Shadow of the Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page A

a murder hole at all, it’s for bringing in provisions without opening the door. There’s a basket and a winch, wait, here it comes.’
    With a rusted cranking sound, an iron basket descended from the tower. Robin climbed up the chain, hand over hand, his feet against the wall. He pulled himself through the gap.
    Marian was grinning, her grey-green eyes bright in the gloom. ‘A castle of our own!’ she said ‘They’ll never find us here, and if they do they’ll get rocks on their heads. Come on, let’s explore.’
    *
    The further they ventured through the tower, the fiercer Marian’s excitement burned. The chamber on the first floor – where they had come in – had once been a storeroom, it seemed, and was full of crates and boxes and bottles. There was also a cistern, for storing water. Through a barred window sunlight glittered across cobwebs and sparkled on dust.
    A wooden staircase wound down into the dark. Robin took two tallow candles from his hunting pack and lit them using his strike-a-light. He handed one to Marian and her flame bobbed down into the gloom, the steps creaking faintly beneath her weight.
    At ground level they found a kitchen, of sorts. There was a sink and a hearth, and a big brass bath. There were lead pipes that gurgled when Marian turned the taps and spat brown water from the cistern above. There was a stack of seasoned firewood.
    ‘From the outside it looks like a fortress, for soldiers,’ Marian said. ‘But inside it’s more like a house, for normal people. Look, there’s a cauldron for cooking, and knives and spoons. Why would they leave all this behind?’
    They climbed the spiral staircase back up, and up further, to the top storey. Here was a sleeping chamber. At its centre stood an open-frame bed, stacked with quilts and furs. There was a second hearth, lined with mosaic tiles.
    The walls were plastered white and painted with fabulous scenes. One mural showed a figure, half-man half-stag, being torn asunder by a pack of hounds. Another was of a boy-bird, flying towards the sun, feathers falling from his wings.
    ‘Icarus,’ Marian said. ‘And Perseus with his winged sandals, see, and that’s the gorgon’s head and Theseus there with the Minotaur and Diana and Actaeon and …’ She went from one mural to the other, pulling away cobwebs thick as wool, telling Robin what story was depicted in each. Above one ofthe paintings were words. When Marian saw these she fell silent, frowning.
    Finally she read: ‘“Flamenca’s Tower.” Why does it say that? Flamenca was my mother. But she lived in the main house, with me. What does that mean? And look, these are her books, I recognize these.’
    She had entered a curved antechamber that connected with the main solar. Here was a writing desk beneath another barred window. And there were caskets containing clothes and trinkets and several large manuscripts, bound in wood and leather. Marian went back into the solar carrying one of the books. It was almost as big as she was. She thumped it down and heaved it open. Its gold-leaf letters shone.
    As she turned the pages she grinned. ‘Pyramus and Thisbe. My favourite! And Orpheus and Eurydice, my
favourite
favourite!’
    In her excitement she went to the bed and stripped off its quilts to reveal the leather straps beneath. She climbed onto this springy mesh and she began to jump, sending up clouds of dust.
    ‘A castle,’ she was saying as she bounced. ‘A castle of our own and a fiefdom to rule and books full of stories! Come on, see if you can reach the ceiling – bet you can’t.’
    Robin watched her and he thought:
I bet I could.
And he was climbing onto the bed and he was bouncing too, his fingers almost,
almost
touching the ceiling, the two of them jumping and stretching and Marian saying: ‘I saw that, you smiled, so you
can
smile, after all!’
     
    From the solar a ladder and trap door led into the crown of the tower. Robin and Marian stood up there, looking out. Night