The Last Siege

by Jonathan Stroud

  ‘No.’ Nevertheless, Marcus now held his hand over the torch, blocking off the beam except for a semicircular trace that spilled across the floor to guide his feet.

  At the end of the passage was a large room complete with roof, which Emily could only vaguely sense because of the restriction on the light. There was a wide spiral staircase ahead and several windows in the wall.

  ‘See this?’ Marcus directed the light back at a thick wooden door. ‘That’s the way out. Sloping staircase down to the entrance. But we’re going up.’

  He paused. ‘Let’s get on the stairs, then I’ll turn the torch off,’ he said. ‘Too much chance of us being spotted with all these windows.’

  Once they were on the spiral steps, their arms outstretched between the left-hand wall and the central pillar, Marcus clicked the switch and blackness swallowed them. After a moment to acclimatize, they began to climb.

  In the utter dark it seemed to take for ever. Emily’s straining senses were reduced to hearing the scuffling of their feet and feeling the smooth, cold stone with her gloved fingertips. The winter air burnt her face. Above her, she heard Marcus cough. With nothing to see, her imagination began to invent things of its own. She heard something shuffling along behind her, she felt a breath tickling her neck—

  All of a sudden the footsteps ahead ceased and a moment later she collided with Simon’s stationary back.

  ‘What’s up?’ she whispered.

  ‘The wall on the left’s disappeared. Took us by surprise a bit. But it’s all right, we’re on the next floor. We have to carry on up, I think.’

  The scuffles resumed and they continued to inch themselves upwards step by step. Emily’s eyes ached with staring into the darkness. Once, a warm yellow point of light appeared on the left. She knew it was a far-off house and that she must be seeing it through a window, but it was impossible to get any fix on it – it glimmered and glazed and danced in her eye like a will o’ the wisp until her head swam. Then she had passed by and it was gone.

  ‘I’ve come to the door,’ Marcus’s voice whispered in the void. ‘Hold on a sec.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Found some sort of latch. Can’t work it out . . .’ A muffled curse floated down. ‘Come on, blast you . . .’ A heavy crack sounded, of metal and wood moving suddenly. Emily felt a freezing draught of air and heard Simon moving forward. She advanced again and came out on the roof of the tower.

  A black dome, set with clear, hard stars, arched over their heads. Its immensity made Emily gasp – that, and the scouring of her skin by the midnight, midwinter air. The cold here was cleaner and sharper than the chill of the castle. It stung and cleansed her as she gazed upwards, gulping infinity in. For a moment, her mind expanded with a sense of the scale of space and her own terrible smallness and insignificance. For a fraction of a second she glimpsed a universe in which she might well never have existed, though the same stars shone coldly on . . . It was a glimpse only; her mind could not hold it and she lost the insight almost as soon as it began. Breathing deeply, she lowered her head. The shadowy outlines of Marcus and Simon were imposed upon that of the battlements. Beyond them were clustered the distant lights of the village, looking soft, loose and yellowish next to the icy precision of the stars.

  She went to join them, her feet crunching on frost.

  The landscape was sealed up in darkness, inaccessible except for the vaguely undulating top of the woodland marked against the lowest stars. Far away to the left a distant glow against the sky signalled the presence of some larger town.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Emily said.

  ‘Bet Hugh stood here,’ Simon said. ‘Waiting for the king’s army to arrive.’

  ‘Wondering if help would come before the enemy,’ Marcus added. ‘Studying the trees, looking for signs of their approach – startled birds, smoke in the forest, camp fires at night.’

  ‘We’re so high up,’ Simon went on. ‘He’d have felt safe, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘He’d feel the stones under his feet, feel their strength like we can,’ Marcus said. ‘Nothing could get in without his say so. The castle would survive for ever.’

  ‘And it has survived,’ Emily said, ‘though Hugh didn’t. And it’s still strong. Close your eyes and you can imagine the same for us – safe inside, shutting out the enemy.’

  ‘We don’t have to close our eyes,’ Marcus said. He was silent for a time.

  Emily tried to work out which of the lights came from her parents’ house, but found it impossible to guess where their road was. The night-time landscape had few distinguishing marks. It was a world away from the low, drab, everyday flatness of the fens. Marcus was evidently thinking on similar lines.

  ‘It’s like a wilderness out there,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if wolves or bears came out of the forest now.’

  ‘Or robbers,’ Emily said. ‘Outlaws.’

  ‘King John was the one against Robin Hood, wasn’t he?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Yeah. Most outlaws would cut your throat, probably, not let you go.’

  Simon laughed softly to himself. ‘I was just thinking,’ he said. ‘I’d love to see Carl’s face if he saw us up here. And Neil’s. They’d be messing about down in the moat and suddenly they’d hear a whistle. They’d look this way and that, not know where it came from, hear it again, then – out of nowhere – a snowball from on high. Knocks them down.’

  ‘Or an arrow,’ Marcus said.

  ‘They wouldn’t know which way to run, would they? I’d love that.’ He laughed again. ‘Hey, maybe they’ll be along tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be the best? Oh, I’d love it if we could ambush them. I’d love it.’

  Emily interrupted. ‘Yeah, but we don’t want anyone to know we’re here, do we?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t got any missiles stockpiled,’ Marcus said. ‘Or supplies of food. Anyway –’ he peered at his watch, couldn’t make out the time, gave up – ‘I’ve got to go first thing.’

  Simon pressed a button on his own watch and illuminated the face. ‘Ten past twelve,’ he said.

  ‘The witching hour.’ Marcus pushed himself away from the battlements. ‘Come on, let’s go back. Think of that fire waiting for us.’

  Discord

  {8}

  Back in their chamber the fire was dying, but its lingering warmth felt baking and its red glow seemed like a bright light. They dived into their sleeping bags in good spirits. Simon mentioned the heater again.

  ‘I can’t be bothered to fiddle with it now,’ he said, ‘Shout if you get cold.’

  ‘I’m glad to be back here,’ Emily said. ‘The tower was amazing, but getting there and back was a bit creepy. Too many gaping doorways.’

  ‘It would have been worse if you’d known about the ghost,’ Marcus said unexpectedly.

  ‘Don’t, Marcus!’ There was a note of alarm in Emily’s voice. ‘I’ll never get to sleep if you make up something horrible.’

  ‘I’m not making it up! There’s a ghost in this castle. Allegedly.’

  ‘Not interested!’

  ‘I’m up for it,’ Simon said. ‘As long as it’s not boring.’

  ‘It’s not. It’s terribly bloody. But Em doesn’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Oh, Em . . .’

  ‘All right – but don’t blame me if I keep you awake the rest of the night.’

  ‘Cool. Fire away, Marcus.’

  ‘Well. The story goes – are you sure you want to hear this, Em?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘The story goes that some lord or other – not Hugh, I think it was after his time, but anyway, the lord of this castle – was very lavish. He spent all his money on wine and women and he was soon deeply in debt. Well, there was one person he knew who could lend him the cash he needed and that was the abbot of the local monastery. The abbot was well known for being very rich and very wicked: he made quite a business of lending money to people and then charging them exorbitant rates of interest. Anyone who didn’t repay him was in troub
le – they were imprisoned or beaten up by the abbot’s men – and the abbot liked to boast that one way or another he always collected his due.’

  ‘What’s an abbot doing lending money?’ Emily interrupted. ‘I thought they were meant to be holy.’

  ‘Not this one, he wasn’t. He was rich and evil. Anyway, the lord sees no other way for it but to borrow money from the abbot. After all, he thinks, I’ll soon find some means of repaying him. Well, the abbot pays the lord’s debts and everyone’s happy. But all too soon the time came for the lord to pay him back, and the lord was racking his brains to know what to do, because of course he still hadn’t any money.

  ‘When the lord failed to cough up, the abbot sent a few messages to remind him, but to no avail. Finally he threatened to take the lord to court if he didn’t get his dues by the following week. The lord replied hastily to say that all was settled, he’d got the money at last and would the abbot come – in secret – to the castle to receive it.’

  ‘Why in secret?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Because he didn’t want anyone to know he was broke, I suppose. Do you want me to tell the story or not?’

  ‘I’m waiting for the bloody bit,’ Simon piped up.

  ‘It’s coming. So, one dark night, the abbot arrives alone at the castle gate. He’s wearing a monk’s cowl over his face so no one recognizes him. Well, the lord welcomes him in person and ushers him up to his private apartments. In they go together and the lord shuts the door.’

  Marcus stopped. Emily and Simon waited.

  ‘Yes?’ they both said, almost in unison.

  Marcus spoke deep and slowly. ‘The abbot was never seen again. Afterwards the lord swore that he’d paid him his money and shown him out later that night, and no one could prove any different. But suffice it to say that no trace of the abbot was ever found. Some people thought he’d been killed by robbers in the forest, but most had other ideas. But the lord didn’t care. He’d paid off his debts.

  ‘Years passed. The lord took to spending all his time at other castles. He didn’t come back here very often, and when he did it was noticeable that he never stayed the night. But late one winter evening he’s held up on the road by storms and snow. This castle is nearby; reluctantly he agrees to come here to get food and rest. After eating, he retires upstairs to his chamber – ’

  ‘Not this one,’ said Emily. ‘Don’t say it’s this one.’

  ‘Doubt it – it’s a big castle. Well, it’s a stormy night. The wind’s howling outside like the voices of the damned. But all is quiet in the castle, until some of the servants are woken by the sound of a scream. They run out into the hall and look up – there on the balcony above stand two figures. One is the lord – he is retreating backwards, babbling, talking, pleading, though the servants cannot hear what is being said. The other figure is a little way behind him and is silent; his face always seems to be in the shadows. But the servants can make out that he is wearing some sort of cowl. Well, by now the lord had stopped talking and he’s retreating in silence and the other figure is still coming slowly after him. At last the lord backs himself into a corner; he’s right on the edge of the balustrade above the hall. He looks left and right, but there’s no escape . . . Then the cowled figure makes a sudden rush. The lord screams, lurches to get away, loses his balance – and falls! He lands on the flagstones far below, splattering them with his blood. The servants race over, but he’s dead – his neck broken. And when they think to look up again, the figure on the balcony is gone, and no one who afterwards came running into the hall can remember seeing any sign of it.’

  Emily shivered in her sleeping bag. ‘Is it me, or is it suddenly really cold in here?’

  ‘It’s you,’ Simon said. ‘So – did they ever see the abbot’s ghost again?’

  ‘Not that I know of. No need. He’d got what he wanted.’

  ‘What about his body? Was it walled up somewhere in the castle?’

  ‘It was never found. Maybe it’s here still . . .’

  ‘Marcus!’

  The fire had become a few glowing embers that let out no light. Simon’s voice sounded from near them. ‘You tell good stories, mate,’ he said.

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Didn’t you say you’d seen a ghost once?’

  A slight pause. ‘Did I? Don’t think so.’

  ‘You did, the other day. Didn’t he, Em?’

  ‘Yeah. In the gatehouse.’

  ‘I don’t remember . . .’

  ‘Oh, you were probably making it up,’ Emily said. She shuffled herself down into her sleeping bag. ‘Well, I’m going to sleep. If I can after that story.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Simon said. ‘’Night.’

  A small voice, quite unlike Marcus’s normal excitable gabble, came from the darkness. ‘I wasn’t making it up,’ it said. ‘I have seen a ghost. I’ll tell you if you like, but you have to promise not to tell anybody.’

  There was a silence. Something about his tone made them pause.

  Emily said, ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Simon said. ‘’Course not. But we wouldn’t tell, would we, Em?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘The thing is, I haven’t ever told this to anyone, I’ve kept it to myself all this time . . . I couldn’t bear it if it got out, I’d kill myself. You understand? Oh, I don’t know . . . you’ll probably just say I’m making it up. That’s what you usually do.’

  ‘Not if you swear it’s true,’ Simon said.

  ‘You can trust us,’ Emily said. ‘But if you don’t . . .’

  ‘No. OK. I’ll tell you. There’s no story to it, really. Not a proper one. OK . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘Well, it was last year, when my mum was still around. I’d had a row with her, not anything important, just about keeping my room clean. Stupid, really. She got angry, I got angry; I stormed out. Got on my bike and rode off into the country; went along furiously, lashing the pedals, swiping with a stick at the hedges as I passed them. It took ages, but eventually I’d whipped the anger out of me and I turned for home. I was cycling along when I turned a corner of this lane and saw a black figure wearing ragged clothes lurking behind the hedge. I started, swerved and hit a rock in the road. Went right over the handlebars, landed on the opposite verge, head on the grass, feet in the hedge. I was lucky – lots of cuts and bruises, nothing broken, but my bike was a write-off. The front wheel was all bent. I got up, picked up the bike and looked over at the hedge where I’d seen the figure . . .’

  ‘Yes – What was it?’

  ‘It was just a scarecrow. But as I say, my bike was knackered. I was miles from home on a lonely road. So I set off, wheeling the bike, limping along. Took me an hour and a half before I got to my street, and by that time I was in a much worse mood than when I’d set out. I was worn out, sore all over, I’d ruined my bike . . . When I got to the drive I saw Mum standing in the front garden. She called my name but I was far too mad to listen. I just glowered at her and wheeled the bike away down the side of the house. As I went past she said, “It’ll be all right, love,” but I ignored her. Chucked the bike down in the back garden and stomped upstairs.

  ‘Well, I had a wash, put Savlon on my cuts, changed clothes. Felt a bit better, so I went downstairs to make it up to Mum, but I couldn’t find her in the garden or the house. She’d obviously gone out. So I sat down with some crisps to watch TV. A little while later Dad came in. He worked day shifts then, but he wasn’t due back – he was early. I looked and he was crying. He’d come from the hospital. Mum had collapsed in the garden – a haemorrhage – been spotted by the neighbours . . . well, she’d died.’

  ‘Oh, Marcus . . .’

  ‘Funny thing was, though, he’d been at the hospital half the afternoon. I worked out the times later. The ambulance had been called only twenty minutes after I’d first set off on my ride and my dad had got to the hospital fifteen minutes after that. Been there ever since. He’d rung home at once, he said, but I wasn’t in. Didn’
t know where I was. He gave me hell for that later, as if I didn’t hate myself for it enough.’ Marcus’s voice dropped away. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Mum had lingered for a bit, then she’d gone. He’d been at her bedside another hour before coming home – never once thought to ring me then, of course. Anyway, you know what I’m saying, don’t you?’

  There was silence. Emily couldn’t think what to say.

  ‘About the garden and the time – ’

  ‘Yeah, sure, Marcus . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Simon said. ‘Of course.’ He cleared his throat noisily.

  ‘“It’ll be all right, Marcus,” she said to me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence again. Emily lay on her back, her hat pulled down low and her sleeping bag zipped up to her chin. Through three pairs of socks, her feet still felt chilly, but it was too cold and dark to think about unzipping herself to add an extra pair. She stared at nothing for a time, the blackness swirling round her like a living thing.

  ‘Marcus,’ she said at last.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was thinking – about what your mum said.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just . . . Has it been all right?’

  ‘No, of course it bloody hasn’t. Go to sleep.’

  {9}

  The pale, strong light of day filled the room to its remotest corners. Emily opened one heavy eye. There was a pain in her head. Her nose was cold and dripping. She tried to lift an arm to wipe it, only to find that she had shoved both gloved hands inside her trousers in a search for extra warmth. She wrestled one arm free and wiped her nose with her sleeve, removing one source of irritation. There were plenty more. Her back had responded to its night on the floorboards by developing a dull ache. Her hat had slipped off in the night and left her head exposed to the wintry draught that was blowing between the window and the door. Her neck, when she moved it, was stiff, and her lips were dry and cracked and stung when she moistened them.

  Outside, the wind was hammering on the windowpane.

  Close by, someone was snoring.