The Keep

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 30“Look at this,” Esyal said.

She hovered about the table briefly before deciding there was not enough room to spread out the scroll, then retreated to the couch, signalling the others to follow.

“I hope you know where that came from,” Badr said, half-jokingly. “Qualto’s very fussy about his filing systems.”

Esyal raised her eyebrows. “In the book room, maybe, but not in that Archive.” She blew some dust off the scroll and then, with an expression of distaste, brushed some from her sleeves. “Some of this dust must be as old as the building.”

Kneeling down by the couch, Esyal began carefully unrolling the scroll, using a heavy cushion to hold down the top edge. The others gathered round her.

“I was just browsing to see if I could find out whether there was some kind of order to all the scrolls in there — looking to see where I could start — when this slipped off the top of a pile. Set off a small avalanche. Tricky things to stack, scrolls.”

The paper was thick and very reluctant to stay flat. It had an aged, yellowish tint which became darker towards the edges. As Esyal unrolled it, small but neat writing was revealed to which marginal notes had been added in a less steady hand. The text was interspersed with small sketches, also neatly drawn and augmented with less tidy notes.

“This caught my eye,” Esyal said.

She pointed to a series of sketches of the drawbridge. They showed different views of a scaffolding frame which encased the drawbridge and passed above the wall to overhang the moat. Several men were pulling on an elaborate system of ropes and pulley blocks. More were watching.

“Food, gentlemen, lady.”

It was Qualto, entering carrying, with no slight deftness, a large and heavily laden tray.

“What’s that?” he inquired as he floated his burden on to the table.

“Perhaps you can tell us,” Josyff said, as the group dispersed and retreated towards the food.

The scroll rewound itself determinedly and Esyal handed it to Qualto as she passed him. After a brief struggle he opened it and held it up to the light.

“Fine draughtsmanship. Fine penmanship,” he said sagely. “From the Archive, is it?”

“It is,” Esyal confirmed, as she helped herself to food. “Just came across it. I thought it looked interesting. I haven’t read any of it, but it looks to me from those pictures as though they’re trying to open the drawbridge.”

“It does indeed.”

Qualto put the scroll in the middle of the table.

“Any idea how old it is?” Josyff asked.

“None at all,” Qualto replied. “Maybe there’s a date on it somewhere. It’s got to be very old to be written like that, though.”

“That kind of handwriting isn’t a ‘tradition of the Keep’, then? Not part of the Duty Orders?” Josyff said, half-teasing.

Qualto took the gentle jibe in good part and returned it in like vein.

“No. Just keeping the records is, that’s all — no marks for neatness.” He glanced around and spoke to Henk. “By the way, where’s Adroyan?”

“Left him in the Great Hall,” came an offhand reply. “Shooed me off to help Nyk.” He shook his head. “Odd fella, that...”

Josyff intervened quickly before Henk had an opportunity to say anything that might prove injudicious.

“Adroyan has authority signed by the First member of the Ordrans,” he said, as casually as he could. “He may even be one of the Ordrans.”

There was a momentary silence around the table. The Keep and its regular occupants might be far from the centres of political activity but not so far as not to appreciate that this information was not trivial.

“Glad you told us,” Nyk said significantly. “I did wonder about him. It didn’t seem to me that you and Badr needed any kind of supervision. And Jonal and Aryck weren’t too keen on him, I could see that when we met them — and they’re an easy-going pair.”

“What do you think it means?” Qualto asked no one in particular.

“Probably nothing for you,” Josyff replied. “Directly, anyway. It’ll be something to do with our work, though I can’t think what — he doesn’t pretend to know anything about surveying. He probably has to make some kind of assessment about what they’ve got in mind for the place.”

“Which will affect us,” Qualto said.

Josyff grimaced at the failure of his attempted reassurance. “Maybe. Maybe not,” he said. “Whatever they want to do, you’re here — you know the place — you’ve the experience in dealing with it...” His voice tailed off — he had had enough experience of the often arbitrary ways of the New Order to know that such logic was pointless.

Nyk rescued him by expressing the thought that he had voiced to Badr just a little earlier. “Well, if he’s so important, then somebody will be waiting to hear from him, I’m sure. Our jammed drawbridge may not be the problem we’re envisaging.” He smiled mischievously. “It’ll be interesting to see how they cope with the moat.”

“Yes, indeed,” Josyff agreed.

“He’s still odd,” Henk grumbled and he began recounting the incident in the Great Hall. Josyff could find no opportunity to stop him and finally gave up looking for one — Henk was a grown man, if he wanted to gossip to comparative strangers about someone who could be one of the Ordrans, then he’d have to take his chance. Besides which, he was being unusually loquacious — every detail of what had happened was being related as if he needed to be rid of it, and it was unlikely any interruption would stop him. And the tale was indeed hauntingly strange. He had no reason to doubt that Henk was telling the truth of what he had heard and, given that, it raised yet more unsettling questions about what was happening here.

Henk said Adroyan had called the Keep a nexus, a knot, a binding hurt to be unfurled — to release the Powers. The words meant nothing to Josyff, but they conjured images that, like the voices he had heard, seemed to have meaning even though they were unintelligible. The word “resonance” came to him — a stirring involuntarily invoked by a note sounded elsewhere.

Almost in spite of himself, he asked, “You say you heard voices?”

“‘Probably something to do with the earthquake,’ he said,” Henk mimicked — surprisingly accurately. “I just agreed with him. Seemed the wisest. But it sounded like voices to me. And he was listening to them.”

“What did they say?” Josyff asked.

“Maybe it was something to do with our earthquake,” Nyk said, trying to keep the conversation commonplace and before Henk could reply. “It must have happened the same time as the drawbridge came loose.”

And the same time as what happened to me in the Archive, Josyff thought. He kept all sign of it from his face but his stomach tightened.

“Well, whatever. Voices, earthquakes, jammed drawbridges, his food’s going cold,” Qualto protested in a tone that indicated he would be making no special meals for the latecomer, Ordrans or no. “Where did you say you left him?”

“The Great Hall,” Henk replied impatiently. “And I didn’t leave him, he chased me off. Maybe he wanted a secret word with his voices.”

Josyff raised an eyebrow at the unexpected sarcasm. Qualto ignored it.

“You don’t think he’s wandered off and got lost, do you?” he said.

Nyk’s expression became one of exasperation and, his fork hovering uncertainly, he muttered something under his breath. He made to stand up then thought better of it.

“If he’s not turned up when we’ve finished I suppose we’d better go and look for him,” he decided.

“He’ll be along when he catches a whiff of Qualto’s cooking,” Esyal said, pushing an empty plate away and puffing out her cheeks to indicate satiety. “That was excellent.”

“Thank you, Esyal,” Qualto said with heavy emphasis and an inclination of his head. “It’s always pleasant to be appreciated.”

“I mightn’t know who I am, but I know good food, and I seem to remember some manners. Thank you.”

“Yes indeed,” Josyff added. “A fine end to a long and... interesting... day.”

“It’s not over yet,” Nyk said, pushing his chair back. “We have to find our other guest.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Esyal said with a grin. “If we all get woken up by someone shouting tonight, at least we’ll know who it is. Besides, he can’t have gone far, can he?”

The three residents replied almost as one.

“Yes, he can.”

Josyff looked at Badr and held up a beaker in a mock toast. “Here’s to tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get a good clean run at this job.” Then, turning to Nyk: “We’ll help you.”

“Thank you, but unfortunately you can’t,” came the immediate reply. “No disrespect, but you’ll probably only get yourselves lost if you go too far. We’ll try his room first — and the Great Hall — he may still be there — just forgotten it was meal time — or not hungry. After that...” He gave a resigned shrug followed by a grimace of annoyance. “It’s difficult. We just take this place for granted — forget how complicated — and big — it is. And you’ve not been here long enough yet to realize it. We’ll have to work out some kind of a... procedure... when we find him. Just to make sure we’ve some idea where you all are at any time.”

“Good idea,” Badr said, remembering his disconcertingly long trek with Henk and Qualto.

“We’ll produce plans and lay down markers routinely, as we work,” Josyff said. “That should help.”

Nyk nodded. “In the meantime, we’d better find our guest.” He motioned to Henk and Qualto.

“We’ll clear this up for you then,” Josyff said to Qualto who was hesitating with a pile of plates in his hand. “We can find the kitchen without getting lost.”

“I’ll look after them,” Esyal intervened proprietorially, seeing Qualto becoming even more uncertain at the prospect of the newcomers invading his kitchen. He did not seem to be completely reassured by this promise, but accepted it with a reasonable grace.

When Nyk, Qualto and Henk had gone, Esyal became even more proprietorial, supervising Josyff and Badr’s collecting of the dishes, and directing them towards the kitchen.

As she ushered them in she began opening drawers and cupboards and examining their contents in a manner she would not even have considered had Qualto been there.

“I think I know where everything goes,” she claimed. “But he’s very tidy, Qualto — very tidy.” This she said as much to herself as the others, abruptly feeling nervous.

“I think we can manage,” Josyff said, turning on the tap and clattering the dishes into the sink. Esyal jumped at the noise and mouthed an edgy, “be careful!”

Josyff looked at her keenly. It occurred to him that for someone who had lost her memory, she seemed to be remarkably unconcerned. He broached the subject directly.

“How’s your memory? Has anything come back to you — who you are, where you’re from, what you were doing in the mountains?”

On the pretext of continuing to search Qualto’s cupboards, Esyal turned away from him as he was speaking.

“No, nothing,” she replied. “It’s very odd.” Composed now, she turned and addressed Josyff’s unspoken question. “You’d think I’d be more upset, wouldn’t you?” She paused. “Then again, I’ve never lost my memory before... I think...” She grinned. “So I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. Still, for whatever reason, I’m not upset. In fact, I feel fine.” She became more serious. “Perhaps it’s something to do with being trapped in this place. It doesn’t matter who any of us are here, does it? Or what we do. Not while we can’t leave. We’ll all do what we can to... get along... survive. Later on, when we’re back in the real world...” She hesitated. “The outside world, that is, maybe...” She shrugged.

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Josyff said. “As you say, surveyors, Ordrans, resident staff, lost young women — the labels don’t really matter at the moment — we’re all prisoners in effect.”

“And dishwashers,” Badr added, precariously waving a plate he was drying, to the horror of the watching Esyal.

“And dishwashers,” Josyff agreed, with a laugh. Then he changed the subject abruptly.

“What do you make of Henk’s tale about Adroyan and the... voices... in the Great Hall?”

Badr exhaled noisily to indicate he was at a loss. “Well, I’ve no doubt Henk heard something, for sure. But then he was seeing passageways come and go the other night, so...” He shook his head. “Maybe this place gets to you eventually. That said, he seems rational enough — a bit surly, but I’ve met worse.”

“A lot of peculiar things have happened these past few days,” Josyff said.

“Well, an earth tremor seems to be the best candidate,” Badr said, though without any great conviction. “There’d have been some kind of a build-up to what we all felt and a massive old building like this is going to make some strange noises if it’s being twisted and turned.”

Scepticism hung in the air.

“That was a voice I heard last night,” Esyal said insistently. “It was no creaking floorboard.” Remembering the incident, she looked unconsciously towards the rack of knives. “And Adroyan heard it clear enough — as did you.”

Josyff attempted no denial. “Which leaves us where?” he said. “If everything that’s happened isn’t some natural phenomenon — what is it? Ghosts?”

Uncertainty replaced the scepticism.

“We’ll have to settle for a mystery,” Esyal decided, with a flourish. “Wait and see what else happens. I’m sure, as you said, you’ll find a lot of answers as you go about the place. In the meantime we all just carry on doing what we can. You survey, Nyk’ll try to open the drawbridge and I’ll help Badr and carry on sorting out the Archive.”

A little later, Qualto’s kitchen tidied to Esyal’s satisfaction, they returned to the common room. It was deserted.

“I suppose we’d better take Nyk’s advice and stay here,” Josyff said. “He’s got enough on his hands without having to look for us as well.”

There was no dispute. Badr picked up a book from the mantle shelf and settled himself into an armchair by the fire. As if by common consent, Josyff and Esyal made for the scroll still lying on the table. Carefully they unrolled it to reveal the sketches that had first attracted Esyal’s attention, then weighing it down with a few ornaments, they sat down to study it.

Then Qualto was at the door, flushed and breathless.

“Something’s happened,” he said. “Can you come and help?”