Inside the Palace

Chapter 4

Kirlmann Wader was up and away, striding ahead on his long legs, with his cape billowing out behind him, his beach comb and his bag slung over his shoulder. It was all Barney could do to keep up. He could hardly believe that all this was happening to him; and, even if he wondered about how he could get back home again, he scarcely gave it a thought.

Ahead of him, Kirlmann was making for a steep flight of steps that was carved deep into the cliff face. The old Beach­comber mounted them with familiar ease, three at a time. Barney came trotting along behind him. ‘Hold on, Mr Wader!’ he panted, ‘you’re leaving me behind!’

The Beachcomber turned round on the rocky stairway and waited for Barney to catch up. ‘Call me Kirlmann,’ he smiled then turned on his heels and bounded off again.

Barney struggled to keep up as well as he could, which wasn’t too easy on the steep rocky steps.

At the cliff top there was a stone landing then a path, which circled the town wall. Skirting the cliff top path, the two walked on, past a small whitewashed stone cottage, roofed with slabs of stone, that nestled in a little hollow near the edge of the cliffs and just beyond the shadow of the City Walls.

‘That’s my place,’ Kirlmann said.

‘Handy for work,’ Barney remarked. But they didn’t stop. They strode on by until they came shortly to a thick wooden door, set in the base of the great wall. It was riveted with a heavy iron lattice and was obviously designed to be as strong as the surrounding stonework.

Kirlmann picked up a rock and hammered mightily.

‘It’ll take too long to go in by the main gate,’ he explained. ‘Keep an eye out up there, Barney,’ and he directed Barney’s gaze to a nearby turret while he went on pounding away at the door. Presently a helmeted face appeared at a window, near the top of the turret. Barney nudged the Beachcomber, who looked up at the window. The face bristled at the two of them.

‘By all the Ancients! Kirlmann Wader! What’s all the din about?’

‘Open up, Kabel Longshanks, We must see the King immediately’

‘Clear off, you old fool,’ the soldier called Kabel Longshanks bawled back, contemptuously, ‘or I’ll slice the nose off your face!’ And he disappeared. Kirlmann resumed his pounding on the door.

‘I don’t think he likes you,’ Barney observed. ‘Are you sure it won’t be quicker to go in by the main door?’

‘Don’t worry about him; I know what I’m doing,’ the Beachcomber seethed.

Predictably, the helmeted head reappeared at the window. ‘I’m warning you, you perishing old walrus,’ growled the head.

‘And I’m warning you, you incompetent sea slug! You deliver us to the King or it’ll be the worse for you! I’ve evidence here that the Bell is in Danger!’

Kirlmann sounded in deadly earnest. There was a pause from the guard. Then he shouted down, ‘What do you mean the Bell’s in danger? What’s this evidence that you’re on about?’

‘I’m telling you nothing else, you impudent upstart,’ the Beachcomber snapped. ‘Just open this door and take us to the King, or I’ll see that your ears are nailed to it!’ There was another pause so Kirlmann carried on pounding at the door.

‘All right! All right! I’m coming!’ and the face disappeared from the window. In a few moments there came a scraping of metal as the bolts were unfastened and the door was swung open. The guard stood barring the way with a wickedly‑barbed spear.

‘Who’s the boy?’ Kabel Longshanks demanded.

‘A friend,’ Kirlmann replied.

‘You have no friends, Beachcomber,’ Kabel Longshanks spat back. ‘Now who’ve you got there?’

‘What’s up? You worried that I’m smuggling in Zedd the Mystic? It’s none of your business! Just take us to the King,’ the Beachcomber answered testily.

The guard looked at them both with obvious suspicion. ‘If you’re playing me for a fool, old man,’ he hissed at Kirlmann, ‘someone else’ll be combing you up from the beach.’

‘Hold your tongue, Kabel Longshanks!’ answered Kirlmann, ‘This is no wild goose chase!’ Under his breath he added, ‘Leastways I hope not!’ and he shot Barney the trace of a worried glance. Barney and Kirlmann Wader were allowed to squeeze past the guard, into a narrow stone corridor. The corridor ran along the foot of the City Wall, between two turrets. A dim, yellow light shone out ahead of them and Kirlmann led Barney towards it. Behind them they could hear the door bolts and the lock being slammed back home.

‘It’s all right; you don’t need to worry about young Longshanks, there,’ whispered Kirlmann, ‘I caught him nosing about in me cottage when he was a boy and I paddled his rear. He’s never forgiven me for it.’

Barney laughed.

At the foot of the turret staircase the guard pushed past them. ‘I’ll lead from here, Beachcomber,’ he said; ‘Stay close behind, you two.’ Kirlmann and Barney followed obediently.

After a short climb the steps led onto a doorway. The guard led them through, out onto a walkway that ran all the way around the other side of the wall, on a ledge about half‑way up. Below them lay the City. Barney gasped with astonishment.

‘Where are we?’ he asked.

‘Seth Haven,’ Kirlmann replied.

‘It’s quite a place, isn’t it!’ Barney said breathlessly.

And it was. The City Wall wound round, ahead of them. Above them the turret stretched upwards, to the top of the wall, and a voice hailed their attention.

‘Who in thunder’s doing all that banging!’ called the voice: it was another of the guards, leaning over the top of the turret, peering down at them.

‘That old vagrant Kirlmann Wader!’ Kabel Longshanks shouted.

‘What does he want?’

‘Reckons he needs to see the King!’

‘The King?’ the other soldier laughed. ‘He must be joking! Tell him to clear off!’

‘I’ve tried that but he’s making a nuisance of himself. It’ll be a pleasure to give him enough rope to hang himself with.’

Barney looked up at Kirlmann. ‘He doesn’t sound very encouraging, does he,’ he whispered. Kirlmann rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Don’t let him bother you, son. Just full of his own importance.’ Then he turned to their escort. ‘Listen here, you armour-plated sprat,’ he said; ‘are you going to take us straight to the King, or do I have to tell tales when things start going wrong?’

There was a calm malice in Kirlmann’s voice that Barney just had to admire; the guard’s appearance didn’t invite much in the way of defiance. He was a big man, clad in a leather jerkin and leggings with a chain mail vest. On his head he wore a fearsome‑looking helmet that covered most of his face.

‘Just get a move on,’ he snapped. ‘I’m in a hurry to see you squared up, Beachcomber!’ And he jostled them along with the shaft of his lance.

‘Let’s just hope we’re going to make this worth his while,’ Kirlmann murmured. ‘He might turn a bit nasty if he gets his way.’

‘You needn’t worry about that.’ The guard was obviously eavesdropping. ‘If you’re wasting my time with your ramblings you’ll be limping home again!’

He jabbed Kirlmann in the rear with the sharp end of his lance; Kirlmann yelped with pain, grimacing a warning at the guard.

As the three walked on in silence, Barney’s eyes soaked up the extraordinary sights around him. Streets radiated outwards from a vast paved area that stretched out before a breathtakingly magnificent building. Barney gazed in awe. ‘Wow’, he exclaimed.

‘That’s the Palace,’ Kirlmann replied. ‘And that,’ he added, ‘is the Bellspire.’ He pointed to the lofty tower that rose high above the Palace. Half way up, there was a huge, single-handed clock face, whose solitary pointer marked the passing of the hours in unfamiliar digits; and at the top of the tower, four pillars supported a copper-green domed roof, from which was suspended the Bell of Fa’Lacree.

‘He’s a stranger here, then?’ grunted the guard. Kirlmann invited him to mind his own business.

The trio descended from the wall at the next flight of steps and carried on along a roadway, past exquisite stone dwellings with wooden tiled roofs. People milled around as they caught sight of the strangely‑dressed boy who was Barney Gulliver.

Strangely‑dressed, that is, to them. Their own clothes were from a world unknown to Barney; from a time and place far from his own: men in breeches and boots and long, hooded jackets; women in long, flowing skirts and heavy, hooded cloaks.

As they pressed closer they shouted greetings to Kirlmann and asked who the boy was. Kirlmann smiled and waved back. But the only answer he would give to their question was, ‘A friend.’

The guard grew impatient with the crowds and ordered them away. But still they hung back in groups asking each other the meaning of a strange boy in their land. Perhaps they, too, remembered the rhyme on the Bell. And perhaps the guard was also wondering.

As they came into the Great Square, Barney suddenly saw the true magnificence of the palace. Its immense outer walls rose sheer and white from the midst of the cobbled square and great flying buttresses soared majestically up to meet them.

The guard’s pace quickened noticeably and he strode off across the square. He was heading for the barbican gate that projected from the palace wall with Barney and Kirlmann hot on his tail. At the gatehouse they stopped and the spoke to the sentry.

The two men kept their voices low so that neither Kirlmann nor Barney could hear clearly what was being said. But they could pick out odd words and phrases such as: Boy and King, and Kirlmann Wader, and old fool and cur.

There were glances from the soldiers, in their direction, a few more muttered words of discussion and the sentry walked back into the barbican gate. He took the end of a speaking tube from a niche in the wall and blew down it. A moment later he was answered by a whistle from the tube. The guard spoke down it then placed the tube to his ear. He spoke once more then listened for a reply and replaced the tube. He nodded to Kabel Longshanks, who turned back to Kirlmann and Barney.

‘All right, Beachcomber,’ he said, ‘the Officer of the Watch’ll admit you: you have your audience with the King; if he’ll talk to you. And a lot of good may it do you. And you, too, my boy!’

‘I’ll worry about him,’ Kirlmann snapped; ‘Just you show us the way in!’

From within the darkness of the barbican gate there came a clanking and a scraping as an ever-widening strip of pale light showed that the inner door was being raised. Barney and Kirlmann were escorted through the doorway and across an inner drawbridge. They walked across a courtyard, past statues of noble men and beasts and on into the heart of the palace. They were taken down marble corridors, up spiral staircases, through hallways and finally, at a heavily guarded and heavily curtained doorway, they stood on the threshold of the State Chamber itself.

And as they stood there, awaiting admittance, the deep-throated tones of the Bell rang out, once more, above them.