A Country Life

CHAPTER 15 - THOMAS

At half-past seven, Lord Kilvern, his wife, his Chief Adviser, several hangers-on from Cirencester and the party of Knights from the Eastern Fens came into the great hall and sat at table. Thom watched them all from his position inside the door of the 16th century wooden screen that partitioned one end of the ornate and astonishingly original room.  

It was testament to the inhabitants of Berkeley and the first Lords of the Protectorate that so much of the hall's original features from before the plague times still survived. While much of the castle's other rooms had been gutted, scavenged for their fittings and fixings over many hundreds of years to make new furniture, or just broken up for firewood on freezing winter nights by itinerant and uncaring inhabitants, the great hall had been saved. This had partly been achieved by careful planning - the room itself being used as a sort of store-come-timecapsule at the time of the plague by the castle's last legitimate owners, its doors walled up and the contents longevity ensured by pumping the room full of a gas that caused a number of people to fall unconscious when the room was first opened, but which preserved the interior and everything in it. The roof, floor and walls had been treated with some kind of impervious coating that sealed the room completely and preserved the structure for a hundred years after the plague. It was opened a century later, in the twentieth year of the Protectorate, on the orders of the first Lord when the harvest had failed and winter looked set to be particularly harsh. 

The Lord and his subjects were bitterly disappointed. Among the 'treasures' hidden away in the room were several boxes containing flat, slim devices that opened up like a book, but which had no words printed on them other than a set of buttons with letters in no particular order, and many wires that ended in metal and plastic prongs of various shapes and sizes. There were many clothes, which kept several families warm over the next few seasons, and even some dried food that came out of packets and cans that kept the contents edible even after all that time. The rest of it was pure junk - nothing of use or value in the New Medieval that followed the plague. Only one object caused particular excitement in that opening of the hall - at the far end, under a table curled up on a rug, had been a mechanical dog. When it was found, it had looked to its discoverers like a stuffed animal - a loved pet preserved by its grieving owners perhaps - left in a room full of trinkets and worthless objects. Its true nature was revealed when, after it was pulled out from under the table, the thing suddenly came to life, lunging for the men who disturbed its extended slumber.  

At least, that was the story repeated to children year after year to teach them that playing with unusual objects found in the ruins of pre-plague buildings and rubble was a dangerous game. Thom, however, knew the real story of the attack, having read an account given by the son of one of the men who broke into the room, held in a slim book discovered behind a bookcase in the library when he was in his teens. Apparently the mechanical dog had indeed lunged at the man who found it, but the years of dormant waiting had taken its toll on whatever powered the chimera, so that instead of a quick pounce and a wicked savaging, it moved as if in slow motion, taking several minutes to uncurl and begin its pounce, snarling cruelly as it did so. The men had watched in fascination as it came to a halt, never to move again, frozen in the act of attack.

The Fen Knights were inspecting it now, looks of constrained amazement on their faces as they peered into its innards. The first Lord had caused the device to be skinned, exposing the dark grey and black metal skeleton and multitudinous intricate parts, then had it mounted on a plinth in the great hall.

Thom watched as Sir Darrick moved two of his knights aside to get close to the object. A knowing look seemed to pass between Sir Darrick and his fellow knights, and Thom had the uneasy feeling that this wasn't the first thing of its kind that the 'Fen Knights' had seen. Who are you, really?, thought Thom. And what do you want?