The Battle for the Castle (7 page)

“Who's Gudrin?” asked William.

“Tolliver's cousin, Dick's niece. We had a terrible plague of the milk sickness last year, and Dick's wife and her sister died on the same day.” Deegan leaned over and picked two wet leaves from between his toes.

“Is Calendar still alive?”

“So many questions,” Deegan said with a frown. “No, the poor soul. She was sent to live in a convent just the other side of the forest. With the Sisters of the Holy Cross. She died there not long ago. Some people say that at the end she had gone quite mad.”

“Mad?” William asked.

“Crazy in the head, not right.” Deegan tapped his own head with a skinny finger one, two, three times, like a woodpecker driving a hole into the bark of a tree.
And every time he tapped, his head moved a little more to the left until he ended up with one ear resting on his shoulder. “Foolish,” he added, grinning at them from this sideways position.

Nobody said anything more until Jason broke the silence. “Time to get moving,” he announced. “We want to make the castle by nightfall.”

“Easily done,” Deegan said with a shake of his shoulders. “I shall go along with you. I was sent to find Gudrin. She's been out in the fields hunting herbs for two days and Dick wants her home.”

“If you keep your feet up, you might be able to ride on the handlebars,” Jason said, picking up his bike.

“A kind offer, dear sir, but I think not.” Deegan was eyeing the bicycle a little nervously, William thought.

“Go on ahead,” William said to Jason. “I'll walk my bike for a while.” Jason pushed off, obviously happy to be moving again.

Once they had gone a little way down the path, Deegan said, “You are
the
boy, aren't you?”

“You said half-man and half-boy,” said William.

“True. But you are the boy from before. The one they speak about. Muggins. Legendary vanquisher of Alastor. The tumbling fool. The best disguise of all, in my opinion.”

A little shiver of excitement ran down William's
back. So they hadn't forgotten. He was a legend. He wished Deegan had said this in front of Jason. “Yes,” he said, trying to look modest but not feeling it one bit. “I am that boy.”

“And are you still a tumbler?”

“Not as good as I used to be. I'm getting too old for it.”

“Half-boy and half-man,” said the fool again. “I never made it across from one side to the other. I shall tumble and fool my life away.” He did a quick handstand. His bare dirty toes wiggled along in the air like upraised hands until he righted himself.

“So Tolliver and this Gudrin both lost their mothers and their grandmother in one year,” William said slowly.

“It has not been an easy time,” Deegan said. “And Dick's taken it the hardest of all. He has moments when he acts like his old self, but the losses in his family have aged him. I expect we shall be needing your help in the days to come.” The fool's face grew quite serious.

“For what?”

The tall man shrugged. “Nobody knows precisely. Calendar tried to warn us before she died, but then visions are often mistaken for madness. That's why Sir Simon had her sent to the convent. Her ‘fits,' as he called them, made him uneasy. But Gudrin believed
her. And there have been signs. Omens. Portents.”

“Bones in the river,” William said.

“Ah, I see you have sharp eyes.”

“What other portents?”

“A ship blown in on an ill wind at high tide. Not a ship but a coffin with a cargo of skeletons.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Bones to hold the tiller and bones to hoist the sails. Not a pretty sight. But Sir Simon had it towed out to sea again and will hear no more about it, mind you. He says Gudrin is a young and foolish girl, and of course foolishness is my trade. A fool is put on this earth to make a body laugh. Sir Simon says my fooling has grown too serious of late. Perhaps he is right. Enough of this.”

For a moment, William could think of nothing to say. The sun had slipped behind a cloud and the sudden breeze felt chilly.

He heard a shout from Jason in the distance.

“Go on,” Deegan said. “I want to see you ride that silly contrivance. I'll catch up.”

By the time William caught up with Jason, he was standing by a wall talking to a skinny girl. She had straight hair that tumbled over her shoulders in tangled blond lumps. On her lap she held a basket filled with plants that looked as if they had just been pulled out of the ground. She stared at William as he pushed his bicycle through the tall grass toward her.

“You must be Gudrin,” William said.

She nodded. “How do you know my name?”

“We met your friend Deegan in the forest. He's coming along behind. Your uncle wants you home.”

“I do wish they would leave me be,” she grumbled. “They should be paying more attention to roving visitors with peculiar metal horses.”

Jason caught William's eye. “I tried to explain about the bikes,” he said.

William turned back to Gudrin. “I have visited your land before,” he said. “My name is William Edward Lawrence. Sir Simon is a good friend of mine.”

The girl just kept on staring.

“Muggins,” he added hopefully.

“Muggins yourself,” she said, wrinkling up her nose as if something smelled bad. “Never heard of you.”

“I played the fool Muggins. The one who defeated Alastor.”

“I have heard tales about that time,” she said. “But I didn't live in the castle then.” She slid off the wall just as Deegan came trotting up.

“So you have met,” he said.

“That we have,” said Gudrin. “And I understand you've been sent to fetch me. I do tire of Uncle treating me like a child, Deegan.”

“Sir Simon is leaving tomorrow,” Deegan explained. “I expect Dick wishes to have you safe in the castle before then.”

“Whatever for?” Gudrin asked, her voice sweetly syrupy. “According to him, there is no danger to be feared in our fair land.” Her eyes narrowed. “Have you seen the bones?”

“Yes,” he said. “I came down the river. It was not a pretty sight. Offal and bones.”

“Something is amiss,” she said. Her eyes slid around to William.

“We saw them too,” William said quickly.

“Enough of this,” she declared with a toss of her head. “I expect we should be off.”

As usual Jason rode ahead. William walked his bike alongside Deegan and Gudrin, who had fallen into earnest conversation.

“William knew your grandmother well,” Deegan said. “Tell him what she said.”

“Can he be trusted?” Gudrin asked. “Will he think me mad?”

William didn't like them talking about him as if he weren't there. “Yes, I can be trusted and no, I won't think you mad. Calendar and I went through a lot together,” he said. “Without her, I would never have known how to defeat the wizard.”

“There,” said Deegan. “An honest answer.”

“Before she died, my grandmother tried to warn us of some terrible danger that was coming,” Gudrin explained. “She said it would rise up and destroy us all, that it would be worse than anything we had seen before.”

“What kind of danger?” William asked.

“It was hard to make sense of it,” Gudrin said wearily. “Sometimes she spoke in riddles and at other times, quite plainly. Toward the end, when she saw that Deegan and I were the only two who believed her,
she grew more desperate. In those days, she acted almost as if she were possessed by the devil himself. Her eyes would get huge and a high-pitched shrieking voice would come out of her mouth. That's when Sir Simon had her sent down to the convent.”

“What did she chant?”

Gudrin and Deegan exchanged a look.

“Do you remember it?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. Her voice sounded tired.

Come to ravage

Come to kill

Bones will crack

Blood will spill

Babies' cries

Old men's eyes

Nothing left

To feed the flies
.

Evil lurking, evil rising

Washed in with the tide

Never satisfied

Till we all have died
.

“But what is it?” William asked. All this mumbo-jumbo talk was giving him the creeps. “What are we supposed to be looking for?”

Gudrin shrugged. “Who knows? Nothing good, I warrant you that. And there have been signs lately that all is not right in the land. Sir Simon dismisses it as the prattlings of a foolish girl. Even when the ship came, he ignored it.”

“Deegan told me about the ship,” William said. He looked around but Deegan had disappeared. “Where did he go?”

“He comes and goes with no warning, to suit his pleasure,” Gudrin said. “You never know where he'll turn up next.” She shuddered as if to shake off the bad thoughts and changed the subject. “Don't you know how to mount that thing?”

“Sure I do.”

“Well, you always seem to be pushing it along. At least my horse walks by himself.”

“But you have to feed a horse. A bike doesn't eat anything. All you have to do is pedal it.”

“Show me.”

William got on his bike and coasted down the little hill in front of them. He waited at the bottom for her to catch up.

“Why doesn't it tip over?” she asked.

“Balance,” he said. “You have to learn to balance it. You want to try?”

She handed him her basket and leaned over to tie up her skirts. By the time she was through, she had twisted
the various layers of cloth into a garment that looked like an odd pair of very baggy pants. She reminded William of a small Persian sultan without the turban. He couldn't help smiling.

“So what's wrong with it?” she asked with her chin stuck out. “This is what I do when I go riding.”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “You have to swing one of your legs over the bar. Like a horse.”

Once she was on, William held the bike and showed her how to use the brakes and the pedals.

“Now I'll run along beside you for a while till you get the hang of it. It's hard to do. Most people start with training wheels when they're little kids.”

“Come on,” she said impatiently. “Stop talking and give me a push.”

For her first time on a bike, she didn't do badly at all. She stayed upright for at least a minute after William let her go. But when the front wheel began to wobble, she tried to pedal faster and then tipped slowly to the left.

“Lean the other way!” he yelled, but she couldn't right herself in time. She went over with a shriek.

He pulled the bike off her.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “I want to try it again.”

The next two times, she went a little farther before
she pitched over. She looked as if she were ready to go on practicing all day. At this rate, William thought, we'll never get to the castle.

Just then he heard a shout, and Jason rounded the corner with a boy on his handlebars.

“Is that Tolliver?” William asked.

“The very one,” she said. “My little cousin.”

“Little. He looks a lot bigger than I remember,” said William.

“His legs have grown faster than his brain,” she muttered.

When Jason braked, Tolliver jumped off and ran up to them.

“Sir William,” he cried. “It
is
truly you. I did not believe it but now I see you with my own eyes.”

“Tolliver, what happened to your legs?” William asked.

“What is wrong with them?” Tolliver said. He sounded worried.

“They've grown a considerable amount in my absence,” William answered with a grin.

“Sir, you are funning me and that is not kind.”

“Pardon me,
Sir
William,” said Jason. “But what's been taking you so long? I've been halfway to the castle and back.”

“Progress has been slow,” William said without looking at Gudrin.

“What he means is he's been teaching me to ride that contrivance,” Gudrin said.

“Master Jason has promised to teach me to ride too, once we reach the castle,” said Tolliver.

Jason shrugged. “Might as well. I can't have the boy on my handlebars all the time. Don't know what damage it may be doing to that front tire. What happened to Deegan?”

“He went off on his own,” William said. “Sort of melted away actually. For the second time today.”

Jason looked uncomfortable.

“Tolliver, what news of the castle?” Gudrin asked.

“All hustle and bustle. Sir Simon is making preparations for his journey,” Tolliver said. “I have begged him to take me along but he will not allow it. Sir William, the word of your coming has reached the castle and Sir Simon sent me to meet you. Everybody is eagerly awaiting your arrival.”

William's heart swelled. What would good old Jason think of that? “Well, then, let's be on our way,” he said with a ceremonious wave of his hand. “We should reach the castle by late afternoon, Tolliver?”

“Yes. Or even sooner if we ride,” Tolliver said with a gleam in his eye.

“Gudrin could ride on my handlebars,” William said.

“They look too skinny. I'll fall off.”

“So what?” he laughed. “That's what you've been doing anyway.”

She tried not to laugh but it didn't work. “All right, Master William Muggins, prepare my seat.”

They folded her herbs into one of the panniers and tied her basket to the other. Then William flipped the handlebars up and she clambered aboard. He pushed off three times before he built enough momentum to hold his balance. Her tangled blond hair blew into his eyes and tickled his face, but he did not dare lift his hand to brush it away. She smelled odd, musty and fresh at the same time, like a spade of earth newly turned over. From time to time, she cried out in excitement and leaned suddenly to one side, which meant William had to compensate by throwing his weight just as suddenly to the other.