dwarves grinned back at her, revealing their teeth. She saw that the teeth were filed and her own smile faded. She bowed farewell and moved on as quickly as she thought prudent. But she was not to be their prey, for even as she continued her own progress, they continued theirs, up the endless stairway, shuffling and muttering.
It came to Una, as she passed through into another gallery, that the dwarves had something of the characteristics of an evicted people, and she was reminded again of her own image-of a struggle for power, partly territorial, partly philosophical, within the walls. She recalled Tallow’s only phrase:
This chamber had a painted ceiling: the adventures of Ulysses depicted with such artistry that Una was forced to pause and detect as much of them as dust and candlelight permitted. She was awed. She had never seen painting to match it, yet it had gone out of fashion, evidently, and been forgotten as another part of the palace was added and all this built around, built over, buried by changing tastes and embarrassment with a previous era’s art, no matter how consummate or enduring it seemed. Una reflected that very few monarchs possessed the finer sensibilities the world might reasonably expect to find in them. As a race they were vulgar and their ostentation and grandiose pomp, even their simpler pursuits (such as riding to hounds and gaming), were in such perfect accord with the general taste of their subjects that they symbolised and represented the majority far more satisfactorily than any body of elected republicans. She was reluctant to leave these paintings, but she must.
She took a large doorway and crept through a number of apartments-withdrawing rooms, bedchambers and the like-whose rotting silks and linens were evidently still in use. Once she went by a bed and saw that a man and a woman, gaunt and filthy, both wearing plush-padded golden crowns, lay asleep in it. She stepped aside for a procession of musty lords and ladies, whose crumbling trains were supported by the hands of blind children, and she stared, making no attempt to stop them or ask directions from them, until they were gone. They were flesh and blood, as was evident from their smell, but she could not see them as anything but ghosts; as if the original rulers of Albion continued to maintain their Courts, as layer was heaped on layer.
The Countess of Scaith knew that she must, sooner or later, make enquiries of some denizen, or she could be lost in the walls for the rest of her life, sharing the fate of these insane creatures. She found herself upon a back staircase, narrow and winding and somewhat comforting in its scale. She descended, ignoring the doorways she passed on the landings, until she reached the very bottom of the stairs. She moved on, but her foot struck bulky flesh, and she lowered her candle, expecting to find another corpse. Instead the mild, alien eyes of a huge reptile contemplated her, blinking very slowly in the light. A hiss, the opening and shutting of the long red mouth, once, then the thing was on the move, heavy, confident and, Una thought, amiable. She considered following it, as a lost traveller might follow a friendly dog, but it had taken a tunnel too low and too narrow for her to progress in any comfort, and she did not think it wise to risk meeting a herd of the creatures. As she turned away, seeking another door, she saw a girl dressed in the simple, cleanly garments of a country maid, standing close by and staring at her in wonder.
The girl was, in contrast to all others Una had seen here, so ordinary as to seem abnormal. “Sir? Do you come to help me?”
“Help you?” Una hesitated. “You need it?”
“Aye.” The girl lowered her eyes. “I hoped…But there’s none in this frightful place who has the courage….”
“I’ll help you if I can.” Una stepped up to her, to peer into the features, to find that they were real. “But you must help me, too. How do you come to be here?”
“My father brought me, sir. To escape creditors. He thought we should be safe. He had heard of the entrance from his grandfather.” The girl began to weep silently. “Oh, sir, I have been here a year, at least!”
“Where is your father?”
“Dead, sir. Slain by the infamous Lords Evius and Picus D’Amville.”
“Hern’s henchmen? Alive?”
“Old, sir, but surviving here, by retaining habits learned at Court.”
“Montfallcon sent them to Lydia, to fight in the war. They were killed by brigands.”
“They returned, in secret, after King Hern’s death, and have been here ever since.” The maid dropped her voice. “They have men at their command-a few, but bloodthirsty-and rule a great territory.”
“This is part of it?”
“No, sir. This was once the kingdom of another disgraced knight, lately slain.”
“You know a great deal of what goes on within the walls. If I help you escape, you’ll be my informant?”
“Willingly, sir.”
“There is a hall somewhere-I think nearby, but I am lost-where families camp. Do you know it?”
“I think so, sir.”
“You’ve heard of Jephraim Tallow?”
“Aye, sir. He’s his own master. He was kind to me.”
“Well, Tallow inhabited this hall. Or so I’d guess.”
“Then I know it, sir.” The maid took Una’s hand. “Come. It’s safe to go that way.”
“I can find our way back from there.” Una felt that it might, for the moment, be enough to save this young girl from death and return her safely to the outer palace. There, too, she would have a witness to what might be found within the walls-enough evidence to make Gloriana agree to send in expeditions, to arrest the tyrants, to save the persecuted. But even as she thought this she wondered at the enormity of it. And would Gloriana accept the need? Perhaps, for generations, her family had allowed this microcosm to exist, the denizens of the walls being some sort of sacrifice to the dead ancestors who had built the original houses; courtiers to attend so many royal ghosts.
The young girl led Una swiftly and surely through the twisting corridors, to pause at a door, to bite her lip and look enquiringly up at her benefactress. “Here, sir, I think.”
Cautiously, Una pulled back the door. It creaked; there was familiar firelight behind it. She opened it a foot or two and recognised the huge hall. But it had otherwise changed, for in the centre there was now erected a dais, made of slabs of granite and marble which had been hauled from a dozen disparate sources, for some were plain while others bore sections of elaborate bas-reliefs. And mounted on this crazy dais, the components of which formed irregular steps, was a barbaric ivory chair, evidently of East Indies workmanship, intricately carved with scenes of martial glory and amorous conquest. And there was a figure lying back in the chair, its face hidden in a hood, its hands hidden by long black sleeves, its feet hidden by the folds of the skirt. And fitted over the hood was a tall, spiked crown-a crown of steel and diamonds and emeralds; a war-crown, of the sort one of Gloriana’s distant ancestors might have taken into battle with him. And, replacing the nomads Una had first seen here, there was now a noisy concourse of ragamuffin gallants and fantasticos, painted whorish women, who, with trays of gold and silver, waited upon this hooded monarch of the dispossessed, who might have been Death himself and who certainly possessed Death’s power over the posturing rabble. In their filched finery their antique, mouldering costumes which looked to have been stolen from corpses, they might have been corpses themselves, raised by the lord in the ivory throne.
Was this sorcery?
The young girl spoke innocently and far too loudly for Una’s peace of mind. “Is it the place you sought, sir? Are we safe here?”
“It has changed.” Una put herself between the rabble (which had fallen silent and was staring at them both) and the girl.
The hooded creature raised a mysterious arm, apparently beckoning them towards him.
“Whom do I address?” demanded Una, remaining where she was. She was full of fear now.
Then the maid was running forward; running to the throne and through the parting crowd, up the steps, to kneel at the feet of the hooded figure, to huddle there, as if secure. Una pushed against the door through which she had entered. The door would not move.
“I’ve been tricked. Lured by a witch, eh?” Una spoke with crazy irony. “What are you, all of you?”
Again the apparition in the throne gestured and the mob began to converge upon her. She threatened with her sword. Rusty blades were produced. Diseased hands reached out for her. Faces corrupted with sores and boils leered at her. She feinted again. She cut the back of a wrist so that the owner howled and dropped its flencher. She stabbed. Her blow was blocked by a dozen swords and filthy fingers seized her in every private place of her body. She flailed. She screamed. She tried to break free. Beyond her attackers she saw the hooded figure stroking the head of its Judas goat, the cowering girl who, through eyes half-terrified, half-triumphant, watched as Una was
