We carry the silt of our own memories within us, like the castle's loft stored treasures, and we are top heavy with it. But ours is geological in its profundity, reaching back through our shared histories, blood lines and ancestries to the first farmers, the first hunting band, the first shared cave or nested tree. By our wit we look further back, and out, so that we bear the buried stripes of all our planet's, earlier geology in the strata of our brains, and contain within our bodies the particular knowledge of the explosion of suns that lived and died before our own came into being.
The deeper silt implies the grander flow, and I cannot fully join the rubble underneath, not while I breathe and think and feel. My bones could lie here comfortably enough just minerals, cold things, “stuff” but not the man who thinks of this eventuality.
From this sunk hole I once thought to see the depths of heaven, to look into the past that is the ancient light of stars, and just so now, lowered to a heightened understanding, by my tormentors aided, I think I see the way into the future. From here, with this new perspective, I believe I view the castle whole, its plan spread out above me, transparent and confirmed, the earth made unopaque, revealing the building's stones raised from the land into the commerce of the rain and air.
Here is the house militant, a blocked in enterprise huddled round a private, guarded void, its banners and its flags flown flagrant to the vulgar, following winds; a mailed fist prevailing against all levelling air.
Seminal, germinal, I lie there; something mud bound, landbound, evolving, and quite undismayed both by the burden of the abysmal past compressed beneath and by the columnar weight of atmosphere above bearing down, each together squeezing me, forcing me, tributary, to a greater, crasser surface.
But now is now, now is demand, and I must act.
I try to shrug or scrape the helmet off, but fail. I decide to free my hands first.
I struggle, numb with cold, attempting to undo myself. I bend my fingers and try to find purchase on the tied length of rough textured bell pull securing my hands. I tug and haul and wriggle my wrists inside their bindings.
A noise, above.
I look up into darkness, and am pissed upon; the urine patters down upon me, softly clanging off the helmet and hissing into the water. It is barely warm, cooled almost to the same chill as the well's still water by its passage down the cold air of the well's throat. Some shouts, and then, with a start that has my elbows jerk in beside my body, something solid hits the helmet and splashes into the water. Laughter, above; more shouts, fading then returning. Then the sound of retching.
Sickness, this time. It feels warmer than the urine. Its acrid stench rises up around me. Mostly wine, I think. More laughter, and then silence.
I continue to struggle with the bonds round my wrist. I think that if I could only see properly, even in the near darkness, I might succeed. But I need my hands to release me from the helm. I try, instead, to stand inside my little bucket, thinking that I might be able to nudge the helmet off once I can better wedge it against the side of the well. That fails too, my legs refusing to work.
I set back to work on my bonds. They have become wet and slick; my fingers slip on their greasy surface. Finally, I feel something come loose on the, outside of the knot, but twist my wrists and reach with straining fingers as I might, I cannot pull on it.
I flop back, exhausted, lights in front of my eyes again. I think I miss out on a little time again.
No time passes, or some does.
I lean forward to jam the face plate of the armour helmet against the winch's chain, then, a link's length at a time, I nudge the face plate up until I can nod my head back, flicking the metal cover over and open. It swings and clicks. I can see at last, even if there is not much to be seen. Would that the air were fresher. I look up; a stone corona of reflected light stares back, empty.
Seeing does not help me undo the length of bell pull. After another panting hiatus and more dizziness, I lean back, hold my tied wrists above me and reach up and forward with my mouth, angling the loose length of bell pull towards my teeth.
The smell is appalling; moisture drips on to my face. I gag, and have to stop. When the moment and the urge both pass, I make the attempt again. Eventually I snag the loose piece and grip it with my teeth. I pull on it, twisting my wrists again and trying to force my hands through.
Something gives. My wrists are coming free. One hand slips out, wet and slippy and raw as birth. I spit the filthy rag from my mouth. I tear the grubby loop off the other wrist, then reach, arms and back protesting, and lift the weight of the helmet off my head. I let it fall into the water at my side, then try to push myself upright, hands pressing down on the bucket's rim. No success. My back aches as though fresh burned. I reach up to the bucket's chain and reel it towards me, hand over hand until that linking strand's at in fullest stretch, brought down in a series of squeaking lengths until it goes taut. I grasp it and haul and finally my wedged in back and shins pull free.
The water is only up to mid calf level. I try to stand but cannot; my legs buckle and I have to reach out to either side for support, leaning precariously back. Finally I push the bucket over on to its side and sit on it, waiting, shivering, for some sort of feeling to return to my legs.
I black out again, coming to sprawled in the cold, fetid water, floundering and spluttering. I kneel in its scum surfaced chill and feel around for the bucket. I sit on it.I do not know how much time passes. I sit with my head in MY hands, trying to breathe life back into my body, shivering every now and again. At some point the background noise changes, something ends, and when I look up, sensing another alteration, full night has now resumed; the rim of rock reflected electric light has gone and there is no halo above me any more. I put my head down, then try standing. Pins and needles assault my legs, from groin to toe. I stand there, looking up into the darkness.
It is some time before I feel ready to make my attempt. I don't know how long. Nobody else comes to relieve themselves down my oubliette, or laugh at me, and indeed it seems perfectly silent and quite dark above.
I grasp the bucket's rope again, swinging my weight on it to test it. It creaks at the top and gives a little. It feels unsafe. I am not sure I have the strength to pull my way to the top. Perhaps I should just sit here on the bucket until the morning. They will take pity on me eventually, or just remember me, and perhaps lower a rope to let me out. Or not; perhaps they will leave me here until I die, or throw rocks and stones down, burying me. Can I rely on the compassion of the lieutenant? Or on your love? I'm sure of neither.
Then I lean back, my shoulder blades against the wall behind, and shuffle my feet forward through the water, past the bucket and the submerged helmet to the far wall of sharply curved stone. I tense and strain, levering myself up. The back of my head and my spine compete for which can produce the most anguished complaint, but I ignore them both; the chain end of the rope coils in my lap. My feet are now half a metre above water; my head is a metre above them. I rest there, wedged. I was too small to do this, that last time I was here. Like this, though, I can stop and rest on my way up the shaft, relieving my arms if they become too weakened by the effort.
I set off, pulling on the rope, my breath panting, my heart racing the higher I go. My arms start to quake and quiver and burn with fatigue; I stop to rest, arms splayed downwards and to each side, grimacing as my head and back encounter rough protrusions in the stone. My legs start to quiver too. I resume and shuffle on upwards, settling into a racked, unsteady rhythm; one hand gripping the rope, pulling, then one foot up, then the other hand, and the other foot.