Adsine Castle. By Empire standards it was small but solid. A perimeter wall with a single gatehouse dotted with regularly spaced turrets formed a hexagon around the courtyard, in the center of which was a single, three-storied keep. It faced south, its upper stories looking out over the perimeter wall and across the river to the town. Its foundation was cross-shaped so that its front stuck out and loomed over us, its barred windows hard and cold.
It wasn’t exactly welcoming. For some time we just looked at it and said nothing while the horses were led to stables along the insides of the perimeter wall. The keep was built of a light grey stone, but it was so purposeful, so utterly lacking in whimsy or creative imagination, that it seemed dark and sinister. Even with the guards and the chancellor busying themselves around us it seemed like it might be deserted, like the ghost castles you hear tales of in pubs on winter nights.
The chancellor ordered a brace of servants to unload our wagons and carry our belongings to our rooms. He led the way and we filed dutifully after him in silence. I had slept well in the wagon, but I couldn’t wait to get into a bed that didn’t move on wheels, waves, or insect legs.
The doors of the keep were of oak, a good four inches thick and reinforced with huge square-headed nails. On our way upstairs we got a glimpse of the ground floor: soldiers’ and domestics’ quarters, kitchens and storerooms, all plain and purposeful.
Upstairs was a different tale, of carpets and tapestries and, most strikingly of all after the bustle of breakfast downstairs, silence. But if the castle had once been opulent, those days were long gone, and the place was in need of serious redecorating.
A pair of guards stood at each corner, staircase, and doorway, dressed in the black-and-silver capes worn by the cavalry who had escorted us, but armed with pikes and shortswords. They clicked their heels together and stood to attention as Chancellor Dathel passed imperiously with the smallest nod of his head.
Everything felt square and the corridors were laid out like grids. We walked fifty yards down one and came to a perpendicular gallery running from east to west, where heavy teak doors stood under guard.
“Those chambers belong to the count and his lady wife,” murmured the chancellor. He indicated a line of doors in the north-facing wall.
“Your rooms,” he said softly. “I expect you would like to rest, wash, and change before you do anything else, as I would.”
So, whether we did or not, he intended to.
“The butler has left food and drink in the sitting room for you. I will have hot water for bathing sent along presently. Will you eat first?”
Mithos said we would, which was fortunate, because I could have eaten the inhabitants of a good-sized stable. The chancellor made a bow small enough to be a nod and glided off down the corridor like a ghost looking for somewhere to haunt. One glance at this dour old ruin said he’d already found it.
The guest rooms were diplomatically identical: clean, private, and basic. They looked out of the rear wall of the building to the scraggy hills of northern Shale.
The bar was as functional as the bedrooms. There were various old and cracked leather armchairs and some tables, scratched and discolored with age. A few sorry embroideries hung on the exposed stone of the walls, and the paint was peeling as if the ceiling had some rampant skin complaint.
“The whole place is like this,” said Garnet to no one in particular. “Old money now gone. I mean, it must have cost a fortune to build, but nothing has been replaced for years.”
“Cheese and ham,” I announced through a mouthful of sandwich. “Not bad, but not great. Could use some pickle.”
Garnet’s green eyes rested on mine and narrowed. I gave him a friendly smile and went on chewing. Orgos opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind.
“Why is Mithos the leader now?” I asked as soon as I had swallowed.
Renthrette looked over her shoulder hastily as if to ensure that no one had heard my indiscretion. I laughed, and she stared at me, but Lisha spoke in her placid, even tone. “We are unsure of the social climate here. A man tends to buy more respect. That’s all.”
I had intended to get some satirical mileage out of this, but her frankness disarmed, as usual, and I said nothing.
Ten minutes later I was in a hot tin bath shaped like an overgrown coal scuttle, its water foaming with carbolic soap. So, here I was: a specialist, brought in at considerable expense (I hoped) to save the nation or county or whatever the hell it was. I grinned to myself and wondered whether I could get free beer at the bar. Maybe if I was really good, they’d give me a magic sword.
SCENE XVIII Harsh Realities
I dozed for a couple of hours and then ate lunch with the rest of the party: cold pork salad and two slabs of brown, grainy bread. You could tell it was cheap stuff because it had that powdery taste that you get when the flour has been cut with ground chalk as a baker friend had once explained, the sacks weigh in heavier and you get a better price for inferior goods. It was pretty shoddy stuff. There didn’t seem much point in being a count if you couldn’t get decent bread. On top of that, dessert was a wizened apple and my first gulp of the ale told me it had been significantly watered down. I was beginning to get a sinking feeling about this place.
Then came a tour of the castle, the near-mute Chancellor Dathel steering us round the ground floor’s central block of guards and infantry quarters, then into the western and eastern wings, which housed the cavalry. In each of these large white-plastered rooms of bedsteads with regulation blankets and footlockers, the reclining soldiers thundered to their feet and stood erect and silent.
One time, just to break the monotony, I started to wander around the soldiers, looking over their armor as if I was inspecting them. I picked up a burnished helmet, plumed with black horsehair, from on top of a footlocker and rapped on it with my knuckles as the soldiers stood rigid around me, eyes fixed on nothing.
“What’s this made of, soldier?” I demanded of one of them.
“Iron plates riveted to leather, sir!” barked the soldier after a second’s hesitation.
“And what would be harder than that?” I asked.
“Sir?” stammered the soldier.
“What’s tougher than iron and leather?”
“Steel, sir.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“What are you made of, Private?”
There was a flicker of confusion in the soldier’s face, and after a painful pause he said, in the same military shout, “I don’t think I understand the question, sir.”
“Are not the muscles and bones of a Shale trooper harder than steel, soldier?” I asked with patient dignity.
“No, sir,” said the soldier.
“Oh. I mean, isn’t your heart hardened with courage?”
“Er, well, sir-”
“Figuratively,” I added hastily, “Private, figuratively. It’s kind of a trope, a sort of poetic allusion, you see. ”
“Yes, sir. I see, sir.”
The chancellor coughed politely, like a small beetle anxious not to offend but with the unmistakable hint that we didn’t have time for this. I gave one last penetrating gaze to the assembled troops and said “At ease” to the nearest officer.
As they relaxed with a shifting of feet and a sudden rush of mutterings, Dathel caught my eye and held it. I turned to leave with as much dignity as I could salvage, but found myself face-to-face with an amused and bewildered Orgos, who pulled a what-the-hell-was-that-supposed-to-be? look, while Garnet scowled.
I really didn’t care to see the bloody kitchens and meeting hall, but we marched through them all the same. Garnet and Renthrette exchanged significant looks and made penciled notes on little squares of parchment. After a
