The Battle for the Castle (6 page)

Before William could respond, Jason sped away again, shoulders hunched, legs pumping. What would Sir Simon and Tolliver think of him? William wondered.

“It is the same forest, isn't it?” Jason asked the next time he circled back.

“I think so,” William said. “Because of the bikes, we're making really good time, so we should see the river pretty soon.”

“It's just ahead,” Jason said. “Two more bends in the path.”

When they got to the water, they left their bikes in the grass and clambered onto a flat rock. “This is where Sir Simon and I ate lunch,” William explained.

“Lunch,” said Jason. “What a great idea.”

“It's only eleven o'clock.”

“Who cares? I'm starving,” said Jason as he began to unpack his pannier.

Jason munched his way through a bag of potato
chips, three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and two cans of juice before he showed any signs of slowing down.

“Anything else?” he asked hopefully.

William tossed him an apple.

“This is like feeding the animals in the zoo,” he said.

When Jason finished the apple, he stood up. “Watch this,” he said, hurling the core way out into the river.

“Maybe you shouldn't have done that,” William said.

“Why not? It's biodegradable.”

“It's funny, the river looks kind of dirty. It wasn't that way before.” William pulled his binoculars out of his backpack and scanned the surface of the water. “There's all sorts of stuff floating down with the current.”

“I don't see anything. What kind of stuff?” Jason asked.

“Stuff. I can't really tell what it is. There's a slimy trail on top of the water.” He followed it up to the edge of the river. “And white things. Bones,” he added in a low voice.

“Bones?” Jason asked. “You're kidding.”

“See for yourself,” William said, handing him the binoculars. “Over there. They've washed up on the shore where the river bends.”

Jason shoved his glasses up into his hair. It took him a while to refocus the binoculars.

“This is creepy,” he said. “I think they're animal bones, but it's hard to tell from here.”

William took the binoculars back and looked again. “Some of them are pretty big for animal bones.”

“We can't tell whose bones they are from this far away,” Jason muttered. “I don't know about you but I don't plan to hang around and find out.” He started to repack his pannier. William noticed he wasn't doing his usual methodical job but was shoving things in any which way.

“Don't worry, those bones aren't going anywhere,” William said. “Maybe someone went hunting upriver and threw the stripped carcasses in the water. Remember they do things differently here.”

Jason picked up William's backpack and his own pannier and headed back to the bikes. “I think they need a lecture on garbage collection.”

William jumped off the rock into the sand. “Is that a boat out there?” he called to Jason.

“Who cares? Let's roll.”

“No, wait, somebody's floating toward us on a log.”

Jason went on tying his pannier to his bike. William watched as the strange figure drifted closer and closer to the shore.

“Hello,” he called with a wave.

“What is that?” Jason asked as he came to stand beside William.

“It's a man,” William said. “I think.”

The log drifted in close enough so that the creature's feet touched the bottom. Then he flipped one enormously long leg over the log and stood up.

“See?” William said. “It's a man.”

“He looks like a clown,” Jason whispered.

The man was wearing an odd garment, a long-sleeved, purple jumpsuit that was held together in front by brightly colored ribbons. The wide pant legs were so wet that they clung to the man's flesh in dark wrinkled folds. When William looked closely, he could see that the dye from the material was turning the water purple.

“Lobelia petals,” said the man whose curly gray hair stood out around his face like a fuzzy halo.

“Lobelia petals?” William repeated.

“Never can resist the color but the dye doesn't hold,” the fellow said as if this explained everything.

Jason covered his mouth with his hand. “Be careful,” he muttered to William. “He looks crazy.”

The man did a little dance in the sand, perhaps to shake some of the extra water from his clothes. “Deegan's the name,” he said with a bow so deep that his forehead banged right into his wet knees and came up
again with a faint purple stain. “Honorary, temporary, roaming fool, court jester, and erstwhile magician to the leader of this fair land, the Right Honorable Sir Simon of Hargrave, otherwise known as the Silver Knight, my liege and master, though no fool serves a knight that does not make that knight foolish. For what purpose does a fool serve but to remind us of all the folly in the world?” He posed this question to them with such a serious frown on his stained forehead that William felt compelled to answer.

“Why, none, your honor, I mean, Sir Deegan. Except to make us laugh.”

“Precisely. And no Sir about it, half-boy, half-man. Deegan will do. Or your foolship.” And with no warning, he raised his arms and tilted over into a cartwheel which turned into another and another. He was spinning so fast that he looked like a huge purple pinwheel headed directly for them.

“Stop it,” Jason cried. “Stop right there.” William paid no attention to his friend. He was mesmerized by the purple circle rolling toward them, by the rubber man who had called him half-boy, half-man.

Jason muttered something else that William couldn't hear clearly, and then the creature was gone. He had melted into thin air.

“Where'd he go?” William asked.

Jason was stuffing something into the pocket of his shorts when William looked directly at him.

“Give it to me,” William said. He was so angry he felt his throat closing up. The second time he screamed at Jason, louder than he had ever screamed at anybody. “GIVE IT TO ME!”

Jason backed off. “Okay, okay. Don't get so mad. This guy was coming straight for us. He could have hurt us.”

“Now,” William said in a low, threatening growl that surprised even him. He sounded like a chained dog.

Jason reached over and dropped the token and its box into William's palm.

“We've got to find him,” William said. Slowly and carefully he lowered his body to the ground. “You'd better watch where you put your feet. Being buried alive in the sand would be a horrible way to die.”

“Gee,” Jason said, “I didn't think—”

“No,” William said. “I guess you didn't.” He was so angry with Jason that he couldn't look at him. He remembered the time he put a key chain down by his towel on the beach. One minute it was there, the next it was gone. He never found it again.

He used his eyes like minesweepers, back and forth, back and forth, across each minute grain, looking for a purple arm, the gray hair, anything that moved.

“Deegan,” he called over and over again.

Jason had lain down on his stomach on the rock. He hung over the edge, calling out the man's name in a soft, scared voice.

With every passing minute, William panicked a little more. His fingers were itching to start digging, but he knew how easily the sand shifted, how dangerous it would be for the miniature man if William chose the wrong spot. Even though they had only just met, Deegan seemed incredibly important to him all of a sudden.

“Do you see anything?” Jason asked.

William shook his head. But then he did. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a hint of color. The small purple man had found a weed, one of those scrawny ones that grow directly out of the sand, and he was clinging to it. But whenever Deegan tried to put his feet down, the sand would give way and the leaf would dip and he'd bob up and down like a little kid on a trampoline.

“I see him,” William whispered. “But we mustn't scare him. He's grabbed a weed under the shelter of the rock. We can't bring him back to normal size while he's under there. He has to come out first.”

William inched closer and very carefully laid his open right palm in the sand.

“Deegan,” he said quietly.

The man looked wildly around, still swinging on his leaf.

“He looks like Tarzan,” said Jason, who was hanging upside down over the edge of the rock.

“You have to jump onto the palm of my hand,” William explained. “Do you see it?”

The man nodded.

“Now I'm going to move it closer. Don't be scared. I'll be very careful. I promise.”

“What have you done to me?” Deegan called.

“Jason will explain that in a minute,” William said. He slid his palm along the sand until it rested right next to the stem of Deegan's weed. “There now,” William said. “Jump.”

Deegan eyed him warily. “I don't blame you if you don't want to trust us,” William said. “But you don't have much choice right now.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a beetle making its dainty way across the sand toward the little man. Deegan spied it at the same moment and tried to scramble frantically up the swaying leaf.

“Jason,” William said in a quiet voice. “Do you see the beetle headed our way? Get rid of it, will you?”

Jason dropped his hand like a wall between the beetle and the purple man so the insect changed direction abruptly and scuttled away into a dark crevice in the rock.

With that, Deegan finally let go of his leaf and dropped onto William's palm.

“Better sit down,” William said. “My hand isn't very steady.” Deegan folded his legs and sat in a cross-legged
position, looking like a stern little Buddha. William carried him carefully up to the rock.

“Now, stand there without moving,” William explained once Deegan had crawled off his palm. “We'll have you back to your regular size in a second.”

Just as William held out the token, Jason stopped him.

“Can I do it?” he asked. They looked at each other.

“Please,” Jason begged. “I promise I won't mess around this time.”

“All right,” William said at last.

Jason knelt down, pointed the token, and said the magic word. In no time at all, Deegan was towering over them.

“Gee,” Jason said. “You're tall.”

“Tall, yes, but hardly powerful enough against your magic. May I see it?” he asked, holding out his long arm.

Jason glanced at William who nodded his agreement. For some reason which he couldn't explain even to himself, William trusted this strange purple man.

“And where did you procure this dangerous little medallion?” Deegan asked as he turned it over in his own palm.

“From Alastor, an evil wizard who used to rule over this land.”

“And how does it work?”

William explained the symbolism of the two sides of the token.

“Janus who guards the gates of time,” Deegan said after he handed the token back to William. “Now may I know your names?”

Jason was still eyeing Deegan warily. He looked like a cat ready to pounce.

“Remember, Boy Who Looks through Windows,” said Deegan, his head to one side, “a fool does not fight. That's the job of the king and the knight and the noble warrior as you yourself appear to be.”

“These things are called glasses,” Jason said as he pushed them back up on his nose. “And my name is Jason Stubbs Hardy.” Then he drew himself up to his full height. In normal circumstances this was considerable, but, next to this long-legged, purple-garbed man, he didn't look very big anymore. And I must look like a shrimp, William thought.

“I am William Edward Lawrence,” William said.

“William and Jason. Noble names, I believe. Of distinctive lineage. You have come to see my lord, perhaps to challenge him to some silly jousting tournament with those peculiar steeds of yours. They are no doubt resting for the fight now.”

He was referring to the bicycles which lay in cockeyed positions in the grass where the boys had dropped
them. Jason giggled. “They're not the ones who need resting,” he said. “We do.”

“We've come to visit Sir Simon. He's a friend of mine,” William said. “Is he all right?”

“In fine fettle,” said Deegan. “Right pleased with himself, I'd say. Always is when he's off to a fight.”

“A fight?” asked William. “Not another one.”

“Oh, so you do know his penchant for his sword. Dear Sir Simon. Always upholding the name of Hargrave. Such a tiresome task it seems to me, as it will never be finished.” Deegan dropped backward in what looked like a back walkover, but he ended up with his face curling around and looking up at them from between his calves. “Like this, a circle,” he said with an apologetic smile. “Never finished. Round and round.”

“You sure are flexible,” Jason said. “I mean for such a tall person.”

William wished the fool would uncurl himself. Talking to a head which was resting in a place where it wasn't supposed to be made him feel sick to his stomach.

Deegan put his hands down, and with one swift movement, flipped his body over itself and stood up.

“Who will he be fighting this time?” William asked.

“Merely practice. A jousting tournament in a neighboring kingdom,” said Deegan. “The winter was cold and dreary and Sir Simon has been cooped up in the
castle for too long. He fairly itches for travel and adventure.”

“Who will guard the kingdom while he's gone?”

“Dick and young Tolliver and Gudrin. And you two, I expect. That's probably why you're here.”

“How about you?” Jason asked.

“I shall accompany my noble lord. No proper knight goes jousting without his fool in the hopes that he shall make some opponent appear foolish. I'm rather looking forward to it. There shall be a feast of fools and we shall have our own kind of joust. One trickster outdoing another.”