The Command - Brian Jacques - Flying Dutchman 02

The strange boy shrugged. “Oh, it wasn’t my idea, it was Ned’s!”

The black Labrador huffed indignantly at their laughter. “Huh! What’s so funny? My brain’s as good as any human’s. Better than some, I’m certain!”

Dominic tugged Ned’s tail playfully. “Good thinking, fellow, you’d make a fine robber’s dog!”

The comte grew serious once more. “Are you sure you want to do this, my friends? You’ll be putting yourselves in great peril.”

Ben took their host’s hand. “What sort of folk would we be if we couldn’t help a friend like you, sir? Don’t worry, we’ll find Adamo and bring him back safely to you.”

The old man was forced to resort to wiping his eyes again. “My children, if you could do this, you would earn my eternal gratitude!”

19

MAGUDA RAZAN and her followers lived in caves high in the Pyrenees on the Spanish side of the border. Maguda trusted no man and considered the women of the caves to be inferior beings, senseless baggages who lusted after silks and jewellery. Maguda Razan had eyes that held mysterious powers and was feared by those who served her, any of whom she could bend to her will. An awesome array of potions, scents, powders and spells, coupled with her hypnotic gaze, made her absolute ruler of her rocky domain. Widowed in her younger days, she relied on her four brothers for knowledge of the outside world. They were sombre, close-mouthed men and proficient assassins.

Lesser caves and tortuous passages ran into the mountains, all terminating at the main cavern where Maguda held court deep in the heart of her stone world. It was a vast cavern, furnished to strike terror into the very soul of ignorant thieves and impressionable peasants. Silent as the grave, it had the likenesses of many sinister idols carved into the walls: men with the bodies of reptiles and ferocious beasts, women with multiple limbs and cruel staring eyes, each image with a different-coloured fire burning at its base. Sulphurous yellow, blood red, oily black and many other hues of hellfire. Together they created a noxious cloud that hung beneath the cavern ceiling like a pall. Amid a welter of long-dead and stuffed creatures, Maguda Razan sat on a fabulous throne, which was said to have come from the palace of an emir. It was draped in skins of all manner and decorated with beads. Maguda Razan could barely reach its arms with her hands outstretched. She sat like a venomous spider at the centre of a web. Small, and clad in wispy wraps of black, blue and puce, she had hair that stood out from her head in a crown of dyed orange, streaked with steely grey roots. Between the deep-etched lines of her face, dark, cabalistic tattoos overlaid her bloodless skin. But it was the eyes of Maguda Razan that fascinated the onlooker—restless pinpoints of deep light shining out of muddy yellowed pupils, never still, always restlessly searching back and forth like a questing cobra.

A man knelt before her, backed by a Razan brother. He was weeping helplessly. Maguda’s head never moved as her eyes slanted down toward him. Her voice a sibilant whisper, questioning, probing.

“Why did ye hold back the necklace which was with the loot from Port Vendres? Tell me, Luiz.”

Always keeping his eyes averted from her, Luiz sobbed. “Madame Razan, it was nought but a cheap trinket. I knew my woman liked such things, it was worthless!”

Maguda Razan’s voice sounded reasonable. “Worthless or not, it belonged to the Razan. Where is this necklace now?”

One of the brothers held it up. It was indeed a cheap thing: small beads woven on several strands to represent a snake.

One of Maguda’s incredibly long-nailed fingers moved, pointing. “Put it on his neck, hold up his head, so I can see him.”

Fastening the necklace on Luiz, the brother seized a handful of the man’s hair and pulled his head back. Luiz found himself staring directly into the eyes of Maguda.

Her voice was like a sliver of ice sliding across oiled silk. “Look at me, gaze long at my eyes… long… long… long! I will not hurt thee, Luiz. The snake which ye stole from me is brightly coloured. Did ye know that such snakes are always deadly? Was it not one such snake that took the life of Egypt’s queen long long ago? Can ye feel it, thief, pulling its coils tight around thy worthless neck? Seeking out a vein. A place to sink small fangs into…”

Both of Maguda’s hands rose, fingers curved like claws, her voice rising to a shriek. “Thou art dead! Dead!”

Blood suffused the man’s face as he clapped a hand to the side of his throat, gurgled horribly and fell over sideways. His legs kicked convulsively, and his back arched. Then he went limp. Lifeless.

Maguda’s voice rang out, flat and callous. “Take yon necklace off him, give it to his woman!”

The brother reached out, then hesitated. Her tone turned to one of contempt. “It won’t bite thee, ‘tis only a cheap necklace. Take it off!”

Gingerly the brother obeyed. Maguda watched him scathingly. “See his neck, there’s not a mark on it. Imagination, ‘tis all it was, yon fool died because of his own stupid imagination!”

Her brother took the necklace and slunk off, murmuring under his breath. “Imagination, and those eyes of yours, sister, that’s what the man died from!”

Much to his surprise, her voice followed him, echoing around the cavern and its surrounding passages. ‘Aye, thou art right, brother, but beware, mine ears are as sharp as mine eyes. Nothing escapes Maguda Razan!” He broke into a run, dashing past the eldest of his brothers, who was on his way to see Maguda.

She watched the man enter her cavern, noting the flicker of fear in his eyes as he skirted the spot where the dead thief lay. Her voice halted the eldest brother even before he reached the throne. “Tell me of thy visit to Veron market fair. What news of Comte Bregon? Think hard and speak true, Rawth!”

The eldest brother of the Razan, Rawth, made his report. “I never saw the old man, they say he never leaves the house.”

Maguda let out a hiss of exasperation. “I know that, but did any come or go from there, new faces, strangers?”

Rawth shook his head. “Only some young ‘uns, who were arrested for not paying their toll and for Unlicenced trading.”

Maguda’s fingernails rattled as she smote the throne arm. “Tell me of them! Didst thou not hear me say I want to hear all?”

Rawth had not heard his sister say any such thing, but he was not prepared to argue—he had seen what happened to any who contradicted Maguda. “I saw three of them being led off by the guards. They are probably in the dungeons now. Two of them were boys, one about fourteen summers, light-haired, blue-eyed, the other about the same age, handsome, Spanish-looking. The girl looked older than the boys, but not by much— she was of gypsy blood, I think. A pleasant singer she was, I heard her sing. She was on the house steps, drumming up trade for the Spanish boy to make likenesses of folk.”

He stood silent as Maguda mused aloud. “A facemaker, eh? What of the other boy, the blue-eyed one?”

Rawth shrugged. “Oh, him, he did little but stand around with his dog—”

Maguda interrupted her brother. “Dog? Ye said nothing of a dog. What manner of animal was it, tell me!”

Rawth described Ned. “Of the breed they call Labrador. A big creature, black ‘twas. Why do ye ask?”

She silenced him with a wave of her hand. “A black dog, that could be an omen. Send watchers to wait outside the wall of Veron until these young ones are released. I need to know more about them, which direction they go in. Leave me now, I need to be alone, to think.”

When Rawth had departed, Maguda took up a staff and rose from her throne. Leaning heavily on the staff, she visited each of the stone idols around the cavern’s edge, throwing coloured incense upon the fires at the feet of the statues and muttering to herself as the smoke billowed up to thicken beneath the high ceiling. After a while she went back to the throne. Using a human skull on the seat beside her as a centrepiece, Maguda Razan cast bones, pebbles and striped stone fragments over the grisly crown of the skull. Watching which way they fell, she chanted in a high, singsong voice,