"The shameless wench! The little hussy! Well, my young madam, and what do you here?"
"It was the little dog, madam." Margaret had had time to think, but even so, she spoke so glibly that she surprised even herself.
"What little dog?"
"Please, madam, I do not know. But I saw it running this way, and thought it was one of my lord's, and was lost, so I ran after it, and–"
"And I saw my sister coming here, so ran after her to fetch her back," said John virtuously.
The steward eyed him doubtfully, then gave a nod.
"Well, there's naught here for you to steal. And if I find a single box moved, or cask broached in the cellarage yonder, I'll see you whipped myself. What's your name?"
"Hans, sir. The Lady Grisel is my grand-dame."
Another little shriek from the lady in black, who seized Margaret's arm and slapped her hand smartly. Then all the more shame to you for running off like that! What would my Lady Grisel say–if she could say anything at all, that is, poor lady, with her wits so sadly astray! For which we may be thankful, perchance, for she need never know of such conduct. So come your ways, young madam, to the nurseries!" And before the children could exchange more than a look, she rustled off up the corridor, with Margaret firmly held in tow.
"And you, too, boy! Get you to the hall, and stir yourself about the serving. Begone, rascal!" snapped the steward, aiming a cuff for John's head. John dodged, and ran.
It was easy enough to tell where the hall and kitchens were, because of the noise. John paused in the doorway, staring, startled and a bit confused.
The great hall was an enormous room, with high arched windows blazing in the morning sun. Shafts of sunlight fell slanting along a floor thickly strewn with rushes, where dogs wrangled for food among peopled feet. Down both sides of the hall were long narrow tables, at which people sat on benches, eating with their fingers from wooden platters.
Across the far end of the hall was a raised dais with another table on it, which ran the width of the room. This table was covered with a white cloth, and here sat men and women better dressed, who ate off silver. At the centre of this table was a tall chair with a high carved back, like a throne, and in it sat a man who must be the Duke. The dishes in front of him were of gold, and there was a big gold vessel beside him, shaped beautifully like a ship. Without knowing how, John recognized this for the precious vessel filled with spices to season the Duke's meat. Near it stood the great saltcellar, marvellously made from gold and silver for the Duke's own use. Above the great chair was a canopy draped with crimson silk and held by a great, carved golden eagle, with a crown on its head.
The Duke himself was soberly dressed in dark blue. On his head was a dark-blue velvet cap with a scarf of dusky crimson twisted round it, one end of which hung down over his shoulder.
The cap was fastened with a gold brooch where a red stone flashed and sparkled. Another brooch glinted at his shoulder, and there were rings on his hands. He was turning a tall golden goblet round and round in his fingers, and looking, thought John, sadder than anyone, even a duke, ought to look. As sad, almost, as Wolf had looked when they had first seen him.
He felt his breath shorten. For there, on the Duke's left, in another tall chair almost as grand as the Duke's own, sat Mardian.
In spite of all that Wolf had told him, it took a few seconds for John to realize that this man, "Mardian" in every detail, must be Almeric the enchanter. It was all there, the dark thin face, the narrow tawny eyes, the long, elegant hands, the slant of the head and the grave courtesy with which he said something to the Duke beside him. The Duke turned slightly, inclining himself to listen. Something swung, glinting, on his breast; John drew in his breath. Round the Duke's neck he could see the heavy wrought-gold chain, and on his breast the amulet.
Without even thinking about it, John found that his hand had slid into the pouch at his belt, and he was fingering Mardian's amulet. So Duke Otho wanted to forget his displeasure, hoping, perhaps, that all might still be well between himself and his old friend. He still wore the token. There was hope, then, for the "faith and trust" on which Mardian had ventured the children's safety and his own life.
The enchanter spoke again, smiling. The Duke nodded, with an answering smile, but somehow his face was still sad. He gave a half-glance at the chair on his right, which stood empty. The prince? He had been with the hunting party. No doubt the enchanter was waiting, with some eagerness, to know if Wolf had been caught and killed. The Duke, indifferent, had gone back into his silent musing. John's fingers tightened on the amulet. Just you wait, Almeric, just you wait. If the Duke only knew...
He was shaken rudely out of his thoughts. A steward, bustling past with a platter of steaming food, called sharply: "You, boy! Look sharp and serve at the kitchen end!"
John saw then that a positive stream of boys, dressed much as he was, were hurrying to and fro between the tables and the big door at the foot of the hall. He ran after them, and found himself in the kitchens. He had no time for more than a quick sight of the high, blackened roof, the gaping caves of the chimneys where great fires blazed, and cooks, sweating and scarlet-faced, basted and stirred, or heaved great trays of hot pasties and pies out of the ovens. Someone thrust a dish into his hands, and he grabbed it and turned to follow the nearest boy back into the hall.
The next hour or so was a blur. People seemed to eat as much as lions in a zoo, and drink goblet after goblet of ale or wine to wash the food down.
There was not time to be nervous, or to worry about being discovered. No one even noticed him except to hand food to him or to tell him to hurry, or to bring more. He began to enjoy himself. He grew neat-handed, and, after almost falling flat on his face in the dirty rushes when one of the dogs fled yapping under his feet, he learned to thread his way among the dogs, and to dodge the other hurrying servants and pages. He learned, too, to dodge the bones and other scraps which the diners flung over their shoulders when they had finished gnawing them. He even, like the other boys, managed to grab a few good pieces for himself off the platters, and gobble them quickly and greedily in the few moments of waiting in the kitchens.
The food was good, hot and spicy, and strange to his palate, but after the excitements of the night and morning he felt ravenous. He wondered if Margaret had managed to get dinner, too, but he did not have time to worry about her. What worried him was the growing knowledge that his chances of coming anywhere near the Duke were very slender indeed. The high table was served–on bended knee–by stewards and pages in black velvet trimmed with silver. By the Duke's chair stood a page with a crown embroidered on the breast of his tunic; he was a slightly built, fair boy of John's own age. He handed the Duke's food and poured his wine, then knelt with a steaming silver bowl while his master washed his hands and dried them on a white napkin. No one else came near the Duke at all. At the back of the dais was ranged the bodyguard, a dozen folly armed men, whose spears glinted in the sunlight. It was plain that Duke Otho's servants were specially chosen, and equally plain that the ducal chamberlains watched them carefully all the time. The Duke himself paid no attention to them. He ate little, and spoke less, and John never saw him address anyone but the false enchanter at his left hand.
And Almeric? He sat back in his chair, attentive to anything the Duke said, but apparently watching–and noticing–all that went on in the hall. Occasionally his glance rested on the prince's empty chair, and then his smile deepened. John found it hard not to watch him, but he was sure that Almeric had not noticed him among the crowd of other bustling pages.
Why should he? He could hardly know all the boys in the castle. So John ran, and served, and snatched food as he went, and wondered how on earth he was ever to come near the Duke, and what on earth had happened to Margaret.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Margaret and John made jokes about "only a girl," they were meant as jokes. But now, as she was scolded, and slapped, and hustled off to the women's rooms, she saw how, in the past, girls rea
lly had had something to complain about. The lady in black seemed to think it downright wicked of her to have been found near the kitchen quarters, talking to her own brother. She read Margaret a long lecture on modesty, which apparently meant sitting still on a hard chair with your back straight, your hands in your lap, and your eyes cast down,"when any man speaks to you, young madam–remember that!"
Even John? thought Margaret furiously, but trying to find it funny. She bit her lip on what she would have liked to say, and concentrated on keeping her head and her temper, and on memorizing the maze of corridors and stairways that led in the end to the women's side of the castle.
There, among the girls and nurses and tumbling babies of the "nurseries," she was pushed with a sharp command to "Stay here, madam, and mind your manners, or it will be a whipping the next time you're found straying where you have no business!"
Like John, she found that there were so many people that she was hardly noticed. The castle was, in fact, like a small town or a large, overcrowded village: it had a big mixed population who did not all know each other. When one of the nursemaids asked her who she was, she told the story of "my Lady Grisel" as Wolf had bidden her, and the woman only nodded, looking a bit sorry for her, and told her to get to table and break her fast, then go out into the garden to join the others at ball.
"Ball" was what she would have called pig-in-the-middle, and she was rather good at it.
The garden was a wide strip of grass, with flower beds along the edges, and, on the side away from the castle, a low battlemented wall edging a steep drop to another garden below.
The lower garden was also edged by battlements, and a long, straight drop to the moat.
There seemed to be no way down; it must be out of bounds, at any rate to the girls.
The game went on, the other girls ran, and threw and called. The sun was warm, and the beds were full of scented flowers, roses, jasmine, pinks. Some ladies walked in the sun, others sat on the seats along the terrace walks and talked or sewed, while the children, with kilted skirts, played on the grass. The ladies' dresses were beautiful, in rich blues and greens and shades of rose, with long flowing sleeves lined with embroidery. Their hair was braided up under pretty coronets, or elaborate headdresses from which white veils fluttered in the breeze.
It was all very charming, very colourful, and very boring. Margaret thought enviously of John, on the livelier side of the castle, and wondered how he was getting on. Somehow or other it looked less and less possible for John and herself to help poor Wolf. Getting here had been exciting, and rather easy, and becoming part of the castle's bustling life had been easy, too. But it was hard to see what she could do here. It didn't look, she thought crossly, as if she would even get a sight of the Duke. If she had to spend all her time with the women and girls, then all Wolf's plans for her had been for nothing. She could not even help John...
She missed an easy catch, and there were shrieks from the other children. The ball, flying past her, shot over the low battlement that edged the garden. Angry with herself for attracting attention, Margaret ran to see where it had gone. It had landed on the lawn below.
She leaned over. There was a boy, a youth of about fourteen, sitting in the sun on a stone seat at the foot of the wall. He stuck out a foot, and fielded the ball as it rolled to his feet.
"Here!" called Margaret.
She thought there was surprise on the boy's face as he looked up, but he smiled pleasantly and threw the ball. She caught it, then threw it as hard as she could to the far side of the upper garden. The other children ran after it.
For the moment, no one was looking at her.
Quietly, picking up her skirts, she slipped behind a thick bush of myrtle, where there was a stone seat by the terrace wall. She sat there, twisting her body to crane over and watch the garden below. All at once, things had become more interesting. The boy who had returned the ball was someone she had seen before. Prince Crispin himself.
"Modesty," said Margaret to herself. "I'll show them modesty! I'm far too modest to play silly ball games on the lawn. If anyone sees me here I shall fold my hands and sit as straight as a poker and look at the ground... But in the meantime I'm going to have a real good look at the prince."
Yes, it was the same boy. He looked, she thought, rather nice, but a bit pale and perhaps sickly. Now that he was no longer smiling his face was heavy and his eyes dull. He had sat down again, and was busy pulling a sprig of jasmine to shreds in his fingers. He seemed to be waiting for someone.
There was a sound of footsteps. The boy looked up and his face altered. A man, walking fast, was coming along the path towards him.
It was Almeric, the enchanter. Though Margaret knew straight away who this must be, she, like her brother, could hardly believe that the tall man with the dark hair and tawny eyes was only a shadowy copy of Wolf-Mardian. He looked up, and for a moment she felt a shock of real fear, as if he could look right through the tangled boughs of myrtle and see her watching him. But he looked away immediately and spoke to the youth.
That was another shock. It was one thing seeing the man who looked exactly like Mardian; it was another hearing Mardian's own voice, grave and steady and kind, just within a few feet other. Margaret's heart gave a bound, then quickened to a fast beat of excitement. She might, after all, be going to learn something of value. She sat as still as a mouse in the shadow of the myrtle bush, listening.
She had missed the first word or two. The prince was speaking: "–not hungry," he was saying, sounding rather surly, or perhaps just unhappy."
"What talk is this?" came Mardian's voice. "Are we to have people thinking that you, too, are ailing?"
"What does it matter what they think? It sickens me, going into the hall. My father does not seem to notice, but I see them all... watching him all the time, sideways, as if they are wondering if he will even live long enough for me to reach my name-day." The prince's voice changed. "Where do these rumours come from, Mardian, tell me that? He is lame, yes. He is sometimes in pain, yes. But he is not sick, and he is very far from dying. So why do men like Brand and Osric and the rest come fawning near me all day, and what are they saying to you, when they crowd in comers and whisper behind their hands?"
"No more than that they are troubled about the Duke your father." The grave voice hesitated, as if reluctant to go on. Then Almeric continued: "As you have just said, your name-day is near, and on that day you must be reckoned fit to govern beside your father... or, if need be, alone. So you must be man enough now to bear the truth."
"What truth?"
"That Duke Otho is indeed sick, and, if no cure can be found soon, is even likely to die. You may be Duke yourself sooner than you had imagined."
There was a short, shocked pause, then the boy's voice: "I don't believe it! Mardian, you must be wrong! The physicians–"
"The physicians have done all they can, and now they shake their heads."
"I know! Do you think I have not spoken with them myself? They hum and haw and pull their beards, but it's my belief that they have no idea what ails him! And what could it be, that these learned men cannot recognize and treat? Melancholy, they call it... Well, but melancholy is not a sickness! And where does it come from? It cannot be grief for my mother. All grief passes, and it is two years now. Why can he not put grief aside? Besides, we have spoken together about it, and he said it was not that. He cannot explain it himself. He is like a man drugged, or drowning, he says, who cannot summon up the strength to strike out for shore. May I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"You do not–the Duke and you are reconciled, are you not?"
"Reconciled? When did we ever quarrel, to need a reconciliation?"
"He has spoken bitterly to you, you know that."
"It is his right," said the false Mardian. "Do you not know me well enough to know that my love and loyalty have never wavered?"
(Pig, thought Margaret. Pig.)
It seemed that something in the e
nchanter's voice did not ring quite true, even to Crispin.
He must have shown it, for Almeric added, rather sharply: "Why do you ask? What has the Duke said? Have I not been the same to him as ever?"
There was a brief pause. "Of course," said Crispin.
"This talk of drugs–" The enchanter spoke forcefully. "How could the Duke be drugged? He eats with his other lords, and all his food and wine is served to him by either Denis or Justin, the two ducal pages. They are totally to be trusted–and besides, they taste everything themselves. Drugs? Nonsense!"
"Of course," said the prince again, quite without expression. "That's exactly what the Duke's chief physician said, when I talked with him this morning."
"You talked with him? But, my dear boy, I told you to leave such matters with me... with his advisers. What did he tell you?"
"He could tell me nothing, except that it seemed as if the Duke was under enchantment."
Almeric laughed. "But this is nonsense, too. He was jesting!"
"Perhaps. He said that he could see no reason for the sickness. It was like a spell that takes away the will to do, or even to live. My father's limbs are not withered, yet he cannot walk. Had he the will, the doctors say, he could stand, and in due time learn to walk again. And certainly he could ride. Yet for years now he has kept within the castle, and will try nothing and go nowhere. Does this not seem like enchantment to you, Mardian?"
There was another pause. Then Almeric spoke, slowly. "You are right. I was wrong to try and keep the truth from you. This 'melancholy' of your father's... you say it is not a sickness, but you are wrong. It is like a fell disease, which takes away the very will to live. There is a name for it. Men call it the 'wolf-sickness.' Have you not heard the name? Why do you think we ride out daily to catch and slay the cruel beasts that harry the peasants' stock, and spread the disease abroad, the wolf's plague?"
"For sport, I thought." The prince sounded surprised.
"Yes, but for more than that. I tell you, Crispin, that if we could but catch and slay that great wolf, then the lesser beasts of the pack would leave the forest, and the sickness would abate."