by Sean Little
“Good way to get yourself shot, Mr. Clarke.”
“Just looking for a room for the night.”
“What’s wrong with your room?”
“There’s nothing in it and it smells.”
“I don’t think there are any other rooms. The fifth floor is all empty chambers. The fourth floor is Lord Bobbins’ room, his study, and his conservatory. This floor is servant’s’ quarters for now. The floor below this is storage, the informal dining room, and some empty cells that don’t have plans, yet. You could just go bunk down by the fire on the main floor, or you could see if there’s a spare bed in the livery stable. Csupo sleeps out there. He might have a hammock for you.” Shaw closed the door and left Clarke in the dark.
Clarke sighed and trudged down to the hearth in the great hall. He added two more logs to the fire. Then, he climbed on top of the table, slapped a couple of the packages of clothes together like a pillow, and covered himself with his coat. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed he’d ever slept upon, but it was far from the worst.
During the night, Vasile woke with a start. He was plagued by horrific dreams of wolfmen and demons, ghosts and terror. The dreams happened every night. He saw monsters, and the monsters killed his friends in the village. There would be no more sleep this night.
The groundskeeper threw back his covers and climbed out of his simple wood-frame bed. He was sweating. He’d retired to his bed fully dressed, as he had taken to doing since the troubles started. He picked up the rifle he kept in the corner of his little cell. He opened the door to his room and crept into the hallway.
The keep was asleep. There was only the faintest noise in the cell next to his, Sandsworth’s room. The old butler had an atrocious snore, but the double-thick oak doors kept the noise to a minimum. Vasile slipped down the stairway to the main floor. He saw the American kipped back on the table, asleep. Silently, he glided past the man, his soft-soled leather shoes barely making a whisper against the smooth stone floor of the hall. He went to the kitchens and took a half-loaf of bread and some cheese, then slipped out the servant’s door in the rear of the kitchen to the bailey.
The night was cold. Winter was coming, and it was starting to feel it. He could see his breath in the light of the dying bailey fire. Vasile added a few more large logs to the fire to keep the light going through the night. He wasn’t certain that the fire would ward off the wolfman, but fire kept regular wolves at bay, and he had to imagine that a man-wolf would harbor some of the same instincts and fears of its four-legged cousins.
Gun in hand, Vasile crept out of the livery. Csupo was sleeping, curled on a cot near the little potbelly stove they kept in the tack room. The oxen were sedate. The horse was standing placidly, watching him with large, black eyes. The animals’ calmness made Vasile feel better. There couldn’t be anything nearby if the animals weren’t on alert, if they weren’t panicked.
Vasile walked up to the ramparts to watch the night. He ate the bread and cheese. It was good bread and excellent cheese, but it tasted like hardtack to Vasile. Everything tasted like hardtack lately. Whether it was the lack of sleep or the constant stress, nothing brought Vasile joy anymore.
Vasile wrapped his coat tightly around his thin frame. He often walked the ramparts when he couldn’t sleep. Before the troubles, he found them to be therapeutic. It was calming, comforting. He would walk the square path and meditate on the events of the day. Now, it was safer to be higher, he felt. The wolfman could not get a jump on him on the ramparts. He had the height of the walls as a defense. The wolf could not climb smoothed rock, he was confident of that. The only way into the bailey was through the barbican and the iron portcullis would hold the wolf at bay.
Vasile meandered around the ramparts, once, twice. He looked down to the ground beyond the walls occasionally, seeing nothing of note. The light in the eastern sky began to grow lighter, going from black to pale gray. Dawn was coming. That fact made him feel better. There was safety in the light of day. For a brief second, Vasile felt hopeful. The primar was here now. Lord Bobbins had brought people to help the village fight the demons. All would soon be well. Vasile was sure of this.
“Vasile! Vasile, help!”
Vasile jerked his head around. Csupo’s voice was calling to him from the woods just below him. How did he get out of the castle without raising the portcullis?
“Vasile, please!”
“I’m coming!” Vasile called back. “Stay there!”
Vasile hurried down the ramparts to the bailey. He ran toward the portcullis, but stopped. Something wasn’t right. His stomach tingled. Hair stood up on his neck. He reversed his course and ran to the livery. He threw open the door to the livery and saw Csupo laying on the ground, still covered with a horse blanket in front of the stove. He was sleeping peacefully. Vasile breathed a sigh of relief and closed the door.
“Vasile!” Csupo’s voice was thin and distant now.
Vasile ran back to the stairs and climbed the ramparts. He ran to the spot where the voice calling to him was loudest. “I know you are not Csupo! I know you are a devil!” Vasile called. He propped the rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. “Show yourself! Show yourself so I can kill you!”
Something shimmered at the edge of the wood, something silvery and slim. A woman, shapely and lovely, emerged from the trees. She wore a thin, white dress that clung to her hips and bosom. Her hair was straight and dark, hanging in long tresses down her back. Her skin was pale as moonlight. “Hello, Vasile,” she said. Her voice was small, but Vasile heard it clearly.
Vasile was on edge. He did not know the woman, but there was something strangely familiar about her. He couldn’t move. He tried to speak, but couldn’t say anything.
“Vasile, why don’t you open the gates for me?” she said. She smiled up at him. Her teeth were perfect.
At that moment, Vasile’s conscious mind seemed to fall into the back of his head. He became a passenger in his own body, unable to resist the siren call of the woman in white.
Vasile laid the rifle on the ramparts and walked to the barbican. The woman in white was there in front of him. He reached through the portcullis for her, but she was just out of his reach. “No, no,” she said, waving a finger seductively before his face. “Open the gate.”
Vasile stepped back and grabbed the wheel that would open the massive portcullis. His conscious mind was screaming at him not to do it, but his body did not listen. The pull of whatever spell she had woven was too strong. He began to turn the wheel. The cogs that sped the process began to turn and in moments, the gate was opening. The metal creaked as it rose, loud, metallic shrieking. Vasile continued to crank the wheel. The gate rose to knee-high, and then waist high.
“Vasile? What are you doing? It’s not dawn, yet,” Csupo was walking across the bailey rubbing sleep from his eyes.
Vasile was powerless to stop himself. He kept cranking the wheel. Bottom of the portcullis was up to her breasts.
“Vasile?” Csupo stopped. He saw the woman. He saw the gate. He saw Vasile moving like a sleepwalker. “Vasile, stop!” Csupo charged his friend. The gate was almost as high as the woman’s neck. Csupo slammed his shoulder into Vasile’s side sending him flying. Csupo rammed the release lever with his foot and safeties disengaged. The scream of metal on metal shattered the quiet and the portcullis slammed closed with a bang like a shotgun.
The woman crouched low, enraged. She changed. Her eyes became dark pools. Her fingers became talons. Her mouth elongated sickeningly and she opened it, screaming as she did and flashing needle-like teeth. Black smoke appeared from nowhere and she vanished into it. When the smoke cleared, she was gone.
“Vasile, are you alright?” Csupo ran to help his friend from the ground. “I saw the succubus, Vasile! I saw her. She had you in her grasp!”
Vasile let Csupo pull him to his feet. He stood on unsteady legs, bathed in sweat. For a moment, Vasile feared his bladder would release. “Csupo, I couldn’t stop,” he said. �
�I would have let her into the castle.”
“I know! I know!”
“You may have saved all of our lives, Csupo. You’re a hero!”
Csupo blushed. He waved it off. “We must all look out for each other. I’m sure you would have saved me, too.”
Vasile hugged his friend, kissing the young man’s forehead. “We must wake Lord Bobbins at once. Wake the American, too.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The Cave
“I am not a man who believes in ghosts,” said Lord Hastings Robert Bobbins. “I was raised in a manor home that was allegedly haunted by all manner of spirits, from the headless specter of an unfaithful wife to the crazed riders of the ghostly Wild Hunt. In all my time in that manor as a boy, even in the darkest of nights, never once did I ever fear any of the supposed ghosts, and never did I even see them. Yet, I had two of my trusted employees wake me before dawn from a dead sleep to tell me that a succubus almost murdered us all. What am I to make of this, Mr. Clarke?” He pulled a lighter from his pocket and sparked it a half-dozen times. Finally, he cursed silently and shook the lighter. It sparked to flame after that. “Blasted thing. I’d get a new one, but this was a gift and it has sentimental value.”
Clarke sat in a plush chair in Bobbins’ study. The study had not been fully outfitted with Bobbins’ furniture, but it did have a table, several chairs, and a deep green area rug in the center of the room. Across the table from him, Shaw waited for an answer. They had only woken ten minutes prior, and Shaw already looked perfect. Her hair was sleek and pulled into a simple braid. She wore khaki slacks and a black wool sweater. Tall, black leather boots completed her outfit. Clarke looked like a man who had slept on a table all night.
“I don’t know what to make of it, Mr. Bobbins.”
“Lord.”
“I need more information. It could be hallucination brought about by a lack of sleep,” Clarke said.
“Ergot poisoning, perhaps?” said Shaw. “St. Anthony’s Fire? It happened in Salem. If they are not grinding fresh flour, it could happen here.”
“William of Ockham would suggest that the simplest answer is usually the correct one. In my experience, the more complex the answer, the more likely I am to be involved in the riddle. Nothing is ever so simple as the simplest answer,” said Bobbins. “If one man saw it and the other didn’t, I would agree with you, Mr. Clarke. However, a dual hallucination is highly unlikely.”
Bobbins put his hands on his table, a faraway look in his eyes. “And as for your assumption, Ms. Shaw—ergot is a good guess. It causes madness, delusions. However, these people are barely eating. They will not go out to the fields to harvest their wheat. It would take a healthy amount of ergot to cause this sort of group hysteria. No…I believe there must be a different source to this.”
“Any hypothesis on what?” asked Shaw.
Bobbins frowned. His mustache sagged at the corners. “Not at this moment, no. I need more information, more evidence.”
“Ms. Shaw and I will be investigating that cave mouth where the hunter and his daughter died, today. Maybe we’ll find something there.”
“I would almost count on it,” said Bobbins. “While you are gone, I shall go to town and—”
“No,” said Shaw. “You will stay here and oversee Vasile, Csupo, and Andrei in their efforts to ready the grounds to receive villagers tomorrow.” There was a steel to her voice. She wasn’t asking; she was telling.
“I will certainly not—”
“You will,” said Shaw cutting him off. Bobbins raised his eyebrows. Shaw continued, “A primar does not go to his people, especially when that man has a castle. You will sit here for today. The people can come tomorrow to greet you in the bailey as is tradition. I cannot have you traipsing about unguarded in town while this madness, whatever it may be, is active. Her Majesty would have my head if I let something preventable befall you.”
Bobbins’ mustache twitched, but he nodded. “So be it.”
“I think we should take one of the men with us to point out where the cave is,” said Shaw. “Probably faster than trying to follow a map.”
“Would they come? Would they actually go into the cave with us? Otherwise, they’re going to have to come back through the forest on their own, and I’m not sure how receptive they’ll be to that idea.”
Shaw frowned. “Point taken. We’ll have Vasile draw us a map.”
“I will have Chef prepare you a lunch, as well,” said Bobbins. “It is the least I can do here, I suppose.”
“See that Andrei, Vasile, and Csupo eat well, too,” said Clarke. “Maybe full bellies will keep their nighttime terrors from manifesting.”
“Cracker of an idea, Mr. Clarke. Consider it done.”
“We should leave as soon as possible,” said Clarke. “I’m not entirely keen to be out past dark.”
“Agreed. Pack your ruck, Mr. Clarke. I’ll meet you in the great hall in a triplet.”
The meeting adjourned and Clarke went to his cell to pack up what few things he figured he’d need into a single-sling rucksack that he could easily throw across his back. Rope. Lantern. Matches. A tin of fuel oil and cloth for making torches. Bandages—just in case. In a few moments, he was in the great hall. Shaw had beaten him there and handed him a long-barreled Colt revolver, the Winchester, and a long woodsman’s dagger in a leather sheath. The revolver went into a holster on Clarke’s right hip, the dagger on his left. He’d carry the rifle. They loaded extra ammo into Clarke’s pack. Chef came from the kitchen carrying food wrapped in butcher’s paper, a pair of canteens, and a large loaf of crusty bread. Chef handed the food to Shaw. She said something to him in German. He said something back. They both looked at Clarke. Then, they burst out laughing.
Clarke frowned. “I’m not sure I like that.”
Shaw pretended not to have heard him. “Vasile told me how to to get to the cave. There is a road from town. We can have Csupo take us to the village in a wagon, but we will have to walk once we’re there. It’s at the end of a woodsman’s path through deep forest.”
“Good. I’d like to get a look at that forest.”
Csupo entered the main doors of the keep and clutched his hat to his chest. “Ms. Shaw, the horse is ready when you are.”
“Thank you, Csupo,” Shaw called. To Clarke she said, “Are you ready, Mr. Clarke?”
“Ready enough.”
“Then we shall go.” Shaw stuffed the food that Chef made into a backpack and gathered up her coat. She slung pistols in holsters about her hips and stuck a knife into the back of the gun belt.
Shaw stopped by Sandsworth on her way to the entry. “Keep Lord Bobbins inside the bailey. I’d prefer it if he didn’t climb the ramparts, either. Keep the gates closed and locked. If there is a problem, use the flare gun. I will hurry back as fast as I can, provided I’m not too far into the cave to see the flare.”
“Very good, ma’am. What shall I do if you do not respond to the flare and there is an issue?”
“Protocol One,” said Shaw.
“Very good, ma’am.” Sandsworth gave a curt bow. “It will be done.”
Shaw nodded and turned on her heel, striding forward in long, purposeful steps. The hard heels of her boots clicked like a metronome on the stone floors. Clarke had no choice but to follow.
“What’s Protocol One?” said Clarke.
“If you were meant to know, you would already.”
“So…you’re not going to tell me?”
“To the woods, Mr. Clarke.”
The flatbed wagon was empty this time, so Clarke could ride kipped back against his backpack in the back. Csupo drove the wagon, Shaw rode in the proverbial shotgun spot. Andrei opened the portcullis for them, and seconds after they passed beneath it, he kicked the lever and the gate slammed closed.
“How far is the village?” asked Clarke.
“Not far, Mr. Clarke,” said Csupo. “Down this road and around a bend.”
“I’m surprised it isn’t closer. It us
ed to be that the castle was the centerpiece of a town. The vendors and minor nobles and town figures would all want to be close to the baron or viscount who lorded over them.”
“Castle Bobbins wasn’t that kind of castle, Mr. Clarke. It was a seat of power and protection. The lands before it were there for fields of battle, not town business. When enemies were on the march, the villagers would seek shelter behind the walls of the castle. This high in the mountains, it was not an easy task to ambush the village. The people would have days to move to the castle for protection. The hope was that if their village was empty, the enemy would not put it to the torch.”
“Did it work?”
“Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.”
The ride was relaxing. The road was rutted and bumpy, but the views were marvelous. There were mountains to the south and rolling fields filled with old growth trees to the other three directions. Farmland sculpted from the forests by sheer will and determination. Farmers for generations had been slowly claiming land from the trees, pulling stumps from the ground to claim a meter and forcing crops to grow in its place just to spite nature.
The farmhouses in the distance were simple wooden structures. They were barely enough to ward against the wind and snow in the winter, but families had not only made it through the winters, they’d thrived in them, raising generation after generation of farmers to continue to claim chunks of field land, raise animals, plant crops, and feed the town.
Close to the end of fall, the fields should have been barren, the crops harvested and stored for the winter. Clarke could see corn and wheat still standing, grown brown and brittle in the late season. It was potentially a loss. The people weren’t bringing in their crops. Sad animals stood in the paddocks around the houses, growing thin instead of fat for winter. The situation was dire.
Csupo brought the wagon around the bend and the village of Cărbunasatul rolled into view. The town was as picturesque as Romanian towns could be, Clarke thought. It was a small village of closely built homes and businesses, all in the similar style. The businesses showed some Western influence, with American West-style false fronts to square the buildings and make them uniform. The homes were more in the Romanian style. The walls were all whitewashed, but faded from time and weather to a fair cream color. Stout wooden beams, each dark brown to black, extended from the walls at structural points to give the buildings some contrast. Some of the roofs were thatched; others were shingled and brushed with pitch to waterproof them. Every window in the village was shuttered with heavy wooden shutters. Every door was shut. A few stray cats milled about in the streets. Bored and frustrated horses whinnied from stables. No one was visible on the street. The market was empty. It was like a ghost town.
