Page 49 of Once Upon A Haunted Castle
More tapping. It was faint and not particularly rhythmic. Her gaze moved up to the dark above them, the shadowed ceiling that they couldn’t see.
“Do not be troubled,” the host said from his perch by the fire. “It is the bird. He makes the noise.”
Havilland looked over at the hearth to see that the host had her in his line of sight. He had moved his chair and she’d never heard him. She wondered if her husband had, who was now nearly to the bottom of his second cup of hot wine, the second cup that she had poured in from her own cup.
“I thought it was the wind,” Havilland said. “It seems to be getting stronger.”
She could only see the outline of the host’s face as he sat by the fire, looking at her and into the dark of the room. There was something eerie about his silhouette against the shadows and the hesitation she felt towards him, the wariness, began to return.
“It is the bird and nothing more,” he said.
That sympathetic and sorrowful man seemed to be no more. It was in his tone, the wretched hint of something dark lurking inside. Havilland returned to the remainder of her bread and cheese, glancing at Jamison to see that the man was sitting with his chin nearly dropped to his chest. His eyes were closed. Concerned, she put a hand up and touched his forehead. It was on fire.
“Jamison,” she said softly, firmly. “We must get you to bed. Your fever is raging.”
Jamison was struggling to keep his eyes open. He was ill and exhausted, and the wine was making him extremely drowsy. Reaching out, he took her hand and kissed it.
“Dunna trouble yerself,” he said hoarsely. “I will be well on the morrow.”
Havilland knew it was a lie. He was worse than he’d ever been. In desperation, she turned to the host.
“My husband has a fever,” she said. “Do you have anything I could tend it with? Dried white willow? Horehound? Coriander?”
The host’s gaze lingered on the pair. “You have nothing to give him?”
Havilland shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “If you have these things, or know where I can get them, I can pay for them, but I have nothing with me to tend him.”
“You have money?”
“Will you sell me any of these things that I have asked for?”
The host gazed at her a moment before shaking his head. If Havilland had been better able to see the man in the darkness, she would have realized that she should not have told him they had money with them. That seemed to change his demeanor entirely.
“I must ask Pallas,” the host said. “If we have anything to give you, he will know.”
The host began shouting for his servant then, listening to the bird screech overhead in unison with the shouts. The more the bird cawed, the more the host yelled, now mostly at the bird, telling the feathered beast to be quiet. It was all quite noisy for a minute or two as the host, and the bird, yelled at one another.
But then, Pallas appeared and the great winged animal flew out of the shadows once again and landed on the old servant’s shoulder. He twittered and fluffed his dark wings as the old man and the host muttered among themselves, discussing whatever they might have to cure Jamison’s fever. At least, that was what Havilland hoped they were chatting about.
She could not have been more wrong.
Midnight arrived to flashes of lightning and the howling of the northern winds, beating upon the old stones of Whitecliff with angry ferocity.
The deadly, dreary hour had arrived.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within meburning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder thanbefore.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my windowlattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mysteryexplore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mysteryexplore;—
’Tis the wind and nothingmore!”
