a huge, bronze-clad gate stood open. Just inside the gate, in the mouth of the entryway was a portcullis raised high-fangs ready to drop on intruders, heavy bars to prevent entry as well. Above the gate a great, runic symbol-an O — was carven in the stone, and Camille could not but wonder who had it so sculpted- Olot, most likely, she thought. Across the bridge and into a passageway that jinked right and left they went, murder holes above, ready to rain death down upon any who won past the moat and gate and portcullis. At the exit of the corridor piercing the walls another portcullis and gate stood. Across an open, paved courtyard they were herded and through two massive, recessed doors, which led into the castle proper.
They came into a great hall, and the stench was nearly unbearable. Camille clapped a hand to her nose and mouth.
“Take swift and shallow breaths,” whispered Lanval, “and breathe through your mouth only. Soon you will become accustomed to it.”
How she would ever become accustomed to such a reek, Camille could not imagine, but she did as Lanval advised and took quick, barely drawn breaths. As the Goblins prodded them on inward, Camille looked ’round the great hall. By the early-morning daylight seeping in through high windows, she could see the chamber was filthy, with food rotting and shards of bones scattered across the floor. Flies buzzed among the litter of garbage, and a squirm of maggots wormed within the corpse of a small animal Camille could not identify. Spiderwebs filled nooks and crannies, and in one corner what seemed to be a mounded pile of excrement lay. Tables and benches marked this as a dining hall, with dirt and grease layering much of the furniture, and snoring Goblins lay about, some on the tables, others under.
A Goblin called out, “Rat catchers, to your traps!” and a score of slaves separated out, each with a guard, and they vanished through doorways and up stairs and down.
Camille watched them go, wondering what was afoot, yet she was shoved in the small of her back to stumble across the floor, one of the Goblin escort snarling, “No lollygagging, turd, or I’ll take the whip to you.”
Lanval turned to protest, but Camille shook her head Non, and so he said nought.
Past a low, one-step dais at one end of the room they were herded; three massive chairs of state set thereon. Through an archway they were goaded and into a huge kitchen beyond, and there they set to work, preparing a great breakfast for their captors.
“Would that I had some poison,” mumbled a worker, and Camille saw that it was Cecile, one of the seamstresses with whom she had had such cheerful times in the sewing circle of Summerwood Manor. Even so, Camille said nought, having been warned by Lanval that should the Goblins even inadvertently find out who she was, then Olot would be the next to know. And so Camille pitched in as did everyone else, the whip the price of dawdling.
Soon great pots of porridge were bubbling, and a hundred or so carcasses of rats were gutted and skinned and set asizzling upon spits. Too, great pots of tea were brewed, and now Camille knew where Lanval had gotten his tin of leaves, though how he had managed to do so under the very noses of the ward, Camille could not say.
Finally, guards snarled orders, and the hot gruel and cooked rats and brewed tea were hauled into the great room to be served to the now-clamoring Goblins, Redcaps all.
That group was replaced by another, and that one by another still. But soon all Redcaps on the isle had broken their fasts, and finally meager portions of gruel were prepared for the slaves, and half of the kitchen crew was drafted to take the porridge unto the thralls in the fields.
But Lanval had Camille remain behind, for now they prepared food for Olot and Te’efoon and Dre’ela. An enormous number of rats were set to broil, and a great pot of oil of a sort-somewhat like that of olives-was heated, along with a cauldron of vinegar.
A gong sounded, and Lanval murmured to Camille, “We will serve them when they get seated. You are to stay behind, else if Olot sees you, in spite of the dirt smeared on your face and your golden locks bound in a scarf, still he might recognize who you are.”
Even so, Camille stood in the shadows at the archway to watch as the Trolls came down a lengthy stairway along one wall and into the dining hall.
Olot led, and he was yet the same: a hideous, massive, nine-foot-tall Ogre with yellow eyes and green- scummed tusks, and he was still dressed in what looked to be the same greasy animal hides he had worn when Camille first saw him.
Next came a female Troll, “Te’efoon,” whispered Lanval. A head shorter than Olot, she stood perhaps eight feet tall. If tusks and talons could be called dainty, then hers were a bit more dainty than Olot’s, though her tusks were still scummed and her talons long. Te’efoon was dressed in what looked to be mottled green velvet, though the green could have come from mold. Sprigs of hair sprang from her dangly ears and one of her wide nostrils as well as from a large mole on her chin, though not a sign whatsoever grew on her knobby head. She was spectacularly ugly.
Yet even more ugly was the third Troll, Dre’ela, some seven-foot-six or so. She had her father’s tusks and her mother’s hair and even longer talons than either. But worst of all was the cut of her burlap dress, for she had little modesty, and now and again as she descended the stairs Camille flinched away from looking at such a hairy and obscenely bright red “Stay here,” again hissed Lanval, and then he and the others took sizzling hot rats and the oil and vinegar out to the low dais to serve the cham, chamum, and chamumi.
Yet crunching on a mouthful of rat bones, Dre’ela strode into the kitchen and smirked ’round her tusks at the women standing there. And she stood and stroked a necklace made of rings and brooches and bangles of gold strung on a hemp cord. Looped about each wrist as well were bracelets made of cord-hung golden rings and such. When none of the women reacted, Dre’ela growled and croaked, “It is time to feed my groom.” Then she simpered and said once again, “My groom.”
With a bucket of water, Camille stepped forward and into Dre’ela’s miasma, much like the reek of her Troll sire: that of a rotting animal burst open after lying dead afield for a full sevenday in the glare of the hot summer sun, though in Dre’ela’s case, there was a heavy overlay of musk.
Camille could feel wee Scruff’s body trembling where he hid in her high pocket, yet in spite of knowing how frightened he was, she was careful to keep a vacant-eyed, slack-jawed, dull-witted look on her face. Even so, she, too, was afraid: afraid that Dre’ela would realize this slave was someone new, and then she would be exposed. Yet the chamumi’s yellow gaze passed over Camille with no interest whatsoever. After all, she was merely a slave.
And as Lanval took up a great bowl of porridge, and Cecile bore several cooked rats, Dre’ela turned on her heel and led them all outward and across the chamber and up the long staircase.
And as they came to a hallway above, Camille softly canted a singsong chant:
“True gold is quite fine,
So softly gleams mine,
Some think it surely best.
Troll gold is better,
Bright it does glitter,
Outshining all the rest.”
As they neared a Goblin-warded door, again Camille softly chanted her singsong cant, and Dre’ela whirled about and snarled, “What is that you are caterwauling, you piece of Human filth?”
Only then did Camille remember Chemine’s warning: “Let not this girl sing to Goblins and Trolls.”
Keeping the dull-witted look on her face, Camille then simply spoke the cant:
“True gold is quite fine,
So softly gleams mine,
Some think it surely best.
Troll gold is better,
Bright it does glitter,
Outshining all the rest.”
A calculating look came into Dre’ela’s yellow eyes, and she gazed at Camille’s hands and wrists and neck, and upon seeing no gold there, the chamumi said, “Have you gold? True gold? I’ll give you bright Troll gold for such.”
“Oh, oh, would you, ma’amselle?” said Camille, digging in her pocket for the spool, a gaping smile on her
