He hadn’t gone far when he stopped in his tracks and pricked up his ears. The thickness of the undergrowth meant it was difficult to see but he could hear. And what he heard was the unmistakable sound of a snorting, bellowing, charging hog. He didn’t even turn to look before breaking into a wild and desperate run. As he crashed through the undergrowth and the low hanging branches he cursed inwardly. He should have known. These forest hogs were not only renowned for their hirsute nature and their supremely tasty flesh, but also for their short temper and cunning. Of course it was going to come after him; it was just biding its time. He should have kept watch over his shoulder but there were so many other things on his mind nowadays that he was not as alert as usual.
Although the Hairy-Backed Forest Hog is abnormally big for a woodland pig, owing much of his bulk to pure fat (which is why he is so exceedingly tasty), this is no hindrance at all to his speed and agility. To see a Hairy-Back in full fight, his head down, his eyes fixed and staring, his trotters tearing up the mud, is a sight and a half. Imagine it: those bristled, fatty flanks swaying from side to side, the dark flesh rippling from back to front and back again in rhythm with his gallop. The sight alone is breathtaking in the extreme . . . but the noise! His roaring grunt is more akin to that of a lion than a swine. Crashing through the undergrowth he comes, his charge gathering momentum, allowing nothing in his path to divert him from his goal: that of destruction and death.
Hector wondered whether the hog was experiencing the same acute pain in its throat and lungs as he was from running. It was hardly an equal contest; four legs were surely better than two. His fevered imagination was certain that he could feel the hog’s hot breath on the back of his legs. At any moment he expected the beast’s bony skull to butt him from behind. He could imagine how it would feel to fall on to the damp, earthy forest floor and to be trampled by the devilish trotters of the enraged monster. Frankly, he was surprised that it hadn’t happened already. His cloak, a protection from the weather, was now a hindrance during the pursuit. He tried to hold it tight to himself with one hand as he careened through the trees, but brambles and branches reached out and snagged him as he passed. Beneath his flapping cloak the leather pouch knocked against his knees, first the right and then the left, as he pounded on.
Hector’s energy was ebbing but at last he could see his horse up ahead. She was nervous, sensing the danger and seeing her master’s panic. He grabbed at the reins and leaped into the saddle. He dug his heels into her black flanks and she reared up as he wheeled her round. ‘Tartri flammis!’ he muttered, and he reached overhead and snapped off a branch to defend himself, for the snarling, salivating jaws of the monster were heading straight for them.
Suddenly another figure came crashing out from between the trees, waving his arms and shouting. Hector couldn’t see the stranger properly (and this was hardly the time to ask for an introduction) but the hog, confused by the commotion, skidded to a halt, flanks heaving, snout dripping. Its head swung back and forth between them as if trying to decide whom to charge, but then it outwitted them both, Hector and the stranger, by running away altogether in completely the other direction.
Hector looked over at the man who was watching as the hog hurtled away into the forest. Still panting from his exertions, he slipped down from his horse and went towards him. ‘Thank you,’ he said gratefully. ‘You saved me.’
‘My pleasure,’ said the fellow with a slight bow. ‘Sometimes one is fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.’
Hector peered out from under his hood at the stranger. There was something familiar about him. His face was in shadow but Hector thought he was older than him if only by a few years. He was not tall, just a few inches above Hector, and his frame was lean.
‘How can I repay you?’ asked Hector, hoping to delay him a little longer.
The stranger shook his head and waved. ‘Don’t trouble yourself unduly. Maybe in the future you will be able to do something for me. But now I must get on. Adieu,’ he said, and walked away whistling tunefully.
‘At least tell me your name,’ Hector called after him, but he had already vanished into the trees.
Chapter Twenty
Extract from
A Letter to Polly
Withypitts Hall
Dear Polly,
It is past two in the morning but I haven’t been to bed yet. First I have to record the events of this evening, share them with someone before I go mad. I apologize for my penmanship, I who instructed you in writing! But my hand still shakes with shock.
The evening started out as every other and I went to the Incunabulorum before retiring. The Feast is drawing ever closer, and I wanted to make sure my charges were well. I am still having trouble sleeping; my mind is in such a state of apprehension these days. I am anxious about the cocoons, my plan and, of course, Bovrik himself. I haven’t seen so much of him lately. Lady Mandible keeps him busy and he is back and forth to the City, sometimes away overnight.
The Incunabulorum is distinctly chilly but I find the temperature sharpens my mind. I am haunted by thoughts of my father. I can hardly believe I am so close to avenging him. I tell myself daily upon waking and retiring that I am doing the right thing, that he could not disapprove now.
It eases my mind to keep busy so I began my nightly routine. The cocoons are kept in large glass tanks raised up on wooden blocks. In the space underneath each tank I have placed shallow oil lamps in preparation for hatching. I went from tank to tank and inspected the contents: dozens of pale brown Papilio ingenspennatus cocoons hanging from the lines of thread strung across the interior of each tank. They are all as long as, though fatter than, my thumb, and the threads bow under their weight. I lingered a little longer at the tank in the dimmest corner of the room. The cocoons within are much darker. If only, I thought, Father was here to see them . . .
I am well acquainted with lavishness, that of Withypitts Hall and Urbs Umida, but when I gaze upon these simple miracles of nature I know I am seeing a different kind of beauty to that of Lady Mandible’s glittering jewels or Bovrik’s ostentatious garb.
Pah! That man! He deserves everything that is coming to him.
When the clock struck midnight I was glad to be startled out of my dark thoughts. After the final bell I was certain I heard a sound in the corridor. My first thought? Bovrik! Who else would be sneaking around at this hour? I opened the door ever so slightly and peered out. I could see no one, just hear the sound of fading footsteps, but it was definitely him. I could smell his lemon-scented trail.
I took off in pursuit and every so often caught sight of his coat-tails as he went round a corner. I crept along, staying close to the walls, brushing against the hangings and the stuffed animals. As we went on the haunting and discordant strains of Mandible’s harpsichord grew louder – he has pledged to play at the Feast but I fear he overreaches himself – until finally we came to Lord Mandible’s own rooms. And I watched Bovrik slip into his bedroom. What was he doing? What riddle was this?
Before I could think any further Bovrik re-emerged into the corridor, his cloak clutched oddly about him, and hurried in the opposite direction. I lost sight of him almost straight away, and, more than a little discomfited, I set off for my own tower.
Yet, Polly, it was not even this bizarre encounter that prompted me to put quill to paper. And I can no longer avoid its telling.
Withypitts Hall is a virtual maze and, it being night and my being so caught up in my thoughts, when I raised my eyes I found myself wandering along corridors I did not recognize, for I had taken a wrong turning. Initially I was unworried but as I walked I began to get the strangest feeling that the walls were actually closing in. Without doubt the ceiling was lower. But I kept going.
This part of the hall was not without Lady Mandible’s touch, of course, and all along the walls hung canvases of different sizes. They were paintings, but a far cry from the portraits of Mandible ancestors that gaze down sternly elsewhere in Withypitts.
Portraits and landscapes in muted pigments, I thought, but done in such a unique way that it was difficult to make out exactly what was being portrayed. I saw beasts and people and skies and sea, but there were other parts I could not understand. The identity of the artist was not such a puzzle. In the corner of each work was clearly marked the word Lysandra. Somehow it did not surprise me that Lady Mandible would portray the world in this way.
As I went further down the corridor the tone of the paintings changed. In the poor light of my reducing candle they began to take on a life of their own. The swirls of dull colour now appeared to me as monstrosities and demons in a hellish inferno. What sort of mind had dreamed up these images?
I saw a door ahead and, despite my many misgivings, curiosity won out and I placed my hand on the knob and began to turn. My heart beat faster. Now I feared as much that which was behind me as what was ahead. The door opened silently and smoothly. I stepped through and heard it close again with a soft click.
I was standing in a large room. Moonlight shone through the window to my left and a dying fire breathed its last in the fireplace opposite. The room was lavishly furnished, but on account of the light everything seemed grey. Tentatively I made my way between the dark silhouettes towards the fireplace. To the left of it stood a wooden easel draped with a cloth, a canvas beneath, and beside it a low table with jars and brushes and a palette almost wholly smeared with thick blobs of colour. I took a brush and examined it. ‘Hog bristle,’ I thought, ‘to furnish Lady Mandible’s hobby.’ For in my mind there was no doubt that this was her room. I almost lifted the cover off the canvas but stopped. I had little desire to look upon it if it was the same as those I had passed in the corridor.
Then I heard a sigh. I was not alone.
Slowly I turned towards the sound and saw for the first time, on a low divan under the window, a body. I watched, frozen to the spot, but it didn’t move. I crept closer, keeping low behind the furniture. I could see now that it was a man. His head rested on a pillow and his eyes were closed. He wore no shirt and in the moonlight his white chest almost glowed.
It was Gerulphus. He appeared to be asleep. He was breathing deeply, his chest rising and falling evenly, so I ventured even closer and saw that he was covered in large, dark marks. They were thick and raised and, though I could hardly believe it, moving.
Because they were alive.
‘Tartri flammis!’ I murmured, and fought the urge to retch, for Gerulphus’s chest and stomach were covered in black, bloated, blood-sucking leeches!
What strange practice is this? I asked myself, and spun about to leave. But to my utter horror I heard footsteps, a hand on the door and a voice that sent a chill through my heart.
‘Gerulphus? Are you there?’
I ran to duck behind a chair, hoping that my thunderous heart would not give me away, and watched Lady Mandible enter.
She was dressed all in black with a long peacock-feather boa draped around her shoulders and hanging down her back. Bell-shaped sleeves covered her hands almost to her fingertips. As she moved I could hear the soft swish of her gown. Her lips looked dark purple in the light. She went straight to Gerulphus and poked him with a beringed digit. The manservant started visibly and opened his eyes.
‘Have they finished?’
Gerulphus looked down at his chest and nodded slowly. So Lady Mandible reached out with her long nails to slide them between the leeches and the manservant’s chest, detaching the engorged creatures one by one. Her mouth was open in a half-smile as she carried out this grisly task – I am certain that she was enjoying every moment. The leeches (I counted twenty in all) were placed in a large jar on the table beside them. No wonder Gerulphus looked so pale, I thought; he must be almost bloodless.
‘Excellent,’ Lady Mandible purred. ‘Prepare them for me to use the blood tomorrow,’ and she left the room with barely a backward glance.
Gerulphus stood up and slowly pulled on his shirt. His wounds were oozing blood and soon the white cloth was red-stained but he seemed to take no notice. To my great relief he too left the room minutes later (at least I didn’t have to see what horrors the ‘preparation’ would entail) and at last I felt secure enough to come out from my hiding place. I went back to the easel and slowly pulled up the cloth. I stared at the half-finished canvas and saw not the horned demons or the one-eyed monsters or the fork-tongued devils, but only the reddish brown with which they were painted. And I wondered for the first time what I was doing here, in a place where the bristles of a brush were dipped in human blood . . .
Chapter Twenty-One
A Tuneful Interlude
Lord Mandible tutted and took Percy from the harpsichord, kissed him on the nose and put him gently on the floor. ‘Go find your precious sister; go find Posset,’ he crooned. The cat trotted away as Lord Mandible flicked out his coat-tails and carefully placed his ample silk-clad bottom on the ruby-hued leather stool. It was not so easy to sit down, what with his stiff leg and his straining buttons. He blamed Mrs Malherbe’s pies. He knew he should refrain, but they were just too delicious.
With some degree of affectation he flexed and cracked his fingers, then began to play the elegant instrument in front of him. It was an Italian harpsichord, made by the renowned Funiculi brothers in Rome, and his father had played it exquisitely right up until the moment of his death – quite literally, the poor man having collapsed and died across the keyboard. It was in memory of his father that Mandible had taken up the instrument, but he lacked his father’s talent. He played vigorously but badly (not that his tutor, standing to one side, would ever dare tell him so).
‘Your Lordship,’ he said at the end of the tune, ‘may I commend you on playing every note!’ For it was true, Mandible had played every note, just not necessarily in the order or pitch suggested on the sheet. ‘It is no longer possible to draw comparisons between your playing and that of my other pupils,’ he continued with a set smile. ‘You are without doubt in a class of your own.’
This pleased Mandible greatly.
‘But, a note of caution, Your Lordship,’ warned the tutor. ‘I know you wish to play at the Midwinter Feast but I am not sure the untrained ears of your guests are ready for your particular facility.’
As if he hadn’t even spoken, Mandible declared, ‘The Midwinter Feast will be the perfect opportunity to demonstrate my talent. I have been working on a tune, now all I need are the words. Would you like to hear it?’
The tutor nodded and, resigned to the inevitable, comforted himself with the thought that of all the nights of the year for Mandible to play, the night of the Midwinter Feast was probably the best. If previous years were anything to go by, the revellers would be so drunk so quickly that, to their thickened ears, sweet music could be wrung from a strangled cat.
A knock on the door was followed closely by the entrance of Gerulphus. ‘Lady Mandible wishes to see you, Your Lordship,’ he hissed.
‘Just when I was getting to grips with it too!’ muttered Mandible. ‘Does she not realize I’m busy?’
‘She insists.’
What Lysandra had actually said was, ‘If that fool is fiddling upon his harpsichord again, I don’t care if you have to crash the lid on his rubber fingers, though it might improve his playing. Tell him to come here.’
Gerulphus had taken advantage of the long journey from his mistress’s quarters to the music room to paraphrase the message. Mandible hurried after him, his limping gait causing his trousers to crepitate rhythmically.
Lady Mandible was perfectly happy for her husband to pursue the harpsichord. It kept him busy and out of her hair (a considerable mass these days according to the latest style) as did his hours of fruitless hog hunting in the forest. It was better than the days immediately after his father’s death, which he had spent weeping and wailing around the Hall, lamenting the fact that he was not the man his father was and never would be. As far as Lysandra was concerned she was the man Mandible should have been and it suited her well.
When Lord Mandible arrived at his wife’s rooms Lysandra greeted him and held out her hand for his kiss.
‘Ah, my dearest one,’ he said, for no other reason than manners, and pressed his lips against her ever-cold alabaster skin. ‘Might I say you look particularly beautiful today.’
Lady Mandible acknowledged the compliment with a very slight nod, in part because her trio of coiffure maids were in the middle of trying to arrange her curls in the shape of a naval ship complete with rigging.
‘My dear,’ she said with only the merest hint of disdain (let it not be said that she was not as well brought up as her husband), ‘I wanted to ask you something but I was afraid you had already gone hunting.’
‘Why, no,’ Lord Mandible laughed – a high-pitched titter such as one would expect from a mouse, if a mouse could laugh – and he sat in a chair that he hadn’t noticed before (another of Lysandra’s recent purchases). ‘I was merely amusing myself on my instrument. Did I tell you that my tutor said I had a gift like no other?’
‘I can believe that,’ she said evenly. ‘Certainly I have never heard anything quite like it.’
Mandible looked pleased and crossed and uncrossed his legs twice, causing his silk breeches to crackle alarmingly. ‘So, what do you wish to ask?’
‘I wish to know if you will be providing a Hairy-Backed Hog for the centrepiece of the Midwinter Feast, or if I must send one of our other huntsmen out . . . as usual. It is, after all, only days away.’
‘Do not fear, dearest one,’ replied Mandible. ‘I will be. I am certain my luck is about to change.’
‘You might have more luck with that musket of yours if you aimed it at some of those poachers,’ said Lysandra drolly. ‘I don’t think they can run as fast as a hog.’ She threw back her head and laughed mockingly, causing a minor panic among her fretting maids. Going on past performance she was doubtful of her husband’s claim, despite his boneheaded perseverance and optimism. But she could never resist an opportunity to remind her husband of his inadequacies.