Free Pendragon's Heir by Suzannah Rowntree Page B

took a sudden turn, and Perceval looked up and saw, in a cleft of the valley wall, a castle.
    Like its surroundings, the castle was black and ruinous. All its outer walls had been shivered as if struck by lightning. Its gates lay in a twisted wreck, its battlements had fallen away like teeth in a battered mouth, and even the rooks’ nests bristling from the walls seemed long deserted. The keep itself was seamed with cracks and the windows blind and black. Only one tower still remained standing, but in all its loneliness it was worth seeing, for a single light burned within it.
    Perceval rode up into the keep, disturbing long-silent echoes. Although the place was utterly shattered, he saw no weeds growing in the cracked pavement. He passed through a courtyard into the great hall where, to his astonishment, he found light and warmth. A fire was smouldering on the hearth, and torches lit the wall behind the high table.
    He could not see a soul.
    Perceval dismounted softly. Rufus bent and nosed the floor before discovering a bundle of provender in a corner. Perceval leaned his shield and lance against the wall, pulled off helm and gauntlets, and went warily to warm himself. There must be someone about, but were they friends or enemies?
    As he held out his hands to the coals he saw a little table nearby set with red and white chess-pieces, ready for a game. Perceval brushed the dust off a stool and sat down, stretching his feet toward the fire.
    Presently he picked up one of the chessmen to look at it. When he had blown and rubbed the dust away, he found that it was an ivory knight with shiny black eyes which seemed to return his scrutiny. He replaced it on its square and sat listening to the darkness and the shadows. After a moment, he rose and went to look out of the hall into the snowy courtyard.
    Nothing. Nobody. He went back to the chess-table and sat down. Outside, the wind whispered along the roof-tiles. For a moment he imagined that the whole hall was full of shadowy presences, moving and talking under ghostly torches, but then he blinked, and was back in the desolate ruin. Perceval shook himself and moved the white queen’s pawn forward two squares.
    He was still looking at the board when a red knight slid forward in response.
    Perceval sat up and stared into the darkness, hands stealing to the hilt of his sword.
    Not a breath stirred the air.
    Slowly Perceval reached out again and moved another pawn. Instantly the red king’s pawn moved forward.
    Perceval moved again, and the red responded almost before his fingers had left his own piece. Six moves later, he was checkmated. Perceval stared in bemused displeasure, and set the board again.
    Twice more the red chessmen bested him, so easily that at the third defeat Perceval lost his temper entirely and rose to his feet, drawing his sword. “Come out, wherever you are!” he shouted.
    “You are—you are—you are,” the castle mocked.
    Perceval passed his hand around the table, hoping to catch some thread used to move the pieces. There was none. He went to sweep the red pieces from the table, but they stuck firm.
    Machine, or magic? The firelight had burned very low, and suddenly Perceval thought he heard footsteps far away. The hair prickled on the back of his neck and he swung his sword up meaning to smash the set and then take his chances with whatever was coming. But before he could move the castle broke its silence.
    “No! Don’t touch the chessboard,” someone called. He was facing her before she had finished speaking. The first thing he saw was a white glimmer in the shadows behind the great table. Then she came closer and he saw her hair in the dark, a crown of sulky red which, being pinned to the top of her head, gave her the illusion of lofty height. It was the damsel in the pavilion, the damsel in the rain.
    “Oh, it’s you,” she said, stopping short.
    For the fraction of a moment, Perceval felt like a small boy caught in mischief. Then in vexation he