Roland's Castle (7 page)

They left the Great Hall by a door
on the far side and headed down a corridor, turned into another and
then another, until all but Brother Goodwill were thoroughly
confused. After passing through what looked like a banqueting hall
they arrived at a kitchen and in it were two were men in the same
odd mix of old battered armour and monks’ habits as Brother
Goodwill. One of the men was at a sink, pulling the handle of a
plunger whilst another was fiddling beneath it. As the visitors
entered there was a loud slurrrrrrpp and the plunger gave way. The
man who had been tugging at it fell backwards into a table covered
with pots and pans sending them tumbling and crashing everywhere.
At the same time a torrent of water burst out of the bottom of the
sink drenching the man beneath it.

“Oh dear!” Brother Goodwill gasped,
“Oh dear, oh dear!” and he rushed over to the

man who had fallen, made sure he
was alright and then went to fetch a cloth. Meanwhile the man
beneath the sink got out from under it. He wiped his face with the
cloth brought by Brother Goodwill, thanked him, and then greeted
the visitors.

“Firebrace my old friend,” he said
embracing Firebrace with a mighty hug. Firebrace turned to the
trio. “This is Brother Stalwart, fiercest, most feared warrior of
the fiercest warriors ever to be feared! Victor of so many battles
he has forgotten most of them and can’t be bothered about the
rest.”

And Brother Stalwart added, “I am
as you can see, temporarily humbled by the plumbing!” and laughed,
“And these are, of course, Roland, Oliver and Savitri!”

“But how….?” Roland began to ask
but then Brother Goodwill burst out: “Oh my goodness! I quite
forgot that this is the first time they’ve met us and I should have
asked for their names! From henceforth I shall be known as…..
Brother Neglectious!” and he seemed to be saddened by this
idea.

Brother Stalwart extended a wet
hand to Roland. Roland took it and shook it.

“Welcome!” Brother Stalwart
said.

“Yes!” Said Brother Goodwill,
regaining his jollity, “Welcome, welcome, welcome!”

“Sorry about the plumbing,” Roland
said, having got the message that it was his responsibility as
landlord.

“Why are you sorry? We built the
place!” Brother Stalwart laughed, “But its getting old. You cannot
expect even the best pipework to last the test of centuries without
occasional maintenance.”

“Mister Botherworth seemed to think
it was all my fault,” Roland explained.

“Oh him! Don’t listen to him! He is
merely our primary defence – there is nothing like a bad attitude
to drive away unwanted visitors - not yourselves of course! The
best defence is a strong offence, and Botherworth certainly gives
offence – and some!” Brother Stalwart laughed and then asked
Roland, “But you are not here about the plumbing. Are you here for
your mother?”

“My mother?” Roland inquired

But Firebrace quickly interjected,
“That fool Dagarth has torn the place apart downstairs and it must
be rebuilt – quickly.”

“Easily said – and easily done,”
said Brother Stalwart, throwing aside the cloth. “Brother Goodwill
– gather the others in the Great Hall. We have work to do!”

Brother Goodwill bustled off to
‘gather the others’ whilst Brother Stalwart persuaded them all to
have a cup of tea. It took him a little while to find a tea pot
amongst a clatter of crockery that had also been dislodged when the
plunger had given in but he found one, boiled some water and made
some tea. It was good tea, too.

As they sipped the final sips a
deep toned bell started to
bong
.

“They are all gathered – let us
adjourn to the Great Hall.” Said Brother Stalwart.

He led them back to the hall that
they had first entered. In it were now around fifty men, all
wearing the same blend of worn old armour and monkish habits as
Brother Goodwill and Brother Stalwart. Roland looked at them amazed
by the different types of face; they were white, black, brown…, of
many different shapes with different coloured hair. There were some
of Savitri’s people from the land of Prester John, some that he
believed came from even further east, from Cathay and Cypangu.

Oliver exclaimed, “Some of them are
Saracens!”

“Yes, but not our enemies,” Brother
Stalwart said, “After many years of fighting we tired of other
men’s wars. We found that we had more in common with those we
fought than those we fought for, so we founds friendship, comrades
where previously we found enmity.”

And he spoke to the Fortressers,
“My brothers, the castle below us has fallen into some disrepair,
and as it is our occasional duty we must once more take up shovel
and pick, trowel and hod, brick and stone and rebuild our sanctuary
as it should be.”

And with that they formed an
orderly line and marched out through the double doors and down the
staircase. Roland started to follow, intrigued to see them at work
and willing to help however he could, but Firebrace placed a hand
on his shoulder to stop him.

“We have not finished here yet.
There is much more to this tower.”

Firebrace led them through the door
by which they had gone to Brother Stalwart, but took another
turning. Before them was another staircase spiralling upwards.

“More stairs!” Oliver groaned

“The exercise will do you good,”
Firebrace insisted.

They went upwards as Roland
expected to come to another set of doors but instead the stairs led
straight to a vast open space filled with a maze of bookcases.
Firebrace led them through it.

“This is the Tower’s Library,” he
said, “It is a repository of history and learning spanning
thousands of years, backwards and forwards! There are histories
here about things that haven’t even happened yet.”

They came to another staircase,
this time made of iron and very tightly wound so that only one
person at a time could go up it.

“They do love their spiral stairs
don’t they,” Oliver said.

Firebrace led to the way upwards
until they reached a balcony, then across that to another iron
spiral staircase and up that, and then across another balcony to
another spiral staircase. Each balcony ran alongside a wall lined
with books. On the other side were iron railings guarding the steep
drop to the floor below. From the floor the main bookcases reached
up and still towered above them.

As they went Roland took the chance
to read some of the spines. One was titled, “The Earth’s Course
Around The Sun”

That doesn't sound right, Roland
thought, the sun goes around the earth, surely?

He read a couple more titles

“The Sky, The Earth And The Magic
Of Nature”

“Amazon’s Conquest Of The Universe
– Part LCVII”

“Why Birds Don’t Tweet: Intellect
and the Internet”

They had gone up several floors and
still the main bookcases towered over them. Now they could see that
up near the roof there was movement, flapping and fluttering –
there were birds nesting right at the top of the stacks! Oliver
remarked on it and Firebrace replied, “Of course, the birds are a
vital part of the knowledge collection. Once you have learned to
talk to birds, you have a source of enormous knowledge about the
whole world!”

Then they saw that high above their
heads there was a man on a trapeze. He was hanging by his legs and
swinging back and forth whilst cradling a pile of books in the
crook of his left arm whilst he placed the books on shelves with
his right hand.

“It’s one of the librarians,”
Firebrace explained, “they must use acrobatic skills to reach the
highest shelves.”

As they watched the man transferred
the books to between his feet, gripped the swing with his hands and
then flew through the air to another trapeze. He caught it and then
again hung himself from it by his legs, transferring the books back
to the crook of his left arm.

The trio applauded, but then the
man looked down at them, put his finger to his lips and went:
“Shhhhhh!”

He started to place the books on
the shelves as he had done previously. He had soon placed them all
and then flew to another trapeze, another and another until be was
out of sight

A librarian without a safety net,”
Oliver said, “Not something you see everyday.”

They climbed up to yet another
balcony and Firebrace headed towards a door at the end, then down
another passage. They passed through a doorway and arrived at what
appeared to be a shop counter. There was a bell on the counter and
beside it a note saying “Ring for attendant”. Firebrace rang for
the attendant.

A bumbling man who hadn’t dressed
himself properly came out, at first he didn’t seem to know where he
was but finally noticed he had visitors.

“The evidence of my eyes tells me
that before me there are four individuals. But are there four
individuals? How can I be certain?”

“We are,” Firebrace said.

“Yet the evidence of my ears tells
me that me that I can only hear one voice. Can my eyes deceive me
and my ears be right, or can my-”

“-There are four of us,” Firebrace
insisted.

Can I believe you though, or could
you be a deceiving demon, sent to trick me?

“How many of those have you had
through here?” Roland asked, curious.

“Ah! A second voice! There are at
least two of you, unless the deceiving demon is good at voices… The
answer to your question is – I don’t really know how many deceiving
demons we have had through here. As we may have been deceived by
them, we can’t really be certain, can we?”

As he spoke someone else promptly
descended from a trap door in the ceiling. He fell on all fours. He
was dressed as a jester and had a pig’s bladder at the end of a
stick. He did a cartwheel over to the attendant and gently but
firmly beat him around the face with the bladder.

“Prithee nuncle, birds tell me –
for birds are wise – that catastrophe awaits yet thou does prattle
and ponder like a poltroon!” And he gently beat the man about the
face again.

Firebrace was also losing patience.
“We must talk to the venerable conceiver of strategies
immediately.

“Right away!” the fool chided the
man, who was still pondering.

“Oh! Yes! Right away!” and the man
bustled off with the fool chasing after him to make sure he didn’t
ponder on it all over again.

“How extraordinary!” Roland said.
As they followed the man Firebrace took time to explain. “These are
the Venerable Society of Cogitators – very wise – a wisdom not to
be overlooked - yet their depth of thought is so much that they can
become foolish without something, or someone, to bring them back to
reality. Thus each of them is assigned a “fool” who does just that,
who prompts them to engage with reality. Sometimes its hard to tell
which is which.”

“So how many people are there in
this tower?” Roland asked.

“A lot,” Firebrace said, “Many
splendid things and people, gathered from across the world, taking
sanctuary and being conserved in this place.”

Soon another man arrived along with
another fool who came cartwheeling after him.

“This way please, “the man said,
and showed them into a consulting room. He sat down and pondered,
then said, “I am a… a, oh goodness, what am I?”

“Thou art a Venerable Conceiver Of
Strategies, nuncle!” the fool reminded him.

“Oh yes!”

“The castle needs a defensive
plan,” Firebrace said.

“Ah yes, well first off we must
start at first principles - yes. Now is there a real castle, or is
it merely a fantasy castle? A castle in the air, so to speak!” and
the man laughed to himself. No one else saw the joke. “Is there a
real enemy or just a make believe – an apparition?” he
continued.

The fool beat him about the face
with his pigs bladder, “Prithee nuncle, wouldst though stand before
a charging knight, , and say to yourself ‘is this a knight I see
charging right at me, about to plunge a lance deep in my chest, or
is an apparition????’ If so, then I am the wise man and thou art
the fool!”

The man thought on it and then
started asking Firebrace detailed questions about the
circumstances. Firebrace didn’t know all the answers, which
irritated the man, but he tut-tutted and said, “We will make a
start anyway.”

He rang for a scribe and started to
dictate questions to be sent out to all the parties involved.

“Will the enemy be prepared to
answer detailed questions?” He inquired innocently

“I wouldn’t think so,” Roland said,
then he said to Firebrace, “Are you sure he knows anything about
military strategy?”

But the man said, “We will have a
plan for you – many ideas, many strategies! A surfeit of
strategies!”

And the fool beat the Venerable
Conceiver Of Strategies around the face again, this time, it
seemed, just for the fun of it.

“Now we must see to an army,”
Firebrace said.

He led the way back down through
the library to the floor level and then through the maze of
bookshelves to an exit door. Through this was a long corridor, at
the end of which they made a left turn and then a right turn which
led them to even more left and right turns until the trio were
thoroughly confused all over again. Eventually they came to a
chamber that seemed much more like a huge underground cavern.
Inside were hundreds of figures in column after column, row upon
row. They were covered in sheets to keep of the dust. Firebrace
unsheathed one to reveal a gleaming suit of armour. It seemed empty
and lifeless. Firebrace continued to pull the coverings off more of
them talking and explaining as he did so, “Once, when the sun was
young and strong, its rays struck out like warriors, banishing
darkness with shards of light bringing life and warmth goodness and
faith, justice and. But like everything they faded – the initial
hope could not be sustained. These are amongst the last of the
Warriors Of The Sun, they are beams of The Sun’s earliest light
captured and enhanced with the best of armour, the best of weapons.
They are not as strong as once they were, but they will put up a
defence – strong enough let us hope!”