Everard put his head down and his hands in his hair and nodded. Alex could see that his question had brought up the Prince’s saddest thoughts, and he could have kicked himself for asking it. “Yes,” said Everard. “He has every claim. He had the lands and title in compensation for the death of his son.”
“I am sorry. I did not realize he had a son. How did this son die?”
Alex hoped that Towerwood’s son would have nothing to do with Everard’s sadness, but when Everard answered, he could have kicked himself again. “His son was my father’s squire. They were both killed together in the garden here.” Everard looked angrily up at Alex with tears in his eyes and Alex would have done anything to stop this line of talk, but Everard said: “I know you have met Robert. I know that you like him. I was very fond of him and he is my cousin. But I came into the garden as Robert was coming out and Robert was carrying the squire’s dagger all covered in blood. Not only was my father his Prince and his uncle, but Bertram of Towerwood was Robert’s foster brother. It could not be worse, Alex. And I suppose Robert thought, since I was not of age, that he was likely to be the next Prince. Towerwood was right to insist I—” Everard stopped suddenly. Alex guessed he was crying. He was very glad not to hear any more for the moment. It was all too horrible. He wanted not to think about the way they had entertained a strange weary outlaw who had confessed to murdering one uncle and not to the other. He was angry not to have known of this. Robert had seemed noble and sad, when they had got over his strangeness—and he had been extremely kind to Alex when he saw how frightened he was. But then he would if he had needed a night’s lodging. Then suddenly, Alex had a complete change of feeling. Robert had been nice. Towerwood was nasty and he had been even more horrible to Everard than to Alex. It seemed to Alex that if one worked backward from that, then there was a chance that Towerwood had been the villain of the piece all along.
“Look here—” he said.
“Do you know—” Everard said at the same moment.
“Go on,” said Alex.
“I was going to say that Towerwood had insisted that all the nobles took the oath of loyalty to me. They were most of them at Endwait, you see, with my father. But then I realized that there had been no question of anyone’s loyalty. Robert never claimed the coronet then or later. He had his heralds proclaim his innocence all over the realm, but he never said he was Prince, although I am sure the people would have accepted him if he had. It is Towerwood who is to marry my mother and claim the coronet.”
“So it looks as if—Everard, what kind of person was Towerwood’s son?”
“It seems terrible to say it, but he was terrified of his father. When Towerwood was not there he was very likeable, though somewhat of a weak character. My father used to try to keep Bertram apart from Towerwood, because of the way he terrified him. Robert would take Bertram hunting whenever Towerwood was at court. Bertram admired Robert tremendously.”
“Did Robert like Bertram?”
“Yes. As I said, they were foster brothers. They were brought up together in Gairne. Bertram’s mother was Robert’s nurse. The Towerwoods are a fairly humble family, you see.”
“You have not really told me what Robert thought of Bertram. I think that is very important, Everard, because you said Robert was carrying Bertram’s dagger.”
Everard threw two handfuls of straw in the air in irritation. “But I have—Do you not know what it means, to be someone’s foster brother? Do you not have such ties Outside? It is far closer than if they had been truly brothers. It is held sacred here.”
“Then—” said Alex.
“Yes, yes,” said Everard. “I am there before you. I saw what a fool I was the moment I realized that Robert had not wished to be Prince. And it was Towerwood who suggested that I outlaw Robert forthwith. If he had been arraigned for High Treason in Council, as he should have been, the whole realm would have seen the truth. But I could not bring myself to have Robert meet a traitor’s end—he would have been cut into portions, Alex—or now, I see, Bertram would have been, even though he had killed himself.”
Alex began throwing straw about now. “Stop, Everard! I cannot understand yet. You think Towerwood made his son kill your father. Do you think he really relied on the poor lad to kill himself afterward?”
Everard said: “Towerwood despised Bertram. I am sure he knew that was what he would do. Just as I imagine he hopes I am now going mad in your company. I think he likes using people—as he is using you. And I imagine that if he made sure that Bertram killed my father when Robert was by, he knew that if Bertram did not kill himself, then Robert might well take the blame himself. And I think he might have done.”
“No,” said Alex, “that does not sound at all likely. You are just letting your ideas run away with you, Everard. I think you are right that the whole thing was Towerwood’s doing—it seems as if it must be, but he could not have relied on Robert to take the blame. Did Robert take the blame? Did you ask him before you outlawed him?”
“I asked him,” said Everard, “and he denied it. He offered to give me his oath that he had not killed either of them.”
“Well, there you are,” said Alex. “Could Towerwood have killed your father himself? As far as I can see he does not object to murdering men with his own hands.”
“You mean poor Hugo Arbard? I wish I could think that Towerwood had the opportunity, Alex, but he was with me all the time—purposely, I begin to think. And I cannot see that even he would kill his own son.”
“Then could Bertram have killed your father because his father made him, and then Robert killed Bertram? I know he killed his uncle, and I remember he said it was the law.”
Everard was pulling his hands through his hair and, as his hands were full of straw, it made him look wild and even mad. The straw was the same color as his hair, so that he was looking like a white gollywog by this time. “Robert denied killing either of them,” he protested. “If I believe him in one case, why not in the other? It was different when he killed Aubrey of Gairne. He was Robert’s uncle, not his foster brother, which—but you Outside do not seem to see the bond there is between foster brothers, so what can I say? My feeling is that it was Bertram killed my father and afterward himself. Robert, I think, simply took away the dagger so that Bertram should be spared at least a suicide’s fate—which is bad enough, when I come to think of it. They are buried at a crossroads with a stake through their heart.”
As Everard said this, he looked at Alex, so pale that his yellow black eye stood out again as it had done the day before. Alex no longer wished he had his clasp-knife. He thanked heaven that it had chanced to find a gap in the grating.
“Everard,” he said, “take that straw out of your hair and talk of something else, for goodness’ sake. I am very sorry I began the subject.”
“I am not sorry you began it,” Everard answered, but he began to comb his hair with his fingers. “You have helped me see somewhat of the truth. Perhaps we had better talk of other things. Let us build more castles in the air.”
Alex began talking of horses and then about school. Everard tried to attend to him, but it never lasted for long. All that day he was returning to his father’s death, or to the things to do with it. If Alex would not let him talk about it directly, he disguised it as a castle in the air.
“Here is a good castle,” he would say, rolling over and making a heap of straw to stand for the castle. “I will pass an edict about traitors to make their end less severe. It is enough, surely, that they are dead, without doing as we do and chopping them into pieces. Men do not need a piece of a man fastened to the town gate or a post on the village green to deter them from—”
“You are making me feel sick,” Alex answered.
So Everard would go off on a new tack. “I will pass other edicts, many of them, but they will do no good unless the Prince is bound by them too. If I had stayed in Falleyfell, as I had ordered everyone else, then I would not be here. It was meant to be such a clever edict
, Alex, since it was supposed to make people show respect for my father by keeping at home, but it was really meant to let us know who was aiding Robert. People were too clever for us, though. Half Gairne went to Robert’s camp at Perland, but they all had urgent business there. It was only I who was caught.”
Alex said: “Would you have been caught if you had your own soldiers with you? How did you come to have Towerwood’s men? That must have made it easy for him.”
Everard blushed. “I was an arrant fool. My men were so astonished when I ordered them to put you in the library, that I was afraid they would not obey when I asked them to break the edict. And I knew that Towerwood’s men had a name for secrecy.”
“So you asked Towerwood for them?” said Alex. “That was plumb daft, Everard. And what made you have me put in the library? Was it that picture?”
Everard, still blushing, went to rub more straw in his hair and then thought better of it. “I thought it would keep you angry,” he admitted. “And I hoped you would find the library more interesting than a dungeon. Surely you did if this dungeon is any guide?”
“Yes, I did. You have some fine things there.”
They talked of the library for a little, until Everard thought of another castle in the air. “Endwait,” he said. “I must search out some deserving man and give the land to him. Robert does not need it. Towerwood had no claim to it at all. I am sure he only disputed it with Robert to make my father come here to be killed. The walled garden makes a very good place for a killing. I—”
“Does it really belong to Robert?” Alex interrupted. “Because he ought to give it to the deserving person if it does.”
“No,” said Everard. “It is very obscure, his claim. Endwait shall be forfeit to the sovereign, I here proclaim. Now, here is another castle—”
Alex groaned. This went on for hours, until the sun moved away from the grating and left them in cold twilight. No one brought any more food. Alex began to realize that what had come that morning was to be their day’s ration. He saw that they really would starve on that amount. Last night’s food, it seemed, was just an extra, to show them what to expect. At length Alex became so hungry that he helped Everard build castles in the air. It was better than thinking of tomorrow’s crust. The two of them passed upwards of a hundred imaginary laws and governed the Principality in the strictest justice. Everard came to his hundred-and-twentieth edict.
“This concerns the trial of anyone accused,” he said. “They must be brought to trial as soon as possible—as I should have brought Robert to trial—within the week. I shall appoint a justice—good heavens, Alex! This means I must try you. Did you not claim the coronet the day of my father’s funeral?”
“No, I did not,” said Alex.
“Yes, you did. And you blacked my eye in support of your claim.”
Alex realized they would be fighting again in a minute. He did his best to explain that his island did not seem to be the same as Everard’s—and he plainly puzzled Everard exceedingly. Everard shook his head.
“I believe you—partly because I cannot understand you. My castle is not ruined, and if yours is, then they are not the same, but how can this be?”
“I have no idea. I was as puzzled as you were. People around us see your people sometimes and call them ghosts.”
“But we are not. How can a ghost starve—and I am starving, are not you?”
Alex, in order not to think of starving, was brought to something he knew he should have come to before. “I know you are not ghosts, and I know your island is different and I apologize for fighting you about it. I did not know it was your father’s funeral. That makes it all the worse. The truth is I was angry with some other people I know and I took it out on you.”
Everard laughed. “You too? I would have been more polite to you if I had not been so angry with Robert. He came to the funeral, you see, wearing the Gairne orange in place of black, and tried to plead his cause. And I was so angry at his lack of respect that I ordered him off and sent Darron and March to take him prisoner. I never dreamed he would cross the bay by daylight. We never do. And once in the open, he easily outrode them. And I was ready to do murder, I was so angry when it was found he had gone. So I am sorry too.”
Alex held out his hand to Everard. Everard had just taken it, when the chains on the door began to rattle. This time it was the whole door and not the hatch which was being opened. Everard hung onto Alex’s hand with both his.
“And I said you should wait till your dying day for my apology! Pray God I am no prophet!”
Chapter 4
Pistol
Luckily, Everard was not a prophet. It was Harry and Susannah on the other side of the door, but it had taken them some time to get there, and some time to get over the shock of their arrest.
“Turn this way,” said Lord Darron. “I have business at Endwait which will admit of no delay. We must have some talk over your case later, when my business is done.”
Harry wondered if he dared refuse. He had thoughts of presenting his pistol at Lord Darron’s steel helmet and demanding their freedom. Lord Darron, however, had taken Susannah’s bridle, and Harry was afraid she might be hurt if he became violent. He shrugged his shoulders and thought that this was anyhow one way to see the valley. If they were clever, they might learn something of Alex. He decided that it would be best to seem very meek and harmless. That way, they might avoid being locked up too.
To his alarm, Susannah was looking anything but meek. She was red with anger and mortification and actually crying a little. When Harry made no attempt to use his pistol, she turned and made violent pointings at it. Harry shook his head and, as they came out into the valley, Susannah was crying great shaking sobs of rage.
“My dear young lady,” said Lord Darron, blinking down at her, “you must not cry. I assure you I will not harm you.”
Susannah was so angry at being misunderstood that her sobs changed almost into screams. She had her whip lifted up to hit this impossible false St. George.
“Susannah!” said Harry.
Lord Darron smiled. Susannah could not bear that nervous smiling face in the middle of all that warlike armor. She slashed at it. Lord Darron took the whip as it came down and gently pulled it away. Susannah, who was a very good horsewoman, nearly fell, simply from anger. Harry wished he could pretend he had nothing to do with her.
“Now, now,” said Lord Darron. “You are beside yourself, my dear. Pray pull yourself together and ride faster. I am in a hurry. I have to find the Prince.”
“The Prince!” exclaimed Harry as they crackled along past the first houses of the village. “Prince Everard, is that?”
“That is he,” said Lord Darron, “and I hope I am not too late.”
The lines of bare orchard trees seemed to spin round Harry at this. “I hope so too, sir. We are looking for the Prince as well.”
“And I do not think he is on your side,” Susannah said. “What are you going to do? I think you are a very wicked—”
“Do be quiet!” Harry snapped. Susannah stopped at once, she was so unused to Harry talking to her so angrily. Harry managed to get his horse out ahead of Lord Darron’s and stand across his road—at least, it was a street here, in the middle of Endwait village. People in the houses opened doors and peered from windows at the sight of my Lord Darron stopped in the road with his sword drawn, facing a young Outsider who was threatening him with the strangest of weapons and all unarmed otherwise.
“Put your sword away, sir,” said Harry. “If I pull this trigger, you will be dead before you can move. I am not lying. Now, will you please explain what you said just now of the Prince.”
“Willingly,” said Lord Darron. “I do not require your threats, my lord. I learned some while back from a dying soldier of Towerwood’s—who astonished me, I admit, by confessing to have a bad conscience—that Prince Everard is confined in a dungeon here at Endwait. Now may we ride on? You can see how people are staring.”
“Let the
m,” said Harry. “Did this soldier mention Alex Hornby?”
“Yes,” said Lord Darron. “He is with the Prince. Most unwise, I would have thought it, if the Prince is mad.”
“From what we heard,” said Susannah, who was not able to keep out of a conversation for long, “I would say the Prince is no madder than I am.” She realized from Lord Darron’s face that he was carefully not saying that this might not be very sane. She would have stamped her foot if it had not been in her stirrup.
What Lord Darron actually said was very polite. “I too have had my doubts about the Prince’s madness. I am not one of those who ever feared much for the poor boy’s reason, and therefore I am going to see. But when I said I hoped I was not too late, I had in mind the fact that Prince Everard’s father was killed here in Endwait, a mere fortnight ago. There seems something more than a coincidence here, does there not?”
“There is more,” said Harry. “I think we had better ride on, sir. Will you give me your word not to attempt to lock us up?”
“I cannot do that,” said Lord Darron, not defiantly, but with a blink and an apologetic smile, “until I find how things stand. Will you agree to an armed truce, my lord? I promise not to lock you up at least until the Prince is found. Please move from the road. We shall be the talk of the Principality as it is, and I had hoped to be secret.”
Harry looked around and saw the open doors and the faces at windows. They embarrassed him. It was as if he and Lord Darron were a puppet show. And, of course, they could all be thinking (like the man at Arnforth) that he was mad. He turned and rode on quickly, calling out “Armed truce it is, sir,” over his shoulder. Lord Darron and Susannah followed, up a hill past the church, under wide bare chestnut trees, and into the black wood around the Endwait manor house.
The drawbridge was up, blocking the gateway. The moat was only frozen at the edges, so it could not be crossed except by the bridge. A thick and unfriendly looking man was leaning out of the window above the gateway, chewing something and watching them ride up.
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