The Castle of the Winds

by Michael Scott Rohan

  He was drifting upward. Was this what being born was like?

  Laughing and coughing, he broke surface, and the wind-swell gently lifted him and banged his head against the rock. The stars wheeled above him as he clung, scrabbling for a hold on the sloping layers of rock. He was free! Dazed, but free.

  The next realisation, though, was instantly sobering. He was in the middle of a very deep lake, with black gulfs beneath him. And Kunrad could not swim.

  Northland rivers were seldom icier than those around Kunrad’s town, where they ran mountain meltwater and sometimes that of the Ice itself. Most children never learned to swim properly. Gille had, apparently because he had found it a good way to sneak up on girls; and Olvar, brought up on the warmer coast, swam before he could walk. Kunrad, heavily built and with little buoyancy, had never learned to do more than dabble about in the shallows.

  He looked down anxiously. The water was warmer here, but weakened and weary as he was, he would have been in trouble if he were not a Northerner. The manacles were bands of ice around his wrists. The rocks he struggled to hold on to sloped away steeply into unknown depths. He had just enough buoyancy to be bounced by every ripple. And there was a current trying to pull him loose. Above him, against the shifting moonlight, the rocks went nowhere, a mere outcrop against the castle wall. Some way beyond them he could just make out the bridge, as he had expected. He had hoped to cross beneath it, hand over hand if need be; but it was folded back. No matter; he could hide beneath, and wait. Only now, with the current, and without better handholds, he did not think he could reach it. Behind him, at the other side of the slot, the rock might be a little easier. He had no choice. He reached out, caught the bar stumps once again and let the current swing him along.

  He hit the rock harder than he expected, scrabbled for holds and got them, for a moment, on rock high and dry overhead. The current pulled him loose before he could heave himself out. He was swung around the point, over scraping rock edges, managed to catch himself on one and swing into the shelter of the other side. The eddy there was almost as powerful, but it sent him bobbing and gasping along the wall, where deep growths of weed and slime broke his handholds, but shielded him against the bruising blows. Slowly, painfully, fighting for every hold, keeping low so that water welled into his nose and mouth, he worked his way along. He found only more shallow outcrops, nothing large enough even to stand on. The mighty masonry above was cut so close that not even weeds could gain a footing in the seams, let alone Kunrad’s numbed and puffy fingers. It was all obviously deliberate. No siege engine could approach this place; even siege ladders and grapnels would have to be mounted from a boat, and be horribly vulnerable. The water whirled him under the shadow of a tower; soon he would be flung out the other side, into the current again.

  Then, looking up, he felt a faint thrill. In the corner between wall and tower there was a buttress leading down into the water; it looked newer than the rest, and ill situated, spoiling the smoothness of the line. He pulled himself closer, and saw why. The faint moonlight revealed brickwork rather than stone, crumbling in patches. Within them he saw exposed pipework – running down either side, concealed by the bricks.

  Again, he had no choice. He swung himself over to its base, clutched the coarse mortar with his fingertips, secured a better foothold and heaved himself free of the water’s grasp. His weight returned, and he hung there a moment, dripping, before he was able to reach for the brickwork above, and clamber slowly up. After the deadly whirl of the water it seemed almost comfortable. From where he hung he could make out the pipes above the buttress, running parallel straight up the tower’s flank and painted to match it, entering it below high windows that gleamed warmly in the night – real leaded windows, not arrowslots, on this side away from shore. By the look of the scars in the masonry they were later additions, luxuries for living quarters, no doubt. The pipes, too, probably, a device for raising water by handpump, and flushing it away down the other pipe, into the current presumably; he had heard of such things. In emergency the upper pipes could be knocked loose in a moment, providing no purchase for any invader; but it looked as if they would bear his weight. He might just be able to jump on to the wall; from there he might just be able to slink around to the gate or the bridge, somehow. It was not an alluring prospect, but it was better than the depths below.

  It was no easy climb, nonetheless. The constant wind dried him a little, but also chilled him. Gaps and broken bricks gave him handholds, but cracked or crumbled all too easily, sending little showers of debris down into the water. Once or twice he almost went with them. The pipes were little better; he felt their soldered seams giving under his fingers. Fortunately there was nothing in them just then, but he swore at sothran smithcraft. And the higher he got, the more hopeless it looked. Whoever built the buttress had not been that careless. The rounded flank of the tower made a leap to the wall-head unthinkable. He could only keep on going up. The windows might serve, if he could only hold on for so long.

  There was a window ledge of sorts, little more than a hand’s breadth deep, and sloping. The pipes vanished into the stonework a few feet below. With his feet wedged as firmly as he could between them, Kunrad leaned out, clamped his hands on the ledge and peered at the near window. It was an ornate wooden casement set with little leaded lozenges of glass. There was no light behind them, and the frame seemed to be locked. Cursing, Kunrad thought of knocking the glass in with a manacle. He reached up, stretched too far and his foot slipped. He swung into emptiness, supported by one hand and one foot, neither too secure, looking down into the face of the dim moon dancing over the lake far below.

  He could not even scream. He was more than ten times his own height in the air, his other hand was slipping, and not even when his father took him prospecting in the mountains had he ever looked into a deeper gulf. Angrily he grabbed at the ledge again and pulled himself upright, taking a second to risk wiping his palms dry. He could not make out the other window; but as he pulled himself around the ledge from one side of the pipes to the other he saw the casement was open a little, and that yellow light flickered on the panes. He felt faint with exhaustion and relief. Again, no choices – and probably only one try. He lashed out a hand, and felt the other slip, even as his fingers clamped over the firm edge of a sill. He knocked the casement wide, grabbed with his other hand and hauled himself up as his feet skidded off the pipes. A brief impression of light and colour met his eyes as he jackknifed over the sill, caught his balance and sat up, with one leg still out on the ledge.

  It was a bedroom, richly adorned with hangings of many colours that took the light and seemed to blaze. The bed in the centre was huge, and richly carven. And on the end of it, frozen in the act of climbing in, was the Lady Alais.

  She was wearing a light robe of something sky-blue and shiny over a nightgown trimmed with fine lace. What he could see of it suggested there was more lace than gown. To Kunrad’s great surprise she did not scream. She simply sat there looking at him. He looked back.

  ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘since you don’t have a rose in your teeth …’

  ‘If I had, I’d eat it.’

  She sighed in a businesslike way. ‘Definitely not a romantic call, then. You look too scruffy, anyhow. Can’t care for your clothes, that’s clear. Why so hungry, anyhow? Is the cooking not what a sensitive Northerner’s used to? Too much oil and garlic?’

  Kunrad shut his eyes briefly. ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve tried it. For the last three days I’ve had nothing but the hospitality of your nice fresh lake.’

  Her expression changed. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘A dungeon, and nothing to eat is what I’m talking about. Except helpings of cold tongue pie from your beloved Merthian.’

  ‘Oh.’ For the first time she looked away. ‘Well, young man, you will be letting your mouth off the reins, won’t you? You and your silly rant about stealing!’ She chuckled. ‘But you must have said something pretty potent! He doe
sn’t usually react so harshly, even to insults. Would I’d been a fly on the wall, to hear—’

  Kunrad slid down from the sill, dripping all over an elaborate window-seat figured with quails. He felt curiously safe and at peace. ‘He didn’t give me a chance to say anything. I’ve been in fetters since the door closed behind you.’

  Colour flared in her cheeks, then drained away. She sat there an instant, then sprang up, almost tripping on the long robe, and strode into the corner. On a low chest stood a covered tray, which she snatched up and held out to him. ‘It’s just chicken and bread and wine,’ she said, with an almost defiant note in her voice. ‘I never eat it, but they always leave it anyway. Probably so they can polish it off themselves later, on the sly. When I’m chatelaine here we’ll have that sort of thing given to the poor.’

  ‘Huh!’ said Kunrad. ‘Better it isn’t taken from them in the first place …’ But then the smell of the chicken struck him, and he took off the lid with over-elaborate care, afraid he would worry the meat like a dog. It was a large bird, and he cut himself a slice of breast with the knife that lay there. He noted how sharp it was, but somehow he could not bring himself to believe he would need it.

  ‘What do you mean, taken from …’ She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Oh, I see. I swear you’re obsessed with that kind of thing. Typical Northerner! They pay taxes up there, don’t they? Even if it is in salt herrings or something! Well, it’s the same down here. Nobody pays more than they can afford – at least,’ she added with a slight toss of the hair, ‘mostly – and they get fair value for it.’

  Kunrad’s temper had not been improved by the last three days, and still less by the last hour. Mentally his Northern heels dug in. ‘Oh aye! Tower rooms, private plumbing, servants chasing each other up and down all those stairs, chicken on a silver tray—’ The smith was arguing with his mouth full. He nearly choked at the noise from the sill.

  ‘Defence, justice, a place in the commonwealth, a secure life from cradle to grave—’ she broke off with a startled squeak. Kunrad barely shifted in time, clutching the chicken in an iron grasp, as the bulk crashed down where he had been sitting a moment before, and slid to the floor.

  ‘Heard someone arguing,’ said a breathless voice at the casement, ‘so we decided you had to be in here.’

  ‘Gille?’ squeaked Alais.

  ‘Uh – ’lo, m’lady!’ said the heap on the floor, trying to knuckle his forelock. ‘Saw your signal, Mastersmith … Hey, is that chicken?’

  ‘Eh?’ was all Kunrad could manage.

  ‘The flare, right?’ demanded Gille, swinging one well-shaped but waterlogged leg in. ‘We were keeping cavey from the hill-top opposite, but we’d no idea where you might be till then. Knew that must be you all right, so we swam over to try and get you out, but then we saw you were out already and shinning up the drain. Couldn’t call out of course, so we followed. That flare –’ he shook his head, spraying Kunrad with more lake water ‘– Master, that was fine thinking. How on earth did you manage it?’

  Kunrad made an impressively mystical gesture with the chicken. ‘Oh – well – a flash of inspiration,’ he said modestly. ‘Tell you all about it sometime – er, want some chicken?’

  ‘Shall I send for some more?’ inquired Alais sweetly. ‘And maybe some wine and sweetmeats, since we’re holding festival in my bedchamber? Or should I just call out the guard?’

  ‘Don’t suppose you could manage a steak while you’re about it?’ mumbled Olvar, from the belly of the chicken.

  ‘Well, yes, you could call the guard,’ admitted Kunrad, absent-mindedly cuffing Olvar about the ear, and retrieving the remains. ‘Except that you could have done that the moment I appeared, my lady, instead of wasting your true love’s chicken. I have a better suggestion. Why don’t you escort us out of here?’

  She stared. ‘And just why on earth should I?’

  She flinched at Kunrad’s stony look. ‘Because your light-o’-love tells me that if I don’t swink for him, I’ll be left to starve. Until, that is, he’s got his honourable paws on the whole of the South and Northlands. If that takes him a little too long, too bad for me. Oh yes, and I’m to throw in that armour, the damages and all else, against his note – falling due on your joint enthronement. Or thereafter.’

  For a beautiful young woman, she looked momentarily very much like a chicken herself. ‘My – what in Amicac’s name are you talking about?’

  ‘Not me. He’s been doing all the talking. And he’s your sweetheart. You may be a part of this if you will, but let us out of it. And, my lady, if I’m not wrong about you, you will.’

  ‘If…’ She had turned very pale, her breasts heaved in a manner Kunrad found mildly distracting, but she said nothing more. Nor, as he noted, did she call out the guard. He could almost see the fierce struggle going on beneath, like the currents swirling beneath the black lake water, and he admired and pitied her for that. Many women would have made less of an effort, and taken the easier path.

  ‘My lady,’ he said, more gently. ‘All I ask is that you take us to the gate, next time you go out—’ he hesitated. He had seen her look change. ‘You do go out, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ She threw it away lightly, but the hair on his neck bristled. ‘Any time, at my pleasure – only, well, there’s been no reason to go. Everything’s in here. And, well, you wouldn’t expect them to let me go without an escort, would you?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got your own, haven’t you? Old Ferlias would do anything for—’

  She shook her head, looking more troubled by the moment. ‘He’s gone. They were my father’s men, they went back to him yesterday. Kunrad, I’m alone here.’

  He thought that a strange way to put it, but he smiled. ‘Surely you’ve still got your old Nanny, at least?’

  She smiled affectionately. ‘Well, yes, she’s always here. But didn’t you know? She’s not my old nurse, she’s Merthian’s. Though she often looked after us both as children, so naturally he sent her to escort me here.’

  Kunrad nodded. ‘You said you’d known Merthian all your life. It can’t be easy to believe unpleasant things about him. I find it hard myself. Even he seems to; but it doesn’t stop him.’

  The girl looked up sharply, and he thought he had lost. But her face appeared flushed and hunted. ‘That … No. Not if he genuinely believed it was for the best. I can’t imagine anything stopping him, then. He’s so strong, so dedicated. Not like me; I’ve never found anything to believe in that strongly, that clearly. It was one of the things I liked … like about him.’

  Even Olvar looked up at that, and at Kunrad. Kunrad looked back. Olvar flinched and subsided, Gille hunched up and gnawed at a chicken wing. Kunrad relaxed his frown. ‘Well, the old woman’s loyalty will be to him, then. And it seems you’re as much a prisoner as I was.’

  ‘I am not!’ she spat at him, and bounced off the bed. ‘A fine bold courtesy you have in you! The cheek of the man, to say that a lady of the Kermorvannen is held prisoner! He just wishes to protect me, that’s all! Still thinks of me as half a child, maybe!’

  ‘The Maiden in the Tower!’ chipped in Gille, mockingly. It was the name of an old romance, and it was evidently known in the Southlands also, because she flushed scarlet this time.

  ‘Gille, how dare you!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not being forced into wedlock like that stupid simpering girlie. I’d like to see anyone try!’

  ‘But you have felt imprisoned,’ Kunrad persisted softly. ‘Haven’t you, my lady?’

  She shut her eyes and pursed her mouth angrily. ‘By the idea of wedlock, aye, just maybe! Do you expect me to be proud of that? It’s what I’ve dreamed of since I was a little girl, only—’

  ‘Only you wish it might not come so soon,’ said Kunrad. ‘As you said on the road.’

  Her eyes met his; and for a moment they were back in the sunlit glades, in the easy companionship of the road. She snorted in sudden outrage. ‘You should be free! He should never have penned you like a b
east, not after the corsairs did as much. And I’ll tell him so to his face!’ She gave a sudden half-giggle, half-tremor. ‘I can’t wait to see it! After I’ve got you all out and away!’

  She whirled around, threw off her outer robe and went bounding barefoot across the bed to the far side. Gille’s eyes bulged. She flung back the hangings and threw open the small door they revealed, to a chamber that appeared to be lined with chests and robes on tall racks. A strong scent of herbs and aromatics drifted out. Kunrad recognised the odours of cedar and bay oils traders had brought back from the South, and wondered if there were whole sun-warmed forests that smelt like that. ‘Now where has Nanny put – ah!’

  The lace nightgown came flying out of the door in a shameful ball, to crumple across the bed. A flash of pink crossed and recrossed the open door, and Kunrad gulped. A sudden ripple of heat washed the lake-chill out of him and set his cheeks aflame, and he hastily twisted the prentices’ heads away.

  ‘Owww!’ protested Gille softly. ‘How ‘bout you, master?’

  Kunrad scorned to answer, sitting there rigid as a steel rod. He had seen a fair number of women naked, even some he had found deeply attractive; but there were aspects of creamy skin, freckles and rich red hair that had never entered his imagination, not to mention unusually lithe and healthy limbs, and he would have a hard time getting rid of them now. He hastily unhanded the squirming prentices as she thrust a dishevelled head around the door, holding a garment to her front and leaving her shoulders bare. ‘I’ll take you down this minute! Soon, anyway! There’s a lot going on down there, and they’ve had the bridge open once already this afternoon; that usually means it’ll open again. They don’t know you’ve escaped yet, clearly, or the place would be in an uproar. May assume you’ve swum ashore, probably. But then they may not, either. So, best we move swiftly! Get you out on some pretext—’ She snapped her fingers. ‘In the gold! We’ll hide you!’