The Keep

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 11Qualto and Henk pressed on with their normal duties while the others were away. Qualto clattering about his kitchen, forgetting occasionally that he was now cooking only for three not five, and Henk, ungraciously devouring the excess and pacing the rooms and corridors of the Keep with his usual slow and relentless gait.

Henk’s lanky form appeared in the doorway. Head forward and bent slightly to one side, like a quizzical vulture, he peered intently at Qualto. The cook looked up from his book and returned the gaze expectantly.

“It’s snowing,” Henk said curtly.

Qualto’s mouth tightened in dismay and he closed his eyes briefly, before saying flatly, “Oh dear.”

There was a pause.

“Perhaps we should light the beacon,” Henk said, half questioningly.

There was another pause as Qualto pondered this. Then he nodded slowly. Carefully he placed a gold patterned leather strip on the open page of his book, closed it gently and put it on the small table his feet had just been resting on.

“Yes. I’ll come with you,” he said, levering himself out of his chair. “Those steps will be more treacherous than usual if it’s snowing.”

Lighting the beacon was no great chore, but it did involve climbing an awkward set of wooden steps. Too shallow to be comfortably climbed as a ladder and too steep to be comfortably descended as a stair, they and their builders were casually abused by Nyk every time the beacon had to be lit. On these occasions he also determined to “do something” about them, but as these happened only twice a year — at the summer and winter solstices — his irritation never persisted long enough for him to apply himself to the task. Added to which, given the location of the beacon, he had to concede that the stairs were both well-made and ingeniously designed and finding an easier solution to reaching it would be no slight matter.

“Oh my,” was Qualto’s almost whispered exclamation as he stood in the doorway that opened into the courtyard and looked out at the falling snow. The edges of the trampled pathways that had been made by the casual traffic of the Keep’s five residents were already being softened by the new snow and would soon be gentle undulations in a new landscape — small, motionless waves shaped by unseen forces. Qualto looked upwards through the falling snow. Dark against the grey sky, large flakes tumbled purposefully towards him like an invading horde, each following its own erratic, jigging, way. The sight was hypnotic. He smiled as a few selected his kitchen-red face on which to thaw themselves then he pulled his scarf tight, fastened his coat and trotted after Henk.

The stairs to the beacon were in another courtyard but, in common with many of the Keep’s outside spaces, this had no door directly into a main building and could only be reached by a meandering open pathway, one of many that were laced around the Keep like a faint echo of its convoluted interior. Some of these were wide and airy avenues, but others were like alleyways, narrow and cramped, and more than a few looked as though they had been formed as much by accident as design. That leading to the beacon was one of the latter and had prompted more than a few discussions amongst the Keep’s carers about why the beacon had been placed where it was, or, for that matter, why that particular courtyard had been built.

These questions were running through Qualto’s mind once again as he walked along the alley with his hands stretched out tentatively to touch the walls on each side of him, as though to prevent them closing in on him. He glanced upwards at the strip of grey sky high above. Only a few snowflakes could be seen, all impetus seemingly lost as they wandered their way to the damp stone floor.

He tripped and swore.

The least Nyk could do is put some lights in here, he thought reproachfully, he’s been threatening to long enough.

Then he was emerging into the comparative brightness at the end of this chasm and his thoughts turned towards...

These damned steps. Always make my legs ache.

Henk was already by the beacon as Qualto reached the top of the first flight of stairs. He waited with his usual watchful and, at times, irritating patience as Qualto edged his way along a narrow platform and clambered up the second flight of stairs. Only when Qualto was standing beside him did he turn his attention towards the beacon.

“Better give it a clean while we’re here,” he said, taking some cloths from a small cupboard in the base of the plinth on which the beacon stood and handing one to Qualto.

Not that it needed much cleaning. The polished glass facets glinted even in the dull light and offered little for the snow, or even occasional bird droppings, to cling to, while the air around the Keep was free from the dust and fumes to be found in the towns and cities. Nevertheless, the two men were thorough. Although neither Nyk, Henk, nor Qualto knew why the beacon had to be lit every solstice, they took a peculiar pride in always ensuring that it was, and in keeping it bright and clear. Perhaps their attentiveness came from the hint of perfection that lay in the beacon’s straight and clean-cut edges which contrasted so vividly with the coarse rounded stonework of the Keep. Or perhaps it came from the rich rainbow images buried deep in its lenses that shifted even as they were observed. Or perhaps it was just because it was beautiful; diamond-like in its clarity and definition — another contrast to the ponderous weightiness of the Keep. Whatever the reason, the pride in maintaining the beacon was there and, despite the inconvenience involving in reaching it, the two men polished it with both zeal and some affection.

Eventually, satisfied with their work, both of them stepped, almost reverently, into the narrow interior of the beacon. After unnecessarily checking that there was oil in the reservoir, Henk lit the broad circular wick and carefully adjusted its height. The mantle was already beginning to glow white when they gently closed the door and began their journey back.

As the beacon’s light reached out through the quiet storm, changing the dark snowflakes into bright and confusing whiteness, a little of its light bounced off the outer wall of the Keep and down into the alley where it softened the gloom for the two retreating figures.

“They’ll be glad of that if they’ve turned back,” Qualto said, banging his feet against the wall by the doorway to dislodge the snow that had accumulated on them.

Henk gave a non-committal grunt.

“They will have turned back, won’t they?” Qualto asked with some anxiety. “They wouldn’t carry on to the village through this?”

Henk gave a disclaiming shrug, coupled with another grunt.

Qualto blew out a noisy breath as he threw up a small snowstorm of his own by vigorously shaking his coat before hanging it up. “Then again, it mightn’t have reached them. Maybe it’s just local. It is unusual. Very early this year.”

“A lot of things are unusual... out of joint... this year,” Henk replied. “Strangers wandering about the place. Getting in our way. Disturbing things.”

“We could use a little disturbing from time to time,” Qualto rebutted. “And they’re hardly in our way.” He made an airy gesture. “An army wouldn’t get in our way in this place.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t actually. Badr’s all right — keeps himself to himself a bit, but he’s a souther, you expect that kind of thing. And that surveyor seems pleasant enough.”

“When he’s not dreaming and falling out of bed or pestering Nyk about his clock.”

“Well, he’s not pestering you, is he?” Qualto felt a little indignant. Whatever else the two newcomers were, they were guests — and the man had taken pains to compliment him on his cooking — something he had not experienced for a long time. “Besides, he’s from the city. The mountains unsettle people like that. He’s used to crowds and noise. And anyway, this place takes some getting used to.” Henk looked set to reply but Qualto pressed on. “And it doesn’t help that his... equipment or whatever it is... hasn’t arrived. He’s probably as keen to be away from here as you are to see him go, and he can’t even start his work.” He concluded this observation with a challenging look as he returned to his chair and reached for his book.

Henk became defensive. “I didn’t say I wanted them to go,” he protested, his voice coming as near to plaintive as it could. “It’s just that...” He hesitated and looked around, almost as though someone might be listening. “It’s just that the place... feels different.”

“What, do you mean it doesn’t want them here?” Qualto’s voice edged towards sarcasm.

Henk gave him a half-concerned, half reproachful look. “You don’t know this place like I do,” he said.

Qualto toyed briefly with an unequivocally sarcastic response — in his opinion, Henk spent too much of his time brooding in distant parts of the Keep, parts where he had no particular reason to be — but he relented. “Well, there’s no denying that,” he said, resting his unopened book on his knee. “There’s places here I’ve never had call to go to. And it’s a big, brooding old pile at the best of times.”

Henk made a sound that approximated to a chuckle. “It’s big, certainly. There’s places I’ve never been to, let alone you.”

“Really?” Qualto was genuinely surprised at this revelation. He was also surprised at Henk’s talkativeness and, for a moment, he had an impression of things moving that had not moved for a long time, of things recently disturbed and uncertain. He shook it off. “I just took it for granted that you and Nyk knew the place backwards,” he said. “You’re always pottering about here and there.”

Henk had sat down on a couch facing the dull fire. Lounging back and spreading himself across it diagonally, he occupied almost the whole of it. The room was one that the three men used as a kind of common room. Like most of the rooms in the Keep no one knew what its original purpose had been or even how it had come to be used as it was. It bore the signs of orderly but male occupancy: it was functionally clean and tidy but such few pictures and ornaments as decorated it had obviously been there for ever.

“We go where we’re needed. Keep things working,” Henk conceded. “Like we’re supposed to. It’s a job.”

“It’s a good job,” Qualto reminded him firmly. “Damned sight better than working in the fields or dancing to someone else’s whims in a factory, day in, day out.”

“We’re all dancing to someone else’s whim,” Henk said sourly.

Qualto puffed out his cheeks. Henk could find the dark side of anything at times. “Well, at least it’s a nice leisurely dance, not a crazy non-stop jig like the last place I worked,” he said after a short pause. “And I haven’t noticed you rushing off to the village looking for a new job recently.”

Henk grunted softly and looked around the room. “I think you might, soon,” he said.

“What!” Qualto was wide-eyed. He abandoned his attempt to start reading again.

“I said, I think it might be time to move on.” Henk was still gazing about the room.

“What’s got into you?” Qualto demanded.

“I don’t know,” Henk replied simply.

“Something to do with Badr and the surveyor?” Qualto offered, now genuinely perplexed. “Upsetting our routines?”

“I don’t know,” Henk repeated. “It might be. But...” He stopped.

“But?” Qualto prompted. The sense of uncertainty, of things moving, that he had experienced a few moments ago, returned. He stared intently at Henk’s long and gloomy face but, as usual, there was nothing he could read there that would help him.

Henk made to speak.

“Don’t say ‘I don’t know’ again,” Qualto anticipated. “You started this hare running. You follow it.”

“Do you ever feel this building, Qualto?”

Qualto’s bewilderment began to turn into concern.

“What do you mean, feel it?”

Henk made an uncharacteristic gesture, waving his hands awkwardly. “Feel that it’s almost...” He hesitated. “Alive?”