“Nothing I can say will convince you to return home to Penharrow?”
Lucan glanced at him, and briefly it seemed as if he was contemplating it. “No, lad. Penharrow no longer exists, as far as I’m concerned.”
Alaric’s shoulders sagged, but he tried not to show it. “Wherever your search takes you, I’ll be there too. Every step of the way.”
Lucan gave a forced smile as he paced, his thoughts already elsewhere.
“All things considered,” Kay said, sipping wine, “I see no problem. He does have the right.”
“Right to what?” Bedivere asked. “To murder his wife?”
Arthur was surprised. “You think he’ll kill her?”
“Don’t you, sire?”
Arthur seemed unsure. “Has he done such a thing before?”
“No,” Bedivere admitted. “But he’s never been slighted like this before.”
“This is ridiculous,” Kay said. “Lucan is a savage on the battlefield, but there’ve been no complaints about his governorship of the March.”
“Not recently,” Bedivere countered.
“Besides,” Kay said to Arthur, “this Tribune Rufio is another of those Roman bastards on your death-list, isn’t he? He was at Camelot. He did his bit for the Emperor. How better than to send Lucan after him?”
Arthur turned to Bedivere. “What is the basis of your concern?”
Bedivere had no obvious answer prepared. “Well… he’s still wearing that damn wolf-fur. The battle’s over. What’s the purpose of it?”
“It’s his insignia,” Kay replied.
“His insignia!” Bedivere scoffed. “He inherited that mantle from his father, a monster by any standards. I’ve long feared he’s inherited more than that.”
“Haven’t you yourself argued that he’s mellowed in recent times?”
“Yes, but more recently still, Lucan was bitten by the Penharrow Worm,” Bedivere said. “Who knows what kind of effect it’s had? I mean, he even looks different.”
“Looks can be deceptive,” Arthur replied.
“I hope you’re right, sire.”
“What this boils down to, Bedivere,” Kay sneered, “is concern for your family’s reputation.”
“And concern that my brother’s soul will be lost,” Bedivere said.
“Well,” Arthur rejoined. “As his earthly overlord, I can’t legislate for something he might do. He’s a knight of the realm — I can’t restrict his movements because he may commit a crime. Answer me this, Bedivere… if I were to refuse Lucan leave to go, would he not just go anyway?”
Bedivere rubbed tiredly at his brow. “I fear he may, sire.”
“Even though his lands, castles and titles would be forfeit for disobeying me?”
“You may make such a ruling,” Bedivere said. “But the Northern March would beg to differ.”
“Exactly my thoughts,” Arthur agreed. “I’ve just lost a sizeable part of my armed forces. I can ill-afford a civil war. Your brother’s been dishonoured and he needs to clean his name. Let him find his wife and kill the wretch who stole her.”
“And if he causes havoc in the process, sire?”
Arthur chuckled grimly as he poured himself a goblet of wine. “Beyond this tent, there are sixty thousand unburied corpses. Could your brother do worse than that?”
Lucan was summoned back and informed of the King’s decision.
“Of course,” Arthur added, “you may not take the entire northern host. That would denude my army too much. This war isn’t over yet.”
Lucan nodded. “That’s as I expected, my liege.”
“So how many men do you propose to take?” Arthur asked.
“Thirty should be sufficient. All will come from my personal household.”
“You have volunteers?”
“I will have. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Very well.” The King nodded and waved Lucan away. Lucan withdrew, but glanced back when the King called after him: “Sir Lucan… I’ve given you leave to undertake this quest, but I want you to remember that you are a knight of the Round Table. You carry our status with you. It will not please me if it comes back tarnished.”
Lucan regarded them coldly before bowing and leaving.
When he got back to his own camp, Alaric had got there ahead of him, and was busy at the hewing block with his longsword.
“Has Maximion returned?” Lucan asked.
“He has, my lord. It seems he found his son slain in front of the stakes we used as baulks on the infantry line. He made a pyre from broken pikestaffs.”
Lucan found Maximion sitting, hollow-eyed, on an upturned bucket.
“At least you’ve returned,” Lucan said, “which means that your other sons will live.”
Maximion nodded vaguely. “Now we’ve both lost someone close to us.”
“You have the consolation that he was lost to a valorous deed.”
“I’ll try to remind myself of that whenever I picture my youngest boy with his face cloven, his limbs dismembered, his chest laid open to the heart and ribs…”
“You’re not devoid of guilt in this matter,” Lucan advised him. “You were happy enough to serve Rome when the conquests were easy. Presumably your sons were following your example?”
Maximion glanced up at him. “And what part, I wonder, did you play, Earl Lucan, in your loss? Perhaps you’re not devoid of guilt yourself.”
“Perhaps not.” It was easy to admit that now, Lucan reflected — to his own surprise. “In any case, if your son’s heroism is no consolation, you must find something that is — because duty calls. We depart for Castello Malconi first thing tomorrow.”
Maximion rose to his feet. “Good.”
“That pleases you?”
“Most certainly. You think I wish to linger in this blighted place?”
Twenty-Three
Castello Malconi sat atop a pinnacle crag overlooking a deep, trackless valley; a great cleft through the Ligurian mountains filled with a rubble of fallen rocks.
There was no access to it except from the north, via a passage wide enough for a coach and horses to pass along, which snaked for several miles between walls of rugged granite. Heavy iron portcullises were located along the passage at regular intervals, with guard posts on top of them. The passage ended at the edge of a cliff, and admittance could only be gained to the castle by a drawbridge spanning a terrifying crevasse. The entire structure was surrounded by an outer rampart built from massive slabs, crenellated and reinforced every hundred yards by turreted barbicans and raised timber platforms on which arbalest and ballistae were placed. The loftiest portion of Castello Malconi was the central spire, from which streamed the family emblem — a black boar with a burning eye. From outside, Castello Malconi was faceless and sheer with no apertures or windows, scarcely even an arrow-loop. Inside, it was similarly soulless, its jumbled inner buildings forming a horseshoe around the deep inner courtyard. Cold stone was the order of the day, much of it black with age and mildew.
But there was much more to the castle than met the eye.
Back in the days of the first Caesars, when the Malconi family had constructed their stronghold as a bastion against the Germanic tribes beyond the Alps, they had mined deep into the virgin rock on which it was perched, creating subterranean barracks in which hundreds of soldiers could be billeted. A tunnel spiralled down to an extensive undercroft, where horses could be stabled and armour and weapons stored. Deeper still lay a suite of work-rooms and laboratories, wherein Malconi alchemists produced potions, poisons, gases and other mysterious, quasi-magical weapons for use against the insurgent tribesmen.
In those days, Castello Malconi had echoed to the sounds of a Roman fort: trumpet calls, hobnailed sandals crashing as squads were called to attention, the clink of hammers, the grinding of whetstones. Now it stood in silence; at night, barely a candle-flame flickered from its parapets. As ruler of these lands, Duchess Zalmyra had baronial duties and a military obligation, but these responsibilities had been rendered null and void by the same Imperial decree that had stripped her battlements of their personnel and marched them off to war in the service of Lucius Julio Bizerta.