What worried me most was what would happen if some passing band of brigands chose to stop for the night. I had no illusions as to what would happen if they saw Aziza.
One I might kill, even two or four, but in the end they would kill me, and Aziza would be left in the hands of a rude soldiery, accustomed to rape or the casual women of the camp.
At sundown I killed a rabbit with an arrow, and we made a small meal of roasted rabbit and some grapes and apricots from the garden, conserving our meager food supply. After we had eaten we climbed up in the keep to watch the sunset.
Almost a half mile away there was a copse where a small cluster of trees grew, an unlikely spot for anyone to venture and less attractive than several other groves not far away. Shallow-seeming ravines led away from it in several directions. There, I surmised, would be a logical place for a tunnel exit.
Moreover, the inner entrance to such a tunnel must be in the keep itself, perhaps in the very room we inhabited. An hour’s diligent search revealed nothing. It was Aziza who helped me.
“Near Palermo,” she suggested, “there is a balanced stone in the wall of an alcove. They try to put the opening in some hidden place. Otherwise, there is risk of somebody appearing in the passage just as the secret door opens.”
Of course! I was an idiot not to have thought of that, and there was an alcove out of sight of the door, a small place with an arrow loop, but the bottom of the loop was almost breast high. Beneath it was a solid slab of stone four feet high and three wide.
Crouching beside it, I shoved against the top. Nothing happened so I shoved against the bottom. Still nothing. It was not until I pushed against the left side a second time, bracing my back and pushing hard, that the slab moved. It too was stiff from years of disuse, but it did move.
It was balanced on an axis of polished stone that fitted into the rock above and below. It opened to allow barely twenty inches by four feet of opening, giving access to a steep, winding stair down the inside of a well-like space. The steps were but a foot wide and around them, utter blackness!
A misstep and a man would fall…how far?
Taking a small stone, I dropped it, listening. A long time after, it struck bottom.
Taking a candle from our small store, I lighted it. “If anyone comes, close the opening, but leave a small crack.”
“I shall come with you.” Aziza was pale and frightened. “I do not wish to be left alone.”
“You must stay here. The stair may have fallen or the passage caved in. Let me be sure it is safe.”
“Please let me come! If you die, I want to die with you!”
“I shall not die, but do keep watch for me. If anyone comes…hide.”
So saying, I stepped through the opening and, clinging to the wall, prepared to descend.
Oh, yes! I was frightened. The ancient well had the odor of a place long closed, nor could I be sure there was an exit below, or that it had not been sealed by the action of water on stone over the years. Nor was there any guessing how old it might be, for this was the most ancient part of the fortress.
It was pitch dark, and the air was frightful. It would have been better to leave the passage open for a time and let the bad air, or some of it, escape. But we needed a way out, and that need might come at any moment.
Testing every step, I edged down and around the narrow well.
It was deathly still. Into this dark place there came no sound, nor did my candle shed more than a small circle of light.
Several times I paused to rest. I was sorry I had not begun counting the steps, for then I would know when I was beneath the surface of the earth. The well was within the wall of the keep, but as I descended it grew perceptibly wider.
At one place a step was half broken away; at another, rock crumbled beneath my foot, and the fragments cascaded into the depths below. The steps were slabs of rock set into the wall of the well like the rungs of a winding, one-sided ladder.
My candle flame stood erect, for there was no air movement. Had the flame shrunk? Was it true that where a flame would not burn a man could not live? Somewhere I had heard this.
Suddenly, I was upon a stone platform six feet square, and I paused to rest. Sweat drenched me, and the air was close and hot. My breath came hoarsely, but I could not be sure whether it was my exertions or the foulness of the air.
Starting downward again, I suddenly found a broken step! Cautiously, I reached with a toe, feeling for it. Putting my toe upon the broken step, I slowly let it take my weight. My foot settled…suddenly the step gave way. The stone crumbled, and my foot plunged down. Wildly, I grabbed at the wall. My fingers found a crack and clung. Precariously, afraid to even breathe, I clung against the face of the inner wall, trembling in every muscle. Then the true enormity of my disaster struck me.
My candle was gone!
When I grabbed at the wall, the candle had fallen, so I was marooned, clinging to a crack in the wall in abysmal darkness, unable to see or even move.
There was no light, nor could the eyes become accustomed to a darkness where there was a complete absence of light. I clung to the wall, trembling with fear, gasping hoarsely.
Slowly, my good sense returned. How long I clung there I have no idea, yet it seemed an eon of time before I dared move.
One toe rested in the tiniest crack; my fingers clung to another. Below me lay that black and awful pit, and my body became slippery with the sweat of fear. If I tried to lift one foot to another resting place, the other might slip off.
Another rock fell away under me, and fell and fell, and fell. Inside me was a vast emptiness in which fear had turned my guts to water. Always I had hated being locked up, hated barred and closed places. My muscles ached, my fingers were growing numb, only the weariness in my muscles gave me a sense of passing time. Perhaps it was no more than minutes, even seconds, yet it seemed forever.
Win or lose I must make an effort, for if I remained hanging there, I must surely fall, and there was no one to come to my rescue.
Somewhere below me was another step. Yet, suppose it, too, was gone? Suppose this was the purpose of the steps? To let some doomed prisoner believe in escape, to let him descend into darkness, only to plunge off into space and die miserably on the bottom?
Careful not to put too much strain on my fingerhold, I put out a tentative, exploring toe.
Chapter 14
*
BENEATH ME THERE was nothing but space. Moving my toe carefully along the wall, I felt for a foothold. My fingers were aching, and the one leg that had a perch was trembling uncontrollably. How much longer I could cling like a fly to that sheer wall I had no idea.
Feeling along the wall with my free toe, I encountered an obstruction. It was further over and somewhat lower down. Carefully, I stretched still further, finally getting my foot upon solid rock.
An instant I held myself there, gathering strength and will, then with my right hand I reached out further, trying for a handhold. When I found it, it was the tiniest edge of a rock that had not been fitted properly. It offered only the barest fingertip hold.
Moving with extreme care, I shifted my other hand and foot and stood upon solid rock once more. But I remained in absolute darkness with nothing to strike a light.
Without a light I could not go back up the steps, and every move was made at the risk of my life, yet I had no choice but to continue. If I was gone too long, Aziza might try to find me, and the thought of her on those steps was frightening. So I must continue to the bottom, feeling my way down, hoping there would be no missing steps.
The air was close, and I found myself fighting to get enough into my lungs. There was no time to waste, for I had heard of men dying in old tunnels or long-closed spaces.
How long it took I had no idea. In the darkness there was no way of estimating time. It seemed I had been clinging to that wall forever, inching my way down, streaming with perspiration. In this dark well I had no way of knowing whether it was taking minutes, hours, or days.
/>
Suddenly, my foot was upon earth, but when I moved I felt something break under my feet. As I squatted down, my fingers touched the smooth surface of a skull and some broken bones.
Feeling about, my hand found the skull again, touched the eyeholes. I jerked my hand away…some poor wretch like myself who attempted a way out and was left here to die.
I felt oppressed, as if something were pushing against my chest. My hands groped for the wall. There had to be a way out.
Twice more my feet crunched on what had to be broken bones, but my searching fingers on the wall found no crack, only solid, unbroken stone.
Crouching, I began a second turning of the tower base, this time feeling lower down for any crack, any break in the wall that might mean an opening. I found nothing.
The very thought of climbing up, of enduring that nightmare again was…My eyelids drooped, my muscles seemed to give way, and I sat down. My brain warned me that the foul air was killing me. Soon it would rob me of consciousness, and I would fall to the floor to die as had the others.
And Aziza? She would be alone, waiting. Waiting up there in the golden sunlight for a man who could not return.
Earth, I thought, an earthen floor.
I could dig, but dig into what? In which direction? Back into the hill or away from it? And how deep into the earth did the foundations go?
Deliberately, like a drunken man, I forced my mind to view the problem. My will to live was fighting the foulness of the air. I forced myself to another circling of the wall. If worse came to worst, I could at least attempt the climb. The air would be fresher the closer I got to that open crack.
I could not, I would not, give up.
Suddenly, my fingers encountered a step. I found the lowest one and sat down. Think…I must think. My mind fumbled with the idea.
If there was a way out, my brain must find it. My skull throbbed heavily, and I tried to force my thoughts to deal with the problem. Leaning my elbows on my knees, I held my aching head in my hands. My leg felt cold.
Cold…cold because I was soaking wet. Yet I was hot. I was perspiring, so why should my leg be cold?
Air! It had to be air! Cold, fresh, wonderful air!
I dropped to my knees, my fingers tearing at the earth against the wall, seeking the life-giving breath of air, seeking the opening. My fingers found nothing, only cold stone. No opening…nothing!
Yet there was air, a trickle of it. Something I had done, some unwitting movement, some pressure of my body when searching around the well, perhaps my weight on the lower step. Flat on my face, I pressed my mouth against the opening and inhaled deeply.
Again and again. Slowly the cool air revived me. Life returned, energy returned, my brain cleared.
My skull still throbbed, but now I could think, the dullness was gone. Eagerly, I dug my fingers into the crack and tugged. Nothing happened. My weight on the lower step seemed to make no difference. I pressed against the wall, felt for each particular stone. Nothing happened.
Then—I scarcely believed it. I heard a sound, a whisper of movement hardly to be detected.
It was the first sound other than my own breathing that I had heard in what must have been hours. Yet it sounded as if something or someone were scratching at a stone!
Pressing my mouth to the opening, I said, “Is someone there?”
A low cry answered. “Mathurin! You are alive!”
“I’ve no light. I lost my candle on the stair. Can you find the door?”
For a few moments there was silence, then I detected a faint stirring outside. She was doing something, what it was I could not guess. Suddenly, she spoke again. “It’s a lever, just like the other one! But it’s too high for me to reach!”
“Tap on the wall with a rock! Show me where it is!”
The tapping was frenzied. It was high, all right, too high even for me. Evidently, some step or platform had fallen or sunk into the earth. I could barely touch it standing on tiptoe.
Unable to see in the darkness, I had to judge its position; then I leaped upward in the darkness, grasping for something I could not see…and grasped it with both hands!
My weight came down on it, and slowly, a section of the wall moved. Cool air rushed in…
It was not open wide enough for me to escape, yet my hand reached through and grasped Aziza’s, and for a time we simply clung to each other. Then sanity returned. “It’s the bottom of the door,” I suggested, “if you could dig the earth away?”
Dropping to her knees, she dug desperately, gasping for breath. Once again I heaved at the door, and this time it moved enough for me to emerge.
She caught at me, and for a moment we clung together as if drowning. After a long time I drew away and pushed the door shut with my shoulder.
The opening was a mere crack in the rock cleverly utilized and masked by brush and roots. The lever itself had folded back into the crack, and even now I had to look carefully to detect it. With gentle fingers I rearranged the vines, moss, and leaves we had disturbed.
“However did you find this place?” We were in the copse, the very place I had studied as a possibility.
“I’d seen you looking at this place, and I have lived in several castles, not only the one in Palermo. Such places as this were used. What you could not see from where we were is that a part of the copse is right below the wall; you were looking at a place further away. The trees disappear for part of its length, then there’s another patch of them.
“You were gone so long I was frightened. I started down the steps after you. I called and called, but there was no response, so I went back before I had gone far. I was afraid you would come looking and find me gone. Then on the second morning—”
“The what?”
“Oh, Mathurin! Didn’t you know? You have been down there two days and a night!”
Down there in the darkness, how could one know? How long had I sat on the step in the darkness? Had I slept? How long had I been on the steps, feeling my way down, sometimes with long pauses while my feet or hands explored for resting places?
My hunger now told me what she said was true, a thing forgotten in my horror at dying there in the darkness as had those others whose bones crunched beneath my feet.
The Castle of Othman remained as we had left it. The Barb greeted me with a whinny, extending his nose toward me. I rubbed his neck for a minute or so, talking gently to him. Then I went to the fountain, and stripping off my shirt, I bathed away the sweat and dust. Wrapped in my robes once more, I rested while Aziza brought me food, then I slept.
A long time later I awakened. It was not yet morning, although the sky seemed lighter. I lay still, staring upward and thinking about our situation. Our food was almost gone, and we could remain here no longer.
The only solution seemed a return to Córdoba or to travel on to some other town such as Seville or perhaps Toledo. By now the men of ibn-Haram would have searched the city and its environs. A return might be in order.
If careful, we might even return the way we had come, thus escaping the guards at the gates of the city. We might even continue to hide at the home of ibn-Tuwais. Getting to my feet, I went to the window and looked toward Córdoba. It was not yet light, but I could see for a good distance across country. Nothing moved.
Descending the stair, I went to the garden. What few grapes there had been we had eaten. The apricots, only few in number, were also gone.
We had no choice. We must ride away from the Castle of Othman.
Chapter 15
*
WHEN AZIZA AWAKENED I waited until she had left the fountain and returned inside. “We have food for no more than a day,” I told her. “We will have to go.”
“To Córdoba? We cannot.”
“We will be safer there. If we start for somewhere else, we may fall in with brigands or soldiers.”
“Yusuf is trying to make the roads safe.”
“No doubt…in time. They are not safe yet.”
She was silen
t for a moment, and I said, “It is safer for you. It is the last thing they will expect. I have some money.”
Before noon I led the horses to the copse and picketed them where they were concealed by the trees around a small meadow. We must escape. If necessary, we could use the tower, and with candles and much care we could manage now that I had taken that route. With care we could last out another day and each day was a small victory for us.
Where else could we go? Her friends could not be trusted, for some were certainly now allied to Yusuf or ibn-Haram. Others were afraid of him. After the storm that must have been raised, any young man traveling with a beautiful girl would draw attention. In Córdoba I could lose myself among the students and find something to do. It was not in me to long remain idle. Even now I was chafing to be learning.
It was almost dusk when we saw the riders. There were at least a dozen, and they rode in a compact group heading for the Castle of Othman.
“Quick! We will hide in the passage!”
Swiftly, we gathered all we had brought and removed what signs there were of our presence. Much had already been done, as we planned to leave. As we closed the door behind us, we could hear the sound of hooves in the courtyard.
Crouching on the small landing in the darkness, we waited. We had left nothing, of that we were sure, yet there would be trampled grass and evidence that someone had been there. We hoped they would believe it had been brigands.
A subdued rustling sounded beyond the stone door, large sounds no doubt, but faintly heard from here. Moving back, I brushed against something I had not seen before. Another set of steps led upward. The stairwell was very small, but moving quietly we climbed upward to reach a small room not more than four feet wide but twelve long. There was a stone bench, a rusty halberd.
Then I saw a narrow crack where the stones should have fitted but which had been purposely left to allow a viewer to watch what transpired in the great hall, and due to the collapse of walls, it also offered a view of a part of the outer court. Snuffing our candle, we peered through.
Novel 1984 - The Walking Drum (v5.0) Page 11