As he walked toward the château’s west wing, Sir Henry inhaled the scent of flowering gorse. To his left was the steep drop of the black cliffs, and beyond them the whispering sea where so many ancient sailors had drowned, mourned now only by the cries of gulls. The waters here were notoriously dangerous, as were the old gods who haunted them. Mara, queen of the hungry deep, keeper of the waters’ secrets and of fishermen’s nightmares. Sir Henry smiled grimly. She, too, loved to collect bones.
The studio sat at the end of a long, winding corridor, one of the many maze-like passages in this, the oldest part of the château. Once this great sprawl of buildings and subterranean tunnels had been part of a monastery, but the order had been dissolved in the late Middle Ages when the abbot was accused of sorcery. After that, the lands and buildings were taken over by Sir Henry’s ancestors—an aristocratic but bastard line that some said the abbot had seeded himself.
As he listened to the echo of his footsteps and the distant rumble of the sea, Sir Henry contemplated the abbot’s sad fate. He supposed that the Church just didn’t understand what it meant to live this close to the salt, where life was precarious. But then again, any who had been stationed here long enough began to comprehend the risk. Even a hundred years ago, when the local church’s façade had been restored, they left the mermaid there with her comb and her mirror, and the barnacle-encrusted skulls that encircled the front door. But then again, the workmen had been locals, and forcing them to obliterate such protective charms would have ended in mutiny.
Lifting the ancient iron keyring from his pocket and selecting an unusually ornate key embellished with gold filigree, Sir Henry unlocked the cast-iron gate that separated the studio from the rest of the building. The only other copy of the key belonged to DeMains.
Traversing the short corridor in a few swift steps, Sir Henry knocked on the studio door. A deep baritone voice called, “Enter!” and Sir Henry opened the door. As the hinges squeaked and the ancient oak portal swung inward, the smell of linseed oil and wet clay filled Sir Henry’s nostrils. DeMains was there, as he almost always was. But today he sat at his desk, ink pen in hand, his face bathed in the mellow glow of an oil lamp. No doubt he was expounding on his latest theory about the benefits of flesh-depth measurement.
Glancing up from his work, DeMains smiled. “Sir Henry!” He stood and held out his hand. His fingers were surprisingly long and tapered for such a squarely built fellow. “To what do I owe the honor? I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
Sir Henry glanced at the nearby table covered with DeMains’s sculpting tools: micrometer, several levels, piping, and bits of leather and sandpaper. On the far side of it sat a guillotine, a drill, and a bowl full of depth pins. They always made Sir Henry think of miniature golf tees.
“Something special today, DeMains,” Sir Henry said, and then he passed the sack to his resident sculptor. DeMains withdrew the skull.
“My, but she’s a beauty!” With a connoisseur’s touch, he rubbed his fingers along the wide brow and the delicate eye sockets, finally fingering the sutures of the skull. “Not a day over twenty. Where did you get her? The palace cemetery?”
“No. The hangman’s yard.”
DeMains’s eyes widened. “Her crime?”
“Murdering a faithless lover.”
DeMains’s smile spread into a grin as he stroked the girl’s bare cheekbone. “Then we shall give her red hair.”
“According to the police records, it was black.”
“Red for passion,” DeMains replied, and Sir Henry nodded.
“DeMains, you are a consummate artist, capturing the soul as well as the face of beauty.”
“That’s what you pay me for,” DeMains replied, and then quieted for a moment. “On the subject of payment, it’s your forty-ninth birthday next month. On the night of the Summer Solstice.”
Sir Henry tucked his cane into the crook of his arm and sank his hands deep in his suit pockets. “Yes. I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
“Seven times seven,” DeMains said. “It’s an important one.” He tilted his head and stared sympathetically into Sir Henry’s eyes. “You will need a special gift. One that entails a sacrifice.” He glanced at the skull cradled in his hands. “She would do nicely.”
Sir Henry pursed his lips. “It’s not fair,” he said, “for my birthday to interrupt what could be a lovely relationship.”
“Life isn’t fair,” DeMains replied. “Regardless, the people expect it. With great tracts of land comes great responsibility. Remember what happened to your father.”
“That occurred before I was born,” Sir Henry stated as he frowned. “And I believe a good part of the tale was fabricated by fishwives eager for scandal.”
But DeMains shook his head. “Belief does not change your responsibility, especially in the eyes of the villagers. We don’t want outsiders involved, or the police, and local girls won’t do. Times have changed. It’s an elegant solution.”
“Quite.” Sir Henry took his hands out of his pockets and tapped his cane on the floor, his lips pouting. “It’s still not fair,” he said, “but I suppose you’re right.” He turned to go, then paused at the door. “Spare no expense,” he said. “And call me when you give her eyes.”
One week later, Sir Henry stood on the cliff edge and stared down at the moaning, ever-hungry sea. In his hand was an unopened bottle of cognac. Sea-fret blew into his face as the incoming tide boomed and crashed, eating away at the rock beneath his feet. It was only a matter of time before the cliff face tumbled into the depths, and with it, a little more of Sir Henry’s heritage. But that was what it meant to be an aristocrat in these parts. To hold on to what you could, however you could, sacrificing whatever was necessary. It was rarely a pretty business.
Turning his back to the wind, which was redolent with brine and seaweed, Sir Henry strode to the most ancient part of the old abbey. Tucking the cognac under his arm, he removed a rusted iron key from the vast ring he’d hooked to his belt and unlocked the stout oak door that led to the catacombs. Once inside, he lifted the waiting torch from its iron sconce and reached into his coat for his silver pocket lamp. With the ease of long practice, he pressed the side button to pop the lid, and a second time to ignite the cap. The fluid-drenched wick caught with a crack and a hiss. Sir Henry stared at the yellow flame as it engulfed the torch’s pitch-soaked head. It stank, but his nose no longer crinkled with distaste. After so many decades of traveling these lightless tunnels, he was used to it.
Shadows lurked around each corner and the dark spill behind every pebble and stone stretched long and ominous, like poisonous little secrets. Here in this underground place every sound was distorted. His footsteps echoed like the pounding of the sea in the caves below, and the very blood in his veins pulsed like a tide.
Soon he came to the shelves which housed his father’s collection. He paused for a moment, letting the firelight play across a delicate crown of bone, the elegant arch of a brow, or plumb the lovely mystery of an eye socket. These were his first darlings, his earliest fantasies. As a boy, he had come down and played with them. In his imagination, he’d dressed them in exquisite flesh, though secretly he’d thought, even then, that bone was best—the very foundation of feminine splendor. In fact, he never found a woman so truly beautiful as one he had seen fully disrobed, one whose face he had been able to rebuild at his pleasure.
Placing his torch in a nearby sconce and setting the bottle at his feet, he reached to the highest shelf and grasped a bony visage by its hollows. He cradled it in his hands, as if it were the most precious jewel. His father had etched a name on every head in his harem, but this one had always been Henry’s favorite. Lady Godiva—the woman who had ridden naked through a town, dressed only in her long, luxuriant hair. To her, bareness would be second nature. He kissed her serene, bony brow and tucked her under his arm. Picking up the bottle at his feet, he began to walk deeper into the catacombs. Despite his vows, the abbot always appreciated female company.