A small, ruined castle: this is where we left off in the last chapter and for good reason, because there was something strange about the ruins of the old castle. From the top of the hill, they could clearly see that the structure did not belong to the local people. And the castle seemed much, much more imposing than the previous places. And it looked bigger, considerably bigger, and it had four round towers and an adjacent curtain wall open on one side. 

If Marfisa had to give an opinion, it looked like a small legionary fort judging by the shape, but that was not possible. What sense would it make to have a fort, furthermore made of stone, outside the borders of the empire and in a spot that did not seem to defend anything. In any case, it was abandoned.   

There seemed to be no one inside or outside. Judging by eye, it was about two storeys high. The upper towers were like normal square towers and one of the walls had collapsed, giving them access to the keep area, which seemed to be about two storeys high.   

This was what they could see from where they stood: it was on the far side of the river on its opposite side. It was partially obscured by tall grasses, trees, bushes and the like. It looked normal, however. Nothing indicated that it had any special function.   

They wanted to walk closer to the river, also to see what it was like, as it seemed shallow and easy to cross.   

"What do you say, we camp over there, between the stone walls?" said Marfisa. 

Nothing could be heard on the other side of the river, apart from the normal birdsong and the unfolding of the wind. It seemed safer than being in the woods." 

"I suppose it could be a form of shelter. Let's have a look," said Rolandus. 

They headed there following the river until they came to a point where the crossing was easier.   
When they crossed the river, they saw that a small stream flowed under the keep and joined the main river, together with a second stream that ran through the well of the keep itself. 

They saw that in one of the towers, used for grinding, there was a water mill that used the stream that ran under the wall. 

The main area was a gigantic building, which appeared to be about two storeys high. Many of the towers were in ruins and there was a gap in the wall that could be entered by climbing over some boulders. 

From outside, nothing could be seen, nothing could be heard, and no lights were lit. Nothing strange, as if it had been abandoned to the elements for a long time.   

Without thinking too much about it, they decided to go inside at once. They approached the hole in the wall and climbing over the borders and the collapsed wall they could see that it had been attacked at some time in the past. 

Rolandus searched the area to see if anything was there, for although the courtyard looked abandoned, it was better not to risk it. 

He looked around circumspectly. It was not a real courtyard. It was a sort of staging area. A preparation area, perhaps for the soldiers in the camp. Apart from that, they saw that there were empty stables. The stream looked as clear as the one they had just left at the river. It was probably used to supply the castle with drinking water as well.   

It was very quiet. Birds seemed to roost in one of the towers without fear. He went back and shared with Marfisa everything he had seen. In doubt, Marfisa too went in, sword in hand.   

There were a couple of small wooden shacks adjacent to each other and another on the opposite side. These huddled together or opened in such a way as to create gaps and show the kind of neglect that was in them. You could see through them because the panels were broken, and several were missing. They look like typical storage sheds. The barn Rolandus had seen was near the entrance and had been unused for some time.   

"Well, if nothing else, we won't be short of firewood here."   

Marfisa's thoughts shifted to the towers: one tower, two towers, three and four and then the main keep area.... plus a doorway into the main living area that no longer had a wooden door. All that was left of the entrance was an archway that led directly into the ground floor of the keep, and through it a staircase leading up to the next block.   

Rolandus asked: "So do we want to go inside or stay outside?"   

"Well, if we don't want to smoke the inside, it would be better to camp outside," Marfisa replied. 

"Well then, outside it is."  

"Unless the inside has a chimney, shall we check it out first? I mean, a place like this should have fireplaces..." said Marfisa, "...but yes, we could search first, to make sure everything is safe and okay, even if there is no sound." 

"In the doubt I'll start a fire outside, we don't need a chimney anyway."  

Rolandus looked around confused at finding a Roman structure in Sarmatia and said, "What do you think this place is? Some ancient ruin?" 

"No, it looks more like something built relatively recently... it may have been an old wooden fort, built centuries ago to house a detachment, then some local gentleman may have used the structure to build his dwelling in stone. But who knows what happened since then?" 

Marfisa took a second look around, then headed inside. 

The structure was very old, although it had kept very well; perhaps because the type of attack it had suffered had not been very destructive. It looked as if it was empty now, derelict; surely nothing had happened there for a long time. Animals used it as a shelter. 

Fortunately, she had enough light to be able to see using the light outside. Considering that there was still no sound, even though Rolandus was preparing to set the fire, he could be sure that no one was there, but in doubt he held his sword up. 

It was very dark inside, though not completely because there were small light windows on the ground floor that let in enough light for her to see.   

"I'll go in, you keep your guard up," said Marfisa. 

"Alright," Rolandus replied, taking the bow to light the fire and a pinecone, just before receiving a final warning from Marfisa who said: "The floor from below looks like an empty warehouse. I'm going towards the stairs to go up. If anything happens, I'll come running back down to the foot of the stairs."  

She could see that the stairs were intact and could be used safely. She climbed up slowly and looked to see if there were any old traps that had not yet been tripped or anything else, or even if there was anything useful to take. 

Solid, cold, and with clear signs of time on the staircase there were no moving panels, no secret buttons, no pressure pads, no trip wires or anything like that. In the meantime, she saw Rolandus grabbing some stones that were lying around and creating a small hearth. He moved backwards and forwards in small steps. He would need at least ten of those stones.   

The second and fourth towers were completely in rubble. Of stones Rolandus would find some. The first tower looked structurally sound, and so did the third. For a moment, Marfisa wondered if it wouldn't have been better to check those first, but in the end, she decided to go up.   

In the meantime, Rolandus continued to pick up boulders, then prepared to light a small fire. He broke some panels and piled them up where they could not catch fire. There he pulled off one after the other until the structure began to wobble. The roof collapsed and the rear part of the structure broke away completely from the stone wall.   

"Phew! Luckily it wasn't me under there," said the catizus.   

The posts were very deep, but by now the only things holding those structures together were the weeds that had grown up around them and the ivy. 

"Am I wrong, or did I tell you to keep your guard up?" said Marfisa leaning towards the curtain. 
"Yes, well, I understand you don't like to hear that something has collapsed, but it's not stone that's collapsing, it's wood that's falling, it would have fallen anyway. It's not a brick falling from the top of the roof." 

"You said little." 

"You're slightly paranoid. I probably did something right. I mean I don't see anyone leaning outside attracted by the noise." 

Marfisa gave a puff and went up. There was a door on her right side. The door was open. There was no longer a lock. All the locks were destroyed, but not by time. She peered inside and saw that it was an old guest room. There was what was left of an old bed. It had not been used for ages. There was a chair next to some kind of dressing table. A small dressing table. There was also a portrait, an old painting hanging above the fireplace. The fireplace was shared with the fireplace in the room beyond. This was an interesting architectural choice.  

Through the fireplace she could see the adjoining room, but there wasn't much there: the door was ready to fall down, and the bed was completely rotten. There was a damp musty smell coming from everywhere and from everything, and the old picture above the fireplace was completely covered with a black fungus that was also in the fireplace. The fungus had grown into the painting, making it all damp, black and mossy.   

She went to see what was in the portrait, but it was all very dirty and encrusted, but after all that time it had become unrecognisable. Perhaps the place had been abandoned for twenty or thirty years. She left the room: between the mushrooms and animals that had taken possession of it, the smell had become nauseating.   

She went back towards the corridor where she saw two balconies, which overlooked the courtyard and were closed off by a gate. There were slits that let in light, but a closer look showed that they were ordinary windows, bricked up to obstruct the passage.   

"What on earth did the inhabitants of this place want to protect themselves from?" 

She shifted her gaze to the roof. The tiles had been unhinged, creating a hole in the ceiling. It was at that moment that she noticed that to the left was a staircase going up to the next floor. Crossing them she found two bedrooms and for each bed there was a desk. She had reached one of the intact towers, but by now it was only good as a rat hole. There, too, was a single fireplace shared by several rooms. It seemed to serve as a dormitory or a reference point.   

She heard the sound of animals coming from somewhere, but could not identify the type. The noise was too distorted. Perhaps it was small rodents. Yes, it certainly had to be mice. 

The room was dark. There was only a narrow passageway that gave some kind of light to the place, although Marfisa could tell there was nothing of interest there. She could get some rags to light the fire, but it didn't matter now. To be burnt, they looked usable, but she didn't want to touch them and anyway Rolandus seemed well on his way to lighting the fire.   

He had finished with his small circle of stones and his pile. Beams, twigs and pinecones were ready to catch fire, he just had to work patiently with his bow. It took him a few minutes, but the wood made incandescent by the rubbing caught fire.   

Since her companion did not need her help, she took a bite of the apple she had found in the wood. Who knows where it had come from? Perhaps it had fallen to a shepherd passing by? For a moment, she could not help but think of the three golden apples with which Madalgarius had beaten her in the race and had a strange moment of nostalgia. For the first time in her life, she felt joy at remembering a defeat. 

She shifted her gaze towards the bookcase that stood next to the desk. The fireplace and the bed were certainly not of interest to her but in the bookcase, there might have been something salvageable. It was about three metres wide and three metres high, but there were no books or anything like that. Instead, there were a couple of scrolls. They were mouldy, old and dusty. Once dried by the mould, they would also have become very fragile. So if she had tried to unfold them, they could have broken and fallen apart.   

She was curious about what those scrolls said, but she was also worried that she could not touch anything. Maybe she could... she could find a way to preserve them. She didn't know if she could read them, but she thought it likely. Yes, once she had removed the wooden body around which they were coiled, she could preserve them in a way that they would not shatter. 

At some point there must have been a large number of scrolls on the shelf, but now it was just... Right, let's try it! I can't let these get lost too. At least one of them I have to save... I just have to see if I can get to one of the rows of scrolls. Marfisa stretched out her arm, perhaps with a slightly heavy hand. Seeing that there were two scrolls, she aimed at the first one she could reach: she put her finger on it and tried to pick it up, but as she picked it up, it literally fell to pieces.   

It became dust, crumbling as she tried to pick it up. The most obvious cracks crumbled back after years of weathering. It became thinner and thinner and the more she tried to handle it, the more it crumbled.   

"I give up," she said, looking at the dust left in her hand. "Well, one parchment remains. I have successfully destroyed the first one. Here we go again. There you go. Not a bad second attempt."  

She placed the parchment on the desk with satisfaction, and gently unrolled its edges until she could read what appeared to be a kind of commentary. Many of the sentences had been erased by time, but it spoke of a... a kind of entrance. 

She unrolled further to see the previous line. She noticed that it spoke of an entrance to something, to something else, to some dungeon or underground chamber, and outside... it spoke of an entrance under a table. Which table? She didn't know. This he did not say.   

Marfisa wondered what the parchment indicated. There was something else under there. The question was what it was and how to reach it. Marfisa's curiosity began to mount. There had to be some kind of trapdoor, which lay under a table and could be who knows where. She glanced out of the window, where she saw Rolandus's bonfire growing by the day.   

The catizus had really been busy, for he was exhausted from all the wood he had dragged. He had fed that flame until it grew big, and he had not lost sight of it for a moment as one does with children.   

"I feed you, little flame. So then you can feed me. Get big. Yes, so I can put another piece of wood on top. Yes, I know, sticks; but when you are bigger, and the flame has grown. Yes, so yes, I will put big pieces on you. Wood also on pinecones, but it is not yet time to try. Small as you are, you can only eat this heap of branches, that breaks, and drops one piece at a time on you: this little fire that is constantly trying to grow." 

It took a while to get to some kind of bonfire. Something that resembled a bonfire, at least to someone as small as a catizus. He was fine with that. He was happy like that. It was just... seeing his little flame grow into a massive fire like that made him as proud as only a father could understand. He added another massive block on top of it. 

Marfisa went back to exploring. She knew that under one of those tables was some kind of secret entrance leading to an underground chamber or a dungeon or something. She just had to be patient. She saw a table that had gone sideways, because its legs were made of completely rotten wood. Unfortunately, that was not what she was looking for. So she went to look through her fireplace to check the room next to it.   

She could see a room about six metres by six metres. It overlooked the doors of the castle proper and what she imagined to be the place indicated by the parchment. She had passed through it before investigating the building but had ignored it for the moment.   

Compared to other areas, the door had stood. Before putting her hand on the handle to open it, Marfisa put her ear to listen. She heard someone moving on the other side. Could she peek through the keyhole? No, it didn't have that kind of lock. It was more of a lock that clicked by the handle but did not use a key. She then went back to listening, trying to understand better.   

Whatever was making that noise was going away. But to do what? Had he not been attracted by the noise Rolandus had caused? For some reason he didn't wonder why there seemed to be only one person making the fire? Or perhaps it was because he thought there was only one catizus, who stood so carelessly by? 

The fire was going well, but it was possible that from that position Rolandus was seen. Now there was also nice smoke coming out of the courtyard, but no one seemed to have been drawn to it.  

Perhaps there is only one intruder in the building, and he thinks he only must keep a small catizus defenceless. In fact, Rolandus seemed rather distracted and busy. He had unrolled the packet in which they had put the fish they had caught and put them on a spit and started to cook them, while others he left for smoking. He looked around for a nice flat, clean and heavy stone to use as a tray.   

Marfisa went back to listening at the door. She could sense something behind all that noise coming from the other side of the door. It sounded as if someone was sleeping, but could it also be that they were moving around placidly. She couldn't tell how many there were, but there didn't seem to be a lot of noise, maybe just a bit of commotion, maybe there were two, maybe three? But it could also be just one person moving frantically from side to side. Marfisa shook her head. Maybe it was just a figment of her imagination, maybe it was an animal. 

Marfisa then tried another tactic and slipped into the neighbouring room to see through the communal chimney.   

There was a fairly well-kept table. Marfisa could not see anything that was on it, nor could she see the intruder. She shifted a little to change the angle. It was some kind of table with... what was that? Was it a telescope?   

She crawled through the chimney and peered in to see what was in there. She moved stealthily and entered a space about ten metres by four metres. It looked like some kind of antechamber to a servants' quarters, perhaps butlers' quarters. It was rather shabby, with a bed and a couple of broken crates. The crates had nothing inside. 

There was a room nearby. This had a small fireplace, which did not go through the other side of the wall as in the other rooms. It was an individual fireplace. It seemed to have belonged to a small servant, perhaps a catizus, but she could not rule out misinterpreting those rooms. It could also have been a child's room.   

She noticed another door in unusually good condition. A peculiar door this, because it was much sturdier than the others. She put her ear to the door again, when she heard from outside a pile of wood falling to the ground.   

Rolandus had rolled stones to create a small campsite. Now he was moving logs, tipping logs, and rolling them until he was close to the fire. It had worked. They now had quite a bit of wood of the right size. They just had to be put on the fire in due time. Then he began to list the things to be done from there. 

"Well, I would say that all that remains to be done is to wait for the fish to cook. Will three fish be enough for one and a half people? Will Marfisa smell them? He moved them a little away from the fire so that they would take a little longer to cook than normal. Since there wasn't even an actual pan, he would have to go by eye when judging the cooking time. It seemed to him that the fire was dying down to become more like coals, but he kept an eye on it and made sure that the logs he had put in burned completely.   

Now that he no longer had to deal with the fire, he could look around better. It was still very, very quiet. There were no birds chirping, no animal noises of any kind. There was only the fire and the noise he himself had caused by carrying wood and stones back and forth and dropping them into the ground, never looking around. Why not look now? After all, we don't want Marfisa alone to have all the fun, right? 

There was plenty of straw in the barn; perhaps he could have arranged some straw mattress. Judging by its size it could have housed about six horses. There was also an old wooden bucket.   
"Good, so I have this to sit on." 

Probably it would have been able to get him some water from the stream, but it wouldn't have held water for long. It could have been used if, after grabbing it, he drank quickly. But it would not contain the water for long. It was very time-worn, but if you wanted to have some water in a hurry to put out a fire or something like that, then yes, you could use it for that or to sit on, but you couldn't use it to carry water over a distance. 

Rolandus shifted his gaze towards the castle, wondering what had happened to Marfisa, who had opened the door in front of her. It was annoying to know what was going on in the courtyard, with all those noises, but not what was coming from behind that door. She lost her patience and slowly turned the door handle. There was a click, then she gave the door a push to open it. It squeaked a little, but it was not like the sound of the shutter opening. It wasn't too deafening, but not as quiet as she would have liked.  

There were two west windows and many bookshelves. There were small books on the floor, rotten paper pages everywhere. The roof of that area was somewhat missing so many sheets had become damp and wet. Both the parchments and the books were damaged by time, but intact books were scattered on the bookcase. 

The whole room was a giant pool of water. Water flows down the outside wall, although there was one area that appeared to be dry enough to pass through, and as she got closer, she noticed that the pages of many books were torn, torn or glued together. other. When she picked up a book and dropped it, the pages were cemented together. They were out of ink, because the parchment has had time to dry, and the ink was faded. 

What kind of books they were, she could not tell. She looked at them for a while, but of many of them she could guess little or nothing. There was one that seemed to be about something like astrology. Another instead narrated the history of Rome. She chose the healthiest looking book. The cover was green leather and bound. The skin was dry and cracked. It looked more like a dusty jacket. There were a couple of pages falling out, but overall, it was intact. The paper was thick, and the pages were partly heavily decorated. There was some kind of elegant handwriting that she had never seen, and it seemed to be divided into chapters. It outlined the origin of men and explained the story of the eternal flame in the water. But what all this meant, it's not time yet to now.