"I'm going to be a little severe with you now, my dear, but that's simply to make sure you won't make another mistake in the future, all right?"

The woman was so business-like that Allison fell some of her anxiety fading away. She followed the headmistress down a long corridor, her blonde hair flowing behind her narrow shoulders. In a moment she found herself in the back of the castle. The bright sunlight hurt her eyes for a moment.

"I… I don't think I've ever been here before," Allison said, looking all around.

"Not too many have, Allison. Only the help and one or two of the girls."

Allison saw the courtyard was walled in. It was huge, probably covering half an acre of ground. At the two corners of the walls were two large towers soaring up to high peaks. She had seen these towers from the road and had wondered as to their use. She had tried to find out from her companions and her teachers but no one seemed to know or really care.

"Did you study any medieval history in your high school?" Erika said, walking slowly before the girl, her hands clasped behind her back. She was staring up at the walls, her eyes gleaming with something like excitement.

"A little," Allison confessed, fascinated with the massive construction confronting her.

"Then you know this was a bailey. It's the courtyard of the inner fortifications. The founder of this school, Birgit Nileson, had the stones shipped from Denmark piece by piece. Some of the stones were lost, so this part of the castle is slightly modified. This is the keep…" Erika pointed, moving toward another part of the courtyard.

"What?"

"It's the mast heavily fortified building in the castle. It housed four hundred men and women rather comfortably, although now we store things in it. You girls live considerably better now in your dorms than the highest nobility did in those days."