Vampire in the Banyan Tree

Boll Gort Discovers the Stronghouse

In the Swampland Kingdom, in some era before the Regency, a house had been built. The house itself was a peculiarity. It was not a proper fortress, but a large stronghouse, a testament, perhaps, to some vanished merchant's feudal pretension.

By 1230, when the houses of the Golden Tree murdered Artarmion Regus and started the civil war, it had stood empty for some time. The Swampland Kingdom was not so much a political entity as an optimistic fiction, which waxed and waned on history's tide, often stranding oddities such as this on the high water mark. Whether its original owners had fled during the civil war, or stayed in place to suffer some terrible fate, was unknown. In 1234, the spring floods topped the dike and inundated the local districts and settlements. The survivors, exhausted by dread and famine, finally took the hint and withdrew, going into the fens to become bandits, or south, or to the mountains, to find passes and quit the country entirely. So thoroughly was the region depopulated, that none were left who remembered the old house, save a few hermits, lurking on hidden islands, or partisan bands, passing through. The region entered one of its periods of fragmentation and amnesia, engrossed in its own turmoils. Willow and marsh alder sprang up through the narrow driveway, concealing it from the road. The dike itself, breached in several places, through either natural action or sabotage, became overgrown and unused. Through it all, the house slept, knowing nothing of the wider world and its troubles. Ivy took its walls, its roof slouched under the weather and rooks colonized the attics.

Gradually, however, with better times and the reestablishment of order, traffic in the lonely region had picked up. Men shed their weary carapaces of leather and metal and took up axes and saws. They hung their arms above the hearths of houses, newly built or re-roofed, giving various accounts of valor to their children. Thus, the common people turned a page on the dark years and hoped the troubles done.

Nor were their hopes in vain. The new king soon proved as energetic in peace as he had been effective in war. Earning his popular tile, 'The Architect', Olburt was determined to wrestle his depopulated realm back from nature. He took to this task as he took to everything, with a reformer's imagination and a builder's zeal. What remained of state wealth, a few gold statues of saints that had survived the wars, were melted down. Lines of credit were opened and thousands of strong backs mobilised to reclaim land from the fens. A national project emerged, partially funded by the state, but also indistinguishable from a general rebirth of patriotic optimism. Dikes were sealed. New windmills were soon pumping embankments and spillways. Hundreds of synchronous rods, the treasure of the state's most venerable civil administration, were pulled from siege machines and returned to their proper use. A dozen hydrosyncronous spheres (those few who's counterpoint locations were still known) were removed from ancient housings at the bottom of lakes and put to work draining wetlands, soon shifting incalculable quantities of water every day. Labourer's camps sprang up all over the country, which had to be provisioned and supplied.

The Seven Gods dike was repaired and the growth hacked back but, by then, the high stands of willow and undergrowth had concealed both the old house and the driveway that lead to it. The new people did not know, or remember it. Even as life returned to the region like blood to a sleeping limb, it stood, brooding on its inner darkness, its vacant cavities sealed against the light.

But it couldn't remain lost forever.

***

Boll Gort, muddy and cursing, was shouldering underbrush and splashing through half-sog. He was a great believer in the civilizing power of roads and considered the world entirely too full of damp, cluttered nature. Boll had strayed from the track the night before, in an ill-advised attempt to make the government warehouses at before sundown. After a miserable night spent at the mercy of leeches, he had taken a general bearing at sunrise and set out to relocating civilization. His body was aching and his boots squelching with filthy water. Somewhere in this mess was the dike and he was bearing east in the broad theory that he must strike the damn thing sooner or later.

At that time, Boll was a general contractor. The civil war had ended three years earlier and Boll, although respectfully declining to get killed himself, was determined to honor the memory of those who had by getting patriotically rich in the peace that followed. At that time, he was even almost young, although it was hard to imagine Boll Gort as a youth. He seemed to have been born into middle age, bald, tight-fisted and scheming.

Boll was a busy man and he deeply resented inefficiencies. Even as his body struggled through thickets, his mind was frustrating itself over mercantile affairs it was in no position to influence. There was the matter of two hundred and forty tons of lime, ash planking for form moulds and bracket, seven tons of beans, salt and flour, cooking kit and four hundred feet of tent canvas to the new diggings at Mithtoad, plus seven working girls, to assist the crews at the laborer's camp with their masculine impulses. These last had agreed to kick back five percent of their take to Boll (on the proviso that he lease a shack for their operations and a wagon to transport them). There was a case of quality wine to procure, to buy the continued good graces of the King's surveyor at Brisp, as he warmed his bunions in a drafty tent and tried to bring the concerted action of hundreds of hard-handed, illiterate men into sync with the capitol's dreams of drainage canals, pumping stations and dikes. There were four hundred and twenty spools of heavy gauge thread to be purchased, thirty picks, charcoal and cooking oil – however much he could get from the southern wholesalers at any price – ninety eight square feet of bull leather to be cut as needed for shoe bases and thongs. There was the matter of two gold coins, gold, not paper from the king's exchequer (it wouldn't do to have anyone's signature on the matter), for the payment of a couple of honest lads he'd made the acquaintance of in Brust, who had salted the feed of a rival's oxen, thus stymieing him long enough for Boll to supply the workings at Antworod instead.

Without his steady hand in their management, all these matters would soon be going awry.

Crashing his way through God's hostile creation, Boll was cursing to keep himself warm and beating at the brambles vengefully with a stick, when he was suddenly brought up short by a mossy and unexpected surprise. A brick wall, damp and propped with ivy, blocked his way. It was made of Krikland red (Boll knew his brick), kilned in the south. It was three feet taller than himself, and handsomely mortared, despite the overgrowth. A rich man's wall in the middle of nowhere.

Boll stared, in temporary disorientation. He poked it with his stick to confirm that deprivation had not made him hallucinate. The wall receded into the green dimness of the willow thicket, with no gate visible. Boll didn't much fancy climbing it, he was even less an athlete than a woodsman, so he picked a direction and forced his way along the undergrowth until he found a sagging section he could scramble over.

On the other side, he found what had apparently been an orchard. The trees had overmastered and split their pollards, litters of rotten fruit, apricot and pear, were scattered in the rank grass like conqueror's skulls. All was silent, overgrown and wild. Nobody but the birds and animals had benefited of this garden for a long time. Squinting, Boll could make out the shape above the trees, a tall roof, rimmed with morning sun. There was a house.

He stood for a long while, in indecision. What concerned him was that the structure could be occupied and, given the uncanny state of the land in those days, by murderous bandits was the best case scenario. The sensible thing to do would be to climb back over the wall and go around, but Boll was a man acutely attuned to the possibility of the moment. He drew a knife from his boot, although of a type better suited for menacing overly competitive business associates than proper combat, and took his stick firmly in his other hand, then pressed through the trees, as quietly as he was able. Birds twittered in the canopies. The rot of past seasons had formed a rich humus underfoot. Boll tried not to break any low branches or step on any sticks, having a vague idea that this was what a canny huntsman was supposed to avoid.

The structure soon came into view. Standing alone, in overgrown splendor, at the center of a wide clearing, was a derelict stronghouse. The design was somewhat Tholian, (which is to say eastern, across the mountains). It was square and high. A circular tower braced each corner, capped with tall, conical roofs. Shallow stairs rose to large double doors at the front, though there was no portcullis or drawbridge. There were no windows on the ground floor, but narrow ones higher up, apparently boarded. It seemed more of a fortified manor than a castle. Like the wall Boll had clambered over, it was built of red brick. Stone was expensive in the Swampland, it had to be carted from the mountains and there were few local roads that would take the weight. On the other hand, brick wasn't exactly cheap.

Boll stood at the edge of the trees, scanning this unexpected scene. Grass stood high in the clearing. There was no sign of a path. Birds sang in the undergrowth. Enterprising saplings had begun to colonize the open space here and there. The green walls of the orchards and long-untended gardens shielded the clearing from the wind, making the air seem unnaturally warm for the early hour. There was something unnerving about this solid structure, standing so innocently, yet inexplicably in the morning sun. It seemed too large piece of civilization to have been overlooked, yet he was aware of nothing like it in the area. He wondered exactly how lost he'd gotten.

In the back of Boll's mind, an unpleasant anxiety was playing, the superstitious refrain of a childhood filled with an entirely justifiable dread of the supernatural. A notion occurred to him that he had lain down in some toadstool ring last night and slept a hundred years, and was only now stumbling from the woods, to find the world changed and the people gone. The blind windows stared and the willows whispered in their swathe but, with an impatient jerk, Boll shook his misgivings off. The sun was strong, and the insects flicking over the tall grass mocked his childish fears. The house was real, and obviously abandoned, but a cautious circuit of the clearing, before breaking cover, would be prudent.

He hefted the stick, and began to creep around the perimeter, scanning the ground for signs of recent passage. The ringing wall that he had first clambered over encompassed what had probably been gardens. Deeper in the trees, he thought he saw a few tumbled masses of greenery that might once have been stables or outhouses, but were now slumped and garlanded with honeysuckle. On the western side, patches of rush and water clover showed where pools or maybe fountains had been set although, if there was statuary there, it was lost to view. The house presented a similar face on all sides. Boll could see that it had had a moat of sorts, probably quite shallow and more of a decorative flourish, which was now just a mass bulrushes, standing in ranks beneath the walls like a faded palace guard. There was only one point of entry, other than the main portals, a small postern door on the northern wall, set deep, above a flight of stairs.

Boll completed his circuit, finding no tracks other than his own. Emboldened, he ventured into the open, crossed the clearing and ascended the shallow landing to the main doors. He put out his hand to feel the weathered oak. The doors were armored with iron studs and flanked by lintels, decorated with carved holly. Above them, two crude wolves, embossed into the stone, faced outward from the middle. The grass standing through the cracks of the threshold showed they had not been opened for a long time.

Boll tried his weight, but the doors resisted like the side of a cliff, yielding not the slightest vibration.

Boll left the main entrance and walked around to examine the side. Here, he found better luck. The wood of the postern door, though thick, was rotted enough to yield to a prying knife and heavy shoulder. After twenty minutes of determined cursing and kicking, he managed to bend the cotter-iron back enough to shove it in, creating a gap of about two feet before it jammed again. Through the opening came the cold exhalation of damp stone, the smell of abandonment. Boll, again, felt some misgiving. Despite the pleasurable fission of discovery, he was conscious that he was alone and far from help. He had a sudden feeling that some horrid thing had stepped from the trees and was now standing, silently, in the clearing behind him. Despite himself, he glanced back worriedly at the walls of green willow.

But the mystery of the dark portal was too much of a temptation. He forced himself through the gap, pausing on the other side to prudently clear the jammed hinge with his knife and yank the opening wider, on the chance that he may need to exit swiftly.

He found a corridor, receding into dimness, the floor dusted with the filth of long solitude. Boll was encouraged, again, to see no disturbance, or sign of passage in the dust. He proceeded slowly, trying to make no noise that would echo, seeing by the light of the opening behind him.

He crept though a large room and found another hallway. Although the fate of the building's occupants remained mysterious, he could already read signs of flight in what debris remained. Paler squares were on the plastered walls, where picture frames and tapestries had been taken down and there were holes, where valuable fixtures had been wrenched out. Feeling along in increasing darkness, he found looming shapes, that resolved into heaps heavy furniture, stacked high and covered by rotten sheets. Boll now reflected that if it got any darker he would have to retreat. He had no candle or lamp. Exploring this place in true darkness would be too much for even his nerves, and very dangerous besides. But as his eyes adjusted, he felt he could see a faint illumination ahead. Pressing past the awkward stacks of tables and chairs that hemmed the narrow hallway, he saw a dimly lit arch, and could make out, again, the floor and walls. Passing through, he found himself in the kitchens, cavernous, dim and swathed in sepulchral quiet.

The light came from a small, cross-barred window, no larger than a child's head, that was set high in the far wall. It was choked with ivy and he thought that was probably why he had not noticed it from without. Small implements, pots and rusted skewers, were scattered about the floor, but nothing of value that was small enough to carry had been left. On the far side, he saw a great, wooden trapdoor in the floor, its rusted chains loose. Leading to it were stains, like the long, scraping marks of a dragged object. They looked unpleasantly like blood. If there were cellars below, they were certainly flooded, but Boll had no intention of lifting the rotted trap to find out.

Boll looked around. Openings and hallways lead off to chambers unknown. However, it seemed to him that kitchens such as these, built to service a large household, would have a straight access to the main hall. Having a fairly good idea of where the front lay, he chose the most likely, a long hall, running towards the front of the building, down which he thought he could see a glimmer of sunlight. Gripping his knife, and using his stick like a blind man, Boll advanced until he discovered the source. He found a great chamber, illuminated by a few elegant rays of sunlight, that descended, through wandering motes of dust, to pick out a delicate archipelago of almost unbearably bright spots upon the wide floor. This, Boll knew, must be the main hall. He strained his eyes to map out its recesses, looming dimly from the murk. He estimated it was about twenty paces wide, and easily as high. Judging from the sunbeams, the main roof of the structure was above. He thought he could just make out heavy, smoke-blacked rafters. On the far wall, delineated brightly here and there by small cracks in its boards, were the main doors that he had seen from without, and Boll now saw why he had had no luck in forcing them. The hall's benches and trestle tables had been pulled up and nailed across them, forming a crude but effective barricade.

He peered around in the gloom, straining his eyes for detail. On his left, he could see a great fireplace, iron racks set in its threshold for wet clothing and boots. To his right, wooden stairs were bracketed to the wall, apparently giving access to upper floors.

A sudden clatter, startled Boll so severely that his skeleton nearly leapt out of his ample body. It took his mind an instant to catch up with his animal reaction, and identify the sound of wings. There were roosting birds, probably rooks, in the rooms somewhere above. Boll forced his breathing back, and his hands to unclench on his weapons. The blood was thumping about his body. He realized how tense he'd been. Just birds. But the fact was, he had let his greed and nose for opportunity get the upper hand. What he was doing was stupid, and he wasn't a stupid man. The place was dangerous. Boll had no idea what had happened here or what might still be lurking here. Nobody knew where he was, and if he fell through rotted boards into some flooded cellar, or broke his leg in the dark, he'd lie helpless in this forgotten house until he became one of its ghosts.

It was time to leave. He'd made a great discovery, but further examination of this place needed to be done with a few reliable companions.

But, even as Boll began to turn, his eye settled with unnerving recognition on one final detail.

It was customary in these parts for every house, great or small, to place its hereditary weapons above the central fireplace and, indeed, he could see numerous small metal hooks and rods there for the purpose. But here were no weapons of honor on that empty wall. Instead, a small but ominous object, a common butcher's cleaver, hung directly above the mantel. He found the sight of this slaughterer's tool, sitting in pride of place in an empty house, somehow chilling, and felt, again, the uncanny prickle along his spine.

Boll exited the building the way he had come in, inhaling, with relief, the open air. He had seen no human footprints in the dust but his own. He walked to the front and paced a straight line to the trees. He soon discovered the main gates, standing, dappled with green shade, thoroughly rusted and open, which he thought strange (people usually locked up when abandoning a house, from habit, if nothing else).

In fact, now that he thought of it, it seemed like all the doors had been sealed from within which meant, as he'd crept about its dark interiors, the original inhabitants might have been in there with him the whole time. That thought was unsettling too.

The front gates were as good a direction as any. He pressed through them. There was a gravel drive on the far side, though so overgrown he could only discern it from the crunching under his boots. It had to go somewhere. The drive was perforated by spruce and fast-growing willow and he proceeded with difficulty, but only a short distance, before forcing himself through the thickets and out into the breeze of open country.

Boll saw water glittering on the marsh, cranes flying in ragged formation against the sky and found his feet on the welcome ruts made by wagons. He had found the road, and the Dike. Walking out and turning, Boll surveyed his exit point. There was no sign of his discovery. The overgrown pathway was indistinguishable from the stands of willow, rush and purple loosestrife that lined the recently-cleared dike, standing particularly high along this stretch. Little wonder that people had yet to stumble upon it, but how could it have been forgotten in the first place?


Boll stood a while in thought. Without realizing it, he was already assessing his find as if it were his own rightful possession, under the venerable swampland legal doctrine of Finders keepers - get your hand off it or I'll kill you.

It seemed to him that, for all its lonely life as a derelict, the bones of the old beast had weathered well. There were gaps in the roof, and that was not a good sign, water was the great destroyer of abandoned places, but the tiles were heavy enough in their settings that even the spring blows had failed to scale them off. For furniture, he could make do with what he had found, until more could be carted from the city. That may have to wait until the roads got better. In the meantime, the cellars could be pumped and the water got out of the foundations. The gravel path to the gate would need to be opened and the invading nature cut back about the clearing. The gardens could stay wild for all he cared.

Six miles to the north were more than four hundred engineers and general laborers, building foundations for new pump houses that would soon have the standing water on this side of the dike dried. To the south, crews were re-cladding the embankments and paving the road at the behest of the King's beauro-men. Their surveyors would be here in a year. Boll knew, it was his business to know. In a decade or less, Mithtoad and the Saint's Reach would be connected by paved thoroughfares, bearing increasing traffic, and his discovery stood almost exactly half-way between these two settlements, exactly where a tired traveler might find need of a friendly roof as the road darkened. A public house. A source of income in itself, an asset in storage and transport, a base of operations, a fortress against his detractors- that's what his discovery could be turned into. He could plant a torch, like a sea-beacon, that would be visible along the dike for twenty miles. Soldiers and workmen from the crews would see it first, rough men, but thirsty, and not adverse to gambling or the company of sociable women. Later would be traffic and commerce, as the country stirred from its long nightmare of civil war, a friendly redoubt, where a man could sleep in a real bed (if he had the money), or in straw with the horses (if he didn't), but sound either way, out of the weather and behind closed doors. He would fix the locks, refortify the place, and always have a fire burning in the big hall.

Yes, he could see it.

He drove his stick into the ground as a marker, sheathed his blade and shrugged his jacket over his shoulders. Turning into the wind, Boll began the fifteen miles to Mithtoad. His sides were sore from roots and whipping branches, his feet miserable in the wet leather and the morning wind was shivering through his damp clothes,
but in highest of moods, his mind burning with good ideas.