out through the shattered window, receding as if she were watching it through the wrong end of a telescope, vanishing down a spiral into infinity.
Tiphaine turned frantically to the cell’s gate. “Don’t go out, don’t go out, nobody go out or come in here. Let me handle it!”
She raced down the stairs, jumping sideways off that last ten steps, landing bent-knee and rolling in a clash of plates and using her moving weight to push herself back onto her feet. Stratson opened the rear door by the kitchen and she raced out into the dark waste yard behind Fen House, splashing through puddles ankle deep, fighting for her balance on the soaking sagging marshy growths. Light came from some of the windows.
Before she could call, more lights came on; Stratson doing just the right thing. She could see a little figure covered in soaking white rags trying to heave itself up on its arms through the downpour. The legs didn’t seem to be moving.
All right Rudi, you sent us the story on how to deal with this.. .
The warden staggered out. She turned to him: “There’s a wall around this piece of bog, right?”
“Yes.” Stratson craned to look at the struggling figure. “What next?”
She swallowed and answered, her voice as hard as diamonds, the bell chiming in her head and the black held at bay, but heaving and twisting with dreadful strength. Her long sword came out, a fugitive gleam in the rain and darkness.
“I’m going to dismember the thing. Then we’re going to clean everything. With fire.”
“Aye, Lady. Whatever the Crown gives you, it isn’t enough and I don’t envy you.”
Tiphaine could see the figure’s legs begin to move.
Odd, almost like each is under the control of a different nervous system. Like she’s being puppeted by a swarm of… things… crawling around inside her.
She let the thought go and filled her mind with a simple mantra she’d composed over the past few months with Delia’s help.
Her sword went up. “Io, Io, paean!”
The creature moved, rolling in the mud. Cut. You know how. Two-handed grip, turn, pivot, loose grip and then hard when it hits!
Striking at shoulders, elbows, wrists, like butchery in a nightmare abattoir where the flesh under the steel wouldn’t die.
Then the head lay looking up, dangling from a flap of muscle and skin. The eyes were open and looking at her; Mary’s spiteful, angry, blue eyes.
Cut.
The head rolled free. Tiphaine knocked up her visor, went to one knee and set the sword point down, bracing herself on the hilt and dragging in one raw cold breath after another. It was a bad thing to do to a good sword, but it would have to go too. Her body was streaming sweat under the armor, but shivering with chill at the same time. Bits of hair and matter and skin spattered her armor and gauntlets, but the rain was still coming down. She turned her face up to its cleanness, let the water flow into her mouth, spat, did it again.
Stratson came to her. “My lady?” he asked.
He looked more like a horse than ever, his long yellow teeth bared by a grimace that pulled back his lips, his eyes wide opened and staring.
He looks like he expects the pieces of her to come back together. I’m not surprised.
“Listen, she gets cremated tonight and everything with her.”
He nodded, the whites of his eyes showing. “I thought you might, m’lady. Got things going while you were busy.”
He signaled, and men came forward with barrels of the wood-alcohol mix used for lanterns; others dragged out a hose connected to the biogas plant, and still others made a chain to bring wood from the sheds that kept it more-or-less dry.
“Should I also… burn the room?”
“Probably. Spit, blood, hair, anything. Don’t touch anything with your bare hands. I’m going to strip when I’m done and we’ll burn even my armor and sword. It’s a good thing my Associate’s dagger is in my saddlebags. I’d burn that too if I’d been wearing it, and it’s a gift from the Lady Regent.”
The rain came down, but the wind was easing off. The prison guards rigged tarps to cover the soggy yard that sloped down to the swamp. One of them came forward with a torch and looked at her. She nodded curtly.
Whump! The alcohol caught, and then the wood below it as the heat drove out moisture and the gas played across it like a dragon’s breath. More wood, more barrels of alcohol, blue and red flames soaring up. Men came bearing the contents of the cell, handling them with gingerly reluctance and heavy gloves.
“What about this?” asked Stratson, showing her the white altar cloth. He grasped one corner and cursed.
“What!”
“This!” A needle dangled from the leather gauntlet he wore. Tiphaine pulled the alcohol lamp closer. “Did it touch you?”
“No; but the whole cloth is run through and through with needles!”
She frowned down at it. “Put it down on the bed, strip the glove, make sure not to drop the needle and put it on top. The mattress is a bag of cornhusks, right? Over a rope webbing?”
“Yes.” Stratson did as he was told and eased back as Tiphaine carefully studied the length of cloth draped over the little bed. Needles twinkled in the waving flames.
“That sewing box of hers, too,” he said. “It was set just so on the little table and it fell over. We caught it in time, but the boxes of pins opened up. Fortunately they all fell in not out, but still.. . When did she have time to set this up?”
Tiphaine shook her head. “Shovels, oil… it’s going to be a long night.”
Then she looked at the spread of cloth and studied the designs; the odd symbology seemed to make her eyes slide along faster and faster…
She wrenched her gaze away. No, I don’t think I’ll take this along for study.
“Throw it on. All of it.”
“Got some priests,” Stratson said. “There’s a hermitage in the woods. They come over and hear confessions and say Mass. Your page had someone run for them, smart kid.”
Tiphaine realized he had an entourage, standing at a slight distance. Five of them were wearing habits, brown Dominican robes. The one who came forward wore the bright red cincture of the Hounds of God, which she hadn’t seen in many years. Tiphaine bared her teeth, but the man raised a hand, palm-out to her. It was impossible to tell his age, but she thought the lines in his face were those of suffering as much as age.
“Peace, sister. Peace. After Pope Leo died, we were disbanded by orders of the Lady Regent. Bishop Maxwell tracked us down several years ago. All of us have had training in detecting the enemy’s works. We have stayed disbanded; but at the orders and service of the secular authorities. Thus we do penance.”
Tiphaine growled. That’s unexpected! Did Sandra know? But, if they are now on the side of the Angels… we need a few doughty warriors in the spiritual realm.
“You’ve got me at a disadvantage, Father…”
“Lucien Blat. I am at your orders. What can we do?”
Stratson interrupted. “Tell me what will make this safe!” he demanded.
And Tiphaine found herself sharing a sympathetic glance with a Hound of God. The irony bit.
“What is… who is… what can you tell me?”
Tiphaine looked around and realized the priest hadn’t overheard her conversation. Tersely she explained, and was reassured and oddly disturbed when the priest simply nodded acknowledgement.
Oh, damn. This sort of story is credible now. It’s good that he believes the truth but the truth is so Not Good.
“I think that we need to hallow and sanctify this land,” the cleric said thoughtfully. “And not bringing anybody vulnerable here sounds like a very good idea. In the future; I’m afraid I agree, this entire place should be destroyed and interdicted. Possibly burned over in the late summer when it dries out enough, for several years running.”
He turned and went to the other priests standing in the wind, as motionless as they might have been standing in the shade of an oak on a hot day, their hands tucked into the broad sleeves of their robes.
