TCOTNK Season 3.16
The Castle Of The Naked Knights. The origins of the picture book that will change so many lives....
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back to chapter3.15 (last weeks episode)
XIII
No drawing is done. I sleep next to the bear. I sleep deeply and well into the day. Carlos is long gone when I finally stick my head out the door.
They are backing up. Which is problematic for the bigger followers. It goes slowly, one by one. That will take a while. I walk back to the watermill. Seen and greeted by everyone along the way. Like they've known me for years, not at all since yesterday. Training takes place in the open space. Not very fanatical. Rather playful. There is a lion on a chain near the apple tree that follows me with its eyes as I walk to the door.
Inside, five people are busy preparing food. Samanthe isn't there. I climb the stairs to my room. The blood stain on the top step has already been wiped away. I grab my painting supplies. Walk to the other door on the mezzanine floor where I think Samanthe's room is.
The high posted bed is worthy of a queen. A colorful quilt covers a plateau with cushions between four twisted pillars full of carvings. It is neatly laid. Samanthe is not in here either. More filled bookcases. Difficult scientific books. Math. Topics I've never heard of before. I just skim the titles.
Back in the kitchen I ask if they know where Samanthe is. They haven't seen her since yesterday. Didn't know that's her name. I walk outside again and circle the big cat on a leash that now seems to be sleeping. My light dress is still in the soapy water. I stop and look at it.
The tub is filled with a thick, gory liquid. That can't be from those few spots. My beautiful winter dress is covered in that filthy substance. Someone threw something in there. I pull the heavy fabric halfway out of the washing tub. It's completely grey. I have to rinse it out. Get rid of the smelly gunk. If I carry the dress, I’ll soon be completely covered in it. I grab the wheelbarrow from the garden. With effort, I siphon the soaking wet package into it and walk towards the river. There are people sitting by the water, chatting. I have to take off my red dress to rinse so I decide to go further. Through the vegetable garden.
I am angry. Upset about the idiot who threw a bucket of misery into my laundry. The garden is elongated. Located along the water. A winding center trail through thriving plants. The many side paths overgrown with late blooming shoots. It all looks haggard. I hardly recognise any of the vegetables or shrubs.
There is a whole family of pumpkins and colourful gourds migrating across the wide path. Forcing me to turn right. Past a tree with strange pale yellow fruits. Then there is a patch of dried up dead corn. The cobs are black. It is hot in the garden. The sun squeezes scents from all the old greenery. The track bends back to the main path. At least that's how it seems. I come to a field with low fern-like plants. Poisonous green sunspots glow beneath the broad crowns of leafless trees. The path goes around it on the right. Towards several rows of brightly colored flowers. Almost as high as me. They smell sweet and heavy. I can choose from several intermediate paths. This feels like a maze. How big is this garden actually? How does an old woman do this on her own?
A fence made from crooked branches marks the end of the garden. Behind it dark impenetrable bushes. It's not infinite. It's a dead end. I sigh and put down my sloshing wheelbarrow. Let the loosened water drain out. Look around me. Hypathia the hare sits in font a patch with dense plants. A wall of green. Her long ears lie on her neck. I raise my hand. She blinks her beady eyes.
"Are you here to tell me where to go?" I ask indecisively. I'm feeling hot and a little sad about my favorite dress. I don't think the dirt will fully come out. With or without a river.
Then I hear Samanthe singing. Somewhere behind the hare. On the other side of the dark green forest of beanstalks. It's cheerful and off key. The sound is coming closer. Right where Hypathia is sunbathing, the branches and leaves begin to move wildly. As if an elephant is making its way through the dense jungle.
Her crooked legs, clad in yellow boots, appear. The rest is hidden behind a huge bundle of freshly picked greens. A meters high bouquet that her arms barely fit around. However, there are no flowers. The buds on high consist of spiky green clusters. How can someone sing so out of tune? It hurts my ears and yet it is cheerful. The hare looks bored at the noisy apparition above her.
Samanthe cannot see where she is walking and staggers straight towards me and my wheelbarrow.
“Watch it!” I shout.
The singing stops. The bunch swings to the side. She looks at me in shock. Like she doesn't recognise me. Her eyes flash to the wheelbarrow. Then look up squinting at the sun for a second. Samanthe swivels round, big bouquet and all, to where she came from. I get whipped by a few protruding branches. Only a few steps away from me, she changes her mind again, turns and throws her lint on the lawn.
"How long has it been out?" she asks accusingly with those panicked eyes of hers. She walks to the wheelbarrow and grabs the handles. Drives right over her own thick stems. It's hemp, I see now. Five-fingered leaves. Sticky thick buds.
“Are you still coming, or what?” Samanthe sneers just before she disappears back among the beans. I walk over the strongly scented bundle after her. Get a neutral nod from Hypathia.
The overgrown path leads to the water's edge. There is a low stone sidewalk with a floating jetty across it. There is a rowing boat. Samanthe steps into the water with her wheelbarrow without hesitation. It is deeper than her boots, which fill with gurgles. She pulls the dress out of the wheelbarrow and starts rinsing frantically. I see the dark liquid cloud the clear river water. It dawns on me that she painted the dress this awful grey. Unsolicited. I hate it.
Samanthe starts humming again. She squeezes the bundle and wades, splashing wildly, towards the stone sidewalk. She lays the dress out in the sun to dry, clambers onto the side and rubs her hands together, gloating. Dripping. Tiny holes in her boots spout river. I want to open my mouth and shout at her, but then she grabs my arm and pushes me back up the ramparts and into the garden.
Back at the hemp she tells me to pick up the stalks. I walk clumsily behind her through the garden back to the clearing near the watermill. I place the heavy bundle on the pavement near the shelter while Samanthe disappears inside. That attracts the attention of the circus people. Two women immediately start working on the harvest. Samanthe returns with a large plant spray bottle and blushes with excitement. Her white hair in all states. She completely ignores the cannabis collectors and marches back to the vegetable garden. I'll just go after her again.
"Samanthe," I call. She doesn't hear me, it's not her name or she doesn't feel like responding. The old fart has a tough pace. I really have to make an effort to keep up with her among the plantings.
I've had enough of the ignoring arriving back at the water's edge. I emerge from among the wild beans in annoyance and ask point-blank why she turned my dress mud grey. She sits by the dress and straightens up as I approach her. She has the plant sprayer in her hand.
“Grey?” she squeaks indignantly and points a bony finger at my dress.
In the sun on the stone sidewalk lies a steaming bright spot. I step closer. It is blue. A cool kind of ice blue that is almost painful in the daylight. Samanthe laughs showing her worn teeth.
“Turn it over,” she says, “the back still needs to be done. We're just in time. But be careful of your clothes, this stuff hates red.”
The other side of the dress is still grey. I take a few steps back as she sprays her fluid. It smells sharp. And then I witness the miracle. The dreary nothing melts away and makes way for something that seems to drink in the light. My dress is no longer ivory or grey. It now is the most beautiful blue. Water as a dress.
XIV
Samanthe rinses the dress again before we walk back with it. The heavy fabric makes me wet, but I have no choice but to hold the gift against me. It is so gorgeous.
We hang it on a line in the sun and receive admiring compliments. “Indigo?” one of the women asks. Samanthe smiles shyly, shrugs her shoulders mysteriously and starts talking about how the weather is nice, for the time of year.
"Would you do a little job for me?" Samanthe asks before she walks up the stairs. How can I refuse that? She beckons me along. Changes clothes in her bedroom. Right in front of me. She’s nothing but skin and bones. In her loose underwear she pulls out a book with images of stones and minerals. She leafs through and searches, mumbling to herself with her nose pressed to the pages. Then she finds it, sits down on the edge of her bed and pats the bedspread next to her. We sit on the edge of the bed like two toddlers with our legs dangling.
“We’ll throw a party,” she says gloatingly, “I'll be putting on my nice clothes in a moment. I'm busy with the soup and the candles, and you must go to the island for the stone.”
To the island?
She points to the picture in the large book on her lap.
"It looks like this."
It looks like an angular piece of white limestone.
“But a little different.”
She reaches for the bedside table, opens a drawer and picks a dark blue block from among the layer of crayons and pencils. With this she colours over the plate of the white stone, artistically turning her head and sketching roughly.
“It's rounder,” she scratches an oval, “and darker...” she furiously fills the area so that the photo and the text almost disappear. Then she suddenly tears out the page, folds it in half about seven times and presses the wad into my hand like a grandmother hands you some money.
"...and it's green!" she whispers loudly.
She slides off the bed. Like a child, she skates, sliding on her sagging socks, to the wardrobe, opens the door and disappears among the clothes. The door slowly squeaks closed again.
“And bring food,” comes a dull voice from the inside of the tall cupboard.
Well, nice assignment, I think. Finding a green quest stone on an island.
“Which island?” I call. Should I take this seriously? Just play along with her game?
Her head pops out. Wearing a blonde wig. A bit crooked.
“The big green one,” she says, rolling her eyes. Oh, of course, I think, how silly of me to not know.
I make some bramble jam and butter sandwiches, grab a bottle of juice and steal a couple of apples from the sad lion, now asleep. From the cooking squad that have set up a field kitchen, I get offered a handful of walnuts and a piece of white cheese. Back into the house once more to borrow a paring knife and an orange blanket and then I set off again with the luggage in the wheelbarrow.
I will take the boat. Assuming it's okay I take Samanthe’s rowing vessel. I'm going because I already wanted to go. The weather is perfect, almost windless. Just past noon.
The boat is light and long. Pretty stable for a landlubber like me. The gentle current helps a bit. I row in the direction of travel. So I can see where I'm going.
After an initial narrow stretch, the stream splits. I choose the wider one. It is very quiet, the stream so clear that I can see fish swimming along. I wander quite a bit at first, but I soon get the hang of slow rowing.
Large dragonflies skim over the water. Birds chatter at the strange woman in her red dress. After half an hour the smell of sea drifts in, it gets fresher and the banks give way.
The water sparkles in the afternoon light. The islands are in the center. Dark silhouettes. It's beautiful. I slide over the smooth water out of the estuary. Right as it goes. The first wave kisses the bow and a cool breeze strokes my hair. The sea is flat.
Or so it seemed from a distance. The swell begins. Not a big deal, but the boat suddenly feels a lot smaller. I am very slowly getting closer to the first island. A low grassy hill without trees.
The boat scrapes onto the beach. I pull it a bit further. Otherwise I'll be stuck here. I take a walk while eating a string apple. Sand, waving yellow grass and boulders. No blue or green stones. From the top I can see the next island. That's very different. Higher. Densely overgrown with green shrubs. No beach.
The sky is so big. It is clear. Behind me the sandy shore of the mainland stretches on endlessly left and right. The water is empty. I don't think I have experienced so much space before.
I am moving on. Rowing as one should. With ones back to the goal.
As soon as I come out from behind the island I feel the sea breeze. The water rises and falls. If I don't place the oars properly in the water, cold seawater splashes over me.
I can't find a place to land on the leeward side. Then there is a bay where the boulders are smaller and the water is shallow. I slide the boat between two worn-out, meter-high boulders. A water alley that ends on a pebbly landing strip of two meters wide. Perfect. Judging by the metal rings, this is done more often. I moor my ship and follow the natural stairs up. The roots of stocky trees hang over the edge. The path leads through winding thickets with spines and leathery leaves to an unclear goal. But without a doubt up. Climbing with a long skirt and bare feet is awkward, but the physical effort is nice. I'm a pirate. My treasure is hidden here. The back of this steep turtle back is covered with crooked, stocky oaks. What I thought was a path just dissolves into dense undergrowth and raspberry chaos. The fruits are sour and hard. They taste mouldy from being on the bushes for too long. I get stuck. Can't see around me. There is no choice but to return.
The third island is a small mountain massif. The boat flaps on the irregular waves as I row towards it. It's further than I think. And every time I look back, the forested rocky plateau has grown bigger. The water becomes deeper. I can tell by the swell. Further away I hear waves breaking. I'm almost at the ocean.
The vertical granite wall towers above me. Seabirds have soiled the stone. But there aren't any now. At the top there are oak trees all the way to the edge. I row on. Very slowly I glide past the island, sailing into its shadow. It's chilly there. The water dark.
I am happy when I feel the sun on my arms again. The island's rear is lower. Less unapproachable, but still unsuitable for mooring a rowing boat.
Three quarters of the way around the island I have almost resigned myself to having to sail back without visiting this big rock. Then comes the sandbank. Almost invisible. Just above the surface is a dark strip. No sand. But flat rock. A real ship-wrecker.
The moving water is not helping and I get out clumsily. Do a split and slide, and almost fall. The hem of my skirt is soaked. I pull the boat along the rock plateau to a higher area and hoist it onto the half submerged stone. There is nothing to tie the rope to. So I pull the boat further, to the next flat section, high and dry. I scratch the bow in the process. Out of the water the damn thing is a lot heavier. I'm hot and I'm shaking a little but I'm there. I'm on my island.
XV
With all my belongings in the blanket, I clamber from block to block. It's all much bigger than it seemed. The first shrub is meters above me. What am I doing here? Looking for a green stone? I put one foot on a ledge. Ridiculous. If I can hoist myself onto that high column, I can maybe reach the tree that sticks out over the edge. Am I just curious? Is this an excuse? Did I want to get away from people again? I'm sweating on these hot stones. They have been heating up all day. The large round shapes feel like sleeping shells. Like really big eggs. The giant bird is away for a late lunch but they are still warm. On the verge of hatching. I lie with my ear on the polished stone, puffing for a moment. One more stage.
That is easy to do. If you are not afraid of heights. About seven meters above the water I can slide up over a narrow ledge and emerge via the bared roots of a dead tree.
I made it. Time for a picnic.
When I step away from the edge, the water is immediately out of view. A narrow strip of vegetation. Then open space. Someone dug up this landscape somewhere else and laid the sod in the ocean. I stand with my blanket bag looking out over a shallow hole with scattered bare trees and tall waving grass. The islands’ plateau is bowl-shaped. There are mixed trees and dark green coniferous shrubs all around. Junipers, laurels. On the far side is the high part. A small wooded mountain with a huge boulder sticking out of it. The thing reminds me of a castle. Up here on the plateau you wouldn't say you're at sea. It just smells herbs. Dry and warm.
I wade through the grass looking for a suitable spot. It is uncomfortable because the bowls’ floor consists of sharp stones and is very uneven. I wonder if people ever come here. The silence is thick and empty. My insides react to it. I find it very pleasant. A valley all to myself.
I still quest among the stones for my green egg, but the rubble is all grey and angular. There is bright green wild leek, that smells of garlic when you step on it. Darker marjoram in camouflage shades. The greenish silver-white sage is almost intoxicating as I brush past it. A wide palette of fragrances lures me in further. I see little holes. Snakes? Rabbits? The silence seduces me to relax. While crawling and flying inhabitants seem to have left the place to itself, it still is as alive as anything with eyes and ears and legs.
The valley that makes up most of the top of this floating cliff is a very wide salad bowl. And at the lowest point there is a small lake. Clear fresh-water-broth all the way up to the forested slope. It is an oval gravel pit with an ultra clear mirror. Equal parts sky and earth. The rock castle above the trees perfectly inverted in the liquid portal. My foot wrinkles the glass, and shatters the image. Waves travel outward. Scent and sound made visible in slow travelling circles. Like life travels. Broadcasting. The water at the shore is lukewarm. I take off my dress. Place it on a hot stone behind me. And put the food filled blanket in its shadow. I rinse out my panties and bandage. I hope no licking monsters will come for my blood. Oh well, I think mischievously, if they have rough tongues…
Underwater I can see the pool’s floor, shimmering in unnamed greens. The cool clarity is divine. I come back up spluttering. It's breathtakingly cold down there. Much nicer when I float on my back. On the surface. Equal parts cool and hot. In and on. This water is so clean I expect you can drink it. I won't chance it. It's been such a long time since I really went swimming. I always was more underwater than above it. Visiting a home lost.
Back out, I shake myself dry like a dog, squeeze my hair and sit with my back to the sun. In lotus position. I am a Buddhist priestess. For ten seconds. Then my eye falls on the highest point again. The castle-shaped boulder. I can't stand a tease like that. You shouldn't ask me to sit still in front of anything climbable. And no one does, ask me not to do that. I can decide for myself. I braid my hair. Never mind it will stay wet forever. I feel fresh and energetic. I crawl to my dress. With a hand on the red fabric I look at the hill again. Of course I can. Better even without the dress. It’ll just get in the way. I just put on my underpants with the wet bandages.
It's yew, all that deep bluish green. There are stocky oak trees. Hibernating, all colour retreated. And a single giant walnut. Black and barren. Dried fallen leaves crackle under foot. There are lots of faded green shells and loose naked walnuts. To avoid now and harvest later. Here lies a year's worth to bring back to the water mill.
Higher up the slope there are blackberries. Their juicy clusters strangely out of season. I wonder if they produce a late second crop through the heat retained in the big dark stone. You can't get to them with an almost naked body. Not without a blood sacrifice.
The boulder that forms the crown of the island is probably a special mineral. It is bluish and consists of clumped pillars. Like crystals. Maybe a starstone that came hurling from heaven. Jumping and hissing, skimming across the ocean with massive circular splashes, expanding interfering rings, to thrust onto the island where it made a dent, tumbling uphill a little and coming to a halt, Ever since it lay here to cool off. My hand touches the giant rock. It still is not completely cold.
The big lump is climbable like a staircase. For giants. For me it's a little more difficult. The steps are shoulder height or more. Climbing is fun. I scrape my chest. My hip is dented and I keep having to pick sharp stones out of my soft front, but my elation increases with the height. I am freeing myself. I am woman. I am strong. I'm not afraid. I don't have to go anywhere. I'm free.
I summit. I stand on top of the cliff panting from the effort. I shout to the ocean. I shout to the land. Grin like a hippo on a trampoline and shout one more time to the remaining directions. I scream silently at the sun. I could easily take off. I'm pumping oxygen. Walk back and forth. A young bird of prey right before it takes flight.
Now this is a place for a picnic. But of course the food is not up here. Oof, who cares? I'm already full. Completely filled with that feeling of limitlessness. I calm down. I am moved by standing on top of this castle. A castle without walls. Nothing is being defended here. This castle receives. With open arms.
Suddenly I'm back in Carlos' clown-car with my head on my fists, looking at the map. I tilt my head. My memory sees the map and overlays it on where I am. Can see myself. I am here. That bare dot on the blue-shining sky boulder. In the distance the green river valley that meanders towards the horizon. It's like a dragon. With an open mouth. Spitting out three stones. There's a gem on this one. This is the stone I needed to get.
Here I can meditate. This is my castle. I am so open that my painful skin seems to dissolve. I am empty. I'm full. I can see the world as it was, as it is, and as it will be.
The contrast is so great. The thick defensive walls are so old. We will up. Leave behind. There is no longer anything to defend. It has become ridiculous. I can see the development in front of me. And chuckle at the image. A knight is actually a walking castle. The faint of heart only dares to leave his castle with the defenses strapped to his body. A car is a moving castle. Even clothing is a smokescreen. A flag. We surround ourselves with flags instead of useful things. Those flags give war signals. Keep your distance. Show respect. This is my status. In a constant state of war. And the castle has grown into the opposite of what it was in the beginning. Protection. A shield. Everything is becoming castle. There will no longer be room for what belongs outside the walls. It makes me cry when the meaning of that dawns on me. Because I suddenly see what is at home outside the walls. It is life itself.
There are two butterflies on a small yellow flower. The sun is setting. I have to go back, but can only sit. With eyes closed.
