The Beasts of Clawstone Castle

When she saw that all the animals were calm, Sunita walked up to the oldest cow, with her scars and her crumpled horn. She put her hands together and bowed down so that her hair touched the grass.

‘I salute you in the name of Surabhi, the Heavenly Cow who gave birth to the sky and was the mother and muse of all created things,’ she said.

Then she moved on to stand before the king bull, and on the wall the children held their breath for they knew how fierce he could be, and Sunita, down in the field, did not look like a ghost: she looked like a vulnerable girl.

‘And I salute you in the name of Nandi, the bull-mount who carried the Lord God Shiva safely through the universe.’

She bowed low again and it seemed as though the bull returned her salute, bending his head so that the muscles bunched and tightened on his neck.

But Sunita had not finished. She went round the herd and to each and every beast, even the smallest of the calves, she made the same bow and spoke a greeting.

Up on the wall, the children had remembered.

‘Of course,’ said Ned. ‘Cows are sacred in India. They wander all over the streets, and no one’s allowed to harm them.’

‘And when they’re old they don’t get slaughtered, they get sent to a place where they can live in peace. Sort of like an old people’s home for cows,’ said Madlyn. ‘Rani told me, at school.’

Sunita, when she had returned to her place on the wall, told them more about what these beasts meant to her people.

‘I was born in January,’ she said. ‘There’s a feast then called Pongal to celebrate the harvest and the end of the rains. It goes on for days and on the third day is the Festival of Cattle. The bulls get silver caps on their horns and the cows get bead necklaces and bells and sheaves of corn. And garlands of flowers – wonderful flowers: marigolds and pinks and hibiscus blossom.’

For a moment, as they looked down on the park, the children imagined the cattle of Clawstone decorated and garlanded, with jewellery on their horns. What would Sir George say if that was to happen? Something rude, that was certain!

But Sunita had shown the ghosts something bigger than themselves. A world where animals mattered, where living things were worshipped. A world where there was work to be done and one’s own troubles set aside.

‘We have been selfish,’ said Ranulf. ‘We have not been brave. We will help you and we will stay.’

And the other ghosts nodded, and said, ‘Yes, we will stay.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The first Open-Day-with-Ghosts began quietly – but it did not go on quietly. It did not go on quietly at all.

It had been decided that visitors should be shown round in a group rather than wander about all over the place, and Mrs Grove was appointed as the guide. She had worked in the castle so long that she knew it like the back of her hand.

As for the children, they were going to keep out of the way but watch from a hiding place in the upstairs gallery in case anything went wrong.

Because of the posters and the notice in the paper, rather more people than usual were waiting to buy tickets. There was a couple with three little girls: Lettice and Lucy and Lavinia, who chewed toffee bars and giggled as though the idea of ghosts was the funniest thing they had ever heard of.

There were two hikers: a tall thin one called Joe and a small fat one called Pete. They were on their way to a climbing trip in Scotland and had seen the notice about the ghosts and called in.

There was a sulky youth called Ham, who was on holiday with his parents and hated the country, where there was nothing to do except sit on windy beaches or walk up dripping hills, and a lady professor of architecture with her assistant, a pale girl called Angela. The professor had not come to see ghosts but to look at groynes and buttresses and mouldings.

Then there was someone who worried the children badly as they looked down from their hiding place: a delicate elderly lady called Mrs Field, who walked with two sticks and was in the charge of a muscular and bossy nurse.

‘Suppose she has a heart attack?’ whispered Madlyn.

‘Well, we did warn people,’ said Ned. ‘It wouldn’t be our fault.’

But the most important person in that first batch of visitors was Major Henry Hardbottock, who was a famous explorer and gave lectures and talked on the telly. Major Hardbottock had walked to the North Pole and lost two fingers from frostbite and bitten off a third when it went gangrenous; and he had walked across the Sahara without a single camel and with a raging fever. He was on his way to Edinburgh to give a lecture on ‘Survival and Hardship’ when he saw the notice and turned in at Clawstone just for a joke.

There was not a single person in that first group of visitors who believed in ghosts.

Mrs Grove led the party across the Inner Courtyard and into the building.

‘We are now in the oldest part of the castle,’ she began. ‘It dates from 1423 and’ . . .