فصل 6

Six: The Castle of the Red Tower

Henry and Beanpole had realized, the morning after my collapse, that I was not well enough to travel. They could, of course, have left me and gone on by themselves. Barring that, they had a choice either of dragging me farther away from the farmhouse, or of staying in the hut and hoping not to be observed. As far as the first was concerned, there was no other shelter in sight and, although the rain had stopped, the weather was not promising. And the hut did not look as though it were used much. Anyway, they decided to stay where they were. In the early morning they crept out and got more plums and cherries and returned to the hut to eat them.

The men with the dogs came an hour or two later. They were never sure whether this was by accident, whether they had been seen earlier and their return to the hut marked, or whether Beanpole had left signs of his entry into the dairy and, with the cheese missing, the men were making a routine check of the outbuildings. What mattered was that the men were at the door, and a dog with them—an ugly brute, standing as high as a small donkey, its teeth bared in a snarl. There was nothing they could do but surrender.

Beanpole had previously worked out an emergency plan for a situation such as this, to get over the difficulty that neither I nor Henry spoke his language. We were to be cousins of his and both deaf-mutes—we were to say nothing, and pretend we could hear nothing. This is what happened; simple enough as far as I was concerned since I was unconscious. It had been Beanpole’s idea that this would allay suspicion so that, even if they kept us prisoner, they would not put too strong a guard on us, giving us a better chance of escaping when opportunity offered. I do not know if it would have worked—certainly I was in no state to make an escape from anything—but it fell out that things took a very different turn from anything we had envisioned. It just so happened that, on that particular morning, the Comtesse de la Tour Rouge was making a progress through the district and called with her retinue at the farm.

Care of the sick, and the distribution of largesse, were customary with ladies of the nobility and gentry: when Sir Geoffrey’s wife, Lady May, was alive, she used to do this around Wherton: one of my earliest memories was of receiving from her a big red apple and a sugar pig, and touching my cap in reply. With the Comtesse, though, as I grew to know, generosity and care of others was not a matter of duty but sprang from her own nature. She was a gentle and kind person in herself and suffering in another creature—human or animal—was a grief to her. The farmer’s wife had scalded her legs weeks before and was now quite recovered, but the Comtesse needed to reassure herself of that. At the farm she was told of the three boys who had been caught hiding—two of them deaf-mutes and one of those in a fever. She took charge of us all right away.

It was a sizable company. Nine or ten of her ladies were with her, and three knights had ridden out with them. There were also esquires and grooms. Beanpole and Henry were put up in front of grooms, but I was set on the saddle-bow of one of the knights, with his belt tied around to keep me from slipping off. I remember nothing of the journey, which is perhaps as well. It was more than ten miles back to the castle, a good deal of it over rough country.

The face bending over me when I awoke was that of the Comtesse’s daughter, Eloise.

Le Château de la Tour Rouge stands on high ground, overlooking a confluence of two rivers. It is very ancient, but has had old parts rebuilt and others added from time to time. The tower itself is new, I fancy, because it is of a strange red stone quite unlike the stones used elsewhere in the building. In it are the staterooms and the rooms of the family, where I was put to bed.

The tower is freestanding on the side that looks down to the river and the plain, but other buildings adjoin at the rear and on either side. There are the kitchens, storerooms, servants’ quarters, kennels, stables, forge—all the workaday places. And the knights’ quarters, which are well-kept and decorated houses though at this time only three unmarried knights were living in them, the rest having their own houses within easy reach of the castle.

Part of the knights’ quarters was given up to the esquires. These were boys, the sons of knights mostly, who were being trained to knighthood, and Henry and Beanpole, by the orders of the Comtesse, were put among them. They quickly realized that there was no immediate danger of being taken for Capping, and decided to wait and see what happened.

For me, meanwhile, there was the confusion of sickness and delirium. They told me later that I was in a fever for four days. I was aware of strange faces, particularly of the dark-eyed face beneath the blue turban, which gradually became familiar. My sleep, by degrees, became more restful, the world into which I awakened less incoherent and distorted. Until I awoke, feeling myself again, though weak, and the Comtesse was sitting beside my bed, with Eloise standing a little further off.

The Comtesse smiled, and said, “Are you better now?”

A resolution I must keep … Of course. I must not talk. I was a deaf-mute. Like Henry. Where was Henry? My eyes searched the room. At the high window, curtains moved in a breeze. I could hear voices from outside, and the clang of iron.

“Will,” the Comtesse said, “you have been very ill, but you are better now. You need only to grow strong.”

I must not talk … And yet—she had called me by my name! And was speaking to me in English.

She smiled again. “We know the secret. Your friends are all right. Henry and Zhan-pole—Beanpole, as you call him.”

There was no point in going on pretending. I said, “They told you?”

“In a fever, it is not possible to control one’s tongue. You were determined not to talk, and said so, aloud. In the English speech.” I turned my head away, in shame. The Comtesse said, “It does not matter. Will, look at me.”

Her voice, soft but strong, compelled me to turn my head, and I saw her properly for the first time. Her face was too long for her ever to have been beautiful, but it had a gentleness that was lovely, and her smile glowed. Her hair curled around her shoulders, deep black but touched with white, the silvery lines of the Cap showing above the high forehead. She had large, gray, honest eyes.

I asked, “Can I see them?”

“Of course you can. Eloise will tell them to come.”

They left the three of us alone. I said, “I gave it away. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

Henry said, “You couldn’t help it. Are you all right now?”

“Not bad. What are they going to do with us?”

“Nothing, as far as I can see.” He nodded at Beanpole. “He knows more than I do.”

Beanpole said, “They are not like the villagers, or townsmen. The villagers, finding us, might have called the Tripods, but these not. They think it good for boys to leave their homes. Their own sons go far away.” I suppose I was a little confused still. I said, “Then they might help us!”

Beanpole shook his head, sunlight flashing from the lenses in front of his eyes.

“No. After all, they are Capped. They have different customs, but they obey the Tripods. They are still slaves. They treat us kindly, but they must not know our plans.” I said, with a new alarm, “If I talked … I might have said something about the White Mountains.”

Beanpole shrugged. “If so, they have thought it was a fever dream. They suspect nothing, believing only that we are wanderers, you two from the land beyond the sea. Henry took the map, from your jacket. We have it safe.” I had been thinking hard. I said, “Then you’d better make a break for it, while you can.”

“No. It will be weeks before you are fit to travel.”

“But you two can get away. I’ll follow when I am able. I remember the map well enough.”

Henry said to Beanpole, “It might be a good idea.”

I felt a pang at that. For me to suggest it was noble self-sacrifice; having the proposal accepted without demur was less pleasant. Beanpole said, “That is not good. If two go, leaving the other, perhaps they will start to wonder. They may come hunting for us. They have horses, and enjoy to hunt. A change from deer or foxes, no?” “What do you suggest, then?” Henry asked. I could see he was not persuaded. “If we stay, they’ll Cap us eventually.”

“That is why staying is better for now,” Beanpole said. “I have been talking with some of the boys. In a few weeks there is the tournament.” “The tournament?” I asked.

“It is held twice a year,” Beanpole said, “in spring and summer. They have feasts, games, contests and jousting between the knights. It lasts five days, and at the end is their Capping Day.” “And if we are still here then …,” Henry said.

“We are offered for Capping. True. But we will not be here. You will be strong by then, Will. And during the time of the tournament there is always much confusion. We can get away, and not be missed for a day, perhaps two or three. Also, having more exciting things to do here at the castle, I think they will not trouble to hunt us anyway.” Henry said, “You mean, do nothing till then?”

“This is sensible.”

I saw that it was. It also relieved me from the thought, more terrifying the more I contemplated it, of being abandoned. I said, trying to make my voice sound indifferent: “You two must decide.”

Henry said reluctantly, “I suppose it is the best thing.”

The boys came up to me from time to time, but I saw more of the Comtesse, and Eloise. Occasionally, the Comte looked in. He was a big, ugly man, who had, I learned, a great reputation for bravery, in tournaments and at the hunt. (Once, unhorsed, he had met a huge wild boar face to face, and killed it with his dagger.) With me he was awkward but amiable, given to poor jokes at which he laughed a lot. He spoke a little English, too, but badly, so that often I could not understand him: mastery of other tongues was regarded as an accomplishment better suited to the ladies.

I had known very little about the nobility before this. At Wherton, the servants from the Manor House kept to themselves, not mixing much with people from the village. Now I saw them at close quarters and, lying in bed, had time to think about them, and particularly about their attitude toward the Tripods. As Beanpole had suggested, it was not, in essence, different from that of humbler people. Take, for, instance, their tolerance of boys running away from home. This would not have been the case with villagers, either here or at Wherton, but that was because their lives were of another pattern: the sea captains at Rumney took to the notion well enough. To the nobility, it was right that ladies should be gracious and accomplished in certain things, and that men should be brave. There were no wars, as there had once been, but there were a number of ways in which courage could be shown. And a boy who ran away from his humdrum life, even though not noble, in their view displayed spirit.

The bitter thing was that all the spirit, all the gallantry, was wasted. For even more than their inferiors, they accepted and looked forward to being Capped. It was a part of becoming a knight, or of turning from girl to lady. Thinking of this, I saw how good things could be meaningless in isolation. What value did courage have, without a free and challenging mind to direct it?

Eloise taught me how to speak their language. It was easier than I expected; we had plenty of time at our disposal, and she was a patient teacher. Pronouncing the words gave me the most difficulty—I had to learn to make sounds in my nose and sometimes despaired of getting them right. Beanpole’s name, I learned, was not Zhan-pole, but Jean-Paul, and even those simple syllables took some mastering.

I was allowed up after a few days. My old clothes had disappeared and I was given new ones. These consisted of sandals, undergarments, a pair of shorts and a shirt, but they were of much finer material than I had been used to and were more colorful; the shorts were a creamy color and the shirt, on that first day, was dark red. I found to my surprise that they were taken away each night for laundering and replaced by fresh.

Eloise and I wandered about the rooms and grounds of the castle contentedly. At home, I had not mixed much with girls, and had been ill at ease when I could not avoid their company, but with her I felt no strain nor awkwardness. Her English, like her mother’s was very good, but soon she insisted on speaking to me in her own tongue. By this means, I picked up things quickly. She would point to the window, and I would say, “la fenêtre,” or beyond, and I would say, “le ciel.” I was still supposed not to be well enough to join the other boys. If I had made a fuss, I imagine I might have been permitted to do so, but I accepted the situation willingly. Being docile at the moment would improve our chance of escaping later. And it seemed ungenerous to rebuff Eloise’s kindness. She was the only child of the Comte and Comtesse remaining in the castle, her two brothers being esquires at the house of a great Duke in the south, and she did not seem to have friends among the other girls. I gathered she had been lonely.

There was another reason, too. It still rankled that Henry should have displaced me with Beanpole, and when I ran into them I had an impression of a companionship, a complicity, which I did not share. Their life, of course, was quite different from mine. It is even possible they were a little jealous of the cosseting I was getting. What was certain was that we had little to talk about as far as our present existences were concerned and could not, for safety, discuss the more important enterprise which we did have in common.

So I willingly turned from them to Eloise. She had, like her mother, a soothing gentleness. Like her, she had a deep feeling for all living creatures, from the people about her to the hens that scratched in the dust outside the servants’ quarters. Her smile was her mother’s, but that was the only real physical likeness. For Eloise was pretty, not only when she smiled but in the stillness of repose. She had a small oval face, with an ivory skin that could flush a strange, delicate color, and deep brown eyes.

I wondered about the color of her hair. She always wore the same turban-like cap, covering her head completely. One day I asked her about it. I put the question in my halting French, and either she did not understand me, or affected not to; so I asked her bluntly, in English. She said something then, but in her own language and too fast for me to grasp the meaning.

We were standing in the small triangular garden, formed by the castle’s prow where it jutted out toward the river. There was no one else in sight, no sound except from the birds and some of the esquires shouting as they rode across the tilt-yard behind us. I was irritated by her evasiveness, and I made a grab, half-playful, half-annoyed, at the turban. It came away at my touch. And Eloise stood before me, her head covered by a short dark fuzz of hair, and by the silver mesh of the Cap.

It was a possibility that had not occurred to me. Being fairly small of stature, I had the habit of assuming that anyone older than myself must be taller, and she was an inch or two shorter than I. Her features, too, were small and delicate. I stared at her, dumbfounded, blushing, as she was, but fiery red rather than the faint flush of rose.

I realized from her reaction that I had done something outrageous, but I did not know how outrageous. For girls, as I have said, Capping was a part of the process of becoming a lady. When she had recovered herself, and wound the turban back on, Eloise explained something of this, speaking in English so that I would be sure to understand her fully. Here girls wore turbans for the ceremony, and were returned by the Tripods still wearing them. For six months after that, no one, not even the Comtesse, was supposed to see her naked head. At the end of that time, a special ball would be held, and there, for the first time since the Capping, she would show herself. And I had torn the turban from her, as I would have pulled off a boy’s cap, fooling about in school!

She spoke not in anger or reproach, but patiently. She felt a great shame that I had seen her head, but her real concern was for what might have happened to me if the incident had been seen by others. A severe flogging would have been the first, but probably not the last of my punishments. It was said that a man had been killed once for such an offense.

My feelings, as I listened, were mixed. There was some gratitude for her wanting to protect me: but resentment, too, at being judged, even gently, by a code of conduct which meant nothing to me. At Wherton the girls, like the boys, had come back bare-headed from Capping. My feelings about Eloise herself were also jumbled and uncertain. I had traveled a long road since leaving the village, not only in hard reality but in my attitude toward people. More and more I had come to see the Capped as lacking what seemed to me the essence of humanity, the vital spark of defiance against the rulers of the world. And I had despised them for it—despised even, for all their kindness to me and their goodness, the Comte and Comtesse.

But not Eloise. I had thought her free, like myself. I might even have come to the idea—its beginnings, I think, were in my mind already—that when we set off once more for the White Mountains, there might not be three of us, but four. All this was rendered futile by the sight of her bare head. I had come to think of her as my friend: perhaps more. But now I knew that she belonged, irretrievably, body and soul, to the Enemy.

The episode disturbed us both a great deal. For Eloise there had been two blows—to her modesty, and to her idea of me. My snatching at her turban had shocked her. Even though she knew it was done in ignorance, it was the mark, in her eyes, of a barbarian; and a barbarian in one thing is likely to be barbarous in others. She was uncertain of me.

With me, what had emerged was not uncertainty, but the reverse. Nothing could come of my friendship with her: a hard black line had been scored across it. The only thing to do was forget about it and concentrate on the important thing, which was getting to the White Mountains. I saw Henry and Beanpole later that day, and suggested we should make a break at once: I was sure I was strong enough to travel. But Beanpole was insistent on waiting for the tournament, and this time Henry backed him up wholeheartedly. I was angry, and disappointed—I had expected him to support me. It was the alliance again, and again I was excluded. I left them abruptly.

On the stairs, I met the Comte, who grinned at me, slapped me heavily on the back, and said that I looked better but still needed fattening. I must eat plenty of venison. There was nothing like venison for building up the skinny ones. I went on up to the parlor and found Eloise there, her face golden in the lamplight. She smiled at me in welcome. Uncertainty could not affect her constancy and loyalty; they were so deeply ingrained in her nature.

So we continued our companionship, though there was a new wariness between us. Now that I was stronger, we could range farther afield. Horses were saddled for us, and we rode out of the castle gates and down the hill into meadows thick with summer flowers. I knew how to ride, after a fashion, and I soon became proficient, as I was rapidly becoming proficient in the language of this country.

There were some days of cloud and rain, but more of sunshine, in which we rode through warm scented land, or, dismounting, sat and watched the river where the trout leapt, silver out of silver. We visited houses of the knights, and were given fruit drinks and little creamy cakes by their ladies. In the evenings we would sit in the Comtesse’s parlor, talking to her or listening to her while she sang, to the accompaniment of a round long-necked instrument whose strings she plucked. Often, while we were there, the Comte would come in, and stay with us, for once quiet.

The Comte and Comtesse made it plain that they liked me. I think it was partly because of their sons having gone away. This was the custom, and it would not have occurred to them to challenge it, but they grieved for their absence. There were other boys in the castle of noble stock, but they lived in the knights’ quarters, only joining the family for supper, which was served in the hall at a table where thirty or forty dined at once. I, through being ill and brought into the tower, had become a part of the family as they had never been.

But although I knew they were fond of me, a conversation I had with the Comtesse one day startled me. We were alone together, since Eloise was having a dress fitted. She was embroidering a piece of cloth, and I was watching in fascination the way her fingers moved, deftly and swiftly, making the tiny stitches. She talked as she worked, her voice low and warm, with a slight huskiness that Eloise also had. She asked about my health—I told her I was very well—and if I were happy at the castle. I assured her that I was. Then she said: “I am glad of that. Perhaps if you are happy, you will not want to leave us.”

It had been taken for granted that the three of us would be presented at the Capping Day following the tournament. The assumption had been that after that, the restlessness of our boyhood having departed, we would return to our homes to take up the life that was expected of us as adults. It puzzled me to hear the Comtesse speak of not wanting to leave.

She went on, “Your friends, I think, would wish to go. Room could be found for them, as servants, but I feel they would be happier in their own villages. For you, though, it is different.” I looked from her hands to her face.

“How, my Lady?”

“You are not noble, but nobility can be granted. It lies in the gift of the King, and the King is my cousin.” She smiled. “You did not know that? He owes me a debt for a whipping I saved him when he was an un-Capped boy, like you. There will be no difficulty about this, Guillaume.” Guillaume was their way of saying my name. She had told me that, but she had never used it to address me before. My head was spinning a little. Even though I had grown used to the castle and the life that was lived here, it still did not seem entirely real to me. And this talk of kings … There was a king in England, too, who lived somewhere in the north. I had never seen him, nor ever expected to.

She was telling me that I could stay—that she wanted me to stay—not as a servant but as a knight. I could have servants of my own, and horses, an armor made for me so that I could ride in the tournaments, and a place in the family of the Comte de la Tour Rouge. I looked at her, and knew that she was quite in earnest. I did not know what to say.

The Comtesse smiled, and said, “We can talk of this again, Guillaume. There is no hurry.”

It is not easy to write about what followed.

My first reaction to what the Comtesse had said was of being flattered, but not impressed. Was I to abandon my hope of freedom, surrender the mastery of my mind, for the sake of wearing jeweled leather and having other men touch their caps to me? The notion was absurd. Whatever privileges I was given, I would still be a sheep among sheep. In the morning, though, waking early, I thought of it again. I rejected it again, too, firmly but less quickly, and with a feeling of being virtuous in doing so. To accept would be to let down the others—Henry and Beanpole, the Vagrant Ozymandias, Captain Curtis, all the free men in the White Mountains. I would not do that: nothing would tempt me to it.

The insidious thing was that temptation should have entered into it at all. From the moment the idea ceased to be unthinkable, I could not let it alone. Of course, I was not going to do it, but if … My mind ran on the possibilities, despite myself. I had already learned enough of the language to be able to talk, though in an accent they smiled at, with others in the castle. There was, it seemed, so much to look forward to. After the tournament there would be the Harvest Feast, and then the hunting. They spoke of riding out on sharp autumn mornings, with frost making the grass crackle around the horses’ legs, of the hounds baying along the hillside, the chase and the kill, and jogging home to blazing fires and meat carved from the spit turning in the great hearth of the dining hall. And later, the Christmas Feast, lasting twelve days, when the jugglers and singers and strolling players came. Then the spring, and hawking: loosing the falcon to wheel up into the empty blue and plunge down out of it like a bolt on her prey. And so summer, and the tournaments again, filling out the year.

During this time, too, my attitude to the people around me was changing. In Wherton, the division between boy and man was drawn more sharply than here. All adults there, even my parents, had been strangers. I had respected them, admired or feared them, even loved them, but I had not known them as I was coming to know those at the castle. And the better I knew them, the harder it was to make a sweeping condemnation. They were Capped, they accepted the Tripods and all they stood for, but that did not prevent them from being, as I had seen in the Comte and Comtesse and Eloise and now in others, warmhearted, generous and brave. And happy.

For that, it increasingly seemed to me, was the crux of it. Before Capping there might be doubts and uncertainties and revulsion; perhaps these people had known them, too. When the Cap was put on, the doubts vanished. How great a loss was that? Was it a loss at all? The Tripods, apart from the act of Capping itself, did not seem to interfere much with men. There had been the incident at sea, when they had threatened to swamp the Orion. Ships had been sunk by them, Captain Curtis had said—but how many more had been sunk by tempests, or through striking rocks? Ozymandias had spoken of men working in mines underground to get metals for the Tripods, of the Tripods hunting men, of human beings serving them in their cities. But even if those things were true, they must happen far away. None of it touched this secure and pleasant life.

Again and again I returned to the most important consideration: loyalty to Henry and Beanpole and the others. But even that, as the days went by, proved less convincing. In an attempt to reassure myself, I began to seek the other two out. I broached again the idea of our escaping at once, but they turned it down flatly. I had the impression that they did not much want to talk to me, and were impatient for me to leave them. I would go away, resenting their coolness but perhaps also a little glad of it. If one is seeking reasons for disloyalty, it is useful to find something one can resent.

And there was Eloise. We walked and rode and talked together, and gradually the wariness and constraint that had come between us after the incident in the garden was overlaid and buried by the daily commerce of our friendship: we were at ease again, contented with each other’s company. One day I took a boat, and rowed upriver to an island we had seen, and we picnicked there. It was a hot day, but cool in the long grass under the shade of the trees, and dragonflies and red and yellow butterflies danced in the air above the tumbling water. I had not spoken to her of what the Comtesse had said, but she herself mentioned it. She took it for granted that I would stay, and I felt a strange shock of pleasure at that. A future here, in this rich lovely country, in the castle, with Eloise … Providing the Capping was a success, I reminded myself. But why should it not be? Captain Curtis’s warning belonged to the time when this language had been meaningless gibberish to me. Now, even though I was still far from speaking it perfectly, I understood it. Nor was I likely to become a Vagrant through resisting, when there was so much to gain by acquiescence.

I reminded myself of something else—of what I had thought as I lay in bed, recovering from the fever. That nothing mattered, nothing was of value, without a mind that challenged and inquired. The mood seemed far away, unreal. The Tripods had conquered men when they were at the height of their power and magnificence, capable of building the great-cities, ships as big as a village, perhaps vaster wonders still. If our ancestors, with all their strength, had failed, how pitiful was the defiance of a handful of men clinging to the slopes of barren mountains. And if there were no hope of defeating them, what were the true alternatives? To live wretchedly, like a hunted animal, suffering hardship and despair—or this life, with its fullness and security and happiness.

Rowing back, I found the Watch slipping down to my wrist, hampering my efforts. I had thought at first that the Comtesse and others might be curious about it and want to know how a boy had come by such a possession; but they had shown no interest at all in it. They kept no relics of the skill of the ancients, and time meant nothing to them. There was a sundial in the courtyard, and that was enough. Now, resting on my oars, I took the Watch off and, asking her to look after it for me, tossed it to Eloise. But either I threw it badly or she mishandled the catching: it fell over the side. I had one glimpse of it before it vanished in the green depths. Eloise was distressed, and I comforted her, telling her not to worry: it was no loss. Nor, at that moment, was it.

The time of the tournament was fast approaching. There was an air of excitement and bustle. Great tents were set up in the meadows below, for those who could not be housed in the castle itself. From morning till night the air rang with the sound of armorers, the tiltyard with cries as the mock-jousts went on. I took a hand myself, and found I could hit the ring tolerably well, riding with my knees.

My mind still worried at the subject. The point of loyalty, for instance. Loyalty to whom? The men in the White Mountains did not even know of my existence—to Ozymandias and Captain Curtis I had been just another boy to be sent south, one of dozens. And Henry and Beanpole? Did they want me with them, anyway? They did not give the impression of doing so. Would they not rather be on their own?

The first morning it rained, but the sky cleared for the afternoon and the preliminary jousts took place. I saw Henry and Beanpole afterward, on the trampled field where servants were picking up and clearing away the litter. The castle walls, and the hard finger of the tower, stood out against the setting sun.

Beanpole explained: early next morning was the time to make a break, at dawn, before the kitchen servants were awake. They had put food aside, in their packs. Mine had disappeared, along with my old clothes, but it did not matter, Beanpole said, if I could not find it or anything similar: they had enough for me as well. I was to meet them below the castle gate, at the appointed time.

I shook my head. “I’m not coming.”

Beanpole asked, “Why, Will?”

Henry said nothing, but stood with a smile on his broad face, that I felt I hated, at this moment, even more than I had at home in Wherton. His thoughts, and contempt, were plain.

I said, “If you two go there is a chance you will not be missed, things being confused as they are. But I will be. They will notice that I am not at breakfast, and look for me.” Henry said, “True enough, Beanpole. The Comte is bound to miss his adopted son.”

I had not realized that that suggestion had leaked out, though I suppose it was inevitable that it should. Beanpole stared at me, his eyes showing nothing behind the lenses.

I said, “I’ll give you a day to get clear, two perhaps. I’ll follow. I’ll try to catch up with you; but don’t wait for me.” Henry laughed. “We won’t!”

I was telling myself that I had still not come to a decision. It was true that it would be easier for the others to get clear without me, and true that I could follow on after—I knew the map by heart. But true also that tomorrow, on the second day, the Queen of the Tournament was chosen by the assembled knights. And I was sure the choice would fall on Eloise, not because she was the Comte’s only daughter, but because, without doubt, she was the most beautiful that would be there.

Beanpole said slowly, “Very well. Perhaps it is best.”

I said, “Good luck.”

“And you.” His head shook slightly. “Good luck, Will.”

I turned, and walked up the hill to the castle. I heard Henry say something I did not catch, but I did not look back.