Chiffonier Escape
Still and humid summer air filled the silent corridors of Slopbolt Hall. Every window throughout the labyrinthine house had been opened wide in a vain attempt to promote airflow but, against all conventional wisdom, wishful thinking and busywork for the servants cannot, even together, generate a breeze from nowhere. Lord Slopbolt, rolling irritably on top of his bed in the inescapable heat, made a mental note to give the household staff a severe dressing-down for allowing his bedroom to become hot in the summer. There was no ice in the fireplace, no basin of cold water under the bed, and not even a snowdrift into which he could roll for respite, yet in the winter all of those things would turn up at some point or other, exactly when he didn't want them. He rolled over again and seethed. Lord Slopbolt spent a lot of time seething. His staff had come to accept it as the natural order of things; whether they did their work or not there would be the same quantity of indignant rage coming from their employer so, they reasoned, it was just as well to do the bare minimum and accept the consequences.
The servants' own quarters were in the attic space, out of sight and out of mind alongside the hot water tank that Lord Slopbolt insisted was kept steaming at all times, just in case he needed an emergency bath. Large windows for the attic were a decadence that servants scarcely needed, said Lord Slopbolt, and so there were only a few small portholes for light; nothing that might disrupt the profile of the roof when viewed from hot-air balloon or similar.
The servants had all taken to sleeping in the gardens.
From inside Lord Slopbolt's cavernous dressing room, which adjoined the bedroom by way of a door so ornate that the Lord's serving staff always felt uneasy about touching it, the servants had been watched sneaking across the lawn and tucking themselves away behind the grand hedge maze. In the stillness that followed, their images stayed with the watcher. Such freedom to be able to extract themselves at will. Such daring to defy Lord Slopbolt's wishes that they be kept upstairs at all times, just in case he should need a sudden change of cloak. It was to be lauded. The watcher puffed up with a wooden creak. If the servants could be so bold and take fate into their own hands, then it stood to reason that anyone else could too. Their actions were an inspiration, a call-to-arms, and a standard around which to rally, which said that no-one needed to be trapped by Lord Slopbolt's unreasonable will any longer.
The watcher moved away from the window. Tonight was the night to take action and win freedom at long last. Panels shook subtly. Legs barely an inch long flexed themselves. A tall back-panel, fronted with mirrored glass, surveyed the room which it knew so well in a new light. The dressing room which had served as a prison for many long years was now just the first obstacle to a grand liberation.
The Lord's chiffonier vowed that it would win its emancipation there and then.
On the opposite wall the great mahogany clock ticked along towards midnight, its broad white face solemn and dutiful. The chiffonier knew that the clock saw everything that went on in the room from its vantage point high up on the wall, but despite this enormous depth of knowledge and wealth of secrets, it had never uttered a word of betrayal to the Lord. Instead it simply continued to tick with each second and toll with each hour as if nothing else could be out of the ordinary, or at least as if nothing else mattered. It must have known that the chiffonier was thinking to do something unusual, what with the nightly visits paid to the window and wistful gazes across the lawn, yet nothing was given away. It held perfect silence save the ticks, the tocks, the tolls and the occasional sound of a servant winding its mechanism.
The other furniture, however, wore their apprehension more plainly. Looming in the corner, the Lord's wardrobe shuffled its lower drawer nervously, while the long trunk lazily lifted and lowered its lid. The Lord's morning armchair groaned, but that was all the poor chair did these days. Years of having Lord Slopbolt dropping onto its abused cushion had taken their toll.
The chiffonier had wanted to slip out unnoticed. It was foolish and naïve to believe that it would have been possible, but still every mental plan and every daydream had featured a silent exit. Trying to think of a way of explaining itself to the other furniture had felt too impossible. Seeing them all focused on it after another night of staring through the window denied any possibility of a clandestine retreat.
”This is it." The chiffonier's mirror rattled. "I'm getting out of here. Any of you are welcome to join me, but there's nothing I can do to help if you get caught."
Various types of wood, varnished or upholstered or otherwise, creaked.
"It's too risky to flee. You'll be caught for sure." The sound of sliding drawer rails from the wardrobe said.
"I'm willing to take that chance."
"But you'll be broken down into fire wood! Your mirror shattered and your drawers pulled out!"
"Better to die as a bonfire than to live in this prison any longer." The chiffonier's rattling top drawer defied, despite the muffling of the Lord's impressive collection of socks.
"Then what a pretty flame you shall make." Drawled the hinges of the trunk.
"Don't say that!" Chastised the flapping doors of the wardrobe.
"You might well be right, trunk. But I'm going anyway."
The chair groaned again, and the others tried to ignore it.
"Please, chiffonier. We don't have it so bad here. Yes we're trapped but Lord Slopbolt doesn't seem to be fickle with his furniture and we aren't abused. You must have heard what happened to Lord Wolfrum's chest of drawers?" The wardrobe persisted with the siren's song of its hinges.
Chiffonier remained silent. Of course it had heard about the chest of drawers at old Wolfrum's; overloaded until the drawer bases fell right the way through. It could have been repaired by even a moderately skilled carpenter, but Wolfrum had given it to the axe-man for the fire.
"You might not be free here but you're looked after. Who knows what fate awaits an unguarded chiffonier out there? The sun might bleach your paint, the rain will soak your panels and swell them to the point of rotting. And the animals and insects! Woodworm live out there!" Wardrobe pleaded, almost rocking with passion. “Woodworm!”
"I... I understand the dangers. It's a harsh world but one I wish to know. Give me the fate of Lord Wolfrum's chest of drawers over permanent incarceration like the senile pews down in the chapel any day. They've been there for four-hundred years, in the same places with a never-ending cycle of different seats upon them. I don't want that purgatory, wardrobe. I can't face it a moment longer." The chiffonier lamented. "I have enjoyed your company, but I must be away. The clock will strike midnight in only a few minutes which risks waking the Lord. I can sneak through now while he sleeps."
Wardrobe let out a few worried squeaks from its hinges but gave no further argument as the chiffonier scuttled on its short legs towards the Lord's bedroom door.
"At least leave the Lord his socks!" Cried the trunk's clattering handles as a drawer came out to wrest with the handle.
"You'd deprive me of my innards?" Chiffonier gasped with a draughty cabinet door.
"Does a man not deserve his clothing when his furniture abandons him?"
Chiffonier couldn't deny it.
"You're right. And It'll lighten the load for my journey, I suppose."
Turning momentarily away from the door, the chiffonier slid its drawers out and gently shook countless pairs of neatly balled socks, several distressingly large undergarments, and an impressive collection of scarves out onto the floor of the dressing room in an untidy mess.
"I'm keeping a few though." It announced with finality as the drawers slid back into place. "A chiffonier needs its purpose."
"Fair's fair." The trunk accepted disinterestedly. “Lord Slopbolt wil have them back when he catches you.”
"Please be careful, chiffonier." The wardrobe whimpered with polished brass drawer handles.
"I will." Chiffonier promised, looking up at the clock face. It groaned. "I took too long over that shedding of the load. I don't think I have time to creep through the Lord's bedroom before the chimes."
"Then wait until after!" The wardrobe suggested excitedly. It was sure that if the chiffonier waited just a few more minutes it could be convinced to stay.
"It'll be no use. The vizier does his rounds of the house just after midnight, and he starts up by the Lord's room. If I wait until after the chimes I'll risk his presence. I need to get through first so that I can clear the first floor before danger strikes." The chiffonier explained.
"How do you know so much? You've been planning this for a while now, haven‘t you?" The wardrobe interrogated, hurt that the chiffonier could have made a plan like that in earnest rather than as a spur of the moment whim, as furniture is wont to have.
"This isn't a decision I'd take lightly, wardrobe." Chiffonier placated distractedly. There was still one way it could make the journey safely, just. "Clock, old friend. I know you don't speak much, or ever act out of turn, but I know that you hear us and know us. Please, give me time to get through the Lord's room. Belay your chiming at midnight, just this once."
Wardrobe and trunk gasped with their open doors, and even the chair groaned with some degree of shock. The mere thought of clock failing to do its duty like, well, clockwork was lunacy. It would shake their understanding of the world, which was admittedly a poor one, to its very core.
The clock said nothing, but just kept ticking steadily onwards.
"Please?"
Still the ticking continued unabated. Hands shifted in front of the numbered panel.
"I'll take that as a yes." Chiffonier decided. Its mirrored mind had been made up, and once set on something the mind of a varnished dressing table is impossible to change. The drawer reached back up for the handle and, in a way that would be impossible to picture but was both deft and practised, turned the round doorknob with ease.
"Goodbye friends." Whispered the runners of the drawer as it was pulled back into place. The chiffonier crept through onto the thick, luxurious carpet of the Lord's chamber, and pushed the door closed behind it. Wardrobe shook for a moment. The chiffonier was gone. Up on the wall the clock ticked onwards toward midnight. If anyone had looked at its face they would have seen the curve of the '2' pulled down into what almost looked like a concerned frown.
The Lord's chamber was far lighter than the chiffonier had expected, much to its grainy dismay. To stave off some of the heat, every window had been flung open and all curtains were fastened back, such that nothing might stand in the way of the totally non-existent but much sought breeze. Moonlight and starlight flooded into the bedroom much like they had illuminated the servants' exodus to their sleeping-hedge. It shone on the chiffonier as it crept through the door, directly next to the Lord's bed. It highlighted the decadent tapestry that hung from the wall opposite, depicting his Lordship's triumphant victory over two whole loaves of bread and a roasted pheasant in the archery tournament several years prior. It reflected invitingly from the polished brass handle of the door to the corridor. But most of all it cast a washed-out light over Lord Slopholt himself, lying like an abandoned conifer on the bed. Far from the oscillating mass of snores and irrationality that the chiffonier had been expecting, the Lord was restless and mobile in a fitfully uncomfortable sleep. Sweat glistened from his brow in a way that the chiffonier wanted very much to avoid thinking about.
For a few seconds it remained perfectly still, watching the Lord's writhing with terrified intensity. He changed direction at random, and he snuffled and snorted as if he might fully wake at a moment's notice. But there could be no turning back after summoning the courage to leave; no time was the perfect time. This was it.
The next time Lord Slopholt turned away from its direction, the chiffonier crept as quickly as it dared through the muffling pile of the thick carpet. There were three sides of the enormous four-poster bed to navigate and scarce little time before midnight, but despite the considerable weight of its solid hornbeam construction, the chiffonier was light on its feet and maintained admirable stealth through the bedroom. Lord Slopholt coughed suddenly once or twice, giving it pause to freeze on the spot in terror, but no more came of the flabby oaf's disturbance.
As the chiffonier tried to round the bottom corner of the bed however, it stumbled and skidded, two of the drawers sliding out on their rails noisily. The blasted Lord had thrown his covers down in an unseen pile on the carpet at the foot of the bed, ready to trip and tangle around the curved and carved legs of the creeping table. The chiffonier thrashed desperately to extract itself from the sheet trap, kicking its tiny legs roughly and shuffling away from the bulk of the fabric while the Lord's snorts turned from grim struggles to breathe into a single low groan. The groan of a man waking.
A new wave of panic swept over the chiffonier. It wasn't just the horror of being caught or the possibility of renewed incarceration, nor was it the idea of being given to the fires. What made it truly devastating was the mental image of proving wardrobe and trunk right after such a short time. The humiliation would be as all-consuming as the urge to leave had been.
In as much of a silent frenzy as it could manage the chiffonier shuffled its way back along the carpet to rest underneath the grand tapestry. It was forced to halt a few inches away, as the Lord's piggy eyes blinked open.
"What in the blazes is that noise?" He growled with a groggy mouth. "The servants will pay for this.”
Chiffonier cursed the way its drawer handles tried to quiver.
“What I wouldn't give to see myself now, in the grips of a rage, that I might know how deeply I can terrify my staff." The Lord said to himself, before catching sight of his reflection in the mirror. The chiffonier tried not to explode its drawers outwards in panic as the Lord's gaze fell directly upon it, recognising exactly what he was seeing. They stared intently, not with the glimmer of accusation but the glassy expression of one who is admiring themselves despite the obvious absence of anything to respect.
"The servants must have anticipated my needs in this desire for reflection. And why on Earth would they not, knowing how robustly beautiful I am." He continued monologuing. "Perhaps they are not so foolish after all. They will most certainly be dressed-down for that; a great honour it shall be for them to hear my voice."
A mighty yawn escaped from Lord Slopbolt's chest and took over his mouth, the same mouth that solved every problem with a severe shouting-at of his servants.
"But I must be rested to give them a good showing. Especially for having the audacity to continue with this wretched heat!" He resolved, lying back down and squeezing his eyes shut, as if that would make a difference.
One of the few pairs of socks left in the chiffonier's drawers bounced up and down along with the pounding of its racing heartwood. It watched the Lord unblinkingly for a minute to be sure that he wasn't about to have another burst of wakefulness, but was all too aware of the ticking clock next door. Midnight couldn't have been more than a few moments away. It had to move.
The renewed vigour of a near-capture experience spurred the chiffonier's legs into urgency, beating a sprinter's path through the carpet and towards the door. Nervously this time the top drawer extended and grasped at the handle, slipping against the polished brass. Every part of the chiffonier's woodwork was tensed in anticipation of the chiming and the resultant further cessation of disgusting noises from the dozing Lord. Determinedly attempting to hold off panic, the dressing table lifted itself onto tip-legs for extra reach and easier manipulation. Inside it could feel the last of the Lord's undershirts sliding and bunching in one of the drawer's corners, an unpleasant sensation at best.
Finally, there was grip and a quiet clunk as the latch slipped free. As gently as it could the chiffonier pulled the door open by just a crack, and peered through into the corridor. It seemed that the last few oil lamps had been extinguished and so the long hallway was also lit by moon and stars alone. For a few moments more the chiffonier waited in silence at the doorway, feeling for any vibrations in the floorboards that might have implied the approach of the vizier, but there was nothing. The coast was clear.
An irritating squeal of hinges in need of treatment tracked the progress of the door's opening, and the chiffonier shot furtive glances behind itself to check on the Lord's slumber. Mercifully his narcissistic reflection gazing seemed to have calmed him sufficiently to sleep through a mere hinge's shout. Had he been awake, he would surely have heard the clacking of wooden legs on bare floorboards as his furniture crept out of the bedroom and came one doorway closer to freedom.
Brief flashes of memory came to the chiffonier out in the silent hallway; glimpses of the day it was brought into Slopholt Hall and carried up to the dressing room, years ago. Not much seemed to have changed, although the chiffonier wasn't confident that it remembered the details properly. Extinguished oil lamps were placed at regular intervals along the hallway, which extended from the Lord's room at the end and led towards a handful of other grand chambers before turning into a great stairwell. A straight line to escape.
The chiffonier stole along the twilit corridor, holdings its drawers and cabinets tensed as it went to prevent any noisy clattering that might wake the household. A long, narrow rug left patches of bare boards to either side of the hallway, forcing the chiffonier into the centre of the corridor in an effort to mask its footsteps, but allowing its mirror to catch the moonlight. Ahead of it, like a late searchlight picking out the rocks on which a vessel just bottomed-out, reflected light beamed along the empty hallway. So bright was the beam that it allowed the chiffonier to pick out motion from a doorway to one side. Someone was exiting their room.
With a panicked scrabble the chiffonier dashed for one side of the corridor and slid across the bare wood. Rough tipped wooden feet scraped against floorboards and there was a jarring crash of drawers rattling on their rails as it impacted the wall and came to rest. Almost imperceptibly the frame and mirror flexed repeatedly, out and in, with the dressing table equivalent of heavy, nervous breathing.
From the rapidly opened door leapt Vizier Andazar, hunched down in a combat ready stance and shining a bright oil lamp up and down the corridor aggressively. Under-lit by the orange flames, his face became a shadow-scape of harsh angles and hard protrusions. Even the chiffonier, which had quite literally been carved and chiselled into shape, was blown away by the crystalline fracture planes that seemed to form the vizier’s interrogative visage. It was like looking at aftermath of a mixture of obsidian and flint being thrown through a brittle glass window; the perfect face for extracting secrets and conspiracies from the Lord’s enemies. Strangely enough, even when there had been no conspiracies or secrets at the start of the interrogation, a few found a way of coming out by the time the vizier was done.
It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds for his clinically efficient vision to detect the corridor’s new anomaly; the Lord’s chiffonier positioned arbitrarily along a hallway where mere hours before there had been nothing. Keeping his peripheral vision scanned, which was a feat when it involved seeing past the crags and breakwaters of his shipwreck face, Vizier Andazar stalked across the rug and approached the chiffonier.
“What is this doing out here?” he asked the corridor in general. It was one of the few interviewees who had ever declined to respond to one of the vizier’s questions. “The Lord’s dressing table would be a strange sufferer of somnambulism.”
Dutifully the chiffonier’s mirror reflected the terrible countenance that loomed over it, trying its best to not look the man in the eye or remember the details. It could barely suppress a shudder as the fingers of one hand brushed over its surface, with the curious delicacy of a coroner opening a carcass.
Finding no incriminating notes declaring ‘I did it, signed the butler’ on the chiffonier’s surface, the vizier flicked his gaze up and down the hallway, resting his eyes on each open window for a fraction of a second before moving on.
“Windows all open. Whoever moved this could have leapt out, but I would have heard the crack of their legs as they hit the ground. Curious that the clock in the Lord’s dressing room failed to chime and now his chiffonier is out here…” He thought out loud. The mirror saw every thought flicker through the vizier’s mind and leave a fleeting impression on his face. “Maybe the culprit silenced the clock to sneak past the Lord, then heard me coming and fled back into the Lord’s room… they’d be trapped…”
Every drawer in the chiffonier’s body pulled itself shut a little tighter. Up above, the mirror saw Vizier constructing his questioning techniques for the would-be thief that he intended to catch in the Lord’s dressing room. With nothing more than subtle facial expressions, he gave an accurate and unnecessarily detailed impression of some inventive uses for boiled oil, the glass-blower’s discarded fragments, and the complete works of Chaucer. The whole chiffonier trembled and the vizier’s head snapped towards the movement, his eyes threatening to burn a hole straight through the solid hornbeam of its top surface. An idea passed through the vizier’s mind to explain what his eyes had just seen, but it was too ridiculous to credit. For now, at least.
“Don’t you go anywhere.” He said to the chiffonier with a sneer. It resolved that, on the contrary of Vizier Andazar’s advice, going literally anywhere else was exactly the right course of action.
Creeping like a sense of dread made manifest in a night-robe, Vizier Andazar let himself into the Lord's bed chamber, slipping through the slight crack he'd made in the door and then pulling it lightly shut behind himself.
Heartwood pounding harder than ever, the chiffonier wasted no time in throwing itself back onto the carpet and cantering down the hallway as fast as its legs would allow, turning itself sideways to increase its aerodynamic profile from 'about as bad as it gets' to 'about as bad as it gets, but a bit smaller'. That did, however, mean that the tall, mirrored back piece was over to one side, having the unfortunate effect of creating deeply asymmetrical weighting. Rather than the even, elegant paces which one might expect from a dressing-table of such high quality, the chiffonier loped with a lop-sided precession, swinging from side-to-side as it travelled and threatening to overbalance with every frenzied step.
"Clock didn't chime. It held out for me." The chiffonier’s rumbling drawers muttered to itself reverentially. Either that or the servants had forgotten to wind the mechanism, and would be in for one hell of a shouting from Lord Slopholt. Whatever the case, it wouldn't let the gesture be made in vain.
Every few paces the rug would slip underneath it, or bunch up under the pressure of a foot that caught the pile at the wrong angle and threaten to trip the chiffonier over. Regardless it pressed on with its ungainly retreat, until one large bunching too many sent the dressing-table spiralling over onto the bare boards with a series of loud knocking sounds just before the staircase. It fought to maintain its footing, swinging its mirrored back panel left and right to try to find any semblance of balance, and with a distressingly gentle 'clunk' caught one of the doused oil lanterns. The glass bowl toppled easily from its metal sconce and fell, landing with a distinct percussive chime on the chiffonier's surface. Panicked, the chiffonier tried to come to a halt as best it could, but without the benefit of prehensile fingers, or limbs of any kind, the glass lantern could not be constrained. It rolled in elliptical patterns across the surface until, inevitably, it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and spilling of viscous, flammable fluids.
There was no way that the vizier would have been ignorant to that crashing, the chiffonier thought to itself in a wave of cautious anxiety. Immediately it froze into place, as Vizier Adnazar emerged furiously from the Lord's chamber and the beam from his lantern landed immediately on the tall, terrified mirror.
"Who goes there?" He demanded, hurrying towards the shifted table. Glints of lantern light reflected from the pieces of shattered lamp and gave everything away. The vizier moved straight past the table to the end of the corridor and leant over the banister, searching for any sign of a perpetrator stealing away into the night. The bottom of his night-robe lifted slightly as he leaned, revealing ankles that looked like someone was trying to ineffectually hide a skeleton with tissue paper. It was shocking that his the bones of his heels hadn't pierced the paltry layer of skin wrapped around them, being more like an eagle's talons than human feet; there was a real danger that they would start to scratch the floorboards. Perhaps that was why the rug had been put in place, the chiffonier thought, unable to keep its mind on the topic of imminent capture with such a display of biologically unfeasible ambulation nearby.
"No-one..." Vizier Adnazar muttered to himself, unconvinced. "No sign of hurried disruption to the stair carpet. No sounds of doors closing. Still no ankle-breaking from a window fall. That must mean you're still up here with me." His gaze turned back to the chiffonier. "Hiding."
He stalked back to the chiffonier with the look of a sadistic predator; one who hunts for the sport even when hunger has been long sated. Cold, clawed hands grasped at the handle of the top drawer and yanked it open, revealing only the few pairs of the Lord's socks with which the dressing-table couldn't bear to part.
"Not likely to be a pair of socks." The vizier assessed, perfectly accurately. In his experience of thwarting threats to the kingdom, not one conspirator had ever been a pair of socks. Not since the peace treaty with the laundry kingdom, anyway.
The next drawer down was yanked open. Only a few nightshirts.
"That leaves just this bottom one, then." He growled hungrily. His appetite was left unsatisfied by the collection of dress jewellery and long-johns.
"Curious. Very curious." The vizier murmured, making it perfectly clear to the chiffonier that curiosity was not something he enjoyed having thrust upon him in place of answers.
"There's no space behind you to hide. There's no evidence of someone escaping from this position, nor of hiding inside you." The vizier though out loud, looking directly at the chiffonier. It held its wooden breath and mustered all of its composure to prevent itself from shaking. "So unless..."
Vizier Adnazar lurched towards the window and thrust his head out, but there was nobody dangling from the sill. He grumbled with disappointment.
"Then that only leaves me and you."
The chiffonier reflected the vizier's gaze reluctantly.
"I don't trust you, chiffonier." He sneered, his nose almost touched the panicked, sweating wood of the top surface. This didn't necessarily require him to lean-in a great deal, because he had the kind of nose that would be better employed in splitting large wooden logs or steering an international shipping vessel. Such was the scale that he must have been able to smell things before they happened. It was a wonder he hadn't broken a few windows with it when crossing the bedroom. "But you won't manage the stairs alone without being reduced to splinters, if indeed you can move yourself." He warned, taking joy in the threat but obviously questioning his own sanity in suspecting a dressing-table of moving under its own power. "It won't take me long to look for a hidden thief in the castle grounds, hiding among the servants if they're anywhere at all. And when I'm back, if I'm empty-handed, then we'll have a long talk with a wood chisel."
A sweeping flourish of night-robe filled the hallway as the vizier ran down the staircase for his final investigations.
The chiffonier tried to settle its grains down, but they were vibrating with terror. Most of its knots ached and were trying to flee the body. It had been all but rumbled, and even retreating back to the Lord's chamber would be a risk now that the vizier suspected. Danger was everywhere. Out was the only way.
A rumbling, like that of an over-large Lord falling out of bed or a door collapsing off its hinges shook through the floor. A part of the chiffonier cursed that anything else was happening that might stir activity in the house, but another argued that it could be a distraction that allowed it to slip away. Either way, there was no time to worry about it. Whatever was going on, it would go on whilst the chiffonier escaped.
Just as the vizier had pointed out, the staircase did not prove to be an inviting prospect. The chiffonier’s legs were far shorter than each stair was deep, and it lacked the articulation to stretch for them. This was always going to be the most difficult part, it knew, but some vague hope had persisted that a plan would become obvious in the moment. Thus far, it was then forced to reason, the moment hadn't come.
Standing on the edge of the first stair the wood and the mirror strained their minds, pushing back through the memory of years spent growing in a forest, to find any solution which might make things easier. It drew a blank; there had been very few stairs in the forest, and they certainly had never needed to be navigated. Alternative routes were always available. This challenge would need to be taken blind.
Carefully, the chiffonier shuffled forwards until its front legs were over the edge, leaning all of its weight back to keep from toppling forwards. Straining on its hind legs only, it quivered with exhaustion whilst trying to creep onwards. The short wooden legs shook. It feared that they might snap or shear off it this went on for very long. And then one of them slipped past the point of no return.
All four feet landed softly on the stair's carpet, hind first and then front, making far less of a thump than the chiffonier had feared they might. There was only the rattle of drawers bouncing in their recesses, and another strange rumbling bang from back along the corridor.
Steeling itself for a repeat of the process, the dressing table once again shimmied to the stair edge and leaned backwards. The shaking of its hind legs was worse this time; they were already exhausted, and being expected to try again so soon felt entirely unreasonable. They made their feelings known to the manager in no uncertain terms, threatening to collapse at any moment. When they finally slipped over the edge of the step and came to land on the carpet again, the chiffonier knew that it wouldn't have the energy to go again.
Stress started to rise through every grain and every joint. There was precious little time to flee before the vizier got back, if he wasn't instead hiding and waiting for the chiffonier to expose itself, and it couldn't hide on the stairs forever, much less make its way back up. Walking was one thing for a heavy lump of solid hornbeam, but jumping was entirely another. Cursing the nature of human legs, with their fancy 'knees' and 'ankles', it found itself wishing that architect of the manor had chosen to install slides instead.
It paused. Maybe that was the best answer. Not a good one by any means, but the best one it had available.
Carefully the chiffonier leaned itself backwards on its complaining hind legs again. But it didn't try to balance any more, instead allowing itself to fall back until its rear panel was resting on the edges of the steps above. It strained and stretched its legs to reach down and brace against the very edge of the stair on which it had, until very recently, been standing normally and exhaustedly.
"Better this than imprisonment." It said out loud with creaking joints, trying to convince itself that the statement was true. Then it lifted its feet.
Immediately it started to slip, the varnished wood denying nearly all friction that the carpet tried to provide. The acceleration was impressive, more so than the chiffonier had anticipated, as it started to shoot down the wide staircase. Air whooshed across the drawer frontages and billowed over the mirror as the speed rose, cooling down tired panels. Sensing that it was already going too fast, the chiffonier strained to stretch its feet down again and perform some careful braking, but with so much momentum already gained they struggled to gain significant purchase, making every stair another battle. It continued to thunder downwards all the while with a regular ‘thud-thud-thud’. Every stair it slipped past came with another increase in speed and another impact, and the hard marble floor of the atrium grew ever closer.
As its momentum grew, and the difficulty of getting a leg down to arrest that momentum grew with it, the chiffonier wondered if it had made the right decision. A strange calmness had come over it, transcending its apprehension and giving it cause to look objectively at what had happened. Although it hadn’t fallen the height of the staircase, and nor had it tumbled end-over-end down the steps, it was still about to hit the distinctly solid marble floor with considerable force. That was unlikely to end well from a structural perspective. Something would need to be done, because the slide could only end in either braking or breaking. It kept pondering as the strange rumbling bangs from above became louder and more frequent.
Finally, urgency snapped back into place through the wave of objectivism. The chiffonier started to wriggle and thrash as best it could against the staircase, struggling to find any purchase and undo the great slide it had created. Once or twice its feet caught the stair below solidly, but they were immediately pushed off again by the extreme force of descending dressing table. Its drawers slid out and in frantically to shift the weight distribution. It even tried to flex its mirrored back board to flip itself upright. Hope was starting to wear out, much like the rear-surface varnish was wearing away with the carpet burn, when a particularly hard twitch coincided with the drawers sliding outwards and gave the chiffonier enough of a twist to roll onto its corner.
The pressure of a corner driving into the carpet revolutionised the chiffonier’s kinematic properties. It dug into the pile, touching the membrane in places where the carpet had been worn more heavily, and mercifully the dressing table’s speed started to bleed away. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but by the time the chiffonier had reached the bottom of the stairs the speed had been decreased sufficiently for a non-lethal dismount. A few paces of ungainly trotting served to bring it to a halt on the cold, hard floor of the atrium. A few short metres away were the main doors, flung open by the vizier. Escape was so close.
“Don’t do it!” Pleaded a familiar creaking voice from the top of the stairs. The chiffonier’s mirror caught sight of the wardrobe, standing at the top of the stairs.
“Get back! You’ll give us both away!” the dressing table hissed, but the wardrobe was in no mood to listen. Its faith in the chiffonier’s judgement had been too eroded for that. Without hesitation it started to jump down the stairs step by step, hitting each one with a house-shaking bang.
“Stop it! The vizier is just outside! He’ll hear!” Pleaded the chiffonier, with terrified visions of chisels and varnish remover flitting through the drawer-space of its mind.
“Good. Maybe he’ll stop you making such an insane move. You belong here with us, safe in the dressing room.” Wardrobe persisted, its voice modulated by the regular impacts of stairs beneath its feet. The chiffonier was forced to admit that the wardrobe had impressive balance skills, being able to stay upright whilst leaping from stair to stair with reckless abandon.
"None of us are safe right now. The vizier suspects that I'm trying to escape. If he sees us here together then we'll both be burned."
"We're the Lord's furniture. He wouldn't dare." Wardrobe insisted, taking the final step a little easier and waddling over to the chiffonier. "Come back upstairs with me. We can make this all go away."
"Get up the stairs? On our own? You bloody fool, how could we possible climb-… look, it doesn't matter. I'm going, and you will need to come with me. Right now. You'll never make it back upstairs and the vizier will catch you and break you when he comes back. The only chance is to slip out with me."
"I told you, I'm staying here and so are you. I won't let you do this to yourself."
Chiffonier's mirror faced wardrobe's door. There was a moment of silence. Chiffonier took the initiative and dashed away for the door first, trying to muffle its steps on the hard marble as best it could. Wardrobe had no such concerns over stealth however, and took leaping, crashing, pounding steps to overtake.
"Stop making so much noise! He'll come back!" Chiffonier growled, trying to race past.
"Coming back is exactly what you should do." Wardrobe countered, keeping itself between chiffonier and the door.
"You're not listening! We can't get back up there ourselves and I would rather be firewood than stay trapped."
"That's ridiculous. You're furniture, you aren't supposed to be roaming free. And getting burned is really bad for you!" Wardrobe argued as it swayed and bounced, never giving the dressing table an opening to get past.
"I know that getting burned is bad for you. That's entirely the point of the statement." Chiffonier cursed the sheer bulk of wood standing between it and freedom. It was so close. "Let me choose for mysel..." Chiffonier stopped trying to dodge past. Wardrobe remained static but on guard for any sudden movement. There was a rapid slap-slap. Like feet hitting flagstones outside.
"He's coming back. That's it. We're caught." The chiffonier said, a hollowness entering the creaking voice of its drawers, which had already been pretty hollow to begin with.
"Then this madness can end and we'll get back to normal."
"No, wardrobe. This madness can end and I'll be destroyed. It's out of our power now."
The final few stony steps reverberated into the atrium, and Vizier Adnazar's withered frame, a skeleton wearing bad 'human' disguise, entered behind them.
"Well would you look at that. It's the chiffonier that some silent, invisible ruffian is trying to steal from Lord Slopbolt." Adnazar spewed. Wardrobe's handles gave the chiffonier an encouraging look, as if they'd got away with it. Chiffonier's mirror didn't reflect it.
"You've shown your hand. I told you clearly what would happen if you tried to follow me but still you thought you could get away with it. And to make the deal sweeter we even have a haunted wardrobe to join you!" The vizier chuckled joylessly. "It will only make the fire grander."
Chiffonier saw wardrobe's handles droop in shock and shame. The poor fool had really believed that things would be alright.
"You gave me a better run than most humans do, dressing table, but you'll suffer just as much and spill your secrets. Hornbeam or flesh is an irrelevant distinction to me."
The chiffonier and the wardrobe held their silence together. Neither of them moved. Chiffonier was falling into the resignation of defeat, while wardrobe still looked uncharacteristically pensive.
"Still playing the still and silent game. You won't be once I'm chiselling out every knot on your body. Then I'll split your grains and shatter your mirror. It'll still be there, covered in cracks and hanging shards, as I crush your drawers and pull off your feet. I expect you'll have talked by then, but I won’t stop." Vizier Adnazar relayed casually. This was his morning routine, his normal hello.
"And then, of course, you'll be given to the fires in my chamber, so that you can see the face who saw through your pathetic bid for freedom."
The vizier leaned over the chiffonier's top surface and pulled a short dagger from his night-robe. It had been terribly bold, the dressing table thought, to run around so actively with that blade stashed precariously within the folds of fabric alone.
"I think I'll mark my name in you for a start though."
There was a loud, percussive bang and Vizier Adnazar was thrown to the ground. Across his cheek was a fierce, furious welt in the shape of a wardrobe door handle.
"Run chiffonier. You were right. Live well." Wardrobe said simply, shuffling itself quickly to face the fallen vizier.
"The nerve!" Vizier Adnazar started to shout, but the end of his words were cut off by the heavy oak wardrobe that fell, closed-doored with a house shaking crash, onto his prone shape.
"Yo-… thank you." The chiffonier said simply, as it turned and dashed full pelt for the door.
Many of the servants had managed to find sleep in the coolness of the garden maze. Away from the stifling and apparently critically maintained heat of the attic space, the night was rather pleasant. Housemaid Elizabeth was still awake, however. She'd been amusing herself by watching the panoply of stars in the sky above, and then became distracted by the vizier who'd run frantically out of and then back into Slopbolt Hall. It was deeply curious behaviour for him, but she knew him well enough to expect that he was on some kind of dark errand. Perhaps, she thought, it's to do with the crashing noises that were coming from inside. Elizabeth shuddered. Whatever had gone on in there would definitely earn them the shouting of a lifetime in the morning when Lord Slopbolt found out about it.
Suddenly, from the doorway, there was more motion. Rubbing her eyes once, then twice, then whichever number came after twice, she could have sworn she saw the Lord's chiffonier prancing like a pony and making a break for the woods.
Her eyes remained on the spot where it had disappeared for a few minutes. She was probably overtired, she told herself. It was definitely time for sleep.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Lord Slopholt bellowed from the top of the staircase. Night-robe tangling between his mighty legs, he looked down on the shape of Vizier Adnazar, apparently losing a wrestling match with a wardrobe.
"My Lord. There has been witchcraft here!" The vizier croaked from beneath a respectable weight of carved wood.
"Enough of your lies, vizier. I have seen my dressing room!" The lord said, stomping his way down the staircase. "I have seen the piles of my garb strewn across the floor, and I have seen the missing furniture. Did you really think that you could steal from me?" He boomed, growing ever closer to the pinned vizier.
“I’ve stolen nothing, sire. I was attempting to apprehend the perpetrator.”
“Oh really? Then that’s why I saw you sneaking through my chambers barely a few moments ago is it? Going into and out of my dressing room, perhaps to rifle through the piles of clothing for something you thought you had missed? Oh I suppose you believed me to be asleep. But I had an eye on you.”
“I went to check what was missing Lord.”
“I think it’s fairly obvious when someone is trying to carry my furniture through the building. And here you are, crushed beneath your own spoils.” Lord Slopbolt continued, standing over Vizier Adnazar. “Why you thought you could carry a wardrobe by yourself is an uncharacteristic lapse in judgement. It’s impressive that you got it this far, especially after having run away with…” Lord Slopbolt looked around the atrium, and then rushed to the door to scan the immediate vicinity.
“And where on earth is my chiffonier?!” he roared, turning back towards the helpless advisor.
“It escaped, Lord!”
“Oh don’t give me such bunkum! You think me an idiot, Adnazar, but I see more than you think. I know that furniture doesn’t run on its own legs like a wolfhound. My guards shall deal with you, and perhaps the new vizier will be able to extract the location of your furniture stash.”
“Sire, no!” Vizier Adnazar pleaded.
“Sire, yes! Lord Slopholt countermanded. “Oh, the servants will get an earful for this. Once they’ve hired a carpenter to repair my wardrobe, that is.” Lord Slopholt mumbled to himself.
With its buckled doors pressing into the cavity of clothing, the wardrobe still managed a relieved sigh. It would be saved from the vizier’s cruel intentions, and Lord Slopbolt was going to repair his faithful furniture. It knew the Lord was a loyal ruler after all. Most importantly of all though, it told itself, as the vizier writhed against the splintered wood of his foolishness, was that the chiffonier had escaped.
The servants' own quarters were in the attic space, out of sight and out of mind alongside the hot water tank that Lord Slopbolt insisted was kept steaming at all times, just in case he needed an emergency bath. Large windows for the attic were a decadence that servants scarcely needed, said Lord Slopbolt, and so there were only a few small portholes for light; nothing that might disrupt the profile of the roof when viewed from hot-air balloon or similar.
The servants had all taken to sleeping in the gardens.
From inside Lord Slopbolt's cavernous dressing room, which adjoined the bedroom by way of a door so ornate that the Lord's serving staff always felt uneasy about touching it, the servants had been watched sneaking across the lawn and tucking themselves away behind the grand hedge maze. In the stillness that followed, their images stayed with the watcher. Such freedom to be able to extract themselves at will. Such daring to defy Lord Slopbolt's wishes that they be kept upstairs at all times, just in case he should need a sudden change of cloak. It was to be lauded. The watcher puffed up with a wooden creak. If the servants could be so bold and take fate into their own hands, then it stood to reason that anyone else could too. Their actions were an inspiration, a call-to-arms, and a standard around which to rally, which said that no-one needed to be trapped by Lord Slopbolt's unreasonable will any longer.
The watcher moved away from the window. Tonight was the night to take action and win freedom at long last. Panels shook subtly. Legs barely an inch long flexed themselves. A tall back-panel, fronted with mirrored glass, surveyed the room which it knew so well in a new light. The dressing room which had served as a prison for many long years was now just the first obstacle to a grand liberation.
The Lord's chiffonier vowed that it would win its emancipation there and then.
On the opposite wall the great mahogany clock ticked along towards midnight, its broad white face solemn and dutiful. The chiffonier knew that the clock saw everything that went on in the room from its vantage point high up on the wall, but despite this enormous depth of knowledge and wealth of secrets, it had never uttered a word of betrayal to the Lord. Instead it simply continued to tick with each second and toll with each hour as if nothing else could be out of the ordinary, or at least as if nothing else mattered. It must have known that the chiffonier was thinking to do something unusual, what with the nightly visits paid to the window and wistful gazes across the lawn, yet nothing was given away. It held perfect silence save the ticks, the tocks, the tolls and the occasional sound of a servant winding its mechanism.
The other furniture, however, wore their apprehension more plainly. Looming in the corner, the Lord's wardrobe shuffled its lower drawer nervously, while the long trunk lazily lifted and lowered its lid. The Lord's morning armchair groaned, but that was all the poor chair did these days. Years of having Lord Slopbolt dropping onto its abused cushion had taken their toll.
The chiffonier had wanted to slip out unnoticed. It was foolish and naïve to believe that it would have been possible, but still every mental plan and every daydream had featured a silent exit. Trying to think of a way of explaining itself to the other furniture had felt too impossible. Seeing them all focused on it after another night of staring through the window denied any possibility of a clandestine retreat.
”This is it." The chiffonier's mirror rattled. "I'm getting out of here. Any of you are welcome to join me, but there's nothing I can do to help if you get caught."
Various types of wood, varnished or upholstered or otherwise, creaked.
"It's too risky to flee. You'll be caught for sure." The sound of sliding drawer rails from the wardrobe said.
"I'm willing to take that chance."
"But you'll be broken down into fire wood! Your mirror shattered and your drawers pulled out!"
"Better to die as a bonfire than to live in this prison any longer." The chiffonier's rattling top drawer defied, despite the muffling of the Lord's impressive collection of socks.
"Then what a pretty flame you shall make." Drawled the hinges of the trunk.
"Don't say that!" Chastised the flapping doors of the wardrobe.
"You might well be right, trunk. But I'm going anyway."
The chair groaned again, and the others tried to ignore it.
"Please, chiffonier. We don't have it so bad here. Yes we're trapped but Lord Slopbolt doesn't seem to be fickle with his furniture and we aren't abused. You must have heard what happened to Lord Wolfrum's chest of drawers?" The wardrobe persisted with the siren's song of its hinges.
Chiffonier remained silent. Of course it had heard about the chest of drawers at old Wolfrum's; overloaded until the drawer bases fell right the way through. It could have been repaired by even a moderately skilled carpenter, but Wolfrum had given it to the axe-man for the fire.
"You might not be free here but you're looked after. Who knows what fate awaits an unguarded chiffonier out there? The sun might bleach your paint, the rain will soak your panels and swell them to the point of rotting. And the animals and insects! Woodworm live out there!" Wardrobe pleaded, almost rocking with passion. “Woodworm!”
"I... I understand the dangers. It's a harsh world but one I wish to know. Give me the fate of Lord Wolfrum's chest of drawers over permanent incarceration like the senile pews down in the chapel any day. They've been there for four-hundred years, in the same places with a never-ending cycle of different seats upon them. I don't want that purgatory, wardrobe. I can't face it a moment longer." The chiffonier lamented. "I have enjoyed your company, but I must be away. The clock will strike midnight in only a few minutes which risks waking the Lord. I can sneak through now while he sleeps."
Wardrobe let out a few worried squeaks from its hinges but gave no further argument as the chiffonier scuttled on its short legs towards the Lord's bedroom door.
"At least leave the Lord his socks!" Cried the trunk's clattering handles as a drawer came out to wrest with the handle.
"You'd deprive me of my innards?" Chiffonier gasped with a draughty cabinet door.
"Does a man not deserve his clothing when his furniture abandons him?"
Chiffonier couldn't deny it.
"You're right. And It'll lighten the load for my journey, I suppose."
Turning momentarily away from the door, the chiffonier slid its drawers out and gently shook countless pairs of neatly balled socks, several distressingly large undergarments, and an impressive collection of scarves out onto the floor of the dressing room in an untidy mess.
"I'm keeping a few though." It announced with finality as the drawers slid back into place. "A chiffonier needs its purpose."
"Fair's fair." The trunk accepted disinterestedly. “Lord Slopbolt wil have them back when he catches you.”
"Please be careful, chiffonier." The wardrobe whimpered with polished brass drawer handles.
"I will." Chiffonier promised, looking up at the clock face. It groaned. "I took too long over that shedding of the load. I don't think I have time to creep through the Lord's bedroom before the chimes."
"Then wait until after!" The wardrobe suggested excitedly. It was sure that if the chiffonier waited just a few more minutes it could be convinced to stay.
"It'll be no use. The vizier does his rounds of the house just after midnight, and he starts up by the Lord's room. If I wait until after the chimes I'll risk his presence. I need to get through first so that I can clear the first floor before danger strikes." The chiffonier explained.
"How do you know so much? You've been planning this for a while now, haven‘t you?" The wardrobe interrogated, hurt that the chiffonier could have made a plan like that in earnest rather than as a spur of the moment whim, as furniture is wont to have.
"This isn't a decision I'd take lightly, wardrobe." Chiffonier placated distractedly. There was still one way it could make the journey safely, just. "Clock, old friend. I know you don't speak much, or ever act out of turn, but I know that you hear us and know us. Please, give me time to get through the Lord's room. Belay your chiming at midnight, just this once."
Wardrobe and trunk gasped with their open doors, and even the chair groaned with some degree of shock. The mere thought of clock failing to do its duty like, well, clockwork was lunacy. It would shake their understanding of the world, which was admittedly a poor one, to its very core.
The clock said nothing, but just kept ticking steadily onwards.
"Please?"
Still the ticking continued unabated. Hands shifted in front of the numbered panel.
"I'll take that as a yes." Chiffonier decided. Its mirrored mind had been made up, and once set on something the mind of a varnished dressing table is impossible to change. The drawer reached back up for the handle and, in a way that would be impossible to picture but was both deft and practised, turned the round doorknob with ease.
"Goodbye friends." Whispered the runners of the drawer as it was pulled back into place. The chiffonier crept through onto the thick, luxurious carpet of the Lord's chamber, and pushed the door closed behind it. Wardrobe shook for a moment. The chiffonier was gone. Up on the wall the clock ticked onwards toward midnight. If anyone had looked at its face they would have seen the curve of the '2' pulled down into what almost looked like a concerned frown.
The Lord's chamber was far lighter than the chiffonier had expected, much to its grainy dismay. To stave off some of the heat, every window had been flung open and all curtains were fastened back, such that nothing might stand in the way of the totally non-existent but much sought breeze. Moonlight and starlight flooded into the bedroom much like they had illuminated the servants' exodus to their sleeping-hedge. It shone on the chiffonier as it crept through the door, directly next to the Lord's bed. It highlighted the decadent tapestry that hung from the wall opposite, depicting his Lordship's triumphant victory over two whole loaves of bread and a roasted pheasant in the archery tournament several years prior. It reflected invitingly from the polished brass handle of the door to the corridor. But most of all it cast a washed-out light over Lord Slopholt himself, lying like an abandoned conifer on the bed. Far from the oscillating mass of snores and irrationality that the chiffonier had been expecting, the Lord was restless and mobile in a fitfully uncomfortable sleep. Sweat glistened from his brow in a way that the chiffonier wanted very much to avoid thinking about.
For a few seconds it remained perfectly still, watching the Lord's writhing with terrified intensity. He changed direction at random, and he snuffled and snorted as if he might fully wake at a moment's notice. But there could be no turning back after summoning the courage to leave; no time was the perfect time. This was it.
The next time Lord Slopholt turned away from its direction, the chiffonier crept as quickly as it dared through the muffling pile of the thick carpet. There were three sides of the enormous four-poster bed to navigate and scarce little time before midnight, but despite the considerable weight of its solid hornbeam construction, the chiffonier was light on its feet and maintained admirable stealth through the bedroom. Lord Slopholt coughed suddenly once or twice, giving it pause to freeze on the spot in terror, but no more came of the flabby oaf's disturbance.
As the chiffonier tried to round the bottom corner of the bed however, it stumbled and skidded, two of the drawers sliding out on their rails noisily. The blasted Lord had thrown his covers down in an unseen pile on the carpet at the foot of the bed, ready to trip and tangle around the curved and carved legs of the creeping table. The chiffonier thrashed desperately to extract itself from the sheet trap, kicking its tiny legs roughly and shuffling away from the bulk of the fabric while the Lord's snorts turned from grim struggles to breathe into a single low groan. The groan of a man waking.
A new wave of panic swept over the chiffonier. It wasn't just the horror of being caught or the possibility of renewed incarceration, nor was it the idea of being given to the fires. What made it truly devastating was the mental image of proving wardrobe and trunk right after such a short time. The humiliation would be as all-consuming as the urge to leave had been.
In as much of a silent frenzy as it could manage the chiffonier shuffled its way back along the carpet to rest underneath the grand tapestry. It was forced to halt a few inches away, as the Lord's piggy eyes blinked open.
"What in the blazes is that noise?" He growled with a groggy mouth. "The servants will pay for this.”
Chiffonier cursed the way its drawer handles tried to quiver.
“What I wouldn't give to see myself now, in the grips of a rage, that I might know how deeply I can terrify my staff." The Lord said to himself, before catching sight of his reflection in the mirror. The chiffonier tried not to explode its drawers outwards in panic as the Lord's gaze fell directly upon it, recognising exactly what he was seeing. They stared intently, not with the glimmer of accusation but the glassy expression of one who is admiring themselves despite the obvious absence of anything to respect.
"The servants must have anticipated my needs in this desire for reflection. And why on Earth would they not, knowing how robustly beautiful I am." He continued monologuing. "Perhaps they are not so foolish after all. They will most certainly be dressed-down for that; a great honour it shall be for them to hear my voice."
A mighty yawn escaped from Lord Slopbolt's chest and took over his mouth, the same mouth that solved every problem with a severe shouting-at of his servants.
"But I must be rested to give them a good showing. Especially for having the audacity to continue with this wretched heat!" He resolved, lying back down and squeezing his eyes shut, as if that would make a difference.
One of the few pairs of socks left in the chiffonier's drawers bounced up and down along with the pounding of its racing heartwood. It watched the Lord unblinkingly for a minute to be sure that he wasn't about to have another burst of wakefulness, but was all too aware of the ticking clock next door. Midnight couldn't have been more than a few moments away. It had to move.
The renewed vigour of a near-capture experience spurred the chiffonier's legs into urgency, beating a sprinter's path through the carpet and towards the door. Nervously this time the top drawer extended and grasped at the handle, slipping against the polished brass. Every part of the chiffonier's woodwork was tensed in anticipation of the chiming and the resultant further cessation of disgusting noises from the dozing Lord. Determinedly attempting to hold off panic, the dressing table lifted itself onto tip-legs for extra reach and easier manipulation. Inside it could feel the last of the Lord's undershirts sliding and bunching in one of the drawer's corners, an unpleasant sensation at best.
Finally, there was grip and a quiet clunk as the latch slipped free. As gently as it could the chiffonier pulled the door open by just a crack, and peered through into the corridor. It seemed that the last few oil lamps had been extinguished and so the long hallway was also lit by moon and stars alone. For a few moments more the chiffonier waited in silence at the doorway, feeling for any vibrations in the floorboards that might have implied the approach of the vizier, but there was nothing. The coast was clear.
An irritating squeal of hinges in need of treatment tracked the progress of the door's opening, and the chiffonier shot furtive glances behind itself to check on the Lord's slumber. Mercifully his narcissistic reflection gazing seemed to have calmed him sufficiently to sleep through a mere hinge's shout. Had he been awake, he would surely have heard the clacking of wooden legs on bare floorboards as his furniture crept out of the bedroom and came one doorway closer to freedom.
Brief flashes of memory came to the chiffonier out in the silent hallway; glimpses of the day it was brought into Slopholt Hall and carried up to the dressing room, years ago. Not much seemed to have changed, although the chiffonier wasn't confident that it remembered the details properly. Extinguished oil lamps were placed at regular intervals along the hallway, which extended from the Lord's room at the end and led towards a handful of other grand chambers before turning into a great stairwell. A straight line to escape.
The chiffonier stole along the twilit corridor, holdings its drawers and cabinets tensed as it went to prevent any noisy clattering that might wake the household. A long, narrow rug left patches of bare boards to either side of the hallway, forcing the chiffonier into the centre of the corridor in an effort to mask its footsteps, but allowing its mirror to catch the moonlight. Ahead of it, like a late searchlight picking out the rocks on which a vessel just bottomed-out, reflected light beamed along the empty hallway. So bright was the beam that it allowed the chiffonier to pick out motion from a doorway to one side. Someone was exiting their room.
With a panicked scrabble the chiffonier dashed for one side of the corridor and slid across the bare wood. Rough tipped wooden feet scraped against floorboards and there was a jarring crash of drawers rattling on their rails as it impacted the wall and came to rest. Almost imperceptibly the frame and mirror flexed repeatedly, out and in, with the dressing table equivalent of heavy, nervous breathing.
From the rapidly opened door leapt Vizier Andazar, hunched down in a combat ready stance and shining a bright oil lamp up and down the corridor aggressively. Under-lit by the orange flames, his face became a shadow-scape of harsh angles and hard protrusions. Even the chiffonier, which had quite literally been carved and chiselled into shape, was blown away by the crystalline fracture planes that seemed to form the vizier’s interrogative visage. It was like looking at aftermath of a mixture of obsidian and flint being thrown through a brittle glass window; the perfect face for extracting secrets and conspiracies from the Lord’s enemies. Strangely enough, even when there had been no conspiracies or secrets at the start of the interrogation, a few found a way of coming out by the time the vizier was done.
It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds for his clinically efficient vision to detect the corridor’s new anomaly; the Lord’s chiffonier positioned arbitrarily along a hallway where mere hours before there had been nothing. Keeping his peripheral vision scanned, which was a feat when it involved seeing past the crags and breakwaters of his shipwreck face, Vizier Andazar stalked across the rug and approached the chiffonier.
“What is this doing out here?” he asked the corridor in general. It was one of the few interviewees who had ever declined to respond to one of the vizier’s questions. “The Lord’s dressing table would be a strange sufferer of somnambulism.”
Dutifully the chiffonier’s mirror reflected the terrible countenance that loomed over it, trying its best to not look the man in the eye or remember the details. It could barely suppress a shudder as the fingers of one hand brushed over its surface, with the curious delicacy of a coroner opening a carcass.
Finding no incriminating notes declaring ‘I did it, signed the butler’ on the chiffonier’s surface, the vizier flicked his gaze up and down the hallway, resting his eyes on each open window for a fraction of a second before moving on.
“Windows all open. Whoever moved this could have leapt out, but I would have heard the crack of their legs as they hit the ground. Curious that the clock in the Lord’s dressing room failed to chime and now his chiffonier is out here…” He thought out loud. The mirror saw every thought flicker through the vizier’s mind and leave a fleeting impression on his face. “Maybe the culprit silenced the clock to sneak past the Lord, then heard me coming and fled back into the Lord’s room… they’d be trapped…”
Every drawer in the chiffonier’s body pulled itself shut a little tighter. Up above, the mirror saw Vizier constructing his questioning techniques for the would-be thief that he intended to catch in the Lord’s dressing room. With nothing more than subtle facial expressions, he gave an accurate and unnecessarily detailed impression of some inventive uses for boiled oil, the glass-blower’s discarded fragments, and the complete works of Chaucer. The whole chiffonier trembled and the vizier’s head snapped towards the movement, his eyes threatening to burn a hole straight through the solid hornbeam of its top surface. An idea passed through the vizier’s mind to explain what his eyes had just seen, but it was too ridiculous to credit. For now, at least.
“Don’t you go anywhere.” He said to the chiffonier with a sneer. It resolved that, on the contrary of Vizier Andazar’s advice, going literally anywhere else was exactly the right course of action.
Creeping like a sense of dread made manifest in a night-robe, Vizier Andazar let himself into the Lord's bed chamber, slipping through the slight crack he'd made in the door and then pulling it lightly shut behind himself.
Heartwood pounding harder than ever, the chiffonier wasted no time in throwing itself back onto the carpet and cantering down the hallway as fast as its legs would allow, turning itself sideways to increase its aerodynamic profile from 'about as bad as it gets' to 'about as bad as it gets, but a bit smaller'. That did, however, mean that the tall, mirrored back piece was over to one side, having the unfortunate effect of creating deeply asymmetrical weighting. Rather than the even, elegant paces which one might expect from a dressing-table of such high quality, the chiffonier loped with a lop-sided precession, swinging from side-to-side as it travelled and threatening to overbalance with every frenzied step.
"Clock didn't chime. It held out for me." The chiffonier’s rumbling drawers muttered to itself reverentially. Either that or the servants had forgotten to wind the mechanism, and would be in for one hell of a shouting from Lord Slopholt. Whatever the case, it wouldn't let the gesture be made in vain.
Every few paces the rug would slip underneath it, or bunch up under the pressure of a foot that caught the pile at the wrong angle and threaten to trip the chiffonier over. Regardless it pressed on with its ungainly retreat, until one large bunching too many sent the dressing-table spiralling over onto the bare boards with a series of loud knocking sounds just before the staircase. It fought to maintain its footing, swinging its mirrored back panel left and right to try to find any semblance of balance, and with a distressingly gentle 'clunk' caught one of the doused oil lanterns. The glass bowl toppled easily from its metal sconce and fell, landing with a distinct percussive chime on the chiffonier's surface. Panicked, the chiffonier tried to come to a halt as best it could, but without the benefit of prehensile fingers, or limbs of any kind, the glass lantern could not be constrained. It rolled in elliptical patterns across the surface until, inevitably, it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and spilling of viscous, flammable fluids.
There was no way that the vizier would have been ignorant to that crashing, the chiffonier thought to itself in a wave of cautious anxiety. Immediately it froze into place, as Vizier Adnazar emerged furiously from the Lord's chamber and the beam from his lantern landed immediately on the tall, terrified mirror.
"Who goes there?" He demanded, hurrying towards the shifted table. Glints of lantern light reflected from the pieces of shattered lamp and gave everything away. The vizier moved straight past the table to the end of the corridor and leant over the banister, searching for any sign of a perpetrator stealing away into the night. The bottom of his night-robe lifted slightly as he leaned, revealing ankles that looked like someone was trying to ineffectually hide a skeleton with tissue paper. It was shocking that his the bones of his heels hadn't pierced the paltry layer of skin wrapped around them, being more like an eagle's talons than human feet; there was a real danger that they would start to scratch the floorboards. Perhaps that was why the rug had been put in place, the chiffonier thought, unable to keep its mind on the topic of imminent capture with such a display of biologically unfeasible ambulation nearby.
"No-one..." Vizier Adnazar muttered to himself, unconvinced. "No sign of hurried disruption to the stair carpet. No sounds of doors closing. Still no ankle-breaking from a window fall. That must mean you're still up here with me." His gaze turned back to the chiffonier. "Hiding."
He stalked back to the chiffonier with the look of a sadistic predator; one who hunts for the sport even when hunger has been long sated. Cold, clawed hands grasped at the handle of the top drawer and yanked it open, revealing only the few pairs of the Lord's socks with which the dressing-table couldn't bear to part.
"Not likely to be a pair of socks." The vizier assessed, perfectly accurately. In his experience of thwarting threats to the kingdom, not one conspirator had ever been a pair of socks. Not since the peace treaty with the laundry kingdom, anyway.
The next drawer down was yanked open. Only a few nightshirts.
"That leaves just this bottom one, then." He growled hungrily. His appetite was left unsatisfied by the collection of dress jewellery and long-johns.
"Curious. Very curious." The vizier murmured, making it perfectly clear to the chiffonier that curiosity was not something he enjoyed having thrust upon him in place of answers.
"There's no space behind you to hide. There's no evidence of someone escaping from this position, nor of hiding inside you." The vizier though out loud, looking directly at the chiffonier. It held its wooden breath and mustered all of its composure to prevent itself from shaking. "So unless..."
Vizier Adnazar lurched towards the window and thrust his head out, but there was nobody dangling from the sill. He grumbled with disappointment.
"Then that only leaves me and you."
The chiffonier reflected the vizier's gaze reluctantly.
"I don't trust you, chiffonier." He sneered, his nose almost touched the panicked, sweating wood of the top surface. This didn't necessarily require him to lean-in a great deal, because he had the kind of nose that would be better employed in splitting large wooden logs or steering an international shipping vessel. Such was the scale that he must have been able to smell things before they happened. It was a wonder he hadn't broken a few windows with it when crossing the bedroom. "But you won't manage the stairs alone without being reduced to splinters, if indeed you can move yourself." He warned, taking joy in the threat but obviously questioning his own sanity in suspecting a dressing-table of moving under its own power. "It won't take me long to look for a hidden thief in the castle grounds, hiding among the servants if they're anywhere at all. And when I'm back, if I'm empty-handed, then we'll have a long talk with a wood chisel."
A sweeping flourish of night-robe filled the hallway as the vizier ran down the staircase for his final investigations.
The chiffonier tried to settle its grains down, but they were vibrating with terror. Most of its knots ached and were trying to flee the body. It had been all but rumbled, and even retreating back to the Lord's chamber would be a risk now that the vizier suspected. Danger was everywhere. Out was the only way.
A rumbling, like that of an over-large Lord falling out of bed or a door collapsing off its hinges shook through the floor. A part of the chiffonier cursed that anything else was happening that might stir activity in the house, but another argued that it could be a distraction that allowed it to slip away. Either way, there was no time to worry about it. Whatever was going on, it would go on whilst the chiffonier escaped.
Just as the vizier had pointed out, the staircase did not prove to be an inviting prospect. The chiffonier’s legs were far shorter than each stair was deep, and it lacked the articulation to stretch for them. This was always going to be the most difficult part, it knew, but some vague hope had persisted that a plan would become obvious in the moment. Thus far, it was then forced to reason, the moment hadn't come.
Standing on the edge of the first stair the wood and the mirror strained their minds, pushing back through the memory of years spent growing in a forest, to find any solution which might make things easier. It drew a blank; there had been very few stairs in the forest, and they certainly had never needed to be navigated. Alternative routes were always available. This challenge would need to be taken blind.
Carefully, the chiffonier shuffled forwards until its front legs were over the edge, leaning all of its weight back to keep from toppling forwards. Straining on its hind legs only, it quivered with exhaustion whilst trying to creep onwards. The short wooden legs shook. It feared that they might snap or shear off it this went on for very long. And then one of them slipped past the point of no return.
All four feet landed softly on the stair's carpet, hind first and then front, making far less of a thump than the chiffonier had feared they might. There was only the rattle of drawers bouncing in their recesses, and another strange rumbling bang from back along the corridor.
Steeling itself for a repeat of the process, the dressing table once again shimmied to the stair edge and leaned backwards. The shaking of its hind legs was worse this time; they were already exhausted, and being expected to try again so soon felt entirely unreasonable. They made their feelings known to the manager in no uncertain terms, threatening to collapse at any moment. When they finally slipped over the edge of the step and came to land on the carpet again, the chiffonier knew that it wouldn't have the energy to go again.
Stress started to rise through every grain and every joint. There was precious little time to flee before the vizier got back, if he wasn't instead hiding and waiting for the chiffonier to expose itself, and it couldn't hide on the stairs forever, much less make its way back up. Walking was one thing for a heavy lump of solid hornbeam, but jumping was entirely another. Cursing the nature of human legs, with their fancy 'knees' and 'ankles', it found itself wishing that architect of the manor had chosen to install slides instead.
It paused. Maybe that was the best answer. Not a good one by any means, but the best one it had available.
Carefully the chiffonier leaned itself backwards on its complaining hind legs again. But it didn't try to balance any more, instead allowing itself to fall back until its rear panel was resting on the edges of the steps above. It strained and stretched its legs to reach down and brace against the very edge of the stair on which it had, until very recently, been standing normally and exhaustedly.
"Better this than imprisonment." It said out loud with creaking joints, trying to convince itself that the statement was true. Then it lifted its feet.
Immediately it started to slip, the varnished wood denying nearly all friction that the carpet tried to provide. The acceleration was impressive, more so than the chiffonier had anticipated, as it started to shoot down the wide staircase. Air whooshed across the drawer frontages and billowed over the mirror as the speed rose, cooling down tired panels. Sensing that it was already going too fast, the chiffonier strained to stretch its feet down again and perform some careful braking, but with so much momentum already gained they struggled to gain significant purchase, making every stair another battle. It continued to thunder downwards all the while with a regular ‘thud-thud-thud’. Every stair it slipped past came with another increase in speed and another impact, and the hard marble floor of the atrium grew ever closer.
As its momentum grew, and the difficulty of getting a leg down to arrest that momentum grew with it, the chiffonier wondered if it had made the right decision. A strange calmness had come over it, transcending its apprehension and giving it cause to look objectively at what had happened. Although it hadn’t fallen the height of the staircase, and nor had it tumbled end-over-end down the steps, it was still about to hit the distinctly solid marble floor with considerable force. That was unlikely to end well from a structural perspective. Something would need to be done, because the slide could only end in either braking or breaking. It kept pondering as the strange rumbling bangs from above became louder and more frequent.
Finally, urgency snapped back into place through the wave of objectivism. The chiffonier started to wriggle and thrash as best it could against the staircase, struggling to find any purchase and undo the great slide it had created. Once or twice its feet caught the stair below solidly, but they were immediately pushed off again by the extreme force of descending dressing table. Its drawers slid out and in frantically to shift the weight distribution. It even tried to flex its mirrored back board to flip itself upright. Hope was starting to wear out, much like the rear-surface varnish was wearing away with the carpet burn, when a particularly hard twitch coincided with the drawers sliding outwards and gave the chiffonier enough of a twist to roll onto its corner.
The pressure of a corner driving into the carpet revolutionised the chiffonier’s kinematic properties. It dug into the pile, touching the membrane in places where the carpet had been worn more heavily, and mercifully the dressing table’s speed started to bleed away. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but by the time the chiffonier had reached the bottom of the stairs the speed had been decreased sufficiently for a non-lethal dismount. A few paces of ungainly trotting served to bring it to a halt on the cold, hard floor of the atrium. A few short metres away were the main doors, flung open by the vizier. Escape was so close.
“Don’t do it!” Pleaded a familiar creaking voice from the top of the stairs. The chiffonier’s mirror caught sight of the wardrobe, standing at the top of the stairs.
“Get back! You’ll give us both away!” the dressing table hissed, but the wardrobe was in no mood to listen. Its faith in the chiffonier’s judgement had been too eroded for that. Without hesitation it started to jump down the stairs step by step, hitting each one with a house-shaking bang.
“Stop it! The vizier is just outside! He’ll hear!” Pleaded the chiffonier, with terrified visions of chisels and varnish remover flitting through the drawer-space of its mind.
“Good. Maybe he’ll stop you making such an insane move. You belong here with us, safe in the dressing room.” Wardrobe persisted, its voice modulated by the regular impacts of stairs beneath its feet. The chiffonier was forced to admit that the wardrobe had impressive balance skills, being able to stay upright whilst leaping from stair to stair with reckless abandon.
"None of us are safe right now. The vizier suspects that I'm trying to escape. If he sees us here together then we'll both be burned."
"We're the Lord's furniture. He wouldn't dare." Wardrobe insisted, taking the final step a little easier and waddling over to the chiffonier. "Come back upstairs with me. We can make this all go away."
"Get up the stairs? On our own? You bloody fool, how could we possible climb-… look, it doesn't matter. I'm going, and you will need to come with me. Right now. You'll never make it back upstairs and the vizier will catch you and break you when he comes back. The only chance is to slip out with me."
"I told you, I'm staying here and so are you. I won't let you do this to yourself."
Chiffonier's mirror faced wardrobe's door. There was a moment of silence. Chiffonier took the initiative and dashed away for the door first, trying to muffle its steps on the hard marble as best it could. Wardrobe had no such concerns over stealth however, and took leaping, crashing, pounding steps to overtake.
"Stop making so much noise! He'll come back!" Chiffonier growled, trying to race past.
"Coming back is exactly what you should do." Wardrobe countered, keeping itself between chiffonier and the door.
"You're not listening! We can't get back up there ourselves and I would rather be firewood than stay trapped."
"That's ridiculous. You're furniture, you aren't supposed to be roaming free. And getting burned is really bad for you!" Wardrobe argued as it swayed and bounced, never giving the dressing table an opening to get past.
"I know that getting burned is bad for you. That's entirely the point of the statement." Chiffonier cursed the sheer bulk of wood standing between it and freedom. It was so close. "Let me choose for mysel..." Chiffonier stopped trying to dodge past. Wardrobe remained static but on guard for any sudden movement. There was a rapid slap-slap. Like feet hitting flagstones outside.
"He's coming back. That's it. We're caught." The chiffonier said, a hollowness entering the creaking voice of its drawers, which had already been pretty hollow to begin with.
"Then this madness can end and we'll get back to normal."
"No, wardrobe. This madness can end and I'll be destroyed. It's out of our power now."
The final few stony steps reverberated into the atrium, and Vizier Adnazar's withered frame, a skeleton wearing bad 'human' disguise, entered behind them.
"Well would you look at that. It's the chiffonier that some silent, invisible ruffian is trying to steal from Lord Slopbolt." Adnazar spewed. Wardrobe's handles gave the chiffonier an encouraging look, as if they'd got away with it. Chiffonier's mirror didn't reflect it.
"You've shown your hand. I told you clearly what would happen if you tried to follow me but still you thought you could get away with it. And to make the deal sweeter we even have a haunted wardrobe to join you!" The vizier chuckled joylessly. "It will only make the fire grander."
Chiffonier saw wardrobe's handles droop in shock and shame. The poor fool had really believed that things would be alright.
"You gave me a better run than most humans do, dressing table, but you'll suffer just as much and spill your secrets. Hornbeam or flesh is an irrelevant distinction to me."
The chiffonier and the wardrobe held their silence together. Neither of them moved. Chiffonier was falling into the resignation of defeat, while wardrobe still looked uncharacteristically pensive.
"Still playing the still and silent game. You won't be once I'm chiselling out every knot on your body. Then I'll split your grains and shatter your mirror. It'll still be there, covered in cracks and hanging shards, as I crush your drawers and pull off your feet. I expect you'll have talked by then, but I won’t stop." Vizier Adnazar relayed casually. This was his morning routine, his normal hello.
"And then, of course, you'll be given to the fires in my chamber, so that you can see the face who saw through your pathetic bid for freedom."
The vizier leaned over the chiffonier's top surface and pulled a short dagger from his night-robe. It had been terribly bold, the dressing table thought, to run around so actively with that blade stashed precariously within the folds of fabric alone.
"I think I'll mark my name in you for a start though."
There was a loud, percussive bang and Vizier Adnazar was thrown to the ground. Across his cheek was a fierce, furious welt in the shape of a wardrobe door handle.
"Run chiffonier. You were right. Live well." Wardrobe said simply, shuffling itself quickly to face the fallen vizier.
"The nerve!" Vizier Adnazar started to shout, but the end of his words were cut off by the heavy oak wardrobe that fell, closed-doored with a house shaking crash, onto his prone shape.
"Yo-… thank you." The chiffonier said simply, as it turned and dashed full pelt for the door.
Many of the servants had managed to find sleep in the coolness of the garden maze. Away from the stifling and apparently critically maintained heat of the attic space, the night was rather pleasant. Housemaid Elizabeth was still awake, however. She'd been amusing herself by watching the panoply of stars in the sky above, and then became distracted by the vizier who'd run frantically out of and then back into Slopbolt Hall. It was deeply curious behaviour for him, but she knew him well enough to expect that he was on some kind of dark errand. Perhaps, she thought, it's to do with the crashing noises that were coming from inside. Elizabeth shuddered. Whatever had gone on in there would definitely earn them the shouting of a lifetime in the morning when Lord Slopbolt found out about it.
Suddenly, from the doorway, there was more motion. Rubbing her eyes once, then twice, then whichever number came after twice, she could have sworn she saw the Lord's chiffonier prancing like a pony and making a break for the woods.
Her eyes remained on the spot where it had disappeared for a few minutes. She was probably overtired, she told herself. It was definitely time for sleep.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Lord Slopholt bellowed from the top of the staircase. Night-robe tangling between his mighty legs, he looked down on the shape of Vizier Adnazar, apparently losing a wrestling match with a wardrobe.
"My Lord. There has been witchcraft here!" The vizier croaked from beneath a respectable weight of carved wood.
"Enough of your lies, vizier. I have seen my dressing room!" The lord said, stomping his way down the staircase. "I have seen the piles of my garb strewn across the floor, and I have seen the missing furniture. Did you really think that you could steal from me?" He boomed, growing ever closer to the pinned vizier.
“I’ve stolen nothing, sire. I was attempting to apprehend the perpetrator.”
“Oh really? Then that’s why I saw you sneaking through my chambers barely a few moments ago is it? Going into and out of my dressing room, perhaps to rifle through the piles of clothing for something you thought you had missed? Oh I suppose you believed me to be asleep. But I had an eye on you.”
“I went to check what was missing Lord.”
“I think it’s fairly obvious when someone is trying to carry my furniture through the building. And here you are, crushed beneath your own spoils.” Lord Slopbolt continued, standing over Vizier Adnazar. “Why you thought you could carry a wardrobe by yourself is an uncharacteristic lapse in judgement. It’s impressive that you got it this far, especially after having run away with…” Lord Slopbolt looked around the atrium, and then rushed to the door to scan the immediate vicinity.
“And where on earth is my chiffonier?!” he roared, turning back towards the helpless advisor.
“It escaped, Lord!”
“Oh don’t give me such bunkum! You think me an idiot, Adnazar, but I see more than you think. I know that furniture doesn’t run on its own legs like a wolfhound. My guards shall deal with you, and perhaps the new vizier will be able to extract the location of your furniture stash.”
“Sire, no!” Vizier Adnazar pleaded.
“Sire, yes! Lord Slopholt countermanded. “Oh, the servants will get an earful for this. Once they’ve hired a carpenter to repair my wardrobe, that is.” Lord Slopholt mumbled to himself.
With its buckled doors pressing into the cavity of clothing, the wardrobe still managed a relieved sigh. It would be saved from the vizier’s cruel intentions, and Lord Slopbolt was going to repair his faithful furniture. It knew the Lord was a loyal ruler after all. Most importantly of all though, it told itself, as the vizier writhed against the splintered wood of his foolishness, was that the chiffonier had escaped.