The Keep

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 27There was momentary silence and then confusion as everyone stood up quickly, Qualto knocking over his chair in his haste.

Badr was the first to reach Henk, who was struggling under the weight of the big man, and then Adroyan was lying on the couch that Esyal had occupied the previous night. Henk dropped gratefully into his usual chair. He was breathing heavily.

“Are you all right?” Nyk asked him, bending forward and looking anxiously into his face.

“I will be as soon as I get my breath back.” The reply was accompanied by a wave of the hand that was both reassuring and dismissive. After a brief hesitation, Nyk appeared to be satisfied and, without leaving his friend, he turned to look at the others, gathered around the motionless figure of Adroyan.

“What happened?” he asked, still speaking to Henk.

“No idea,” Henk replied. “There was this rumbling and roaring... everything was shaking. I thought the place was falling down. Frightened me to death. I was running for the door when I found him — in the Great Hall.” He extended his arms sideways. “Flat out on his back, gawping up at the ceiling, mouth open, eyes wide. Thought maybe something had come loose and hit him, but he was in the middle of the Hall — nothing near him.”

Nyk swung back to him. “You carried him all the way from the Great Hall!” he exclaimed. “You could have killed yourself. Why didn’t you come and get us? You’re no Spring chicken...” He was raising his hands in apology even as he spoke. “I’m sorry. That... earthquake... or whatever, has shaken us all up.” He indicated Josyff and Badr with a floundering gesture. “We were in the... oh, never mind, never mind. How is he?”

“Well, he’s breathing, and his pulse seems fine — just like Esyal the other day,” Josyff replied.

“There’s no head injury that I can find,” Badr added.

Henk levered himself up out of his chair. “What earthquake?” he demanded of the group.

“That’s what we think it was,” Badr said. “And what moved the ladders in the book room last night.”

“We don’t get earthquakes round here,” Henk declared with contemptuous certainty.

“We’ve no other explanation,” Nyk intervened. “It knocked us three scattering.” A gesture swept over Josyff and Badr. “Qualto and Esyal felt it, you felt it, and something knocked this one out. What else could shake a building like that?”

Before Henk could reply, the sound of a sharp intake of breath intruded and Adroyan was sitting upright, his eyes wide and his arms extended to the side as though he were trying to keep two opposing forces apart.

The watching circle widened briefly before closing about him again, concerned.

“How are you, sir?” Josyff asked.

Adroyan’s black eyes focused on him sharply. “What happened?”

“We don’t know, sir. We think there’s been an earthquake. Henk found you unconscious in the Great Hall and brought you here. Perhaps you slipped and fell.”

“The Great Hall...” Adroyan echoed. Then alarm lit his face and his hands came up again, though this time as if to protect himself. Almost immediately however, an icy control took over and he swung his legs off the couch and made to stand up.

Josyff laid a restraining hand on him. “Give yourself a moment, sir. You may be injured.”

Adroyan hesitated then stood up, making Josyff step back. “I recall. I was overwhelmed,” he said, as though that answered a question. He looked round the room, his eyes distant. “But I am awakening now.” Then he seemed to recollect something and his gaze turned back to Josyff.

“Why are you not working? This... place... must be measured... must be measured... as soon as possible.”

Josyff fought down a spasm of anger sufficiently to control his voice.

“It will be, sir. And if you’re sure you’re well, Badr and I will get back to our work right away. But someone will have to help Nyk with the drawbridge. If the quake has actually moved its bearings we may not be able to open it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The drawbridge, sir. It’s jammed — jammed shut. Nyk, Badr and I were trying to free it when the quake happened. We...”

“Jammed shut, you say?”

“Yes, sir. And according to Nyk, it’s going to be no easy task getting out of here if we can’t free it.” Though he had asked no question, he deliberately adopted the manner of someone waiting for instructions from a superior.

Adroyan did not reply at once and, it seemed to Josyff that, albeit only slightly, his head bowed and his shoulders lifted, as though for a moment he was contemplating a defeat of some kind. When he spoke, however, his voice betrayed no such thought, and his posture was straight and tall again.

“Yes, that must be attended to. We must not allow this place to bind us here.” He looked at Nyk. “Find out exactly what has happened and report to me.”

“He won’t find anything.”

It was Henk. He was standing in the doorway, as though about to leave.

“That was no earthquake — I told you, they don’t happen around here. It was the building. It’s waking. It’s changing. It’s...”

“Henk!” hissed Qualto, stepping forward, his hands flapping his colleague to silence. “Enough! Enough foolishness. What’s got into you lately?” Embarrassed irritation put an edge in his voice. “You spend too much time wandering about in places where you’ve no need to be. You’ll go... melancholy mad.” Qualto managed to inject a little humour into this faltering conclusion, making it with a smile and a conciliatory gesture. His voice returned to normal. “Badr says there might have been lots of little earthquakes moving the place, shaking it, for days now. Too small for us to notice them. Who knows what effect they might have had on us?” He turned to Josyff. “They might have been responsible for your own disturbed nights, mightn’t they?”

The thought had not occurred to Josyff, but he felt an unexpected sense of relief. Maybe, indeed, there had been subtle tensions building within the fabric of the Keep that had affected him... and Henk. But the relief faded as quickly as it had come, driven out by the same inner, if unreasoned, certainty he had felt before. Whatever was happening, it was something other than earthquakes.

Nevertheless, he replied, “Quite possibly.”

Henk was shaking his head.

“Think whatever you want,” he said, with an air of finality. “I’m leaving as soon as I can.”

Nyk and Qualto exchanged an exasperated glance.

“Well, regardless of the fact that you’ve got your tour to finish, none of us are going anywhere while the drawbridge is jammed shut,” Nyk said bluntly.

Henk gaped at him, uncomprehending.

“It can’t jam — it’s balanced,” he said, part statement, part question.

“It’s jammed,” Nyk announced definitively. “Three of us couldn’t lever it open just now.” He rubbed his face. “Go and see for yourself.”

Henk turned from side to side a couple of times before stepping back into the room. He looked round at each of the others. Josyff was unable to meet his gaze and turned away.

Qualto had no such difficulty. He gave a brief grimace of distress and pity, and stepping forward, took Henk’s arm.

“Henk, you fret too much. This place is only bricks and mortar...”

“Stone,” Henk interrupted.

“Stone, then,” Qualto conceded with a soft, explosive laugh. “Stone and mortar. But that’s all. It’s a queer place, but it’s still just a heap of carefully arranged rocks. It can’t think, it can’t move... or change itself... can it?” Henk made to reply, but Qualto pressed on. “You keep yourself too much to yourself at times — let the place get on top of you — and wander into places where we’ve no need to go. Your memory probably plays tricks on you — all these endless passages and rooms.” He flicked a thumb towards Josyff and Badr. “Just wait until they’ve been working for a few days — they’ll tie it down in ink and paper, then see if it can move.”

Henk cast a doubtful glance towards the surveyors. “You mean well, Qualto,” he said. “But you’re wrong. Something’s grievously amiss with this place...” This time it was he who pressed on as Qualto tried to speak. “But I’ll say no more about it. Time will tell.” He turned to Josyff. “I doubt your work is going to be what you think, surveyor, but...” He touched his hand to his mouth in a token of intended silence.

Nyk intervened. “It’ll be easier for all of us if we keep to simple practicalities — and the only real problem wehave at the moment is that, for whatever reason, the drawbridge is jammed shut and we’re trapped here. It’s nothing desperate for now, none of us have anywhere to go anyway, but sooner or later we’ll have to get it open... or find another way out of here, and I don’t relish that!” He spoke directly to Henk. “Come and help me find out what’s happened.”

Henk grunted a cursory agreement and Nyk spoke to Josyff.

“I’m assuming none of us have anywhere to go — will this problem with the drawbridge interfere with your work?”

“Not for some while,” Josyff replied. “Later on we might need to do some confirmatory work on the outside, but the real work’s here and there’s plenty of it. That said, let me know if the problem proves intractable. If we have to find some other way out of here I think it’s going to need all our best efforts.”

Nyk was confident. “We’ll sort it out all right, I’m sure. Are you fully recovered, sir?”

This last was addressed to Adroyan, who was standing by the fire, seemingly aloof from this debate.

“I am,” Adroyan replied. He turned to Henk. “Your concern was unnecessary. Take me to where you found me.”

Adroyan’s tone overrode Nyk’s request for help but Henk looked between the two of them.

Nyk nodded. “Come to the gatehouse when... the gentleman... has finished with you,” he said. Adroyan did not seem to notice the hint of sarcasm in Nyk’s wilful hesitation, and left the room without further remark. With a half-apologetic shrug to Nyk and the others, Henk followed him.

“Well, as the patient seems to be fully recovered and the cause of all our mysteries has been found, I’ll get back to the gatehouse myself. See if I can find out exactly what’s happened.” Nyk raised a caustic eyebrow, implicitly enlisting the others as co-conspirators.

Josyff had been taken aback by Adroyan’s brusque manner and he was glad he had gone. The prospect of being confined in this place with such an individual for any length of time cast an unpleasant shadow across his thoughts, but he did not respond to Nyk’s unspoken offer.

“I’d like to have a look at these logs you keep, if I may,” he said to Qualto. “Can you spare a few minutes to show me where they are?”

* * * *

Adroyan seemed almost to be scenting the air as he and Henk emerged into the Great Hall.

“You were over there,” Henk said, pointing.

“Show me. Show me precisely.” Adroyan’s tone was authoritative.

Henk shot him a surly glance and made no attempt to disguise a sigh of irritation as he strode out towards the middle of the Hall. Frowning, he turned round a few times, looking alternately at the floor and then at the watching statues.

“You’ll understand, sir, that I was... agitated... when I found you — the place was shaking and rumbling — never known the likes. I just picked you up and dragged you out. Didn’t think to take out a tape to measure where you’d fallen.”

This sarcasm, Adroyan did notice, and he turned sharply to its source. Henk, however, head craning forward, met his gaze with an unyielding one of his own.

There was silence.

“Yes,” Adroyan said eventually, his voice flat and without any concession. “Show me as closely as you can.”

Henk tapped a foot, grunted, “Here,” and then moved to one side.

Adroyan slowly circled the spot, mimicking Henk’s movement, his gaze intent and shifting from the floor to the statues. Then, apparently satisfied, he straightened and turned to face the statues squarely. Henk took a pace backwards as if expecting some strange, perhaps violent, event.

But nothing happened.

Until, that is, he became aware of a soft and distant whispering filling the Hall.