Chapter 86: Vivianne – The Number Eight
Vivianne pictured a couple: he was Franish, she was Gorgathian. In her imagination, the couple discussed about their future home: Chambert. He wanted logic, she wanted mystery.
The result was this mirage of mathematical certainties with secrets hidden in every turn, behind every wall. In Architectures of the Second Empire, by J.I. Gono of Anjário, it said ‘(...) to cross a Gorgathian door is in itself an adventure: you never know where you are going to end up.’
Hidden doors, stairs and corridors inside walls, gardens you could see from the windows but were impossible to reach (not for Vivianne, she found the way to every hidden garden), an entire floor hidden on the east tower. Vivianne discovered them all in the run of several days.
Even so, the pieces of Chambert didn’t fit. Distances were too long, she was missing something.
Around Vivianne Chambert was aswarm with activity. Pierre and Neville were outside the walls, studying the terrain; Joanna, the Eslarian and Thaila organized supplies with Coalim; Gregoire trying to stay out of the way; Germon and Bojet transporting weapons; Gaul and Luc organizing the civilians; Líran haunting Chambert and Tuen like a ghost begging to live; the Grey One begging to let him die.
Vivianne ducked behind a wall to hide from Joanna and Thaila. She felt guilty, they needed help. Coalim was helping, but Coalim was good at details, the better disposition of Clément’s colorful cushions, where to find the best ingredients for his king’s culinary adventures. He was good at finding secrets, not at organizing crowds. The Eslarian, drunk with what seemed to him a new beginning, forgot the order of things, and Joanna had to spend na hour that morning looking for grain the Eslarian had put away in the weaponry. Wagons filled with weapons and supplies came north from the Frontier, though the Frontier warriors were yet to come.
She knew all that, but she also knew that Chambert demanded attention. It was finve hundred years old and still intact, like it had been built yesterday. And yet, Vivianne was certain no one was maintaining it. The plants here were leafiear than the plants in Lune, fruits became sweet and wounds healled much faster than anywhere else in Franária. Vivianne went with Marie one time to see Leonard the Accident, and Marie said that a fall like that would have killed a strong and whole man. Leonard was a breakable, fragile creature, and there he was: broken, but still alive.
‘And that damnable cat won’t leave me alone,’ Marie snarled to the tail-less cat, who refused to leave the Accident.
Vivianne drew a map of Chambert in her mind. Three walls, seven towers, eight secret gardens. Seven was the lucky number in Franária, but Gorgath considered eight to be a magic number. Maybe the Gorgathian who built Chambert was forced to raise only seven towers, but he discreetely hid eight gardens inside the castle.
‘I’m in the details,’ the Gorgathian would have said.
Vivianne’s mental map had a hole in the middle. For three days she checked distances, heights, wall thickness. The hole was undoubtedly there. What was she measuring wrong? Nothing. Her calculations were correct. They had to be correct. In that case, there really was a hole in the middle of Chambert.
Vivianne let a suply wagon pass and went out of the castle, following the road until she was almost midway to Tuen. Ever since she came to Chambert, her leg stopped hurting. Vivianne turned around and kept on walking backwards. From that distance, the outer wall looked like a mountain. Three stone rings protected Chambert. They looked like circles, but they were ovals. The outer ring was interrupted at intervals by four cardinal towers. The second wall had three towers, and the inner wall, wasn’t really a wall, but the central building, the Gorgathian idea of a keep, with halls and chambers, a building shaped like a ring.
But there was no connection between the rest of the castle and the middle of that ring.
Vivianne went to the side of the road to let a rider pass. Had she looked, she would have recognized Menior, but she was too frustrated to pay attention. She wanted to see Chambert from above. From where she stood, all she could see was the gate and five of the seven towers: two from the outer wall, three from the middle wall. She began to circle the castle, then she stopped and began to calculate distances.
The inner towers were as high as the outer ones, but Chambert was on a slightly elevated terrain. Which meant that, from where Vivianne stood, she shouldn’t be able to see so many towers. She should be able to see only two of the inner towers. If she saw three of them, it meant that the Gorgathian numerology had won after all. There was a hidden tower in the middle of Chambert.
Why? And how to reach it? Vivianne spent the next few hours circling the caslte. She could always see three inner towers. Never four. Every time the secret tower was visible, one of the other three disappeared from view. They really were masters of illusions, the Gorgathians.
Vivianne was aware she hadn’t discovered all the secret passages of Chambert yet, but she had solved enough mysteries to notice a certain pattern. There were hidden gardens, eight of them. Some were smaller than others. Everything in Chambert had a reason. Seven Franish towers to hide the eigth tower in the middle. Seven hidden gardens to hide the importance of one specific garden. Vivianne knew exactly which.