The Heaven Tree by Pargeter Edith

Author:Pargeter, Edith [Pargeter, Edith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446517089
Amazon: 0446517089
Publisher: Grand Central Pub
Published: 1993-10-01T22:00:00+00:00

They came to the crest in the green track at sunset, and rounding the flank of the wood saw from the shoulder of the rolling ridge the river valley beneath them on the left, and before them, overhanging the slope, the sandstone outcrop, seamed with broken folds and shelves in which trees had rooted and grown; and on the summit of the rock, Parfois.

The level site that crowned the hill was not so great that the ambition of the Isambards could not encompass the whole of it. The curtain wall, overtopping the trees and rising sheer out of the stone on which it stood, wound round the hill-top like an enfolding serpent, six towers projecting their rounded sides so that there should be no foothold, even for a raven, that could not be brought under cross-fire. Within the walls the great hexagonal keep, with its three projecting turrets, caught the last rays of the sun and burned into a rose-red glow; the shadows from the valley, heather-purple, were climbing the shelves of rock hand over hand, and groping at the roots of the outer towers.

Three miles away beyond the river Wales slept in shade, only a distant hill-top here and there still golden. Half a dozen villages, down there in the valley, lived their lives perpetually in the darker shadow of that massy pile above them, their shelter and their burden. A dozen more in the folds of the hills on the English side of the castle hid in its lee from the encroachments of the Welsh, but feared their protector scarcely less than their enemies.

The shadow climbed, darkening as it mounted, engulfing one by one the arrow-slits in the rounded towers. The turrets burned like tall candle-flames. Behind the glowing machicolations of the keep the evening sky was a clear bluish-green, the colour of the eyes that stared so eagerly and so warily upon the castle of Parfois from the turn of the road.

The pyramid of the hill and its coronal of stone, shapely and secure, tapered into a burning apex of rosy light, no longer even a beacon lit on the earth, but a star suspended in the pure green heaven. Before they reached it all would be shadow. Already all was silence.

The track wound along the shoulder of the ridge, and then, curving to the right, began to climb the hill by the one easy approach. As they drew nearer to the walls, the keep vanished from their sight, and after it, on both sides, the towers withdrew sidelong out of range, and left them only the upper stages of the gate-house with its turrets. Halfway up the ramp trees closed in upon the track, and suddenly there was no castle, but only a dark woodland about them. Then they emerged again into open planes of grass, and the two outer guard towers came into sight, one on either side the way. The ramp broadened and levelled into a lofty field, a green island in air, for

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