Thomas Berrington 04 The Incubus, page 1
part #4 of Thomas Berrington Series
The Incubus
David Penny
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Historical Note
Also by David Penny
About the Author
One
Thomas Berrington saw the first body at the foot of the ravine, though in that moment he had no idea it would be the first, nor how many others would follow. He didn’t even recognise it as a body. It was a splash of red, nothing more.
The body lay on the stony banks of a narrow river that had cut the gorge. Thomas would have missed it altogether if he hadn’t been keeping his eyes on the rough ground for fear of tumbling over the edge. He knew on his return he would have to tell the others to take a different route. This way might be passable for a single man, even a dozen, but not by the numbers spread across the plain, nor the carts that accompanied them.
To his left white limestone cliffs drew the sun, a shattering of light and shadow rising to a barren plateau. He drew his horse to a halt and sat, staring at the tumbled shape, wondering how it had ended up there; wishing he hadn’t seen it.
Thomas dismounted and led the borrowed horse to a stunted tree. He tied the reins to a branch and approached the drop. Small rocks tumbled from the edge, rattling away into the gorge. The sound of their falling echoed and re-echoed from the far wall.
Whatever lay at the foot of the ravine might have been mistaken for a bundle of rags, and Thomas had almost done so. He went to his knees and shuffled closer to the edge, leaning as far out as he dared to see what lay below and to search for a means of descent.
A bright silk robe, red, draped around the broken body. One arm was extended, the fingers buried among stones. Thomas’s attention moved from the figure, knowing he needed to get closer before deciding what fate had dashed it onto the rocks. Knowing too he could not leave it where it was as others might have done.
To the right he saw a place where it might be possible to descend. Not easy, but possible. The question he had to ask himself was, did he want to take the risk? He returned his gaze to the body, knowing the decision had already been made. He rose and returned to his horse, took the water sac and drank. He wiped his chin, considering options.
The sun was high, heat trapped between the walls of the ravine. Thomas removed his robe and draped it over the saddle. He patted the horse’s flank and said meaningless words. The horse continued to tug at a patch of dry grass, unwilling to partake in conversation. Thomas removed his boots and walked the short distance to where a dip in the path might mark the start of a way down, if he was skilled enough. Which, it turned out to his surprise, he was. The sound of running water grew louder and the heat increased the further he descended.
When his foot touched firm ground he stretched, easing the kinks from his back, the strain from his arms. The body lay forty feet away. Thomas more than half expected to be assaulted by the smell of corruption, but none came to him on the breeze. As he approached flies rose in a buzzing swarm, their senses more attuned to death.
He knelt and drew the robe aside − discovering it was indeed silk, and silk of high quality − to reveal the face of a woman that might once have been beautiful. Now one cheek was shattered, the forehead split open by the fall. She had been alive for a time after reaching this position. One foot had moved, making a depression beneath her toes. And the extended arm had buried her fingers into the surface.
Her skin was smooth, pale, as yet unmarked by putrefaction. There would have been blood, a great deal of blood, but most had run away between the rounded stones.
Thomas sat on his heels and looked at the far wall of the ravine. It rose sheer. Had she fallen from all the way up there? It was possible, but more likely she had come from the path he had been following. It was only forty feet above where she lay, and under other circumstances she would still be alive, broken-boned but alive. Here the nature of the ground, covered in stones large and small, had worked against survival.
Her face was too broken to provide much help with recognition, but Thomas didn’t believe she was one of their party. He had heard of no-one going missing. Not that he listened to the gossip that flowed and swayed like the tides, but Jorge did. Jorge relished the chatter, however minor, and took great pleasure in relaying its minutia each evening when he joined them to eat. Jorge had passed on nothing that might indicate who the woman was, and based on the quality of her robe she would be someone known to him.
Her presence here was a mystery Thomas knew might never be solved, but his nature would not allow him to ignore her fate. Had she been with companions, or was she alone when she fell? Was the fall accidental or deliberate? And if deliberate, self-inflicted or the result of someone pushing her?
Thomas glanced at the route he had taken on his way down and made a decision. It would be impossible to make the climb back carrying her. She would have to remain where she was, except he couldn’t leave her this way, broken and discarded. The flies had already found her, but so far no wildlife. He knew that wouldn’t last.
Thomas walked downstream along the shattered bank of the river until he found what he was looking for. On a bend floodwater had scooped a dip in the ground, a little water still in its base. There were enough loose rocks scattered around for his purpose.
Thomas returned to the body, leaned over and placed his hands beneath the woman and lifted, cradling her like a child. She weighed little, and it was an easy matter to carry her to the water smoothed depression. He laid her in the crevice and was about to fold her arms across her chest when it occurred to him he should see if she carried anything that might identify her. He patted the robe, lifted it and ran his fingertips along the seams, but nothing. There were no pockets and beneath the robe she was naked. Thomas placed her feet together even though one of them was barely attached. A sense of guilt, of abandonment of duty filled him as he began to lift rocks and cover her body. What he was doing didn’t seem enough, not nearly enough, but he knew there was little else could be done.
Thomas laid a hand across the woman’s brow and spoke the dua for the dead, Islamic prayers he knew the words of even though he held no faith of his own, neither that of his homeland or this, al-Andalus, his adopted one. Then he began to cover the body with flat stones until nothing showed.
She would be safe from predators now, at least for a while. Thomas stripped from his clothing and strode into the blood-warm river, desperate to wash away the taint of death. Afterward he stood at the water’s edge, allowing the hot air to dry his body before dressing. He returned along the foot of the ravine to stare at the place the woman had first lain.
He was about to leave, duty done, when something drew his attention. A spot where the stones were disturbed, and he recalled the way the woman’s hand had burrowed between them. He went to his knees and dug into the stones, tossing small pebbles aside. The package wasn’t buried deep, barely beneath the surface, wrapped in waxed cloth to repel water. Thomas drew it out, dusted it down. It weighed little, but contained something she had valued enough to attempt to hide. He unwrapped the cloth to reveal three letters, each sealed with wax. He glanced along the ravine to where the woman’s makeshift grave lay.
Why had her final act been to conceal the package? Was it the reason she had died? Were the contents so important she had lost her life for them? Thomas was aware the answers might lie in the letters, but was reluctant to break the seals. Each was addressed to the leader of those he had left on the plain, the leader of al-Andalus even if he lacked the title. Al-Zagal’s party spread across the valley below, a host of over four hundred travelling from Gharnatah, where there were too many Sultans, to Ronda, where there was none until they arrived. Thomas tapped the letters against his nails, reluctant to do what almost any other man would and open them. He didn’t want the knowledge, the responsibility of what lay inside. Let someone else take it.
Two
Thomas continued along the rising path, knowing hours remained before he had to turn back. He had been enjoying the isolation, the harshness of the land, but the day had been spoiled by his discovery. Despite the afternoon being not yet half gone the sun had slipped behind the high clifftops, casting him into shade but bringing no lessening of the heat. As he rode he began to re-evaluate his opinion of the route. Where the woman had fallen was the narrowest point of the track. Fa
The path steepened and veered away from the gorge, opened into a dusty clearing fringed by gnarled trees. On the far side sat a small cart, its shafts empty. Thomas dismounted and allowed his horse to wander in search of whatever it could find. He pulled himself onto the empty bed of the cart. When he leaned forward to examine the front he saw a bloodstain on the seat. There was a great deal of blood. More than could be sustained by one person and still allow them to live. Could this be where the woman had been attacked? Or did the blood belong to someone else? He doubted anyone would carry the woman so far before discarding the body. There was a surfeit of places closer, places where she would never be found.
Thomas dropped to the ground and walked around the cart. At the front the ground was disturbed and he knelt to examine the marks. A mule he reckoned by the tracks. He rose and dusted himself down, began to circle the cart, working his way out in search of other signs. He saw where the mule had been led away along rising ground. He found a second patch of blood, the ground disturbed around it. Thomas looked back to see his own horse had come to stand patiently beside the cart.
That death had come to this place was clear, but how many, other than the woman? It was unlikely she would have travelled alone. Her robe hinted at wealth, or if not wealth then influence. She would have had companions. Companions who were now also dead?
Thomas walked to one side and climbed a small tumble of rocks so he could see farther, but it was no help. He stood, listening, but there was only a soft breeze rattling dry branches. Even the sound of water from the gorge had faded away. He clapped his hands together, the sound echoing from the cliffs. He was rewarded by sight of a swarm of flies rising into the air from a depression a hundred feet away. Thomas started toward it.
He found the body of a soldier discarded there, a clear trail showing where he had been dragged, and Thomas berated himself for not seeing it earlier. He went to the body and examined it. The man had been killed with a crossbow, the bolt still in his chest. The man was a Moor, but it was impossible to tell whether the weapon used on him was Spanish or not. This man would need to be covered too before the wildlife found him. Thomas considered tying his own horse into the shafts of the cart and taking him back to camp, but doubted anyone would care, and he didn’t like the idea of trying to tease it through the narrow section where he had found the woman’s body.
He returned to his horse and drank again, feeling the sweat running across his belly beneath his robe. Thomas wondered if the small group had been seeking out al-Zagal’s protection. Almost from the moment they set out from Gharnatah people had begun to join their number, seeing safety in the size of the group, and its leader. The farther they had gone the more had come, sometimes as many as a dozen a day fleeing a perceived threat from Spain.
Thomas patted the neck of his horse and ran his palm along its chin, the movement rewarded with a snicker. He stood, listening, but there was only the wind. He had left the other scouts soon after setting out and had seen no-one all day. But someone had been here, that was clear. The woman and her companion had been dead less than half a day. Nobody had passed him, which meant whoever had killed these two had gone on, upslope and over the head of the pass.
Thomas glanced at the sky and shook his head. There was another body to cover, so he rose and walked across the dry clearing.
An hour later he mounted his horse and tugged on the reins to start back down the gorge. The sound of his passage came back from the cliffs, lulling him into a trance. His mind drifted, tired, weary of death. There were times he wondered if it sought him out deliberately, but he knew death was a constant presence in this land, one that would grow only more frequent. Then, with a start, he realised there was a noise, and that it had been there for some time. He reigned in and dismounted, heart beating faster. Two horses at least, coming at speed from behind. Thomas dragged his own horse to the side, searching for some place he could conceal himself and finding none.
He mounted again and drew his sword, turned back and prepared to fight, afraid whoever was coming were those who had killed the woman and her companion. If it was two men, even three, he was confident enough in his own abilities. He only hoped they were not the outliers of a larger force.
The sound of hooves grew louder, filling the confined gorge. Thomas moved sideways and placed a large rock behind him, the best he could do. He breathed deep, trying to calm himself in the moments remaining before the men appeared.
“Thomas!” Yusuf reigned his horse hard, its feet skidding on the rough ground. Behind him Faris al-Rashid brought his own mount to a more elegant stop. To Farris elegance outweighed almost everything else.
Thomas dismounted and moved away from the rock, sheathing his sword, but he kept his hand on the hilt. Yusuf he trusted. The youngest son of Abu al-Hasan Ali, the current ruler in Gharnatah, he had changed much over the last year. While his older brother Mohammed had been a captive of the Spanish there had been talk of Yusuf becoming the next Sultan. Now Mohammed had returned to live in his mother’s house on the Albayzin such talk had faded, but such were the tangled politics of al-Andalus they would never fade completely. The presence of Faris with Yusuf gave evidence to that. Faris al-Rashid’s presence with someone was never accidental.
Yusuf dismounted and put an arm around Thomas’s shoulder, some of the excitable boy still remaining. Faris remained in the saddle.
“Have you seen anyone on the path?” Thomas asked.
“Only you,” said Yusuf. “Faris has something to show you.”
Thomas considered whether to tell them of his own discoveries. He could feel the weight of the letters addressed to al-Zagal in the pocket of his robe as if they were made of lead not paper. If it had only been Yusuf he might have spoken of what he had found, but the presence of Faris complicated matters. Besides, they would know soon enough once he delivered the letters.
“It will be dark in a few hours,” Thomas said.
“What I have to show you won’t take long,” said Faris. He tugged at the reins to turn his horse the way they had come.
Thomas and Yusuf mounted their own steeds and followed as Faris moved away.
“I’m glad it’s you we found,” said Yusuf. “People trust your word.”
Thomas was aware of the message Yusuf sent without him needing to state it. “They trust you too,” he said.
“My uncle still considers me a child,” said Yusuf. “I could help more if he allowed it. I’m not a fool, and I know how power works. I’ve been around it long enough to learn that much.”
Ahead of them Faris took a side track that led up the steep hillside, twisting back and forth on itself as it climbed. The man was close enough to hear their conversation but appeared to be uninterested.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Thomas said. “Power might look attractive, but it’s like a beautiful woman with a black heart.”
Yusuf made no reply, which was unusual in itself, perhaps an indication of other changes in him. Stones rattled down from where Faris was already above them on the switchback. As they climbed they moved back into sunlight, softer now, painting the hillside with a flattering brush.
Yusuf started to say something but Faris held up his hand to silence him. They were almost at the crest of the ridge. Faris stopped and dismounted, waiting for them to reach him.
“We go quietly from here,” he said. “And don’t show yourself at the top.”
At the ridge line Thomas saw the reason for his instructions. No more than a half mile away in the wide valley beyond the ridge, the ground was dark with soldiers. Spanish soldiers, their pennants hanging limp in the faint breeze.
“How many, Thomas?” asked Yusuf.
Thomas studied the army. It was impossible to count, easier just to estimate. “More than our force,” he said. “Eight hundred to a thousand, I’d say.”
Faris nodded. “That’s what I reckoned too. A thousand.”
“Are they looking for us?” Thomas said.
“More likely than not, don’t you think?” said Faris.
