TCOTNK Season 3.5

The Castle Of The Naked Knights. The origins of the picture book that will change so many lives....

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21st of December

I have gained momentum. After the monastery something changed. I don't know exactly what. It's in me. Not in what I encounter. And yet I end up in completely different places.

The bike-trailer was destroyed. A wheel had broken off. I left it behind. Didn't want to wait for the repair offered. They were devastated by the consternation. My drawings too explicit. Nothing shocking, but for a sheltered sister reason for real hysteria.

Without half of my luggage --because I also left my first collection of visual work with the Mother Superior-- without the trailer and with a strong autumn wind in my back, I flew through the changing landscape that still remembered summer. A lingering warmth in tint and temperature. Sunlight and earth-colours with names like gold-ocher and Venetian-red. burnt-umber and green-earth. Terre verte, that was where I was. Pale olive-green forests at the horizon. Large meadows with stacked stone divisions. Straight ahead a hill. Higher than the surrounding land. Crowned with a collection of buildings. No dominant church tower, but contour lines of roofs and walls drawn by a seismograph. There was a castle there surrounded by rogue houses. In the empty valley in front of it a single tree. It grew older as I cycled closer. The deep red leaves still on the broad crown.

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The wooden gate in the drystone wall opens stubbornly. Low grazed grass all the way up to the foot of the weathered castle walls. A sweeping plain slowly sloping. Low watchtowers stand out darkly against the sky. The tree is between me and there. It has been for centuries. I walk into the meadow with my bicycle in hand. From my left a dozen geese fly over very low. The whirring of their wings clearly audible. So close that I can almost touch their down bellies. The gust of wind that washes over me from behind lifts the feathers. A second southerly wind pushes me, rolls forward combing the grass and shakes the tree. Red leaves are swept along and whirred high up. I am mesmerised while I walk closer by the armies of foliage swept up wave after wave. And, as soon as I arrive, the last remaining take off. A swirl of rustling reddish confetti. I look up through the widely branched canopy and stare. I get overwhelmed. I walk through a future drawing and devour the visual cocktail. Absorb every leaf dropped into my memory.

I choose to push the bike up the field and go straight for the castle but find myself blocked at the bottom of the wall. What seemed a dark entrance turns out to be an inaccessible platform at a height. The rough base of the castle is strewn with enormous boulders. I struggle to the right. Dwarfed by the battered embankment.

The village huddling to the side seems deserted. The shutters closed. The flower boxes empty.

The large portcullis in the castle gate has been lowered. I cross the new wooden bridge. Next to it is a door. I put the bike against the wall and look up. A slight dizziness overtakes me. Haven't eaten since breakfast. It's late afternoon. The drifting clouds seem to drag the battlements along with them.

Visions always come unannounced. Three things happen at the same time.

The sky becomes dark. A half-full moon inverts the contrast to a clear night. The sound of horse hooves clatters against the shiny walls. I stand with my back against a rotten beam under the drawbridge. The trotting troupe thunders over the girders above me. I am a woman. I'm excited, not scared. I know I have succeeded.

Right through the experience, a brand new car drives up and I am thrown back to the previous reality. There is an angel on the hood. Just a little one. Shiny chrome. It comes to a stop in a cloud of drifting sand. The moment the driver gets out, music swells from within. The young man looks at me disturbed, leaves the car-door open and walks over with a large key at the ready. He disappears inside and a moment later an electric motor clicks on. The portcullis starts to slide up with a squeak, the businessman waits behind it until he can get back to his vehicle.

The third is unfortunately unforgettable. While he gets back in the driver's seat he beckons me to come after him. I grab my bike and look up one more time. I slide back to the night. Now there is an iron cage hanging against the facade. An emaciated girl hangs against the bars, staring blankly. She is covered in blood and drooling. A thin stream splashes on her head and also sprays droplets on me. Above her on the battlements, a laughing man is urinating. I smell his dark piss. The half-dead child up there is the daughter of the woman under the bridge. It's a week later than before. She is free but the child has taken her place.

I stagger under the stone arches to the lawn in the shaded courtyard.

"The meeting isn't for another two days," says the man in the blue suit over his sunglasses as I come closer. He opens the trunk of his polished car. He is very confident for his age. Nothing in this man speaks of dependence.

“Can I leave this to you? If you break one, I'll lock you in the dungeon," he says, laughing. He walks away to the staircase. A door flanked by two buckets, each containing a bunch of colorful flags on white sticks.

"They have to go to the hall," he points to the other side of the large courtyard. The remainder of a knight's hall, supplemented with a high conservatory. A cathedral of glass.

There are six wooden crates in the back. Bottles of red wine. Six per crate. All the same it seems. I pick up a crate and wonder how much money I have in my hands. Money is starting to become abstract to me. That happens at the extremes.

I place them one by one under the table where the boxes of glassware are parked.

An open truck drives into the courtyard. A smelly old barrel with a thick dull blue nose and a double cabin packed with heads. There are eight. Boys and men. They all look alike. They are family. A noisy bunch. Frolicking, discussing. They fill the air between the facades with their presence. A young man with medium length hair sees me stepping out from between the open garden doors and responds with a kind of five-step ballet. After a graceful bow and a feint, he grabs my hand and my heart. Dark eyes that penetrate dangerously deep. His brother drags him away from me and a third lands on the low wall next to the stairs and presents his smile. A kind of woof sounds from the one with the beard. The boys immediately obey by stationing themselves at the tailgate. The medium hair length prince climbs on top and unties the rope with which the load is lashed.

The blue suit of the angel car comes back out. A telephone receiver against his ear, the long cord hanging in loops under the ivory gold device in his hand. He gives a thumbs up and points to the orange picket posts in the grass. Papa Beard nods and starts the family machine.

An hour later the long party tent is up. Lemon yellow and pinky orange stripes. Painfully cheerful.

More parts arrive for the meeting the day after tomorrow. A stage. Lamps. A spit with the right half of a pig. I wonder if the other half is still out there somewhere. Multiple delicacy deliverers. Carpets. A bunch of workmen hang banners on the facades. Family crests. All different.

I help where I can with indicating, carrying and sweeping. I pass around the brewed coffee and cinnamon rolls. With my mouth full. Because the work made me hungry.

A bell sounds, a high-pitched ding, ding, ding, and then everyone drops their work. Hot food is served in an unsightly room. There are now almost twenty employees. Bread, wine and dark meat in an even darker gravy. A flat cheese is melting next to the gas stove.

It is only during dinner that I notice that I am the only woman in the group. Coincidentally, of course.

Work continues in the glow of the spotlights. The decoration consists of a steady supply of luxurious materials. Runners, velvet chairs, chandeliers for the tent. Curtains. Ribbons. Satin tablecloths. There will be a small garrison tent as a wardrobe. I cut out three hundred hidden candle holders and fit them with long ivory candles. I'm starting to get tired.

"You shouldn't stay here." the father of the tent builders, “you can sleep with us.”

I'm supposed to follow him. I'm getting ready to grab my bike. But two of the boys take it from me, effortlessly placing my only possession in the open bin. I climb into the cabin where the bearded king has already started the engine. When the boys want to climb after me, he sends them back with a look. He puts the truck into reverse and confidently almost runs over some of his sons. Using only the mirrors, he reverses through the narrow gate, down the bridge, halfway to the small collection of houses. There he slides his behind into an alcove, waits until the panting offspring has climbed on board and then hurtles forward down the dirt road that I climbed up hours ago.

A fire is burning in the large field next to the old tree. There are three wagons around it. Wood with weathered paint. Ever colourful. There are the accompanying women, and children and dogs. And eight or nine horses with thick socks and hair that rivals mine in wildness. An old man is playing the guitar by the fire. Gold glitters under his mustache as he smiles at me without stopping his play. However, he now directs his music to the newcomer. Two young women touch my hair. Unclear whether they disapprove or admire it. I'm going to tie it together.

Papa Beard beckons me. He is standing on the steps of the richly decorated back of his car. Inside it is full, warm and shiny. No metal but lacquered wood. There is a double bass. Large tambourines hang on the wall. Several fitting rooms in the back. Beard lowers the bed and shows how the curtain works. Open close. Open close. Got it?

I have a place to sleep. I'm just not allowed to stay there yet. I have to meet the family. All of them. From oldest to youngest. With first names, baptismal name, nickname and the provisional status in their artistic career. Musicians, jugglers, horse tamers, singers, drummers, bass players, clarinetists, trumpeters. At least three different exceptional talents per person. A mountain of explanation is also required for women and girls. They supplement these basics with whittling, massaging, pickpocketing, decorating, hustling, wood carving, violin playing, instrument making.

An eighteen-year-old girl is presented with several excuses. She studies mathematics, nothing else. Much of the presentation is accompanied by demonstrations of what has been learned. And when the round is finished, half an orchestra sits under the stars, encouraging the various jugglers. There is clapping, cheering and singing. I sit on my improvised throne, get a blanket wrapped around me. The glow of a blazing fire on my cheeks. An unknown hot drink in my stomach. Food is passed around, people laugh at jokes that I don't understand, but I laugh along until I can't stop and fall off my stool. I listen, moved to tears to a sung story that contains not a single recognisable word and yet the sadness of the world fills me and opens me up. Then I am dragged into a circular dance around the spark-spewing fire that is crackling and eager. It becomes wilder and winds around the tree, between the neighing horses, which seem to be laughing while prancing. I sweat and spin around with the other girls. I pick up the glow of the heated women holding each other by the shoulders and dancing provocatively for imaginary bystanders. I see shining eyes that admire me, I see generous faces that smile and then I sit and breathe among the children. Listening to the quietest song calming down the world. The elder's single guitar is a whisper of truths that can hardly be heard. He plays with them, makes them visible for a moment. And the stillness of the night that descends is deeper than the depths of my soul.

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