MADOUC Read online

  Madouc was still dissatisfied. "Was my father put into the hole along with his ‘pedigree'?"

  Cassander chuckled. "If he had one to begin with."

  "But what is it? Something like a tail?"

  Cassander could not restrain his mirth and Madouc indig antly rose to her feet and walked away.

  IV

  The royal family of Lyonesse often rode out from Haidion into the countryside: to join a hunt, or to indulge the king's taste for falconry or simply to enjoy a pastoral excursion. King Casmir usually rode his black charger Sheuvan, while Sollace sat a gentle white paifrey, or, as often as not, the cushioned seat of the well-sprung royal carriage. Prince Cassander rode his fine prancing roan Gildrup; the Princess Madouc ranged happily here and there on her dappled pony Tyfer.

  Madouc noted that many highborn ladies doted on their steeds and frequently visited the stables to pet and nourish their darlings with apples and sweetmeats. Madouc began to do likewise, bringing carrots and turnips for Tyfer's delectation, meanwhile evading the surveillance of both Lady Desdea and Lady Marmone, and also escaping her six maids-in-waiting.

  The stableboy assigned to the care of Tyfer was Pymfyd: a tow-headed lad of twelve or thirteen, strong and willing, with an honest countenance and an obliging disposition. Madouc convinced him that he had also been appointed to serve as her personal attendant and escort when the need arose. Without demur Pymfyd acceded to the arrangement, which seemed to signalize an advancement in status.

  Early one afternoon, with the overcast hanging low and the scent of rain in the air, Madouc donned a gray hooded cloak and slipped away to the stables. She summoned Pymfyd from his work with the manure fork. "Come, Pymfyd, at once! I have an errand which will require an hour or so of my time, and I will need your attendance."

  Pymfyd asked cautiously: "What sort of errand, Your High ness?"

  "In due course you will learn all that is necessary. Come then! The day is short; the hours tumble past, while you doodle and dither."

  Pymfyd gave a sour grunt. "Will you be wanting Tyfer?"

  "Not today." Madouc turned away. "Come."

  With something of a flourish Pymfyd plunged his manure fork into the dungheap and followed Madouc on laggard steps.

  Madouc marched up the path that led around the back of the castle, with Pymfyd trudging behind.

  He called out: "Where are we going?"

  "It will soon be made clear to you."

  "As you say, Your Highness," grumbled Pymfyd.

  The path veered to the left, toward the Sfer Arct; here Madouc swung away to the right, to scramble up the hillside along a trail leading up the stony slope toward the gray bulk of the Peinhador.

  Pymfyd voiced a querulous protest, which Madouc ignored. She continued up the slope, with the north wall of the Peinhador looming above. Pymfyd, panting and apprehensive, lunged forward in sudden alarm and caught up with Madouc. "Princess, where are you taking us? Below those walls criminals crouch in their dungeons!"

  "Pymfyd, are you a criminal?"

  "By no manner or means!"

  "Then you need fear nothing!"

  "Not so! The innocent are often dealt the most vicious blows."

  "Allow me to do the worrying, Pymfyd, and in any case we shall hope for the best."

  "Your Highness, I suggest-"

  Madouc brought to bear the full force of her blue gaze. "Not another word, if you please."

  Pymfyd threw his arms in the air. "As you will."

  Madouc turned away with dignity and continued up the slope beside the black masonry walls of the Peinhador. Pymfyd came sullenly behind.

  At the corner of the structure Madouc halted and surveyed the grounds at the back of the Peinhador. At the far end, at a distance of fifty yards, stood a massive gibbet and several other machines of grim purpose, as well as three iron posts for the burning of miscreants, a firepit and griddle used for a similar purpose. Closer at hand, only a few yards distant, at the back of a barren area Madouc discovered what she had come to find: a circular stone wall three feet high surrounding an opening five feet in diameter.

  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 cocked 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 shiver. 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 massive 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."

&n
bsp; 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 windlass; 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 Cassander leaning against the balustrade, 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.

  Cassander glanced at her sidelong, first carelessly, then a second time, with eyebrows raised in surprise. "By Astarte's nine nymphs!" swore Cassander. "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."

  Cassander spoke in fulsome tones. "I see before me, not a wild-eyed scalawag escaping a dogfight, but a royal princess of delicacy and grace! Indeed, you are almost pretty."

  Madouc gave a wry laugh. "It is not my fault. They dressed me willy-filly, so that I might be fit for the cotillion."

  "And that is so inglorious?"

  "Not altogether, since I will not be there."

  "Aha! You run grave risks! Lady Desdea will be rigid with vexation!"

  "She must learn to be more reasonable. If she likes dancing, well and good; it is all the same to me. She may jig, jerk, kick high in the air and jump in a circle, so long as I may do other wise. That is reasonable conduct!"

  "But it is not the way things go! Everyone must learn to act properly; no one is exempt, not even I."

  "Why, then, are you not at the cotillion, sweating and hopping with the others?"

  "I have had my share of it-never fear! It is now your turn."

  "I will have none of it, and this is what Lady Desdea must get through her head."

  Cassander chuckled. "Such mutiny might easily earn you another beating."

  Madouc gave her head a scornful toss. "No matter! I shall utter not a sound, and they will quickly tire of their sport."

  Cassander uttered a bark of laughter. "Wrong, in every respect! I discussed this same topic only last week with Tanchet the under-torturer. He states that voluble types who instantly screech and blubber and make horrid noises-these are the ones who fare the best, since the torturer is quickly satisfied that his job has been well and truly done. Take my advice! A few shrill screams and a convulsion or two might save your skin a whole medley of tingles!"

  "This bears thinking about," said Madouc.

  "Or-from a different perspective-you might try to be mild and meek, and avoid the beatings altogether."

  Madouc gave her head a dubious shake. "My mother, the Princess Suldrun, was mild and meek, but failed to escape an awful penalty-which the poor creature never deserved. That is my opinion."

  Cassander spoke in measured tones: "Suldrun disobeyed the king's command, and had only herself to blame."

  "Nevertheless, it seems very harsh treatment to visit upon one's own dear daughter."

  Cassander was not comfortable with the topic. "Royal justice is not for us to question."

  Madouc gave Cassander a cool appraisal. He frowned down at her. "Why do you stare at me so?"

  "Someday you will be king."

  "That well may be-later, so I hope, rather than sooner. I am in no haste to rule."

  "Would you treat your daughter in such a fashion?"

  Cassander pursed his lips. "I would do what I thought to be correct and kingly."

  "And if I were still unmarried, would you try to wed me to some fat bad-smelling prince, so as to make me miserable the rest of my life?"

  Cassander gave an exclamation of annoyance. "Why ask such pointless questions? You will be of age long before I wear the crown. Your marriage will be arranged by someone other than me."

  "Small chance of that," said Madouc under her breath.

  "I did not hear your remark."

  "No matter. Do you often visit the old garden where my mother died?"

  "I have not done so for years."

  "Take me there now."

  "Now? When you should be at the cotillion?"

  "No time could be more convenient."

  Cassander looked toward the palace, and seeing no one, gave a flippant wave of the hand. "I should stand aloof from your vagaries! Still, at the moment I have nothing better to do. Come then, while Lady Desdea is yet dormant. I do not take kindly to complaints and reproaches."

  Madouc said wisely: "I have learned the best response. I feign a blank stupid perplexity, so that they weary themselves with explanations, and forget all else."

  "Ah Madouc, you are a crafty one! Come then, before we are apprehended."

  The two set off up the cloistered way toward Zoltra Bright- Star's Wall: up past the orangery, through the wall itself by a dank passage and out upon the parade ground at the front of the Peinhador: a place known as ‘The Urquial'. To the right, the wall veered sharply to the south; in the angle, a thicket of larch and juniper concealed a decaying postern of black timber.

  Cassander, already beset by second thoughts, pushed through the thicket, cursing the brambles and the drift of pollen from the larches. He thrust at the postern and grunted at the recalcitrance of the sagging timbers. Putting his shoulder to the wood, he heaved hard; with a dismal groaning of corroded iron hinges the postern swung open. Cassander gave a grim nod of triumph for his victory over the obstacle. He beckoned to Madouc. "Behold! The secret garden!"

  The two stood at the head of a narrow vale, sloping down to a little crescent of beach. At one time the garden had been land scaped after the classic Arcadian style, but now grew rank and wild with trees and shrubs of many sorts: oak, olive, laurel, bay and myrtle; hydrangea, heliotrope, asphodel, vervane, purple thyme. Halfway down to the beach a clutter of marble blocks and a few standing columns indicated the site of an ancient Roman villa. The single whole structure to be seen was near at hand: a small chapel, now dank with lichen and the o
dor of wet stone.

  Cassander pointed to the stone chapel. "That is where Suldrun took shelter from the weather. She spent many lonely nights in that small place."

  He gave his head a wry shake. "And also a few nights not so lonely, which cost her dear in grief and sorrow."

  Madouc blinked at the tears which had come to her eyes and turned away. Cassander said gruffly: "The events are many years gone; one should not mourn forever."

  Madouc looked down the long descent of the garden. "It was my mother, whom I never knew, and it was my father, who was put in a hole to die! How can I forget so easily?"

  Cassander shrugged. "I don't know. I can only assure you that your emotion is wasted. Do you wish to see more of the garden?"

  "Let us follow the path and find where it leads."

  "It goes here and there, and finally down to the beach. Suldrun whiled away her days paving the path with pebbles from the beach. Rains have undone the path; there is little to show for her work-or her life, for that matter."

  "Except me."

  "Except you! A notable accomplishment, to be sure!"

  Madouc ignored the jocularity, which she found to be in rather poor taste.

  Cassander said thoughtfully, "For a fact, you are not at all like her. Evidently, you resemble your father, whoever or what ever he might have been."

  Madouc spoke with feeling: "Since my mother loved him, he was surely a person of high estate and noble character! Nevertheless, they call me ‘bastard' and insist that I have no pedigree."

  Cassander frowned. "Who commits such discourtesy?"

  "The six maidens who attend me."

  Cassander was shocked. "Really! They all seem so sweet and pretty-Devonet in particular!"

  "She is the worst; in fact, she is a little serpent."

  Cassander's displeasure had lost its edge. "Ah well, girls can be saucy at times. The facts, sadly enough, cannot be denied. Do you care to go further?"

  Madouc halted in the path. "Had Suldrun no friends to help her?"

  "None who dared defy the king. The priest Umphred came occasionally; he said he wanted her for Christianity. I suspect he wanted her for something else, which was no doubt denied him. Perhaps for this reason he betrayed her to the king."