Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [29]
MANDATORY EXCURSION. LUBATKIN’S TOWER. The history of our city is considered one of the most important subjects for young pupils. Our most celebrated local figure is of course Grand Duke Lubatkin. Lubatkin, for those ignorant of Entralla’s magnificent past, was the great warrior who expanded the territory of this region of our country, until eventually other countries joined together and laid siege to our city. (The largest piece of civic sculpture in all Entralla is the impressive equestrian statue of Lubatkin at the foot of Prospect Hill.)
Look about you, turn around until you see … there, at the summit of Prospect Hill, the ruins of the fortress built and protected by Grand Duke Lubatkin. No trolley bus numbers are needed for this excursion—the remaining tower is visible from almost everywhere in the city. Simply use it as your marker and meander through our streets towards it. Climb the two hundred and eighteen steps of Prospect Hill until the tower is reached. Built between 1170 and 1225, it was here that Lubatkin defended the honour of our country, until he too succumbed to death. Not by arrow or by sword but through the horrors of an earthquake. The whole population of our city which was under siege at that time is reported to have died in the quake. It was said afterwards, in the closing section of our oral epic, ‘The Entralliad’, which every Entrallan knows by heart, that once the earth was still again, ‘Neither scream of child, nor wail of woman, neither bark of dog, nor crow of cock, nor any sound but only quiet, eternal quiet, deathly quiet was left within the broken walls of Lubatkin city on Lubatkin hill in Lubatkin land.’
Do take the time to admire the breathtaking view of the city this position offers where all our buildings from the Gothic to the Renaissance to the Baroque, even until the blocks of flats, dreary estates, speak so eloquently of all of the city’s days, recent and long since past; these buildings are the cast of characters in the great drama of Entralla. It is even possible to see from this observation post some of the gross damage sustained during the most recent earthquake. Walking down almost any street in the centre of our city it is possible to travel forwards and backwards through so many centuries of architectural taste, but here, on Prospect Hill, all secrets are spilled at once. Here, in this view, the entire history of Entralla is indelibly etched on its wondrous skyline. Has ever a city been so legible? There, look at it, there is the past told in our ancient structures, the present in our modern ones and the future under the shadows of the builders’ cranes. Look: history! There is history. As you return to the city, as you are descending the two hundred and eighteen steps of Prospect Hill, imagine that you are accompanied by the shouts and screams of schoolchildren, imagine among those schoolchildren a pair of female twins who seem to be pursuing a bespectacled boy, slightly behind the main group.
AFTER A COMPULSORY school trip up Prospect Hill, we were set the task of making something or writing something relating to Grand Duke Lubatkin. This was to take the place of any homework that we might otherwise have been given for three whole weeks. When the weeks were up we were all required, one by one, to ascend the podium in the assembly room and give a brief speech.
Irva and I were absent from the knowledge quest that was ostentatiously exhibiting itself on the large tables of the Central Library on People Street, where boys and girls each attempted to look more studious than the other. What a historic stroking of chins took place in those days as they searched through heavy leather-bound tomes that smelt so sour, and fingered delicate, ancient and misspelt