Chapter 4
Roland nearly tripped up as he had been unable to see the invisible step right in front of him and hadn’t raised his foot high enough. Now he did so and placed his foot firmly upon it. Then he took the next step up, and the next. He stopped and looked around. Firebrace was above him and now he could see that a winding staircase led upwards, enclosed by walls with flaming torches each side.
“Stepping off of tall buildings is not normally a good idea!” Firebrace cautioned.
Roland nodded agreement. He looked back and could see Oliver and Savitri looking up to where he was, wondering what was going on. He stuck his hand back over the threshold as Firebrace had done. They too took a deep breath and a hold on their courage, and each stepped up into the rest of the tower.
“Welcome to the finished tower!” Firebrace said.
He led the way up the winding staircase until they found it blocked by a huge door studded with nails. Firebrace raised his fist and gave three mighty knocks that practically shook the building. It took a while, but eventually someone answered. There was a small door inset within the main door, the top about Roland’s height so that a grown man had to stoop to pass through it. This door opened and a man poked his head out. He had a face like a V that pointed downwards and his hair was on upside down, a huge beard bushing out from his chin whilst the top of his head was bald. He didn’t even bother to look to see who had knocked but just told them “We’re somewhere else! Come back yesterday!” and the door was banged shut.
Firebrace looked peeved and knocked again. Shortly after the same face appeared.
“What do you want?”
“We are here to see the tower.” Firebrace told him.
“You can’t see it! It’s invisible! Every fool knows that!” And the door was banged shut again.
Firebrace banged the door very hard and kept on banging in a most insistent way. Eventually the man reappeared. “What is it now? You know how long you were banging on that door?”
“We want admission!” Firebrace fumed.
“Ah, well, admissions for adults is ten quid children and concessions seven concessions is with OAP bus pass letter of proof from doctor or passport or other official document which can include birth certificate or driving licence except for a provisional licence showing date of birth that in the case of OAPs must be sixty five years or more prior to the first day of the calendar month on which admission is sought or with children be not more than fourteen years prior to the first day of the calendar month on which entry is sought. Clear?”
“This is the owner of the tower!” Firebrace stormed, indicating Roland.
The man looked scathingly at Roland. “When you gonna do something about the plumbing? And the lift’s been out for seventy years - more!”
Roland decided to try to smooth things by showing a personal interest in the man. He introduced himself, offering a handshake, “My name is Roland – what’s yours?”
“Not that it’s really any of your business I don’t suppose but my names Botherworth - Mister Botherworth. The others call me a lot of things but this is a kid’s book so let’s not even go there.”
“This is Firebrace,” Roland continued.
“He definitely gets in as an OAP,” the man said.
“Oh get out the way!” Firebrace insisted angrily, shoving the man aside and stepping through the doorway. The others followed.
“Cor blimey! Rudeness!” The man said, “It’s all the same these days! I blame that social media - Tweetface or whatever it is! It was never like that in my day! There was a sense of public service back then, before they privatised the railway - that was the end of public service if you ask me. And then there was that Tony Blair…”
“What’s he talking about?” Roland asked.
Firebrace said, “I don’t know. Sometimes The Tower displaces people from one time to another; they get very confused and talk gibberish. Just ignore him or nod gently.”
Roland nodded to the man, then decided to ignore him.
Behind the door was a landing and beyond it yet more stairs. As they passed across the landing Roland noted there were doorways in the sidewalls. One of the small doors – presumably Botherworth's lair - was marked “PRIVATE! NO ADMITTANCE TO YOU!”– and a larger one had a sign hung on it which read “OUT OF ORDER.”
They followed Firebrace up the stairway beyond, up and up as the staircase wound around until they really thought they were in the clouds. Roland noticed that the spiral was widening all the time as they got higher. The tower obviously got much broader and Roland wondered how the base could support it. But then, how come it was invisible from outside? It was time to stop trying to make sense of it all.
After quite a climb they came to a second door very much like the first. This one was also studded with nails, and also with a smaller doorway set into it. Again Firebrace knocked.
At this door the greeting could not have been more different from that at the door below. Both of the large doors were flung open and a short chubby man with open arms sprang forth. He was dressed in a bizarre combination of armour and a monk’s habit.
“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Good cheer to you and welcome! Come in! Come in! Come in and don’t tarry! We are all positively bursting to meet you!”
Behind him they could see that there was a vast space like the inside of a cathedral. The doors were at the front of a central aisle which stretched into the far distance. It was lined with columns that stretched upwards into darkness.
The man introduced himself, “I am Brother Goodwill. Brother Stalwart is occupied at the moment with a – a minor domestic emergency, let us say, but I am sure he will make time to see you! Do follow – please, please do follow, we are all eager to meet you!”
Brother Goodwill led them down the central aisle. As they walked they were aware that at the sides of the hall, in the far distance, there were many small, gloomy alcoves. From these people were watching them, shyly, as if they had not seen an outsider for many years. They didn’t seem at all keen to meet anyone, Roland thought, feeling that Brother Goodwill had rather exaggerated their friendliness.
“What is this place?” Roland asked Firebrace. “Who are these people? Have they been living above our heads all this time?”
Firebrace stopped and turned to Roland. Brother Goodwill also halted and waited patiently, looking on as Firebrace spoke, “This is the hall of the most noble creed of the knights Fortressers. They were once the boldest and proudest warriors on all the Earth. Their ferocity in battle was truly terrifying. They slew all who had the misfortune to oppose them! Over many years of fighting, and killing, they grew to be sickened by it and took an oath of peace, swearing never to kill another living thing. In exchange they were granted immortality. But if they should take another life – even one - they will become mortal again. Now they will build defences, but they will not fight. They built this tower long ago and when they had built it they retreated inside it to a life of contemplation and devotion. All but one of them. He sacrificed himself, remaining outside, sworn to kill in The Tower’s defence and thus to remain mortal. Your great great great great great grandfather, Roland. But The Tower is more, much more, than just their retreat – as I will explain at length later. Meanwhile, to Brother Stalwart, please, Brother Goodwill!
They left the Great Hall by a door on the far side and headed down a corridor, turned into another and then another, until all but Brother Goodwill were thoroughly confused. After passing through what looked like a banqueting hall they arrived at a kitchen and in it were two were men in the same odd mix of old battered armour and monks’ habits as Brother Goodwill. One of the men was at a sink, pulling the handle of a plunger whilst another was fiddling beneath it. As the visitors entered there was a loud slurrrrrrpp and the plunger gave way. The man who had been tugging at it fell backwards into a table covered with pots and pans sending them tumbling and crashing everywhere. At the same time a torrent of water burst out of the bottom of the
sink drenching the man beneath it.
“Oh dear!” Brother Goodwill gasped, “Oh dear, oh dear!” and he rushed over to the
man who had fallen, made sure he was alright and then went to fetch a cloth. Meanwhile the man beneath the sink got out from under it. He wiped his face with the cloth brought by Brother Goodwill, thanked him, and then greeted the visitors.
“Firebrace my old friend,” he said embracing Firebrace with a mighty hug. Firebrace turned to the trio. “This is Brother Stalwart, fiercest, most feared warrior of the fiercest warriors ever to be feared! Victor of so many battles he has forgotten most of them and can’t be bothered about the rest.”
And Brother Stalwart added, “I am as you can see, temporarily humbled by the plumbing!” and laughed, “And these are, of course, Roland, Oliver and Savitri!”
“But how….?” Roland began to ask but then Brother Goodwill burst out: “Oh my goodness! I quite forgot that this is the first time they’ve met us and I should have asked for their names! From henceforth I shall be known as….. Brother Neglectious!” and he seemed to be saddened by this idea.
Brother Stalwart extended a wet hand to Roland. Roland took it and shook it.
“Welcome!” Brother Stalwart said.
“Yes!” Said Brother Goodwill, regaining his jollity, “Welcome, welcome, welcome!”
“Sorry about the plumbing,” Roland said, having got the message that it was his responsibility as landlord.
“Why are you sorry? We built the place!” Brother Stalwart laughed, “But its getting old. You cannot expect even the best pipework to last the test of centuries without occasional maintenance.”
“Mister Botherworth seemed to think it was all my fault,” Roland explained.
“Oh him! Don’t listen to him! He is merely our primary defence – there is nothing like a bad attitude to drive away unwanted visitors - not yourselves of course! The best defence is a strong offence, and Botherworth certainly gives offence – and some!” Brother Stalwart laughed and then asked Roland, “But you are not here about the plumbing. Are you here for your mother?”
“My mother?” Roland inquired
But Firebrace quickly interjected, “That fool Dagarth has torn the place apart downstairs and it must be rebuilt – quickly.”
“Easily said – and easily done,” said Brother Stalwart, throwing aside the cloth. “Brother Goodwill – gather the others in the Great Hall. We have work to do!”
Brother Goodwill bustled off to ‘gather the others’ whilst Brother Stalwart persuaded them all to have a cup of tea. It took him a little while to find a tea pot amongst a clatter of crockery that had also been dislodged when the plunger had given in but he found one, boiled some water and made some tea. It was good tea, too.
As they sipped the final sips a deep toned bell started to bong.
“They are all gathered – let us adjourn to the Great Hall.” Said Brother Stalwart.
He led them back to the hall that they had first entered. In it were now around fifty men, all wearing the same blend of worn old armour and monkish habits as Brother Goodwill and Brother Stalwart. Roland looked at them amazed by the different types of face; they were white, black, brown…, of many different shapes with different coloured hair. There were some of Savitri’s people from the land of Prester John, some that he believed came from even further east, from Cathay and Cypangu.
Oliver exclaimed, “Some of them are Saracens!”
“Yes, but not our enemies,” Brother Stalwart said, “After many years of fighting we tired of other men’s wars. We found that we had more in common with those we fought than those we fought for, so we founds friendship, comrades where previously we found enmity.”
And he spoke to the Fortressers, “My brothers, the castle below us has fallen into some disrepair, and as it is our occasional duty we must once more take up shovel and pick, trowel and hod, brick and stone and rebuild our sanctuary as it should be.”
And with that they formed an orderly line and marched out through the double doors and down the staircase. Roland started to follow, intrigued to see them at work and willing to help however he could, but Firebrace placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“We have not finished here yet. There is much more to this tower.”
Firebrace led them through the door by which they had gone to Brother Stalwart, but took another turning. Before them was another staircase spiralling upwards.
“More stairs!” Oliver groaned
“The exercise will do you good,” Firebrace insisted.
They went upwards as Roland expected to come to another set of doors but instead the stairs led straight to a vast open space filled with a maze of bookcases. Firebrace led them through it.
“This is the Tower’s Library,” he said, “It is a repository of history and learning spanning thousands of years, backwards and forwards! There are histories here about things that haven’t even happened yet.”
They came to another staircase, this time made of iron and very tightly wound so that only one person at a time could go up it.
“They do love their spiral stairs don’t they,” Oliver said.
Firebrace led to the way upwards until they reached a balcony, then across that to another iron spiral staircase and up that, and then across another balcony to another spiral staircase. Each balcony ran alongside a wall lined with books. On the other side were iron railings guarding the steep drop to the floor below. From the floor the main bookcases reached up and still towered above them.
As they went Roland took the chance to read some of the spines. One was titled, “The Earth’s Course Around The Sun”
That doesn't sound right, Roland thought, the sun goes around the earth, surely?
He read a couple more titles
“The Sky, The Earth And The Magic Of Nature”
“Amazon’s Conquest Of The Universe – Part LCVII”
“Why Birds Don’t Tweet: Intellect and the Internet”
They had gone up several floors and still the main bookcases towered over them. Now they could see that up near the roof there was movement, flapping and fluttering – there were birds nesting right at the top of the stacks! Oliver remarked on it and Firebrace replied, “Of course, the birds are a vital part of the knowledge collection. Once you have learned to talk to birds, you have a source of enormous knowledge about the whole world!”
Then they saw that high above their heads there was a man on a trapeze. He was hanging by his legs and swinging back and forth whilst cradling a pile of books in the crook of his left arm whilst he placed the books on shelves with his right hand.
“It’s one of the librarians,” Firebrace explained, “they must use acrobatic skills to reach the highest shelves.”
As they watched the man transferred the books to between his feet, gripped the swing with his hands and then flew through the air to another trapeze. He caught it and then again hung himself from it by his legs, transferring the books back to the crook of his left arm.
The trio applauded, but then the man looked down at them, put his finger to his lips and went: “Shhhhhh!”
He started to place the books on the shelves as he had done previously. He had soon placed them all and then flew to another trapeze, another and another until be was out of sight
A librarian without a safety net,” Oliver said, “Not something you see everyday.”
They climbed up to yet another balcony and Firebrace headed towards a door at the end, then down another passage. They passed through a doorway and arrived at what appeared to be a shop counter. There was a bell on the counter and beside it a note saying “Ring for attendant”. Firebrace rang for the attendant.
A bumbling man who hadn’t dressed himself properly came out, at first he didn’t seem to know where he was but finally noticed he had visitors.
“The evidence of my eyes tells me that before me there are four individuals. But are there four individuals? How can I be certain?”
 
; “We are,” Firebrace said.
“Yet the evidence of my ears tells me that me that I can only hear one voice. Can my eyes deceive me and my ears be right, or can my-”
“-There are four of us,” Firebrace insisted.
Can I believe you though, or could you be a deceiving demon, sent to trick me?
“How many of those have you had through here?” Roland asked, curious.
“Ah! A second voice! There are at least two of you, unless the deceiving demon is good at voices… The answer to your question is – I don’t really know how many deceiving demons we have had through here. As we may have been deceived by them, we can’t really be certain, can we?”
As he spoke someone else promptly descended from a trap door in the ceiling. He fell on all fours. He was dressed as a jester and had a pig’s bladder at the end of a stick. He did a cartwheel over to the attendant and gently but firmly beat him around the face with the bladder.
“Prithee nuncle, birds tell me – for birds are wise – that catastrophe awaits yet thou does prattle and ponder like a poltroon!” And he gently beat the man about the face again.
Firebrace was also losing patience. “We must talk to the venerable conceiver of strategies immediately.
“Right away!” the fool chided the man, who was still pondering.
“Oh! Yes! Right away!” and the man bustled off with the fool chasing after him to make sure he didn’t ponder on it all over again.
“How extraordinary!” Roland said. As they followed the man Firebrace took time to explain. “These are the Venerable Society of Cogitators – very wise – a wisdom not to be overlooked - yet their depth of thought is so much that they can become foolish without something, or someone, to bring them back to reality. Thus each of them is assigned a “fool” who does just that, who prompts them to engage with reality. Sometimes its hard to tell which is which.”
“So how many people are there in this tower?” Roland asked.
“A lot,” Firebrace said, “Many splendid things and people, gathered from across the world, taking sanctuary and being conserved in this place.”
Soon another man arrived along with another fool who came cartwheeling after him.
“This way please, “the man said, and showed them into a consulting room. He sat down and pondered, then said, “I am a… a, oh goodness, what am I?”
“Thou art a Venerable Conceiver Of Strategies, nuncle!” the fool reminded him.
“Oh yes!”
“The castle needs a defensive plan,” Firebrace said.
“Ah yes, well first off we must start at first principles - yes. Now is there a real castle, or is it merely a fantasy castle? A castle in the air, so to speak!” and the man laughed to himself. No one else saw the joke. “Is there a real enemy or just a make believe – an apparition?” he continued.
The fool beat him about the face with his pigs bladder, “Prithee nuncle, wouldst though stand before a charging knight, , and say to yourself ‘is this a knight I see charging right at me, about to plunge a lance deep in my chest, or is an apparition????’ If so, then I am the wise man and thou art the fool!”
The man thought on it and then started asking Firebrace detailed questions about the circumstances. Firebrace didn’t know all the answers, which irritated the man, but he tut-tutted and said, “We will make a start anyway.”
He rang for a scribe and started to dictate questions to be sent out to all the parties involved.
“Will the enemy be prepared to answer detailed questions?” He inquired innocently
“I wouldn’t think so,” Roland said, then he said to Firebrace, “Are you sure he knows anything about military strategy?”
But the man said, “We will have a plan for you – many ideas, many strategies! A surfeit of strategies!”
And the fool beat the Venerable Conceiver Of Strategies around the face again, this time, it seemed, just for the fun of it.
“Now we must see to an army,” Firebrace said.
He led the way back down through the library to the floor level and then through the maze of bookshelves to an exit door. Through this was a long corridor, at the end of which they made a left turn and then a right turn which led them to even more left and right turns until the trio were thoroughly confused all over again. Eventually they came to a chamber that seemed much more like a huge underground cavern. Inside were hundreds of figures in column after column, row upon row. They were covered in sheets to keep of the dust. Firebrace unsheathed one to reveal a gleaming suit of armour. It seemed empty and lifeless. Firebrace continued to pull the coverings off more of them talking and explaining as he did so, “Once, when the sun was young and strong, its rays struck out like warriors, banishing darkness with shards of light bringing life and warmth goodness and faith, justice and. But like everything they faded – the initial hope could not be sustained. These are amongst the last of the Warriors Of The Sun, they are beams of The Sun’s earliest light captured and enhanced with the best of armour, the best of weapons. They are not as strong as once they were, but they will put up a defence – strong enough let us hope!”
‘But we must use them sparingly, and only as a second to last resort…”
“What is the final resort?” Roland asked.
“He is down below. We have a Land Surveyor in captivity.”
“A land surveyor?” Oliver queried. Savitri looked very doubtful.
“What can a land surveyor do?” Roland asked.
“The whole point of a castle like this is to maintain the status quo,” Firebrace explained, “To keep the land organised and divided the way it is, the way the people who built the castle in the first place intended it to be. But then what happens is that some fool looks to improve things even further and invites a Land Surveyor…” – and the look on Firebrace’s face was one of disgust. “They come and if allowed to do their work they upset borders and boundaries and redefine everything so that very quickly no one knows what, who or where they are. Except for the Land surveyor, of course, and those he chooses to tell… therein lies their power, and their menace.
They cause such great disruption that most castles manage to stop them even if they are invited. Bureaucratic obstacles are placed in their way – the old department A department B trick….”
“What’s that?” Roland asked.
“They pretend that the castle has several departments, then claim that Department A summoned the land surveyor but that department B is responsible for him when he gets there. Then they claim that department B has never heard of him! It can be most amusing actually –you can run someone ragged for ages with that old one.
But many, including myself, think that land surveyors are too dangerous to fool around with. As a result other castles resort to more barbaric methods – like imprisonment. I am afraid we have stooped to that level for we hold such a gentlemen in a dungeon downstairs – along with his two assistants – right now. And all for wishing to do nothing more than their jobs…”
“That’s not very good,” Roland said.
“I must confess that I was responsible,” Firebrace said, “When a land surveyor turned up several months ago – probably summoned by your foolish uncle as part of his treasure search – I took the opportunity to have him diverted and imprisoned in the tower, along with his two assistants, just in case in he might be useful.”
“If he’s Dagarth’s creature, it is well done,” Oliver said.
“But what will he do for us?” Roland asked.
“If we release him it will be like unleashing the Kraken of old. He will change the whole landscape before our enemies’ eyes and - if we give him the proper inducements and imply certain consequences - furnish us with the plans. But it is a disastrous last option that we must only use if desperate. It may well confuse us and our allies as much as it confuses our enemies.”
‘As we are speaking of the terrain, there is just one more thing I will show you – for now,” and Firebrace led the way back down t
he corridors they had taken to the Sun Warrior’s cavern, back into the library and then through the labyrinth of bookshelves to another exit. This was a passage lined with bricks, like a brick tube. It was quite a distance before they reached a point where there was a trap door and a ladder that led downwards. The ladder had its feet on a wooden platform with no apparent means of support, another ladder reached up to this from the darkness below. As they descended they found a succession of ladder and platforms, seemingly just hanging by themselves in the darkness. They then came to a platform on which a ladder was placed ready to be lowered down. They lowered it and climbed down it until they realised they were in a hollow tube, like a pipe. At the bottom there was daylight coming through a hole. Roland was the first to the bottom and through the hole, followed by Oliver. They immediately recognised where they were. At the base of the Scary Oak!