“Which is?” the King prompted.
“Which is the question of my strange and sudden appearance in Carolna six years ago, which is also the question of who was responsible for the kidnapping of the Princeling by the enchanted Constable Dragon.
“Someone or
something
is interfering with our history, ladies, gentlemen, and Your Majesty! We must find out who and why and put a stop to the interference, if possible.”
“And guard ourselves against it in future, if the intent is evil—or even if it is good!” added Manda. “Tom says, and I agree, that our lives are just that—our
own
lives. No one has a right to
force
us to spend it for his...or her or its or their .. . unknown purposes!”
“I agree again,” Eduard Ten said, nodding to his firstborn child.
“As for Peter Gantrell, he must spend his basic term of exile, seven years less the five already served, in close warding. For the next two years, we decree that he be held a prisoner in Overhall, under the supervision of Murdan Historian. Do you agree, Lord Murdan?”
“Well, yes, sire, I have to agree,” said Murdan, surprised by the King’s decision. “And at the end of two years?”
“You will turn him loose, with suitable mount, arms, and armor, if he so wishes, to mend his personal fortunes as he can. We will not damage his brother Granger of Morningside by giving Peter back his old titles, lands, and property, given in judgment of him to Granger and his heirs. Peter must prove to us he can be as loyal in our support as he was cruel in opposition.”
The King turned to Captain Graham.
“Fetch your prisoner Peter Gantrell from Overhall Castle, to appear before us within the fortnight, so we may explain his imposed sentence and circumstances to him, face-to-face.”
“Sire!” said the captain of Overhall’s guard, saluting sharply. “I leave at once!”
Chapter Seventeen
The Missing Plume
A bedraggled hunched little figure on an unkempt calico pony drew rein with a nervous jerk that made the shaggy pony shy and snort unhappily.
This rider is a great trial and a sore temptation to nip on the
knee,
the pony thought to himself.
Now he ‘II expect me to swim this
river I see before us, I suppose.
Rider and tiny horse stood, heads bowed into the steady wind and rain, gazing down from the low riverside bluff at the wide, gleaming, brownish gray Cristol River.
They had ridden from the calico pony’s comfortable stable at a freehold farm not far from Overhall Castle, without pause except to catch a few hours of sleep under some stand of pine or later, as the weather warmed somewhat, hidden in the lee of a lone haystack in a field distant from its farmhouse.
What’s he looking at?
wondered the pony crossly.
His rider had given little thought to his mount’s needs, not even a decent meal with time to digest it, since they had set out. Riding half the night, each night, and hiding half the day for five cold, windy days!
It isn’t a horse’s business what his rider does or thinks,
the pony thought, noting a rumbling deep in his belly.
I’ve heard awful tales of
riders who killed their brave mounts when urgent business spurred
them ever on. No matter the waste.
But this one? He has a goal somewhere to the south. He doesn’t
quite dare to slay his only horse. Not yet! He must feed me and give
me a bit of slumber sometime
d
uring the hours of day or night
—
or I
might just give up, lay down, and let him beat me!
He was shocked at the appeal of the idea of collapsing in a weary heap, just giving up, but shuddered it off.
What
is
it he’s looking for, I wonder?
Never been this far from good old Overhall. I don’t like it, this
windswept riverbank. Sure, I don’t like this mean and nasty rider!
Perhaps I could give him a toss and run away! Or stumble on a
gopher hole and pretend to break my leg?
Would he have the humanity to slice my throat, if I
did
break a
leg? Or let me lay there and die in agony of pain, thirst, and hunger?
This one’d probably enjoy someone else’s agony!
After a long wait, the pony and the former Overhall Accountant named Plume caught sight of a low-sided, clumsy craft moving across the broad river from the unseen other bank.
It had a lantern burning at its blunt prow, a second one—colored red—along one side, and a third at the top of its stubby mast.
“Here it comes, at last!” grunted Plume wearily.
A ferry?
the pony asked himself.
Well, enough! At least for a few
hours I will ride and let the boat carry me onward.
“Up!” snarled the Accountant, jerking the reins cruelly in the animal’s tender mouth. “Down the hill there. Careful now!”
Anything,
thought the pony wearily,
to get you to get off my back
and leave me alone for a night or a day!
When they reached the bottom of the low bluff the Accountant guided his mount onto a rough plank dock reaching out over the slowly sliding waters of the Cristol. The strange odors of the river and the feel of solid planks underfoot bemused the pony until the thought of tossing his rider into the river came too late to act upon, even if he had found the strength and the will after all those weary miles.
Plume pulled him to a halt and dismounted—an act which brought a deep sigh of relief from the little horse. The cruel Accountant was a particularly bad horseman, all sharp ankles and sharper boot toes, always kicking or kneeing when there was nothing to kick or knee about by any horse-sense standard the pony ever learned.
Plume watched the ferryboat—for that was what it proved to be, long and low of the sides, bluff of bows and wide of beam. Its single square sail pushed it slowly up to the dock, where it came to a sudden stop with a
plumpety.
The sail dropped, as if it too were dead weary, and fell in untidy folds amidships.
A boy scarcely older than the pony’s farmer’s oldest son ran forward and hopped to the dock, looping a heavy hawser around a worn bollard of tough tree trunk, and, turning, gave a call to the helmsman in the stern.
The ferry swung slowly so its prow pointed upstream. A moment later the stern bumped, less sharply, against the dock. A tall, spindly steersman tossed another loop of thick, oily hemp rope over a second bollard and, putting his foot against the ferry’s low side, drew it up close.
The ferryboat gave an almost-Human groan of relief, the pony thought.
Six men and a woman climbed warily ashore, stretching their muscles and twisting their legs painfully from side to side. The thwarts had been very hard; unyielding and uncushioned. The river crossing had taken some hours.
“I’ll light us a nice, warm fire in the hut,” called the helmsman to his passengers. “Warm yoursel’s before you go on. See to it, Duggan!”
The lad waved and trotted ahead to open the lop-hanging door of the dockside cabin on the marshy shore. A moment later, as the passengers shuffled that way, the pony saw the bright spark of struck flint and a moment later still the boy had a blaze started in the fireplace inside the building.
The acrid smell of damp cottonwood twigs burning came to the pony and he wished, very hard, that the shed had a back lean-to for sheltering passengers’ mounts. The wind from downriver was not as cold as the wind across the farmlands they’d been secretly crossing for several days, but it struck through his damp coat, which was wet with the sweat of a full day’s hard riding and made him shiver miserably.
“Captain!” called Plume, approaching the ferryman. “I want to cross to the southern shore tonight!”
“Not
this
night!” the ferryman answered roughly. “Next trip’s at dawn!”
“Tonight!” insisted the Accountant firmly, and rather shrilly. “I’ll trade you this valuable horse for a special trip across,
right now.
By morning the price will fall to half!”
The ferryman, who was also the boat’s helmsman and the boy’s father, considered the offer, neither smiling nor frowning.
He could surely use the money. Traffic was slow this time of the year. His wife was about to give birth to his fourth child, and she couldn’t work the ferry as she had once done. And the boy was asking for some sort of wage—or he would run away to work on the new Achievement in the dry mountains, he said, north of the desert.
“If you’d but wait an hour...” the ferryman began. “To tend my passengers and get them off to night’s shelter. It may snow again tonight. Don’t want their lives on my conscience, you sees, sir.”
“Just an hour or two at most, but I must cross this night!” insisted Plume.
“All-fired eager to get over the river,” grumbled the ferryman, whose name was Parank. “Well, in exchange for this...er...horse, you call him?
Pony
is what they calls these little fellows where I come from!”
“Pony or horse, of more value than a special crossing, I swear,”
said Plume, sneering. “He’s my offer. Passage to the south bank, safely, less than two hours from now! Take it or I’ll ride up to Fiddlehead and get some squatter to take me across in a skiff for the price of a quaff of stale ale.”
“Right!” said Parank, deciding at last. “Give us an hour or a bit more to settle these here incoming passengers. We’ll unhook before ten o’clock,” he promised, consulting an enormous pocket watch he drew from the fob pocket in his greasy, tattered trews.
“I’ll go inside, then,” said the Accountant, turning to walk down the dock. “Little horse or big pony, he’s yours to keep now! His day’s been long and hard! A few days on good feed and he’ll be strong enough to pull your boat, ferryman!”
“Lot you know about horses,” sneered the riverman, after his night-time passenger had gone inside to join the weary people in front of the fire.
“Take care of the horse, Sonny,” the ferryman said, not unkindly, to the waiting lad. “We’ll take the little squirt across before we quit for the night. He’s traded the horse for a night crossing.”
“Yessir, Pap,” said the boy, sketching a sort of salute.
The ferryman swung a big, scarred fist his way but the boy dodged good-naturedly aside in time and gathered up the tired pony’s reins.
Small horse, indeed,
thought the pony with an angry snort The ferryman’s boy led him gently, speaking kindly to him on the way, toward the rear of the tumbledown cabin at the far end of the dock.
Better’n standing about on the open riverbank, I guess,
the pony thought, snorting.
To his surprise and everlasting gratitude the ferryman’s lad filled a feed box with sweet riverside clover and a generous double handful of real oats to crunch.
Friends for life!
the pony thought gleefully, nosing the feed box eagerly. I
swear it, my boy!
rs
The Captain of Overhall’s Guard returned to Lexor a week and a day later with Peter, unchained and well dressed, if somewhat sub-dued and evidently ill at ease in his former enemy’s presence.
“Here is Peter Gantrell, the prisoner from Overhall, sire,” declared Captain Graham. “However...”
“What is it, Graham?” the King asked.
“Sire,” said Peter. “He is escaped!”
“Who? Who is escaped? What do you mean?” the King cried, startled from his usual calm.
“The...the Accountant Plume, sire,” explained Graham, wringing his hands in concern.
“When Captain Graham came to fetch me, he noted the Accountant was not in his cell,” explained Peter, gravely. “Yet his door was locked from without and he couldn’t have climbed out of the window.
Too high above the ground—sixty feet from the top of the bailey wall—
and a good three hundred and fifty feet straight down to the floor of the valley below that!”
“But, then...?” started Murdan.
“He knew of a secret passage!” exclaimed Tom, suddenly realizing what had happened.
“Secret passage? Atop Aftertower! Nonsense! There are no secret passages in my castle. None that I know of, that is,” sputtered the Historian.
“Sire,
Retruance and I’ve been
studying Altruance’s
plans for Overhall off and on for five years,” Tom said earnestly. “For some time we’ve known that they sometimes keyed to diagrams showing hidden passages, stairways, and secret doors. But all details were missing—
stolen, I think now, by Plume!”
“What? What?” cried a distraught Historian.
“The walls of Overhall are honeycombed with hidden passages and stairways, it seems,” Tom explained. “Altruance Constable meant them to speed service and allow servants to move about without interfering with castle life. The servants seldom used them, and the secret ways fell into disuse in a few years. They’ve been forgotten now for a lifetime! You, Murdan, for some reason, never were told they existed.”
“But secret passages in the Historian’s own castle! How did Plume...?” The King gasped.
“Plume long had access to the Dragon-Architect’s archives in Middletower,” Tom replied. “He must have discovered, memorized, and destroyed the plans for the hidden passages and secret rooms and doors.”
“He never told me about them!” cried Peter. “If he had, things would have gone differently there at Overhall! What I mean is, he’d never have escaped, the little snail-wort!”
“Old Plume was always a great one for carrying a spare card or two up his sleeve,” said Graham thoughtfully.
“Secret doors! Hidden passages! It’s so hard to believe!” said Eduard, shaking his head angrily. “Not a bad idea, however, when I think of it again.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t think of it first,” Tom said, shaking his head angrily. “But Plume, with his inquisitive, acquisitive ways, must have been into old Altruance’s files years ago. He certainly hid his trail carefully, sir.”