Early one afternoon, with the overcast hanging low and the scent of rain in the air, Madouc donned a gray hooded cloak and slipped away to the stables. She summoned Pymfyd from his work with the manure fork. "Come, Pymfyd, at once! I have an errand which will require an hour or so of my time, and I will need your attendance."

Pymfyd asked cautiously: "What sort of errand, Your High ness?"

"In due course you will learn all that is necessary. Come then! The day is short; the hours tumble past, while you doodle and dither."

Pymfyd gave a sour grunt. "Will you be wanting Tyfer?"

"Not today." Madouc turned away. "Come."

With something of a flourish Pymfyd plunged his manure fork into the dungheap and followed Madouc on laggard steps.

Madouc marched up the path that led around the back of the castle, with Pymfyd trudging behind.

He called out: "Where are we going?"

"It will soon be made clear to you."

"As you say, Your Highness," grumbled Pymfyd.

The path veered to the left, toward the Sfer Arct; here Madouc swung away to the right, to scramble up the hillside along a trail leading up the stony slope toward the gray bulk of the Peinhador.

Pymfyd voiced a querulous protest, which Madouc ignored. She continued up the slope, with the north wall of the Peinhador looming above. Pymfyd, panting and apprehensive, lunged forward in sudden alarm and caught up with Madouc. "Princess, where are you taking us? Below those walls criminals crouch in their dungeons!"

"Pymfyd, are you a criminal?"

"By no manner or means!"

"Then you need fear nothing!"

"Not so! The innocent are often dealt the most vicious blows."

"Allow me to do the worrying, Pymfyd, and in any case we shall hope for the best."

"Your Highness, I suggest-"

Madouc brought to bear the full force of her blue gaze. "Not another word, if you please."

Pymfyd threw his arms in the air. "As you will."

Madouc turned away with dignity and continued up the slope beside the black masonry walls of the Peinhador. Pymfyd came sullenly behind.

At the corner of the structure Madouc halted and surveyed the grounds at the back of the Peinhador. At the far end, at a distance of fifty yards, stood a massive gibbet and several other machines of grim purpose, as well as three iron posts for the burning of miscreants, a firepit and griddle used for a similar purpose. Closer at hand, only a few yards distant, at the back of a barren area Madouc discovered what she had come to find: a circular stone wall three feet high surrounding an opening five feet in diameter.

Step by slow step, and despite Pymfyd's inarticulate mutter of protest, Madouc crossed the stony barrens to the circular wall and peered down into the black depths below. She listened, but heard nothing. She pitched her voice so that it might be heard in the black depths and called: "Father! Can you hear me?" She listened: no sound returned. "Father, are you there? It is Madouc, your daughter!"

Pymfyd, scandalized by Madouc's acts, came up behind her. "What are you doing? This is not proper conduct, either for you or for me!"

Madouc paid him no heed. Leaning over the opening she called again: "Can you hear me? It has been a very long time! Are you still alive? Please speak to me! It is your daughter Madouc!"

From the darkness below came only profound silence.

Pymfyd's imagination was not of a far-ranging nature; nevertheless he conceived that the stillness was not ordinary, but rather that where listeners quietly held their breath. He tugged at Madouc's arm and spoke in a husky whisper: "Princess, there is a strong smell of ghosts to this place! Listen with a keen ear, you can hear them chittering down deep in the darkness."

Madouc cocked her head and listened. "Bah! I hear no ghosts."

"You are not listening with proper ears! Come away now, before they rob us of our senses!"

"Do not talk nonsense, Pymfyd! King Casmir dropped my father down this hole, and I must learn if he still lives."

Pymfyd peered down the shaft. "Nothing down there lives. In any case, it is royal business, beyond our scope!"

"Not so! Is it not my father who was immured?"

"No matter; he is no less dead."

Madouc nodded sadly. "So I fear. But I suspect that he left some memorial as to his name and pedigree. If nothing else, this is what I wish to know."

Pymfyd gave his head a decisive shake. "It is not possible; now let us go."

Madouc paid no heed. "Look, Pymfyd! On yonder gibbet hangs a rope. With this rope we will lower you down the shaft to the bottom. The light will be poor, but you must look about to see what has transpired and what records remain."

Pymfyd stared, mouth gaping in wonder. He stuttered: "Have I heard rightly? You intend that I should descend into the hole? The idea lacks merit."

"Come, Pymfyd, be quick! Surely you value my good opinion! Run to the gibbet and fetch the rope."

A step grated on the stony ground; the two jerked around to find a ponderous silhouette looming against the gray overcast. Pymfyd sucked in his breath; Madouc's jaw sagged.

The dark shape stepped forward; Madouc recognized Zerling the Chief Executioner. He halted, to stand heavy legs apart, arms behind his back.

Madouc previously had seen Zerling only from a distance, and the sight had always brought her a morbid little shiver. Now he stood looking down at her, and Madouc stared back in awe; Zerling's semblance was not the more lightsome for proximity. He was massive and muscular, so that he seemed almost squat. His face was heavy, with skin of a curious brownish-red color, and fringed all around with a tangle of black hair and black beard. He wore pantaloons of sour black leather and a black canvas doublet; a round leather cap was pulled low over his ears. He looked back and forth between Madouc and Pymfyd. "Why do you come here, where we do our grim deeds? It is no place for your games."

Madouc responded in a clear treble voice: "I am not here for games."

"Ha!" said Zerling. "Whatever the case, Princess, I suggest that you leave at once."

"Not yet! I came here for a purpose."

"And what might that be?"

"I want to know what happened to my father."

Zerling's features compressed into a frown of perplexity. "Who was he? I have no recollection."

"Surely you remember. He loved my mother, the Princess Suldrun. For punishment, the king ordered him dropped into this very hole. If he still lives, I want to know, so that I might beg His Majesty for mercy."

From the depths of Zerling ‘s chest came a mournful chuckle. "Call down the hole as you like, by day or by night! You will hear never a whisper, or even a sigh."

"He is dead?"

"He went below long ago," said Zerling. "Down in the dark folk do not hold hard to life. It is cold and damp, and there is nothing to do but regret one's crimes."

Madouc looked at the oubliette, mouth drooping wistfully. "What was he like? Do you remember?"

Zerling glanced over his shoulder. "It is not my place to notice, nor to ask, nor to remember. I lop heads and heave at the windlass; still, when I go home of nights I am a different man and cannot so much as kill a chicken for the pot."

"All very well, but what of my father?"

Zerling glanced once more over his shoulder. "This perhaps should not be said, and your father committed an atrocious act-"

Madouc spoke plaintively: "I cannot think it so, since I would not be here otherwise."

Zerling blinked. "These questions are beyond my competence; I confine my energies to drawing entrails and working the gibbet. Royal justice, by its very nature, is at all times correct. I must say that in this case I wondered at its severity, when a mere cropping of ears and nose, with perhaps a taste or two of the snake, would seem to have sufficed."