Page 76 of The Book of Lost Stories
‘You never cease to amaze me, Miss Weston.’
‘They were Papa’s.’
There was the sound of loud voices approaching and Alys looked up, paling. ‘We are too late, I think! Lie down again quickly. I will go with them and cause a diversion while you escape, for you are in no fit state to fight them.’
He protested, trying to struggle up, but perhaps her hands pushing him down were a little more forceful than she meant, for his head came in contact with the stone floor and he passed out. She hoped he would come round again too late for any pointless heroics, but in time to get some assistance before anything of anunfortunatenature happened to her.
Snatching up the pistol and holding it behind her back, she slumped dejectedly against the wall just as Lady Crayling swung open the door.
‘I will fetch her out,’ she slurred, her footing unsteady and her eyes glittering in her white face. She did not seem to notice the absence of the key in the door. Alys thought she was beyond noticing much, although she did cast a glance at the prone shape of Rayven.
‘Your lover is still asleep – how boring for you! Not, of course, that you could do much with your hands tied, which is just as well, for it would have spoiled Chase’s little ceremony. Stand up!’
Alys did so and Lady Crayling draped a white velvet mantle over her shoulders and fixed a vizard-mask over her face. ‘Come along.’
She went with them, finding some comfort in the feel of the pistol she held behind her back when she met the gloating eyes of two masked Brethren outside. That was the one moment when, had it not been for Lord Rayven, she might have pushed past Lady Crayling and run for it.
But as she looked longingly over her shoulder a head poked around the corner and the familiar, homely, one-eyed visage of Jarvis winked at her. She blinked, uncertain if she had really seen him, then the two laughing men took her elbows and roughly propelled her along the passageway.
They could have had no idea who she was and even less idea that her hands were not bound, but clutched a deadly pistol.
Lady Crayling held aside a tapestry curtain and they thrust her forward through an open door into a scene that might have come straight from a stained-glass depiction of Hell.
The music suddenly stopped.
28
Stunned by Radiant Love
‘I saw all – I understand all!’ cried Robert de Mondial, fervently clasping Drusilla in his arms.
‘I had thought you a willing conspirator, yet now I perceive that you are just as much a victim of Sir Lemuel as my poor sister was!’
Death or DishonourbyORLANDO BROWNE
Alys staggered, then regaining her balance stopped dead with astonishment, taking in what had so recently been the scene of a positive orgy. She fervently hoped it was not about to be the scene of another, with herself cast in the central role.
The very air in the underground chamber seemed heavy with some noxious perfume that sent the senses reeling, and it was hot, for many braziers burned behind screens of thin alabaster, illuminating with a hellish glow their lewd carvings. The ceiling was tented with red silk and the walls hung withtapestries, while couches, cushions and indecent sculptures were scattered, seemingly at random.
The room held only three occupants, all of whom had dispensed with their masks. George Rivers lay on a couch in a pose of abandonment, his eyes half-shut and a sheen of perspiration on his pasty face. A glass had fallen from his hand and lay on the thick rug by his side.
Nat, a taper in his hand, was in the act of lighting a lamp below what looked very like an ancient altar, except that the subject cast into dull relief by the dim flame was that of a bull. Before it lay a long and strangely ominous slab of smooth, flat-surfaced stone on which rested a curved knife.
Alys was quite transfixed with a sort of horrified fascination, until Lord Chase stood up and moved into the centre of the room before the altar, his glittering eyes fixed on her, and let his robe fall open, displaying a naked white body in a state of some excitement.
She would have recoiled, except that one of the men behind her gave her another push forwards. Under the concealing white robe, she took a firm grip on the pistol: she would shoot Chase before she let him get an inch nearer to her than he was now!
‘Bring her here,’ Chase commanded, but before the men behind her could seize her again, she had whirled round and backed away, bringing out the gun and holding it steadily.
They stopped, the laughter and ribald comments stilled suddenly on their lips. George, she saw out of the corner of her eye, had sat up and was staring at her as if she was a nightmare born of laudanum. Could she hope for any help from that quarter? It was worth the attempt, and she pulled off the mask and shouted, ‘George!’
‘Good God, it is Miss Weston!’ he exclaimed, jarred into a state of near sobriety and getting unsteadily to his feet. ‘I am not dreaming. It is my wife’s friend!’
‘It is indeed,’ Nat said. ‘Thanks to you, I have managed to lure her here alone, as you see.’
‘But you cannot mean …’ He looked from Chase to Nat incredulously. ‘She is not some doxy plucked from the streets. You cannot do this!’
‘You dare to say “cannot” to the Master?’ thundered Chase, stepping towards him menacingly. ‘What of your oath to the Brethren? This sacrifice will mean I have boundless power. I will be invincible. Do you not understand that?’
