At the Gate 1

By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

DIMITRIJE IGNJATOVIC

At the Gate
At the Gate 2
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

To the children of the future,

whom we may or may not have,
but if we have them, to defend them from evil
by exposing it to what is left of our children,
from Dimitrije Ignjatovic
At the Gate 3
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

Preface
This is a novel that tells the story of the melancholy Lu-
cia wanting to become an heir to the Throne of Poleceny.
Hopefully it will expose my taste towards matters, as I said
in the preface of The Lost Past, gothic, perchance eerie and
dream-like.
I use a style in impersonation of Walpole’s, oft using thou
and liberal research into Italian names. Yet I write for chil-
dren.
But my style still is the exact opposite of Walpole’s at
the same time. Whilst there is the liberal use of thou, as in
the poor Ode to a Skylark by the pastiche-churning Percy
Bysshe Shelley, in this Tale, there will be bombast, for
bombast did make an Elizabethan man ‘loffe’. The emo-
tional reflection will be poor and not quite according to the
Four Humours. It will be a bit too bombastic for the mod-
ern gothic tastes.
Here one should forget old stories and parables. How-
ever, one shall not be told anything about faith, but
throughout the story there will be hidden piety.
I think we can all learn from this book – it has what
modern high fantasy and modern sword-and-sorcery fan-
tasy, a.k.a. low fantasy don’t have – the trait that should
still live, expressed in one word: Piety.
Dimitrije Ignjatovic
At the Gate 4
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

The Throne of Poleceny

Manfredo was a Count of Poleceny, and he had every-
thing in life. He perchance took his reign as a Count too
seriously – so he was cruel and he pitied no one. He was
the cruellest Count that ever ruled Poleceny. Whoever
came into his castle had no defence: when one stole a loaf
of bread to feed his starveling family, he could already fear
that the Count will take him to the dungeon.
But there was one thing he lamented – he didn’t have an
heir. He had an only daughter Lucia, but she could not be
an heir as ‘countesses were not usual in Poleceny’.
But Lucia admired the first Countess of Poleceny, named
Annalisa, for her achievements as a Countess, and Lucia
has therefore desired to be a Countess and went that far as
to dream of ruined castles beside new, glimmering ones;
candles in the Count’s castle going out; strange visions of
the castle’s basement as a dungeon, with many people im-
prisoned inside, barely held alive; skeletons all over the
same dungeon and other rather eerie visions, and when she
would wake up, she could recount those dreams just as
vividly as if she saw these horrors for real.
As Lucia’s wish could not be fulfilled, she withdrew into
an eccentric, melancholy personality. She started wearing
black, and her voice became cracked, at times sounding
almost as if her vocal cords were about to snap, her face
became pallid – in dark, lit by a single candle, she reflected
in poems about the meaninglessness of human life and
even started to mock death – sometimes in iambic pen-
tameter; sometimes in the alexandrine; or in the famous
seven-syllable style oft used by men for railing at women
and chiding them, rather than writing normal love poems –
she railed like no woman before her; her handwriting be-
came overall more similar to Wintersreich’s black letter.
The more Manfredo watched his poor Lucia degenerate
into almost an eidolon of oddity, the cooler he was with
her – further and further removed from her.
At the Gate 5
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

‘Come thou into my working esture, Lucia,’ he said

coldly.
O cruel fate-spurner! She followed Manfredo down the
corridor, then down the stairs, then through the room of
shields to the left, which was a long hallway that led
straight into Manfredo’s working room.
Manfredo was awaiting her there.
‘Thine abhominal behaviour hath led me to think that
thou art devising something.’
‘But father – ’
‘That is Count Manfredo for thee from now on!’ shouted
Manfredo angrily.
‘C-Count Manfredo,’ Lucia stammered, ‘you are incor-
rect. I am still a Human.’
‘A mad one!’ screamed Manfredo, madder than before.
‘Count Manfredo,’ said Lucia, regaining her temper, ‘I
have but one behest – I – I want to be the heir to the
Throne of Poleceny.’
‘That meaneth losing the Name of Aconi,’ said Manfredo,
calming down, but retaining his anger, ‘and I want not to
risk it.’
‘That is an unreasonable fear.’
‘No, no and no! I do not want a daughter! I disherit thee
from now on!’
‘But Count Manfredo, mine heritage is very small – ’
‘Was very small, ingrate! Begone, ingrate knave!’
Lucia said nothing. She just went to her room.
She silently set down verse in the famous, chiding style
of bards she heard singing at inns where Manfredo cele-
brated various occasions, melancholy in humour, but still
affectedly maintaining the same railing style:
O, through Forests I have gadded,
To my sadness I have added.
When I thought my Love was o’er –
Thou hast come yearning for more.
Before thee I can barely say ’t –
My Love for thee doth abate.
At the Gate 6
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

She stopped for a while. She has lost her track of

thoughts.
Then she continued, but in a different style, an alexan-
drine style completely revealing what she thinks.
I am a sad Spright if ye can call me thus –
But if ye do move me, I’m periculous.
And through my Mind’s silence my home I wander,
Many sights disturbing have I seen down under:
Those that I imprisoned for my Peoples good,
Not giving them to drink, nor giving any Food.
I repent, O I repent: I will free them, bless,
O when I do: when I become Cometess.
When she saw what she wrote, she hid the roll of
parchment, so no one notices her mind is uneven. She
looked out the window – it was the dead of the night. She
wasn’t ready for sleep, so she decided to stay awake, and
explore the castle – if somehow her dreams were true.
At the Gate 7
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

The Secret Behind Manfredo

Lucia exited her room into the dark hallway. The moon-
shine illuminated the whole main-foyer somewhat, but not
enough, so that one really had to squint in order to see
what is around him. She sneaked further, trying hard not
to make any noise. The shields on the wall opposite the
wall beside the hallway she was walking looked horrifying
when unlit. Above them was the armour one could, in the
dark, think it was made for a skeleton – the moonshine
illuminated it thus.
She descended the entrance stairs and carefully went
into the second room to the right, thus opposite the room
of shields and Manfredo’s room. There was a long, narrow
staircase in the room. The staircase was lit by a series of
torches above her, so she closed the door to it.
At length she reached a room. It was a big, lit rectangu-
lar room with seven doors. She was in this room before.
She knew where six of the seven doors lead. She decided to
try the seventh door.
Quietly she opened the mysterious seventh door, and in
turn found the room behind it unlit, therefore completely
dark. She took a four-inch candle, lit it up from a torch
that lit the room, and let some hot wax from the candle
drip onto a small saucer from the dinner table in the cen-
tre; then she put the candle onto the hot wax and thus she
got the candle attached to the saucer. She took another
candle from the table, but didn’t light it or attach it to the
saucer. Just for stock.
As she descended the stairs she found various monstrous
engravings glaring out at her. She tried to comfort herself.
The stairs were not cleaned for long and were therefore
thickly covered with dirt.
When Lucia reached the bottom, O what a surprise for
her! The whole of this cellar was a dungeon in which al-
most every other cell was occupied by a skeleton, and in
the cell further away, to the further parts of the dungeon,
At the Gate 8
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

she noticed someone wailing. When she neared him, she

noticed that he was in shackles, and almost dying from
undernourishment.
‘I hear thee, Count,’ he said, with the voice of an old man.
‘Even though I’m blind from the treatment thou givest me,
I can still hear thee.’
‘It is I, Lucia,’ said Lucia in a hushed voice.
‘It’s still the same, Countess Lucia. Ye Counts are all of
the same sort. Villains, each just as evil as the other.’
‘Thou art wrong, I am disinherited – yet I would free
thee, if I could.’
‘My Lady, thanks in advance, but as thou canst see, I am
dying right here. Please ... let me die here.’
Lucia pitied this prisoner whose death was his last wish.
‘Goodbye,’ she said, ‘I will never forget thee.’
She ran away, out of the dungeon and up the stairs. She
extinguished the candle and put it on the table. She closed
the dungeon’s door, the seventh door whose secret she
now revealed.
Then she went up the lit stairs and to the main-foyer.
She closed the door, so nobody could suspect she was
trespassing. She then left up the entrance stairs, up the
hallway and into her room. Then, when she went to bed,
she was sound asleep before she could say ‘dungeon’.
At the Gate 9
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

Manfredo Stands Guard

Lucia’s everyday ventures into the mysterious dungeons
behind the mysterious seventh door continued for a month.
She was never kinder to Count Manfredo, whom she long
since stopped thou-ing, and to him she pretended she knew
nothing about the dungeon behind the seventh door in the
chamber to the left of the entrance; in some way, she man-
aged to silence the passion of her mind and she didn’t even
hint her suppressed wish to become Countess in her po-
ems: all the way, a steady, railing, chiding seven-syllable
style. However, she still wore black, and her voice was still
cracked as if she hasn’t slept since Manfredo disinherited
her. But Manfredo constantly hinted that Lucia was insane
the whole time.
One day, Lucia was left in the castle alone as Manfredo
went for an afternoon nap. However, he told Lucia, ‘I’m
leaving to sleep for the afternoon – and touch thou not any-
thing!’ But she decided to break that order.
Lucia pretended to walk around the castle until Man-
fredo was out of sight. Then she entered Manfredo’s work-
ing room, and opened his diary on the table. It opened on
the last entry. She read the shocking details.
My daughter Lucia, who wanteth to become Cometess
of Poleceny, is now becoming a Lunatic. She weareth
black, e’en her voice hath changed since I disinherited
her a Month ago. She sheweth all the Signs of Melan-
choly. From Now on I shall, I will, watch her Day and
Night to protect my treasure from her Lunacy.
Lucia stopped reading. Does that villain truly think she
is a lunatic? A lunatic couldn’t have discovered the mystery
of the seventh door a month ago.
Night soon fell; Lucia was sent to bed; but she decided
to find a way past Manfredo, and she left her room. There
were no torches burning, probably only to catch her off
At the Gate 10
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

guard, but Manfredo was standing in the entrance room as

she hid behind the pillars that were supporting the hand-
rail. She watched on as Manfredo pointed angrily up the
staircase, but nowhere in particular.
‘I know thou art there, villain!’ he screamed. ‘Come thou
out!’
Lucia didn’t reply. Manfredo exited to Lucia’s left, into
the room next to his working room, his cape sliding qui-
etly behind him. He then muttered something about pris-
oners calming down once they have been in the dungeons
for long. Lucia knew this room had seven doors in it, too,
and one of them had to lead into another dungeon – he
probably heard some shackle-clanking from there. A new
prisoner? It’s times like this Manfredo is of extremely
cranky temper, and Lucia knew that very well.
When Manfredo was out of sight, Lucia went down the
stairs, quickly and without a noise. As she opened the door
of the hallway to the room of seven doors, she heard Man-
fredo coming back, so she quickly entered the room and
closed the door completely. Uh-oh! The door emitted a
little creak. She ran down the hallway to the room of seven
doors, whose illumination torches were still burning, and
the room was awaiting her untouched. Just as she lit the
four-inch candle from the illuminating torch, as she usually
did, she heard Manfredo’s voice.
‘Lucia!’ Manfredo bellowed.
She ran up the stairs again, taking the candle with her as
an alibi, and opened the door to meet up with Manfredo.
‘Where hast thou been?!’ Manfredo cried out at her.
‘I j—just wanted to check your treasure in the Treasury.’
she said, trying to sound natural.
‘And steal some?!’ Manfredo screamed.
‘N—no.’
‘Get thee to bed,’ hissed Manfredo. Lucia obeyed him.
When she was in bed, she quickly fell asleep. She dreamed
uneasily of the prisoner, whose skeletal face now looked
pleading. Then his head melted into that of Count Man-
fredo, saying, ‘Get thee out of my castle.’
At the Gate 11
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

Manfredo Regrets
Winter’s gusts blew stronger and stronger as the har-
vesting period of the Autumn long has ended. Inside the
castle it was pleasantly warm as it started snowing outside.
Lucia was getting bored, leaving her bedroom only to eat.
She showed extreme signs of melancholy and depression.
Her desire to flee the Castle of Poleceny was forming on
and off, but in midwinter it was fully formed by her dream
of Count Manfredo banishing her from the castle.
Lucia put on her black fur cape, took out a scroll of
parchment, one of her very ink-stained quills, and a bottle
of ink. She wrote a note to her father.
Dear Father, Count Manfredo,
I’m not suffering from ne Melancholy ne Lunacy –
neither of mine humours is astray.
What I am experiencing is Sorrow – Sorrow in that,
you might have been so mad with Power, you have be-
come cruel to everyone, including your daughter.
How would you live without her?
She took the note, then went downstairs, sneaked up
into Manfredo’s working room, and left the note there. She
quietly opened the front door and exited the castle. As she
closed the front door, it creaked. She went out through the
castle gate into the streets, partially closing the gate.
Then, Manfredo awoke from his nap and left his bed-
room. Seeing his working room’s door partially open, he
ran downstairs, screaming, ‘Villain! I have an intruder in
my castle! Lucia! Get thee down quick! And bring a parti-
san!’
He ran into his working room with his partisan-spear,
screaming, ‘Lucia!’ and he was most surprised when he
found his working room empty. He found the note on the
table and read it.
At the Gate 12
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

‘Lucia!’ he screamed. Finally realising what has happened,

Manfredo started to chide himself for what he has done.
She would not accept her father good-for-granted? he thought. Am
I, Count Manfredo of Poleceny, that evil in my quintessence?
No he isn’t. ‘Come, happy dagger, stab through my heart
of evil,’ he said, and pulled out his dagger and directed it
towards his heart. But he changed his mind. He opened his
diary, and turning the pages, he found one word – ‘Lunatic’.
He used his dagger to cut out the word. Then he turned
out the diary for every appearance of ‘Lunacy’ or anything
similar, and cut all the words out. Remembering, Lackaday;
what is done cannot be undone, he ran back into his bedroom,
leaving his dagger behind.
He was crying into his bed. He heard almost as if the
birds nearby twittered, syllable by syllable, ‘The one whose
soul is plagued will confess his secrets to the deaf pillow.’
At the Gate 13
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

Manfredo Adopts An Orphan

Manfredo listened to the sentence deep into the night.
Manfredo could no longer stand the derision of the sen-
tence, as he found it making sense if applied to him, so he
dressed and went downstairs. He waited.
It’s of no use, he thought, to stand here in the hall. I want to do
something to atone for mine abhominal, horrible mistake.
He went outside. The air was fresh and cold. His garden
had two eagle statues, and three fountains adorned with
statues of skylarks. The strong winter wind swung the
gate’s wings back and forth; yet he couldn’t help thinking
that he sees someone at the far end.
‘Lucia,’ he lamented, ‘mine heir! I repent for my cruelty!’
He fell to his knees, saying, ‘Alack; thou art forever gone.
I was blinded by power.’
However, no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t
help noticing the shadowy figure outside the gate. He
sneaked carefully towards it; it wasn’t moving. It was just
shivering, cramped partly from the cold.
He daringly proceeded out through the gate, and faced
the figure. It turned out to be a poor abandoned boy, about
eight years old, in a dirty white tunic. He had blond hair,
and a round face; his eyes were a cold grey that showed
traces of green.
‘Good day, young lad; wherefore art thou shuddering?’
said Manfredo.
‘My name is Cesare, and you are ... ?’ he asked in a hoarse
voice that didn’t suit him.
‘I am Count Manfredo Aconi of Poleceny. Wherefore art
thou shuddering?
‘Oh! Sire – may I call you sire? – I’m shuddering because I
have no home, my parents have abandoned me. And even
erst have I lived in poverty.’
‘Marry thou art in t’ right, and I want to take thee to my
castle. From now on, I shall adopt thee as mine heir. It is
thou wilt rule Poleceny when I die. I shall adopt thee as
At the Gate 14
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

mine heir to atone for what I have done, and to express my

pity for thee.’
Count Manfredo and young Cesare went through the
gate, then through the yard, and then they entered the cas-
tle.
At the Gate 15
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

Lucia Wanders The Land

Two months has Lucia wandered throughout the land of
Poleceny, while Cesare was taught manners and politics.
Two months have passed since Count Manfredo Aconi of
Poleceny decreed that an adopted orphan can be an heir to
the Polecenian throne.
She came by a home in the town of Acerbia, which was
not far from the chief city.
The moon illuminated the earth, and the snow left over
from the winter, a ghostly blue. Lucia knocked at the log-
cabin’s mouldy wooden door.
‘Well met, sweet Mistress,’ said the patron.
‘Gramercy, well met,’ replied Lucia.
‘Marry how grey is your mercy, sweet Mistress, to the
same gramercy of melancholy it leadeth!’ the patron joked
as Lucia entered. They must be scholars, Lucia conjectured.
‘Will it not make thee laugh if I said I am of royal blood?’
asked Lucia politely.
‘You are the disinherited Lucia Aconi of Poleceny?’ asked
the patron, surprised. ‘Nay you shall stay with me a guest;
you have entered, so you shall. Besides, my name’s
Domenico.’
Soon Lucia was introduced to every member of the
house.
They accepted her very well. The youngest son, Gustavo,
about the age of eight, was very friendly towards her.
Domenico gave her books to read, and all was well.
But as days passed by, Lucia withdrew further into mel-
ancholy, she couldn’t sleep at night. As months passed,
from this insomnia she became thin, and her skin, once so
healthy with cared life, became so pallid, she looked more
of a spectre than a Countess. Her lustrous, curly blond hair
now fell limply down to her waist like hay. Her voice, once
so melodious, was getting still more cracked, revealing her
insomnia most strikingly. Her blue eyes, once merry and
At the Gate 16
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

healthy, now had blackish circles under them. Her habit of

wearing black only seemed to emphasize her condition.
Eftsoons, the family saw her through the room they gave
her.
She was weeping loudly – it was the noise of her weep-
ing that conjured their attention – and writing a poem in
the iambic pentameter.
If I, as well I said, am a sad Spright,
By Day I do sleep, and I weep by Night.
Methinks these are Humours, and I will methinks guess:
These Humours have struck me if I become Cometess.
They had to interrupt her. They asked her what she was
doing, and she just said, ‘Go ye away!’
‘Why?’ asked the patron.
When he read what she wrote, he got angry at her, but
he told her nothing.
At the Gate 17
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

Lucia Atones
Gustavo asked Lucia the very next morning, hitting on
the wrong spot, ‘Why are you sad enough not to come out
of bed when breakfast is served?’
Lucia sighed, ‘If only thou wouldst know, esquire to the
wrong Count ... there is ne Love ne Life ne family link left
any-more to lift my humours as is the throne of Poleceny ...
a life I am destin’d for.’
Gustavo was thunderstruck. Lucia knew why: it was a
long-cherished custom in this region of Poleceny to train
up children so they be satisfied with what they are. That
was why no overthrowing count ever hailed from Acerbia.
Acerbians called such ambitious persons ‘malapert’, and
were not ashamed at offending them.
‘Thou malapert cut-empire!’ Gustavo’s voice rose. ‘I’ll tell my
father!’ He ran off.
Lucia knew that instant what they were going to do. In a
mere twenty minutes of struggle, she was expelled from
the cabin.
She walked off to the street, hiding from people who did
not recognise her at all. She was wont to mockeries like
this one during her wanderings; had she not told
Domenico she was of royal blood when she first entered
the cabin of the scholarly family that now think she is an
empire-thief, she would undoubtedly be accepted worse
than a boil, a plague-sore, or an embossed carbuncle.
Seven years like this have passed, and still she went from
home to home, from town to town, and she has been called
a cutpurse, a high-stomached recreant mongrel, and a
curst-tongued tosspot. Even inexperienced children
scorned her, thinking her a traitor – to them, thought Lucia,
traitors were as easy as hide fox, and all after: they should have seen
Count Manfredo shackle the spy, take out his sword and in a slash of
it, the spy’s head falls off his shoulders. The mnemonic imagery
made Lucia shudder. No home would fit her and her long-
suppressed needs. Her sorrow made her deteriorate more.
At the Gate 18
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

The more she deteriorated, and the more branches tore

her black dress, the more it was, that even adults consid-
ered her a spy; so she hid in forests, but even there, there
were rude children, who would poke fun at her slim out-
line, gaunt face and traitorous countenance, yet she hid,
and walked on, not knowing where, not knowing why, not
knowing who she is; yet some force in her carried her where
she wants to go with ease.
It seemed, that she knew all the forest paths – no matter
how much she craved to be home, no matter how much
she desired to go away from the hand of Man, no matter
how much she was depressed into an antic disposition
almost bordering with true madness – it seemed, that she
let strong emotions of scorn flow through her like water
through a wild river, forsaking all of her that is Manfredo.
Whether she wanted so or not, the forest path led her
out of the forest, through a city full of children, and to her
home castle – the castle of Poleceny – flag lowered, un-
guarded, with black decorations.
At the Gate 19
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

Lucia’s Return
A great crowd had gathered round the castle, and Lucia
knew it could mean no good. Lucia was the first to enter
the castle, past the gate, the skylark-statue-adorned foun-
tains that were now extinguished, and the two familiar
eagle statues. O the eagle statues! She had run many times
behind them when she was a child; she hid behind them
long ago, when she played hide fox, and all after; she drew
in chalk the Polecenian coat-of-arms on both of their bases,
and each of her attempts is now washed away – after such
acts of vandalism, Count Manfredo would chide her and
threaten her with the dungeon – she never took him seriously.
All the candles in the entrance hall of the Castle of Pole-
ceny were covered with green glass, to fill the room with a
sickly green light. Lucia knew, right when she entered the
castle, that something is amiss.
She went into Count Manfredo’s working room. No one
was there, but it was lit with the same sickly green light.
‘Count Manfredo?’ she asked. No one answered. ‘Father?’
she called desperately. Silence.
She went to her room. It was empty. Her revealing poem
she hid, in which all her hidden rage lay, was untouched.
She called again. No one answered.
She went, then, into Count Manfredo’s bedroom, which
was opposite hers.
There she found Count Manfredo on his deathbed; four
guards, and a youth she did not know, were tending him.
‘Halt,’ the youth stopped Lucia. ‘Why have you come?’
‘Do not be rude towards her ... Cesare,’ said Manfredo in
a dying man’s whisper. ‘She is Lucia Aconi, my true daugh-
ter. Come, Lucia: I regret about all I have done to thee.’
As Cesare withdrew, Lucia proceeded.
‘And I forgive,’ she said, shedding not a tear.
She embraced Manfredo with might and main, kissing
him on the forehead. Released from Lucia’s embrace,
Count Manfredo blinked. The whole castle fell silent.
At the Gate 20
By Dimitrije Ignjatovic

‘Lucia,’ Manfredo whispered, ‘I am dying, and I regret for

disinheriting thee. I give thee back the throne of Poleceny.’
At these words, Manfredo died. It was only then that
Lucia truly wept.
The four guards took Manfredo’s body away for to be
buried, and called other guards to coronate Lucia. When
the crown fell on Lucia’s head, Lucia cast off her absurd
melancholy; and when the coronation was over and Lucia
was led to Manfredo’s working room, she proclaimed Ce-
sare, who was left without heirloom, her Lord Chamberlain.
As we leave these merry rulers, you may wonder, What
is the point of all this? One should never hate; never scorn;
and think about what the true effects of what he has done
will be, before he manages to cut thread and thrum of Life.

The End