Then who had set it at hazard by tattling on him? Rage smoldered and spat in Runt’s breast, like brands in a castle fireplace. The talebearing as such had not kindled it. When a child brought them news of rulebreaking, the goblins gave reward, sweetmeats or a toy or a span of leisure. When they learned that a child had had knowledge of transgression and failed to report it, that meant punishment. You learned early to keep your thoughts unspoken and to carry out your pilferings and neglectfulnesses unobserved. Runt had frequently been disciplined for infractions before he gained self-mastery. He accepted that as the natural order of things. Sometimes he bore to the masters his own tales of misdeeds detected.
This, though, was—was—he lacked a word for “unjust” but he felt the wrongness like an added pang. In full innocence had he blurted forth in barracks the amazing thing he had learned, that the castle possessed a heart. There had never been a ban on telling his fellows what he did and saw at work. Anything that gave their lives a bit of sparkle was welcome, helping them through their duties.
His inmost hope had been to impress Squeaky. He was not sure why, but her look upon him had become important. Now he was glad he had not drawn her aside for the tale, keeping it from the rest. He might have done so, were it less hard to find a private place. Then she too could well have received correction. That pain in him would never have stopped.
Somebody must have gone to the goblins out of malice, on the chance that Runt had broken a rule. Ignorance was an unacceptable excuse. He nursed his suspicion. Apples was his enemy of old. Both had suffered penalties for fighting, until Apples made a weapon of his tongue, swifter and sharper than Runt’s. Lately Apples, too, had shot up in height and started favoring Squeaky’s company. It led to more quarrels with Runt, over things that in themselves mattered not a glob of rat spit.
Thinking of this while he walked, Runt felt acridness rise in his gullet. To calm himself somewhat, he stopped again where a certain corridor crossed the one he trod.
The children generally did. His gaze traveled wistful down a vaulted length to the end. There he beheld a door, massive in iron-framed timber, full thirteen feet high. It gave on the outside.
So he had been told. No child ever saw any of its kind opened. Again and over again, waking and sleeping, Runt had dreamed of passing through. But a bar at the top held it fast. On the left side jutted a shelf. A goblin could easily leap to it and squat while he swung the bolt from its catch. A child could not, nor did anything exist in the castle which—he might use for climbing.
Runt sighed and trudged onward. After a while his footsteps quickened. Squeaky should be in the barracks section.
He entered it and blinked. These three rooms and these solely knew sunlight, admitted by louvers in an attic and passed onward by mirrors. Though now fading rapidly into night, it was brighter than anyplace else. Goblins only came here when they must, preferably after dark, otherwise swathed in hooded cloaks.
The section had nothing to attract them. One chamber held a score of narrow bunks in double tiers, with scant space to spare. A second was for washing, laundry, storage, and suchlike needs. The largest served as mess hall and common room; you reached it first. Doors were lacking. Floors were wood, cracked, splintery, spotted with traces of old grease, bloodstains, and tears. Walls were unpainted plaster. Here and there, charcoal marks showed that someone had tried to keep track of days; but he or she always ceased caring after a few hundred.
Fragments of color relieved the mess hall. Toys and games lay sparsely about, bestowed by the goblins as rewards or fashioned by children from scraps. Manuscript pages to the number of seven, long ago torn out of a book, were nailed up. The children puzzled and puzzled over the inked words. Mainly they peered at the illuminations. Those tiny scenes—people, animals, fields, trees, blue overhead with a golden disc in the middle, marvels well-nigh beyond comprehension—showed the Greenleaf World. To it they would go when they reached the Measure, provided that they had faithfully served the kindly goblins who rescued them from the Terror and gave them shelter and nurture.
The children heard, moreover, that the pictures and fine playthings were of goblin make. Runt, who had never watched a goblin make any object, kept his doubts mute.
As he approached, he heard Squeaky: “No, dear, you must mend your tunic before that rip gets worse. Oh, and it needs washing too. I will show you how.”
“I don’t want to,” said a small girl mutinously. “Why should I? The masters don’t care.”
“They will if they pick you to attend them,” Squeaky answered. “Then you will have to be elegant. Meanwhile and forever, you owe it to your friends, and most of all to yourself, that you stay neat and clean. You are no roach or blowfly, you are a child. Someday you will go to live in the Greenleaf World where everything is beautiful.”
Her voice had become soft and sweet while she gained in height, hips and bosom began to round, and the brown tresses fell to her waist. But the names that the children found for each other generally stayed with them. She sat on a bench at the table, spooning gruel into a newly arrived infant she held on her lap. Seeing how well she got on with the youngest, the goblins had appointed her their nurse and governess after Snubnose reached the Measure. It was duty she loved, even more than Runt liked his.
“Well, I will if you help me,” said the little girl, Tummy. “An’ will you tell us a story at sleepy time?”
“‘Bout the Birds,” said Me Too, who was smaller yet. “An’ the Flowers.”
“What are Birds an’ Flowers?” asked Tummy. She had chanced to be at the chores she could handle whenever they were spoken of.
“Naw,” said Cockeye. “I want to hear ’bout … Horses.” Red-haired, freckled, snaggle-toothed, he had nonetheless lengthened to Runt’s or Squeaky’s shoulders. The goblins found reason to punish him oftenest, but his grin soon returned.
Squeaky smiled. “Let me think first,” she said.
She was not sure. None of the children were. When the mood came on a goblin, he might relate this or that about the Greenleaf World. Then some, such as Runt, understood bits of overheard conversation. Hints like these, as well as the pictures on the wall, became ground for endless speculation and fabulation. As the generations of children passed, a wholy body of legend grew up among them, a cosmos in which many lived more than they did in the solid castle. But the tales were mostly vague, incomplete, and contradictory. Their single common theme was splendors and delights, peace and love, waiting beyond these walls in a land—nobody said this aloud—where there were no goblins.
“I’ll ride a Horse when I’m big,” said Cockeye, “an’ I’ll slay dragons an’—” He saw who had come. “Runt, you’re back!”
Silence clapped down. They knew Runt had been summoned to woe. The very infant sensed misery and gaped big-eyed. Squeaky rose, laid him in his crib, and moved slowly toward the newcomer. The rest hung behind. Others were still at work. Each of these, beholding the red marks on arms and legs, felt wholly alone.