by Wilf Jones
‘But are you sure you’re up to it? It’s quite a climb you know. We wouldn’t want you to fall off now would we?’ Abruptly her manner changed and the mocking tone was dropped. ‘My name is Sigrid, House Althoné. I work for the King. Who are you and why should we follow your lead?’
So far no one had bothered to ask, his friendship with Seama taken as a mark of allegiance, if not of authority. ‘I’m a friend of… of the King,’ he said, aware that without Seama around his credibility was possibly in doubt, ‘and I expect we have the same sort of jobs to do.’
‘Shouldn’t think so: not unless you were intending to seduce your way through Aegarde. I don’t always dress like this, Old Angren. But then, you wouldn’t need seduction, would you, being Aegardean yourself.’
It was an accusation he could not deny and she knew it. Angren had wondered how long it would take for someone to question his nationality, but he hadn’t yet thought of a way to explain his position. Bibron came to his rescue.
‘So what if he is? You think it puts him on their side? Look, this man’s a friend of the Lord Seama and if Seama wanted him with us, that’s good enough for me. I don’t think you should be questioning him. And as to following his lead, I’m willing to bet he’s twice as capable of getting us out of here than you are, so why don’t you just back off and let him get on with it?’
She laughed. ‘Only teasing, Captain Farber. Hard to resist, it’s so easy. Actually I never really doubted him. Any friend of Seama’s is a friend of mine, no matter how big-headed he might be. But I thought it better to ask the question, and get an honest answer, than not. We all have to trust each other, Captain, and if Old Angren’s going to lead us out then I don’t want anyone doubting him.’
‘Right,’ said Bibron, ‘I see. Well then, does anyone have a problem with this feller being Aegardean? Cause if they do, they can come and talk to me.’
Nobody said a word. Which was just as well as Angren was beginning to feel needled.
‘Look, can we get on?’
‘Well—’
‘Well what?’ he snarled as he turned to confront his new tormentor. It was Isolde. She jumped a little at his response.
‘I er… it’s just that, well, I wondered whether climbing the wall—’
‘Gods save us! Look, goldilocks, I can climb it, alright? Let’s just cut the cackle. Bloody women.’
He didn’t exactly mean to say the last bit out loud. Isolde dropped the hesitancy.
‘Now listen, you ungracious oaf, with your ears, and lets hope you have something in-between them. What I was going to say was that I don’t think you need to climb anything. Actually, I think there is probably another way out – we just need to explore a little.’
Angren could have apologised but instead, hands on hips, he peered all around in the manner of a mummer at pantomime, leaning to one side and then another, looking past her and all around, and then he shrugged massively.
‘Four walls, a gate and lots of pig shit. What’s to explore?’
Isolde shook her head in quiet amazement. Sigrid stepped up to him and planted her hands on her hips.
‘Are you going to carry on like this? Because if you are we might just as well call in the Halfi and ask them to murder us right now. Because that’s what’s going to happen anyway if we can’t figure out how to work with each other. Now, just because you have an idea that seems good, and appeals to your childish sense of adventure, it really doesn’t mean it’s the right one to go with. Now, as it happens I think Isolde is right. We’ve only looked around so far but we haven’t looked closely enough. And we certainly haven’t considered properly what this building might have—’ She stopped. ‘What?’
Angren was staring at her. ‘Oh, er nothing’ he mumbled, ‘Er… What do you mean about the building? It’s just ruins isn’t it?’ Actually the ruins were the last thing on his mind. What he was thinking was that she looked damn fine when she was angry.
She smiled. ‘Ruins, Old Angren, are not built as ruins. This was a Oncer’s temple at some point. That right, Isolde?’
‘Not exactly, but something similar. The Church of the One Making is rather exact when it comes to their buildings. They supposedly believe in simplicity. So that arch above the gate should be a ‘simple’ arch – a semi circle and unadorned. As you can see, it is quite the opposite.’
They all looked. The arch seemed angular: no curves, only straight lines which disturbingly met at odd angles. There was no real symmetry beyond the parallel posts supporting it. Jarring, geometrical patterns were cut into the face of the stone.
‘Now, how in hell does that stay up?’ said the Captain speaking for nearly all of them. But Ruspa somehow knew the answer.
‘It is a hidden arch,’ he said, ‘and what you see is only a form of decoration. A solid regular structure has been dressed to confuse the eye and your common sensibilities on the order of things. Most unusual.’
‘Why the bloody hell are we rattling on about hidden bloody arches? Isn’t there anything better to talk about? I’d’ve thought—’
‘I imagine, Angren,’ said Ruspa, ‘the ladies believe we are in a close walk such as you would find in a Oncer monastery, even though, as the blonde one has explained, this is not exactly a Oncer building.’
‘Shall I tell you what? I haven’t a clue what you’re going on about, I have no idea what a Oncer is and I’m getting really fed up with all the chat. For gods’sake can’t we do something?’
Garaid laughed. ‘Don’t you know anything at all, Angren?’
‘Not you too.’
‘No. Actually I am on your side: it’s time we did something. Look, a Oncer is someone who believes God made the world once and then sat back and let us get on with worshipping him. Unlike the Twoers who reckon he watched what we got up to, thought we’d made a mess of it, and remade the world again to see if we could get it right second time round. I may possibly be doing a disservice to both but all you really need to know is that they all build temples and some of them look like this. Perhaps when we get out you should take yourself off to Lindis and ask for a proper explanation.’
‘Anyone else?’
Isolde looked at Sigrid to see if she had anything more to put in, but she just smiled sarcastically, and so Isolde explained:
‘If this is a close walk around a courtyard, or cloister as they might say, then it’s extremely unlikely there is only the one entrance. There should be three. One in each corner except the one that’s left as a ‘perfect angle’. So, if we check the corners, behind all those nettles, we might find a door.’
‘And no doubt it’ll be open and unguarded.’
‘I don’t know about you, but I would think a few generations have gone by since anyone did any exploring here. They may have forgotten all about it.’
Angren shrugged. ‘Fair enough. Let’s get on with it then.’
It could very well have been forgotten. There was a door, all rotten timbers, but it was set lower than the current level of the compound, possibly at the foot of stone steps now completely submerged by the dirt of centuries. All they could see was the top two feet of it. Prising away a sliver of wood Angren found compacted earth behind. The way must have been blocked for hundreds of years.
He emerged from behind the screen of nettles as casually as possible, readjusting his clothes as though he had been to relieve himself.
‘Doesn’t look too promising.’
Some of the others had been to look at the door already and were despondent to say the least. There had been nothing in the other two corners, or nothing they could find, but everyone was excited when Ruspa gave them the news that he’d struck wood after only a little work in clearing away loose rubble. Now the excitement was changing to despair. Angren looked at them with some pity. There were some good people here and he didn’t want to
see them suffer.
‘However,’ he continued, ‘we won’t really know until we put in some elbow grease. The ground falls away towards that back wall so at least we shouldn’t have a problem with the spoil. The nettles are dense enough – I don’t think they’ll see through. What we need is to make sure those lads up there don’t suss what we’re up to. We need a diversion.’
So a party was made up to start digging a latrine, some way away from the corner they were interested in, using their boots and a few broken slates they had found. Their captors were concerned at first that the prisoners were trying to dig their way out but when Bibron took down his trousers and mimed having a crap they understood and let the diggers get on with it.
And at the same time, one at a time, several others worked at clearing away the rotten wood and then scraping away at the compacted soil behind it. After an hour or so, after slow progress and no sign of anything other than clay and more clay, most of them had wanted to give up. The noise generated by digging the latrine had comfortably covered the sound of the other excavation but that job was now done and digging any deeper would seem ridiculous. So what to do? Angren wouldn’t let them stop, not while they had daylight. At any time their captors could come for them, at any moment the torturing and killing might begin. He organised the prisoners to chatter, squabble, wander about, piss or whatever they could think of that would make noise without arousing suspicion, while one at a time a few of them, prone and much stung among the nettles, continued to scrape at the earth with Angren’s dirk.
He finally gave in when he saw more guards arrive, up above the walls, all carrying lanterns. The light was fading fast. He was suggesting, in a defeated sort of way, that perhaps they should break for the night just as ‘Berta emerged from her most recent stint.
‘Good idea,’ she said, ‘It’ll be a lot more comfortable in the tunnel I’ve just found if there’s a bit of light to come back to.’
Dawn brought forth a sluggish day. The guards once again mounted their tower and observed dispassionately the feeding, the ablutions and the pacing of the caged men and women. They were not surprised when the prisoners scraped soil into the latrines to cover the smelly faeces, and they were easily distracted by a raucous dice game the captain got started – indeed they seemed fascinated by it. Nothing remarkable happened.
Hidden from sight the excavation continued. They had to be careful to disguise the disappearance of whoever was digging and they changed over quite often in case someone was missed. At first the task was hard: there was not much room to work in and the soil was full of stone debris. The tunnel ‘Berta had discovered amounted to a space twelve inches high, an arm’s length in, but after two hours of persistent digging the gap was much wider and deeper and progress became quicker. Ruspa made the break-through. He squirmed in to find that the mound of soil blocking the passage became a gradual slope down into darkness. He slithered down the slope and within a minute whispered back that he had found a bare stone pavement. It was difficult to keep the excitement hidden as they hauled him out of the tunnel. At a signal from Angren, Bibron managed to start an argument over the throw of a die which more or less explained the sudden hubbub.
‘So what now,’ Garaid asked Angren.
‘Well, after we have had a little breather to calm down a bit, we need to talk it through.’
Sigrid exchanged a grin with ‘Berta. ‘And I thought he’d just charge off down the tunnel and expect us to follow,’ she said, ‘He’s learning.’
Angren was not very keen on tight places. He had no idea why this might be, no memory of a frightening experience in his youth, no real belief in the idea of premonition – he just liked the open air. When it came down to someone having to explore the tunnel he was brave enough to put himself forward, but more than happy to let Ruspa and Sigrid take it on instead. Ruspa had already taken the first steps and seemed keen to go further; Sigrid, Angren decided, was simply trying to impress. He had no notion that she might have noticed his hesitancy.
But he wouldn’t let them go immediately. Ruspa was not the problem: he was fairly nondescript from a distance but Sigrid was one of only three women and the guards might easily notice her absence if the exploration took too long. This day was even hotter than the first. They would wait until midday in the hope the Halfi would once again retire in the face of the sun.
The hours dragged intolerably. The prisoners frightened themselves with insubstantial rumours of torture and sacrifice, or theories of darker designs. These Halfi were unnatural, and not just in looks. Midmorning brought with it an unwelcome and unsettling development. From a distance, but clear as clear, came the sound of hammering and sawing. The Halfi were preparing something.
Noon came, the meal was delivered, the guards left the tower and the game was on. Ruspa went first and Sigrid followed with some difficulty. It was a tight squeeze in places and she was amazed Ruspa had managed to get through. He didn’t look thinner than she was. If they were all to escape this way there was more earth to shift first. As she wriggled her way in, she reasoned it would be easier and less noisy to dig on the tunnel side of the mound, and that meant a lot more work for skinnies like her.
The darkness grew the further they went and soon touch was the only sense left to her, and that didn’t help too much when she came to the drop-off. Suddenly she tumbled down a short slope and landed fair and square on Ruspa’s back.
‘Thank you indeed,’ he gasped as he tried to get his breath back. The sound of his voice sibilant as the echoes slipped away into the unknown.
‘Sorry.’
‘Well let’s just be a bit more careful, shall we.’
Sigrid was annoyed. ‘You should have warned me – I can’t see in the dark even if you can.’
‘It is quite dark. I suggest we face away from the mound and reach out for the left hand wall and then move on really very slowly – I wouldn’t want us falling down any more slopes.’
Sigrid took pleasure in making a rude gesture in the direction of Ruspa’s voice but she understood the sense of the plan and did as he suggested. Rubbing away a smear of unseen growths she could feel that the wall beneath was very smooth as though made of tile rather than stone. An expensive option. They hadn’t scrimped, these monks of whatever denomination.
‘Are you ready, Sigrid.’
‘Yes. I’m with you. Let’s go.’
For a slow but sure hundred yards everything went well. There were occasional mounds of earth fallen through cracks in the roof but nothing that proved to be any major hindrance. The floor was as smooth as the walls, made up of oblong flags and grooved by the passage of many feet over many years. The incline was slightly downwards. But then Sigrid, close behind her partner, heard him hiss in surprise before she too touched the void with her left hand.
Sigrid crouched and ran her hands outwards.
‘It’s just another tunnel I think. I can feel the floor of it: the flags are laid at right angles to these in the main corridor. So which way now?’
‘Perhaps some light would help us decide.’
Sigrid snorted in disbelief. ‘You’re not telling me you have matches?’
‘Not exactly. It’s an oilcan lighter I picked up in Dreffield. Made by a man called Besma, I believe – something to do with the cannons he makes.’
‘Cannons?’
‘Not really time for a discussion. Point is, only a small amount of oil left, so I thought I’d save it till needed.’
Sigrid heard a scratching noise and light flared in Ruspa’s hand. In truth the flame was quite small but to their hungry eyes it seemed lantern bright. At last they could view their surroundings. Criss-crossing arcs of stone vaulted the roof of the main tunnel at least five feet above Ruspa’s head, the walls seemed to be made of red or brown ceramic tile, and the flooring was grey marble. It was an impressive structure: less of a tunn
el than a processional corridor.
The other passageway was lower and narrower and fell away steeply into darkness.
‘I don’t like the look of that.’
Ruspa nodded. ‘And I don’t like the smell of it – the air is… well, dead. Also I do not think we should be going downhill if we are trying to get out of here. We started at ground level and I don’t remember climbing a hill to the compound.’
‘No, we didn’t, but does that make it the wrong choice? By the angle, I think this tunnel would take us in the opposite direction to the main gate. And, I don’t know why exactly, but I feel as though this one is longer – much longer. Shouldn’t we try it?’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Ruspa.
‘Well thanks for considering it.’
Ruspa clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘You are wrong, Sigrid, in that as yet we have no idea of what lies beyond the walls of the compound. We stopped Angren from making the climb if you recall. Any direction may be a disaster for all we know. And besides, even if it did lead us away that’d be of little use if we died of the poisoned air half way in. Can you not smell it?’
Sigrid, chastened, took a few hesitant steps down the slope and breathed in deeply. ‘It smells damp but—’ She stopped. The darkness drew her and repelled her at the same time. She was scared. Hardly realising what she was doing Sigrid backed out of the tunnel so heedlessly she thumped into Ruspa’s chest and knocked the lighter out of his hand. The flame went out.