A moment passed, during which no-one dared respond.
Lucan tossed his wine-cup away. “I’m for bed. The rest of you should follow. We rise with the sun.”
The men stood up, yawning, throwing the dregs of their wine into the fire.
“A rare sign of weakness from your seigneur,” Maximion mumbled to Alaric. “In drink, he crosses completely to the other side.”
“But in the morning, he’ll be sober,” Alaric retorted, rising to his feet. “And yet you will still be our prisoner, and your army will still have been destroyed and your Emperor slain, and still there’ll be no-one to protect those who have offended my lord when his wrath falls upon them.”
“Believe that last part at your peril, Sir Alaric,” Maximion said.
That night, as he slept, Earl Lucan had a visitor.
The first he was aware of her, she was standing just inside the entrance to his pavilion, silhouetted against the moonlight. He stirred in his bed-roll, attempting to focus on the shapely form through eyes glazed with drink and fatigue. She walked towards him, confident and sensual, her hourglass figure swaying from side to side.
“Trelawna?” he murmured.
“If you wish,” came a breathy whisper.
When she was close, he saw that she was wearing a diaphanous green gown, which was laced up the front, though its lacing now hung open, exposing breasts like lush, heavy fruits, their nipples dark and distended, a flat milk-white belly, and below that, a dense tuft of pubic fur.
“Trelawna…” He tried to reach to her, though his limbs were so leaden that he could barely lift them. A constricting paralysis seemed to have clamped his entire body.
She knelt alongside him. “As you say, my love.” Her cool hand fluttered on his bare thigh. It was the gentlest of touches, but it swiftly aroused him. “Oh… my!” she said, noting his immediate reaction.
With gentle shrug of her shoulders, her garb slid from her body so that she now knelt before him, entirely naked. As she shifted position, a shaft of moonlight caught her, and the beauty of her shape almost stopped the heart in his chest. And yet, as she teasingly lowered her mouth to his loins, it struck him that the glossy tresses spiralling over her porcelain back and shoulders were not of honeyed gold, but were black as raven feathers.
Only with a supreme effort, did he manage to reach down and grip that hair.
With a hiss that would have done justice to the Penharrow Worm, she spun around and flung herself on top of him, full-length. Again, he was so enfeebled that he could hardly react. The beautiful visage poised an inch above his own was savage and catlike; the eyes bored into him with iridescent, emerald flames.
“My brave warrior,” she cooed. Her breath was sweet as wine, and yet there an underlying taint — something like blood. “My brave warrior… embarked on your path of destruction. But don’t mistake yourself for one of the righteous.”
“Who… are you?” he stammered.
“The question here is, who are you?” she replied. “Following your unfaithful wife with a hangman’s zeal and yet even now, at the point of my womanhood, I can feel you rising to the same error of judgment. My goodness, brave warrior, how long has it been?” She gave a purring chuckle. “I need only adjust my hips… move them an inch… and you will penetrate to my core.”
“Succubus…”
“If only that were true. Your imminent infidelity could be excused. No, Earl Lucan, Knight of the Round Table, Black Wolf of the North… you are very much awake, very much the master of your own flesh, which even now belies your piety…”
“My lord!” Turold shouted, entering the tent with a sword and a fire-brand.
Lucan sat upright abruptly, bathed in sweat but also shivering. He moved quickly to adjust his loincloth, and surveyed the otherwise empty interior. Turold’s torch revealed nothing amiss, save perhaps a few traces of dissipating mist.
“You were crying out in your sleep,” Turold said. “Are you ill?” Lucan got shakily to his feet. Turold eyed him with alarm. “A dream, perhaps?” he suggested.
“No dream,” Lucan replied.
“Maybe your wound…?”
“Those weren’t cries of pain, Turold.”
Turold looked puzzled.
“I’ve just received a warning to turn around,” Lucan explained. “It seems that not only might our flesh and bones be in peril, but our souls as well.”
Alaric also entered, with sword drawn.
Lucan glanced at him. “Has anyone else been disturbed?”
“No-one, my lord,” Alaric said.
“Then return to your beds, both of you. Say nothing of this.”
Turold withdrew, but Alaric remained.
“Well?” Lucan asked.
“You look shaken, my lord.”
“And?”
“My lord… you no longer have a squire, but if you need assistance…”
“I have no squire, Alaric, because what I do now would teach nothing to a young man seeking his way in the world.”
Alaric knew that it was not his place to speak out. His cheeks burned as he tried to give a discreet voice to his feelings. “My lord, this mission… I honestly don’t think…”
“Do you know what faces us, lad? I’ll tell you. The Ligurian mountains. Towering peaks with only scant passes and wild valleys between them. In some parts thickly wooded, in others parched and desolate. This would offer concern enough, without even considering what kind of strength the Malconis might hold in reserve. I hope the men have enjoyed tonight. Things will get much harder from here.”
“That was your purpose in wining and dining them?”
“I wined and dined them because they deserved it. But you’re right to think me a tyrant, Alaric. It’s a very cruel fate I’m dragging them to.”
“You haven’t dragged anyone. We all volunteered.”
“Ultimately, that won’t count for much.”
Twenty-Five
The journey across France was an ordeal Trelawna would never forget.
When crossing Britain with Lucan, they would travel in stately procession without haste, regularly stopping at the castles and manors of friends, family and loyal retainers, easing the boredom of a long journey with comfort and conviviality. But this was a headlong flight, following twisting, torturous tracks into the Ligurian mountains with no rest-breaks save at night, and it was physically and emotionally draining.
The battle had been every inch the atrocity she had anticipated.
At home in Penharrow she had nursed many who had returned from war. She had seen first-hand the dreadful impact of weapons and hatred. Even so, the horrors at the Vale of Sessoine had been a thousand times worse. It had been much the same for the Roman women, who had wept, wailed and even vomited at the scene of carnage. One elegant lady was transfixed by the sight of her young husband dragging behind his horse, an arrow lodged in his throat. Her screams of despair drew even Trelawna to her side, at which point the woman whirled around, calling her a “heretic bitch,” demanding she keep away.
“Heretic?” Trelawna said to Gerta, stunned. “She called me a heretic… without knowing my beliefs.”
“Of course,” Gerta whispered. “To their mind, we are inferior. And when one is inferior, proof of sin is not required. My lady, you will never be accepted by these people. Return to your husband now, before it’s too late.”
“I’ve made my choice, Gerta. If you wish to return, do; you have my permission.”
Shortly afterwards Rufio joined her on the low rise. He was filthy and bloodied, his handsome orange livery in rags, his armour dented and spattered with gore.
“We must leave,” he panted.