Bookweirdest (23 page)

Sir Hugh, as amused as he seemed by the duke’s attempts to win the prince’s favour, did not appear pleased with this turn of the conversation. “Your Highness,” he said, trying to change the topic, “I fear my old eyes deceived me last night when you arrived. Please tell me what extraordinary beast it is I now house in my stables.”

Kit puffed out his chest. “Your eyes deceived you not. It is a unicorn, a most spectacular creature, no? I discovered him in the far south, at the source of the Nile, where the sand dunes turn to verdant forest and the natives speak the original language of Adam—a veritable paradise. He was wild, of course, but I tamed him myself.” Norman wasn’t the only one Kit lied about behind his back.

Kit probably would have gone on for hours, telling ridiculous stories about his adventures, making himself out to be some brave explorer and unicorn tamer, as well as the prince of England, but he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Sir Hugh rose to answer it, but before he could, the door was pushed open to reveal six of Nantes’s black-clad knights and a small, sweaty, sunburned man in white stockings and tunic.

One of Sir Hugh’s guards burst belatedly into the room behind them. “Ambassador Fitzgibbon,” he announced breathlessly.

“Arrest this scoundrel!” the sunburned man cried, pointing a finger at Kit.

Kit rose from his seat. “What is the meaning of this? Who is this offensive little man?”

The six knights who had been reaching towards Kit hesitated.

Sir Hugh turned to the angry little man. “Surely there is some mistake, Fitzgibbon. Don’t you recognize Prince Reynard?”

“P-p-p—” Fitzgibbon stuttered. “Prince Reynard! There is no
Prince Reynard. There is no such man, no such title. How could you let yourself be fooled like this?”

Sir Hugh’s face went blank with disbelief, but he wasn’t fooling Norman. He must have known all along. “Ambassador Fitzgibbon, I had no idea. When a man rides in here astride a unicorn and calls himself Prince Reynard, who am I to contradict him?”

As he watched this all unfold, the Duke of Nantes rose slowly from his seat, his eyes growing ever wider. “What is going on here? Hugh, is this some stratagem of yours? I’ll see you both hang, but not before I finish the job of razing this pile of dung!” He made a lunge across the table at the man he had been trying so hard to win over just a few moments earlier.

Kit scrambled to his feet and edged towards the door. “Who is that at the window?” he cried, pointing to the balcony where Norman and Meg stood. There was no time to duck out of sight. All eyes turned towards them. It bought Kit just enough time to get to the door. He allowed nothing to stand in his way, not even Ambassador Fitzgibbon, whom he sent flying. Sprawled on the floor, the little man made a grab for Kit’s ankle, but the fugitive kicked himself loose and fled.

“Get them!” the enraged duke cried, slamming an angry fist on the table.

Nantes’s men dashed in different directions—half of them towards the door after Kit, and the others towards the balcony—but Meg and Norman were already in motion, and Malcolm, perched on the railing, had his bow drawn. At this sort of distance, his aim was deadly, but he chose his targets to cause mayhem rather than fatalities. His first arrow struck the duke in the hand, pinning it to the table as securely as he’d pinned Meg’s hair ribbon to the floor.

Black John’s howls of anguish froze everyone for a moment as they tried to figure out what had just happened. When the knights finally realized that their leader had been struck by some sort of dart or crossbow bolt, they reacted according to their characters. The brave planted their feet, drew their swords and scanned the room for the source of the arrow. The cowardly took cover behind tables, chests and, if no other obstacles presented themselves, the
backs of their braver comrades. The ambitious ran to the duke’s side, attempting to win his favour by appearing to stand by him. One poor fool tried to remove the arrow, but the shaft was too small for him to get a good grip on it. The duke screamed in agony and cursed as the hapless knight yanked on the projectile.

“It’s the Saracens, for sure,” Sir Hugh cried loudly and convincingly. “They’re inside the gate. God help us all!” He knew a diversionary attack when he saw one, and he made sure that this one succeeded. He lunged at poor Father Lombard, tackling the surprised cleric to the floor, perhaps bruising his old friend more than he wanted, but blocking the passage to the door. “Save yourself, Father!” he shouted as the priest began to recite a prayer for their salvation.

In the chaos, Malcolm unleashed two more arrows. He caught one knight in the back of the knee, causing his leg to buckle under him and sending the hulking warrior crashing to the floor like a pile of empty armour. His sword went sliding away from him across the wooden floor.

Another knight wheeled, flourishing his blade towards the sound of the bowstring. Norman gasped at the evil glint in the man’s eye. The knight had only to take two steps and the point of the blade would be at Norman’s throat, but the warrior froze when he saw the furry creature dressed in hunting greens and wielding a tiny bow. His hesitation cost him dearly. The next arrow was aimed squarely between his eyes. Malcolm let the arrow go and dove for cover.

Norman was rooted where he stood. He had witnessed battles before, but he had never seen medieval combat up close. It was bloody and hectic and fantastically noisy—all shouts and clanks of armour and futile swishes of swords through the air.

The knight who’d spied Malcolm fell to his knees clutching his face. At the sight of his bloodstained hands and the sound of his high-pitched shrieks, the remaining knights suddenly found their inner cowards. They stumbled over themselves, diving under furniture and cowering behind each other.

Black John strained to free his pinned hand and shrieked orders that went unheard above the din of battle. His wild eyes
darted from corner to corner, unable to locate the attackers. Finally, they lit upon the children standing at the window. They narrowed as they locked on Norman, and he mouthed the word “You!” With a grimace, he yanked the arrow from his hand and lurched towards the children. But his revenge was thwarted. One of his own guards slipped as he backed away from the fight, falling across the duke’s path and sending them both tumbling to the floor.

Sir Hugh added to the chaos, slapping one knight across the back with the flat blade of his sword, sending him lurching into a comrade like an armoured bowling pin. He continued to call out the alarm, insisting that the Saracens were in the fortress, but he was the calmest of the lot, the only man in the room who seemed to realize that this attack was a diversionary tactic.

“Run! Save yourselves!” he cried, seemingly to no one, but he looked directly at the two children on the balcony as he said it.

Sir Hugh’s command snapped them out of their reverie, and they sprang into action. Meg led the way, leaping from the balcony back to the ledge.

“There’s a window there.” She pointed out the unshuttered opening on the far side of the courtyard.

There was no time to think of how high up they were or how narrow the ledge was. Norman just followed her lead. Meg leapt from ledge to ledge, so agile now that he had a hard time keeping up. Behind them, Malcolm discarded his dignity and fled on four feet, rapidly catching up with his human friends. He was a forest creature by nature and a River Raider by birth. His childhood had been spent in the riggings of the Raider ships. He’d walked ropes higher than this. To him, the ledge was like a highway in the sky.

Meg hauled herself through the open window and tumbled onto the floor, followed quickly and clumsily by Norman. They were both gasping there and revelling in their narrow escape when Malcolm appeared.

“Does someone want to close these shutters?” he asked nonchalantly. “They’re a little large for me, and if someone with half a brain were to look out, he’d have a good idea where we got to.”

Norman leapt up to do it, but he found there was someone else there already. The darkness of the room after the brightness of the desert sun made it difficult to pick out anything. As the shutters swung shut, it became darker still and Norman’s stomach sank. Had they just walked into a trap?

“Is anyone injured?” the voice asked. Norman didn’t immediately recognize it, but Meg of course knew it right away.

“Jerome!” she cried out in relief. “You’re safe!” She jumped to her feet and embraced the young archivist. He staggered back at first, abashed and surprised by the greeting, but soon returned her hug.

“Yes, I’m quite safe. I watched you from here. You were fearless on the ledge. I thought you were afraid of great heights.”

Suddenly self-conscious, Meg released Jerome and, apparently not sure what to do with her hands, began to brush the dust from her clothes. “Well, I think Norman and Malcolm have cured me of that, though I may have a little problem with blood after what I’ve just witnessed.”

Norman frowned and looked away. This childhood relationship between his mother and Jerome made him uncomfortable.

“Are Father Lombard and Sir Hugh all right?” Jerome asked. “I tried to watch from here, but I could not see anything.”

“They’re fine, Jerome,” Meg assured him. “Black John’s men took all the casualties. Our furry Robin Hood put on quite a show back there.”

“Robin Hood?” he asked, unaware of the reference. The hero of the moment interrupted. “We ought to be moving.”

The obedient young archivist shook his head. “Sir Hugh told me to stay here.”

“But Black John is still out to get you,” Norman argued.

“That’s surely a mistake. What would the Duke of Nantes want with me?”

Norman opened his mouth to say something, but Meg silenced him with a sharp look. “They’re right. We need to hide, or even
better, to leave the fortress. You were meant to have left for England today, were you not? Where is Godwyn? Is he ready to go?”

As a veteran of the bookweird, Norman could see that she was doing her best to get the book’s plot back on its original track.

Jerome shook his head solemnly. “Godwyn was injured in the fire. He breathed in a good deal of smoke. He will not be able to travel for some time, and I fear—”

He was interrupted by the sound of horse hooves. The children rushed to the window, but even through the narrow slats of the blinds, they could tell that there was no horse in the courtyard. As the clatter of hooves came closer, they realized that the sound was coming from inside the fortress.

“Black John?” Norman asked nervously.

T
he childish whoop from the corridor answered Norman’s question. Whoever was riding his horse through the fortress was now singing the theme to the Lone Ranger TV show. It could only be Kit.

Malcolm poked a head out the door to check, but Kit must have already known where to find them. “Hi-ho!” he cried, ducking down from his perch on Raritan’s back to peer in on them all. “Let’s get out of here. Who wants a ride?”

Meg flung the door open. “Kit, this has to stop! You are destroying this book. You need to get out of this fortress.”

“Lighten up, Sis,” he protested. “I’m not destroying anything. This is what it’s all about!” Now that his cover was blown, he had dropped his royal airs and any pretence of belonging in the book. His sister shook her head sternly. “It’s not what it’s all about.”

“Come on, Mega-Sis,” he teased. “Let’s go—me and you and the kid. We’ll be the new Intrepids.”

“Don’t you dare—” Meg retorted in a rage.

Raritan interrupted her. “Maybe you two children could have this discussion later.”

He was right. This was not an argument you should be having in the corridor of a desert stonghold when you are riding a unicorn
and being chased by angry knights. His deep voice put a stop to the argument at once.

“Miraculous day!” Jerome cried. He had been gazing at the unicorn in silent awe, until the creature had actually spoken. “Do all the princes of England ride fabulous beasts?”

“You bet!” Kit replied, all traces of his princely accent gone. “The Queen rides a seahorse down the Thames! Come to England with us, kid, and I’ll buy you a flying pony.”

“Kit!” Meg shouted, but she did not have time to finish her lecture. Black John’s reinforcements had arrived. Their angry shouts could be heard echoing around the corridors.

With that, they were on the run again.

“See you later!” Kit cried as he tapped Raritan’s flanks with his heels. “If I remember this book right, there’s something about a well and a palm tree.”

Norman had not got that far into
The Secret in the Library
. As he hurried down the hall after the childhood version of his mother, he hoped that she knew what Kit was talking about.

Noises bounced and carried strangely through the baked-clay passages of San Savino. At times they were sure that they were about to be found out. The sound of chain mail jingled and resonated behind them, and they would quicken their pace until the same sounds were heard ahead of them, at which point they tiptoed forward, uncertain whether they were falling into a trap. So they ran and then crept, stepped warily and then ran full tilt, never sure whether they were running into or from danger, as they made their way out of the monks’ chambers and through the dining halls towards the kitchens and the cellars.