QueenscrownIndex | HomePage | Settings | CastleHoldfast | Queenscrown The tower stood upon an island, its twin reflected on the still blue waters. When the wind blew, ripples moved across the surface of the lake, chasing one another like boys at play. Oak trees grew thick along the lakeshore, a dense stand of them with a litter of fallen acorns on the ground beneath. Beyond them was the village, or what remained of it. A stone causway leads out to the holdfast along a winding path. Gold paint along the crenelations, along with a chance visit by Good Queen Alysanne to the nearby town, gave Queenscrown its name Path, steps, and door were in a straight line, which made you think the causeway ran straight, but that wasn't so. Under the lake it zigged and zagged, going a third of the way around the island before jagging back. The turns were treacherous, adn the long path meant that anyone approaching would be exposed to arrow fire from the tower for a long time. The hidden stones were slimy and slippery too... Steps led up to the holdfast. The door was still stout, though its heavy oak planks had warped over the years and it could no longer be closed completely... The door's lintel was low and hinges were rusty iron, and led to a gloomy strongroom, barely large enough to hold three men of average size. Steps built into the inner wall of hte tower curved away upwards to their left, downward to their right, behind iron grates... There was another grate in the low ceiling, a murder hole. Even a man possessed of uncharacteristic strength and size was unable to budge the locked iron grate, even though it had rusted. Above the murder hole was a maze of small, dark, empty cells. A way led back to the steps. ''The higher they climbed, the better the light; on the third story the thick outer wall was pierced by arrow slits, the fourth had actual windows, and the fifth and highest was one big round chamber with arched doors on three sides opening onto small stone balconies. On the fourth side was a privy chamber perched above a sewer chute that dropped straight down into the lake -- A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin |
