Tuppeny Dreadfuls by Wren Lavinia

Author:Wren, Lavinia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2022-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Ruadri Moray held a flaming torch aloft so that Primrose might see, though she was sure that he knew every bare inch on the castle like the back of his hand. The back of his hand was something that she could now see in perfect detail, as if he were no less real than she. He was there in full form, though the flickering torch cast shadows on the space where his face would be, and she saw it no more clearly. Primrose carried on asking questions as if he were a fascinating science experiment, though he did not seem to mind.

“Can you see your own reflection?”

“Of course I can! How do you think I keep myself looking so pretty? I see it in the water often enough, though there are no looking glasses which have survived the years.”

“How do you know that you cannot die? You cannot age, that must be clear, but perhaps the fact that you have not yet died has just been good luck?”

“No, mistress. I have put that particular question to the test. Most thoroughly.”

“Oh?” Primrose felt a bit as if she were prying, but she was too curious to let it drop.

“Mind your heid.” She ducked under a stone arch and they started up a set of stairs. “I have thrown myself from the tower, I have smashed myself to the rocks, been struck by lightning, I have tried to drown myself again and again, I have set myself on fire, that’s not one I would recommend, I have run myself through with various dirks and daggers with oaths and prayers upon my lips. I’ve tried poison and smothering. None of it took hold, though at times I begged it to.”

They walked through the dining hall, and Ruadri painted a picture for Primrose of a roaring fireplace with a carved mantle of all the family crests, thick tapestries with unicorns and lions, tables laden heavily with food, and above them three wrought iron chandeliers with a hundred candles each.

“And this used to be a great library. It was never a fine castle in the modern style, it was always meant to be closed fist, held tight and strong on the hilt of a claymore, a threat you see. But for all its roughness, the finest room in the castle was the library. It wasnea fancy, but the fire was kept lit here, day or night, it was never allowed to go out, and the walls were lined with more books than I had ever seen in more languages than I knew existed. My father lived to a ripe old age, and he always told me that knowledge held power. Anyone in the clan was allowed to come here to read, even the servants, if they knew how.”

“It is hard to imagine what it was like when it was full of life. I can imagine that three hundred years alone could grow quite tedious.”

“Aye. But, it is no just the boredom,” he said more softly, as they made they way out of the library and further up.

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