The Keep

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 31As Nyk, Qualto and Henk left the common room in search of Adroyan, Nyk turned to the others irritably.

“We’ve got enough problems with that damned drawbridge, without one of this lot wandering off and getting lost. There’s no saying where he could be.” He looked at Henk who shrugged.

“I told you — he just shooed me off — told me to come and help you, which I did, for what it was worth. All of a sudden it was important we opened the drawbridge.”

Nyk conceded. “Well, I suppose we’d better look in the obvious place first. If he’s not there we’ll try his room. Could be he just wasn’t hungry. And he doesn’t strike me as the kind to bother telling anyone what he’s doing.”

“Gives me the creeps,” Henk muttered as they set off. “Looks right through you.”

Nyk made a disparaging noise. “Bigwigs — they’re all the same. ‘Do this, do that’ — not the faintest idea how to do anything themselves, of course, and nary a word of thanks when you do it for them. Or worse, a condescending pat on the head and a ‘well done’” he snapped his fingers and made a haughty gesture, “‘whatever your name is.’”

Henk said nothing but Qualto chuckled. “Still, better keep your thoughts to yourself,” he said. “You heard the surveyor, he might be one of the Ordrans — not someone to take lightly. They certainly didn’t — the surveyors — and they seem level enough folk.”

“Yes,” Nyk agreed. “Don’t worry, I’ve wit enough to keep my mouth shut.” He turned to Henk again. “Which is something you could do to practice.” Henk made to reply but Nyk continued. “We might be at the back of beyond but times are changing and, from what I hear, this New Order gets its interfering fingers into everything sooner or later. I don’t need to tell you that this is a good posting — suits us all — we get on, we work well together. Wouldn’t do to make ourselves too conspicuous — like one of us going on about wanting to leave, for example. You understand?”

Henk gave a reluctant nod.

“Ordrans or not, this fellow’s from somewhere very high up,” Nyk went on. “And Qualto’s right. We should do what the surveyors do — they know how to behave with these people, and if they’re staying quiet and respectful, we should do the same.”

“I’m not arguing,” Henk managed.

“You’re always arguing,” Nyk insisted. “You mightn’t say much, but when you do it’s contrary and you walk round looking like a question mark if you can’t be bothered speaking.”

Though Nyk’s tone was light and he was speaking as only a friend could, Qualto intervened to silence him and what he could see was Henk’s pending rebuttal.

“Later,” he hissed. “You want to walk straight into the Great Hall bellowing that kind of stuff?”

Nyk grunted and fell silent as they entered the Great Hall. It was empty. As the echoes of their footsteps faded, the silence of the place folded about them and they stood motionless for a moment.

“Marvellous,” Nyk muttered eventually.

“Adroyan... sir!”

Henk’s unexpected shout made the others jump.

“For Heaven’s sake, you frightened me to death!” Qualto exclaimed at the same time as Nyk protested in similar vein that Adroyan wasn’t a dog!

“No. He’d have come for his food if he had been,” Henk replied tersely.

“Let’s try his room, then,” Nyk said.

“If he’s not there we could try the gatehouse,” Qualto offered. He looked to Henk for support. “He was particularly worried about the drawbridge all of a sudden, you said.”

“Yes. I’ll go and look,” Henk said.

“No!” Nyk said. “We’ll stay together until we’ve looked in the obvious places, then we’ll work out a plan of campaign if we have to.”

“I’m not going to get lost,” Henk objected.

“And if you find him, and he says ‘come with me’, and he’s off on some other jaunt, what then?” Nyk looked at him for a moment, eyebrows raised, then added, “Come on,” before Henk could protest.

But Adroyan’s room was empty too. After some hesitant and tactful knocking, the three entered.

“He’s very tidy,” Qualto remarked as he looked round the room.

“Hmm.” Nyk seemed less impressed. “Bit too tidy for my taste. Everything’s laid out as if it had one place and one place only. Feels... obsessive... to me. Look at that bed — looks as if it’s been ironed, for crying out.”

“It would look obsessive to you, you’re a slob,” Qualto said. It was one of many well-worn insults that the three companions had developed over the years and it provoked no response.

“Gatehouse?” Henk queried.

“Gatehouse,” Nyk agreed.

“This has been an interminably long day,” Qualto remarked as he opened the main door. Light streamed out into the mountain darkness to reveal that it was snowing again and the courtyard lights blinked into life as though keen to spread the news. The air was alive with dancing snowflakes and the way to the gatehouse was smooth with fresh snow.

“Doesn’t look as if he’s been here,” Henk said.

“This lot would cover his tracks in minutes,” Nyk retorted. “He could’ve been there since before we ate. Come on, we’ll have to check.”

Hunched against the falling snow, they scuttled across the courtyard and through the door into the Gatehouse. The lights came on as they entered.

“He can’t be here, then,” Qualto said.

“We’ll have to check,” Nyk replied, heading up the stairs, two at a time. “He might have had an accident.”

The others toiled up after him with markedly less enthusiasm, Henk muttering to himself and Qualto hanging heavily on the handrail. By the time they reached the top, Nyk was already descending the stairs on the other side of the room.

“Is he down there?” Qualto shouted after him.

“Nah,” came the reply after a brief silence.

As Nyk turned to come back up the stairs he paused and looked at the blank wall of the counterweight. Almost as if drawn to it he walked over and, after a slight hesitation, pushed it gently.

It moved. He stepped back with a cry of surprise, followed by an oath.

“What’s the matter?” Qualto shouted, leaning precariously over the handrail.

Nyk was clattering up the stairs.

“The damn thing’s free again. It moved — I just touched it — and it moved...” He swore again. “What the hell is happening here?”

Qualto and Henk glanced at one another. Nyk was not given to agitation, still less swearing. He pushed past them and strode across to the hand-wheel that operated the drawbridge. It turned easily and silently. An indicator at the side of the wheel swung smoothly round to show that the drawbridge was almost completely open.

“That’s just snow on the bearing pad,” Nyk said dismissively, though his face was riven with irritation and bewilderment. He opened and closed the drawbridge several times, finally leaving it open before he abandoned the wheel. His expression did not change.

“It makes no sense,” he said, largely to himself.

“Do you think perhaps we should... wedge it open... lock it in some way?” Qualto asked tentatively. He had to ask twice before Nyk indicated that he had heard him.

Qualto pressed on. “Whatever’s happened, the way’s open now. If it shuts again...” He gave a fatalistic shrug.

“Yes, yes, you’re probably right,” Nyk agreed distractedly. “I was just...”

Silence descended on the group.

“Well?” Qualto asked after a while.

“Well what?” Nyk retorted.

“How do we lock it open?” Qualto replied, raising his voice, his eyebrows and his arms simultaneously.

Nyk abandoned his reverie and became practical.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never even thought about it — no need to.” He looked around the chamber as though seeking inspiration.

“Maybe the weight of the snow will help keep it open,” Henk suggested.

Nyk nodded. “Normally it doesn’t need ‘keeping open’. But Qualto’s right — there’s no saying it won’t shut again — or when it’ll open if it does. We’d better rig something to keep it open while we can.”

Qualto and Henk looked at him expectantly and he returned to looking around the chamber to avoid their gaze. Then he pointed to the underside of the now horizontal counterweight. “We’ll prop that. Then it can’t swing down. We’ve got plenty big timbers in the yard. That’ll be a more solid job than trying to fasten the other end down.”

Henk nodded appreciatively but Qualto looked unhappy.

“You mean bring the timbers from the yard? Now?”

Nyk just looked at him by way of answer and Qualto’s expression became one of reluctant resignation. Nyk chuckled. “You can always stand on the end of the bridge while Henk and I go for them.”

Qualto scowled at him before conceding sourly, “Let’s get some coats and gloves, and get on with it, then.”

Nyk was already rooting in a cupboard and producing working clothes. “Go and get the others,” he said over his shoulder to Qualto. “Ask them if they’ll help. Me and Henk’ll get across to the yard.”

“What about Adroyan?” Henk asked.

“What about him?” Nyk retorted offhandedly.

“We’re supposed to be looking for him, that’s what. He might be lost.”

“And he might not be — he could be sitting in the book room — or wandering about the kitchen looking for food by now. Either way, I’m sure he’ll be in the warm somewhere.” He relented slightly. “Besides, he’s the one who’s suddenly keen to get the bridge open, isn’t he? He’s going to be less than pleased if we tell him it opened and then closed again while we were wandering about looking for him.”

Even with Josyff, Badr, and Esyal, drawn from the comfort of the common room by a breathless Qualto, it took them some time to haul Nyk’s painstakingly selected timbers through the rambling open ways of the Keep, not least because, in some of them, the snow, dancing to the will of unfelt breezes, was drifting. And getting them into the gatehouse proved particularly tiring, there being no other way than to manoeuvre them up the stairs, across the building and then down the opposite stairs.

When the last piece was lowered down, a collective relaxation spread instantly through the group and there was much comradely puffing out of cheeks and wiping of brows.

“Well, at least the bridge didn’t close while we were collecting that lot,” Badr said.

“You’re right, you’re right,” Nyk said, with unexpected urgency. “Help me lean a couple of these against the back wall, just in case it decides to move while I’m thinking how to do the job properly.”

There was a brief spell of confused activity and, the temporary safeguard installed, they each returned with added enthusiasm to their relaxing.

Nyk turned to his guests. “Thank you. I appreciate that was work over and above the call of duty but it would’ve been difficult for just the three of us.”

With a nod of acknowledgement towards Esyal, Josyff echoed her words in the kitchen. “Right now, it doesn’t matter who we are or what we do. The drawbridge might be open again, but while the snow’s so thick, we can’t leave. We’re still... prisoners, I suppose... and we’ll have to do whatever’s necessary to get along.”

Nyk nodded and looked at Henk.

“You still set on leaving right away?” he asked caustically.

“I certainly am,” Henk replied, though he looked torn. “I know you think I’m cracked, but all this business has nothing to do with any earthquake. It’s the Keep — it’s... waking up... It’s been coming for a long time, now I think about it, and I don’t want to be here — just don’t want to be here.”

“Henk... I...” Nyk began, but Henk pressed on.

“Still, the surveyor’s right. We’re stuck here until the snows go. Unless, maybe, we get a long frost — we should be able to get through then.” He looked round as if inspecting the weather outside. “But it doesn’t feel like it at the moment.”

Nyk’s face filled with a mixture of dismay and distress. He made a series of vague gestures before admitting, “I don’t know what to think, Henk. You certainly sound cracked. What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. But...” His voice faded into silence.

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Henk said. “But I’m right. This is a bad place to be.” He turned to Josyff and Badr, awkward witnesses to this conversation between old friends. “It’s drawn you two here — reached out and drawn you here.”

Josyff was at a loss but Badr almost snorted.

“I wasn’t drawn here. I was sent here — like all of us — by my employers — plain old-fashioned civic authorities — bureaucrats — shinies — seat polishers — using orders — forms — bits of paper with signatures and instructions on them. ‘Go and do this,’ they said. ‘Help the Surveyor.’ So here I am. No distant siren call from the mountains.”

Despite his obvious impatience, he managed to inject just enough good humour in this outburst to forestall too angry a response. Nevertheless, Josyff prepared to intervene.

It was unnecessary. Henk’s reply was immediate but, though quiet, was far from subdued.

“And who told your ‘civic authorities’ what to do?”

“The New Order,” Esyal answered for him.

Henk assumed the look of a successful interrogating lawyer.

“One of whom has been drawn here along with the rest of you.”

Badr made to reply but Henk simply said, “You didn’t hear those voices in the Great Hall — and you didn’t see him when he heard them.”

Badr opted to retreat from his denunciation by changing the subject. He indicated Esyal.

“And I suppose she’s been drawn here as well.”

Head craned forward, Henk gazed at Esyal unnervingly.

“She’ll be here for a reason, for sure,” he said eventually. “We all are.”

This time Josyff did intervene. “Well, it doesn’t matter. For whatever reasons, we’re all here and we’re all stuck here. At least the drawbridge is open now so that’s one less problem to worry about.”

Anxious to draw Henk away from his uneasy concerns, Nyk cast a final look of reserved approval at the timbers supporting the counterweight and agreed. “Yes it is. I wasn’t relishing trying to find some other way out of here. This lot will do for the time being. I suppose we’d better move to our next problem — finding our other guest.”

“Can we help in any way?” Josyff asked.

Nyk was about to refuse when he changed his mind.

“We’d better go back and try the common room again — and the book room. We’ll decide what to do next if he isn’t there.”

The snow was already obliterating their earlier footprints as they trekked in single file across the courtyard, their silence amplified by its muffling stillness.

Before they reached the door, it was thrown open. Framed in it was Adroyan