The first flight of stairs lifted in a wide spiral. My guards did not pause on the landing and even though I was panting and half-sick by then, I climbed alongside them up the second flight of stairs and then along a brown-panelled corridor. At intervals, shelves jutted from the walls, each holding a fat lamp shaped rather like a teapot. There were no windows to admit light, but there were doors to either side of the carpeted hall. We moved through a perpetual gloom. The burning oil smelled like a pine forest.
We passed an open door and I had a glimpse of a room that was lined with little boxed shelves with scrolls sticking out of them. From floor to ceiling they went, and it reminded me of a honeycomb, or the chambers in a paper wasps’ nest. At long tables, people sat with scrolls unfurled and weighted to lie open beside stacks of paper and inkpots and pen stands. I wanted to stare but when I slowed, one of the guards slapped me on the back of my head. ‘Walk!’ he reminded me, and I walked.
We passed another chamber full of tables and with the walls lined with books rather than scrolls. Scribes lifted their eyes from the pages and stared as we passed. I saw no windows, but squares of light shone through the stonework. I’d never seen such a thing. Some of the people in there were not much older than me and others were older than my father. Their robes were all a rich green. They were not Whites and I guessed that these were the Servants of the Whites. No one spoke as we passed though I felt their curious glances.
At the end of the corridor was a door and yet another set of steps. These were narrower and steeper, and I struggled to keep moving. At the top, I turned to look back. One of the guardsmen looked away from my gaze. The other never met it. He pounded on a door that had a little barred window in it until a woman with dark hair and brown eyes came and looked through the bars. ‘What is it?’ she demanded.
‘Lock of Four,’ one of them said.
She raised her brows. ‘For whom?’
He gestured down. She stood on her tiptoes to look down at me. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Very well.’ I saw her puzzlement, but she unlocked the door and we went into a very small room. She turned away from us and unlocked a second door. Bright sunlight flooded in and she led us out onto a flat, unroofed area. I blinked my eyes and then lifted my hand to shade them. Light bounced back at me from a white floor. I squinted. It was a large area, with tall walls, and I caught a glimpse of a guard walking slowly along on top of the wall. We were on the roof of the stronghold. The tall graceful towers I had glimpsed rose from each corner of the structure.
‘This way,’ she said. I followed the woman and the guardsmen came behind me. I held one hand over my sun-dazzled eyes, squinting through my spread fingers. It seemed ridiculous: small me in the midst of such vigilance. We crossed an open space and then entered a narrower way, fronted with iron-barred chambers on both sides. Some were occupied but most were empty. I halted when the woman halted.
She looked down at me. ‘Now we wait for the Four, for only they have the keys to these last four cells. Give me that sack.’
I surrendered my small carry-pack reluctantly. She opened it and looked inside. ‘Just clothes,’ I told her. She said nothing as she rummaged through my tattered garments, then handed it back to me.
I heard a door shut and low contentious voices and squinted back the way we had come. The Four. The moment they became aware we were waiting, their conversation ceased. Each had a guard accompanying them. They walked briskly to where we stood. Symphe took an elaborate key on a jewelled fob from a pocket concealed in her skirts. She handed it to her guard, who inserted it into a long bar and turned it with a sharp ‘snap’. Then she stepped back as Coultrie handed a key with a white bone handle to his guard. Another snap. When all four keys had been inserted and turned, the woman who had guided us slid the long metal bar to one side and opened the door. She motioned me inside.
As I stepped through the door, I heard a deep soft voice from the next cell. ‘What, Symphe? Not even a hello? Coultrie, you should wash your face. You look ridiculous. Fellowdy, have you no youngster to bugger today? Ah, and here is Capra. I see you have washed the blood off your hands for this visit. How formal of you.’
Not a one of them flinched or responded. I was within my cage and couldn’t peer into the next one but I wondered who it was who so boldly challenged the Four. Then the first guardswoman shut the barred door with a clang. Each guard stepped forward to turn a key and remove it, and then present it to their master or mistress.
‘Child,’ Capra said abruptly. ‘Tell me your name and your father’s name.’
I had rehearsed it. ‘I am Bee Badgerlock, of Withywoods. My father is Holder Tom Badgerlock. He manages the sheep and the orchards and the grounds for Lord FitzChivalry. Please, just let me go home!’
