Song of the Gargoyle (21 page)

And now as the ox cart slowly climbed the approach road, Tymmon’s mind was full of recollections of that other visit. Memories of how, even then in the midst of what was intended to be a joyous celebration, there had been for Tymmon at least a constant feeling of vague and distant threat.

He remembered how, although great fires roared night and day in dozens of huge hearths, he had often shivered in the chilling drafts that came and went throughout the castle like long shuddering sighs. And how at times he had seemed to hear a deep and silent lamentation, as if even the dark stones of the castle walls were given to weeping.

Now and then during the long, slow ride Tymmon wondered with some uneasiness just why they were being taken to the castle. He did not really believe it was just to reward them for their help. Had Sir Wilfar’s intention been only that, he could easily have given Tymmon a few coppers or even, if he felt extraordinarily grateful, a piece of silver.

There was the possibility that the young knight knew about Black Helmet’s reward and had guessed Tymmon’s true identity. But on further thought, that seemed rather unlikely, since Sir Wilfar obviously had so little interest in who Tymmon might be that he had not even bothered to ask his name.

Catching Petrus’s eye, Tymmon smiled, remembering that Sir Wilfar had asked no questions about Petrus or Dalia either, so it had not been necessary for Petrus to remember that he was Tymmon’s brother. He had, in fact, asked no questions at all—except about Troff.

Tymmon’s mind was busy with the possibility that Troff had something to do with their visit to Unterrike Castle when the cart crossed the long drawbridge and passed through the imposing gateway. Once inside the walls it rumbled across the intricately tiled courtyard, past grand facades with pointed-arch entryways and beautiful traceried windows.

While Petrus rose to his feet and gasped and jabbered with excitement, Dalia climbed into Tymmon’s lap and clung to him tightly, staring with wondering eyes. Only Troff seemed unimpressed by either the grandeur of their surroundings or by the novelty of a ride in an ox cart. Lying with his great head resting on his paws, he seemed entirely unconcerned, his eyes barely open below the wrinkled folds of skin on his bulging forehead.

With the courtyard behind them, they continued on up a sloping passageway, through the gate to the inner keep, and stopped before the magnificent entrance to the baron’s palace. As the ox cart labored to a stop, huge copper-plated doors swung open, a crowd of excited servants appeared, and Sir Wilfar was immediately lifted up by many hands and carried away; And soon afterwards Tymmon and the others were surrounded and ushered into a long narrow room, the great hall of Unterrike Castle.

Carrying Dalia, and clinging to Troff’s collar with the other hand, and with Petrus clinging to the back of his tunic, Tymmon was swept into the hall in the midst of a flock of servants who then disappeared and left them standing alone. Not far away a large woman in a long, loose kirtle with flowing fur-trimmed sleeves, and wearing on her head an elaborate cone-shaped headdress, was bending over Sir Wilfar, who lay sprawled among an avalanche of pillows on a high-backed bench.

Sir Wilfar was talking, as usual. The lady listened, now and then looking back over her shoulder at Tymmon and his little group. At last she turned and beckoned to them, smiling graciously, but at that moment several more people entered the room and she hurried to meet them.

The newcomers, an important-looking gentleman in a long dark robe and four servants in brightly colored livery, clustered around Sir Wilfar. The dark-robed man examined the injured forehead and then the swollen leg thoroughly before he directed the servants to lift the young knight and carry him from the room. The lady followed them to the door of the great hall and then, as if suddenly remembering, hurried back to where Tymmon waited.

“Welcome, children,” she said in the high, quavering voice that was often used by noble ladies. “My son, Sir Wilfar, has told me that you came to his rescue when he was injured and alone. He wanted to speak further with you immediately and to reward you for your helpfulness, but the doctor has ordered that he be immediately put to bed and treated for his injuries. He will send for you tomorrow. In the meantime...

The lady turned toward the distant doorway, where a servant in beautiful braid-trimmed livery stood at attention. A tall, dignified man, stiff with dignity and self-importance, he was obviously the head chamberlain or someone of similar rank. Motioning for him to approach, the baroness told him that “these children and their dog are to be taken to the kitchen and fed, and then housed in one of the unused servants’ rooms in the kitchen wing. See that they are well fed, and that the dog is given his fill of fresh, raw meat. My son particularly asked that he be fed fresh, raw meat.”

She turned back to Tymmon. “I will not see you on the morrow as I will be leaving at dawn in the caravan that will take those of the court who do not ride a-horseback to the celebration at Austerneve. But my son will send for you when he awakens, which, I must warn you, will not be early, as he is generally a late riser. But he asked me to tell you that after he has seen you, you will be free to go.”

Somewhat relieved, Tymmon had started toward the door when behind him he heard the baroness speaking to the chamberlain. “See that they are taken good care of, Roscall. Particularly the dog. His lordship seems to have taken quite a fancy to the ugly beast. I believe he intends to add him to his kennel of fighting dogs.”

He knew it. It had been Troff all along that had caused Sir Wilfar to insist on their accompanying him to the castle. As the head chamberlain led the way through many magnificent rooms and then down one long corridor after another, Tymmon clutched the gargoyle’s collar and wondered what a knight so ready with the whip and sword would do if he were refused something he badly wanted. It was a frightening thought. But there was some comfort in the fact that Troff did not seem frightened.

Padding along with his nose only inches from the velvet breeches of the chamberlain, who glanced back at him uneasily from time to time, Troff seemed to be thinking only of amusing himself by making the haughty head servant nervous.

He is not worried because he knows I would never sell him, Tymmon thought. No matter what, I would never part with him.

After being generously fed in the servants’ kitchen, while a flock of spit turners, scullery maids, and other young kitchen laborers watched in awe as Troff devoured most of a raw leg of lamb, Tymmon’s company was taken to their room. Led by a young understeward carrying a tall candle, they left the kitchen by way of the scullery and wound their way down two flights of stairs. The air had gone cold and dank, and Tymmon was thinking that they must be well down into the bowels of the earth, when the servant stopped and opened a door.

The room was cold and windowless, but it was furnished with a table, a bench, two large pallets, and plenty of heavy blankets. The steward took another candle from his satchel, lit it, and placing it on the table, announced that they had better not leave the room in a mess, and then disappeared. The door had scarcely shut behind him when Troff and the two children were sound asleep, and it could not have been much longer before Tymmon, too, was deeply unconscious.

He had not expected to sleep. Worried as he was by Sir Wilfar’s plans for Troff, he had intended to only warm himself beneath the blankets while he planned a strategy for the day ahead. A way, perhaps, to convince Sir Wilfar that Troff would be useless to him as either a hunter or as a killer in the village dogfight arenas.

But the day had been long and extremely strenuous and Tymmon had not yet arrived at any plan when his thoughts swirled and blurred, and he was sound asleep.

It was several hours later that he was jolted awake by a familiar but entirely unexpected sound. Troff was singing. The candle on the table, much lower now, was still burning, and by its light Tymmon could see that Petrus and Dalia had also been awakened. Sitting up on their pallet, they were staring at Troff with surprise and amusement. Meanwhile the gargoyle sat on his haunches near the door and, with his head thrown back, was crooning his most mournful lament.

“Dog be singing,” Petrus said unnecessarily. “Why be Dog singing, Boy? He waked us up.”

“He woke me up, too,” Tymmon said. He got out of bed, crossed the room, and squatted down before the gargoyle. “What is it, Troff?” he asked. “Why are you singing now?”

But the singing went on and on... and then suddenly Troff dropped his head, licked his chops, grinned at Tymmon, and began to scratch a flea. Tymmon went back to bed.

But he had no more than pulled up the blankets when the singing began again, livelier now, and with a faster beat.

“Troff,” he said, irritated now. “Stop it. You will awaken all the servants. Stop, I say.”

But the singing continued. At last Tymmon jumped up and, grabbing the gargoyle by his muzzle, forced his jaws together. And it was in the following silence that he heard it—the sound of faraway music. Too faint and indistinct for the tune or even the instrument to be recognized, but definitely music. Pushing past Troff, Tymmon seized the latch and opened the heavy door. Now the sound was much clearer. Still distant, but clearly...

“Boy,” Petrus said. “That be yours. That be one of your songs.”

Tymmon stood perfectly still, as if some great force had passed over him, jolting his mind and body into immobility. He tried once, twice, and a third time before his voice responded and he was able to say, “No. It is one of my father’s songs.”

Stepping out into the pitch-dark, tunnellike hallway, he listened, cupping his hand behind his ear. The song was coming from the left. Behind him Troff was beginning to sing again. Back in the room, Tymmon again closed the gargoyle’s mouth and then, snatching up the candle, set off down the hall following the sound of the flute.

But of course he was followed. He had gone only a few yards when he realized that Troff—and the children, too—were close behind him. He stopped, thinking to order them back to the room, but looking down into Petrus’s eager eyes he quickly realized that there was no time for the argument that would follow such an order. So they went on, the four of them, along a stretch of narrowing stone-walled passageway and then down a flight of circular steps.

The music grew louder as they went, and once or twice Troff began to sing, but he stopped quickly when Tymmon put a warning hand upon his muzzle. They were nearing an intersection where two long tunnels crossed when the music stopped.

“It be gone,” Petrus whispered. “The song be gone, Boy.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “Maybe we best go back?”

“No,” Tymmon whispered. “No.” He moved on more slowly, waiting—until, just as he had hoped, the music began again. Another slow, sad tune but now even more loud and clear.

They passed by two more intersections and then down another stairway. Down and down into a narrower tunnel, where the air smelled of mildew and the walls oozed moisture.

The music was very near now, and up ahead a glimmer of light appeared and grew brighter. They turned a corner and came suddenly upon a gate. A great barred gate made of strong iron poles set in a metal frame. Beyond the gate an oil lamp burned brightly in an alcove, and beneath the alcove a man sat slumped forward over a table, his head on his arms. Near the sleeping man’s hand, a large ring of keys lay on the table.

As Tymmon peered between the bars of the gate the music ended, broken off in mid-phrase, and it was then that he noticed another barred gate to the left of the sleeping man. A series of iron bars—and behind them something was moving. A figure was moving toward the gate, and then a face appeared between the bars.

It was a thinner, paler face, and heavily bearded now, but the eyes were still the same, dark-lashed and wide-set beneath arching brows—and still alive with sharp intelligence and, at the moment, shocked surprise.

Pressing his face between the bars, Tymmon fought back a need to scream or shout so violent that his throat ached from the effort. Fought back all sound—and silently mouthed the word “Father.”

Komus’s finger flew to his lips, signaling silence. For a brief moment he stared at Tymmon, shaking his head in amazed disbelief, and then his eyes turned quickly toward the sleeping dungeon keeper. He grinned his old double-edged grin and then, pointing to the sprawled figure, pantomimed drunkenness, crossing his eyes and dropping his jaw. It was not until then that Tymmon noticed the wineskin that lay on the floor beneath the table.

“The keys,” Komus mouthed, miming the turning of a key in a lock.

Tymmon nodded. Putting an arm, a leg, and a shoulder between the bars, he tried desperately to force his head through. But the space was far too narrow. But as he gave up and extracted himself, he noticed that Petrus was trying too. Tymmon held his breath as the little boy managed to get half his body between the bars—and then, just as with Tymmon, his head stopped his progress. He tried frantically, and Tymmon tried to help, grasping the small head and turning it this way and that, to try again from another angle.

Tymmon was still pushing and Petrus was protesting not quite silently that he was in pain, when a soft voice whispered, “Doan hurt Petrus. I can do it,” and Dalia squeezed easily between the bars, tiptoed on tiny bare feet to the table, slowly and silently raised the ring of keys, and returned with them to where Tymmon waited with outstretched arms. And it was not until much later that he realized that she had spoken.

There followed a long period of nerve-racking tension as Tymmon tried one key after another—and finally found the correct one. The key turning in the lock grated slightly and the iron gate squeaked on its rusty hinges, while Tymmon held his breath in anguished dread. But although the flat-faced dungeon master mumbled when the key turned, and snorted and turned his head when the hinges squealed, his eyes stayed closed.

Only a few seconds later the door to Komus’s cell was opened and Komus was grasping Tymmon by his shoulders and then clutching him to his chest, as silent tears ran down his cheeks and Tymmon’s also. They were still standing there crying and laughing silently, or almost silently, when a sudden growl from Troff warned of danger.