“Wasn’t it enough to hurt yourself?” she implored.
Patrick’s heart twisted in his chest and he fell to his knees, biting his knuckles as he used to do as a child. He felt more than just naked—he felt as if his entire broken soul were laid bare.
The sad look on his mother’s face turned to a leer as she stepped forward, raising an accusing finger. “Is this how I raised you?” Her countenance transformed into a hideous caricature of a woman; a crazed harpy with a skull-like face and flaming eyes.
He bolted for the door and was gone in moments, howling like a madman.
Aimeé stirred from her sleep, awakened by Patrick’s cries. She sat up in bed just in time to see his naked form depart.
“Patrick!”
She looked around the empty room, pulling the sheets over her nakedness.
#
Patrick ran through the mist. He did not know how he reached the forest so quickly or how he slipped by the guards without being noticed. All he knew was that he could not run fast enough to be away from what he had left behind. He felt it was all he could do to run, run, and keep on running. He was gibbering and barely aware of the sticks and stones that he tread on in his flight, or the branches and brambles that reached up and scored his bare flesh. He staggered through stream and brook and blundered through underbrush and bounded like a deer through ferns. The mist obscured his path, but he moved deeper and deeper into the wood.
A silhouette formed in the mist—a person. His eyes widened in recognition, and he slowed to a stop.
On a grassy knoll beneath huge trees was a beautiful dark haired girl, her skin as milky white as the mist that surrounded her. She shook her head sadly, a look of eternal pity in her striking blue eyes.
Patrick fell to his knees and his breath came out in huge puffs of steam in the chill morning, his chest still heaving from exertion. The girl continued to stand and stare compassionately.
“You wanted to marry unto God?” Patrick screamed at her between gasps of breath. “Did you really? Then why did it turn out the way it did? Why!” Patrick tore up the ground in front of him and threw rocks and dirt at her, but they passed through her even as her form vanished like a reflection on the surface of moving water. Patrick let forth a scream of anguish and turned and ran further into the wood, his feet bleeding and his naked body striped with lacerations.
Ahead of him was another mist-shrouded figure, but this time no taller than his waist. She came running towards him with arms held out, a plea for help and mercy in her dark eyes. She cried in a strange language and her features were dusky, her clothing foreign. Patrick ran to meet her, no longer naked, but wearing a blood-and soot-smudged white surcoat emblazoned with a red cross. His sword dangled in one hand, a shield in the other.
To his left, a group of similarly dressed men crested the hill on horseback. Their surcoats were soaked in blood, and their tack and harnesses jangled menacingly.
They spotted the running girl and put spurs to horse and surged forward.
“No!” Patrick cried out. “Not again!”
Patrick threw sword and shield aside and raced for the girl as fast as his feet would carry him. He called to the knights and leaped to push the girl from their path, but he was too late. The mounted warriors trampled the child, kicking up mud and tossing her body about like a rag doll.
Patrick came to rest on his knees before the broken body. Bloody foam swelled from her mouth. One of the mounted knights circled back to Patrick, raising the visor of his helm to reveal a mean face and wiry gray beard.
“There are no innocents here,” he stated with a sneer.
Patrick’s eyes opened and he realized that he was lying on the cold ground, still naked. His head snapped in all directions, but he was all alone.
He rose to his knees and looked skyward, ripping at his hair. He longed to weep, but all that would come from him was a noise too pathetic to even be called a moan.
From the corner of his eye he glimpsed another visitor to his delirium. He turned to see the pale face of David of York. The smile lines around his mouth were set grimly as he leaned against a tree in his armor and green greatcloak, shaking his head at the Irish knight. After staring for some time, he silently turned and began to walk away without a word.
“No!” Patrick called, rising and chasing after the image in the mist. “Don’t leave me again!” Patrick tackled the Englishman, only to find he was as solid as the mist. He lay on the ground for a while, in the dead leaves and dirt. Then, he started to laugh.
At first it was a mere gurgle in his throat, but then quickly turned to a full-blown guffaw and his face contorted into a twisted parody of joy. He struggled to his feet and directed his laughter to the heavens.
“Is that it?” he railed at the sky. “Is that the best you can do?”
He twirled about like an idiot, got dizzy, then stopped. He wiped his nose on his hand.
“Why must you torment me so?” he called. “Why must you send silly ghosts and demons to do your dirty work? Can’t you just crush me with your thumb and be done with it? What did I do to displease you to begin with? Had I not followed you faithfully? Did I not memorize your words? Or was it that I didn’t follow your word
well enough?
What! What was it?”
Patrick looked around as if expecting an answer to come out of the trees. He balled his hands into fists and screamed in frustration.
“You want to hear your words? Do you? Do you want me to repeat it to you, so you will know how dutifully I committed it to memory? Well, here is a little something King David said to you:
Because of you my friends shun me; you make me loathsome to them; Caged in, I cannot escape; my eyes grow dim from trouble.
“All day I call on you, Lord; I stretch out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades arise and praise you? Selah! Is your love proclaimed in the grave, your fidelity in the tomb? Are your marvels declared in the darkness, your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?
“But I cry out to you, Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before you. Why do you reject me, Lord? Why hide your face from me?
”
Patrick made a mocking bow, “I couldn’t have said it better myself! Did you answer him, I wonder? Did you!”
This last heated assertion sent his mind reeling, blinding his senses in a red rage that sent him back to pulling out his hair and spinning in circles. His head felt like it was going to explode with anger and frustration, and images of all the ghosts that came to visit him this day, plus many more, surrounded him every which way he turned. Each one was a reminder of something brutal. The images spun faster and faster until they were just a blur, leaving Patrick with only the sensation of the sound of wings surrounding him like a flock of pigeons in a madhouse.
He became nauseated and fell to his knees, clutching his ears to block out the sound. He breathed heavily, eyes shut, and waited for the vertigo to subside.
Slowly, eventually, it did—along with the mad beating of wings.
Around him, the forest was steely silent.
He carefully opened his eyes, and standing before him was the hooded Apparition, arms crossed over its chest.
“Go to hell, you cowardly thing,” Patrick shouted at it. “Have you no powers but to look menacing? Am I to fear a shadow? I will not any longer! You couldn’t possibly take away anything from me that hasn’t already been taken. You can’t hurt me! You can’t touch me!”
Patrick threw a fist at it.
It caught his fist in mid air with its gloved hand. Patrick could not free his hand nor overpower the creature. It began to squeeze his knuckles with an icy grip, forcing Patrick to his knees. A sensation like creeping death traveled down his arm, causing him to fight for his breath. With a wicked twist, the Apparition threw Patrick aside by his arm. His body somersaulted to the ground, and before he could rise again, the Apparition picked him up by the throat into the air.
Patrick hung there suspended by the specter’s outstretched arm and he clawed at the gloved hand. The Apparition held up its free hand and gestured with its index finger. This it moved back and forth as if to tell the Irishman he had done a naughty thing.
Like a puff of smoke in the wind, the Apparition disappeared. Patrick fell to the ground.
He lay there for a very long time.
#
Aimeé listlessly kneaded the dough on the kitchen table, a dazed look in her eyes. For the past couple of days, it was all she could do to put her body through the motions of performing her duties. Soon Rosa Maria would catch on to her air of indifference and either scold her for it or mercilessly question her about the cause. Aimeé wanted neither to happen.
She straightened up and stared at the dough.
Moments later she sleep-walked past Anna who worked at the table next to hers, mumbled something about needing fresh air and left the room. She wandered down the maze of corridors and came to a dead end where several dust-covered barrels were stacked beneath a high window. A beam of light formed a pool on the flagstones. Dust motes floated in the air. The place whispered of sanctuary and privacy.
She sat heavily on the barrels, causing more dust to plume into the air, and she put her elbows on her knees, cradling her chin in her hands.
“What am I doing?” she mused out loud.
She thought long and hard, but could not manage to untie the knot in her stomach. A vague amount of time passed, and Anna’s portly frame appeared in the hallway, and approached.
“Ah, lass, what is a matter with yea?” Anna asked, stroking her friend’s tawny hair.
Aimeé embraced Anna and managed a shrug. “I’ve gone and done it,” she lamented. “Threw myself at him foolishly, and in a drunken state he took me up on my offer. Then left me lying there.”
“Well, if I recall correctly, you weren’t of proper mind that night, either,” Anna pointed out.
“Still, he left
screaming
, in a hurry, not even bothering to put his clothes back on. He’s been gone for days now. What is it about me that would cause a man to do such a thing?”
Anna grabbed the younger woman’s chin and made eye contact. “Now, you listen to me lass, that right there should tell yea somethin’. The boy has his own demons and it has nothin’ to do with yea. You are a
good
person.” Aimeé’s face scrunched up on the verge of tears, but Anna’s smiling cherubic face kept her from breaking down. “You’re goin’ to be all right, Aimeé dear.”
“But what do I do?”
Anna shook her head. “Yea don’t do nothin,’ yea just take it day by day. Besides, yea haven’t heard his reasonin’ yet. Maybe he’s been sittin’ on a toilet this whole time. Anyone who drinks that much Aphelon is bound to have problems.”
They laughed at the image, and it seemed the room grew a little brighter.
Anna abruptly made a face and waved her hand in front of her face. “Good Lord, what’s that awful smell?”
Aimeé laughed more. “I’m sure it’s just like that.”
“No, truly, what’s that smell?”
Once Aimeé saw that her fellow maidservant was not smiling, the smell hit her as well. She covered her mouth and nose. “Ew, it smells like something died.”
#
“I’m certain it’s coming from up there,” Anna said, looking up the stairwell that led to the Viscount Loki’s apartments. A breeze was blowing steadily from the shadows, down the hall and out the window under which she and Aimeé had been conversing.
Aimeé tilted her nose in the direction Anna was peering, and sure enough, an occasional whiff traveled to her nose from above. “There are other smells too, but there is definitely the smell of something dead.”
Anna’s eyes got big and she grabbed Aimeé by the arm. “Ya don’t suppose he went and finally killed his little man, do yea? He was always so abusive to him, it wouldn’t surprise me if he whacked him good finally and left his body to rot up there. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen the little fellow around for a while.”
It was Aimeé’s turn to widen her eyes. She stifled a cry with her hands, looking up the dark staircase. Finally she turned to Anna. “You don’t suppose he killed Sir Patrick, do you, and that is why he’s missing? There was no love lost between them on account of the Lady Katherina.”
Anna’s mouth dropped, and Aimeé started to climb the stairs with determination.
“What are yea doin’ lass!”
“I have to know.”
“Yea can’t just go bargin’ into a nobleman’s room.”
Aimeé paused, but then turned to Anna. “If it’s either Patrick or Minion rotting up there, Mark should know about it.”
“Exactly. That’s why we should go tell him, about the smell.”
“But if it turns out to be something else, we have just accused a nobleman of dastardly deeds. That just won’t do. So we need to see for ourselves. If it’s something else, we don’t say anything.”
“But what if Loki is home?”
“Then we’re just two maidservants asking if he needs any cleaning done.”
“What if he’s not home, and he catches us in the act?”
“That’s why I need you to be on lookout. Come on!”
They climbed the stairs to the door and paused.
“Now what?”
Aimeé wrung her hands, then knocked hurriedly. Some moments passed and there was not the slightest bit of sound on the other side of the door. Anna winced as Aimeé slowly turned the knob. The door swung open with a mundane creak of wood, but at the moment it sounded absolutely deafening.
“My Lord Loki?” Aimeé called out tentatively.
Anna slapped her backside. “Sshh! No need to announce our breakin’ and enterin’!”
“Stay here,” Aimeé said, and stepped inside.
It wasn’t long before Aimeé was standing inside the room, wide-eyed and mouth agape. There were piles of forks, knives and spoons, not to mention all manner of cooking wares—taken from the kitchen and missing for some time. The hearth had been transformed into some sort of odd little cottage made of clay bricks, the sight of which prompted a memory that the crafts studio and that the groundskeeper were missing mortaring and clay-making tools.
She slowly circled the room, taking stock. In the corner was what looked like William of Monmouth’s pottery wheel. Oddly, the bagpipe Jason had lent him was sticking out of the little cottage. It was then that she realized that the little cottage was meant to be a furnace, and the bagpipe a makeshift bellows.