Knight's Castle (10 page)

"One thing I've been wondering," said Roger, when peace had been restored. "Why doesn't the Old One ever talk to us when we run into him? I mean, when we meet him in the magic part. All he ever does is kind of smile and wink."

"Yes," said Eliza. "You'd think he could at least give us advice and steer our faltering steps."

"Maybe he can't," said Jack. "When you see him in the magic part—I mean the old-time part," he corrected himself, for he still wasn't ready to admit the magic was real, "why, then he's in
his
own time.
He can't get out of it into yours, any more than you can get into his."

"But we do," said Eliza.

"Not ackcherly," said Jack. "You're still yourselves, all the time you're back there. You're not really part of that time at all. You're sort of just visiting."

All this about two kinds of time was too deep for Ann. And when she said so, and Jack tried to explain, Roger betrayed her again.

"She won't get it," he said. "She's too young."

Ann felt depressed. Not only was she a girl, but she was too young. There didn't seem to be much future for anybody who was both these things. She gave Roger a wounded look, and turned away from him to the others. "Isn't it bedtime?" she said.

"For once in my life," said Eliza, "I wish it were."

"We could set the clock ahead," suggested Roger. He felt a little guilty and smiled at the back of Ann's neck, trying to make her turn around, but she wouldn't.

Jack shook his head. "That's no good. It wouldn't be scientific. Might spoil the whole thing."

So then Ann said she was going to bed anyway, and Eliza went with her. And then Roger remembered to warn Jack about the Words of Power; so he wouldn't use them by accident, and cut off the adventure in full flower, the way Eliza had. After that he tried to think whether there were anything more he should tell Jack, and there didn't seem to be. He forced a yawn. "Ho hum," he said. "Might as well hit the sack, too."

"What for?" said Jack. "It's early."

"I just guess I will," said Roger. And he got into bed.

If the truth must be told, he was feeling sorry for the things he'd said about Ann, and the way she had looked after he'd said them. The sooner the magic began the sooner everything would be right again.

Jack went on talking to him from across the room, but Roger shut his eyes and began taking long breaths, pretending he was asleep. Pretty soon, as so often happens when you do this, he was.

Jack strapped his camera on, in readiness for whatever striking scene might occur, and lay down on the couch, but he still felt wide awake. After a bit he got up and tiptoed across the room and stood looking down at Roger. Roger's eyes were shut.

And reassured that Roger wasn't awake, to see him being so childish, Jack tiptoed over to the fake trees near the castle, and knelt down and started playing with Robin Hood and his band, for all the world as though he were a boy of eleven, and not a man of nearly thirteen.

He had the Merry Men hunt a deer. Then he had them hold an archery contest. Robin Hood won easily, by shooting the petals off a daisy, one by one.

After that, Jack lay back on the carpet. He'd just stretch out here a minute, he told himself; then he'd get into bed. Strange as it seemed and early as it was, he felt suddenly very, very sleepy.

When Roger woke up and saw the familiar plateau stretching around him and knew that the magic was happening, he scrambled to his feet and hurried down the rocky path to the plain below. Far away toward the horizon he made out two dim figures hurrying toward him. Roger ran and the figures ran, and they met on the greensward.

"I'm sorry," were the first words of Roger.

"What for?" said Ann.

"You know," said Roger.

"What are you talking about?" said Eliza.

"Nothing," said Ann, but she felt better. "Where's Jack?"

"He slept that way," said Roger, pointing at a far plateau that had been Jack's couch. The three of them hurried across the plain. But as they neared the plateau, they couldn't see any sign of human habitation. And when they came right up to it, they saw that the plateau was smooth and unruffled, as though it hadn't been slept on all night.

"If that isn't just
like
that magic!" Eliza cried indignantly. "It got to him ahead of us. He's probably somewhere in the middle of it right now, being scientific and ruining
my
adventure! Come on!"

"Where?" said Ann. "We don't know where he is, or Ivanhoe, or anybody!"

"Start with the castle," said Roger. "That's always the beginning of everything. Our Social Studies book says in medieval times the castle was the hub of all activity."

The three of them ran toward the familiar towers of Torquilstone. As they hurried through the park, they could see figures moving up ahead.

"The siege must be still going on," said Roger, pointing.

"Oh, is that what they're doing?" said Ann. "That isn't what it looks like."

And now, as they drew nearer, the others saw that Ann was right. What was going on didn't look like a siege at all. A ball came hurtling through the air, but it didn't seem to be a cannonball, exactly. Some sort of stick flashed in the sun, but it didn't seem to be a pikestaff, or a quarterstaff, either.

And then they were very close, and loud voices rang on the bright air.

"He striketh thrice!" cried the first voice, in loud, official-sounding tones. "Out upon him!"

Other voices interrupted angrily. "Nay!" they cried. "A pox on thee! 'Twas a ball! Slay the Umpire!" And all the figures surged together in a quarreling knot.

Roger and Ann and Eliza came to a halt near some varlets who were looking on. "What's happening?" Roger asked one of them.

"It be ye sport of Base Ball," said the varlet. "The Norman team claimeth a ball but the Umpire saith them nay. It be ye olde Rhubarb."

"Good grief," said Roger. "Has the siege come to this? This is worse than last time."

Ann did not say "I told you so" to her brother. She merely gave him a meaningful look.

"Jack ought to be here," said Eliza. "He'd be in his glory. Where do you suppose he is?"

"Never mind about that now," said Roger. "The point is, who's winning?"

"It be a tie," said the varlet. "Naught to naught in ye sixth."

And now the quarrel (or rhubarb) seemed to be over, and the Saxons and Normans straggled back to their positions. A dignified-looking, white-haired gentleman who seemed to be the Umpire tossed the ball back into play, and the children saw that it was the Old One. He raised his eyebrows at Roger, but did not speak.

Meanwhile a tall Norman had stepped up to home plate, swinging his bat. At sight of him a murmur ran through the crowd. Some cheered and cried, "Up the Normans!" while others booed.

"Who is it?" hissed Roger to the varlet.

" 'Tis the greatest Norman of them all," said the varlet. " 'Tis Babe De Bracy. 'Tis ye Sultan of Swatte."

And then, as all eyes were fixed on the mighty Norman, a shameful thing happened. The Lady Rowena appeared on the battlements of the castle, no longer slothful and chocolate-fed, but slim and lovely, her blonde hair streaming on the wind. And as Roger and Eliza and Ann watched, horrified, she waved a lily-white hand at De Bracy. The mighty batsman bowed low in her direction, and she blew him a kiss.

"Why, the traitorous thing!" said Ann. "Imagine!"

"Isn't that just like her?" said Eliza.

The booing from the Saxon fans, which had grown louder when the Lady Rowena appeared, died down, and again Babe De Bracy approached home plate, his bat swinging.

But again there was an interruption. The portcullis of the castle moved upward, the drawbridge creakingly descended, and two figures advanced across it, on horseback. One was bearded and elderly, and the three children recognized him right away. It was Cedric the Saxon, Ivanhoe's father. Wamba the jester rode by his side.

De Bracy left the baseball diamond arid strode over to the two horsemen. "What meaneth this?" he said. "Doth the castle surrender?"

Cedric the Saxon drew himself up proudly. "Never," he cried, "while breath remaineth in me to defend it! I but crave leave to depart to seek my vanished son."

"Thy son is dead, methinks," said De Bracy, "else why hath he not returned?"

"Dead fiddlesticks!" cried Rowena, appearing suddenly on the drawbridge beside them and interrupting. "Run off with that Rebecca, more likely!"

"Temper, temper!" said Wamba.

"Peace, fool," said Rowena.

"For shame," said Cedric the Saxon, glaring at Rowena. "Smiling on the enemy and making thy great eyes at him from the very battlements of our Saxon stronghold, I saw thee!"

"I must needs smile at someone," said Rowena, "and none other was forthcoming. Besides, all the ladies smile at the Sultan of Swatte." And she batted her eyes at De Bracy.

"Faugh!" said Cedric the Saxon. "I shall find my son, if he be living, and he shall return to save our merrie land from these degenerate games. Sultan of Swatte, indeed! My son shall swatte
thee
!" And he turned his haughty glare upon De Bracy.

"Take care, gaffer," said the Norman. "Who cometh begging favors must needs speak more discreetly. Nonetheless, none can say Maurice De Bracy was ever an ungenerous foe. Depart in peace and seek thy son. But proceed with caution, for thou art old and thy fool but a fool." He strode back to the baseball diamond. "Play ball!" he cried, and the game began again.

Ann and Roger and Eliza ran after Cedric and Wamba. "Wait!" Roger called. "Take us with you; we want to find him, too!"

The two riders reined in their horses. " 'Tis Roger!" cried Wamba. "And the witch and the sorceress with him! Now surely we are in luck, for they have come to set us on the right path."

"Lead me to my son, elf-child," said Cedric the Saxon, "and I shall bless thy name forever."

"I can't," said Roger. "I don't know where he is."

"We know where he
was,
" put in Ann, "but he's not there any more."

"Then surely my son is dead," cried Cedric, "if the magic of Elfland itself cannot find him!"

"Not necessarily," said Roger.

"You'd be surprised what all we don't know," said Eliza.

"We know he's not
that
way, though," said Ann, pointing ahead through the park toward the greensward and the distant plateaus. "We've
been
there."

So Cedric the Saxon and Wamba turned their horses toward the grove of trees on their left, and Roger climbed up with Wamba, and Cedric lifted Eliza and Ann up to ride with him in a kind of double pillion, and they set off to look for Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

As they went along, the trees grew thicker and taller till they found themselves in a deep forest. The earth was carpeted with acorns and beech-mast, and the sunlight, sifting through the foliage above, turned the air the color of new young leaves; so that it was a green wood indeed. Once a deer galloped across their path, looking so free and beautiful and lordly that Ann and Eliza and Roger caught their breaths in sheer wonder.

It was a second after that that they heard a twanging sound, and something they thought was a bird flew by, over their shoulders. Only then they knew that it hadn't been a bird, because there was another twanging sound, and an arrow suddenly thrilled in the heart of an oak tree just ahead.

They pulled up short, their hearts beating fast. All at once the forest seemed alive with laughing men in green jerkins and hose. And in the midst of them, and grinning at Eliza and Roger and Ann, stood a familiar figure.

"Isn't this swell?" it said. "I guess there ackcherly
is
magic, after all."

When Jack awoke after going to sleep on the carpet, he found himself lying on cool grass at the edge of a wood. For a minute he couldn't think where he was; then he remembered. He jumped to his feet and walked into the wood, swinging a stick he fashioned from a fallen oak branch, and wondering what was going to happen next.

What happened next was a twanging noise in his ear, and something came flying through the air, straight at him. There was no time to duck, but he'd always been a good man with a fastball; so he quickly took his stance, and struck at the flying thing with his oak staff.

And he wasn't the batting champion of several Baltimore, Maryland, vacant lots for nothing. His stick hit the flying thing squarely, but instead of sailing over the fence and out, as it would have if it had been a baseball, it just stuck there on the end of the stick, and when he looked at it he saw that it was an arrow that had gone halfway through the stout oak.

The next thing he knew, a handsome man in green had appeared from behind a tree and was applauding him.

"Well played, boy!" said the man.

"Thanks," said Jack.

"But what is thy business in Sherwood Forest?" the strange man went on. "And art thou rich or poor, that I may know whether to rob thee or call thee friend?"

"Sherwood Forest?" said Jack. "Gee. Of course. And you're Robin Hood."

The man in green bowed. "Naturally."

A thrill went through Jack, and he reached for his everready camera. This would be the best picture yet. Not only that, but it would prove the magic had been real, afterwards.

"Hold still a second," he said. "Smile, please. There." And he clicked the shutter.

"What be yon?" said Robin Hood. "Some newfangled wizardry or other?"