9
They stepped into the shin-high snow blanketing the platform. The station was a fallow cabin with its door half off the hinges and the windows knocked out. Animal tracks darted in and out of the homely structure but there were no human footsteps to be seen. Neither Memel nor Mewe had any baggage; they pushed on in the direction of the castle, punch-punching through the frosted snow, while Lucy stood awhile by the train tracks, preferring to be apart from these two. But when they noticed his falling behind they ceased walking and called for him to hurry along, that they might travel together. Lucy could think of no alternative other than to fall in line, and so he did this, saying to himself, I am alone with two bloodthirsty thieves. We are walking into an anonymous field of pale snow. Hoping to keep their criminal minds occupied with chatter, Lucy spoke, asking Memel if Mewe was his son, or grandson. Memel said no, they were merely friends.
“Not today we’re not,” said Mewe.
“No, that’s true. Today we’re not friends. But normally, yes.”
“Why aren’t you friends today?” Lucy asked Mewe.
Mewe shook his head. “Memel likes to talk; he’ll tell you.”
“You’ll only interrupt me,” Memel said.
“No, I won’t.”
“It’s an unremarkable thing,” Memel admitted to Lucy.
“If idiocy is unremarkable,” added Mewe.
“Of course idiocy is unremarkable. That’s its chief attribute.”
“I’ve found your idiocy to be quite remarkable at times.”
Memel rolled his eyes. “Mewe takes refuge in insult,” he told Lucy.
“Quite remarkable indeed,” Mewe said. But Memel remained silent; he wouldn’t participate in the lowly discourse. Mewe kicked at the snow. Wearily, he said, “We just like to fight, is what it is.”
Memel pondered the statement, apparently a virgin notion for him. “It’s true. We do.” He was displeased by the admission; it appeared to make him remorseful.
Lucy had been watching the pair for a time, but as their conversation fell into a lull, now he looked up at the castle, and when he did this he startled, for it was much closer than he’d sensed it to be, as if the property had uprooted itself and met them halfway. Lucy considered its facade with a dour expression, and he thought about how buildings often took on the qualities of a living being for him. His own home, for example, was the architectural embodiment of his mother; the tavern was a tilted, leering drunkard; the church was the modest yet noble double of the good Father Raymond. But what was the castle representative of? It was too early to name it. He only knew that it spoke of something colossal and ominous and quite beyond his experience.
They approached a shanty village, built up in a cluster apart from the base of the castle, a hundred or more haphazard domiciles linked side by each in the shape of a teardrop. A series of larger, open-air structures formed a cross through the center—marketplace stalls, Memel explained. Lucy watched as the villagers went about their business: shawl-covered women ducking in and out of doorways, children wrapped to their breasts or trailing behind; men standing in groups of threes and fours, speaking animatedly, gesturing, laughing. Memel pointed out his shanty to Lucy, and with pride, though it was indistinguishable from the others: a warping shack fashioned from tin scrap and mismatched timber. A chimney pushed through the roof, tall and tilted, issuing wispy woodsmoke.
“And does Mewe live with you also?” said Lucy.
“No, I live alone,” said Mewe. “Just this side of Memel’s, do you see?”
Lucy nodded. He asked Memel, “How long have you lived here?”
“I was born here. Mewe, too. We all were.”
“And how long has the village stood beside the castle?”
“Just as long as the castle has been here, so has the village.”
“But where do you all come from originally?”
“I don’t know, actually.” He turned to Mewe. “Do you know?”
“Nowhere, I should think.”
A second silence, and Lucy’s attention drifted away, to the face of the mountain looming beyond the castle. At first he was simply reviewing the scenery, but then he realized there was some manner of human industry taking place in the snow: bodies moving about, and puffs of smoke floating along on the air. “Those are people up there,” he commented.
“Ah, yes,” said Memel.
“What are they doing?”
“Wasting their time.”
“Wasting their time doing what?”
“Playing a silly game.”
“And what is the point of the game?”
“To kill but not be killed oneself.”
“Killed?” said Lucy.
“Yes. Did Olderglough not tell you about that either?”
“There was no mention of killing.”
Memel chuckled. “Rascal! Well, not to worry. You aren’t in any danger.”
“No?”
“Very little danger. A small danger. Keep on your toes, and you’ll be fine, I would think. The others are much worse off.”
“What others?”
“The killed, the killing. The rebels and their tyrannical opposition.” He pointed to one side of the mountain, then the other. “They are often out and about.”
“These two parties are at odds, is that what you’re saying?”
“They are at war.”
“Why are they warring?”
“Ah,” said Memel. “Long story.”
“And what is the story?”
“It is most complicated and long.”
“Mightn’t you tell it to me in shorthand?”
“It would never do but to tell it in total.”
All this was troubling to Lucy. “Perhaps you will tell it to me later,” he ventured.
“Perhaps I will,” Memel said. “Though likely not. For in addition to being a long story, it’s also quite dull.”
They had arrived at the edge of the village. Memel and Mewe said their goodbyes, the former taking up Lucy in a lurching embrace which went on far longer than was seemingly necessary. Lucy was embarrassed by the show of affection but made no objection, thinking it likely a local custom, something he decided to endure as an example of his tolerance.
10
Lucy trudged uphill to stand before the massive riveted doors of the castle, knocking bare-knuckled in the cold. But it was like knocking on the trunk of a tree; it produced a sound so slight that he himself could hardly hear it. He spied a middling-sized bell hung away and to the side of the entrance, and pulled on the dangling rope to ring it; only the rope came away from its pulley, slipping through the air and disappearing with a whisper into the snowbank beside Lucy’s feet. He looked all around, then, for what he couldn’t say, it simply felt an apt time to take in his surroundings. And what did he see? He saw trees and snow and too much space. He upended and sat upon his valise. Reaching for his pipe, he found it missing. He thought of Memel embracing him, and he scowled. “I don’t quite know what to do just now,” he admitted.
An inventive notion came to him, which was to throw stones at the bell. Rooting about in the snow, he was pleased with himself for thinking of the scheme, or for receiving it; success proved elusive, however, for the stones were hard to come by, the bell was placed very high, and Lucy’s aim was abominable. Now he was panting, and a clammy sweat coated his back. Abandoning the project, he pressed his belly against the castle and peered up. From this angle the facade looked concave, and its height invoked a queasiness, so that he felt his legs might give way, and he would topple backward down the hill, the thought of which made him laugh. He listened to his own laughter with what might be described as an inquisitive detachment. Much in the same way he had never been able to reconcile the connection between his reflection and his mind, Lucy could not recognize his voice as relating to his person.
He resumed his valise-sitting. Sunlight drew down the front of the castle, bisecting his face levelly, a lovely yellow warmth from the nose-bridge to
the apex of his cap, while below there clung a beard of bitter, blue-white chill. He closed his eyes, considering the activity of his own padded heartbeat, the transit of his blood. For a moment Lucy was happy, though he didn’t know why.
When he opened his eyes, a peripheral movement originating from the forest to the east of the castle caught his attention. He turned to witness a sheet of dry snow drop from a tall branch and to the ground, this landing with a soft-clapping shump. Through the aftercloud he saw a man’s famished face emerge from behind the broad trunk of an oak tree. This face held Lucy’s gaze, and Lucy, alarmed, sat upright. A second face, similarly famished, appeared from behind another tree, and Lucy stood. Now a third face came into view, now a fourth, and all at once a group of twelve or more men materialized from the shadowy wood. They were each of them holding a bayonet, and they walked in a huddle toward Lucy, who retreated some steps so that his back pressed flat against the cold wall of the castle.
11
The men affected a militarily homogeneous air, the lot of them wearing top to bottom gray-green wool, with bands of red encircling their arms at the biceps and black sashes cinched about their waists. As they drew nearer, however, Lucy could see that the cut and style of each man’s outfit was dissimilar to his fellows’: one wore long trousers, another knickers with tall boots; one sported a shearling collar, while his neighbor trailed a scarf. Even their rifles were dissimilar, the lengths of the bayonets varying drastically. It was as though they had each of them made their own garments in the privacy of their homes, with but the vaguest aesthetic prescription to guide them. Only their unshaven, haunted faces were alike.
Lucy was afraid of these men, naturally, for they carried themselves so grimly, and it seemed they intended to set upon him and for all he knew bring him to harm. But when at last they reached him they merely stood there, breathing in and out, and watching him as though he were some part of the scenery. They were looking at him but thinking of their own lives, and not of his.
A man stepped from the rear of the pack, and from the moment Lucy saw him it was clear he was one apart from the others. While the rest possessed the swollen-eyed expression of malnourished desperation, this man’s skull wore the hunger well, and his gaze described intelligence and the most natural manner of confidence. He was, in fact, exceptionally handsome, so that Lucy could not look away from him. The man was perfectly serious as he stepped closer, and when he spoke, his deep voice denoted no hostility, only a measure of import, as though time were a pressing consideration for him.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Lucy.”
“Lucy?”
“That’s my name, sir, yes.”
“What’s all this with the stones, Lucy?”
“I was trying to strike the bell.”
“And why?”
“I’m eager to gain entrance to the castle.”
“And why?”
“That I might begin my appointment there. Also because I’m cold.”
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.” He pointed down the valley. “Do you come from the village?”
“No, I come from Bury.”
“What’s Bury?”
“A location, sir. I come from there.”
The exceptionally handsome man puzzled a moment, as one completing an equation in his mind. “So you are Lucy from Bury, is that what you’re telling me?”
“I am.”
“And you mustn’t tarry, as you’re in a hurry?”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re chilly?”
“I suppose that’s all correct, sir, yes.”
The soldiers were stifling laughter, as was the exceptionally handsome man, and Lucy stood by, considering the enigmatic nature of charisma. If he could change a single thing about himself, it would be to possess that atypical luster certain people were blessed with. The exceptionally handsome man was rich with it, and in witnessing and identifying this, Lucy experienced both covetousness and admiration. He watched the man whisper into one of his soldiers’ ears; the soldier nodded and saluted before hurrying away into the woods. Now the exceptionally handsome man spoke again to Lucy, only all of the playfulness from the moment before had gone:
“Do you have any food?”
“No.”
“A biscuit, perhaps? Or a piece of cheese?”
“Nothing whatsoever, sir, no.”
“Any money?”
“I have a very small amount of money.”
“May we have it?”
“It’s all I’ve got, sir.”
The exceptionally handsome man stepped closer, gripping his bayonet, and there entered into his voice an emotionless, droning tone. “May we or may we not have the money, Lucy from Bury?”
Lucy handed over his small purse of coins, and the exceptionally handsome man emptied it into his palm.
“This is all you have?”
“Yes.”
“This is all you have in the world?”
“Yes.”
The exceptionally handsome man returned the coins to the purse, sulkily stuffing this into his coat pocket. He appeared to take Lucy’s insolvency personally, and a cumbersome quiet came between them. Lucy was casting about in his mind for some bit of chit-chat when the soldier who had gone on scout returned, whispering in the exceptionally handsome man’s ear. The exceptionally handsome man received the news, then addressed the others, who stood at attention, ready to receive his instruction. “All right, we’re heading back to base camp in a single push. The bastards are up to something or I miss my guess, so let’s stay on our guard. Are we up for it, yes or no?” The soldiers called back in a single voice that shocked Lucy with its volume and alacrity: “Aye!” And then, just as quickly as they’d come, they departed, with their leader bringing up the rear.
Rounding the corner of the castle, he ceased walking, as though plagued by an unknown anxiety. Turning, he leveled his rifle at Lucy; his expression was stony, and Lucy once more found himself concerned for his own safety. But there was no danger; the rifle was raised higher, and higher still, and now the exceptionally handsome man took aim and fired his weapon. The bullet ricocheted off the hip of the bell and the peal pulsed in the air, this mingling with the echo of the rifle’s discharge. As Lucy was standing under the bell itself it was as though the noise created something physical surrounding him, a chamber of vibration and sound. Looking upward, he watched the bell’s slow, circular sway. When he looked back down, the exceptionally handsome man was gone.
12
After some minutes, the door was unbolted from the inside. It budged a laborious half inch, then another. Lucy couldn’t see who was responsible for these efforts, but there came from the black crack a wispy, whispering voice:
“Who’s there?”
“Lucien Minor, sir.”
“Who?”
“Lucy, sir. I’m reporting to my post under a Mr. Olderglough. Is that you?”
“Mmmm,” said the voice, as if unsure.
“I’m happy to make your acquaintance. Thank you again for the position. I’m eager to begin my appointment, and I should think you won’t regret taking me—”
Lucy heard the distant pop of a rifle discharging. It was a miniature and cotton-wrapped sound, and he wondered at the chasm separating the quaintness of this noise and the actuality of a hurtling bullet. There came another report, and a pause; now there followed a rushing crescendo of pops, like a handful of tacks strewn over hardwood. Lucy’s feet were numb, and his stomach felt airy and scooped out.
“May I come in, sir?”
The voice uttered a reply but Lucy couldn’t make it out.
“What was that?” he asked.
The voice rose to a shriek: “Push the fucking door!”
Lucy’s recovery from the directive was admirable and timely. He pushed with all his strength; the heavy door hesitated, then swept slowly, evenly open.
II
MR. OLDERGLOUGH
1
Mr. Olderglough stood in the underlit entryway, an elegantly skeletal man of sixty or more outfitted in a suit of black velvet. His white hair was uncombed or unsuccessfully combed; a lock spiraled past his brow and over his eyes, to roguish effect. His right arm hung in a sling, his fingers folded talon-like, nails blackened, knuckles blemished with scabs and blue-yellow bruising. Bowing a bow so slight it hardly amounted to a bow at all, he said, “I apologize, young man, for my vulgarity of a moment ago. I woke up in a foul mood this morning, and the world’s been against me ever since.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
“I had a terrific nightmare, is what.” Mr. Olderglough leaned in. “Eels,” he said.
“Eels, sir?”
“That was what the dream was about.” But he offered no further information regarding the eels, no description of what malice they had represented. Lucy made no inquiries about it, the reason being that he didn’t wish to know any more. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, now he saw that Mr. Olderglough’s attire, which had appeared so regal at the start, was actually quite scruffy—buttons mismatched, and stains illustrating his lapels. Lucy thought he looked like an aesthete chasing a run of foul luck. Pointing at the sling, he asked,
“Have you had an accident, sir?”