The Last Duchess Read online

  She hovered, undecided. Perhaps if she was to run back down the path, call for help . . .

  But he reached out a clammy hand, clumsily beckoning her close.

  ‘My . . . niece . . .’ he rasped. ‘You must go . . . go to her . . . Please.’ The light in his eyes was already fading. ‘Beware . . .’

  One last bubbling sigh. Then he was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Death, for aught you know, may, at this very moment, be on his way to you.

  J. Bulcock, The Duties of a Lady’s Maid

  Stowed under the seat of the bloodstained carriage was Pattern’s sewing basket with its cache of documents. Rather than destroying the evidence, the Prince must have decided the papers were still of value. But they were of little use to anyone now.

  The path narrowed as it climbed, and the scrub gave way to bare earth and stone. Although dawn had begun to show in the east, the sky seemed filled by the lowering darkness of the mountain. It seemed impossible that any living thing could be found on its silent, barren slopes. A chill little breeze had begun to blow.

  Pattern was aware of how her heart pounded, and that sweat prickled icily at the back of her neck. Her breath was shallow and fast. She noted these signs with scientific detachment. In spite of everything, she was not about to succumb to a fainting fit; she had no need of a restorative sniff of the salts. A good servant was used to suppressing her natural instincts and emotions. A good servant always gritted her teeth and got the job done.

  A great servant was master of her own destiny.

  At last Pattern reached a narrow pass that led into a wide plateau. It was partially enclosed by spurs of rock, which formed a natural arena. Pattern crept through the shadows, crouching behind a thorn bush to survey the scene. To one side, a small white figure drooped in chains. Above her, the path continued upward, widening as it led into the blackly gaping mouth of a cave.

  There was more. A stack of wooden kegs, metal cylinders and coiled fuses – Prince Leopold’s Chinese explosives. A small fire, surrounded by an assortment of ritual objects. A tall man, feeding the flames.

  Madoc. Pattern was not surprised. She had already guessed as much.

  Peering through the half-light, Pattern thought she could make out three bowls made of crystal, gold and bone. There was a silver hand-bell and neat heaps of dried leaves, coloured powder, a couple of candles and something that might be a snakeskin. This last was guesswork, based on the illustration of the snake she had seen in the chapel fresco. Madoc was attempting whatever incantation Prince Elffin had used to bind the dragon to his will.

  Murder was terrible, but it could be understood. Black magic was an unimaginable evil. Even with all that had happened, the hints she’d been given and whispers she’d heard, Pattern’s common-sense mind shrank from the very idea of it. Yet in a country where young girls were routinely fed to dragons, who knew what other Dark Age barbarisms might linger?

  At least Eleri was still alive. Although gagged, and bound in chains to a rocky outcrop, she struggled against her bonds as Madoc walked purposefully towards her, holding a long curved knife and the crystal bowl. He touched the point of the blade to her wrist. Eleri twitched away, and choked out a scream.

  It was now or never. With sweating hands, Pattern raised the poker and got ready to charge . . .

  Yet Eleri was not dead. Not yet. Madoc had made a slit in her wrist, but the cut was shallow. Pattern let out a long shaky breath as she watched him put the crystal bowl under her arm to collect the blood. Another part of the ritual, then.

  Whatever the magic involved, it seemed complicated, and formed of several parts. Having collected blood from his captive, Madoc threw it on the fire, and circled the flames, chanting softly and ringing the bell. He looked as serenely efficient as if this sort of exercise was as normal a part of his routine as dressing his master for dinner. There was no hint of the murderous deeds so lately committed. His cuffs were still white, his shoes immaculately polished, every perfect hair perfectly in place.

  Now Madoc moved to the jutting edge of the plateau, facing east to where the horizon was rimmed with silver and primrose. He drew some kind of symbol or diagram in the dust, using the tip of the knife blade. Then he knelt in the centre of the diagram, arms uplifted, in salutation to the rising sun. His voice rose and throbbed; ancient Welsh tumbled from his mouth. From the increasingly triumphal sound, it was likely he was reaching the climax of his incantation. Behind him, the fire spat oily black sparks.

  On tiptoe, skirts held up lest they should rustle on the ground, Pattern darted across to where Madoc babbled and swayed, and brought down the poker on the back of his head, letting out an indistinct but quite ferocious battle-cry as she did so.

  He fell to the ground most gratifyingly. After a trembling moment, Pattern crouched down by the body and set about binding his wrists with strips of cotton torn from her petticoat. She felt calmer with something practical to do and, in spite of everything, relieved that the man was still breathing. After all, it would have been easy enough for Madoc to slip a knife into her ribs, back in the castle storeroom.

  A search of his pockets yielded a rusty key. Pattern hastened to unlock her friend’s chains.

  At first, they had no words. The two girls simply clutched at each other, disbelieving and dizzy with relief. ‘Oh, Pattern! I knew you would not forsake me. I knew it.’ Eleri’s face was blotched with tears, and her voice raw from strangled screams, but at least the numbing effects of the drug appeared to have worn off. Words now spilt out of her, uncontrollably. ‘Madoc killed my uncle. And some other men, too – stone dead! I saw it all and could do nothing, and it was more shocking than you could imagine. Even worse, he knew all about the dragon! I can’t think how. He was going to wake the beast up, and feed me to it so that its strength would be restored, and it would be able to do frightful things at his bidding.’

  While she was still talking, Pattern – with some difficulty – dragged the unconscious valet towards the rock, and locked him into the same chains that had been lately used on his victim. She felt somewhat easier once this was done, but not entirely. She could not stop glancing at the gaping cave mouth above.

  Eleri followed her gaze. ‘Do you think it is too late, and the dragon has already been awakened?’

  Her voice shook, so Pattern made sure her own was firm.

  ‘Madoc is no sorcerer, let alone a dragon-tamer – merely a jingle-brained valet with ideas above his station. But you must go down to the people now. Franz is there, waiting. He will help you tell them what has happened, and why. You will find proof of the plot in your uncle’s carriage. Then you must call the guard, and anyone else with weapons and authority, and find a way of putting an end to the dragon once and for all. Whatever it takes – poison gases or dynamite or bricking up all possible entrances to that cursed lair.’

  ‘And . . . and what will you do?’

  ‘I will follow presently. First, though, I am going to take your uncle’s explosives and put them ready in the cave mouth.’

  ‘But I thought you said Madoc couldn’t—’

  ‘Just in case, you understand.’ She tried to smile. ‘You know I do not like to leave anything untidy or incomplete. Now go. Hurry.’

  Pattern might have imagined it, with all that was going on, but when she was tying Madoc’s hands together with her torn petticoat, she had thought she felt a tremor in the ground.

  She went back to the fire. It had nearly died out, but the precisely arranged objects around it struck her as highly sinister. Herbs smoked in the gold dish, and green powder fizzed in the bone one. What point had Madoc reached with his incantations? How far did his preparations go?

  ‘I should have known it was a mistake to spare you. You’re a crafty little thing.’

  Madoc had recovered surprisingly quickly. He gave his chains a thoughtful tug and – wincing – drew himself up so that he was sitting with his back to the rock.

  Pattern ignored him. She picked
up the first keg of gunpowder and began to roll it towards the cave.

  ‘It won’t help, you know,’ he called after her. ‘It’s too late. The dragon is already on its way. Those firecrackers will inflict about as much damage as flea bites.’

  ‘In that case, you’ll be the creature’s first victim.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. It knows its master’s voice.’

  Pattern put the keg down on the path and came back to confront him. ‘You’re not even in control of your own wits. How can you be master of anything?’

  ‘By virtue of my royal blood.’ He gave an elegant shrug. ‘It so happens,’ he said casually, ‘that I’m cousin to your precious Grand Duchess.’

  ‘Pfff! This is just more evidence of your delusions.’

  ‘On the contrary. It’s a very common tale, my dear Miss Pattern.’ There was blood in Madoc’s hair and dust on his clothes, yet not a jot of his composure had left him. ‘Common, sordid and sad. You see, the Grand Duchess’s grandfather once took a liking to one of his maidservants. When she was found to be expecting a child, he had her thrown out of the castle like so much rubbish. The girl was barely sixteen. After giving birth to my mother, she died in a workhouse – the same workhouse I was raised in. All I have to show for my heritage is a little gold key my light-fingered granny managed to slip into her pockets just before she was booted out. Can you guess which door it opens?’

  Pattern swallowed. She remembered the ancient chapel with its peeling frescoes, the wall of rock with its hidden catch. So Madoc, too, had followed the passage to see what nightmare festered in the castle’s depths.

  ‘I must have tried every lock in the castle before I found the fit. But those of us who must make our own way in the world are nothing if not resourceful. Patient, too. I’m sure you understand, Miss Pattern, being a penniless orphan yourself. As it happens, there are many advantages to being a self-educated man. So much knowledge has been forgotten, or else deemed too obscure for the modern schoolroom. My hours of scholarly isolation in the library proved most rewarding. Do you remember how I told you to trust in the old tales of magic and adventure, of dungeons and duchesses and things that go bump in the night? Well, they led me to some very interesting alchemical research. It turns out that when science meets the supernatural, all kinds of miracles can be performed.’

  ‘Your magic tricks are nothing but humbug,’ Pattern said defiantly. ‘They didn’t work for Prince Elffin, and they won’t save you.’

  ‘Ah, but when Elffin Pendraig attempted the spell, he was sick and weak, and the dragon was strong – too strong for even the most powerful spell. Now the dragon is old, while I am young and vigorous. I have performed the ritual that will awaken the beast, and spoken the Words of Power that will give me its command. I will rule it, and ancient though it is, the creature will be quite deadly enough for my purposes. I will have at my beck and call the ultimate weapon of war. In early times, the people here worshipped it as a dark god, and they will learn to bow down before it again.’

  He spoke quite matter-of-factly. Pattern was conscious of another tremor in the ground; small pieces of grit shook free from the mountain slopes. Fear clenched around her heart. ‘And this is why you pretended to help Prince Leopold?’

  ‘Naturally. He would never have come up with such a plan on his own. The fat fool should have stuck to playing with his china teapots. But the buffoon wanted a shiny crown to prance about in, and who better to help him steal it than his loyal valet? No one so discreet, no one so devoted, so highly dependable! I even coaxed him into thinking he’d invented the plot himself.’

  The valet licked his lips, and Pattern saw something strange. His tongue was long and black.

  ‘And speaking of devoted . . . here you are: Pattern the loyal lapdog, always trotting after your mistress, faithfully wagging your tail as she shuts you out in the cold and the dark. She had no qualms, I see, about leaving you here, while she herself fled to safety.’ His eyes shone hot yellow in the gloom.

  ‘I told her to go. I wanted her to go.’

  ‘Why waste your energy defending her? You are twice as clever and capable as our glorious monarch, and you know it. Our so-called masters are fools and criminals. The old order needs to be overthrown.’

  In spite of everything, Pattern laughed. ‘You style yourself a revolutionary, yet you are every bit as greedy and corrupt as Leopold. At least the Prince was no murderer. At least he never wished to wage war on his own people.’

  Her fury was so scorching that she almost forgot to be afraid. For it was not just Eleri she wished to save – it was Dilys and Franz and the castle’s little scullery maids; the old women in the marketplace and the harvesters in Caer Grunwald . . . even the pimple-faced footman who had called her a mouse. Right then and there, Pattern had never felt more of an Elffishwoman.

  Madoc shrugged. ‘I have earned my place and proved my worth a hundred times over. I regret you don’t see it that way, but it makes little odds, in the end.’

  Then he stood up and carelessly snapped his iron chains in two.

  Pattern froze. It was not possible. It couldn’t be.

  He stretched out his arms. From the tips of his fingers, hooked black claws were sprouting. ‘Ha! What’s this?’ He regarded the claws in wonder, but without fear. ‘Strange. There’s a fire in my veins. I can feel it rising – the strength and heat of it, how it burns . . .’ He laughed, and with mounting horror, Pattern saw his forked tongue flicker against yellow fangs. ‘Sweet poison! Perhaps I misread the invocation. Perhaps I confused one part of the spell. It matters not – for it appears that I have gone one better than Prince Elffin. He only sought to rule the creature: I am going to become one with it. For now I too, Ferdinand Madoc, have become a creature of fire and frenzy and blood.’

  Pattern turned on her heels and fled.

  ‘Too late,’ he exulted. ‘Madoc’s Bane has already risen!’

  There was a rumble, like thunder, of grinding stones. Pattern was not far from the pass, and the downward path. But Madoc made a gesture with his clawed hand, and a bolt of lightening streaked down in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. It left the ground charred and smoking.

  ‘You will be my dragon’s first victim. A gristly morsel of maidservant, to whet its appetite for the tender flesh of a Princess . . .’ Suddenly he clutched his chest and staggered, gasping and groaning. Pattern felt a moment’s hope. But the next instant he straightened up, standing impossibly tall, and his voice rang with even greater triumph. ‘Ah – the magic has me in its grip. Now I can feel the beat of a second heart within me. I can taste the beast’s hunger in my own mouth!’

  Out of the cave, a sulphurous stench billowed, followed by a blast of hot air and ash. Loose rubble rained down from above. There was more grinding and creaking, and the grating of stones. The dragon was dragging itself up and out, towards the light.

  When the ash cloud cleared, the creature was revealed to be even bigger than it had looked in its lair: the size of a house, or a hill. Many of its scales were broken and rusted. Its eyes were filmy. Its joints creaked. But it was still black and oily and serpentine, shining with ancient malevolence. Slow and slithering, it crawled out to mount the ledge directly overlooking the plateau. As it flexed its leathery wings, and clashed its fangs, and let out the first great hissing roar, Pattern felt a fool for imagining bullets or even gunpowder could so much as dent its bulk.

  She tried once more to move towards the pass. Another flash of lightning ripped and crackled through the air, and she was forced to jump back. Madoc’s transformation was more hideous by the moment. His clothing split as his body rippled and bulged; greasy black scales had begun to shimmer over his skin. His shoulders split into bladed spikes; his eyes were slits of flame. He saluted his monster, and his cry of welcome – hoarse and croaking – was more beast than man.

  The dragon was changing too. Its own eyes were rounder, less snake-like; there was a trace of aniseed in the rotten fumes of its breath. A
s it turned its horned head towards Pattern, licking its rusty jaws, the sound it made was unmistakably human. A deep, low chuckle. She had heard it before: in her and Eleri’s dreams.

  ‘Pattern! No!’

  Eleri came panting and skidding through the pass.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Pattern shouted. ‘Go back! Run, while you still can!’

  ‘I heard the dragon. I couldn’t leave you to face it alone!’

  She looked up and saw Elffin’s Bane awake and risen for the first time. Already pale, her face drained of all colour. Her mouth gaped and knees buckled.

  The thing that had been Madoc flung out a clawed hand to shoot a fire-bolt in Eleri’s direction. This roused her from her stupor, at least, for at the last possible moment she managed to dive out of the way. With a scream of defiance, she lunged towards the dragon.

  Pattern leaped after her and dragged her into the temporary shelter provided by a pile of fallen rocks.

  ‘Let me go.’ Eleri struggled furiously against her grip. ‘I’m what it wants. If it takes me, then maybe it will spare everyone else.’

  ‘Wait. The dragon and Madoc have become one and the same. Do you understand me? They are the same thing.’

  ‘How does that help us?’

  ‘If we can disable Madoc, then that will injure the dragon too!’

  Both girls yelped. A bolt of lightning had ripped into the rocks in front of them, blasting a chunk of their shelter into shards. Pattern, grimly brushing dust off her hair, hunkered down to search her bag, which she had somehow managed to hold on to through the scrimmage.

  Eleri spied the disinfectant and gave a hysterical laugh. ‘This is no time for housework!’

  Pattern was too distracted to reply. She opened the cap on the smelling salts, releasing vapours of ammonia that made her eyes prickle, and hastily poured the crystals into the bottle of cleaning fluid labelled ‘Chloride of Lime’. The fumes increased in sharpness, making her cough. For good measure, she tipped the laudanum sleeping tonic into the brew. It was Madoc’s ritual arrangements that had given her the idea – she was no magician, but Mrs Minchin’s Academy had at least schooled her in the hazards of domestic cleaning solutions, as well as the chemical make-up of medicinal aids.