RAMPION IN THE BELLTOWER by Merrie Haskell page 5/8
Morning bled into hot day, day bled into mad night, and night bled onto the cobbles of the square. The grandfather watched from the lunette, while Rampion's thirst cries pierced the night, louder to her grandfather than the cries of the plague-dead in the square.
The next night, the grandfather gave in. He let Rampion lay him on his pallet while she still had enough strength to move him. He told her he did not expect to get back up. But when he woke to early morning darkness, he was clear-eyed and clear-minded. The white shape of the stork perched in the rafters above. The noise from the square seemed less. He thought, "Perhaps the plague will run itself out before we die of thirst." But then, perhaps the bells would turn themselves upside down and magically fill with water. There were many opportunities for miracles in the world, and none of them likely.
"Water," came Rampion's moan from the bell room above. "Water!"
"She cries in her sleep," the grandfather said to the stork, who glided on silent wings to the narrow stairs leading to Rampion's little room. Gothel looked back and rapped her beak on the stones of the stairs. Clack, clack.
"Water..."
"Rampion!" The grandfather called. "Awaken, dear heart!"
Clack, clack, clack. Then the insistent rapping of beak against stone again.
"You wake her," the grandfather said. "Your legs work."
Clack.
The old man groaned and rolled off the pallet onto his stomach. Using elbows and hands, he pulled himself across the floor to the stork, stopping several times to pant and curse, head throbbing. The clavier room had for the many years of his confinement seemed small and cramped; now it was immense.
He fell into a dark well for a moment; when he returned to the world, the darkness outside the windows had turned bright gray. Above, Rampion still cried for water in her sleep.
He hauled himself up the stairs, step by painful step. The journey took forever, and yet it took no time. When he reached Rampion's pallet, he barely had the strength to reach for her. She sat bolt upright at his touch, screaming.
"Ramp," he cried, trying to push himself up, and failing. She stopped screaming, shook herself hard, and even went so far as to slap herself on the cheek.
"Grandpa?"
"You had a nightmare."
"Every night for a week," she said with asperity.
"This seemed worse."
She smacked her lips. "I'm so thirsty," she whispered.
"I know." He pushed over onto his back and lay gasping, staring up at the bells. He had not seen them in many a year, not since his legs had failed and he had made the clavier room his home.
"Play the carillon," he said at last.
"What? No. They'll know we're up here."
"Your father came to me in a dream."
"A fever dream. I have dreamed, too. We need water."
"He told me: you must play the carillon."
"Then they'll know we're here!" Her voice shook with fear.
"It's close to dawn, and they do not move much in the day. Mayhap we should have trusted to our stout doors before now, for we do not live without the bells; we merely survive."
There was a glimmer of joy in her voice when she spoke. "I could play..." The joy died. "No. I can't carry you, and I'm not going to leave you up here alone..." her voice trailed off. He knew: she thought he would die if she left him.
And perhaps he would. The grandfather looked up at his bells, thinking with some peace, At least I'll die in sight of them.
"Play them," he said. "For me, for yourself."
She ran down the stairs without another word, and shortly, the Assumption rang, the oldest bell in the carillon, cast three hundred years before Rampion's birth. Next, the Saint Sebastian was called, then the Crucifixion, and the Kind Mother, all in sequence, and the grandfather recognized the beginning of a piece he had written for Rampion's birthday years before.
As she played, a new note rose beneath the music, a deeper bass note that did not fade and die. It was thunder! A long, promising roll of thunder. The grandfather gave an exultant shout that was lost immediately in the thunder and the bells, then lay still, letting the paean wash over him in waves. He closed his eyes: if the plague-dead broke down the doors and came for them, he had no wish to know.
A faint wetness touched the grandfather's face. He opened his eyes: it was raining.
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