could, but it was still damp and filthy, filled with decayed straw and rat-droppings. He turned deaf ears to her tearful pleas. As he walked away along the cell passage, he refused to look back at her white hands clawing through the tiny hatch in the nail-studded door.
When he ascended to his post on the south-facing curtain-wall, his father was already there, sharing the warmth from a brazier with Gurt Louvain, a rugged looking northern knight draped in a green, weather-worn cloak. Two of the scarecrows had been flung to one side. They were hideous, soulless objects - sackcloth suits stuffed with rags and bound to stick frames. Their faces had been made up with streaks of what looked like dung or mucus. Weirdly - probably because the Breton troops had been bored - some of these faces were smiling exaggeratedly, almost dementedly - like caricatures from Greek or Roman drama. It gave them a sinister air, as if they knew something the English didn't and were delighted by it.
"How long must we rot in this hellhole?" Ranulf asked of no-one in particular.
Ulbert shrugged. "Until the king deems the rebellion quelled. And the longer that takes, the happier I'll be." He indicated the land beyond the river, its dense conifer wood receding into the blanket of mist. Nothing moved over there, neither man nor beast. "Look at that. Isn't that beautiful?"
"Beautiful? I see emptiness."
"Exactly." Ulbert shoved another log into the brazier. "No-one for us to kill, and more importantly, no-one to kill us."
"That's because there's no-one left."
"Don't fool yourself, Ranulf," Gurt Louvain said. He was a doughty man, but his bearded face was icy pale. Anguished by the slaughter they'd wreaked over the last few days, he'd developed a nervous twitch. He glanced at the silent trees beyond the river, and the shadows between them. "There's always someone left."
CHAPTER FOUR
Almost two full days passed before Countess Madalyn reached the secret hafn, and by then she was a wreck.
Famished, frozen and faint with pain and weariness, she tottered down a path winding steeply between groves of silent alder. Below her, the hafn - or 'hollow' - was filled with mist. Its trees were twisted stanchions, the spaces between them strewn with rocks and stones. Footsore and filthy, still clad in her ragged, bloodstained garb, she stumbled forward until, at the north end of the hollow, she came to a sheer cliff face. It was hung with rank vegetation, but had split down the centre. At the base, the fissure had widened into a triangular cavity just large enough to accommodate the body of a small man.
The countess regarded it warily. Her eyes were sore with weeping. Unbound, her hair hung in a flame-red tangle, giving her an appearance of madness, but she wasn't so mad as to go blundering into a place like this without hesitation. After several agonised moments, she cursed her lack of options, dropped to her knees and crawled into the aperture. On the other side, a passage that was little more than a rabbit-hole led through the rock. It was a cleft rather than a bore; its sides ribbed and jagged, its narrow floor deep in razor-edged shingle. She scrabbled along regardless of scrapes to her hands and knees, unconcerned that her torn clothes snagged and tore again. At length the passage opened into a cavern filled with greenish light, the source of which she couldn't identify.
She descended a flight of crudely cut steps. The walls in here were inscribed with ancient carvings - spirals and labyrinths, the shapes of men and beasts cavorting together. Reaching level ground, the steps became a paved path weaving between steaming pools. Overhead, water dripped from the needle tips of innumerable stalactites. Ahead, three figures stood on a raised dais. Countess Madalyn walked with a straighter posture; she groomed her hair with grubby fingers - anything she could do to regain a semblance of dignity.
The figures wore hooded white robes, girded at the waist with
When he ascended to his post on the south-facing curtain-wall, his father was already there, sharing the warmth from a brazier with Gurt Louvain, a rugged looking northern knight draped in a green, weather-worn cloak. Two of the scarecrows had been flung to one side. They were hideous, soulless objects - sackcloth suits stuffed with rags and bound to stick frames. Their faces had been made up with streaks of what looked like dung or mucus. Weirdly - probably because the Breton troops had been bored - some of these faces were smiling exaggeratedly, almost dementedly - like caricatures from Greek or Roman drama. It gave them a sinister air, as if they knew something the English didn't and were delighted by it.
"How long must we rot in this hellhole?" Ranulf asked of no-one in particular.
Ulbert shrugged. "Until the king deems the rebellion quelled. And the longer that takes, the happier I'll be." He indicated the land beyond the river, its dense conifer wood receding into the blanket of mist. Nothing moved over there, neither man nor beast. "Look at that. Isn't that beautiful?"
"Beautiful? I see emptiness."
"Exactly." Ulbert shoved another log into the brazier. "No-one for us to kill, and more importantly, no-one to kill us."
"That's because there's no-one left."
"Don't fool yourself, Ranulf," Gurt Louvain said. He was a doughty man, but his bearded face was icy pale. Anguished by the slaughter they'd wreaked over the last few days, he'd developed a nervous twitch. He glanced at the silent trees beyond the river, and the shadows between them. "There's always someone left."
CHAPTER FOUR
Almost two full days passed before Countess Madalyn reached the secret hafn, and by then she was a wreck.
Famished, frozen and faint with pain and weariness, she tottered down a path winding steeply between groves of silent alder. Below her, the hafn - or 'hollow' - was filled with mist. Its trees were twisted stanchions, the spaces between them strewn with rocks and stones. Footsore and filthy, still clad in her ragged, bloodstained garb, she stumbled forward until, at the north end of the hollow, she came to a sheer cliff face. It was hung with rank vegetation, but had split down the centre. At the base, the fissure had widened into a triangular cavity just large enough to accommodate the body of a small man.
The countess regarded it warily. Her eyes were sore with weeping. Unbound, her hair hung in a flame-red tangle, giving her an appearance of madness, but she wasn't so mad as to go blundering into a place like this without hesitation. After several agonised moments, she cursed her lack of options, dropped to her knees and crawled into the aperture. On the other side, a passage that was little more than a rabbit-hole led through the rock. It was a cleft rather than a bore; its sides ribbed and jagged, its narrow floor deep in razor-edged shingle. She scrabbled along regardless of scrapes to her hands and knees, unconcerned that her torn clothes snagged and tore again. At length the passage opened into a cavern filled with greenish light, the source of which she couldn't identify.
She descended a flight of crudely cut steps. The walls in here were inscribed with ancient carvings - spirals and labyrinths, the shapes of men and beasts cavorting together. Reaching level ground, the steps became a paved path weaving between steaming pools. Overhead, water dripped from the needle tips of innumerable stalactites. Ahead, three figures stood on a raised dais. Countess Madalyn walked with a straighter posture; she groomed her hair with grubby fingers - anything she could do to regain a semblance of dignity.
The figures wore hooded white robes, girded at the waist with
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