by R. J. Grieve
He turned to Gorm, standing with his arms aggressively folded.
“You’re sure the castle is abandoned?”
“No,” the Turog replied. “Other Turog say so. Don’t know for sure.”
“Great!” exclaimed Eimer is frustration. “You’re a lot of use. I suppose we’ll just have to chance it.”
As they began the ascent, he saw Vesarion quietly draw his sword and with a little chill of apprehension, did likewise. The gate-tower was pierced by a deep, tunnel-like archway which gave a little shelter from the storm. The chains and pulleys that had once operated a heavy portcullis were still there, clinking dismally as they were stirred by the wind, but the portcullis itself was gone, leaving the fortress wide open and defenceless; a purposeless existence. There was no sign of recent occupation and all was quiet except for the moan of the wind in the tunnel and the raucous squabbling of the crows high above.
The entrance led inevitably to the main courtyard, covered in a blanket of snow that, encouragingly, bore no other imprint than the light tracks of the birds. A dozen dead crows lay in black untidy heaps against the white, their feet frozen into claws.
“There’s hardly any snow on them,” said Eimer, in a voice barely above a whisper. “That means they died recently. I wonder what killed them?”
But Vesarion was paying no attention. His concentration was fixed on the massive iron-shod doors that provided the entrance to the keep.
“Eimer,” he called softly. “Beside me, if you please. We must see what lies behind these doors before allowing the others to enter.” He flicked a glance over his shoulder at the shivering group behind him. “Stay here until Eimer and I have established that it is safe. If you hear any sound of trouble, get out of here just as fast as you can go.”
But Gorm, never very good at taking orders, came and stood beside him.
“Come too,” he announced.
Vesarion looked down at the short Turog, sword in hand, nail-studded boots set belligerently apart and did not argue.
Together they ascended the broad semi-circular steps that led to the door and Vesarion, transferring his sword to his left hand, grasped the rusting iron ring. He gave it a sharp push but it remained stubbornly shut.
“Is it locked?” asked Eimer.
“I don’t think do. It’s just stuck from years of disuse. Give me a hand with it.”
Together, they put their shoulders to the door and heaved until, with a reluctant groan from ancient hinges, it slowly swung inwards. The interior smelt musty and damp. A huge, gloomy hall stretched before them, its darkness only dimly penetrated by the weak light spilling in from the door. It was so immense that its roof and outer edges disappeared into shadow, leaving them guessing as to its full extent. As they advanced further, they encountered an extensive area of stone-flagged floor upon which stood double rows of stout granite pillars which supported the darkened ceiling far above them. A stone staircase with a heavy balustrade, thick with dust, rose upwards to disappear into the darkness of an upper floor. At one end of the hall was a truly massive fireplace, big enough for several people to walk into, but although much blackened, it had clearly not seen a fire in many a long year. Apart from that, the only other things to be found in the echoing emptiness of the hall were heaps of detritus. Rusting spears, broken chairs and tables, some battered metal tankards and four or five wooden shields, now worm-eaten. There were also heaps of old books, their pages swollen with damp until their leather covers were bursting.
“I think its safe for the others to come in now,” suggested Eimer. The stone walls took up his words and echoed them hollowly back at him. “This place hasn’t seen any activity in years.”
Vesarion nodded and then accompanied by Gorm, headed for the staircase to see what the upper floor contained.
When the two of them returned, it appeared that they had found nothing other than a similar scene of desolation on the floors above, however, they had discovered some old, pitch-soaked torches which Vesarion was carrying. He handed his silver box to Iska. “Make a fire using all this stuff,” he said, indicating the heaps of broken furniture, “and get Sareth warm. If we can get these torches to light, Eimer and I will do a bit of exploring just to get the lie of the land.”
“By that, I take it you mean wandering around dark passages waiting to see what jumps out at you.”
He laughed, but as the echoing hall picked up the sound and magnified it horribly, rendering it a shade demoniacal, he hastily stopped.
“I’ll change places with you, if you like,” he offered.
“Not for a king’s ransom,” she declared fervently. “I’ll get Bethro to close the great doors again and with a fire to warm us and some food, who knows, perhaps this place might seem even homely?”
He merely raised his eyebrows to convey his scepticism and as soon as the torches were lit, he and Eimer forced open a side door and began their search.
The fortress was a labyrinth of bare stone corridors, empty rooms and sudden narrow staircases either ascending into the heights of a tower or descending into depths so uninviting that they remained unexplored. Every chamber, every hall, was stark and bare except for the occasional broken or discarded item, suggesting that the castle had been pillaged after it had been abandoned. Here and there symbols in the Turogs’ barbaric language had been scratched crudely upon the walls, confirming Gorm’s statement that they knew of its existence.
Finally, Eimer, out of breath from ascending a steep spiral staircase that led to one of the crenellated stone towers, raised a protest.
“This place is immense,” he puffed. “We’ve been up towers and along corridors until I’m perfectly dizzy and we still haven’t seen the half of it. We’ve found no evidence of recent occupation and I for one, find all these empty halls are giving me a fit of the dismals.”
He was standing on the top step of the stairs but Vesarion had emerged onto the summit of the tower into the howling wind. It tore at his cloak, nearly extinguishing his torch. A riot of flapping and raucous cawing broke out, as the roosting crows took flight, alarmed by his presence. Crossing to the battlements, he faced into the wind, trying to pierce the encompassing night before he suddenly recollected himself and handed his torch to Eimer.
“What am I thinking? I shouldn’t be standing up here holding a torch,” he chided himself. “It could be seen for miles. Keep both torches out of sight in the stairwell, Eimer. You’re probably right. There is nothing to be found here. We should return to the great hall – that is, if we can remember the way.”
As he spoke, the fleeing clouds tore apart, allowing a long absent moon to peep through. The snow had stopped falling and the view from the tower was magnificent. The mountains were bathed in the bright light, the snowfields radiating with cold brilliance. Every stone in the castle’s wall could be seen with crystal clarity, but drained of any of the colour that would have brought life to it. It seemed to Vesarion that the moonlight lent a touch of unreality to the scene before him, like a frozen painting rather than a living thing. Once again, he found his eyes drawn upwards to the rearing peaks, searching for the passage they must take the following day, and once again, he found nothing.
When they returned to the great hall, they discovered that Iska had kept her word. Broken furniture was now heaped up in the magnificent, arching fireplace and was burning merrily, giving out enough light and heat to banish the shadows and make the place, if not welcoming, at least a little less dreary.
Sareth was sitting wrapped in a blanket with her back against one of the pillars. Catching her eye, he crossed to her and sat down beside her.
“Find anything?” she asked.
“No – thankfully.” Gently he placed his hand on her forehead. “The fever has not broken yet. Your forehead is still hot, but dry. You should have something to eat.”
She smiled tiredly. “I thought one should starve a fever.”
“You’ve had nothing since morning. I’ll see what Iska has produced.”
“Actually, it’s Bethro who’s doing the cooking. He thinks Iska’s portions are too small.”
Eimer came up to them, carrying one of the many mouldy old books in his hand. Its once beautiful leather cover was bloated with damp, the tooled design spotted with green mould.
“I’ve been looking through some of these books to see if I could find any clue as to who might once have lived here – and why they abandoned it, but the pages are so damaged by damp that the ink has run. The few pages that I can turn just fall to pieces in my hand and the rest are stuck together in a congealed lump.”
Sareth, her eyes bright with fever, said jauntily: “Why Eimer, it’s so nice to see you with a book in your hand. Bethro will be feeling under threat as our resident intellectual.”
Vesarion gave a choke of laughter, but Eimer pretended to be offended.
“I’ll make allowances for you because you’re sick,” he offered generously. “In the meantime, I’ll see if our Resident Intellectual can make anything of this. I would dearly love to know why this castle is here.”
But Bethro had very little more success. He was able to make out that the books were written in the Old Language, suggesting antiquity, but could distinguish only a few words here and there and only one semi-complete sentence.
“I see the word ‘trandor’ which means defence – what one would expect in relation to a castle and ‘celed’ meaning revenge. Beside defence there are two words that might mean ‘the path’ or ‘the way’.” He read them aloud for the benefit of his audience: “ ‘Trandor an ferith’.”
Vesarion, who had been looking over his shoulder, made a suggestion. “Perhaps you should translate it as ‘guard’ rather than ‘defence’ then it would read ‘guard the path’.”
Eimer sat up excitedly: “It must mean that the castle guards the path over the mountains to Adamant.”
But Bethro, miffed at having his translation challenged, said dampeningly: “We do not even know if the book is describing the castle. For all we know, it is merely recounting some old legend.”
The Prince’s face fell. “I suppose you’re right. If these books cannot be read, then they may as well keep us warm by being thrown on the fire.”
The librarian was aghast. “Prince Eimer,” he began, in his best schoolmasterish tone, “you do not burn a book – not ever!”
Vesarion took the first watch that night, pacing restlessly around the hall to try to keep himself awake. The fire burning in the great fireplace was a little dwarfed by its surroundings but still managed to send cheerful flickers of red and gold over the sleeping forms and up the pillars towards the rather beautiful carved ceiling. But it was too weak to penetrate the dark shadows at the periphery of the hall and remained an intrusion struggling against the sense of overwhelming emptiness. One of his circuits of the hall took him close to the great doors and acting on impulse, he lifted a stout piece of wood and thrust it through the heavy ringed handles. It would not resist a serious assault but at least it would prevent the door from being opened stealthily.
Unfortunately, Bethro, taking full advantage of sleeping on his back, was beginning to snore. The echoes took up the irritating noise, bouncing it off the bare walls until the whole hall seemed to be reverberating with dozens of noisy sleepers.
Swiftly, Vesarion crossed from the door to put paid to it, but he was too late. Sareth had already awoken from an uneasy doze and had given him a none-too-gentle nudge with the toe of her boot.
Quite used to such treatment by now, he rolled over without even awakening, and quietude, broken only by the pleasant crackle of the fire, was restored.
Seeing that she was not going back to sleep, Vesarion crossed to her.
“I could kill Bethro sometimes,” he said with soft vehemence. “Some uninterrupted sleep would do you good.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I would have awoken anyway because I’m so cold.” As she said the words, she was wracked by a fit of shivering.
Sitting down against the pillar, Vesarion wordlessly held open his fur-lined cloak. Responding willingly to the inviting gesture, she found herself beside him, enveloped within the warm folds.
“This will help keep those shivers at bay,” he murmured kindly. “I wish that this fever would break. If Gorm is right, it should burn itself out soon.”
He felt her begin to shake again and tightened his arms around her.
“I w-wonder what’s been h-happening at home?” she stammered.
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” he responded a little grimly.
“I mean, they won’t know where we’ve gone. Even if Ferron and the guards made it safely back to Sorne, they were not privy to our plans. It grieves me to think that father and grandmother might be worrying.”
“I note that you did not say that Enrick might be worrying,” he observed with a soft chuckle.
Sareth made a noise of disgust. “Enrick will be delighted to get the three most annoying people in the Kingdom out of his way. In fact, the only blot on the landscape, as far as he is concerned, is that it’s only temporary.”
“I wonder what Seldro found when he returned to Addania?”
“You think Enrick has designs on the Ravenshold Brigands?”
“Without a doubt. To command such an elite cavalry division is to be in possession of a certain power – or, in my case, a certain immunity.”
“Father will stop him,” Sareth said, after a moment’s consideration. “I know he largely lets Enrick get his own way, but he wouldn’t allow him to do anything to harm you. I sometimes think that you are more of a son to him than his own son.”
Vesarion thought that over for a moment before saying reflectively: “A while ago, Iska was asking me about my own father, and do you know something, Sareth? I could hardly remember him. The images in my mind, once so clear, have become faded and misty. Instead, I remember your father giving me the silver box or taking me hunting. I know there were long periods when his duties as king took him away from all of us, but he was always kind to me and for that I hold him in great affection.”
“I know that he is not a ruler of the quality of King Andarion, but he deserved better than the son he got,” she said, a little wistfully.
He tilted his head to look down at her, nestling against his shoulder. “He has a younger son and a daughter to be proud of.”
She looked up at him, suddenly touched by the sincerity in his tone.
“You’ve never said that before. If I recall rightly, when we were younger, you referred to me as an annoying little brat and Eimer as an irresponsible menace.”
He chuckled in recollection. “Ah, but that was under provocation. That was the day that you two stole Terebar.”
“Terebar was the worse-tempered horse you have ever owned. He was, quite frankly, a devil.”
“Which, of course, was exactly why you took him. Mind you,” he added reflectively, “he did have his good side, for he threw you both into the moat. I can’t say that duckweed exactly suited you.”
Sareth, too, was laughing by this stage. “Eimer and I were a terrible pair, weren’t we? Always getting into trouble.”
“Yes, and always getting me into trouble, too. If you recall, Enrick went and told tales to your father about how you two had stolen the horse, so I had to go along and tell him I had given you permission to take it. I still remember the thundering scold he gave me about my foolishness in lending two youngsters such a dangerous animal.”
“Poor Vesarion. At least at Ravenshold there is no one to plague you so much.”
Suddenly his amusement faded and he was silent for a moment. Then almost as if the words were being forced out of him, he said: “Ravenshold can sometimes be a very lonely place.”
Sareth, who despite her fever, was revelling in the joy of being close to him, for the first time heard something in his tone that opened a tiny chink of hope in the black despair in her heart. He fell silent after that and they sat together companionabl
y, watching the hypnotic play of firelight on the bare wall, until Sareth’s shivering ceased and she drifted off to sleep. A short while later, Vesarion, touching her forehead, found that it was damp.
“The fever has broken,” he breathed gratefully.
Without waking her, he carefully lowered her onto her side and making a pillow out of a folded blanket, tucked it under her head. Gently, he smoothed her hair back from her forehead, unaware that it was a gesture of the greatest tenderness.
Then, overcome by tiredness, he nudged Bethro awake to take his place on guard and lay down to sleep the sleep of exhaustion.
Bethro disliked being on guard. He disliked the sense of responsibility. He disliked the rather lonely feeling of being the only one awake, but at the root of it all, lay the feeling that if something dangerous, or even unexpected happened, he would have absolutely no idea what to do about it.
He reviewed the previous occasions when he had faced danger and was forced to admit, much to the detriment of his alter ego, Bethro the Hero, that he had not come out of it well. When chased by the Turog, he had panicked so much that he had dragged Vesarion over the cliff. Instead of striding to the rescue at the Lonely Lake, all he had done was to bawl like an idiot for help, and worst of all, when the Red Turog had jumped on him, his sole response had been to faint. All-in-all, Bethro the Hero was becoming an ever more remote daydream - and more than anything, Bethro was intrinsically a dreamer. His favourite occupation – except for eating - was to spend a quiet hour reinventing in his imagination all the old legends and devising a role for himself in which he was neither over-weight, nor a fussy librarian, but was an armour-clad paladin, putting all the nation’s enemies to flight.
