Bookweirdest (25 page)

The next attack would be the final one. Norman knew it.

“Johan of Vilnius still lives!” he shouted, desperate to buy Malcolm more time.

“Norman, no!” Meg protested.

“What?” the two swordsmen asked, one outraged, but both disbelieving.

“You had him. You had him all this time in your own prison in Jerusalem and you never knew, and now he’s escaped. He’s on his way here now. He’s coming to get you.”

“Norman, stop!” Meg pleaded. “They can’t know these things. It’s not time.”

“These are the fantasies of a lost boy, mourning his rebel father,” Black John snarled. “I think we can see which brat I need. Now say your prayers, old man. Your time has come.”

Sir Hugh didn’t wait for the next attack. He seized the initiative, charging forward furiously, lunging and slashing. Black John edged back, parrying to take the sting out of each blow. Hugh grunted each time metal met metal, and each blow came more slowly than the last. Black John would just let him tire himself out.

If Norman could see it, Sir Hugh had to know it too, but he fought on desperately, slashing wildly now, his sword making deep
swooshing
noises as it sliced the air. He was fighting to buy them time, hoping to prolong this contest long enough for them to escape, but to do so, he had to free a path to the trapdoor.

Hugh seemed to take a deep breath, then he aimed one last sweeping slash of his sword at his assailant’s arm. The duke parried it professionally, turning and twisting his own sword in such a way that it took all the momentum. Sir Hugh’s weapon went flying from his hand, landing with a thud somewhere among the food barrels, but their protector did not stop his charge; he continued hurtling towards Black John, his bare fist now aimed squarely at the duke’s chin.

The blow caught the duke by surprise. Norman heard the jarring sound of teeth clashing together, and the duke turned away to protect himself. Hugh made to grasp him in a bear hug, but the younger man twisted away from his grip and sent Hugh tumbling to the floor.

Black John stepped back and looked down at his fallen opponent. The old soldier struggled to rise, but his assailant kicked Hugh’s arm from beneath him, sending him sprawling again. The duke smiled and spat blood on the floor beside his fallen opponent. “You fool,” he declared bitterly.

Norman could see that there was more than just the duke’s blood on the floorboards. Hugh had been caught again, in his last attack, and he was bleeding heavily now. Black John saw it too, and he raised his sword high over his head.

Just then, something cut through the stale air of the cellar—a short, sharp breath of something. None of them saw it, but Norman guessed what it was.

One moment Black John was standing there, his sword held aloft in triumph, ready to deliver the final blow. The next he was staring at his empty hand, wondering what that piece of wood was sticking out of it.

“Should have got that hand the first time,” they heard Malcolm mutter to himself.

But it wasn’t over yet. Even without the use of his hands, the Duke of Nantes was still dangerous. He could still issue commands. “Guards! Guards!” he bellowed in pain and rage. “Down here in the cellars.”

Norman and Jerome didn’t wait for him to get another word out. They moved at the same time, seemingly with the same impulse. Jerome aimed high, lowering his shoulders as he charged towards their pursuer’s chest. Norman went low, aiming to tackle his ankles.

Their tormentor anticipated the blow, but he could not escape it. They caught him as he twisted away, sending him off balance. He staggered once, then again, but this second time his foot found the edge of the trapdoor. His momentum carried him backwards
and he fell, plunging into the hole in the floor. There was no scream as he fell. The only sound he made was when he landed—just a grunt and a sort of sigh.

Jerome rushed to the side of his fallen protector, flinging his arms around the stricken governor.

Norman and Meg rushed to the trapdoor opening and peered down into the dark passage. They were all so stunned by what had just happened that even when Norman picked up and flicked on his flashlight, no one objected and no one declared it a miracle. The beam of light illuminated the prone body of the Duke of Nantes, twisted and motionless below them. Had he been knocked unconscious by the fall?

Norman lit the way for Malcolm to climb down into the passage. The stoat drew his sword as he carefully examined the body. Still Black John didn’t move. Malcolm crouched low over his face and pressed his tiny ear to the duke’s mouth to check his breathing. He listened for a while, then looked up and shook his head.

“But how?” Norman asked.

Malcolm stepped gently around the body and finally found the cause of his death. He pointed to the dead man’s chest. Norman aimed the flashlight. The tip of his rabbit sword could be seen protruding from Black John’s black velvet doublet.

Meg put her hand over her mouth and turned away.

Norman had seen death before, had even played a part in battles. It made no difference that the “people” were wolves or humans or that they had been trying to kill him. It still made his stomach churn and his limbs cold.

They stood and stared in silence until a sound behind them snapped them out of it. Jerome. It was a low moaning sound, like the keening of a sad animal. He was crying. The boy archivist knelt beside the body of the man who had been his protector all these years. The old governor lay where Black John had left him, one hand raised to clasp the hand of the boy who knelt over him.

Meg pulled away from Norman’s side and crouched down beside her friend, putting a consoling arm around him. Norman
stood and watched, feeling more than ever that he did not belong here, that he was intruding.

“I’m sorry.” Malcolm had appeared back at the edge of the trapdoor. “I was too late. They kept moving …”

Norman shook his head. He didn’t blame the stoat for a moment.

Beside the fallen warrior, Jerome continued to sob and Meg consoled him silently. The old knight struggled to make himself heard.

“I’ve had a good life,” Hugh croaked. “And a good death, if it saves yours.”

At the word “death,” Meg too started to sob.

“I have seen such marvellous sights—the golden cities of Europe, Jerusalem. I have fought what seemed to be the good fight. I have tried to do God’s bidding.” He coughed, struggling to continue. “My only regret was that I never had a son. Since you came to this little outpost in the desert, that regret has vanished.”

His voice fading, he pulled the boy closer to him.

“Go now, save yourself. Live your life,” he whispered hoarsely.

“But I can’t,” Jerome protested, tears now streaming down his face. “Not now. Not with you like this. And Brother Godwyn …”

The old man wheezed and took a deep breath, summoning the energy for his final words. “Let old men finish their lives as they choose. You have your own to live.”

With that, he let out one final sigh and closed his eyes. He was dead, Norman was sure of it, but it was not like the other deaths he’d witnessed. Sir Hugh had called it a good death. They’d said that about the demise of Malcolm’s father on the field of Tista Kirk—that for a warrior it was a good death to die in battle and in victory. Norman didn’t believe it. Death was death. It was better to live. It would be better for all of them if Sir Hugh still lived.

He stood and watched helplessly a little while longer. Meg and Jerome eventually ran out of tears. Norman did not dare disturb them. He didn’t know how long they waited for Jerome to say his silent goodbyes, but finally the archivist stood, bowed his head and
said a prayer in Latin. When he was done, he made the sign of the cross and they said amen in unison.

They let themselves down slowly into the tunnel, with Norman leading the way and Malcolm following to close the trapdoor behind them. Meg had regained enough of her composure to frown when Norman lit up his flashlight, but she said nothing, not wanting to disturb the solemn silence of Jerome’s mourning.

They stepped around the fallen duke’s body, no one giving it more than a glance except Jerome, who stopped and said a little prayer for the man who had hunted him down and murdered his protector—the man who would have killed him too had Sir Hugh and Malcolm not intervened. The others did not protest. They waited for him to finish, then stepped into the gloom of the tunnels.

Norman had expected a short walk to a hidden exit not far beyond the fortress walls, but the tunnels were much deeper and much longer than he’d imagined. They turned and twisted, winding their way around boulders and outcrops, following the cracks and seams in the bedrock. Every now and then, the passage widened into a cave. Scratched pictures on the walls and piles of broken clay indicated that these caverns had been inhabited long before the coming of the Crusaders. They followed Meg’s directions, always taking the left passage when faced with a choice, like the instructions for a maze.

The silence was difficult for Norman. He wanted to talk about what had happened back in the cellar. He wanted to make sense of it for himself. The distant look on Jerome’s face worried him. His eyes were open, but they were focused somewhere within, in what thoughts Norman could only guess. He was merely stumbling along.

Norman nudged the boy with his elbow and handed him the flashlight. The archivist stared down at it without reaction, holding it loosely in his hand as he took it, but he did step into the lead. Malcolm took the hint and leapt from Norman’s shoulder to the other boy’s, keeping him company as Norman fell back to talk to Meg.

She didn’t look much better. Her tidy braid was coming undone. Loose hairs fell in her face. That face was pale and smeared with grime around the eyes where she’d wiped away tears.

“It’ll be all right,” he told her. She looked so pitiful that even if this hadn’t been his mother as a child, he would have tried to comfort her. “We’ll get Jerome to Agadir, like you said. He’ll go to England, just as he does in the book. It will all be okay.”

“It’s not okay. With Sir Hugh dead and Godwyn remaining in San Savino, it’s all changed.”

“No, no,” Norman protested, trying to convince himself. “We can fix this.”

“Don’t you understand?” She stopped and grabbed his shirt. “Hugh and Nantes are supposed to fight that duel in Jerusalem a hundred pages from now. It’s supposed to be Johan of Vilnius who kills the duke, not some talking woodland creature.”

“We’ll adapt. We’ll change it,” Norman argued. “The important thing is that Jerome finds his father, right? That he learns his ancestry?”

“That’s the point. Without Godwyn, it’ll never happen. It’s Godwyn who tells him—who is
supposed
to tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Malcolm had fallen back to see what was keeping them.

“Jerome’s real name,” Norman explained, whispering so that the boy up ahead didn’t hear. “So why can’t we just tell him? We’ll tell him we’re messengers sent by the Livonian Knights.”

“Because it’s an important plot point,” Meg insisted, frustrated that they didn’t understand. “It can’t be me. I can’t just say, ‘Hey, Jerome, guess what? Your real name is Edward Vilnius. Know what that means?’ ”

It hit Norman like a bucket of cold water. “What did you say?”

“I said I can’t tell him his real name. It’s the turning point of the book. It has to come from one of the characters, one of the men he trusts. It can’t be me.” She repeated it as if explaining something to a small child.

“Not that,” Norman whispered urgently, not sure if he had
really heard what he thought he’d heard. “The other thing—his real name.”

“Edward Vilnius, the son of Johan of Vilnius,” she repeated, exasperated. “You know that. Why do you sound so surprised?”

“His first name is Edward?” Norman was finally realizing that there was a reason the boy looked so familiar, a reason his gestures reminded him of someone. He was speechless. He just looked at Malcolm wildly, as if to ask, “Are you hearing this?”

The stoat king stared back at him and raised his paws in disbelief. “You didn’t know? All this time you didn’t know? I thought that’s why it was so important to you.”

“What?” Meg asked, bewildered by the conversation.

“You knew?” Norman asked Malcolm. “You
knew
?”

“From the moment we met him,” the stoat replied. “Couldn’t you see why this book was so important to your mother?”

It was a strange sensation. This is what it felt like, Norman realized, to miss something obvious in your own story that everyone reading it could see from the start. This is what it was like to be a character and not the reader.

“Knew what?” Meg asked, completely lost. “What does your mother have to do with this?”

Neither Norman nor Malcolm answered her question.

“Whose mother?” asked Jerome, returning to find the stragglers. He shone the light on each of their silent faces.

Norman turned and recognized the face of his father for the first time.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, unable to answer Jerome’s question. “We need to keep going. We have to pick up the pace.”

At Norman’s urging, they moved faster after that. His brain couldn’t really come to grips with what was supposed to happen. Somehow this boy was his father, just as this girl was his mother. But how was it possible? Jerome wasn’t real. Was it just that the character Jerome was based on a real person? Was it something as simple as that? Norman doubted it. With the bookweird, it was never the simple answer.

Lost in thought, he didn’t notice when they came to a stop in a large cave. He stumbled into Jerome and steadied himself by grabbing the other boy’s shoulder.

“What?” he asked.

Jerome’s only answer was to point the flashlight at the wall of rock in front of them. Between two slabs of solid rock was a pile of rubble, jamming what had once been an opening.

“A cave-in,” Malcolm said, pointing out the obvious. “It must have been caused by last night’s bombardment.”

“Are we sure we followed the right path?” Norman asked, trying to quell the panic in his voice.

“Quite sure,” Jerome replied. “But we can backtrack.”