Elder Isles - Madouc Part 9

Step by slow step, and despite Pymfyd's inarticulate mutter of protest, Madouc crossed the stony barrens to the circular wall and peered down into the black depths below. She listened, but heard nothing. She pitched her voice so that it might be heard in the black depths and called: "Father! Can you hear me?" She listened: no sound returned. "Father, are you there? It is Madouc, your daughter!"

Pymfyd, scandalized by Madouc's acts, came up behind her. "What are you doing? This is not proper conduct, either for you or for me!"

Madouc paid him no heed. Leaning over the opening she called again: "Can you hear me? It has been a very long time! Are you still alive? Please speak to me! It is your daughter Madouc!"

From the darkness below came only profound silence.

Pymfyd's imagination was not of a far-ranging nature; nevertheless he conceived that the stillness was not ordinary, but rather that where listeners quietly held their breath. He tugged at Madouc's arm and spoke in a husky whisper: "Princess, there is a strong smell of ghosts to this place! Listen with a keen ear, you can hear them chittering down deep in the darkness."

Madouc c.o.c.ked her head and listened. "Bah! I hear no ghosts."

"You are not listening with proper ears! Come away now, before they rob us of our senses!"

"Do not talk nonsense, Pymfyd! King Casmir dropped my father down this hole, and I must learn if he still lives."

Pymfyd peered down the shaft. "Nothing down there lives. In any case, it is royal business, beyond our scope!"

"Not so! Is it not my father who was immured?"

"No matter; he is no less dead."

Madouc nodded sadly. "So I fear. But I suspect that he left some memorial as to his name and pedigree. If nothing else, this is what I wish to know."

Pymfyd gave his head a decisive shake. "It is not possible; now let us go."

Madouc paid no heed. "Look, Pymfyd! On yonder gibbet hangs a rope. With this rope we will lower you down the shaft to the bottom. The light will be poor, but you must look about to see what has transpired and what records remain."

Pymfyd stared, mouth gaping in wonder. He stuttered: "Have I heard rightly? You intend that I should descend into the hole? The idea lacks merit."

"Come, Pymfyd, be quick! Surely you value my good opinion! Run to the gibbet and fetch the rope."

A step grated on the stony ground; the two jerked around to find a ponderous silhouette looming against the gray overcast. Pymfyd sucked in his breath; Madouc's jaw sagged.

The dark shape stepped forward; Madouc recognized Zerling the Chief Executioner. He halted, to stand heavy legs apart, arms behind his back.

Madouc previously had seen Zerling only from a distance, and the sight had always brought her a morbid little s.h.i.+ver. Now he stood looking down at her, and Madouc stared back in awe; Zerling's semblance was not the more lightsome for proximity. He was ma.s.sive and muscular, so that he seemed almost squat. His face was heavy, with skin of a curious brownish-red color, and fringed all around with a tangle of black hair and black beard. He wore pantaloons of sour black leather and a black canvas doublet; a round leather cap was pulled low over his ears. He looked back and forth between Madouc and Pymfyd. "Why do you come here, where we do our grim deeds? It is no place for your games."

Madouc responded in a clear treble voice: "I am not here for games."

"Ha!" said Zerling. "Whatever the case, Princess, I suggest that you leave at once."

"Not yet! I came here for a purpose."

"And what might that be?"

"I want to know what happened to my father."

Zerling's features compressed into a frown of perplexity. "Who was he? I have no recollection."

"Surely you remember. He loved my mother, the Princess Suldrun. For punishment, the king ordered him dropped into this very hole. If he still lives, I want to know, so that I might beg His Majesty for mercy."

From the depths of Zerling 's chest came a mournful chuckle. "Call down the hole as you like, by day or by night! You will hear never a whisper, or even a sigh."

"He is dead?"

"He went below long ago," said Zerling. "Down in the dark folk do not hold hard to life. It is cold and damp, and there is nothing to do but regret one's crimes."

Madouc looked at the oubliette, mouth drooping wistfully. "What was he like? Do you remember?"

Zerling glanced over his shoulder. "It is not my place to notice, nor to ask, nor to remember. I lop heads and heave at the windla.s.s; still, when I go home of nights I am a different man and cannot so much as kill a chicken for the pot."

"All very well, but what of my father?"

Zerling glanced once more over his shoulder. "This perhaps should not be said, and your father committed an atrocious act-"

Madouc spoke plaintively: "I cannot think it so, since I would not be here otherwise."

Zerling blinked. "These questions are beyond my competence; I confine my energies to drawing entrails and working the gibbet. Royal justice, by its very nature, is at all times correct. I must say that in this case I wondered at its severity, when a mere cropping of ears and nose, with perhaps a taste or two of the snake, would seem to have sufficed."

"So it seems to me," said Madouc. "Did you speak with my father?"

"I remember no conversation."

"What of his name?"

"No one troubled to ask. Put the subject out of your mind: that is my best advice."

"But! want to learn my pedigree. Everyone has one but me."

"You will find no pedigree in yonder hole! So now: be off with you, before I hang up young Pymfyd by his toes, just to maintain order!"

Pymfyd cried out: "Come along, Your Highness! No more can be done!"

"But we have done nothing!"

Pymfyd, already out of earshot, failed to respond.

V.

One bright morning Madouc came briskly along Haidion's main gallery and into the entry hall. Looking through the open portal and across the front terrace, she noticed Prince Ca.s.sander leaning against the bal.u.s.trade, contemplating the town below and eating purple plums from a silver dish. Madouc looked quickly over her shoulder, then ran across the terrace and joined him.

Ca.s.sander glanced at her sidelong, first carelessly, then a second time, with eyebrows raised in surprise. "By Astarte's nine nymphs!" swore Ca.s.sander. "Here is a definite marvel!"

"What is so marvellous?" asked Madouc. "That I deign to join you?"

"Of course not! I refer to your costume!"

Madouc looked indifferently down at herself. Today she wore a demure white frock with green and blue flowers embroidered along the hem, with a white ribbon constraining her copper-gold curls. "It is well enough, or so I suppose."