A Lady Under Siege(5)

The giant slug suddenly rolled off the table onto the wooden plank of the bench seat, and a female screamed, or maybe laughed, Meghan couldn’t be sure, as the bag kept tumbling downward to the ground. The girl Kaitlin wriggled free from the slug’s mouth, and stood naked in the moonlight. She covered her breasts with a forearm, and let her other arm dangle down, hiding her sex from the gaze of the moon Goddesses. To Meghan’s eyes there was no sense of shame in that gesture, it was modest, reflexive, and beautiful. Then she saw her neighbour Derek emerge, looking like Pan, the horny old Satyr, Pan the half-goat, with an erection slapping comically against his belly as he chased his giggling nymph into the house. Meghan watched them disappear, and heard silence give way to the faint and constant electrical hum of the city. She turned away from the window and climbed back under the covers of her bed, wondering if she had really seen steam coming off their bodies. Or had she only imagined that part?





4





Gerald lay upon his bed, sickly, unconscious. Sylvanne sat on the edge beside him, holding his hand. A maidservant stood fretting beside her. Over the maidservant’s shoulders a trio of menservants strained for a good look.

“He gave the appearance of such renewed vigour just this morning, ma’am,” said the maidservant, a nervous young girl named Ethelwynne. “He told the valets that he intended to go out, to palaver with the enemy, to negotiate terms as it were.”

Sylvanne shot a sharp sceptical look at her, then the men.

“Did he really? He said nothing of it to me. Or could it be, now that he no longer speaks for himself, others are putting their words and wishes into his mouth?”

“It’s true, I swear ma’am,” insisted the taller of the men, Carl by name. “You were sleeping then, he insisted we not sever your repose. It’s been many hours now since he rose. He demanded his most distinguished robes be brought to him, the same princely garments as what he clothed himself in to marry you four summers ago.”

“I can see that for myself,” said Sylvanne, for he wore a blue tunic she had first seen on her wedding day. The blue suited his eyes, and she remembered that he had almost looked handsome in it. Almost—she had often teased him that he had the elongated face and wide-set eyes of a donkey, and now that hunger had hollowed his cheeks and stretched the skin of his face, the resemblance was even more pronounced. She loosed a button on his tunic, and undid two buttons of the white linen shirt beneath. She watched his breathing. His breast barely rose and fell.

“I say he did what’s possible to look his best, ma’am,” said the maidservant. “But it almost broke my heart to see him, thin as a reed and the colour of dea—” she caught herself. “The colour of a winter’s sky, ma’am.”

Sylvanne held her husband by the chin. His flesh felt like parchment stretched over the jaw bone. She leaned in close and whispered.

“Gerald. Gerald.”

His eyes remained closed. Suddenly she slapped his face, hard. Then again, harder, then a third blow, almost vicious. Without taking her eyes from his face, she asked, “What more did he pronounce?”

“When he was dressed he looked upon himself in the mirror, and it seemed to give him a shock, ma’am,” said Carl. “He faltered, as it were, and stumbled to the floor. We lifted him to the bed as one would cradle a wounded bird, so careful were we. Then we set him in this dignified pose, and called for you. He hasn’t so much as moved a digit since.”

Sylvanne watched his still, silent face.

“I wish he would speak to me.”

There was silence, and then Ethelwynne spoke up, timidly. “Should I fetch the Friar, ma’am?”

Sylvanne’s eyes flashed angrily. “Is that what you hold? Has his condition attained that severity?”

The young maidservant lowered her eyes and said nothing. The men didn’t know where to look.

Suddenly another servant rushed in the door, wildly agitated, holding before him a long pointed stick with a scrawny dead rat skewered on the end. “Here lookit what I caught, the last o’ them I’m certain.” He caught sight of Sylvanne. “Pardon, m’Lady, didn’t know as you were present. I’ve brought meat I myself cornered and killed, as sustenance for my Lord.”

Sylvanne surveyed the ratcatcher and his prey. The rat was truly a pathetic specimen, and the catcher for the first time seemed to recognize that sad fact. His enthusiasm faltered.