The Third Door

3 - The Lantern

Clustered together, hidden from sight by the power of Rye’s hood, the four crept through the deserted drawing room. They knew exactly where to go. The moment the heavy waiting room door had cracked open they had heard a dull roar of sound. It was coming from the great hallway that ran the whole length of the Keep.

They had almost reached the hallway door when it burst open. An echoing din of crashes, shouts, groans and whimpers rolled into the room, and with it came two women in filthy nightgowns. The older of the two had a thin grey plait hanging down her back. The other woman’s hair was wound up in dozens of curling rags, so that she looked as if she was wearing a shaggy white cap. The two looked familiar to Rye, but he could not think where he had seen them before.

‘Just do what the healer says, Bettina!’ the old woman snapped, seizing an armchair and pushing it back to the nearest wall. ‘Make as much clear space as you can! And be quick about it! He’ll start sending the worst cases in here any minute!’

‘The Warden will not like it, Lal,’ wailed her companion, looking nervously over her shoulder.

‘Then the Warden will have to lump it!’ the old woman retorted, shoving a dainty little table after the chair and turning to wrestle with a velvet sofa. ‘Those children need this room more than he does.’

Rye suddenly realised why the two looked familiar. They were the kitchen workers he had secretly watched talking to his mother in the Keep kitchen on his last return to Weld. But then they had been wearing starched aprons and prim white caps. No wonder he had not known them at first!

He felt Dirk nudge him and moved cautiously forward. Through the open door he could see large numbers of people thronging the hallway. Only a few were fully dressed. All looked exhausted, but no one stopped to rest for a moment.

People carrying piles of sheets and towels or hauling buckets brimming with water hurried along on both sides. A long row of small, huddled forms wrapped in blankets occupied the hallway’s centre strip. Men and women moved quietly along the row, cleaning grime, blood and tears from young faces, giving water, murmuring comforting words, and even singing lullabies.

A great love for the kind, valiant people of Weld swelled in Rye’s chest. A lump rose in his throat.

‘They need more healers,’ Sholto muttered, and darted out into the hallway. ‘Where is the chief healer?’ he snapped at an old man labouring by with two buckets of steaming water.

‘The Keep healer is up above, with the orphans who are still trapped,’ the old man quavered. ‘But there is another who seems to know what he is doing. Down there, he is, by the door to the Orphans’ Stairs. They are bringing the children out that way—lowering them down with ropes, I hear, poor little wretches.’

He jerked his head across the hallway, and to the left.

‘Thank you!’ said Sholto, and instantly he was gone.

‘I am sure you would do the same for me,’ the old man mumbled, and shuffled on.

‘The time for hiding is past, I think,’ Rye said. As Dirk and Sonia nodded tensely, he pulled off the hood.

Dirk dashed from the room with Sonia close behind him. Rye was hard on their heels. Everyone in the hallway was hurrying and everyone was untidy, so no one paid the slightest attention to the ragged trio as they ran in pursuit of Sholto.

They caught up with him quite quickly. He was crouching beside a tearful little girl, deftly replacing a bandage on her arm.

‘Now, do not pull it off again, Daisy,’ Rye heard him say.

‘It hurts,’ the child whimpered.

‘Of course,’ Sholto agreed seriously. ‘But it is not the bandage that hurts you. It is the cut underneath. The bandage will stop the bleeding and keep the dirt out. It is your friend. See?’

He pulled a pencil from his pocket and drew two eyes and a smiling mouth on the edge of the bandage. The little girl blinked, and slowly her face broke into a wobbly grin.

‘The roof fell down on us,’ she said, as if confiding a great secret. ‘But Mistress Fife said we mustn’t cry. She said it was good the roof was on us, because it kept us safe from the skimmers.’

‘Well, Mistress Fife was quite right,’ Sholto said lightly, rising to his feet. ‘I must go now, Daisy. Just remember—you take care of your friend, and your friend will take care of you.’

The child nodded and began crooning to the face on the bandage. As he turned away, Sholto caught sight of Rye, Dirk and Sonia and realised they had been watching him. He flushed slightly and stalked on down the hallway without a word. Their hearts too full to speak, they hurried after him.

In moments they had reached the centre of the rescue mission. There they found the gaping doorway that was the source of the shouts and clatters. There they found exhausted Wall workers staggering out of dusty gloom with sobbing children in their arms. There they found Tallus the healer, covered in blood, tenderly but thoroughly examining each small patient before passing him or her on with a curt order.

And there they found Faene of Fleet, coolly strapping sprained limbs and stitching wounds at Tallus’s command. And Annocki, her green robe torn to ribbons, bandaging and soothing as if she had been doing it all her life.

Sonia gave a choked cry and flew to Annocki’s side. Dirk remained rooted to the spot, staring at Faene as if he did not dare to move in case she disappeared.

Faene felt his gaze, raised her head from her work, and saw him. Her face lit up as if a candle flame had suddenly flared behind her eyes. Her golden skin was muddy with weariness. Her glorious tawny hair was scraped back and bundled heedlessly into a net. But Rye thought she had never looked so beautiful.

For an instant it seemed that time had stood still. Then Faene bent her radiant face over her patient again, and Dirk threw back his shoulders, strode into the dimness beyond the Orphans’ Door, and vanished.

‘Faene could not sleep,’ Rye heard Annocki tell Sonia in a low voice. ‘She was awake when the attack came. She pulled me from my bed, actually dragged me to the door! I thought she was mad, but then we heard the tower crack. We escaped just before it fell.’

‘Ah!’ cried Tallus, catching sight of Sholto. ‘So you are back, my boy! Excellent! There are two broken arms, a broken leg and an ankle over there, waiting to be set. See to them, will you?’

It was as if he had seen his apprentice only yesterday.

‘Tallus,’ Sholto began. ‘We—’

‘Not now!’ Tallus muttered, closing his eyes as he ran his fingers over the head of the unconscious child in front of him. ‘See to the patients. That young woman has a good, steady hand. She can assist you.’ He jerked his head at Annocki. Clearly he did not have the faintest idea who she was.

Sholto raised an eyebrow, but silently moved away to do the old healer’s bidding. Annocki pushed a roll of bandages into Sonia’s hands, gathered the tatters of her robe around her and followed, very straight-backed. Sonia eyed the bandages helplessly, gnawing at her lip.

‘Well, get on with it, girl!’ Tallus snapped at her, as another small patient was put down in front of him.

His sharp gaze fell on Rye, and he gave a little start. ‘Why, it is you, young Rye! What have you done to your hair? Your mother is here somewhere—ah, yes, I remember now, she is in the kitchen, brewing more remedies. Make some new bandages, will you? The pile of clean sheets is right beside you.’

In the end, it was Sonia who tore the sheets into strips and Rye who took Annocki’s place beside Faene, bandaging wounds. At first he was as nervous and clumsy as Sonia had been when she tried the job, but gradually, with Faene’s help, he became more confident.

‘It is only a matter of practice,’ Faene said when he mumbled yet another apology for failing to keep up with her. But she glanced at him curiously all the same. She clearly found it very odd that a grown person would not know how to bandage a serious wound.

Rye reminded himself that for all her gentleness Faene had grown up not in the careful, protected world of Weld but in the rough and ready land beyond the Wall. Where she came from, children ran free, bloodhogs roamed, laws were few and accidents and injuries were part of life. To Faene of Fleet, basic first aid was an ordinary life skill, like being able to ride a horse, make a fire, or patch a torn garment.

They worked feverishly as Wall workers, Dirk among them, brought a steady stream of new patients from above. But slowly the flow dwindled, and at last the Keep healer limped through the door, leaning heavily on Dirk’s arm. The healer had lost one of her shoes. Her bare foot, roughly bound with a filthy stocking, was hugely swollen. Her plump cheeks sagged with exhaustion and there was a great purple bruise on her forehead.

‘There are no more,’ she said to Tallus. ‘The men are sealing the attics now. How is Fife—the nursemaid with the injured spine? I did my best to—’

‘She is well enough,’ Tallus said gruffly. ‘What have you done to your foot, Linna?’

The woman looked down vaguely and shrugged. ‘Something fell on it. I had to cut the shoe away so I could go on working. I will see to it presently.’

Tallus shook his head. ‘No, Linna, you will sit down right now and—’ He broke off and squinted down the hallway. There was some sort of flurry there. The crowd was parting to let a hurrying figure pass.

Rye recognised the woman Bettina. Most of the curling rags had come loose from her hair, but some still clung to her scalp like frayed moths. Her eyes were bright with excitement.

‘Healer Tallus!’ she panted, as she drew closer. ‘Come quickly! The Warden is in the drawing room, and he is in a temper the like of which you have never seen! He wants everything put back the way it was. And when the others told him no, it was your orders that the sickest orphans be put to bed in the drawing room, he started flapping round a paper he says proves you are a traitor! Now he has called for soldiers to—’

Tallus gave a roar of rage. ‘See to the healer’s foot!’ he yelled at Faene. ‘I will be back!’

He set off along the hallway as fast as his limping gait would take him. Dirk, Sholto, Rye and Sonia glanced at one another, and followed.

‘How can the Warden call you a traitor, Tallus?’ Sholto demanded, as soon as he reached the old healer’s side. ‘Surely even he cannot think it is treason to move the furniture in his cursed drawing room?’

‘Oh, he is probably talking about this,’ Tallus said, pulling a crumpled paper from his pocket and pushing it into his apprentice’s hands. ‘A little newsletter we started. First edition rushed out yesterday. The Wall workers are passing copies all around Weld.’

Sholto groaned softly.

‘What are you moaning about?’ snapped Tallus, turning to glare at him. ‘We had to do something to make the fool see reason!’

He began crossing to the drawing room side of the hallway, slowing only to step between the children lying in the centre.

Rye craned to see the paper and managed to read the top of the page.

‘The Warden was in the middle of writing to forbid the test when the attack came,’ Sholto was telling Tallus by the time Rye had finished reading. ‘We saw the letter in the waiting room.’

‘I expected no less,’ Tallus panted. ‘Still, with luck, The Lantern will rouse enough anger in Weld for him to change his tune in time for the second test. We can get along without the Keep lanterns for the first if we must. Smaller lanterns in large numbers will do.’

‘Tallus,’ Sholto began, ‘I must tell you—’

But the old healer was no longer listening. They had reached the drawing room, and he was burrowing through the small crowd that had gathered outside the open doorway.

‘You!’ Rye heard the Warden bellow. ‘By the Wall, how do you dare show your face after what you have—?’

‘Keep your voice down!’ Tallus hissed. ‘There are sick children in here, in case you have not noticed. And there is to be no more talk about turning them out, Warden. You move them at your peril!’