Plenilune (2 page)

He looked down critically at the paper, the corner of his mouth still smiling faintly. It was a cruel kind of look. “You have a very young queen, I mind,” he said. “I wonder if you have not had better queens in the past.”

Margaret coloured again with formless outrage, but before she could say anything reprehensible, Rupert de la Mare was looking at her again, something soft and something cutting in his face.

“You yourself might be a better queen.”

Before she could stop herself, panicked humour and cumulative stress overtook her, and she broke out in a sharp, ringing laugh over some swift, bizarrely distorted image of herself as Her Majesty—Her Majesty Queen Margaret! “Perhaps,” she heard her own voice saying—coming, it seemed to her, from a long way off and a little too highly pitched—”perhaps if I were Danish, but I would have to be—
oh!
“

She gave a great leap as the man, without warning, sprang up from his bench and clapped a hand over her mouth. Mingled rage and panic surged through her veins, but he had one hand firmly on her mouth, the other on her shoulder with the power of a solid bar of iron, and his feet seemed to be pinning down the voluminous hem of her skirt so that she could not worm out from under him.

The Aylesbury had come off. The face above her was sharp and bare like a sabre, and seemed to hover coldly against her skin. She could feel her pulse banging in the hollow of her shoulder beneath his grip.

Her nostrils flared: she drew no air. A smothered whimper of terror beat like a dying bird in her throat.

“No need for that, darling.”

He was
laughing
at her. The realization made her heart pound a little faster, but her anger was extinguishing: she did not have enough air to fuel it.

One hand moved to her throat. She could still feel the barred pressure of his fingers on her mouth but knew, dimly, in the airless chambers of her brain, that he had uncovered her mouth but that she could not drag it open to take a breath. He slipped his other arm round her body and lifted her, with her starched skirts and her hand-bag trailing from her wrist, off the wooden bench.

The carriage rocked steadily to its own movement beneath them.

What are you doing to me! Where are you taking me! Who do you think you are? Let me go!

She imagined that she was resisting, as one tries to resist in a dream, but her limbs lifted with his arms and her head fell useless upon his black, damp shoulder. The last ordinary English image she had before she squeezed her eyes shut was her carpetbag, jigging slightly to the train’s rhythm, warm and prosaic on the wooden bench…

“When you are ready,” said the gentleman—and did not seem to be speaking to her.

In the next instant there was a sensation of things rushing over her, things like feathers and thin bits of chicken-skin that made her own skin crawl. The air was ripped from around her, punching her ears with the thunder of a sudden vacuum. If she had her eyes open, she could not tell. The darkness around her was profound and hollow and lifeless. Was the man there too? She tried to move her body against the nauseating sensation which lifted her stomach from her middle into her throat. As one in a dream she saw without vision: black feathers, darkness, teeth, a sense of longing after blood—

Then mercifully the darkness snapped away into shreds and she saw a confused, faded image of sunlight and something like green lawn. Naples…?

She fainted.

2 | The Englishwoman

When Margaret awoke, her first instinct was to call for Amy to help her dress. Then she remembered that she was on her way to Newhaven to embark for Naples, and that she had left her maidservant in Aylesward—but that that was all wrong too. Images of a man’s beautiful, angular face returned, images of blue eyes so pale they were almost silver, images of a nightmare and a sensation of being strangled without hands. As though surfacing out of a pond of molasses, Margaret forced herself out of bed.

She was in a wide suite that was plunged into shadow. The curtains were pulled across the windows, but she saw enough light peeking around the edges to surmise that it was full daylight outside. If she listened carefully through the ringing in her ears, she could hear birdsong. The bed she occupied was spacious, luxurious; the room was no less opulent. Everything purred in a kind of half-sleeping splendour around her. Her hand gripped the blanket and touched silk. Her cheek remembered the press of velvet pillows.

“Where am I?” she asked aloud, slipping off the side of the bed. Then, just to hear the sound of her voice, “
Where am I
?” She padded on bare feet to the window and pulled a curtain back a fraction.

She was looking down on the vine-twisted roof of a garden walk, a roof full of huge green leaves and massive clusters of rich red grapes. On either hand spread lawns and walkways, gardens and paddocks, swallowed up in the distance by a wood. She shivered and felt ill. How long had she been asleep? Where had the monster taken her? Where, she wondered, glancing at the door behind her, was the monster now? She touched the foreign nightgown that draped from her shoulders and wished for something more substantial. With another look out the window she saw the sun was shining brilliantly, more brilliantly than she could ever remember it shining before. The air outside looked crisper and cleaner than any air she could remember breathing. The colours, too, were sharper and deeper.

She made the mistake of glancing upward to the colourless sky, and there she had her greatest shock. Hanging high above the horizon, huge and colourful, the only colourful thing in that empty sky, was the earth.

With a despairing cry Margaret crumpled, kneeling on the floor, her fingers digging into the casement of the window as she stared unblinkingly at that blue-and-white disk in the sky. How could it—how
dare
it! As if to wrench it back under her feet she shook the casement, rattling the pane in its track. But it did no good, and for a long while Margaret sat on the cool floor, trying to regain her breath, forcing herself to gaze unwaveringly at the hideous thing above her. She stared like a cat, and it stared back, and slowly, slowly, her heart began to beat its normal tune.

“Rather beautiful, isn’t it?”

The staring contest broken, she looked round to find the monster from her dream in the doorway, his rich black tunic and trousers pushing the limits of outlandishness, as though Hamlet had somehow stepped off his stage into her life. He carried a pair of hawking gloves in one hand.

“Be a gentleman,” said Margaret shakily, “and go away.”

He strode into the room. “Let’s have none of this bashfulness, my dear.”

Gathering herself up, she ground out, “I am in my nightgown!” and she swung backhanded at his shins.

In a single fluid gesture he was down on one knee, her arm firmly in his iron grasp, her eye fixed in his. His hand hurt like claws—and it burned. “I know,” he said softly. Once again there was that dangerous laughter in his eye which she knew she could not fight. She relaxed and he let her go.

He got back to his feet and gazed out the window, eyes narrowed against the glare. With her arm tucked up to her chest Margaret pulled herself together, sitting with her back ramrod straight, her eyes averted.

“You looked up,” he said presently. “Did you look out at the garden? They are very beautiful, my gardens. You will like them.”

I shan’t
, she thought venomously.

He turned. “What was that?”

She sniffed. “I said, I shan’t.”

“Of course not.” He resumed his perusal of the gardens from the window. “Not yet, but presently you will. You do not yet know what my grounds look like, nor my power, nor my offer.”

Her gut spasmed with the same broken, panicked laugh. “I’m sorry, was there an offer?”

“No,” he purred thoughtfully. “No, of course not. I find that if you want a woman, leaving the choice up to her doesn’t prove satisfactory.”

“That is very efficient of you, I’m sure.”

His voice was flat. “I should have known not to pick an Englishwoman.” He bent down and forced his hand under her chin, drawing it up. “I’ll be back, my sweet. Feel free to explore your new realm.” And he planted a stinging kiss on her lips before she could wrench back out of his grasp. With an angry gasp, head reeling, she fell against the wall and sat there in a furious daze, listening to the echo of the shut door and the receding sound of his boots.

Presently, with some effort, Margaret pushed off the wall and used it to support herself as she got to her feet. Her nightgown was far too thin for comfort and she wanted a heavier dress. There was no Amy. Who did one call for in a place like this? She hesitated, then decided with defiance that she would dress herself, God help her, just to spite the horrid man.

An adjoining room was a bath and closet, both very spacious and lavishly outfitted. Perversely, Margaret chose a black gown, though it made her skin look deathly pale. A mourning dress was certainly the most applicable attire she could wear at such a time as this. She washed her face and tended to her thick, unruly brown hair, and with her teeth gritted and her stomach clenched, wrestled bodily into the dress. It was a fight, but at last she stood before the mirror with hot cheeks and a gown that made her look ghastly, and she could honestly say that she was satisfied.

She would have stayed in the room, too, to spite de la Mare further, but hunger drove her at last out of her suite on the wide upper hallway. She looked over the railing at the atrium a story below. There was a pool and a fountain, tinkling softly away to themselves, skirted by plants and beds of rose quartz and the figures of the servants that were going to and fro. With a rush of black taffeta Margaret backed away from the rail, careful to keep out of sight as she tiptoed down the hallway toward the stairs. If she took the main stairs and kept in the shadows—de la Mare seemed to be lavish with his shadows—there was a good chance the servants, using the servants’ passageways and stairs, would overlook her. She glided along easily, quiet but for the sound of her skirts and the occasional rumble of her belly. She was not sure how she was supposed to get any food if she was bent on avoiding the servants, but she would rather try her luck alone first and give in to unwanted company later when she had run out of options.

The stairs took her down, not to the atrium, but to a round vaulted entryway. Through the fractalled front windows she could see twisted images of the landscape outside, green and white and dark farther off; but she did not look long, for the threat of the looming earth in the sky still murmured on the periphery of her consciousness. Glancing several ways to be sure she was alone, she took a doorway past the atrium, pushed between two rich hangings that served as doors, and slid into a dim-lit dining room. The room was built for many, sporting a long, beautiful table of polished wood and numerous chairs of matching make with feet of lions’ paws and padding of striped gold and green. She moved through, past the head of the table and the biggest, grandest chair which must have been de la Mare’s, past the sideboard and the china cabinet full of the most glorious-looking drinks and chinaware, and on through a low wooden door at the other end of the room.

Skulking through this doorway, feeling at once like a child on holiday and a prisoner trying to escape, she found herself in a narrow hallway of white with countless doors on either hand. Sound suddenly broke over her: the rattle of pots, the bang of pans, the clatter of silverware and dishes stacked on dishes. Hot scents of cooking and washing bloomed in her nose. With a start of panic Margaret realized she had made the wrong turn and plunged herself into the kitchen hallway. There was nowhere to hide: she was black against the clean white tile surfaces around her. Pure stubbornness forbade her from going back, so when she heard the opening creak of a door down the hall she impulsively seized the handle of a door by her elbow and pushed it open, lunging through and hoping to find it empty.

With a little gasp she pushed the door shut with infinite care and leaned against it, listening to the footsteps passing. The room around her was small and dark, bereft of any gleam of light. The door fit snugly in its frame: not even a thread of light seeped through. The footsteps died away and Margaret stood a moment longer, listening now for sound of anyone or anything within.

The only sound she could hear was the soft rush of plumbing overhead and to her right.

He had given her leave to explore his realm—her new realm, he had called it—but she wondered if he had meant this little room. Perhaps it was only the boiler room. She put out her hand and felt for heat, but a constant damp coolness washed against her skin. “Brr!” she said, and let go of the doorknob. With a rather delicious sense of doing what she was not supposed to, she took a few tentative steps forward, her hand brushing the wall to ensure her balance. It was bone-chillingly cold; beads of slick damp stood on the stones. With one careful foot set in front of the other, keeping vigilant purchase on the stones and eyes wide open for any hope of light, Margaret came to the head of a stair. She stood for quite some time on the top step, imagining what she would look like dashed at the bottom after missing her step in the dark. She could not be sure anyone would find her, and even if de la Mare did find her, she was not sure she would appreciate his support even then.

Thank goodness I am English,
she thought sourly, and put her foot on the next step down. Gingerly, painfully, with the utmost care, she climbed down the stairs in the dark. She ran against a wall once, which thoroughly confused her, until she found she was on a landing and had to turn off and continue the downward plunge. She ran into three landings until she found no more, and there were no more stairs, and she was standing in a room of inky blackness whose dimensions she could not make out, not though she strained until her head pounded. She almost called out, just to hear the sound of her voice, but she touched her tongue to her dry lips and made herself move on, both hands out to catch herself in case she ran against anything.