“All right.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
She led Maddox gingerly into the stream, which was steep and stony, and Geoffrey pounded on down the mossy ride. He thought at once that he ought to have brought Maddox too, and bolted him on downwards while he climbed back to the scent-obliterating water, except that Maddox wasn’t the sort to fit into elaborate schemes of deception. Hurrah, here was another stream, too small to be marked on the map; if he went back now the hunt might waste time exploring this one.
The climb seemed like a crawl, and the woods swayed round him. This was hopeless — he must have somehow branched on to another path without noticing — there wasn’t a sign of his footprints on the moss. He looked back, and saw that he’d left no track there either, which would help the deception supposing he got back to the first stream on time. The two choruses of baying clashed out at each other again, and the hunt sounded fearfully close. At last he splashed down into the stream, his weak legs treacherous on the wobbly boulders, and waded downstream. He caught Sally up only a few bends down.
“You ought to have got further. You shouldn’t have waited.”
“I didn’t, but Maddox felt thirsty. Come on now, boy. Not far. Oh!”
Her quack of surprise was almost inaudible in the yelping and baying that shook the wood. Somewhere on the path the two packs must have met. Above the clamor he could hear human voices shouting and cursing; they did not sound as if they were in control of the situation.
He followed Sally down to a lower road, which also seemed to lead towards the tower; without a word they turned off along it, padding in a haze of silence down the endless mossy avenue while the battle in the woods above them whimpered into stillness. He realized with surprise that the darkness was not only caused by the double roofing of leaves; it was drawing towards night outside, and the tower, whatever it might hold, was the only chance of escaping from the fanged things that ranged these woods. And at least they would have arrived, against all odds, at the target at which the General had aimed them three whole days ago in Morlaix. And he hadn’t had a proper sleep since then. A voice somewhere, confused by the booming in his ears, started saying “Poor old Jeff. Poor old Jeff” over and over again. It was his own.
He was drowning in self-pity when they stepped out of the forest into the clearing round the tower. It was enormous, three times as high as the giant trees, wide as a tithe barn, a piled circle of roughhewn masonry sloping steadily in toward the top — the same shape as those crude stone towers which the Celts built two thousand years ago in the Shetland Islands, but paralyzingly larger. Round its base, some distance away from it, ran a stone skirting wall about as high as an ordinary house. Just outside this was a deep dry ditch, and then the clearing they stood in. There was no door or window in this side of the wall, so they turned left, downhill, looking up at the monstrous pillar of stonework in the center with a few stars coming out behind its level summit. The black wood brooded on their left.
They rounded a sharper curve by the ditch, and saw the line of wall interrupted. Eighty yards on was a bridge across the dry moat, and two small turrets set into the wall. As they trudged through the clinging grasses towards it no sound came from the tower, no light showed. Perhaps it was empty. They crossed the bridge and found the gate shut. Geoffrey hammered at it with his fist, but made no more noise than snow on a window pane. He crossed the bridge again to look for a stone to hammer with, but Sally pointed above their heads.
At first he thought there was a single huge fruit hanging from the tree above the path, then he realized it was too big even for that, and decided it must be a hornet's nest. He moved and the round thinned. When he was under it it looked like a thick plate, something man-made.
“What is it, Sal?”
“I think it’s a gong. You come along here on your charger and bonk it with your lance and the lord of the castle comes out to answer your challenge. If you stood on Maddox’s back you might be able to reach it. Come here, Maddox. That’s a good boy. Up you get, Jeff. Oh, Maddox, you are awful. I’ll see if I’ve got any horse bait left. Here. Stand still. That’s right. Now Jeff!”
He scrambled on to the broad back. The gong was just above his head and he struck at it with the fat edge of his fist. It made a tremendous noise, a sustained boom that died away at last into curious whinings all the way up the diapason. Nothing stirred in the tower. He struck the gong several times, judging its internal rhythm so that each blow produced a louder boom. At last Maddox decided that enough was enough and shied away; Geoffrey slithered down and the three of them stood listening to the resonance of bronze diminish into whimperings.
In the new silence they realized they could hear another noise, one that they had heard several times that afternoon. The baying of wolves (or whatever they were) was echoing through the valley, seeming to come at times from all round the compass, but at other times from the hill they had themselves descended. It was getting nearer.
“Jeff! D’you think we ought to go on?”
“We’ll give it another minute and then we’ll climb a tree. Maddox will have to . . . Look!”
In the near-dark they could see a movement of light behind the postern tower. A few seconds later they heard a rattle of chains and the grate of rusty metal drawn through metal. In the big gate a small door started to open and they ran towards it. A face thrust through, with a long white beard waggling beneath it.
“Well,” said the face, “what is it? Do you realize how late it is? I was just shutting up.”
“Please,” said Sally, “but we got lost in the wood and it seems to be full of wolves or something and could we come in for the night, please?”
“Ah,” said the face, “benighted travelers. Yes, yes, I’m sure he would think that proper, as far as one can be sure of anything. Come in. Goodness me, what an extraordinary animal! Is it a dog or a horse? Oh, it’s a pony, according to its lights. Well, well. Come in.”
The small door swung wide open, so that they could see his whole body. He was a little, bent man, holding a flaming branch which had been soaked in some sort of tar or resin which made it flare in the dark. He wore sweeping velvet robes, trimmed with ermine round the edges; a soft velvet cap, patterned with pearls and gold thread, sloped down the side of his head. Sally led Maddox in, and as Geoffrey stepped over the threshold there was a snarling in the trees and a pack of dark shapes with gleaming eyes came swirling towards the door. The little man pushed it almost shut, poked his head out again and said “Shoo! Shoo! Be off with you! Shoo!”
He shut the door completely, pushed two large bolts across, swung a huge balanced beam into slots so that it barred the whole gateway and laced several chains into position over it.
“Nasty brutes,” he said, “but they’re all right if you speak to them firmly. This way. We’ll put your animal into the stables and then we’ll go and see if there’s anything for dinner. I expect you’ll be hungry. Do you know, you’re really our first visitors. I think he doesn’t fancy the idea of people prying around, reporters from the newspapers, you know, which is why he put the wolves there. But benighted travelers is quite different — I think he’ll appreciate that — it’s so romantic, and that’s what he seems to like, as you can see.”
He waved a vague arm at the colossal tower, and led them into a long shed which leant against the outer wall. It was crudely partitioned into stalls.
“Tie him up anywhere,” said the old man, “there ought to be oats in one of those bins, and you can draw water from the well.”
“Poor old Maddox,” said Sally, looking down the empty length of stables, where black shadows jumped about in the wavering flare of the torch, “I’m afraid you’re going to feel lonely.”