The knights with Sir Hring knew nothing of the brigands and how they had stopped the burial, a pious deed undone, and therefore went on all unaware of the plight of their allies. Though other robbers were about the country they walked, none dared attack knights that were so many and girded with weapons to raise wounds and lower men to the groaning earth who cry out but are no longer heard. Neither had they any great fear since the king's army was slain to the last man that was brave enough to fight for him.
Twenty armed knights trod over hills that were meager in greenery but had a stream at their feet, reckoning that water is loved by builders of cities and castles while the desert is hated for its dryness. And many had seen both, wide-traveling as they were, so that they had stories of them that they had not told on the galley where, as rowers, they spoke more of ships and shores than of inland realms. Nor was the telling of them marred by pauses and grunts as they had at the oars, and there was more cheer without them. So well did they know one another by the end of that march that they might have been under one lord together, used to standing shield to shoulder in war.
A war might be in the offing, they thought at the place of men they reached first, which was a castle and not a city. “The minions of a king and sorcerer might hold either, but the one weaker when the people hear of that king's death and how he was slain. Parties are wont to form in cities, openly or hidden, and make themselves known when a chance of changing one ruler for another comes, and twenty knights such as we make chances.” Sir Cassian of Dryfold said that, who spoke on matters he had learned to his woe, though there was no bitterness in him for that or aught else. Sir Micah of Luros asked if that was so, for he had seen nothing of that in Luros but spent little enough time within it or any other city because of his wandering, and the others agreed Sir Cassian said the truth even if not all cities are bad in that way, nor all castles good.
Not regarding all that, Sir Hring of Krystila hailed the place. “Peace on your lord! I am Hring of Krystila. Be not ashamed not to have heard of it, for though a rich city, it is far away. Fame's legs are strong but not tireless. We hope for food and rest within your walls, or failing that outside of them, or failing that, send a priest with us to where men must be buried, or if none of that may be done, give us leave to tell you where the graves are that the priest might go later with such guard as you wish to give him.”
No answer did he get to that. Neither did the knights see a single armsman look over the walls that he might tell his lord who had come, nor did they hear any sound such as men make, but only the chatter of cloud-cleaving birds. There was also this strangeness, that the walls seemed bound by some cord that went around them thrice, a thing not done with any castle they knew. The knights, deeming that odd, went closer and saw what they still did not understand, for it was a ribbon thumb-thick in width and red-yellow in color. Sir Mikkel of Krystila, who never wondered but that he sought to learn more by words or by boldness, seized his ax without delay and strove to slice the uncommon ribbon. The might of his arm was such, Sir Hring whose squire he had been told his fellows, that he once split a boulder in two and revealed thereby a treasure hid by some troll or fairy, but his ax cut nothing then, and instead slid off.
“I have gone against the very sea to more result than that,” Sir Mikkel claimed. At that failure the knights wondered. They tried themselves to slice and smite with all the weapons they had, but the cord took no harm from it, whatever they did. At that their hope to go within the castle waxed greater for how uncanny it seemed, a challenge for the daring. They therefore circled the castle in search of a gate even as piglets do their mother when the want of milk makes them eager for it.
The east side housed the gate and much more. For the ground beneath the walls was made splendid by round tents of white and black under pennons that flapped, and men and women were about, and children and the old with them. There are festivals more somber than was that gathering, though the purpose of it was no rite handed down from wiser times that the people carried out year by year whether they knew the reason for it. For they had shovels with them, spades too, and lumber and brick, and stone as well in heavy carts.
“Peace to you! I am Hring of Krystila,” the leader of the foreign knights said to those denizens in speech meant to soothe the hearer. “Are you the owners of this place who are ready to make such repairs as are needed for a castle to be called a castle still, and not a ruin or wreck? If that is so, we would speak on matters small to you but large to us.”
A man, silver-haired, straight-backed and clear-eyed, stepped forward and answered. “I am Juliano, head of the Upanus family, whose castle this is as you said. Peace is a word we love to hear, for we have heard little of it for too many years. Tell us, if you can, whether what is told is true, for swift-footed Rumor oft stumbles and errs. Tell us Viljami, the foulest villain there ever was, is dead.”
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“If Viljami was the name of that man who hid in the castle Cuculna and worked vile sorceries not meant for the good, it is so.” The Upani had cheer that overcame many among them when Sir Hring said that, though they had been told those words before. For some hesitated to trust what they had hoped to hear for so long, and others wished to listen again and again for the joy that it gave them. They urged the knights to join them in their camp and their gladness for that reason. Which Juliano deemed unwise because of the risk always about warlike men, but even a lord may be ignored by those under him should they be minded to have their own way, to say nothing of when brothers, sisters, and cousins are told by the eldest what he thinks is best to do but disagree.
For that reason the twenty were welcomed, feasted well, and asked about all they had done, both at Cuculna and earlier, and much else. And the Upani wondered at what they heard. They praised the knights too and gave them food slow to rot with mules enough to carry it, and maps of the lands close by and those farther out. They told them also of the cities and rivers around, what ports were best, and how each might return to his home. Which the knights were glad to hear, for the journeys seemed less hard than dread had wished them to guess.
The Upani told them also of Aequinium, their river-ruling city, and how well it fared there before the king ruled and how ill after. As well they recalled how they had given up both the city and the castle to seem not so threatening by their wealth and the strong places they held, since cowardly lords hate to see those beneath them thrive, while the brave are glad at it and hope for better yet each year and season.
“Years ago, however, Viljami ceased to move about himself, but stayed in Cuculna. His henchmen, too, weakened as their war-loving followers left for lands less secured against their robbery, like a farmer who is happy enough at the harvest but thinks to clear land by felling unwanted trees and hauling rocks a task for others, and sells his fields rather than do it himself. Less fearful of armies and worried over brigands scattered to the left and the right, we thought it wise to reclaim this our castle. From here we hope to make such forays as will hunt down those bands and teach them the price of what they do, who are capable of murder but not of a siege. There have been hardships in that we did not foresee, and during it we learned that Viljami's cruel kingship had its end, which amazed us. We are uncommon glad at it, but even so we are yet denied our castle and are not free to do what you, justly, wish done.”
Juliano ended the tale that way, and the knights who heard him guessed at his meaning. “The cord wrapped around your walls is nothing of your doing, I ween,” Sir Mikkel said.
“Even that is what bars us, sir knight. I would show you this.” So saying, Juliano led the knights around the place a short way where there clung to the wall a red-yellow beast that seemed to sleep, four-footed, doglike in size for the most of it, but not in regards to the tail, which the strangers then saw to be what it was that encircled the castle three times, a marvel to look upon. Juliano struck with his staff, artfully carved. He did no more than any knight had, and the animal yawned.
“It does nothing harmful, which is well, but it cannot be moved. To strike it, to pry it off, to set fires below it that either the heat of it or the coughing smoke would drive it away, all these we tried, and you see the result.”
“Is anything known of its kind here? I never heard of it before, not from any hunter,” Sir Thurbert of Trilling asked.
“Histories call this a rabrab, an irksome beast. Its tail is short when young and a wanderer, but when it likes a place and makes it a home, the tail grows without cease. Nothing can dislodge it then, save that the place itself falls to ruin. That helps us not at all, for it is the castle we want. Should the rabrab then lose its home or have a mind to find another, it coils up its tail and walks off wherever it will.”
The knights, most of them, bethought means to dislodge the thing, but one was minded otherwise. “With so long a tail, how ancient he must be!” Sir Micah cried, and he did off his helm, lowered his eyes, and spoke to the rabrab in a manner subdued. “Aged sir, is all well with you? I beg you to tell me if I might aid you with any of the skill that I have, undaunting as it is, knowing as all men do that the young ought to make the wishes of the old their own.”
The knights jeered at him for that, and Juliano smiled, but the rabrab for its part opened one eye that looked upon Sir Micah. It shook its head in answer and went back to its rest.
Sir Micah said, “That is well, if you are well. Is there good reason to deny the Upani their castle? I beg you to tell us if so, knowing as all men do that the old ought to better the young by their advice.”
The rabrab opened both eyes then and raised one wall-clamping claw, and with that it pointed skyward. After that it hopped down from the wall altogether and rolled up its tail so tightly that all its length made for a clump to its rear like a ship that tows a boat behind it, something hard to believe. It ran on four feet to the mule Sir Micah led and climbed atop it, curled up there, and slept again.
The knights no longer jeered and felt right ashamed that they had, and all the men and women before the gate had such startlement that they could not speak for it, but Sir Micah took no notice of all that. He said, “Let us pass within straightaway and see if more that is eerie may be there. What can a questing knight want more than that?” His armed fellows agreed with him full eagerly and watched what the Upani would do. Juliano for his part loved the common and loathed the strange, just as he loved peace more than war and his own family more than others, and his city, but he mustered his men regardless to carry through the plans his people had for the castle.