The Minstrel in the Tower (4 page)

At last the moon centered itself above the tower where the roof’s peak had fallen through. A shaft of moonlight shone straight down on them, just as they needed it to.

“You don’t have to climb up with me,” Alice said softly.

“Yes, I do. I shouldn’t be letting you do it
at all. I’m older than you. I should be the one to go.”

“But you’re too big,” said Alice. “You can’t fit through the space. I can.”

Roger shuddered. In the pale light the window slit looked very high, and what Alice had to do seemed much too dangerous. He no longer had a father. His mother might die. How could he send his sister down that sheer stone wall in the dark?

Alice hugged him. “I’m glad you’re going up the steps with me.”

“I’ll throw your shoes down to you once you’re on the ground,” said Roger. He winced inwardly as he pictured his sister inching down the wall in her bare feet. “After you find the lute. You’ll make less noise if you search barefoot,” he added.

Roger looked at the worn, slippery stairs of the spiral staircase he’d promised to climb. His stomach clenched like a fist. It was Alice, though, who would need real courage to slip through the window slit, climb down the wall, and hunt for the lute in the dark, without waking Simon and Odo. Then she had to find the road, reach Bordeaux, and
search for their uncle. Roger groaned. He felt helpless. All because the window slit was too narrow for him.

“I hear them snoring,” Alice said. “It’s time to go.”

Alice walked up the spiral staircase. Roger crept up after her on his hands and knees, clutching the edges of each stone step. She reached the top long before he did.

“Hold my shoes,” she whispered when he got there.

Roger forced himself to stand on the rotting floorboards and take her shoes. Alice pulled herself onto the window ledge. Feet first, she eased through the narrow opening.

He held her hand until she got a toehold, watching her dig her fingers and bare toes into the cracks between the stones. He could see only the top of her head as she slowly worked her way down.
La Guenuche
, he thought,
braver than any
real
monkey
.

At last Alice reached the ground and went off in search of the lute. After many minutes she came back empty-handed, looking worried.

So she couldn’t find it. They hadn’t counted
on that. Roger knew that the lute, with its eagle carving, was proof of who they were. He shook his head and shrugged at Alice. Somehow she would have to manage without it.

He held out one of her shoes and let it go. She caught it. When he dropped the second shoe, she fumbled for a moment, but caught it too. Roger waved and Alice melted into the dark forest.

The moon had drifted past the torn roof when he turned to go back down the steps. The tower stood in total darkness. Roger gasped. He couldn’t even see the stairway.

Terror made him clutch the window ledge. No matter how tightly he held it, he knew he was going to fall into the emptiness below. The two old boards beneath his feet would collapse, hurling him down. The thought made his hands slippery with sweat. He pressed hard against the wall, wanting to fuse himself to the cold stone.

“The stairs are solid,” he whispered to himself. “I can do it. Alice climbed down a whole wall!” But his fear grew larger until it filled his skin and shook his bones.

He had to get down those stairs to begin the final part of the plan. Leaning hard against each step, he backed down like a baby. First one knee, then the other. Down, down. Take a breath. Beneath him, there always seemed to be another step. Why wouldn’t they end!

Finally Roger felt the bottom. As he lay panting on the ground among the rubble, thankful to be alive, he thought of Alice, out in the forest somewhere. She was the brave one, and she was counting on him. Simon and Odo must not discover that she was gone.

Loudly, to fool them in case they’d awakened, Roger said, “You’d better go to sleep now, sister. Good night, Alice.”

In Alice’s voice he answered, “Good night, Roger.”

“I’m the baron’s niece,” Alice said.

In the courtyard, laughter spread from one servant to the next—from men mending harnesses or polishing armor, to women brushing mud from boots and cloak hems, to children piling firewood against the wall. “Lord Raimond’s niece!” Some chuckled. Others dropped their work to circle Alice, mocking her and making faces.

“What’s causing this disturbance?” cried the steward as he came into the courtyard.

“This girl…” someone began, but Alice spoke up for herself.

“I’m here to see Lord Raimond, the baron. I’m his niece.”

“Throw the scalawag into the moat,” scoffed the steward. “The baron’s niece, indeed!”

They reached for Alice but she skittered between them and ran. She hadn’t traveled all this way just to be thrown into a moat!

For nearly two days Alice had searched for the baron’s chateau, asking directions of everyone she met. A dozen times she’d lost her way. And she’d been hungry.

Once she’d rescued a cat from a tree, and its owner had rewarded her with a handful of plums. A baker had given her a bun for carrying a basket of eggs from the market to his shop. A housewife had poured her a cup of fresh milk, for no reason other than kindness.

But much of the time she’d been famished and footsore and shivery from worry. And now—“Catch the little baggage!” the steward shrieked as the servants chased Alice around and around the courtyard.

In one wall stood a wooden door decorated with iron bands. Alice threw herself against it and the door burst open into a great hall
hung with beautiful tapestries and banners.

“What is this?” A very tall nobleman, with straight blond hair and a narrow beard, rose angrily from his chair. “Steward!”

“Forgive me, Lord Raimond,” the red-faced steward apologized. “This child… she says she’s related to you.”

A young knight eating at the baron’s table burst into laughter, but Lord Raimond was not amused. “Remove her at once,” he ordered coldly.

The steward and the servants began the chase again, but Alice, too quick for them, scrambled up a rough stone wall. A little higher than their upstretched arms, she clung to a timber that supported one of the ceiling arches. “Listen to me!” she shouted down. “I am the daughter of Lady Blanche!”

The echo of her voice fell into a deathly silent hall. For years no one had mentioned Lady Blanche in Lord Raimond’s presence. The only sounds were the sniffing of hunting dogs who searched for bits of food among the reeds strewn on the floor and the shuffle of servants’ feet as they stole away. None but
the steward and the young knight were brave enough to remain.

Lord Raimond’s voice no longer sounded cold. Now it was hot with fury. “If you don’t come down at once,” he shouted, “I will order my archers to shoot you down!”

“You’re supposed to be my uncle,” she shouted back, “and you won’t even listen to me! Mother told me to show you the eagle on the lute, but Simon and Odo hid it somewhere. And Roger can’t get out of the tower, and Mother wants you to forgive her…” Suddenly it was too much for Alice, and she started to cry.

“Stop!” Lord Raimond raised his hand. “What’s this about a lute? Come down here and make sense.”

Alice lowered herself to the floor, but stood warily with her back against the wall. First she told Lord Raimond about her mother’s illness. When he remained silent, she went on to describe everything else—the journey, Simon and Odo, and Roger’s imprisonment in the tower.

“She claims to be your niece, my lord,” remarked
the steward, “but she looks nothing at all like you.”

“That’s true.” Lord Raimond frowned. “If you’re lying, child, it’s a terrible lie for you to tell.”

“Have you any proof?” asked the young knight.

“The lute was supposed to be proof. It’s Mother’s lute, but Roger can play it too. But it’s gone.”

The stern look had faded from the baron’s face. “Come here,” he said. “I will not harm you.” When she approached he caught hold of her and drew her closer until she stood right in front of him. For a moment he stared at her, with eyes of the same blue as Roger’s.

“The song your brother sang when the man called Simon recognized him,” said Lord Raimond. “Can you remember it?”

“I think so. It goes: ’My brother is a noble knight, an…’” Alice’s voice faltered. Then she caught sight of a blue eagle on a white banner behind the baron’s chair. “That’s the eagle on the lute,” she said in wonder. “Not perched, but soaring, with an arrow in its beak.”

Abruptly Lord Raimond turned to the steward. “Call half a dozen men-at-arms to saddle their horses,” he ordered. “We’ll set out for the forest at once.”

“Does that mean you believe this urchin, my lord?” asked the young knight.

“I’m not certain. But nothing will be lost if we look for the tower.”

No one, horse or rider, seemed to know which direction to take. Sitting in front of her uncle on his tall gray palfrey, Alice was as lost as the knights.

“Perhaps we’re close enough to the tower that if we call out, your brother will hear us and shout an answer,” the baron suggested. “Then we can follow his voice.”