones, but she had made up her mind — she would not turn back. If Styliane wished her harm or wanted her dead then she had no need to go to such elaborate lengths. She felt the baby inside her, kicking. She put her hand to her belly.

‘Not yet, child. You must wait until we’ve done what we need to do.’

The boat was small — no more than a fishing vessel, though well built and sturdy. A middle-aged man and a youth, slaves by their dress, waited beside it.

‘We can cross?’ Styliane spoke to the older man.

‘The lighthouse is visible from here and the palace has enough lights to guide us on the return. We can cross.’

The boy helped both women in, the man climbing in to sit at the oars.

‘Strange times, lady,’ said the oarsman.

‘Indeed,’ said Styliane.

‘Should she be here in that condition?’

‘It’s a needful time.’

Beatrice was struck by the familiarity with which Styliane treated these people, allowing their questions without reminding them of their place. There was no distance between them; she adopted no superior air. Beatrice’s father would have warned her such an attitude would lead to trouble with the servants. Her father, Rouen and the court. That life seemed so far behind her.

They went on through the water, the lights of the palace fading behind them, their own lamp and the bigger light in front of them the only breaks in the darkness.

‘I’m like Charon,’ said the oarsman. ‘Do I get a coin?’

‘What?’ said Beatrice.

‘The boatman on the river of the dead,’ said Styliane. ‘The old Greeks said that we cross from this life to the next across a river and Charon rows.’

Beatrice could not appreciate the humour and kept her eyes on the growing light in front of her.

‘What is that?’

‘Leander’s Tower,’ said Styliane. ‘A lighthouse.’

‘Why are we going there?’

‘For light,’ said Styliane.

Beatrice was cold and huddled into her cloak. Soon a large tower with a burning beacon loomed from the fog. The tower was a straightforward round structure in stone with an open roof for the fire platform. A large sheet of polished metal had been positioned behind it to improve its effectiveness as a beacon.

The boat bumped against a rough quay. Two men from the shore helped moor the boat but then disappeared back inside the building.

The youth helped Styliane and Beatrice ashore and then passed Styliane the lamp. She took it and went inside the tower, Beatrice close behind.

A crude ladder led up to an internal platform. Again, Styliane led the way. Beatrice was convinced she couldn’t climb the ladder but found a way, turned half sideways. Desperation overcame her exhaustion and caution. From the platform another ladder went up onto the roof. Could she make it? She had to. She climbed.

She reached the top and looked out over the sea. Even with the light of the brazier she could see hardly anything beyond the roof itself. The fog was thick. Beatrice glanced behind her and gasped. An old slave woman, dressed all in black, turned around and it was as if she was appearing from nothing, her dark features shining in the light of the beacon.

‘This is Arrudiya,’ said Styliane. ‘She raised me.’

The woman cast down her eyes but not with deference, Beatrice thought. There was defiance or truculence in her expression.

The brazier was very hot and Beatrice moved away from it.

‘Now?’ said Styliane.

‘When the fire has died a little,’ said Arrudiya. ‘The moon is still climbing.’

‘How does she know that?’ said Beatrice.

‘I can feel it,’ said Arrudiya.

‘Why is she here?’ said Beatrice.

‘Because God sees things in threes,’ said Styliane, ‘and God is three.’

‘Moon, earth and underworld,’ said Arrudiya, ‘past, present, future. Father, son, spirit; virgin, mother, crone.’

Beatrice didn’t want to hear any more. She sat, waiting for the brazier’s light to weaken. It didn’t take long, and soon it was reduced to glowing coals, a tight cluster of light buried in the great darkness.

Eventually the old woman came to her. She poured something from a flask onto her hands and anointed Beatrice’s eyes.

‘Water from a shipwreck,’ she said.

She took out another flask and put it to Beatrice’s lips.

‘Drink,’ she said.

Beatrice did as she was asked. The drink was honey water but with a bitter musty taste behind it.

‘What is this?’

‘Kykeon, as our forebears drank,’ said the woman, ‘made with Syrian rue.’

Then the two other women sat down around the fire, equidistant from each other and Beatrice, and intoned in a low drone:

‘Wherefore they call you Hecate, many-named, air-cleaving, night-shining, triple-sounding, triple-headed, triple-voiced, triple-faced, triple-necked, and goddess of the three ways, who holds untiring flaming fire in baskets three, you who protect the spacious world at night, before whom demons quake in fear and the gods immortal tremble. Subduer and subdued, mankind’s subduer, and force-subduer; chaos, too. Hail, Goddess.’

Beatrice hated the invocation. She concentrated on prayer, on calling Christ to protect her, to save her soul. But she did not move; she wanted revelation.

The old woman threw a handful of something onto the coals and they flared. ‘I burn for you this spice, goddess of harbours, who roams the mountains, goddess of crossroads, nether and nocturnal, and infernal goddess of dark, quiet and frightful one.’

Beatrice found she was repeatedly crossing herself.

‘You who have your meal amid graves, night, darkness, chaos deep and wide, hard to escape are you. You are torment, justice and destroyer. Serpent-girded, who drinks blood, who brings death; destructor, who feasts on hearts.’

Beatrice coughed and fell forward on to her hands. Her nose was streaming and her throat was dry.

‘Flesh eater, who devours those dead untimely, and you who make grief resound and spread madness, come to my sacrifices, and now for me do you fulfil this matter. Shall we speak about the things not to be spoken of? Shall we divulge the things not to be divulged? Shall we pronounce the things not to be pronounced?’

The fire was suddenly bright again and Beatrice tried to get up, but her body seemed fixed to the floor.

‘Grant us revelation,’ continued the chant, ‘open our eyes and chase away the night, wandering lady, bright Selene.’

The moon had come out from behind a cloud, full and bright — much brighter than it had ever been, she thought — as if it resented its long time cloaked in black and was redoubling its light in joy at its release.

When she looked back down again, she was no longer on the rooftop. She was in the place by the river she went to in her dreams but not on the path by the wall; she was in the deep wood beside it. Styliane and Arrudiya sat on the ground next to her, each holding a small candle. Something crashed and bumped in the woods. A creature, she thought. A weird sense between hearing and touch, not quite either, had sprung up in her and the presence of the creature seemed hot and snuffling, as if hot and snuffling were the same thing.

‘How do I find my answer? How do I find his purpose?’

Styliane and Arrudiya gave no reply, just sat staring ahead.

Beatrice had a very strong urge to get out of those woods. The blundering thing wasn’t the only presence in there. She stood. She saw nothing but trees and darkness; the moon was caught in the branches, her own hands glowing pale in its light. She walked forward, pushing away branches and briars. Something was behind her. She turned. Nothing. She wanted to get onto the path, to go to those little candles in the wall and see they still burned. That was unaccountably very important to her.

Ahead the river shone like a silver road. She headed for it, her clothes tearing on the brambles, her skin scratched and cut by thorns.

She heard rustling in the woods behind her. She pulled and tugged her way forward, the baby heavy inside her even in the dreamworld.

You are going to the well. The voice was in her ear, more a whisper of the trees than anything human.

‘I will resist my fate.’

You are fate. Say your name, Verthani.

‘I do not know that name.’

Three wise girls come from the hall beneath the tree.

One is called Urdr, Fated so men call her;

Another Becoming, Verthani is her name;

Skuld — Must Be — is the third. Together

They carve on tablets of wood the fate of men.

Something stirred inside her and it was not the baby. That symbol. It crawled and writhed, gnawed at her like a wolf in her guts.

She made the path. Footsteps were coming the other way. It was a boy, a youth — the one who had visited Loys in their chamber.

He was walking towards the candle wall but he stopped when he saw her.

‘You are here, lady,’ he said, gesturing to the wall. ‘Shall I snuff you out?’

All around the boy, like things glimpsed at the end of a dream, half-seen, coming into existence, fading and returning like sleep spectres, symbols shone and span. She recognised them — Norse runes of the sort some of her father’s men liked to carve though these were things of air and light and fire and darkness, not designs in wood.

‘Who are you?’

‘I don’t know. I know what I do here but I don’t know who I am.’

‘You are the one who came to my husband in our chambers.’

‘Yes, Snake in the Eye. That is certainly one of my names, though I begin to suspect I have others.’

‘How so?’

‘There are things inside me, living things. They woke up when I turned to Christ. I am baptised now. They bathed me in the waters and then I baptised myself again in the priest’s blood to be doubly holy. Am I not holy?’

‘I am here to seek answers. Who is the man my husband took from the Numera? What is the meaning of the black sky? And the deaths?’

‘Three questions. A suitable number for a god. I only know one answer.’

‘What is it?’

‘The deaths have no meaning. I find them pleasing, that is all.’

‘You are their cause?’

‘Yes. I come here in my fancies and I blow out the lights. Men die. I see four here, one little one for your child. There are others with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Reveal them to me.’

‘They are in the wood.’

‘Who?’

‘Two women. They brought me here.’

‘I don’t suppose I need to see them to kill them. Here!’ He leaned into the wall and blew out one of the candles. Then he put his hand to his ear. ‘Heard no one fall. I’ll blow out another and you listen. Unless it’s you who falls, of course. I wonder if I kill the baby whether it’ll kill you. Hmmm.’

Beatrice took a pace back. The boy was mad, she was convinced. He shaped his lips to blow out another candle and the thing inside her, the jagged, barbed shape that crawled and slunk, began to howl, a dreadful keening note like a funeral lament.

‘What is that?’ said Snake in the Eye.

Beatrice had always fought it down. She knew now what she had done by that river, what had caused her fever. She had heard the rune howling and gone to the wall, tried to extinguish the candle that represented her life so she would no longer hear the call of the dread symbol. She had not managed it and had succumbed to fever and illness and dementia. Beatrice had tried to die but could not. That was before Loys, before love, and, faced by this awful boy, she wanted to live.

She no longer fought down the rune; she embraced it, opening her mind like a great sluice on a dam to allow what she had kept locked away to come bursting forth. The rune screamed and howled, raging like a cornered wolf. The trees stirred but not with the wind. Something was out there.

Snake in the Eye stared transfixed by the remaining candles in the wall. A low seething growl rumbled from the woods, a pure animal voice of threat that speaks to ancient fears and commands complete attention in a heartbeat.

There from the trees came Azemar, but it was not Azemar. Beatrice saw a man, but the idea in her mind was that of a wolf. Then she saw it, a great grizzled black thing, its eyes a shining green, its voice low with threat.

Snake in the Eye pointed at the wall. ‘There is no light here for the wolf,’ he said. ‘If you have drawn it here, lady, I do bid you send it away or I can snuff out your lamp as easily as any of the others.’

‘I am no one’s to command,’ said the wolf and its voice was like an avalanche.

Snake in the Eye backed away down the path, retreating from the wall.

‘Go,’ said the wolf who was Azemar and — Beatrice had one of those strange ideas that only exist in dreams — several other people too.

‘I could fight you,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘I-’

The wolf sprang at the boy, knocking him to the ground, roaring into his face, his lips pulled back over his great teeth.

‘I am not free,’ said the wolf, ‘and you are not yet whole.’

‘I am a man as good as any.’

‘You will find the waters. You will find the well. You will pass over the bridge of light to find a place where you will die a meaningful death.’

The wolf released the boy and backed away from Beatrice.

‘Who are you?’ said Beatrice to the wolf.

‘Your killer,’ said the wolf, ‘time and again through many lives.’

‘Am I to die?’

‘I am bound, fettered and bound.’

‘You are free, sir.’

‘I send forth my mind to travel the nine worlds. Release me from the rock where the slaughter gods bound me and release yourself from your eternal suffering.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Ask rather, who are you, lady?’

‘Then who am I?’

‘Of many births the Norns must be,

Nor one in race they were;

Some to gods, others to elves are kin,

And Dvalin’s daughters some.’

‘Don’t talk in riddles. Who am I?’

‘A dream of a god. A dream of one greater than the gods. You spin the fates of men and gods.’

‘I am a woman, born of a woman, and I will die a woman.’

‘You lead me to my fate and only you can keep me from it.’

‘How should I help you?’

‘Release me. At the well and from there to beyond the bridge of light.’

‘Lady Beatrice!’

Behind her was Styliane, her eyes wide with fear.

Images rushed in on Beatrice — she saw herself as she had been before, in lives past. She was a country girl by a low hut, drying herbs on its roof in the sun; she was a lady dressed in man’s armour, fleeing beneath spring skies; she was something she did not understand, someone who had once carried the bright chiming symbols she had seen around that murderous boy by the river, a woman walking in a wood holding the hand of a man who she had known in lives before and would know in lives again. Azemar, the wolf, her killer.

‘Lady, come away from this place. We should not have come here.’ Styliane tugged at her, trying to pull her away.

She heard the snarl of the wolf and its voice, low and furious.

‘She is mine in lives past, present and future, and I will never let you take her!’

‘Azemar, no!’ said Beatrice, but it was too late. The wolf rounded on Styliane, Beatrice leaped to protect her, and the world went dark.

On the platform of the lighthouse tower Beatrice came back to herself. Her two companions lay flat; the coals of the fire burned dim. The moon had gone and the night was black again, the only light from the dim beacon.

She stood and had to put a hand to the wall for balance. Her head swam. She retched and stood panting for a while. She went to Arrudiya. The woman was dead, cold already. Styliane was warm and breathing but Beatrice couldn’t rouse her.

She sat down and sobbed. What was happening to her? Then she regained control. Styliane needed help. Beatrice leaned over the parapet of the tower. The boat still bobbed by the quay. She went to the top of the ladder and shouted down, ‘Get up here now. The lady needs your help.’

The slaves hurried up as Beatrice leaned on the wall for support, looking across at the night lights of Constantinople. She had seen enough in the dream to convince her Azemar was a demon. When she got back to the palace, she would cut his throat.