At first they stood in absolute darkness and silence. After a while, they realized that while the silence was not absolute, being broken by the quiet patter of rain on a distant roof several floors above and by their own harried breathing, the darkness really was. Their eyes weren't adjusting. It was just black.
“What are we going to do?” That was the sensible voice of the bondsman, asking sensible questions.
“I think it is a good time to introduce ourselves,” said Harun, after a bit of thinking.
“To introduce ourselves? Now?”
“Yes. After all, if we cannot see each other, we at least had better know who is talking. And I would find it considerably tiring to have to call you ‘serf’ all the time, although you can believe me that I do not think of the word in its derogatory meaning.”
“Aye, it would be silly to have to call you ‘heathen’ all the time, even if I wouldn’t use the word in its whatsit meaning.”
“Derogatory,” Harun repeated. “It means ‘not very civil’.”
“Thanks,” he heard the voice of the bondsman from somewhere out of the darkness. “I got that all right. My name is Gundolf. By the way, it’s not as though anyone really needed your name to know when you’re talking. Judging from your accent, anyone can hear you’re not exactly from within fifty miles of Danzig.”
“My name is Harun, Shukran.”
There was a sneeze – a female one.
“Was that you?” asked Wenzel. Not the most intelligent of questions, perhaps, but it made sense from his particular point of view in which one person was at the moment simply ousting the rest of humanity.
“Aye,” the girl sniffled.
“What is your name?”
“Edith.”
“Edith…” The word tingled in the guard’s brain.
“We’ll best get you into some warmer place,” he said firmly.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” commented Harun, “that’s what I have been arguing for the last half hour out there. I think it would be a bit more chilly had we remained out in the rain.”
“He’s right, you know,” said Gundolf the bondsman judiciously.
“But she needs still more warmth,” Wenzel insisted. “Or she might catch her death.”
“And damn silly that would be, after having run away from it so energetically,” Harun sighed. “All right, we shall make it warm for the lady.”
“And how?” Jan’s voice was easily recognizable. It was steaming with fury. It had just begun to dawn on him that he had had his live saved by a heathen, which would have been detestable enough without this heathen and he didn't seem to like that thought at all. “Do you think the cursed knight left a pile of wood behind for our use? You fool!”
“No, I had rather reckoned on him not having time to remove his furniture,” Harun responded calmly. “No let’s look… or rather feel, always be precise…”
Cautiously he advanced step by step, until his hands found something hard – but not cold. It was not stone what he ran his fingers over now, but…
“Wood,” he shouted. “There is a table over here, and… yes, chairs I think. I have never felt like burning a leg before, but who knows, perhaps tonight is the night. Wenzel, with all your cookfire experience you have practically become our official fire-lighter by now. Do you have… what does one light fires with?”
“Flint. But you can’t make chairs or tables catch fire with flint, Harun.”
“Why not? They are made of wood, are they not? Wood burns, I now that much about the matter.”
“Aye, but only if one throws it onto a fire that has already got going. You’ll need to start with something smaller… hey, ain’t there candles on that table?”
Harun felt around.
“You are right, there are.”
“Well, that’s a start then. Do you think they’ll still give light? They must be years old.”
“Why should they not? Do candles loose their ability to burn after a certain period of time has passed?”
“Of course not, but they do if they get wet. Harun, you’re hopeless.”
“All the candles at my Scriptorium are new,” Harun defended himself. “How should I know anything about the peculiarities of candle making? I have never read a book about the subj…”
“Just shut up and tell me were you are so I can light the candles.”
“There is a certain inconsistency in your words. If I shut up I cannot tell you where I am.”
“Harun!”
“Fine. Here I am, whatever good that information may do you.”
“Keep calling.”
“Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here – This is growing exceedingly monotonous, do you know that? – here, here, here, hereOUTSH! That was my foot!”
“Sorry.”
“Here is the candle! I await your expert judgment on its condition patiently, as befits a man of education.”
There apparently was nothing wrong with the candle. A few seconds later, a spark glittered in the darkness, then it was caught on the end of the wick and forged a small, sharp blade of light to cut through the darkness. Wenzel contentedly raised his eyes from his work – and then suddenly caught sight of something to chill his blood and make him stumble back several paces: a long, strange, almost demonic dark face, like the pictures of the evil savages who subjugated the holy land, liquid running down from the lids of the shadowy eyes and over the long, curved nose, like a beak of a bird of prey. The piercing eyes glittered in the glow of the candle.
“So it worked,” said Harun contentedly and wiped the rainwater from his face. “It was not too old after all. And now we can explore this interesting building. Wenzel? Is something the matter? You look as though you had seen a ghost.”
“D- don’t ask,” gulped Wenzel and handed his friend the candle. “Just remind me never to go with you into a dark room again!”
“I beg your pardon?”
Wenzel did not reply. He distracted himself from his somewhat shocking reintroduction into the visible world by looking for things to burn. He didn't have long to look.
“What about this?” He held up a corner of an old and dusty tablecloth. In the light of the candle they could see only part of the long table it covered. “It’ll stink a bit, but if we rap it around a few pieces of wood we could set fire to them that way. Or perhaps, there’s a better way… we would need something drier and smaller, perhaps we could find a book somewhere in this place, the parchment would be just the thing to…”
There was an indistinct gurgling noise from were the scribe stood.
“No, perhaps we had better not burn any books,” continued Wenzel. “The tablecloth will have to do. Is there a fireplace in this room, do you think?”
After several more candles had been lit, a joint search of the hall revealed a big fireplace along the back wall of the hall, still reasonably intact. Nobody knew if the smoke could still go up unhindered through the chimney, or if it had collapsed years ago, but that really did not matter very much. The hall was so vast, they probably could have lit a fire in the middle of the floor and the smoke would have cheerfully gone up to build up beneath the ceiling for several days before any of them would have smelled anything. But fires were usually lit in chimneys, even in cursed castles serving as hideouts from raiders, so Harun, Wenzel and the others lit their fire in the chimney and gathered around the burning chair-legs.
Harun took off his wet woolen coat, shuddered, and hung it on the protruding wing of one of the sandstone angels which adorned the chimney right and left. Under the accusing stare of Jan, he shrugged.
“So what? Angels are supposed to be there to help people in need, are they not?” He added his second coat which was also slightly damp to the first, and felt his scribe’s robes. He breathed in relief. Stone dry. The scribe sat back and slid closer to the fire.
“We had better all remove our outer clothing,” he suggested. “As a man having a certain amount of experience in medical matters, I think that advisable.”
“Easy enough for you to say, ain’t it?” grunted Wenzel. “We ain’t all running around like you with thirty layers of clothing and seven bear pelts.”
But Wenzel took his leather coat of, nevertheless. The other men followed suit, even Jan, though grudgingly. Then they all turned to look at Edith.
“I…” she blushed. “I don't have a coat. I don't have any clothes, ‘xept these here. There wasn’t time to take anything when… when it happened, and anyway, we never were rich, couldn't afford many clothes.”
A dazed look came into Wenzel’s eyes. While Harun could well guess at the thoughts that were passing through the guards mind this moment, he didn’t like to utter them aloud, not with the way Jan was emanating silent disapproval, and certainly not with Edith present, anyway.
The scribe contemplated the situation. He was sure he had read in many a learned book on medicine, that it was not beneficial to one’s health to wear cold, wet clothes. Not one of these books contained suggestions about what to do when no clothes to change into were available. Perhaps there was some cloth in the hall out of which a makeshift garment could be created?
He lowered his eyes from the intellectual heights of medicine to the fire in the fireplace, and there saw the last remains of the tablecloth going up in flames. He made a mental note about thinking in advance about the usefulness of certain items before making hasty decisions involving fire.
But perhaps something else…
“This was quite a grand castle once as castles go, I think,” he said, absent-mindedly.
Wenzel looked at him, surprised. “Aye, that’s right. Why?”
“I only thought… from what you told me up to know – not that it is much, mind you – I have come to reach a picture of this castle having been left in haste by its former inhabitants.”
The guard nodded. “You can say that again.”
“In such haste that the occupants would even have left their spare clothes behind?”
“Hardly. They’d would have taken them for sure.”
“But they left the table cloth.”
“Yes.”
“So... I do not suppose they would have remained to rip the curtains from the windows.”
“No, but why.. oh, I see.”
“Yes. On some upper floor there might well be some cloth we could use.”
Wenzel nodded. “I see. That’s good. That’s… very good, Harun.” For all his words, Wenzel looked more horrified than happy. And Harun guessed the reason.
“You don't want to go upstairs?” Harun sighed. “Is it this curse again? What in Allah’s name is supposed to be the matter with this castle?”
Wenzel opened his mouth, perhaps to explain, but Edith chose this moment to sneeze again.
“We haven’t got time for this nonsense now,” the scribe said earnestly. “We must find something dry for her to put on, and quick. If she should fall ill, we would have to remain here to look after her.”
That argument was enough for the guard. He sprang to his feet.
“I’m coming. What about you, Jan?”
A low grunt was all he got for a reply. The driver did not move.
“Aye, that’s clear enough. And you, Gundolf?”
“Rather you than me, fellow,” said the bondsman, good-naturedly and firmly settled down with his back against the warm stones beside the chimney.
“That’s clear enough, too. All right, Harun, it's us two. Let’s go.” In spite of the 'us', he let Harun walk in front of him. They each took one of the candles from the table and approached a door at the rear of the hall. The scribe opened it, Wenzel, behind him, peering nervously over his round shoulder.
“Relax,” said Harun, beginning to feel slightly vexed by the senseless antics of his companions. “It is just a corridor. Made of normal stone, as corridors usually are. What did you expect?”
Wenzel didn’t say, or perhaps he didn’t even like to think. No matter how tentatively, however, he followed Harun down the corridor and even stood beside him when the scribe opened the next door.
Harun was feeling rather silly. The awed way Wenzel eyed him, he had the impression the guard felt he was doing something very brave, which of course he was not. He was not a brave man. If he had faced an armed warrior instead of an empty corridor, he would have been the first to suggest a hopefully healthy marathon in the opposite direction. But facing an empty corridor? He was just behaving as any sensible man should. Which didn't cast a very good light on the intelligence of his companions.
Harun opened the next door.
“It seems we are in luck.” Without paying any attention to the fearful Wenzel behind him, Harun strode across the dusty room beyond the door and ripped one of the dusty curtains from the window. He held it up and gave it a measuring look. “This should do. Luckily, where I come from we have some experience with fashioning clothes out of cloth not immediately recognizable as such.”
“But you're not the one who needs cloths.”
“True. And I think the lady would not care for me giving her instructions while she…never mind.”
But Wenzel, judging from his expression, did seem to mind.
“I will have to give her some advice, than she will be able to do it on her own,” the scribe added hastily. “Now, let’s go back and… no, wait. Another one for the child… yes. Let’s go.”
They returned to the hall where Wenzel presented the dusty embroidered cloth to the peasant girl, who blushed – though not because the sought of sitting around dressed only in a curtain seemed such an oddity to her, Harun would have wagered. By the looks of it, she would gain from the change: what she was wearing at the moment would certainly not pass for a curtain, not even for the remains of an old fodder bag. More likely it was the fact that Wenzel was the one presenting it.
“Thanks,” she said, breathlessly. Then she looked down at her child. “I need somewhere where I can change. Is… is it save in the next room?”
“Quite safe, believe me,” Wenzel assured her.
“Then I’ll go there to change. I’ll need to feed Simon, too.”
“Your little boy?”
“Yes, ain’t he an angel…?”
Harun’s eyes wandered from his sandstone coat hanger near the chimney to the rosy, round little figure in Edith’s arms. On the face of it, he could not make out any obvious resemblance.
“Aye, he sure is,” the guard hastened to confirm.
The girl left, rocking the baby in her arms. Wenzel looked after with a wistful look in his eyes. Harun, too, looked after her, curious about the rocking business. Did she want to give the boy seasickness? But he did not wonder for long. Who could hope to understand women, after all? They were a closed book to Harun, or even more than that, for he normally had no problems with opening closed books and reading them.
While the peasant girl was changing, Harun settled down comfortably on the side of the fireplace opposite to the Gundolf, and nodded at the man. He received a nod back. Well, well, had this little trip to the supposedly cursed castle served one purpose after all? Had he found a new acquaintance, maybe even a friend? Something like that was to be valued, as a heathen among heathens.
“Has anyone a suggestion for how to pass the time?” He asked. “If not, I could tell some stories. I know these stories – you probably will never have heard of them, they are about this sailor called Sindbad and his adventures on his voyages…”
Now followed the most enjoyable part of the night. Harun began to tell tales from his infinite repertoire, built up in long years before he came to this land, and Gundolf said little but listened with interest. Even Wenzel was lured away from his guard post post in front of the girl's changing room and half-way through Harun’s story remembered that he still had a secret supply of salmon hidden between two of the sacks of corn on the cart. He ran out to get them.
Eight fish there were. They were intended as two meals for four people, now they just enough for one meal for five exceptionally hungry exhausted people. When Wenzel returned and asked Harun to help him find something to serve as a skewer, the scribe was glad of this interruption. His throat, being much less used to exercise than his fingers and eyes, was hoarse from all the storytelling, and demanded water now as well as food. After having discovered a long candlestick to stick the fish on, that desire was easily satiated: rain was still pouring down in sheets outside, all one had to do was to stick ones hands out of the door for a minute or so.
Harun did not remain long at the door; it was freezing by now, not only out there but everywhere in the stone hall not within twenty feet of the fire. He sat down with his back to the worme stone of the fireplace again, and eyed the salmon with happy anticipation. It was distinctly comfortable, sitting here in the warmth, looking forward to a meal which was probably better than any he could have expected back at Sevenport.
However, with time the scribe noticed that not everybody seemed to share his cheerful outlook. Not only the consistently grumpy Jan, but also Wenzel and Gundolf were throwing furtive looks over their backs, as if to safeguard themselves against some possible danger. Harun saw no call for this. He didn't believe the castle held anything very dangerous.
There was a creak, and three of the men looked up, sharply. But it was only Edith coming back. Only? They stared. Even Harun did so. With the embroidered cloth wrapped around her instead of her dirty rags, yet still with her hair in a tangled mess and stains of blood remaining on her face, the girl looked exceedingly odd in these surroundings. Like an ancient goddess of warfare, by accident endowed with both a rather timid nature a little baby to carry, who had wandered into the present world with little regard for sanity, thought Harun.
He tore his eyes from the strange apparition to look sideways at Wenzel, and from the expression on his friends face could tell that he would have used rather different words to describe her. Words like 'sublime', 'beautiful' or 'ravishing', perhaps.
“D- don’t you want to sit down?” The guard managed to get out. “We have some fish here. To eat, I mean, not to sit on.”
“Thanks,” she said, with a shy smile. “That’d be lovely.”
She sat down next to the scruffy little man who actually managed to control his shaking hands enough to take down his makeshift skewer from the fireplace and handing her one fish.
She took it and began to eat, looking very thankful indeed.
Harun pressed his back against the stones. They were getting warmer and warmer. And his visit in the castle which at first had seemed so very frightening, was getting nicer every minute. He seriously thought about whether on the next trip, they should not spend a few days here again. With enough provisions, and enough table legs to brun, it might well get to be the nicest time of the autumn and the approaching winter. Sir Christian would hardly notice their longer absence from Sevenport. When it didn’t concern religious festivals, he was not all that good at knowing the days of the week. Yes, why not? It was really nice here, was it not?
He began to whistle a melody with to many semitones in it for it to be to the liking of an Occidental ear.
“What’s that?” said Wenzel alarmed, twisting his neck. “What’s that noise?”
“It was me,” said Harun.
“Harun what on earth were you thinking? A right fright you gave me…”
“I was only whistling,” the scribe apologized meekly. “Sorry.”
“Whistling? In a place like this?”
Harun frowned. “What is wrong with the place?”
The others exchanged dark looks and said nothing.
‘There goes the possibility of a few warm nights spent in winter,’ Harun thought mournfully.
He finished his fish, but refrained from licking his fingers because he didn't want dried ink as a desert. Then he pressed his cold hands also against the warm stone behind him. At least this night he would spend in the warmth, and nobody would try and prevent him.
Suddenly, above them, a dull rumbling was to be heard.
They all looked up.
“W- what was that?” asked Gundolf, his voice quivering for the first time that night.
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We're in the cursed castle! How do you like it? Nice furniture and atmosphere? Ready to move in? :D :D
Comments and votes will be soooo much appreciated! Thank you :)
Cheers
Robert
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