Tower of Silence Read Online Free PDF Page A

beyond Teind’s grounds, the towering structure like a huge brick chimney against the sky.
    ‘Aunt Rosa, what is that?’
    ‘Don’t point,’ said Aunt Rosa automatically. ‘It’s rude to point. Oh, you mean the Round Tower. That is one of Inchcape’s little pieces of history, Selina. Once there were monks here and a monastery, and the monks built the tower so that they could watch for enemies. Or perhaps so that they could hide valuable possessions that people wanted to steal.’ Her tone said that if you must needs be a monk, you must expect to encounter problems like that.
    It was stupid to suddenly think that the apple-scented garden was dissolving in places, like when you held a candle to thin fabric and the fabric shrivelled, and that the hot, blood-smelling nightmare was showing through the shrivelled bits. Selina listened to what Aunt Rosa was saying, because it was very interesting: all about how people in Inchcape were quite proud of the Round Tower, especially since there were very few such structures left in Scotland, and those that were left were mostlyso tumbledown as to be dangerous. But Inchcape’s tower was in very good condition, said Aunt Rosa; students of archaeology and early Christian customs frequently came here especially to see it.
    ‘Forty feet high,’ added Aunt Flora. ‘And with a staircase inside going all the way up to the top.’
    Aunt Rosa pointed out to Selina the tiny slit-like windows set high up in the circular brick structure–twenty or thirty feet from the ground at least, could Selina see them clearly?–and Aunt Flora described how the monks would have used the windows to look out for foes creeping towards them.
    Selina said, How interesting, and, Thank you for telling me, and tried not to look at the parts of the garden that had dissolved. By this time if you looked directly at them–only Selina was trying not to–you could see through them quite clearly. You could see into the trampled jasmine of mother’s garden, and you could see Christy and the others scratching and kicking to escape from the men who had snatched them up…
    ‘Once there would have been a conical roof on the tower’s very top,’ Aunt Rosa was saying. ‘It would have looked like a little pointy hat, but it crumbled away years ago, so now there is just a layer of lead to keep the inside weatherproof.’
    The hut in Alwar had not been weatherproof; the thick choking dust had blown in from outside, making their throats raw and dry. Selina’s eyes had stung and watered a lot.
    ‘You must never go inside the tower, Selina.’ This wasAunt Flora. ‘You might fall over and hurt yourself, and in any case the stairs aren’t likely to be very safe.’
    Selina was staring up at the top of the tower. She said, in a strained little voice, ‘There’re birds on the top, aren’t there? Large birds,’ and Aunt Rosa said briskly that certainly there were large birds; they would be from the bird sanctuary at Stornforth where all kinds of different birds were kept. A very interesting place, the bird sanctuary: they would go along there one day soon, would Selina like that?
    Selina said politely, ‘Oh yes, thank you very much,’ but as she watched the birds soaring up to the tip of the sinister tower the nightmare, which had gradually been receding since she left India and came to Inchcape, was trickling back through the shrivelled fabric of Teind House’s garden.
     
    They had been kept in the bad-smelling hut for nearly two days. Christy and Selina had marked the hours off carefully, not because it made a lot of difference to the situation, but because it was something to do. Douglas said that when this was all over they would have a good tale to tell, and so it was important that they knew how long they were kept prisoners.
    The men brought them some food: cornmeal mush and dry bread, and a pitcher of water. It was not very nice, but Christy said they should eat it because of keeping up their strength. It