Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(38)
As Lady Thalia cooed at her son over how smoothly the deep clean was progressing, the older woman stared flintily at Abi. She extended her arm and, with a sinking feeling, Abi saw that the elderly Equal’s leather-gloved claw held the end of a leash.
‘Girl, take this animal to the kennels,’ she commanded. And when Abi hesitated, ‘Now.’
Abi didn’t dare look at Jenner, merely bobbed a curtsey. Keeping her head down, she went to take the leash. The dog-man lay on the carpet in the corridor outside. Abi stepped out and heard the door close firmly behind her.
She’d seen Lady Hypatia’s hound several times since that first day, but only ever from a distance. Being confronted with him like this almost froze her with shock.
He was crouched awkwardly, his back forced lower than would be natural for a human on all fours, as if trying to replicate the gait of a dog. His torso was emaciated, and though his legs and arms were sinewy, the muscles looked all wrong. He was entirely naked, coarse dark hair covering much of his legs, buttocks and lower back. The hair on his head was thin and flowed down his neck in a greasy pelt. His age was entirely unguessable.
‘Hello,’ Abi tried, when her voice was back under control. ‘What’s your name?’
The man whined and trembled. If he really had been a dog, his ears would have been pressed flat to his skull, his tail between his legs.
‘No? How long have you been like this? Why?’
His hands pattered against the carpet, the nails snagging audibly. He ducked his head and slung back his haunches, just like a dog in distress.
‘Can you even speak? What have they done to you?’ Abi’s mouth went dry with horror.
The whining came again, louder and more urgent, almost gulping. The last thing Abi wanted was to be caught like that, as if she were the one tormenting the man. Fright made her do what reason would not and she tugged on the leash.
‘Come on, then. Let’s get you to the kennels.’
They crossed the Solar, and Abi sensed the other slaves’ heads turning to stare. She stopped by Kyneston’s great front door. Even though it was closed, icy air leaked over the threshold, and she knew that outside frost lay thick on the ground. Surely the man would catch his death of cold?
She stood uncertainly, until the dog-man himself scrabbled against the door, as if begging to be let out. It hardly seemed possible, but maybe he preferred being in the kennels to the treatment he received at Lady Hypatia’s hands.
The frost hadn’t lifted and the cold was smothering as Abi stepped outside. When she looked back the house was already hidden by fog, which lay over it like a giant white dust sheet. Even sounds were muted. She and Hypatia’s hound could have been the last things alive.
Unnerved, Abi hurried in the direction that she thought the stables lay. The temperature wasn’t much above zero, and the man was already shivering so violently that the leash was jerking in her hand. She looked at the leather loop with revulsion. What if she just dropped it? Let him disappear and report that she’d lost him in the mist.
Except how would he escape? The wall was still there, the gate perpetually hidden without a Jardine to summon it.
Relief thawed her when they reached the cluster of outbuildings. Crossing the cobbled yard, Abi entered the long, low kennels set at an angle to the stables. It was warmer in here, and the smell of dogs was overpowering.
A figure appeared from the gloom: the Master of Hounds. He came forward to meet her with no trace of welcome.
‘Well, if it isn’t Miss Bossyboots,’ he said, sneering. He saw the dog-man. ‘Lady Hypatia’s back, then.’
Abi held out the leash, but the man made no move to take it.
‘Put it in twenty. I keep it separate on account of the noise it makes.’
Number twenty was a metal pen, one of four in a dilapidated section of the kennels that appeared otherwise unused. It had a mesh roof and a barred door that bolted on the outside. Inside, dirty straw thinly covered the concrete floor.
Abi’s hand hesitated over the collar, then she unclipped the lead and the dog-man slunk into the enclosure. He curled up on the straw and buried his head against his naked chest. The soles of his feet were cracked and filthy, and his skin was red and raw from the frosty walk.
The kennel-master came back with a couple of metal dishes, one containing water, the other a mixture of dry biscuits and a pinkish-brown jelly. Dog food. He put them both down and slid them into the pen with the tip of his boot, before dragging the door shut and shooting the bolt.
‘Have you got the leash?’ Abi handed it over, and he hung it on a nail. ‘Can’t leave it with that, who knows what it’d try, eh? Not that I’d blame it, being the dog of a bitch like Hypatia.’
He spat expressively over the pen. Its occupant was now drinking the water, not lifting the bowl with his hands, but crouched over it slurping as a real dog would. The Master of Hounds saw Abi watching.
‘You never seen Lord Crovan’s handiwork before, eh? Lord Jardine reckons the man could teach even me something about breaking in animals.’
He laughed unpleasantly and Abi couldn’t hide her disgust.
‘Oh, don’t you go looking like that, young lady. This one was Condemned, and rightly so. His mistress may be cruel, but he deserved it.’
With a final rattle of the cage door to make sure it was secure, the kennel-master threaded a padlock through the bolt and clicked it shut. He took a ring of keys from his pocket, flicked to a small aluminium one which he unpeeled and dropped into Abi’s palm. Then he sauntered off, whistling. As he disappeared round the corner, the foxhound pack started up barking and whining at the return of their king.