LITMIR.BIZ

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bodyguards seized Kate roughly. They pulled her to her feet and dragged her over to the car. There was no point trying to struggle against them.

      The Ismus was leaning casually against a wheel arch, his arms folded. Behind the vehicle, a large crowd, dressed in their Mooncaster best, was waiting in expectant silence. The reporter saw many parents of the newly arrived children among them. She wondered what was happening back at the compound. What was the Ismus really up to? What did he really plan to do with those poor kids?

      “Miss Kryzewski,” he hailed her. “How ill-mannered of you to leave the festivities without bidding adieu.”

      “Oh, gee,” she replied sarcastically. “Did I forget my goody bag?”

      “You left before the reading commenced.”

      “Yeah, well, that’s one treat I can skip. Thanks for having me. I had a real swell time. Now tell your Jolson homies to let go of my arms.”

      The man merely smiled back at her and held out his hand. One of the Harlequin Priests stepped from the crowd. With a reverent bow, he handed him a copy of Dancing Jax.

      “The plan was for you to hear the sacred text read by one of our greatest Shakespearean actors,” he told her. “In a more intimate, cosy setting than this. But I do believe yours is the better choice. Let it be alfresco. It’s such a lovely day.”

      He nodded to the crowd and every single one of them took a copy of the book from a large pocket or bag and turned to the first page in unison. It was the most chilling and sinister sight Kate had ever seen.

      “You can’t do this!” she shouted. “I’m an American citizen! You have no idea how severe the consequences of your actions here will be. My country will instigate full and major punitive measures on your skinny ass!”

      The Ismus chuckled mildly. “After the glowing report you’re going to send in about this wonderful weekend?” he asked. “I very much doubt that, Miss Kryzewski.”

      “They having snowball fights in hell today? Cos that’s the only time I’ll be doing anything you want.”

      The man’s chuckle turned into a full-blooded laugh.

      “If you only knew how droll that was,” he told her. “But no, you will do just as I ask. Why else do you think I invited you back?”

      Kate pulled and tugged at her arms, but the bodyguards gripped her more fiercely than ever.

      “Now shall we begin?” the Ismus asked. “Are you comfortable? Perhaps not, but you will be very soon. I promise.”

      The woman glared back at him. “You won’t convert me so easy,” she growled. “Come on – bring out your best Shakespeare guy, let’s see what he’s got. Personally I always thought your actors were overrated, only good for playing bad guys in dumb action movies. I’m a Pacino girl through and through.”

      “I guessed as much,” the Ismus replied. “That is why I thought it would be more amusing to have someone more familiar read to you.”

      He rapped his knuckles on the SUV’s roof. The rear door opened slowly and a tear rolled down Kate’s cheek when she saw who got out. She screwed her face up and turned away.

      “Hello, Sam,” the Ismus greeted him.

      

      THE YOUNG CAMERAMAN smiled shyly, the lids of his glassy eyes blinking sleepily. Then he tore another impassioned bite from the grey, slimy fruit in his hand. The livid juices had already stained his chin.

      “Here’s the book, Sam,” the Ismus said. “It’s time for Miss Kryzewski to join us in the Realm of the Dawn Prince.”

      Sam shoved the rest of the minchet in his mouth and chewed it urgently. Then he wiped his hands and took hold of Dancing Jax.

      “Don’t do it, Sam!” Kate pleaded. “Please don’t.”

      The fair-haired man swallowed the fibrous lumps in his mouth and grinned. “It’s all right, Kate,” he assured her. “It’s just like they said. We were dead wrong. This place, this crap – it isn’t real. We belong in Mooncaster. You’ll see.”

      He lowered his eyes and began to read.

      “Beyond the Silvering Sea, within thirteen green, girdling hills…”

      The assembled crowd muttered along with him, following the words as he read them aloud. The Jacks and Jills came to join them and everyone began to nod their heads in time to the rhythm of the sentences.

      Kate Kryzewski felt the day darken around her. The sunlight dimmed and a faint buzzing sounded in her head. She tried to think of something else, anything – it didn’t matter what.

      The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and the skin crept on her scalp as something drew close to her.

      She blotted out Sam’s voice and flooded her mind with her most vivid memories: a child searching the rubble of Haiti for her mother, the smoking wreck of a bus after a suicide bomb in Gaza, a rocket attack over Baghdad that made the night bright as day, pouring a glass of Merlot over Harlon Webber’s hair plugs when he made a pass at her at the Emmys, the crooked smile of the Ismus…

      Frantically she shook that last image out of her head. Sam’s voice filled her ears. She couldn’t blot it out any more. She couldn’t fight any longer. She had to listen. There was nothing else.

      Before the darkness rushed in, one final thought of her own flickered briefly.

      “Poppa, I’m so sorry!” she cried.

      The Ismus’s stark white face reared in her mind. His lean, hungry features were triumphant and she felt her will, her spirit, everything she was, spiralling out of her – till there was nothing left. She threw back her head and her eyes fluttered open. The tall white towers of a magnificent castle stood against the bright blue sky. She gasped in amazement. Then the Black Face Dames let go of her arms and she sprawled on the ground. The grass tickled her hands like feathers.

      Columbine looked up from the goose on her lap and wiped her brow, leaving a faint smear of blood behind. Her fingers returned to the dead bird and she continued to mechanically rip the snowy feathers from its body. The goose’s head dangled and jerked to the motion of her hands.

      The kitchen was unusually quiet that wintry afternoon. Mistress Slab was in the slaughterhouse across the courtyard, elbow deep in a basin brimming with a bloody mixture. That pink, sticky mash of minced pork, breadcrumbs and herbs would soon be fed into empty lengths of pig intestine. The Mooncaster cook would not permit anyone else to learn the secret recipe of her sausages and always barred the slaughterhouse door when she was busy at this task.

      Ned and Beetle, the kitchen boys, were in the village, bringing fresh loaves from the miller’s wife in a barrow. Columbine was completely alone.

      It was a huge kitchen, much larger than the four others that prepared the meals of the Royal Houses. It was kept at a constant summer heat by two great fires. Their flames shone in every copper pot that hung on the limewashed walls and sweat splashes were an ingredient in every dish that Mistress Slab prepared.

      Columbine was used to the fires by now and she dressed in loose, ragged garments, patched and mended with more squares of cloth than a quilt. She was a young, red-haired girl whose face was only clean on high days or when the pranking kitchen boys carried her to the horse trough and threw her in. She went about her endless chores barefoot, for it was good to feel the cool flagstones under her soles and trail her grubby toes through the straw or cinders.

      She never complained when Mistress Slab beat her with the largest wooden spoon if she found her idling. The girl knew how privileged she was to work in the castle and in rare free moments she would creep up the kitchen stairs and peep out at the finely dressed courtiers going by in the Great Hall. What a feast for

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