Under the Keep

FESTIL BOLTED from the table and motioned to the rear exit of the chamber. “My fair lady, this way,” he yelled. “The rest of you to the bailey floor. Secure the keep from the intruders.”

The assemblage exploded from the doorways like pieces of shattered glass. The advisors scrambled by Alodar, and he hesitated as Festil ushered Vendora and Aeriel out the other way. In an instant, he made his decision. As curtains swished shut, he rushed after the departing queen.

The journeyman sprang into the passageway beyond the conference room. Ahead of him the three descended a long spiral staircase, like the one he had climbed in the morning, but narrower and with no windows to the outside. Only an occasional torch on the wall prevented total darkness. As the trio disappeared from view, Alodar plunged down the stairs. Down and down he sped, just able to catch sight of Vendora’s flowing gown around the curve of the keep. He glanced over his shoulder. Periac was about the same distance behind.

More openings whizzed by on the inside, but the outside wall remained featureless and unbroken. Around and around the stairs wound, until Alodar lost his sense of direction. He wrenched one of the torches from the wall as he passed.

Finally, the staircase ended and joined a level walkway that continued to curve about the keep. Alodar increased his speed and closed on those in the lead. He raced around nearly half the circumference and then saw of flash of copper from Aeriel’s hair as she disappeared into a square-cut hole in the stone floor. He ran to the opening and peered inside, motioning Periac to hurry and catch up. A second staircase spiraled into a room below.

Alodar thrust the torch into the opening. Festil and the two women were descending in the dimness. When the warrior reached the floor, he grunted in recognition and ran to a large lever hinged on the wall. The lord strained against it while Aerial and Vendora reached the floor beside him.

“It is the first underground chamber!” Alodar exclaimed. “The one with the iron slab on the floor.”

Festil looked up, unable to budge the lever from where he found it. “Quickly, man,” he commanded. “Help me here so that we can seal them out.”

Periac caught up with Alodar and together they descended into the room. All three tugged at the lever, and slowly it began to move. The journeyman glanced back up at the opening through which they had come. A stone slab, held against the ceiling on metal tracks, had begun sliding in response. It rumbled across the opening and thudded into place, sealing off the entrance from above.

Festil and Periac collapsed to the ground holding their sides and panting from the exertion. The two women leaned against the wall, chests heaving, unable to speak. Alodar glanced about the chamber he had visited two nights before. He could see no change. It was much like the one two levels farther below, but instead of a well, a square-cut slab of iron, rusted red from the dampness, sat in the center of the featureless floor. The block was the only place at which anyone could sit, but the flaking rough surface dissuaded any such use. The round circle of walls of the chamber had no structure except for indentations for the lighting oil and the four archways that radiated to the castle’s corner towers like the limbs of a great sprawling beast. Only the lever that had closed the exit to the keep seemed to serve any purpose.

Alodar moved about the room, glancing into the long dark tunnels radiating from it. Three were pitch black, giving no clue as to what lay beyond. In the fourth was a procession of many torches and the jingle of mail. Even in the distance, he could recognize Feston’s bright surcoat reflecting the torchlight.

Soon Feston and the group he brought with him were in the chamber and fanning out to explore the entrances to the other passageways. “My fair lady,” he said, “thank the amulets that you are safe and not in Bandor’s grasp. We may yet win praise in the sagas for this day.”

Vendora pushed herself from the wall and straightened to a freestanding position, brushing down the disarray of her gown and readjusting the aquamarine to its proper position.

“How stand our forces now, Lord Feston?” she asked, still gulping air between her words.

“Not well, my queen,” Feston replied, “but not so badly that there is not hope still. The battle rages fiercely on the bailey above, and I think in the end it will be to no avail. But we have secured the lower levels under each tower, just as you have done with the keep, and we find no sign of Bandor’s forces here to peril us. The bulk of our defenders are left above, alas, to fend as best they can, and we could not prevent some craftsmen coming down into these fortifications along with the men-at-arms.

“But we have secured most of the food and I think, judging from these walls, lack not for water. It will be a long while before Bandor can begin to hope of reaching us.”

“With the queen so neatly bundled up,” Aerial interrupted, “why should he even care? Do you propose no more than to await our fate just as we have done for the last forty-three days?

“I am not trained in matters of war as you are, my lords, but it seems to me that these chambers and passageways serve a better purpose than to pass the time. I think aloud without deliberation, but don’t these walls and interconnections at least give us an element of surprise?

“When Bandor eventually takes full command of the castle above, he will find the five entrances to us, but he will despair about how long it would take him to pound his way through the thickness of the stone doorways running on the iron tracks. More likely, he will do no more than station guards at each one to await what we would do next. He must split his forces into fifths, and we can concentrate ours to strike at one — and at a time of our own choosing.”

“Necessity imparts sharpness to your thoughts, Lady Aeriel,” Festil rose slowly to stand by his son. “Quite surely I believe you have hit upon the intent of the castle’s original design. If the walls were to fall, the towers would still have to be taken. Then with underground communication, each could aid others so that all might stand.

“But on balance, my son’s plan seems a good one. We have not the towers but only the chambers underneath them. In addition, the blood of Bandor’s vassals now runs hot with victory and lust for rape and plunder. Our salvation may be a surprise thrust as you say, but I think it wise to sit until our captor’s zeal cools in the careless boredom of guard duty before we try.”

“Well enough, Lord Festil,” Vendora said softly. “We need time to assess our situation. Lord Feston, continue to conduct yourself as you have. I appoint you commander of whatever forces remain. See that order is established and the entrances to these dungeons well-guarded.”

As she spoke, the queen looked around the high and windowless walls of the chamber and reached behind herself for a cloak that was not there.

“Here, my fair lady,” Feston released the clasp of the cape of the man who stood near and whirling it about her. She clutched it eagerly and drew it tight while her eyes darted again about the room.

The others caught her mood and somberly shifted about as the reality of their plight began to sink in. Despite Festil’s words, acceptance of their ultimate fate painted itself on their faces.

Alodar pushed the feeling away. The odds were longer now, true, but his goal should not change. Perhaps the castle possessed one more secret defense to aid them. And if he could find it and thereby save the queen, ah, who would be the hero then? With determination, he headed into one of the passageways to search again for some clue.