Deliver us from Evil (24 page)

Dressed at last, he paused by the mirror. He barely recognised the boy he saw reflected there. Would Emily know him, he wondered. For his blond hair was long now, and starting to curl. His body was adorned with silk and lace. At his belt hung a thin, cruel blade - a Cavalier's sword. Robert rested his hand upon the hilt, then wandered across to the balcony. Below him stretched the darkness of St James's Park. He heard the dim rattling of a carriage's wheels, but from beyond the road, where the tall trees stood dark against the stars, the silence was like ice. Robert knew the rumours, though, that in those groves were practised unspeakable infamies and crimes; and that now he might explore them and not feel afraid. He glanced back at the mirror. Despite himself, he smiled. He had seen how the naked boys shrank back before his gaze, which seemed to fall like a shadow across their lotus dreams. Robert smiled again. All seemed changed. He was now the one who made others afraid.

He left his room, descended the stairs, passed through echoing, endless rooms. He came at last to the hallway, where Godolphin was standing by the doors. At the sight of Robert, he began to shake. He opened the doors, then followed Robert as he passed outside. Together, they began to walk towards the Mall - Godolphin respectfully, at a distance of ten paces. This puzzled Robert; for although Godolphin appeared haggard and desperate, his eyes did not seem drugged, nor his state reduced to the level of those dead slaves Robert had seen before, when they had marched with Faustus upon Woodton green. Yet still, towards a guest in his own house, Godolphin was behaving like a servant; and when Robert turned and tried to ask him why, he cowered like a dog, as though afraid of chastisement from some invisible hand. So Robert walked on in silence; and waited, as Lovelace had instructed him to do, for the distant chimes of midnight to strike.

They sounded at last from across the frost-chilled stillness of St James's Park. At the same moment, Robert heard the rattle of wheels upon stone; and looking round, he saw a carriage approaching them, of a size and magnificence he would never have thought possible. It halted beside him; and Robert saw that on its side was painted the same coat of arms he recognised from Godolphin's great house. Godolphin himself scurried up to the carriage and opened its door. A pale hand beckoned from the darkne
ss within. 'Come,' Robert heard
Lightborn whisper, '
I
have prepared you as a surprise for the fondest of your friends.'

Robert climbed inside. Godolphin followed him and shut the door. At once, the carriage jolted and began to move again. Robert was thrown forward. He fell against a dark, muffled form and, as he did so, felt silk beneath his hands. He looked up. Milady's face was shadowed by her travelling hood, but Robert could see two golden eyes, as unblinking as an owl's and, at first, as imperturbable. Then suddenly they blazed molten and, as she lowered her hood, Robert felt consumed by her stare. With a rustling of her skirts, she held him tightly; and for a moment Robert was afraid she would puncture his throat, for her face seemed twisted by frenzy, and her red lips were parted to reveal her perfect white teeth. 'You must never escape,' she hissed, 'never again, never,' and she raised her hands as though to slice him with her nails. But instead, she seized his cheeks and her lips pressed softly on his own. 'You must not. . . you will not
..
.' She paused; her pale, perfect face was frozen once again. 'Do not leave me, Lovelace,' she whispered in his ear.

From behind her, Lightborn laughed. 'See how he is dressed! He could no sooner leave than a butterfly could crawl back to its chrysalis.'

'Yes,' nodded Milady, 'how very true.' She angled her head, looking down at Robert's finery. 'You are quite bewitching, Lovelace - as
I
knew you would be.'

Robert smiled politely. 'Then it is you, Milady, who has cast the spell.'

She raised a thin eyebrow. 'So - growing the gallant already,
I
see.' She continued to study him, stroking his hair; then clapped her hands in sudden delight and turned back to Lightborn. 'But tell me,' she asked him, 'how was he found?'

'By Godolphin,' answered Lightborn. He stared across at his lover and, as he did so, Godolphin seemed to melt, and he slipped from his seat and crumpled on the floor. Lightborn ignored him; instead he leaned over Robert, whose cheeks he gently stroked. 'For
I
knew,' he murmured, 'our quarry would surely attend the executions of the Commonwealth-men, seeing that those who were to be killed had once been the leaders of his parents' cause.' He smiled faintly. 'And so indeed it proved.'

Robert forced himself to meet Lightborn's stare; but he could not withstand it and he had to look away, burying his face in Milady's skirts,
I
see, then,' he muttered into the silk, 'that
I
was easy to read.'

'Oh, exceedingly.' Lightborn's smile broadened. He turned back to Milady. 'These two months we have had him waiting for you, Helen.'

'Two months!' exclaimed Milady. Her brow darkened. She turned to Godolphin and at once he began to hug himself, rocking to and fro as though struggling to keep warm, and muttering with fear.

'He whines worse than ever,' complained Milady, gazing down at Godolphin with distaste. Still he gibbered. Suddenly, she slapped him about the cheek, and the moaning stopped at once. She nudged him with the tip of her shoe. 'Why did you not send for us,' she demanded, 'if you have had him so long?'

I
...
I
. . .' Godolphin stammered, and stopped. He pointed at Lightborn.
I
sent to him,' he gasped at last.

Milady spun round, is this true?'

Lightborn shrugged. 'Be warned,' he told Robert. 'Upset her, and she will pout like a little girl.'

'Lightborn,' demanded Milady impatiently, 'tell me, is it true?'

'We have lately been in Paris, you see,' Lightborn answered, still addressing Robert. 'We had pressing business there. Naturally' - he shrugged - 'the moment
I
returned,
I
came straight to your cell and saw that you were freed.'

'But we could have returned long before,' said Milady, 'if only you had informed me. The business was not so pressing.'

'Was it not?' asked Lightborn. 'Was it truly not?' He met Milady's stare, then gestured at Robert, it related to him. Why not explain it, Milady, then ask if he agrees?'

Robert stared at her. 'Your business related to me?'

Milady shrugged, in a manner, perhaps.'

'What manner?'

A second time she shrugged, it was not coincidence,' she murmured at last, 'that we passed Stonehenge at the moment when we did.'

Robert leaned against the table. He felt his heart contract. 'Go on,' he said.

'We had been told that, should we be there on the second day of May, we might see' - she paused - 'a wonder.' Robert closed his eyes. 'By Faustus?'

'Faustus' - Milady glanced at Lightborn - 'was not his true name.' 'What, then?' Robert whispered. 'What was he called?' Milady gave a faint, dismissive shrug. 'Something foreign and quite unpronounceable.' Her eyes narrowed slowly. 'We knew him as Tadeus.'

'And who - what - was Tadeus?'

'He had once been a priest, before he grew to be a blood-drinker. When we met him, he was a worshipper of the Evil One and a practiser of the magic arts.'

Lightborn laughed contemptuously. 'Which is to say, he continued what he had been while still a mortal, a superstitious rogue.'

Robert stared at him in surprise. 'But
...
what are you saying? Surely all blood-drinkers practise the magic arts?'

'Why do you think so?'

'Your powers,
I
have seen them

Lightborn rolled his eyes. 'And might not a man's powers seem magical to a superstitious dog, or a monkey with religion?'

'So yours
..
.' - Robert shook his head - '
I
do not understand. You say they are not magical at all?'

'No more than my sight, or my touch, or my smell.'

'Where then do they come from?'

'From the womb of the universe, which is more teeming and fertile than we shall ever understand.'

'But Faustus - Tadeus - his magic was successful. He conjured up the Devil.'

'Or so he claimed.'

'If not the Devil, then what?'

Lightborn shrugged. 'That is what we travelled to Paris to ask.'

'Why? There was someone there who could tell you?'

Lightborn glanced at Milady. 'The woman who first made us the creatures we are.'

Robert stared at them both. Their eyes seemed suddenly impossibly bright. He grew conscious again of Godolphin's faint whimperings; and he wondered if he should not be grovelling on the floor by his side, in the face of beings so dangerous and strange. Yet for a while, he had forgotten they were demons; and that he himself might soon be a creature just like them. 'Who was she, then,' he asked slowly, 'this woman who transformed you?'

Lightborn smiled and looked away, as though reluctant to reply. 'She is known,' he murmured, 'as la Marquise de Mauvissiere.'

'And . . .' Robert licked his lips. 'When you spoke to her - what did she know?'

Lightborn glanced out of the window, then he smiled again. 'You shall shortly find out.'

'How?' asked Robert, scrambling to his feet. 'Where are we going?'

Lightborn raised an eyebrow. 'To Mortlake,' he whispered; then glanced out through the window again. The carriage was slowing now; Robert too leaned out. Everything seemed dark. He craned his neck and saw behind them in the distance the spotted blackness of London, piled beneath the stars and the gleaming full moon. The carriage stopped and Robert climbed out. The ground felt boggy underfoot, and he realised he was standing on the bank of the Thames. He looked about. He seemed in open countryside, save for a large ruined building on the river's far bank. Its white brick was pale in the moonlight like bone, and its windows set like sockets in the walls. A single light burned from a room in a tower.

Lightborn led the way towards a waiting boat. 'Come,' he beckoned. 'Madame la Marquise will be growing impatient.'

'She is waiting for us?'

'No,' Lightborn answered. He helped Milady take her place in the boat, then glanced back at Robert with an evil grin. 'She is waiting for you.'

He snapped his fingers. At once Godolphin, who had been sitting hunched by the oars, began to pull on them. Robert lay back in silence. He could feel a terror swelling inside him, such as he had not expected to feel again now that he had agreed to become Robert Lovelace. He gripped the hilt of his sword; tried to remember how he had looked in the mirror; touched the curls in his hair. But with each splash of the oars he felt his unease grow; and when the boat reached the far bank, and he had climbed on to the landing, it was all he could do to continue to the house.

Milady too, to his surprise, appeared almost nervous, for her lips were drawn tight and her delicate nostrils flared. 'It seems much decayed,' she murmured, gazing up at the house.

Lightborn glanced at her. 'Doubtless we shall see it restored soon enough.' He ordered Godolphin to beat a path through the weeds, and began to follow him; then he glanced back. 'It has been almost seventy years, after all.'

Milady sighed, and gathered her cloak about her; then she took Robert's arm. Despite Godolphin's efforts, the approach was still overgrown and, picking his way through the brambles, Robert could see ever more clearly the ruined state of the house ahead of him and its tumbled-down roof. The front door, however, seemed new; and as Lightborn pushed it open, Robert saw the shadows of furniture inside, and tattered hangings on the walls. He glanced up at Milady. She smiled distantly at him; then, still holding his arm, led the way inside.

Robert was reminded at once of Wolverton Hall. There was the same strong smell of droppings and earth, of fungi growing from the dampness on the walls. He followed Lightborn through the hallway, and heard the crunching of snail shells beneath his feet; he looked about him and thought how, if anything, the rooms were in a worse state of disrepair than those he had once explored with Emily. Yet even as he felt the tightness closing about his chest, he realised that there was a difference: for while in Wolverton Hall the decay had seemed bred from the air like some monstrous growth, now, in the rooms he was passing through, the ruin seemed almost fitting, as though it were not decay at all but the building's natural state. Pools of moonlight fell across Robert's path; he stared up, and saw how the roof and ivy formed a single lattice, patterning the thick air with random beams of silver. The lattice, he thought, had the appearance of a cage in which time itself seemed trapped, and rendered still.