The Palace Library (4 page)

When
Edgar opened Eleanor’s book, she found it was full of pictures of plants with
tiny writing next to them, which even she struggled to read with her good
eyesight.  In a way, Eleanor was a little disappointed with the book, as
it looked just like a ‘normal’ book, although the pictures were very
beautifully drawn.

She
tried not to look too disappointed when she asked Edgar what the book was
about.  “It is about healing.  You must study it well.”

“Why
was it locked up with the dangerous books then?” she asked.

“What
can heal can also poison.  With the knowledge in this book, you can cure
many diseases.  But wrongly used or used with evil intent, this knowledge
can also kill.  That is why it’s dangerous.  Take it now.”

Eleanor
took the book gingerly and far from being disappointed, she became quite
worried about what she realised was a responsibility.  Sophie seemed to
sense her anxiety and the deerhound put a paw on her shoulder and licked her
face.  Eleanor smiled.

Edgar
crossed the room to a great wooden cabinet and brought out two items.

To
Eleanor, he gave a short dagger in its own scabbard.  “This is for your
protection.  The dagger can also be used to cut plants.  Do not try
to fight with it, unless absolutely necessary.  Look to Harry to be your
warrior and champion if needed.”

The
dagger was mounted on a leather girdle, which Eleanor buckled around her waist.
As she did so, she noticed an engraving of a tiny dragon on the buckle. She
began to pull the dagger from its case and noticed a strange dim greenish glow,
but Edgar stopped her, saying, “You do not need weapons in The Palace Library.”

To
Grace he gave a golden pocket watch on a long gold chain.  He put it over
her neck and showed her how to open one side to tell the time.  The other
side was a compass.  “With the watch and the compass and your book, you
can navigate.  Don’t forget to
wind
the watch
every day.”

As
he finished, a different bell began to toll with long steady strokes and Edgar
looked alarmed.  “We must hurry!  That is the final bell for
Compline.”

Eleanor
and Grace looked at each other quizzically, wondering which one of them was
going to ask what Compline was, but fortunately Edgar continued, “It is the
last church service of the day and is calling the great gathering of the Court
to the chapel.  These bells are not ringing in The Library, but we can
hear them through the Great West Door.  Once the bell stops ringing, the
door will be locked and you will not be able to reach Harry.  Come! 
We have no more than five minutes.”

Edgar
did not appear to be moving that quickly, but the girls had to run to keep up
with him and Sophie followed at Eleanor’s heels.  As they went he pulled
some books from the shelves.  Grace saw the title on one said
Plantagenet
Fashion
.  Another seemed very plain and thin.

They
turned a corner and walked up to the Great West Door.  Unlike the small
door they had used to enter The Library, this was a pair of double doors which
a giant could walk through.  There was a smaller door set into the left
hand one, a wicket gate.  When they got there, Edgar turned the pages of
the first book and seemed to flick things off them towards the girls. 
They suddenly realised their clothes had changed. They were no longer in their
nighties.  They were in deep purple gowns and long cloaks made of fur,
quite unlike anything they had seen outside of history books at school.

“Somehow,
I didn’t think you’d look quite right in your night-clothes,” chuckled
Edgar.  Then he added seriously, “You need to remember this.  This
door is not a door
into
The Library.  It is a door out of The
Library to somewhere else.  You may need to find another way back into The
Library.  You must go and find Master John and ask for the Queen’s
help.  Now!  Hurry!  Go and help Harry.”

“But
where are we going?” said the girls in unison.

“Haven’t
I told you?” replied Edgar with a frown.  “How very careless of me. 
It’s not so much a matter of where as when.”

“When?”
asked the girls, finding this all quite hard to follow.  Even wrapped up
in their furs, they were both starting to shiver with cold and anxiety.

“Yes,
when
.  If I’m not mistaken, January 1164, for this is the Great
West Door of Clarendon Palace and the most important men in the kingdom are
gathered there.”

As
Edgar spoke, the rhythm of the bells changed and the girls asked more and more
questions.

“Silence!”
said Edgar.  “The Library has chosen you, so you must go and join
Harry.  There is no more time for questions.  Give Harry this
book.  It will give him wisdom at a time of need and perhaps when he least
expects it, but warn him it will be cryptic.  His clothes will do. At
least he was not in pyjamas!”

With
that, the final stroke of the bell began to fade and Edgar held open the small
wicket gate set into the main doors.  A blast of much colder air hit
them.  Sophie nudged both girls into a Great Hall.  Then when the
girls looked around through the open gate, they could not see The Library, but
only the rain coming down on the sodden grass of a dark winter night at
Clarendon Palace in January 1164.

They
felt very lonely, but Sophie seemed to know where she was going.  They
followed her.

The Great Hall had a vast wooden
roof.  The hall was crowded and it was probably a good thing that no one
seemed to pay them any attention.  Sophie led the girls around the edge of
the hall and out of a side door.  The girls noticed they were now under
some sort of gallery.  A roof above their head protected them from the
worst of the weather, but the side was open to the elements and they both felt
the cold, so they pulled their fur cloaks around them.  Rain dripped off
the edge of the roof and blew into their faces.

Sophie
paused at the corner before putting her nose in the air and sniffing.  She
smiled, just like the first time Grace had met her, although back then she had
mistaken it for a snarl.  Then she moved off and the girls were both hard
put to keep up with her.  Sophie pushed at a door and went through
it.  There was a warm glow coming from the room inside and a delicious
smell of roasting meat.

In
the room, in front of a huge fire, there was a whole hog roasting on a
spit.  A large man and a short fat woman stood with their backs to
them.  The man was wearing a long green coat with leather trousers and
braid on his sleeves.  The woman was obviously a cook and was tending to
the meat.  Sophie came up behind the man and put her nose into his
side.  He was clearly used to dogs as he put his hand down to stroke her
nose and carried on his conversation.  Sophie was a bit more insistent
before he turned around to look.

Then
he turned and she put her feet up and licked his face, really smiling again, in
that funny way that only special dogs do.  That surprised the man a lot
and he said sharply, “Get down now,” before he took more notice and said with
surprise, “Sophie!  Is that you?  How did you come to be here? 
You look so well and so healthy.  The Queen had said we were unlikely to
see you again.”

At
that, Sophie dropped down and went behind the girls and pushed them towards the
man, wagging her tail.  They were both terrified, but he looked down at
them and said, “So who are you? Sophie seems to know you so I guess you can’t
be all bad.”

At
that moment, there was a loud shout.  The cook noticed them and said,
“Master John.  You’re bad enough bringing a dog into my kitchen, but you
know I won’t have children here!  Remove them at once!”  The girls
stared at her and their eyes opened wide at what they saw.  “Now!” shouted
the woman, waving a long iron ladle at them.

The
man shooed them out the kitchen into the cloister.  “Mistress Comely, the
cook, has a wicked mouth but a heart of gold.  Don’t you worry about
her.”  The man was like a giant, but gentle and made the girls feel a
little more comfortable and at ease.  Then they caught each other’s
eye.  They were nervous and they giggled.

The
man looked at them a little strangely.  “Now what is that all about? 
The girls glanced at each other knowingly and Grace whispered to Eleanor, “You
tell him.  You’re older.”

So
Eleanor did, rather shyly, but smiling.  “It’s just that she looks exactly
like Horrible Hair Bun, but half the height and as if she’d been blown up with
a bicycle pump.  And they’ve both got funny little hairs growing on their
face.”  They giggled again.

The
man looked at them carefully.  “You’re mighty cheeky for ones so
young.”  The girls looked crestfallen, as if a joke and a shared
confidence had gone badly wrong, but he continued, “I know nothing about
Mistress Hair Bun, nor what a bicycle pump is.  But Mistress Comely has a
heart of gold, however bad her temper seems, and her cooking is divine.” 
It might have been a telling off, but suddenly he smiled.  He pointed to
his beard, and added, “There are a fair few funny hairs on my face too, but
you’re right about one thing; there a great many things I’d think of doing
before I wanted to kiss Mistress Comely with her prickly hairs!”

He
roared at the joke and they laughed together, the girls relieved that they
seemed to have found a friend.  Then Eleanor looked a little more serious
and asked, “We’re looking for Master John.  And we’re also looking for
Harry.  Do you know them?”

Now
to a grown-up, these questions might have seemed strange, especially since the
girls had just come through a magical library and stepped back in time over 800
years, but to Eleanor it seemed to be the most natural question in the world.

“You
seem to be in luck now.  I guess that’s thanks to Sophie.  I am
Master John and you must be Eleanor and Grace.  Wait a moment now and I’ll
take you to Harry.”

He
stopped and thought for a moment before adding, “Are you hungry?”

Until
then, the girls had not thought about food, but they had eaten nothing since
waking that morning and they were starving.

“Yes!”
they shouted together.  Then Eleanor remembered her manners and said,
“Please may we have something to eat?”

Master
John bellowed with laughter and said, “Of course you may. I’ll ask Mistress
Comely for something for Harry as well and now you shall have dinner for three
- with something for Sophie too, I think.

“The
Palace is busy tonight,” he added.  “Everyone is occupied and I’ll have to
leave you on your own with Harry, but I’m sure you’ll have much to talk
about.  You shall come back and sleep in the kennels with me.”

Master
John leant down and confided, “Many would baulk at staying in the kennels with
all the hounds, but it’s one of the warmest and pleasantest places to be. 
You’ll be undisturbed there until the Queen decides what to do with you. 
Sophie will be amongst old friends.  Follow me!”

Grace
and Eleanor were relieved that they had found Master John and Harry so soon,
but were not too sure about the kennels and rather scared of even hearing about
the Queen.  The kennels were in a huge barn and it became clear that
Master John lived on a gallery on the first floor, with all manner of hounds
and dogs on beds on the ground floor.

It
smelt very, very doggy, but as he said, it was warm and comfortable. 
Master John showed them to a corner of the gallery under wooden beams where
they met Harry again.  It seemed quite natural to them all that Sophie
came upstairs with them and wasn’t asked to go down with the others.  She
just curled up underneath the simple table.

“Now
you three stay here for now.  Your arrival has caused enough trouble as it
is.  Keep out of sight and I’ll be back later,” Master John told them as
he banged down a tray with three steaming bowls of meaty soup and a great big
bone for Sophie.

Then
the three of them hugged each other before wolfing down the bowls of soup and
telling each other what had happened to them.

Harry
started telling his tale with a sincere apology, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe
what you said about The Library, Grace.  It was very rude of me.”

Grace
was so relieved to see Harry that she had rather forgotten how mean he had
been.  “It’s all right, Harry.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  Tell
us how you got here.”

“I
was woken up at about five o’clock this morning.  At least I think it was
this morning… coming back in time is very confusing.  It was Horrible Hair
Bun.  She told me that Great Uncle Jasper needed to see me in his study at
once and that I was to be dressed in these clothes.  The trousers are very
itchy.”

Harry
was wearing a pair of old-fashioned plus fours and a tweed jacket with a
leather waistcoat.  There was an old wax jacket next to him on the floor
and he had some heavy leather boots on his feet.

“I
was very worried.  I thought something dreadful must have happened. 
Even Horrible Hair Bun didn’t have time to be strict.  She gave me a kiss
goodbye.”  Harry touched his chin absent-mindedly and rubbed it.

“Anyway,
Great Uncle Jasper was all kindness, but he said I needed to hurry…”