Day 571

The castle tour began at the old well, rumoured to be fifty feet deep but in reality only thirty-five or so. It varied depending on the guide but they all encouraged you to stand on the seemingly fragile metal mesh that covered its opening.

Every time it bent worryingly and every time it held. Still that didn't stop the urban legends from saying how one visitor fell straight down and instead of telling anyone the museum filled the well's water with vinegar and black food colouring so you couldn't even see the decomposing corpse.

Of course it wasn't true.

The next stop was the roof, usually completely shut to the public but now a major feature in the castle's advertising and by proxy, the town's tourism sites. There was the usual discussion about the counterclockwise stairs, a common trait in northern castles due to some high percentage of left-handed people and tactical advantage. From there the stairs led to the roof itself, which wasn't anything exciting, black tiles covered every inch of roof that the metal walkway didn't. It extended around half of the castle's roof and gave you a plainly picturesque view of the surrounding housing estates.

There was a large-ish oak tree to one side of the roof with a nest of rooks that had somehow always been there and had never been explained. The guides would explain how the legends said that if the rooks ever abandoned their nest then the castle would collapse or the Black Death would return to end all of England.

Of course it wasn't true.

From there the tour moved thrillingly onto the basement area where three stone coffins were kept in the low arched and dim halls. When the castle was being refurnished for the first time in the early 19th century they had no idea that these rooms existed and to this day they aren't sure if they've uncovered them all. The first was discovered accidentally when a careless workman cracked the floor and found golden coins on top of sand. After a lot of fumbling about the first chamber was uncovered, no more gold was found though but it spurred the owners on to find more of the se chambers and within them each one stone coffin.

The guides would say they were great warriors or local lords, buried within the castle itself for good luck and protection against the restless souls of the Romans that were massacred by Boudica's armies during her campaign across England.

Of course it wasn't true.

Someone had fallen down the well but hundreds of years ago. It had been an accident at first but they had survived enough to attempt to climb back out. Eventually their physical strength wore out and they drowned but if you listen closely enough you can still hear the splashes and skin scraping stone as they drag themself upwards and towards unseeing and unhearing tourists.

The rooks can't leave their nest - there is always a chick in there but it isn't theirs. They feel obligated to care for it until they pass away and then another pair will hear the hatchling's cries and take it on as their own. This cycle has been going for countless years and still the hatchling continues to cry, unseen and unheard but ever present.

The coffins belonged to nothing human and nothing protective, though they kept the Roman soldiers at bay, lest their spectral legions march through the castle itself and disturb the fragile balance instilled by the coffin-dwellers. They were very much alive in there, breathing air and made of flesh and blood. They were fed once a month and that suited them just fine though they still craved the hunt and the screams and the scent of blood and fear-sweat in the early mornings.