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Across the other side of the courtyard, just visible beyond the captured gun, a soldier
comes out of the main door. I go still. He peers at me, then goes back in and reappears
suddenly with a rifle, levelling it at me from the shelter of the doorway. It does not
even occur to me to shoot at him with the pistol I am holding. Instead I duck, turn and
run; the rifle shot kicks stone chips off the passageway wall as I sprint out across the
bridge. The truck is coming up the drive, lights blazing. Somebody, leans out of one
window, sighting on me. I hear another shot.
I try the door of the parked truck, but it is locked. I run across the gravel path to the
slope of grass that drops to the moat, thinking to use the bank as cover, but the grass is
too wet; I make only a few steps along the slope before I slip and slide down the
grass. I fall into the moat, splashing and struggling, gasping in that icy grip, trying to
find some footing in the steep underwater slope beneath, still holding the pistol and
with my other hand attempting to grab the grass and soil to pull myself out.
The water kicks and splashes by me; I turn, back against the grassy bank, and look up.
A soldier is leaning over the battlements above, pointing a gun down at me. He
waves, calls something out. I steady myself as best I can and take aim; the pistol
punches back at me; once, twice, then stops. Flakes of stone puff out from the top of
the wall. I pull the trigger a few more times, then throw the useless gun away. The
soldier has disappeared, but now he comes back; peeking, then leaning over the
parapet and shouting something down. I turn my back, and with both hands start to
haul myself out of the moat, waiting all the time for the shot, the awful crashing
mallet kick of a bullet hitting. Instead, there is only laughter.
Scrambling slowly, helplessly awkward in my water weighted clothes, I pull and kick
my way out of the water and up the bank. A bottle sails down, thuds off the grass
nearby and plops into the moat behind. I reach the gravel path and stand, swaying and
looking up at the battlements. The soldier there waves again. The two trucks are
parked together now. A few of the soldiers are lowering something from the rear of
the truck that's just returned; some are standing watching me. Another bottle sails out
from the battlements, arcing down to shatter on the gravel near my feet. One of the
soldiers at the trucks starts walking towards me, making a beckoning motion with his
rifle. I run for the trees.
Then as I run across the lawn I hear a shout, and look back to see the soldier returning
to the truck. The soldiers do not follow me, or shoot at me. They troop into the castle.
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r r
I squat in the bushes, shivering, my body aching with cold. I shake uncontrollably,
trying to believe I shall ever be warm again. On the battlements, a drunken soldier
waves a bottle at me, then looks behind and walks away. I look down, on all fours,
panting like a frustrated lover at the unresponsive ground, my breath blown back at
me. Even this pathetic posture cannot be maintained, my arms and legs both giving
way; I have to curl up on my side, quivering in the bushes like a shocked and
wounded animal.
I had thought I had been quite dashing enough, but the castle fails me. I am locked
out, the soldiers, whether they know it was I who killed their lieutenant or not, seem
unconcerned with me, not judging me worth the effort of pursuit. And you, my dear,
you are nowhere to be seen. The pistol was no use; two pointless shots, then nothing.
And what good could I have done with the thing in any event? Crutch, gravestone,
pipe, club, spear; guns have many uses, multifarious effects. Perhaps they alter minds
as well as anatomies; perhaps their ejected issuings get under the skin in more ways
than one. Do they determine more than those who fire them? Do their unmuzzled
mouths really speak so loud, their barrels overflow with death and mutilation with
such effect that they speak louder than we, who, recoiling from their use, cannot see
that more damage is done behind them than before?
But the lieutenant
But the lieutenant is dead, and so no good example. Did I kill her by being different,
or the same? It hardly matters, and anyway I threw the gun away.
Now I hear more shouts from the castle. I rise to my knees, still unable to stand. The
cold seems to penetrate to my bowels; I do not think I can run away. Guns fire, but
only into the air.
They stand behind the battlements; nearly all her men, and some of the women from
the camp as well. The grey folds of rain descend between us, but I can see it all; the
chipped stones. the waving, saturated skin, the holed roof, and that line of illmatched
men and women, most drunk and swaying, some of them waving, some smiling, some
shouting, some firing their guns into the air.
They have you both. Until this moment there was some part of my mind that wanted
to believe that the lieutenant did not really die, that she extricated herself before the
wind set the millstones moving, that a soldier I hadn't noticed made it to the mill
before those arms sailed round, that some unclutching in the mill's mechanism had let
the sails move while the stones stayed still. That same desperate site of hope within
my mind deluded itself with dreams of you having stolen away from the castle
already, not sanguine about my fate as you seemed at all, but secretly appalled at
what you knew the lieutenant intended. for me and determined to make your escape
from the castle and her control.
Fantasies, my dear, and me all the more pitiful for imagining that not thinking such
thoughts openly would somehow give them a better chance of reflecting the actuality
of our circumstances. Instead, there stands the lieutenant, her headless body supported
by a couple of her men. Somebody behind her puts a cap or beret on what's left of her
neck. I think some of the men are laughing.
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r r
Two of the soldiers force you quiet, expression blank up to teeter on the rampart
stones, your hair soaked blackly to your white nightdress. The nightdress clings
skinlike in the soaking rain, and you stand there, arms held behind you, staring out, at
once waif and voluptuary.
They pull you back down; I see the nightdress thrown up over your head as they force
you back against the parapet, your head between two of the stones. There is some
shouting and jeering. I find myself biting my lip, only realising that I am doing so
when the blood is sucked back into my mouth.
I do not think you afford the soldiers much sport, or perhaps their women prevail on
most of them; at any rate, within a few minutes you are lifted back up to the parapet
again, expression still unreadable. I think I see a trickle of blood on your chin, too.
They are tying your arms behind your back; a length of bandage trails slackly from
your right forearm. I believe I see you shiver.
The men are shouting and yelling, calling on me to come out. I try to rise, but then fall
back, paralysed by the cold and the realisation of my own wretched helplessness.
The lieutenant's body is anointed with some wine, then pushed over the edge of the
parapet; it falls, somersaulting slackly and splashes out of sight. You stand, my dear,
helpless as I, your eyes as empty as my mind is of ideas that might save us. Some
refugees men, old women and children come round from the front of the castle,
hesitant, uncertain, but drawn by the calls and laughter and harmless fire and the
sound of the young women on the battlements joining in. Most gather on the gravel
path, though some hang further back, still fearful. I watch the men at the battlements, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]