the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (best detective novels of all time .TXT) 📖

to Hell. She was tied to a tree in the middle of a black forest and was forced to watch the two culprits make love naked against a pine tree.

The Dungeon of Rigor Mortis Castle
Monday, October 12th, 1411 A.D.

Lucinda Winsletenna was standing only feet away from the wooden bench upon which her niece now was strapped. The woman was wearing a dress now that had been sowed for her by the royal seamstress. It was long flowing robe covering her from head to toe, studded with black diamonds. Her make-up was so over the top that to Belinda it seemed almost funny.
It would have been funny if she had not been chained to a wooden bench.
It was obviously a rack that had not been in use for quite a while.
It was rusty and the blood stains from other victims were still on the chains. When Lucinda unlatched the handles for her ankles they wouldn’t open.
Now, Belinda looked up at a stone wall that had absolutely no windows in it. She had desperately looked for one or even a hole that a rat could creep out from, but there was none. All she could see were torches. The long passage that led to a rounded alleyway behind the second staircase was the only thing she saw. To her right there was a closet full of torture instruments. The rack was the only thing that really prominently dominated the area and it was facing a large stone staircase of maybe forty four feet wide and two feet high steps. On the rounded right wall next to the stairs there were about ten torches that were exchanged every hour or so by servants.
Belinda was ten. She had no connection what so ever to sexuality, not really anyway. Yet, here she was, naked on a rack and being stared at by her aunt in ways that she never had seen anyone stare at her before. Was that sexual? No, it was lust. But she was sure it was lust to kill and lust for revenge, not lust to copulate.
Belinda had always had a fast mouth and she had been famous for her quick remarks.
Now, she was feeling conflicting emotions.
She had been fed once today.
She had no idea if this was daytime or evening time.
It was obvious that they did not want to kill her, because Lucinda had said she would be forced to eat more than she could stand in a day or two. They would feed her with beer and wine and ostrich and deer only to bring her down here and hang her by the feet.
Lucinda stood there by her side for so long that Belinda had a pain in her neck from staring at her. She had to tilt her head sideways in order not to miss seeing her when she hit her another time with her whip. She would try to swing her young body so that at least part of the lash would miss her.
All she could think of was her father.
She wanted to go home.
Belinda’s body was full of her own urine and blood and she was sweating so much that she could not see straight. Lucinda, however, was calm and did not move an inch.
“Belinda, dear” she cooed.
“I am not your dear” Belinda spat back.
“You will be, bitch” Lucinda snapped in a very lovable tone.
Belinda collected all the saliva her own mouth was capable of gathering and then spat it out upon her aunt’s face.
Lucinda let the saliva run down her face and then let it drop down her face.
She did not utter one word of hatred.
The only answer was a grin.
Belinda carried on, thinking that she was safe to keep on with her hatred.
“You were evicted from our country for reason, Lucinda” Belinda screamed, hearing her own voice echo in the stony vaults. Lucinda raised one eyebrow.
“Oh” Lucinda said calmly, the torches casting dancing lights from the flames upon her countenance. “I thought that I was just thrown out because Alexander didn’t like my cooking.”
“Lucinda, you burned down our summer house after performing satanic rituals upon our grounds” Belinda hollered, now in tears. “Then you murdered our butler.”
Lucinda leaped out from her stiff silence and sprang upon Belinda with a vigour that would’ve made an antelope jealous. “Now I’ll tell you what, little princess futile and prissy” Lucinda croaked. “Your father never accepted me as a person or a female or sister and he drove me to those acts. He threw me into a carriage and evicted me into one of the worst forests in this continent. The area out there is destined to remain the most vicious in this world. He left me there” Lucinda said and pointed toward the wall that had the dark forest beyond it. “I swore on that day to return to haunt him. I will avenge my pain and you are the beginning of that journey toward my reprisal. I shall return to even the score myself for being treated like soil.”
“You deserved it, you whore” Belinda hollered.
Lucinda’s capes were teeming Belinda with cloth and they were as soft on her gentle face as Lucinda was hard.
“Shut up, you senseless little twit” Lucinda screamed. She paused. “Sweet little frilly, I shall return to haunt you when you have grown up. We shall have the chance to battle soon enough.”
“My father will be here soon, Lucinda” Belinda screamed.
Lucinda slapped Belinda across the face with such vigour that it made Belinda cry.
“Could be, pussy” she sang. “I’ll tell you though that he can’t forego his fate. He let me out to be eaten by the wolves. I am a princess and I deserve respect. He shall feel on his own skin what it is like to be left alone with only ghouls as friends.” Lucinda looked Belinda was very intense eyes and then added: “When you are grown up and adult full of breasts and sensual lusts a woman by the name of Nina Ray shall cross your path. Then you will know that I am not far away.”
Belinda took a long look at Lucinda. “Who is Nina Ray?”
Lucinda gave Belinda a muddy smile. “You will find out in good time.”

The Dark Forests of Nocturania,
Saturday, November 21st. 1411 A.D.

A troop of thirty-seven soldiers from the royal army, led by the king that year, had rode into enemy lands for about two weeks when they were attacked by the forest warriors. The forest queen had held them hostage for a day. When the king had promised them gold and pearls from the Neapolonian Archives they were let go. Riding on to the edge of the Callenia, the darkest and most brutal of Nocturanian forests, their horses were tired and their bodies were rough and beaten. It was an angry army that crashed into Rigor Mortis that autumn, beating down the gates with a large wooden pole and pressing King Adnicul against the wall. Belinda had been on the bed in the dungeons, in chains, and there had been nothing left of her giddiness, just fears of the bats hanging from the ceiling and the cockroaches resting on her arms. Lucinda had laughed through it all, but stopped Zedrick arrived, threatening with punishment.
And so, they were gone, leaving the Nocturanian Palace in flames, the heir to the throne cuddled up in royal arms. Soon enough, the palace rebuilt again, the threats of war and countless attacks on Nocturanian rural area to no avail, leaving the king steaming with anger.
It was only Queen Sieglinde herself who urged the king not to start a war and let the matter rest for their child’s sake. So, it was decided the case was closed, the files archived. Everyone trying to cheer up the young lassie and make her forget the unforgettable was not enough.

Late autumn of 1411, Forest of Callenia, Deepest Nocturania

It came to pass that the first floor of the castle Rigor Mortis in Nocturania was in flames that day, just like another castle had been almost two decades prior. Outside an army of forty men waited transfixed by some power that prevented them from attacking the palace. Forty soldiers pointed their swords at Lucinda and Adnicul and no one struck them down. Stains on the floor were drops of Belinda’s blood. The young girl had been crying and the bruises from the chains upon her wrists were still so deep that Alexander believed that he could see his daughter’s bones under the wound. His daughter’s words haunted him.
“Who is Nina Ray?” She asked.
There was no question that his sister had physically and spiritually tortured his daughter. What amazed the king was how calm the two culprits responsible seemed to be. Nineteen years ago his sister had swung from lamps, rode on banisters, burned down staircases. She was exiled as a murderer and vandilizer. Now she had tried it again. The king’s daughter was making Uncle Zedrick’s left shoulder pad wet with her tears. No more than the king had power over the wind or the sea had he power over the witch. He could not stop her from trying this again. Neither could Alex. All he could do was clutch his daughter, stroke her hair and hope that the stormy sea named Lucinda Winsletenna would not decide to flood his kingdom. With that in mind, Zedrick Ronkenshire, a robust man with thick black hair, took the small girl into his arms and led her out toward the carriage, having negotiated to let the girl go. This didn’t help. The girl screamed for her father. “Father, I don’t want to leave you.”
He replied, “We won’t be here long, Sweetheart, but it is safer for you to leave.”
Alexander had spent the last six months since the kidnapping trying to find a place that seemed to be off the map. It had vanished. Then, by some sheer stroke of luck, it appeared again. A messenger that had been sent shortly after Alexander had left Nocturania for the second time in September and then an army of forty arrived at the Nocturanian palace.
There was nothing at all to be done. The army was transfixed and the culprits refused to say anything about anything. They simply stood there answering no questions. To all of the entire Prosperanian delegation it seemed as if it had been planned for them to find and bring the princess back to Clurafar. They didn’t protest at all. The princess was traumatized and that maybe had been the point.
Belinda was in his arms all the way home from hell and yet in his dreams he shivered in cold sweat. Alexander knew that somewhere peace could be found, even if he had to go back to hell to find it. The winter of 1411 was a season filled with nightmares. He had seen a dark army riding down an avenue in his dreams. They were on the way home to his palace, eradicating innocent victims. That year the king returned to his palace garden, where he had dropped a golden coin into a deep well as a child, and with his daughter he sat and watched the sunset. It was an ambivalent experience. He had seen his exiled sister again. She had told him that she would return to his capital, Clurafar. He vowed that never again would his daughter’s blood be spilled. The king daydreamed of rivers and lakes and mountains. He heard his child sleeping in his arms, her small snore vibrating against his heart.
He cried, whispering: “My girl, I will protect you!”
And he dreamed of