Perfect Shadows

chapter 15

Richard cursed himself for a fool a hundred times over in the hour that followed his awakening in the bumping cart. What had it mattered if the scornful earl had given him a buffet? He swallowed fretfully; the gag was slowly strangling him, and he almost wished it would. How could he have been such a fool? He felt the cart jolt over cobbles, hard hands lifting him, and found it impossible not to struggle against them. He welcomed the blow that sent him back into unconsciousness.

When he woke the second time the choking gag was gone, as were the biting cords. As he stretched he discovered that his clothing had also been removed and he had been shackled hand and foot. The rough straw beneath him stung his skin, and the room was dank and cold. A little dim light found its way in through a grating set high in the wall above his head, along with a faint breath of damp air and the smell of the jakes. He realized that he had had nothing to eat since noon the day before, and was uncomfortably aware of his own need for the jakes when the low door before him opened soundlessly admitting the red-haired man, who held a smoking tallow candle. He leered at the naked form cowering before him and licked his dry lips once or twice before speaking.

“Well, Dickon my lad—it is Dickon is it not? Come along my lad, my lord wishes to speak to you,” he said jovially, but there was a dry insinuating rasp to his tone that sent his victim cringing against the wall. The crippled man darted forward, caught the chain between the manacles that encircled the prisoner’s wrists, and hauled the boy to his feet. Sommers half dragged him up two flights of stairs, through twisting passages and into a large vaulted room that might once have been an old chapel, where he shoved the boy down into the rushes at his master’s feet. The earl, sitting in a large chair at one end of the room surveyed the prisoner with a smile.

“You see, my little Welsh lamb, you really cannot escape me, after all,” Northumberland said softly. “But you need not fear me, boy, I will not hurt you, unless I am forced to do so. I am your friend, you know. I will protect you from him.” Richard struggled to his feet and flicked a glance at Sommers who lounged against a nearby wall, warming his hands over one of the braziers that served to heat the large room. “Oh, no, child, Sommers will not hurt you. I meant the man who names himself Prince Kryštof. You know what he is, do you not? How he preys upon the living, drinking their very blood? Yes, I thought so,” the earl’s voice had dropped even lower, so that Richard had to lean forward to catch the words. “He is a servant of Hell, Richard. He would seduce you, drive you into sin and madness, as he has done my pretty young cousin. But we will stop him, and you will help us.” There were little flecks of spittle on the thin lips, and that serpent’s tongue flicked over them, driving Richard back in disgust.

“No,” he heard himself saying, clenching his fingers over the chains that bound him. Like a cat, Sommers crossed the room behind him, and drove a fist hard as a stone into his kidney. Richard folded to the floor, blinded by the pain, and realized with humiliation that he had lost control of his bladder. The earl laughed softly.

“Oh, I think yes.” He motioned to Sommers, who hauled the boy over to an alcove and there fastened his shackles to rings set into the floor. “Come now, Sommers,” he added when the man had finished his task, “we must ready ourselves for tomorrow night’s masque. The lad will do well enough here, for the time being.

Richard tossed on the polluted rushes beneath him, the worse for the filth he had perforce added himself, itching from the vermin that swarmed over him. Tears ran unchecked from his eyes, and he needed to blow his nose. He had never been so dirty, so utterly wretched, in his life. A light shone softly from the door, and a draft of clean outdoor air struck him. A woman crossed swiftly to him, and his heart leapt, thinking that she had come to free him. She set the candle she carried on the floor near him, and turned to examine him by its flickering light. She was young, he saw, and very nearly as dirty as he was himself. Her tongue flicked over her lips for a second, then she leaned over him, bringing her mouth to his and thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth. He flinched, jerking his head away from the obscene touch, and she laughed. Sitting back on her heels she threw back the surcoat that was her only garment. She fondled her breasts then leaned forward again, and when he turned his face from her she jerked his head around by the hair, shoving her nipple against his mouth as he opened it to cry out at the sudden pain. Anger flooded over him, and he bit hard, tasting her blood and spitting it into the rushes as she rocked away from him. He saw a figure behind her, and recognized the man Sommers, whose fingers closed around the woman’s throat, dragging her back and away from her intended victim.

“You stupid slut,” the man muttered under his breath, “you want him to kill us all?” He tangled one hand in her hair, and fumbled at his own clothing with the other. Freeing himself from his breeches he slapped her hard, sending her sprawling to the floor beside Richard, who watched in horror and revulsion as the crippled man violently plunged himself into the small woman again and again. She clawed at him, not to fight him, but to goad him to further violence, Richard realized, and he began to retch uncontrollably, the bile spilling from his mouth to pool under his head.

Sommers had barely uttered the bellow that marked his release when Northumberland strode cursing into the chapel, thrusting the torch he carried into a bracket near the door and motioning the men who followed him to pull the two apart and stand them before him. “Goddamn you, Sommers, if you’ve allowed this whore to ruin the boy, you’ll take his place tomorrow night, and you know what that will mean. You’ve seen what happens when the offering is defiled, and this time it will be you!”

The earl, quivering with rage, knelt by the boy and began to speak soothingly to him. When the boy had calmed, he began to question him. Satisfied, he turned back to the lewd pair. “No real harm done, this time,” he admitted grudgingly. “But keep that slut locked up! No one is to touch him until after the ceremony tomorrow night. Did you hear me, Dickon? You must be virgin when the demon comes for you. Your sister was not, you know,” and his voice sank to a whisper as he recounted to the helpless boy the horror of Eve’s last hours. Richard was crying uncontrollably as Percy rose stiffly to his feet and turned to one of the grooms. “You, Amyas, stay here and watch him. If he starts to sleep, wake him. He is not to sleep, do you hear?” Assured that his orders would be obeyed, he motioned the two holding Sommers to release him, and the company left the chapel. The man designated to stay and watch Richard sat himself comfortably close by, and settled in to wait for the morning.



It was nearly noon before Percy returned to the chapel. Well fed and rested, he stood for a moment just inside the door to listen to the quiet sobbing of his captive, nodding his approval. With a few words he made his wants known to the guard, and began to turn the narrow irons and adjust the small crucible of molten lead in the brazier that the man moved near to the prisoner. A pity, really, that he had such a short time to enjoy questioning the boy, but he doubted that anything he could devise would make the slightest impression on the lad when this night’s work was done, supposing that he in fact survived it. Sommers entered shortly with pen and ink, and began to take down the answers in the barely legible scrawl that was all his untutored hands could produce. By late afternoon they had some twelve pages, as brutal a tale of witchcraft, sodomy, and bestiality as the earl’s twisted mind could devise.

Richard had lost consciousness, his chest a mass of burns, but his face untouched. Percy hauled himself stiffly to his feet, noting the time with dismay. Without ceremony he jerked Sommers off the floor and shoved him towards the door, pausing only long enough to rouse the boy and allow him a deep drink from a prepared cup. They had to make the chamber ready for the ceremony, then dress and ride to Whitehall. Cecil would be waiting for the results of the day’s labor.

Northumberland, dressed as the Grand Inquisitor, a costume that afforded him no little amusement when he recalled that afternoon’s occupations, made his way to Cecil’s chamber, with Sommers, dressed as a devil, in tow. Robert Cecil, in his usual sober attire, allowed himself a slight smile at the sight of his visitors before turning to business and reading the pages Percy thrust into his hands. “Yes,” he said, as he perused them slowly. “Yes, this will do nicely. You have the girl safe? I will send for her after the arrest tonight. I think that the boy had best be—unavailable. I am informed that the prince intends to grace us with his presence tonight after all. My lord Almsbury knows his part, and the trap is set.” Almsbury stepped out of the shadows near the window, dressed in Southampton’s costume, with an auburn wig hiding his bright hair. Percy nodded in comprehension. This night would prove interesting indeed. He only hoped that the trap could be sprung before he had to return to Malvern Hall, to complete the ritual that he and Sommers had prepared before they left. Dark of the moon and Twelfth Night was not a combination to waste.



Maudie slipped naked through the cloister towards the chapel. It had been an easy thing to escape her cell, an invitation to the guard, a clout behind his ear. She was small, but strong, and the Devil had promised her all she wanted. And she wanted him, that pretty, unhappy boy who did not want her. It did not matter, the Cloven Hoof had taught her well, and she could make him rise to her purposes. She licked her dry lips and vanished into the chapel like a small white ghost.



Essex’s costume was a great success. The flowery speech he made to old Bess took her by surprise, disarming her temper even as the gifts of gold and topaz and amber, laid at her feet as the tribute of the sun, engaged her greed. He only half listened to her extempore speech of acceptance as the familiar classical references and phrases in Latin and Greek rolled over him. He was waiting, straining every nerve to hear the signal that would mean the trap was ready to spring. He would take the foolish old woman by the hand and lead her to the chamber where her foreign favorite practiced his unnatural lusts on another man, stand by her as the sodomite was arrested, and his servant’s accusation of witchcraft was read aloud before the court. He thought uncomfortably of Hal for a moment, those glaring eyes over the scarf that kept him silent, bound as he was to a bed in a locked room at Essex house. But he could be made to understand the necessity later: he could not appear at the Masque in the costume that Almsbury would wear later for the prince’s arrest. It would do Hal no good if the Queen deduced precisely whom the prince thought he was meeting in that room. Almsbury had his own reasons for playing the victim, reasons that Essex did not care to plumb. There, she’d finished at last, and he took his place at her side, scanning the crowd for the foreign prince. Would the cur never appear?

Richard awoke from a drugged and feverish half-dream of pain and despair to a reality that was worse. He could smell her in the darkness even before he felt her hands upon him. He had been given another drink of the acrid tasting liquid before being tied to the bare floor in the center of the large room, spread within some hastily chalked lines, and left there as the light grew dim, and dimmer still, until finally the darkness was absolute. He had given up any thought of rescue when the previous night had brought none, and now he was willing himself to die.

He was a failure at that, as well as everything else he had turned a hand to, he noted bitterly, as his heart went on beating and his lungs kept pushing his tortured chest up and down. Then he had felt the slight breath from the door, and smelled the madwoman’s unpleasant musk as she reached him, touching him and muttering in the dark. With horror he felt himself rising to her skilled fingers and mouth, felt a biting pain as she bound his stiffened manhood with a cord, then pushed herself down onto his unwilling but responsive flesh, her nails raking the raw burns on his chest. His body arched beneath her, a muffled scream fighting the silken stuff they had used to gag him, and he thought that he would black out then. He prayed to a god he no longer believed in to free him somehow, to let him die before the earl returned and fed his defiled and living flesh to the vengeful demon. She fumbled behind her, jerking away the cord that bound his manhood, and the sudden sharp pain brought the release he fought against. He felt his seed shooting into her, dooming him irrevocably to the ultimate horror that had claimed his sister’s life and eternally damned her immortal soul.