The Last Duchess

Consider and pause over the last scene of human existence – a mournful and awful scene it is!

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

Perhaps it was the headache, or a lingering grogginess from the drug, but Pattern had no plan of action and not the least idea of how to form one. So she went to find herself a weapon.

She had extravagant hopes of finding a pistol or sword hidden in Eleri’s chamber, but the only armoury she could find was a poker from the fireplace. She supplemented this with the smelling salts and the remains of the laudanum sleeping tonic she had used to drug Lady Agatha. Finally she added a bottle of cleaning fluid she found on the backstairs. She was now equipped to send someone to sleep as well as wake them up, beat them off with a poker, and blind them with bleach. It was hard to envisage exactly how these actions would come about, but it was the best she could do.

After she had finished her search, the Grand Duchess’s chamber looked as if a whirlwind had hit it. Pattern felt a pang of guilt for whoever would be tasked with the tidying if she did not return. Yet there was something oddly liberating about leaving a room in a worse state than she had found it. For the first time, she could understand Eleri’s glee in smashing all that porcelain.

Franz’s act of rebellion was to steal the best horse in the stables: Prince Leopold’s new hunter, a glossy chestnut named Dragonfly. He said he’d had a great longing to ride the animal from the moment it was first brought to the yard. There was nobody about to challenge them as he led it out of its stall.

Pattern had never been up close to a horse before, and would have been quite happy to keep things that way. She had no wish to get within striking distance of the animal’s hoofs and teeth, and it was all she could do not to squeak as Franz swung her up on to the saddle behind him. The ground seemed very far away. ‘Lord, doesn’t Her Highness feed you none? You’re light as a handkerchief.’

Dilys’s eyes were dark and fearful, though she tried to smile as she waved them off. ‘I knew you were trouble as soon as I laid eyes on you, Miss Pattern. First you entangle us in high treason, and now horse theft!’ Then she caught at Pattern’s foot, and said in a low voice so that Franz could not hear, ‘Keep him safe. Promise me. Promise.’

They clattered out of the wide cobbled yard and round to the castle gardens, following the same route as the procession. It was tradition for the sacrificial maiden to travel to her doom in an open carriage, which moved at a walking pace, since everyone else was on foot. At least this gave Pattern and Franz the chance to catch up with the throng.

As Franz urged the horse from trot to canter and then gallop, Pattern clung to his waist and resisted the impulse to squeeze her eyes shut. As they sprang out of the tree-lined walkways and across the widening lawns, the horse’s hoofs drummed on the dry earth, and warmly scented air blew in her face; the sky was bright and disordered with stars. Although they were riding into all kinds of danger, Pattern savoured the illusion of escape. Behind them lay the corrupt hulk of the castle; below, the spiked monster, coiled in its lair.

Their pace slowed as they reached the woodland, where Franz urged their mount through a rough but wide track through the gnarled trunks. The leafy canopy above was thinly speckled with moonlight; the darkness seemed full of strange rustles and snufflings. But it was not long before they saw lights through the trees and caught up with the stragglers at the tail end of the procession. It was a motley crowd, in which ball guests in their silks and furs mingled with those servants who had lately waited on them, as well as the commoners who had gathered to protest outside the castle gates. Small children grizzled in their mothers’ arms. There was little talk, save for the background murmur of whispered prayers, and the lilt of a doleful folk song.

Franz had to be quite forceful in pressing Dragonfly ahead, and compelling people to make way for them. He got some black looks, as well as indignant mutterings. Some deliberately tried to block his path. ‘Have you no sense of decency?’ several asked. ‘Who do they think they are?’ complained others. Finally they overtook the remainder of the procession and joined the many hundreds of people gathered on the lower slopes of the mountain side. Here a gloomy sort of campsite had been made. An air of weary dread, mingled with a strange suppressed excitement, hung over the scene. Several fires had been lit, even though the night was warm, and bread and cheese was being shared out. Fine ladies picnicked on the grass next to farmers with mud on their boots and straw in their hair. The melancholy folk singers – the song was about a lost maiden on a lonely hill – continued their dirge. Rival lamentation came from the ruins of a chapel, where a black-robed priest was conducting prayers.

The open carriage used to convey the Grand Duchess stood abandoned under a fringe of woodland. Franz reined in Dragonfly nearby.

‘We won’t get any further on horseback,’ he said, dismounting in one smooth bound. He helped Pattern clamber down as best she could. ‘The path to the place of sacrifice lies the other side of that chapel.’

Pattern thought of Dilys asking her to keep Franz safe. In her heart of hearts, she doubted very much that either she or Eleri was going to come back down from the mountain.

‘There really is no need,’ she said briskly, patting the carpet bag in which she had stowed the poker and her other particulars. ‘I have a weapon to defend myself, and a plan of action too.’ It was still possible one might come to her. ‘And – well – if it does not quite work out, it will be your task to convince people here of the truth. Besides,’ she said, when Franz looked likely to protest, ‘it will be easier for me to slip through to free Her Highness undetected than if you accompany me. I am much more used to making my way unnoticed.’

She smiled at him quickly, and turned to press through the crowd before she could think better of it. She had not got very far before somebody clutched her skirts. It was Lady Agatha Craddock, looking more iron-grey than ever in the shadows. Her voice dripped with satisfaction. ‘Now you see, missy,’ she hissed, ‘that you are not the only one to be so cunning with your potions.’

Pattern shook her off in disgust. It was as she feared: even if she had felt able to rouse the people to action by explaining things as she had to Dilys and Franz, there were enough of Prince Leopold’s agents about to silence her before she could even begin. And she had no time to waste. Dawn was approaching, and with it Eleri’s hour of reckoning.

The chapel’s tumbledown walls could not contain its congregation, which had spilt out all around. The priest was assisted by two yawning choirboys. His flock wept noisily over their candles and joined in the responses with all the fervour of the newly converted.

Pattern made her way through the quivering throng as unobtrusively as possible. Through the mossy ruins of the north transept she could see a stony path that zigzagged up between thorn bushes. Head down, she set off towards the slope. ‘Where are you going, child?’ called the priest, breaking off his Latin droning. ‘That is holy ground, forbidden to the likes of you. Only the sanctified may walk on it. You risk both your life and your immortal soul!’

Several of the congregation made as if to go after her. But here the ancient superstitions of Elffinberg served her well. ‘There’s a curse upon that path,’ one said to another, hanging back. ‘Let her meet her own doom,’ said someone else. ‘Besides, the guards will turn her back.’

It did not surprise Pattern that there would be some sort of armed sentry in position. She reassured herself that they were unlikely to be expecting trouble. There were plenty of shrubs and bent crooked trees to provide cover; she must hope to hide in the darkness and so evade them. As she threaded her way through the scrub, the glow of candles and campfires already some way behind, she wondered how Eleri must have felt, stumbling in her thin silk slippers over the jagged stones. How long would the effects of the drug last? Would they numb her fear, or just her limbs?

Pattern found the sentries in a little hollow in the hillside. They wore the livery of Prince Leopold’s personal guard, and she recognized one fearsome moustache as belonging to the man who had challenged her in Caer Grunwald. He would not challenge her now, however, for he and his companion were dead. They lay sprawled in the silvering light; the ground beneath them was clotted with blood. It seemed they had been felled by two blows to the head. Their weapons were gone.

The taste of sickness rose in Pattern’s throat. But she could not afford an attack of the vapours. The gruesome sight must sharpen her wits, strengthen her resolve. These were Prince Leopold’s people. Why had they been killed? Did he doubt their loyalty? Or did he not want to leave any witnesses to his crimes?

She gritted her teeth and inched forward, clutching the iron poker. The path widened into a clearing. There was an unmarked carriage standing by; it must have been brought up in secret by some other route, ready to spirit the Grand Duchess out of the country and into her prison. The horses blew their nostrils and stamped their feet skittishly; they seemed as nervous as Pattern. Their driver sagged motionless over the reins. He, too, was someone she recognized: Howell, the coachman in league with Madoc, and another man who had paid for his treachery in blood. For several agonizing minutes Pattern waited in the shadows, hardly daring to breathe, watching and waiting for signs of ambush. Who else might be lurking here? Perhaps the priest was right, and there was a curse on everyone who took this path.

Then she heard a groan from within the carriage. Her heart jumped and stuttered. It took all the courage she possessed to go over and open the door. Prince Leopold was slumped across the seat inside, clutching his breast. Blood bubbled there darkly.

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

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