Chapter Two #2
Hair mussed, Tab glared up at Kenton with as much courage as a five-year-old boy could muster.
In truth, the lad was beyond courageous, showing no fear in the face of his conquerors.
Kenton had to admit that the boy’s bravery impressed him.
He was foolish, but brave nonetheless. Kenton held up the dusty, white coverlet.
“What are you doing with this?” he asked drolly.
Tab was scowling fiercely. “We were scaring you away!”
Kenton cocked an eyebrow. “Scaring me?”
Standing next to him, Teague pulled the woman’s shift off his head and reached out, tugging on the hem of Kenton’s tunic until Kenton looked down at him.
“We are ghosts,” he said with his pronounced lisp. “Were you not afraid?”
He was quite serious and Kenton gazed down at the child, feeling an odd tugging in his chest, something between compassion and humor.
For as much as these children were out and about when they should not be, he had to admit that he found it somewhat funny simply because they were dead serious about it.
“Nay,” Kenton told the child flatly. “I do not believe in ghosts. And you were told to stay to your apartments.”
Teague was thoroughly confused. “But everyone is afraid of ghosts.”
“I am not.”
Teague wasn’t sure what to say to that. He looked at Tab, the eldest, for help. Tab was quick to intervene.
“It is our duty to chase you away,” he said. “You are the enemy and we must protect Babylon. Mother does not allow us to fight with real swords so we are going to scare you away instead.”
Kenton realized that, for the second time in as many minutes, he was struggling not to grin.
The lad was determined to rid his keep of the enemy; Kenton could see that.
But it was also clear that the boy did not understand the concept of a captor/captive relationship and it was up to Kenton to educate him.
He’d already thrown their defiant mother in the vault and he wasn’t beyond tossing her children in after her. He sighed faintly.
“Your tactics did not work,” he said. “You will return to your apartments now or I will take my hand to your backside. I suspect your mother has not disciplined you nearly enough, therefore, that lesson will fall to me.”
Teague, standing the closest, tugged on his tunic again until the man looked down at him. “Mam says that it is not very nice to hit,” Teague said.
Kenton’s smile nearly broke through at the innocent comment and he realized that, quite possibly, he would have difficulty carrying out his threat against these lads.
They were quite na?ve in their view of the world, it seemed, and that was something he didn’t recognize.
The world was a hard and dangerous place to him but somehow, within these walls of Babylon, the world was not such a terrible place to these children.
Enemies could be chased away by the threat of ghosts and hitting was not a nice thing to do.
Was it truly possible there was such innocence left in this world?
“It is also not very nice to disobey my order,” he said, pointing back up the steps. “Return to your rooms. I will not tell you again.”
Teague opened his mouth again, no doubt to tell Kenton that his demands were not very nice, but they were distracted by a rattling sound in the entry down below.
Kenton turned towards the sound, back on the defensive, as the three little boys gasped with fear.
Tiernan, the silent child, actually latched on to Kenton’s leg and would not let go.
Startled, Kenton looked down to see the utter terror on the child’s face.
“Hurry!” Tab suddenly ran at him, grabbing hold of his hand and trying to pull him down. “Get down! We must hide!”
Kenton was preparing to outright refuse when Teague grabbed hold of him, too, and between the three boys, Kenton somehow found himself seated on the cold stone steps.
They had managed to drag him down although he couldn’t have shown much resistance if they were so easily able to do it.
His reaction puzzled him, allowing children to tug him to the floor.
There were gaps in the railing that he could see through to the entry level below and more rattling could be heard, echoing off the old walls of the keep.
Before Kenton realized what had happened, he had both twins on his lap and Tab hanging over his shoulder, pointing to the darkness below.
“Look!” he said. “Now the ghost will come. You will see!”
Kenton frowned at Tab, exasperation coming from the usually emotionless knight. “There are no such things as ghosts,” he repeated what he’d said earlier.
Tab, the serious young man, suddenly looked less than his usual brave self. He was jabbing a finger in the direction of the darkness down below.
“Look, now,” he hissed. “Make no sound or else the ghost will come and get us!”
Kenton truly had no idea what the child was referring to but before he could ask, he heard a door open in the entry below.
Curious, he turned to see where the sound was coming from.
There were at least three smaller closet-like storage rooms he had come across down there as well as the large solar and the two rooms used by Lady Thorne.
He thought he’d swept the keep quite thoroughly for any unknown inhabitants but he evidently hadn’t.
As he watched, a small half-door that was built into the wall near the base of the stairs suddenly lurched open.
Kenton could see feet emerge; small, dirty stocking feet.
It was clear that a person was emerging from the door but they were doing it lying down, on their belly, as if they were crawling out backwards.
It was all very strange. As Kenton and the boys watched, a woman dressed in tatters of a fine pale gown emerged from the small closet and stood up.
Her gray hair was wild and long, like ribbons of smoke floating about her.
Suddenly, she began whirling around, like a dancer, leaping into the air and twirling about.
Her movements were surprisingly graceful and fluid and, at one point, it seemed as if she picked up a partner because then she began to dance as if she were intertwined with a lover.
It was all quite odd but strangely fascinating.
The woman’s long, graceful arms swung about as she danced on her toes and then holding her arms to her as if relishing her imaginary partner’s embrace.
She had no idea of her audience on the stairs above, watching her every movement.
Her dance was a private one, imagining a world that no longer existed except in her mind.
At one point, she touched her face, her mouth, and then her hands trailed to her breasts where she fondled herself rather sensually.
On the stairs above, Kenton instinctively put his big hands over Teague and Tiernan’s eyes so they would not see the woman suggestively caress herself.
It was a provocative and unseemly show for young boys to witness, at least in Kenton’s view.
Tiernan sat there with a hand over his eyes and tried to remove it by shaking his head around, but Teague lifted his hands and pulled Kenton’s fingers away.
Teague was torn between great curiosity and terror, just as Tab was, but Tiernan continued to sit there with Kenton’s hand over his eyes, trying to remove it by simply shaking his head.
He ended up rubbing snot from his running nose all over Kenton’s palm and, when Kenton realized it, he yanked his hand away in disgust and wiped the mucus off on Tiernan’s tunic and hair.
Meanwhile, the show continued down below.
The woman was back to dancing with her invisible lover, leaping over the floor and disappearing into the smaller hall with its two-storied reach.
Kenton stood up enough so that he could see what the woman was doing.
She was simply skipping and whirling over the floor, avoiding the dogs that were sleeping by the hearth, and climbing up on one of the tables as she continued her bizarre dance.
She was in a world of her own, dancing to an unseen orchestra and enjoying the company of unseen partners.
Abruptly, the woman ended her dance on the table and fled the room, rushing into the darkened entry hall and heading for the staircase.
Kenton, with two little boys on his lap and one child hanging over his shoulder, watched as the woman ran halfway up the stairs, all wild gray hair and tattered clothing.
When her gaze fell upon the four men seated on the stairs, men who had been watching her every move, she let out a hideous hiss and bared her rotted black teeth at them.
Kenton didn’t move; he remained still as stone, preparing to unsheathe his dirk if she took another step towards him.
On his lap, Tiernan covered his eyes in horror as Teague shoved his fingers into his mouth, biting his fingers in terror.
Kenton couldn’t even see what Tab was doing, but he was fairly certain the lad was taking refuge behind his broad back.
In any case, the old woman hissed again, a terrible sound, and rushed back down the stairs.
As Kenton peered through the railing, she dove back into her closet and slammed the door.
All was suddenly still and quiet in the darkened entry.
Kenton kept his gaze on the closet to see if the old woman would emerge again, but all remained silent.
After several moments, he glanced at the boys on his lap to see that they were frozen in the same terrified positions as they had been when the woman had hissed at them.
Behind him, he could feel Tab shifting around.
“Who was that?” Kenton asked any boy who could answer him.
Tab spoke. “The ghost,” he insisted. “She lives here.”
Kenton craned his head around to look at the boy, only to see that he was absolutely serious. It occurred to him that perhaps Tab didn’t really know who the woman was, but Kenton suspected who did.