by Tom Holt
‘In what way?’ asked the King.
Hildy could not for the moment think of anything that the heroes should or should not do. She tried to imagine a roughly similar situation, but all she could think of was Allied airmen evading the Germans in occupied France, and she had never been keen on war films. ‘Don’t draw attention to yourselves,’ she said, ‘and keep your voices down.’ As she said this, something that had been nagging away at the back of her mind resolved itself into a query.
‘By the way,’ she asked the King, as she brought back a tray laden with twelve pints of Tennants lager and twelve packets of scampi fries, ‘how is it that I can understand everything you say? It’s almost as if you were speaking modern English. You should be talking in Old Norse or something, shouldn’t you?’
‘We are,’ said the King, wiping froth from the edges of his moustache. ‘I thought you were, too. And what’s English?’
At this point, the wizard made a sound like a slate-saw. The King raised an eyebrow, then translated for Hildy’s benefit.
‘He says it’s a language-spell he put on us all. He says it would save a great deal of trouble. Unfortunately,’ the King went on, ‘he couldn’t put one on himself. He tried, using a mirror, but it didn’t work. He’s now got a mirror that can speak all living and dead languages, but even we can’t understand most of what he says because he’s got this speech impediment and he mumbles.’
Not for the first time, Hildy wondered whether the King was having a joke at her expense, or whether her new friends were just extremely different from anyone she had ever met before. However, the King’s explanation seemed to be as good as any, and so she let it go. The thirteen helpings of grilled salmon and chips she had ordered (and paid for; the money wasn’t going to last much longer at this rate) arrived and were soon disposed of, despite the heroes’ lack of familiarity with the concept of the fork. However, even though they did not know what to use them for, they displayed considerable unwillingness to give them back, and Hildy had to insist. All in all, she was glad to get them all out of the hotel before they made a scene.
‘And who do you suppose they were?’ asked the waitress as she cleared away the plates.
‘English, probably,’ said the barman.
‘Ah,’ replied the waitress, ‘that would account for it.’
By now the keeper of the electrical shop had returned from lunch, and Hildy, the wizard and the King went in while the heroes waited outside. After a great deal of confusion, they got what they wanted, and Hildy led them back to where the van was parked. She considered stopping and buying some postcards to send to her family back in America, but decided not to; ‘Having a wonderful time saving the world from a twelve-hundred-year-old sorcerer’ would be both baffling and, just for the moment, untrue. She did, however, nip into a camping shop and buy herself a new anorak. Her paddock-jacket was getting decidedly grubby and it smelt rather too much of boiled rabbit for her liking.
‘Where to now?’ she asked, as they all climbed into the van.
‘Home,’ said the King.
Hildy frowned. ‘You mean Rolfsness?’ she asked. ‘The ship? I don’t think—’
‘No, no,’ said the King, ‘I said Home.’
‘Where’s that?’
The King, who had already grasped the principle of Ordnance Survey maps, pointed to a spot just to the north-east of Bettyhill. ‘There,’ he said.
‘Why?’ Hildy asked.
‘I live there,’ replied the King simply. ‘I haven’t been home for a long time.’
Hildy looked again at the map. It was a long way away, and she was tired of driving. But the King insisted. They filled up with petrol (Hildy now had enough Esso tokens for a new flashlight, but she couldn’t be bothered) and set off. Their road lay first through Thurso and then past the now functioning nuclear power station, and the turning for Rolfsness; but the area seemed deserted. Hildy wondered why.
Eventually they crossed the Swordly Burn and took the turning the King had indicated. There were quite a few houses along the narrow road, but Hildy found a small knot of trees where the van could be hidden, and they packed all their goods into the rucksacks she had bought and the heroes wrapped blankets over their shields and weapons. The company looked, Hildy thought, like a cross between an attempt on Everest and a party of racegoers with a picnic lunch.
They had walked about a mile from the road when they came to a small narrow-necked promontory overlooking the Bay of Swordly. Below them the cliffs fell away to the grey and unfriendly sea, and Hildy began to feel distinctly unwell since she suffered from attacks of vertigo. There was only a rudimentary track heading north, over a broad arch of rock, apparently leading nowhere. Hildy hoped that the King knew where he was going.
Suddenly the King scrambled off the path and seemed to disappear into the rock. The heroes and the wizard followed, leaving Hildy all alone on the top of the cliff. She was feeling thoroughly ill and not at all heroic. This was rather like going for walks with her father when she was a child.
‘Are you coming, then?’ she heard the King’s voice shouting, but could not tell where it came from.
‘Where are you?’ she shouted.
‘Down here.’ The sound seemed to be coming from directly below. She tried to look down, but her legs started to give way under her and she stopped. After what seemed a very long time, the King reappeared and beckoned to her.
‘There’s a passage just here leading down to the castle,’ he said. ‘Mind where you put your feet. I never did get around to having those steps cut.’
This time Hildy summoned all her courage and followed him. A door in the rock, like a small porthole, stood open before her, and she dived through it.
‘That’s the back door,’ said the King, pulling it shut. It closed with a soft click, and the tunnel was suddenly pitch-dark. The passage was not long, and it came out in a sort of rocky amphitheatre perched on the edge of the cliff. Just below them were the ruins of ancient masonry; but all of a much later period, medieval or perhaps sixteenth-century. The amphitheatre itself, with a deep natural cave behind, was little more than a slight modification of the original rock.
‘I see they’ve mucked up the front door,’ said the King with a sigh. ‘Still, that’s no great loss.’ He looked out over the sea, and then turned back to Hildy. ‘Unless you know what to look for,’ he said, ‘this place is invisible except from the sea, and now the front gate’s been taken out the only way down here is that door we came through, which is also impossible to find unless you know about it. Someone’s been building down there, but this part is exactly as it was. Let’s see if the hall’s been got at.’
He led the way into the cave. The heroes had evidently had the same idea, for another small door had been thrown open, and the sound of voices came out of it. Hildy followed the King into a wide natural chamber.
In the middle of the chamber was a long stone table, on which Starkad and Arvarodd were standing, poking at the ceiling with their spears. ‘Just getting the windows open,’ Arvarodd grunted, ‘only the wretched thing seems to have got stuck,’ and he pushed open a stone trapdoor, flooding the chamber with light. Hildy looked about her in amazement. The walls were covered in rich figured tapestries, looking as if they had just been made but recognisable as typical products of the ninth century. The table was laid with gold and silver plates and drinking-horns, with places for about a hundred. Beside the table was a hearth running the length of the chamber, and the rest of the floor was covered in dry heather that crackled under Hildy’s feet. Against the wall stood a dozen huge chests with massive iron locks, and in the corners of the room were stacks of spears and weapons. Everything appeared to be perfectly preserved, but the air in the chamber was decidedly musty.
‘The doors and shutters on the windows are airtight,’ explained the King. ‘We knew a thing or two about building in my day.’
‘What is this place?’ Hildy asked.
‘This,’ said the King with a hint o
f pride in his voice, ‘is the Castle of Borve, one of my two strongholds. The other is at Tongue, but I never did like it much. The Castle of Borve is totally impregnable, and the view is rather better, if you like seascapes. On a clear day you can see Orkney.’
The heroes had got the chests open, and were busily rummaging about in them for long-lost treasures; favourite cloaks and comfortable shoes. Someone came up with a cask of mead on which a preserving spell had been laid, while Arvarodd, who had lit a small fire at one end of the hearth, was roasting the last of the sausages Hildy had bought in Marks & Spencer at Inverness. The heroes had discovered that they liked sausages.
‘The Castle of Borve,’ said the King, ‘was built for my father, Ketil Trout, by Thorkel the Builder. My father was a bit of a miser, I’m afraid, and, since he was forever going to war with all and sundry, usually very hard up. So when he commissioned the castle from Thorkel, the finest builder of his day, he stipulated that if there was anything wrong with the castle on delivery Thorkel’s life should be forfeit and all his property should pass to the King. Actually, that was standard practice in the building industry then.’
Hildy, who had had bad experiences with builders in her time, nodded approvingly.
‘The trouble was that there was nothing at all wrong with the castle,’ the King continued, ‘and Ketil was faced with the horrible prospect of having to pay for the place, which he could not afford to do. So he persuaded the builder to go out into the bay with him by ship, on the pretext of inspecting the front gate. Meanwhile my mother hung a rope over the front ramparts, which, seen from the sea, looked like a crack in the masonry. Ketil pointed this out to Thorkel as a fault in the work, and poor old Thorkel was left with no alternative but to tie the anchor to his leg and jump in the sea. This was really rather fortuitous, since apart from my father he was the only other person to know the secret of the back door, which we came in by. Oddly enough, ever after my father had terrible trouble getting anyone to do any work on the place, which was a profound nuisance in winter when the guttering tended to get blocked.’
The heroes had drunk half of the enchanted mead and were beginning to sing. The King frowned. ‘Anyway,’ he said briskly, ‘that’s the Castle of Borve for you. Back to business.’
He clapped his hands, and the heroes cleared a space on the table. The wizard laid out the various items he had obtained in Wick, and the King laid the dragon-brooch beside them. The wizard set to work with some tools he had retrieved from one of the chests, and soon the brooch was festooned with short lengths of wire, knitted into an intricate pattern. Then he made a sign with his hand, and Ohtar brought over the sandalwood box. The wizard picked it up, shook it and held it to his ear.
‘Now what?’ demanded the King impatiently. The wizard made a subdued noise, like a very small lathe.
‘You haven’t!’ shouted the King.
The wizard nodded, made a sound like a distant dentist’s drill, and hid his face in his hands.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said the King in fury. ‘You stupid . . . Oh, get out of my sight.’ The wizard promptly vanished, turning himself into a tiny spider hanging from the ceiling.
‘What’s the matter?’ Hildy asked.
‘He’s only gone and lost them, that’s all,’ growled the King. ‘Here, give me that box.’
He threw open the lid, but there was nothing inside except the chewed-up remains of a couple of torch-batteries Hildy had put in for the two spirits to eat. For a moment there was total silence in the chamber; then the King threw the box on the ground and jumped on it.
‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ he roared at the spider swinging unhappily from the roof.
‘But what’s happened?’ Hildy wailed. She felt that she was in grave danger of being forgotten about.
‘I’ll tell you what’s ruddy well happened,’ said the King. ‘This idiotic wizard has let those two spirits escape, that’s what. He was supposed to have sealed them in his magic elf-box . . .’ The King stepped out of the smashed fragments of the magic elf-box, which would henceforth be incapable of holding so much as a bad dream. ‘Now we’ve got nothing to work the brooch with. Without them it’s useless.’
The heroes all started to complain at once, and even the spider began cheeping sadly. The King banged his fist on the table and shouted for quiet.
‘Let’s all stay calm, shall we?’ he muttered. ‘Let’s all sit down, like reasonable human beings, and discuss this sensibly.’ He followed his own suggestion, and the rest of the heroes, still murmuring restlessly like the sea below them, did likewise. The spider scuttled down his gossamer thread and perched on the lip of the King’s great drinking-horn.
‘All right, Kotkel,’ snapped the King to the spider, ‘you’ve made your point. You can come back now.’
The wizard reappeared, hanging his grizzled head in shame, and took his place at the King’s left hand. The company that had, a few moments ago, resembled nothing so much as a football team stranded in the middle of nowhere with no beer had become, as if by some subtler magic, the King’s Household, his council in peace and war. A shaft of sunlight broke through the stone-framed skylight into the chamber, highlighting the King’s face like a spotlight - Thorkel the Builder had planned the effect deliberately, calculating where the sun would be in relation to the surrounding mountains at the time when the Master of Borve would be likely to be seated in his high place. Hildy found herself sitting, by accident or design, in the Counsellor’s place at his right hand, so that such of the sunlight as the King could spare fell on her commonplace features. A feeling of profound awe and responsibility came over her, and she resolved, come what may, to acquit herself as well as she could in the King’s service.
Arvarodd of Permia, who carried the King’s harp, and Angantyr Asmundarson, who was his standard-bearer, rose to their feet and pronounced in unison that Hrolf Ketilsson Earthstar, absolute in Caithness and Sutherland, Lord of the Isles, held court for policy in the fastness of his House; let those who could speak wisely do so. There was total silence, as befitted such an august moment. Then there was more silence, and Hildy realised that this was because nobody could think of anything to say.
‘Well, come on, then,’ said the King. ‘You were all so damned chatty a moment ago. Let’s be having you.’
To his feet rose Bothvar Bjarki, and Hildy suddenly remembered that he had been the adviser of the great king Kraki, devising for him stratagems without number, which generations of skalds had kept evergreen in memory.
‘We could go back and look for them,’ suggested Bothvar Bjarki.
‘Oh, sit down and shut up,’ said the King impatiently. ‘Has anyone got any sensible suggestions?’
Bothvar sat down and started to mutter to himself. Angantyr was sniggering, and Bothvar gave him a look. Hildy, thoroughly bewildered, realised that she was on her feet and speaking.
‘Perhaps,’ she stammered, ‘the wizard can find them. Wasn’t there that bit in Arvarodd’s Saga where someone put a seer-stone to his eye . . . ?’
‘Have you got a seer-stone, Kotkel?’ demanded the King, turning to the wizard. Arvarodd, sitting opposite Hildy, seemed to be blushing slightly. He leant across the table and whispered: ‘Actually, I made that bit up. I wanted a sort of mystical scene to counterpoint all the starkly realistic bits. You see, the structure seemed to demand . . .’ Hildy found herself nodding, as she so often had at Cambridge parties.
The wizard was turning out his pockets. From the resulting pile of unsightly junk, he picked out a small blue pebble, heart-shaped, with a hole through the middle. He breathed on it, grunted some obscure spell, and set it in his eye like a watchmaker’s lens.
‘Well?’ said the King impatiently.
There was a sound like a carborundum wheel from the wizard. ‘Interference,’ whispered Arvarodd. ‘Ever since they privatised it—’
But the wizard shook his head and took out the stone. Then he leant across the King and offered it to Hildy.
‘Go on,’ the King said. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’
Hildy closed her mouth, which had fallen open, and took the stone from the wizard’s hand. It felt strangely warm, like a seat on a train that someone has just left, and Hildy felt very reluctant to touch it. But she held it up to her eye, squinting through the hole. To her amazement, and horror, she found that she could see a picture through it, as if it were a keyhole in a closed door.
She saw a tower of grey stone and glass, completely unfamiliar at first; then she recognised it as an office-block. Pressing the stone hard against her eye, she found that she could see in through one of the windows, and beyond that through the open door of an office. Inside the office was a glass case, like a fish-tank, and inside that were two pools of light. There were wires leading from the tank into the back of a large square box-like trunk, which she could not identify for a moment. Then, with a flash of insight, she realised that the box was a computer, and that whoever it was that had control of the two spirits was using them to cut down on his electricity bills.
She thought she could hear voices; but the voices were very far away - they were coming from the picture behind the stone.
‘And two for his nob makes seven, redoubled,’ said the voice. ‘Proceed to Valhalla, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred crowns.’ The other voice sniggered.
It’s them, Hildy thought. She felt utterly exhausted, as if she had been lifting heavy weights with the muscles of her eyes, and her head was splitting.
‘I give up,’ said the first voice. ‘I never did like this game.’
‘Let’s play something else, then,’ said the other voice equably.
‘I don’t want to play anything,’ retorted the first voice. ‘I want to get out of here, before they plug us in to something else. I don’t mind being kidnapped, but I do resent being used to heat water.’
‘Impossible,’ said the second voice. ‘We’re stuck. I suggest we make the most of it.’ The first light flickered irritably, but the second light ignored it. ‘My throw. Oh, good, that’s an X and a Y. I can make “oxycephalous”, and it’s on a triple rune score—’