UPPER HALL OF THE DONJON
As we shall see, there is now a newer and better hall in the more modern and airy palais, but the older hall is still used at great feasts for the overflow of guests. Even now are standing long oaken tables, duly hacked by the trencher knives of many boisterous diners; and on the walls—blackened by the smoke from the great fireplace—are hanging venerable trophies of the chase, antlers, the head of a bear, great boar tusks, as well as an array of all kinds of hunting weapons used by departed generations.
If we were to follow the staircase down from the hall we would come to an even darker vaulted apartment used sometimes as a supplementary dormitory for the humbler guests, but also (to the astonishment of later-day medical usage) with small rooms set off to be used as a kind of sick ward; because every physician, whether schooled at Salerno, Cordova, or Montpellier, will tell you that darkness is the friend of health and that few invalids can hope to get better unless they are kept as shaded and sequestered as possible.
The Prison and the Watch Tower
If we wished to pursue still lower, descending a black staircase with lanterns, the rocks would begin to drip dampness. We could hear the rushing of the Rapide against the base of the castle. The journey would end at a barred iron door. Within would be a fetid, reeking chamber lit only by two or three tiny chinks in the masonry, and with the bare rock for the floor. Here is Baron Conon's prison. He is counted a merciful seigneur, yet he thinks nothing of thrusting genuine offenders therein and keeping them for weeks, if not months, before releasing or hanging. Lucky if Maître Denis, the turnkey, remembers to bring down a coarse loaf each day, and if the rats do not devour the prisoners' toes; but we shall consider all such nice matters later[6].
It is alleged that from these lower vaults there is an underground passage leading from the castle to a secret sallyport at the foot of the precipice by the Rapide. If a passage exists, however, it is known only to Conon and a very few trusted retainers. But not all such stories are false; many castles have such secret passages; and at Coucy they are quietly planning to introduce a rather elaborate system of the same. Quite possibly St. Aliquis possesses something of this nature.
Far pleasanter is it now to ascend from the main hall through a couple of stages of upper and airier chambers (now used as apartments by part of the castle folk) until by a dizzy ladder we reach the summit of the donjon itself. Here on one edge of the broad platform is a little round turret carrying us still higher. From the turret flutters the orange banner of St. Aliquis, with some kind of a black dragon (in memory, possibly, of the viking raid) broidered upon it, and the arrogant legend of the noble family, "Rather break than bend." To lower this banner were a horrid disgrace. Never is it to be struck unless the castle surrenders, when it will be sadly flung into the moat.
Under the flagstaff is a stout projecting beam rigged with a pulley. Here is a gibbet in case the baron wishes to hang offenders as a warning for the countryside. Fortunately, however, Adela has a dislike to seeing the corpses dangling, and has persuaded Conon to order his recent hangings at the ordinary gallows across the Claire by the village. On the flag turret is always a watchman; day or night some peasant must take his turn, and even in peace he has no sinecure. He must blow on his great horn at sunrise, at "cover fire" at night, when the baron's hunt rides out and returns, and again when a strange retinue approaches the gate. The whole wide countryside spreads in a delightful panorama below him at present, but on winter nights, when every blast is howling around the donjon, the task is less grateful. No wonder that peasants impressed for this service complain that "watchmen have the lot of the damned."
So back through the donjon and again to the castle court. The donjon is purely military. In times of peace it is a mere storehouse, prison, and supplementary barrack for the seigneur's people. In war it is the last position where the garrison can stand desperately at bay. A hundred years earlier Adela and her sister-in-law, Alienor, would have lived out most of their days in the cheerless dark chambers directly above the main hall. Now they are more fortunate. They dwell in the elegant Gothic arched palais.