Chapter 24 — The Inner Castle

Chapter 24: Chapter 24 — The Inner Castle

Chapter 24 — The Inner Castle

Christopher’s sword stopped an inch from Godfrey’s shoulder.

Godfrey struck him in the stomach with the end of the wooden practice blade.

Christopher folded around it and stumbled back. "I stopped."

"That was the problem. You watched the stick instead of my shoulders."

"You told me to control the strike."

"Control means deciding where it ends. You decided after it reached me."

Christopher straightened slowly. The controlled blow still hurt.

Across the courtyard, Walter and Ivo were putting the Knight Apprentices through their own morning training. Half carried spears while the others held shields. They moved in two rows, turned at Walter’s order and immediately crowded each other.

Ivo walked along the line, pushing shields back into place. "If I can reach through that gap, so can an orc."

One apprentice tried to correct his position and struck the man beside him with the edge of his shield.

Walter closed his eyes. "Again."

The apprentices returned to their starting marks.

The apprentices trained as a group; Christopher trained alone under Godfrey.

Godfrey raised the practice sword. "Again."

Christopher attacked. Godfrey moved aside, struck his exposed arm and told him to try again.

Bram waited near the steps with yesterday’s stone held against his chest. He had arrived early and picked it up without being told. When Christopher’s lesson ended, Godfrey placed two smaller stones on the ground several paces apart.

"Walk around them," he said.

Bram looked down at the weight in his arms. "Like yesterday?"

"Around the stones. Do not touch either one."

Godfrey corrected Bram’s first turn and made him continue until breakfast. The exercise taught him to control his strength and footing while carrying weight.

"Keep walking," Godfrey said.

Christopher left him to it.

The eastern fields had changed overnight. Water no longer gathered in the shallow cuts made by the farmers, and the opened branch of the old channel carried a thin brown stream away from the higher ground. The soil still clung to boots, but it broke apart when squeezed instead of dripping through the fingers.

Two ploughs waited at the edge of the first field. The wooden frames had survived the journey north, though Master Barlow had replaced one iron point that morning. Four oxen stood in their harness while the farming families cleared the last brush ahead of them.

Christopher arrived with Bennet and found an argument already underway.

Godfrey wanted eight men moved to the northwest wall; the older farmer wanted those same men removing roots, leaving Bennet caught between both demands.

"The breach can be climbed," Godfrey said when Christopher approached.

"The plough cannot pass through roots," the farmer answered.

Godfrey fixed his gaze on him. The man lowered his eyes but did not withdraw the point.

Christopher examined the field. Cut brush lay in piles along the stone boundaries. The slaves had helped with the heaviest clearing yesterday, but Owen needed them at the houses and gate, and the six prisoners were hauling loose stone under guard.

Everyone useful had already been given more work than they could finish.

"How long do you need the eight men?" Christopher asked the farmer.

"The gate should close today, maybe tomorrow morning if the hinges give trouble."

"How long until the breach in the wall is blocked?"

"The wall remains vulnerable until the breach is blocked," Godfrey said.

Owen had estimated four days if weather and stone held.

Christopher scanned the distant wall. Men stood at the northwest watch, visible as small shapes above the roofs. The breach remained guarded even without a repair crew.

"Four men continue on the wall," Christopher said. "The other four stay here until the first field is cleared. After that, they join Owen."

The farmer opened his mouth.

"You said eight for today. You have four, and I’ll send four of the older boys after the animals are unharnessed."

"They aren’t trained stone workers, my lord."

"They can carry stone and mortar while Owen’s men handle the wall."

Godfrey nodded once. "The watch remains doubled until the breach is blocked."

That ended it.

The first ox team entered the field. One farmer held the plough handles while another led the animals. The point cut a dark line through the ground before catching on a buried root, and the frame jerked hard enough to pull the farmer forward.

Men attacked the root with mattocks and axes while the oxen waited.

The plough struck two more roots. Opening the drainage branch had helped, but years of weeds and young trees still slowed the work, so Bennet sent Christopher to the farmers for an estimate.

Christopher approached the older farmer and asked. The man looked across the field, studied the clouds and gave an answer of perhaps half.

"Only maybe? What’s slowing them?"

"If the second plough holds. If the oxen don’t tire. If we find fewer roots near the far stones."

Robert Miller had spoken much the same way about the water channel. Christopher was beginning to dislike the word if.

He waited for Owen’s estimate.

The first furrows were meant for barley. Turnips would go into the smaller plot after it was cleared. Most of the winter rye remained dry inside the storehouse for autumn.

Christopher helped carry cut branches until Walter found him and took the bundle from his hands.

"Owen needs you at the gate before he sets the doors."

"Does he need me, or does he want another decision?"

"He wants permission to pull iron from the ruined stable doors."

"That sounds like a decision he can make."

"The doors are your responsibility. Check them before the workers hang them."

Christopher took in the field, then the stronghold. "Tell him he can take iron from any building already condemned. Bennet records where it came from."

Walter handed the branches to one of the boys. "Anything else?"

"Yes. We need everyone to know what to do if the watch sounds an alarm."

Walter waited.

"Not Knight training," Christopher said. "Where the families gather. Which buildings the children run to. Who carries messages. That sort of thing."

"Most will run wherever their family is."

"Then we should teach them somewhere better."

Walter considered the fields. "Do it after work. Half an hour. More than that and the farmers will complain."

"The older children already complain about carrying water."

"Then they will complain louder and still learn where to run when the horn sounds."

The second plough entered the field before noon.

By midday, the fishing baskets and new hooks had produced twenty-one small fish. Women also returned with nettles, young shoots and edible roots for Martha’s pots.

The settlement had food. Grain still filled part of the storehouse, Black Hollow’s safe supplies had been stacked separately, and livestock occupied repaired pens inside the southern wall. Hunting, fishing and gathering slowed the use of those stores while the fields were prepared.

Cold remained harder to ignore.

The sun appeared for less than an hour. Wind from the north crossed the walls and followed people into every open doorway. Workers wore gloves while handling stone, removing them only when wet leather became worse than bare fingers.

The first repaired house was ready by afternoon.

After Owen checked the roof, hearth and braced floor, the first farming family moved out of the crowded barracks. The two-room house lacked shutters and had a mismatched door, but it was theirs.

The neighboring families watched.

"Letting one worker direct the others will cause arguments," Bennet said.

"Why would choosing a work leader cause trouble?"

"Because everyone now wants to know which house is next."

"Let Owen choose the man who understands his instructions best."

"The workers will still ask whether his orders come from you."

Christopher watched a woman hang a blanket across the empty window. "Then I will send them to Owen."

The short defense drill began before supper.

Walter and Bennet selected twenty-four older children and teenagers for what Walter called the alarm group. Their parents and the adults normally responsible for younger children also came to hear the instructions. They gathered in the courtyard wearing work clothes and tired expressions.

The Knight Apprentices followed their own schedule. Six remained on watch while the other six cleaned weapons after their separate afternoon drill. Bram stood near Godfrey and continued practicing turns without carrying the stone.

Walter ordered the children and anyone unable to fight to gather in the common hall after three horn calls. Their first attempt ended with blocked doors and scattered children, so he divided them into groups led by an older child or adult.

Meg raised her hand before Joan could stop her.

"Can I carry messages with the older children?" she asked.

Walter eyed her thin shoes. "Can you run to the eastern wall and return?"

Meg ran.

Meg outran two older boys on the first route. She hesitated when Walter changed the destination, and Godfrey reminded Christopher that a runner also had to remember the message.

Meg returned breathing hard.

Walter chose her and three others from the alarm group as runners. During an alarm, they would carry spoken messages between the walls, barracks, gatehouse and inner yard.

Joan waited until Walter dismissed them, then caught Meg by the arm.

"You volunteered without asking me."

"He said every family had to send someone."

"He did not say you had to run across the fortress."

"I was faster than all three of them," Meg said.

Joan turned toward Christopher. He pretended to be studying the repaired gate socket.

Near sunset, the farmers finished more than half of the first field. The older farmer decided they had enough clear ground to begin sowing the next morning while the ploughs continued ahead.

Christopher stood at the field boundary as the oxen returned to Dragonwatch. Dark furrows crossed ground that had been abandoned for years, many of them ending crookedly around roots and stones.

"It doesn’t look like much," he said.

The farmer cleaned mud from the plough point. "It will look better with barley in it."

"Will the farmers finish the rest tomorrow?"

"If it does not rain, they should finish the remaining furrows tomorrow."

Christopher looked at the clouds.

The farmer laughed and led the oxen home.

Rain held off the next morning.

The farmers began sowing barley before Christopher finished training. He could see them from the courtyard whenever Godfrey drove him far enough back, small figures moving along the dark furrows with seed bags at their hips.

"Watch your feet," Godfrey said. "You’re crossing them again."

Christopher looked down.

The wooden sword struck his shoulder.

"Do not look down at them. Feel where you placed them."

"How am I supposed to correct them?"

"You avoid crossing them by knowing where they are without looking."

Across the courtyard, the Knight Apprentices trained in two separate groups. Walter drilled six with shields while the others remained on watch. Ivo would take the second group after breakfast. Bram walked between stones with a heavy beam across his shoulders, turning slowly whenever Godfrey called a direction.

"Left," Godfrey said.

Bram turned right.

"Your other left, my lord."

Bram stopped, thought about it and turned back.

Christopher raised his sword before Godfrey could strike him again.

The settlement followed the same routine for four days. More barley went into the first field. The farmers cleared part of the turnip plot and complained that half the workers promised to them kept being sent to the walls. Owen completed the stone around the old gate socket, although the proper doors still had to wait for dry timber.

Two more houses passed inspection. Their sound hearths, patched roofs and braced floors allowed three families to leave the common hall.

The fifteen collared slaves continued clearing damaged houses under Walter’s control. The six prisoners worked as a separate crew, hauling loose stone under the eyes of two apprentices and returning to their locked room each night.

The fishing baskets produced something most mornings. On poor days they held only weeds and insects. On the best, Martha received nearly thirty small fish and one river fish as long as Christopher’s forearm.

Aldwin’s hands healed enough for him to close them without reopening the cuts. He left with Perrin, Adam, Ivo and two apprentices on the fourth morning, and they returned with a deer, seven rabbits and news of fresh animal trails south of the river.

"Did the prisoners find anything dangerous inside?" Christopher asked.

"Everything is dangerous when hungry," Aldwin said.

"Anything dangerous to a Bronze Knight?"

"Not that we found, my lord. Most passages are simply blocked or rotten."

Bertram took the deer hide. He had spent the previous days building a low smoking shed near the kitchen with two of the rescued workers. The first version leaked smoke from every wall, and Martha declared it useless until Bertram packed the gaps with clay and moved the fire pit.

By the end of the week, strips of venison and cleaned fish hung inside it.

The food stores were holding. The roofs were not.

Every dry room mattered, which brought Christopher back to the inner castle.

With Black Hollow destroyed and the watches settled, Godfrey approved the inspection. Owen brought ropes, timber braces and lamps, while Mabel joined them in case someone was hurt.

They entered after breakfast.

Before leaving the courtyard, Godfrey questioned the six prisoners. Four claimed they had never passed the inner gate. The wounded Black Iron fighter refused to answer. The sixth said he had carried torches while the observation cell searched the entrance hall and western rooms.

Godfrey chose him to accompany the party. The prisoner’s hands were tied in front, and a rope around his waist remained in Walter’s grip.

"You point out where your people went," Godfrey said. "You don’t walk ahead of me."

"I don’t want to enter first again," the prisoner said.

"If you remember a danger after someone steps into it, I will assume you kept quiet."

The prisoner nodded.

Godfrey entered with a shield and drawn sword. Walter followed with the prisoner, Simon and Thomas. Christopher came next with Mabel and Owen, while four more apprentices carried lamps, rope, axes and wooden braces.

Ivo remained outside. He had six apprentices available between the walls, fields and work crews, along with the ordinary armed guards, and the inner gate would stay watched until the inspection party returned.

The smaller door beside the main gate had already opened several inches. Owen examined the fallen stone blocking it, then sent everyone back while two apprentices pulled from behind a corner with ropes.

The stone rolled once and struck the door hard enough to shake dust from the arch.

The remaining stones held.

"Again," Owen said.

They moved it far enough to squeeze through one at a time.

The passage beyond was wide and dark. Its ceiling rose higher than Christopher’s lamp could reach. Old iron brackets lined both walls, but whatever had once burned inside them had disappeared. Their footsteps returned in faint echoes.

Godfrey stopped after twenty paces.

"Can you hear anything beyond the door?"

Everyone listened.

Water dripped somewhere ahead. Wings rustled above them, followed by the thin cries of bats. Mabel moved closer to the wall until Owen warned her that loose stone was more dangerous than anything flying overhead.

The passage opened into a large entrance hall.

Broken benches lay beneath years of dirt. A rusted chain hung from the ceiling where a lamp or banner had once been suspended. One wall bore pale rectangles where shields or pictures had protected the stone from smoke.

The bandits had been there.

Bootprints crossed the dust near the entrance, old but still visible. A pile of burnt torch ends lay beside one pillar. Someone had forced open two cupboards and left their doors hanging from the hinges.

"Could the sounds belong to more of your people?" Godfrey asked.

The prisoner looked around. "Some of the prints. Others were already here. We searched this floor twice."

"How old do the newest tracks look?" Christopher asked Simon.

The apprentice crouched over the prints. "Months. Some could be older."

"None since we entered Dragonwatch?"

"I don’t think anyone has passed through since we took the fortress."

Godfrey sent Walter and two apprentices around the edge of the hall. They checked every doorway before anyone moved farther inside.

The first rooms had been stripped. One contained rotten tables. Another held empty shelves and broken clay jars. Rats fled from the third room through a hole near the floor, and Thomas almost stabbed one before Walter pushed his spear aside.

"Save your strength," Walter said.

"The animal ran straight at me."

"It was running away from the rest of us and happened to pass you."

"It changed direction when it saw me."

They marked the room as unusable because of the hole and the smell.

The eastern corridor ended beneath fallen beams and stone. A narrow space remained near the ceiling, but Godfrey refused to let Simon crawl through it.

"We never passed that," the prisoner said. "One man pulled at a beam. The ceiling moved."

"We don’t know what holds the rest up," he said.

Owen studied the collapse. "Some of those beams are carrying stone. Pull the wrong one and the corridor comes down."

Christopher could see several bent beams but could not tell which one carried the greatest load.

"Can the ceiling be braced well enough to pass beneath it?" he asked.

"Yes, but not until Owen brings proper timber and examines the stone."

"Can the work be done without bringing the ceiling down?"

Owen scratched dust from his beard. "Not today."

They tied a strip of red cloth across the corridor and moved on.

A broad staircase climbed from the far end of the entrance hall. The first steps were stone, while the landing above had a wooden floor. Godfrey struck each board with the edge of his shield before trusting it.

The prisoner stopped at the bottom. "The landing broke under a man last year."

Walter tightened the rope. "You might have said that sooner."

"The floor held near the wall, but the center boards sagged under my weight."

The fourth board broke.

Part of the landing dropped into the room beneath it. Dust rushed through the opening, and something heavy crashed below.

Everyone backed away.

Mabel covered her mouth with her sleeve. "That answers whether the upper floor is safe."

"Part of the upper floor can be saved," Owen said.

"That part is enough for now. Mark the rest unsafe."

They left the staircase alone.

The western side of the entrance hall proved better. Its corridor had a stone floor and arched ceilings. The first two doors opened into officers’ rooms, judging by the remains of narrow beds, writing tables and wall chests. The bandits had searched both. Locks had been broken, mattresses cut apart and every drawer emptied.

Several pieces of furniture could be repaired.

The next door would not open.

Walter found no trap. Owen examined the hinges before two apprentices used an iron bar against the frame. The wood split near the lock.

Cold, stale air escaped from the room.

Inside stood rows of low stone platforms. Rotten wood and black iron fragments covered several of them. Christopher picked up the remains of a metal band, but it crumbled along one edge.

"Do you think the locked room was an armory?" he asked.

Godfrey examined the room. "Storage for armor, maybe."

The bandits had entered before them. Empty chests stood open against the rear wall. One still bore fresh marks from an axe.

"They found nothing," Simon said.

"Nothing they left," Walter corrected.

Owen checked the ceiling and declared the stone sound. The room was dry, and its heavy door could be repaired.

"Could we use it as another storehouse?" Christopher asked Bennet out of habit.

Bennet was outside.

Mabel laughed. "You have brought the wrong person."

"Owen, will the room remain dry?"

"Dry enough," the mason said. "Check the rear wall first."

The rear wall sounded solid beneath his hammer. A narrow vent near the ceiling opened toward the courtyard, too small for a person to use. With shelves and a repaired lock, the room could hold tools or valuable supplies.

They found two similar rooms farther down the corridor. One had water running across its floor from a cracked pipe or drain in the wall. The other contained old grain bins filled with rat nests.

Mabel refused to let anyone enter the grain room until smoke or traps cleared the rats.

The corridor ended at a pair of iron-bound doors. Unlike the others, these remained firmly locked, their hinges showing little rust.

The prisoner spoke before anyone asked him. "We never opened those."

Christopher raised his lamp.

No crest or writing marked the wood. A simple keyhole sat beneath the handle.

"Did the bandits try to open this door?" he asked.

Simon pointed to scratches around the lock. "Several times."

Walter tested the handle. "We can break it."

Owen studied the arch, walls and floor. "Probably."

Godfrey shook his head. "We have enough rooms for one day."

Christopher wanted to disagree. The doors were ordinary, but the untouched space beyond them might contain beds, tools or supplies. It could also contain another rotten floor, a collapsed ceiling or a stairway they were not ready to search.

"Mark the door and leave it closed until we have proper tools," he said.

Thomas tied another strip of red cloth to the handle.

They returned to the entrance hall before noon. Owen selected a place for a timber barrier that would close the western corridor from the rest of the castle. Until the entrance hall and nearby passages were made safe, no settlers would enter without permission.

Outside, Bennet listened to their report.

"Did we find three rooms dry enough for supplies?" he asked.

"Two rooms are dry," Mabel said. "The third belongs to the rats."

"Then we use the two dry rooms and clear the rats from the third."

"There is a large hall," Christopher said.

"With bats, broken stairs and several entrances we cannot watch."

Christopher handed him the rough notes Gilbert had made. "Two rooms."

Bennet added repairs, shelves and a new lock to his list. Moving valuable tools into the stone rooms would free part of the outer storehouse.

Walter returned the prisoner to the labor crew after the inspection. His help counted in his favor, but it did not earn freedom or remove the guard.

The workers returned to the fields and houses after the midday meal. Christopher spent the afternoon carrying Godfrey’s report along the wall and checking the alarm posts.

When he passed the common hall, Meg and the other runners were repeating the route to the eastern wall under Walter’s direction. They still carried no weapons. Elsie followed them until Joan caught her and sent her back to the kitchen.

At supper, Martha served smoked venison with barley porridge and chopped greens. The smokehouse had worked, though Bertram complained that the first batch had dried unevenly.

Christopher ate beside the rough map of the inner castle.

Most of the page remained blank.

Godfrey set another lamp beside him. "Morning training."

"I remember. I will stay behind Walter once we enter."

"You said the same thing yesterday and still stepped forward."

"And I was there when you pulled me back."

Godfrey considered the blank spaces on the map. "Leave those for another day."

Christopher folded the page and finished his meal.