The Keep

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3“Nah, boss, can’t move that.”

Pursed lips and an unequivocal shake of the head accompanied the statement though they were followed immediately by a flicker of doubt as lean and work roughened hands wrestled with the ornate iron key.

“At least I don’t think so.”

With a piercing screech of reluctance the key eventually turned. The door, by contrast, opened silently.

“Always a problem, this one.” The hands worked the key vigorously, throwing the bolt several times as if to loosen it, but each time it screeched in protest. Wincing, Josyff tapped the owner of the hands to end its torture.

“Can’t you oil it?” he asked.

The head shook again, and there was a hint of weariness in the face as one of the hands prodded the now revealed lock.

“Not where it’s needed. Riveted you see,” came the explanation. “Can’t get in it without wrecking it — and the door. Can’t think why on a fine old timepiece like this.” The other hand slapped the side of the clock affectionately. The sound was transformed into a deep resonant echo that billowed out of the clock’s dark interior to fill the room. The lock was prodded again. “Like something off a dungeon, this.”

Nyk was one of the three men who tended the Keep. The others were Henk and Qualto. Badr had told Josyff about them shortly after his arrival but had made no effort to seek them out or introduce them formally. Josyff, in his turn, had presumed that details about them and their histories and duties would be in his brief — when it arrived — and had not pressed the matter. They had thus just drifted into his awareness as part of the Keep, his first encounter with Henk and Qualto being a hesitant acknowledging wave across a courtyard while Nyk, grey-haired and overalled, had offered him a nod and a crisp “Boss,” as he had passed him, sporting a short ladder on his shoulder and striding along with great purposefulness. It had occurred to him that three people did not seem to be very many to attend to the maintenance of a building of this size, but he had not dwelt on the notion.

This morning however, he had held to his resolve to “do something” about the clock that so dominated his room, and he had sought out Nyk with a view to having it moved. Nyk had a sharp accent that Josyff could not place and a disconcerting habit of craning forward and peering intently into the face of anyone addressing him as though listening to a rather slow child.

“And the door too, for that matter.” Nyk’s thumb and forefinger were measuring out the thickness of the door. He held them up for Josyff’s inspection.

Though he knew little about clocks Josyff could only agree. The lock was indeed massive and the door was thick enough to serve, if not a dungeon, certainly a house.

“It’s probably very old,” he said weakly.

“Oh, it’s old, all right. Everything round here’s old. It was old when I started here and I’ve seen... what...? three squires come and go.”

“How long ago was that?” Josyff asked casually

Nyk’s head was disappearing into the entrails of the clock and his reply was distant and echoing. It was accompanied by the rattling of chains and some faint and random bell chimes. “We’ve been here for ever. Me, Henk and Qualto. Henk a year after me, Qualto...” There was a pensive pause. “About two years after Henk.”

Nyk emerged from the clock, riffled noisily through a battered box of tools before retrieving an equally battered torch, then disappeared back into it again.

“Thought not.”

Josyff found himself being urged to peer into the body of the clock as Nyk reappeared. As he leaned tentatively forward, he saw that the interior was bigger than he had expected and he had a brief impression that the darkness was about to close about him. He felt a twist of claustrophobia but it vanished as the light from Nyk’s torch fragmented the darkness. The pendulum swept past his face, startling him. The light flicked about significantly.

“See. Look at those bolts.” The light stopped on a large and well rusted bolt head, then moved to indicate several others.

“Well fastened, that.” There was a chuckle. “More dungeon work. It makes no sense to put a clock in a case as solid as this and it makes even less to go to such trouble to fasten it down. It’s hardly likely to be whisked off by a casual thief, is it? Must’ve been expecting an earthquake or something.”

Nyk’s head joined Josyff’s in the clock.

“Deep, you see,” he continued, fencing with the pendulum to tap one of the bolts with his torch and sending shadows dancing about the interior. “There’s lots of them about the place. Somehow they seem to have fastened them direct into the stone. God knows how. I wish I did. This stuff’s blunted more than a few of my best drills I can tell you. It’s a nightmare to work with.” He withdrew from the clock. Josyff joined him. “But they’re in to stay. Never moved one of those yet without ruining it. Either the corners go, or the head comes right off.” His hands mimicked the wringing of a bird’s neck.

Josyff looked up at the clock. Fingers now horizontal, it returned his gaze with one of startled indignation at this unwarranted intrusion.

“Mechanism’s beautiful though,” Nyk said, looking both to defend his charge and appease his companion. “Really fine work. Keeps excellent time.”

Josyff had anticipated a certain degree of muscular endeavour and bad language in the moving of the clock, but not these peculiar complications. “I’m sure,” he conceded.

Nyk nodded and fixed an expectant look on Josyff, but held his peace. Uncomfortable, Josyff looked for a way to move away from the subject.

“You must’ve been concerned that the New Order might reassign you,” he said offhandedly, as though he were in reality still pondering what to do about the clock.

Nyk was clattering through his tools again. “Not really,” he replied. “Governments come and go, but they’re all the same, aren’t they? They talk a lot but they always need folks like me to do the real work. And we’re not that important, are we? Out here, a long way from anywhere.” The clattering rose to an agitated peak. “Besides, they’re not really anything to do with us. We’re employed by the Estate.” He tapped a faded emblem on his overalls. “Like the squires, though the last one used to pretend this was his family place.” With a final wrench he produced a long, grim-looking spanner from the box. “Do you want me to try and move one of those?” he asked with a nod towards the clock though with a strong hint of “don’t say I didn’t warn you,” in his voice.

Josyff avoided the renewed gaze as if still undecided, but his curiosity was aroused. He was no bureaucratic schemer but it might be useful to know the fate of those previously responsible for this place.

“What happened to the last... squire?” he asked.

Nyk shrugged. “No idea. Went out on one of his usual jaunts one day, never came back.”

Josyff was momentarily silenced by this blunt reply.

“Did he work for the government?” he managed eventually.

“Nah, I told you. He worked for the Estate.”

Josyff had to ask. “What Estate?”

Nyk gave him a puzzled look. “The one that owns this place,” he said slowly and with forced patience.

“But it belongs to the New Order.”

Nyk shrugged again. “That’s as may be. I told you, it makes no difference out here. We just keep the place going, that’s all. And I’m not bothered just so long as my wages are paid, we get supplies, and no one interferes with me.” He paused and retreated quickly from this radical position. “To tell the truth I don’t think anyone’s really interested in this place.”

Josyff’s mind was now awash with questions. He snatched at one.

“How long has the last squire been gone?”

Nyk puffed out his cheeks and looked up at the clock as if for inspiration. His face became absorbed in a calculation of some kind and his fingers twitched. “About ten years I’d think. Nine or ten. I wouldn’t swear to either. It’s a long time.”

Despite himself, Josyff gaped.

“Ten years! And you don’t know what’s happened to him?”

Nyk’s reply was almost offhand. “He was always wandering off. Visiting relatives, as he used to say, when he said anything. He’d be gone for weeks on end. Never a word.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “I must admit I hadn’t realized it’d been so long. But no one’s ever been to ask about him.”

Josyff stammered. “But... but who’s been doing his work? And who tells you what to do?”

Nyk replaced the spanner in the box and gave Josyff a knowing, almost paternal grin. “Like I said, we’re a long way from anywhere here. In fact, we’re even a long way from here, here.” The grin became a soft chuckle at his own joke. “There was nothing for him to do,” he said. “There never has been, for any of the squires that I’ve seen. They wander about like lost souls. I think the Estate used to send people here when they wanted to get rid of them quietly — out of sight, out of mind, you know. As for us, we know what we have to do. And there’s always plenty of it.” He faltered and his eyes became briefly distant. “This place is a lot bigger than it looks. Must’ve taken ten times our number to look after it once.” He eyed Josyff. “At least you’ve got something to do. Mind you, not that I know anything about surveying, but I don’t think you’re going to find this place easy to measure. It’s very odd. What do you want doing with this clock?”

Josyff was glad of the sharp lurch back to his original problem.

“You’d better leave it if it’s going to be such a problem. It’s just not to my taste, that’s all. I thought you could just move it into the corridor, but I wouldn’t want to destroy it.”

“Keeps excellent time.” Nyk confirmed again by way of consolation as he closed the door and turned the screeching lock. He picked up his box of tools with a loud grunt and, leaning to one side to accommodate its weight, made for the door. “I suppose I could always cover it up for you,” he said over his shoulder.

Josyff risked an informality. “No, it’s not that important. I’ll learn to love it. Thanks for your help.”

Nyk nodded.

When he had left, Josyff sat on the end of his bed, staring at the clock for some time. He had not thought about it before but at least he knew now why its tick was so soft, confined as it was in the substantial casing. But Nyk’s observations about the clock were unsettling him for some reason. Why should anyone have built it so massively? And why would they fasten it to the fabric of the building so ferociously? It didn’t seem to make any sense. Then again, this whole place was strange. Even to the way its staff was employed, it seemed. There had been no mention of any Estate when he had received his instructions. Still less of any squires. What an odd, archaic word. Some local tradition, perhaps?

But gone for ten years! Just walked away. Josyff shook his head and leaned back on his elbows. Maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised, he decided after a little reflection. Nepotism and favouritism were rife in the previous government and greater follies than a few incompetents being put out to grass had been committed in the past. As for Nyk and the others — and whatever this Estate was — even the New Order was entitled to a little vagueness in the handling of its more distant concerns, and, as Nyk had said, this place was a long way from anywhere. It was difficult to see what importance it might have.

Doubtless all would become clear in time.

As he looked at the clock he recalled that its interior had seemed bigger than its exterior. An unusual illusion, especially given the considerable thickness of the casing. On an impulse he stood up and turned the key in the clock door.

The lock opened silently.