The Battle for the Castle (9 page)

With the next trumpet call, Sir Simon rose to his feet to announce the last event of the morning. “A joust between my good friend, Sir Morlan, of the neighboring kingdom of Haggleshire, and our new friend and esteemed visitor from across the border, the noble Sir Jason of Yorkshire. Gentlemen, to the lists.”

“That's you,” William said.

Jason flipped down his visor with a decisive clank, mounted his bicycle, and stood at the ready, the unwieldy
lance balanced in the crook of his elbow. Sir Simon had instructed him to stay out of sight until the last moment.

In full jousting armor, Sir Morlan entered the courtyard. His big black stallion pranced and danced his way across the drawbridge, fighting his master's tight hold on the reins with defiant tosses of his head. Each drop of his thick hoof echoed against the wooden planks like the warning beat of a drum.

“He sure is big,” Jason said as he watched the man circle the courtyard once and take up his place at the far end.

“Which one? The man or the horse?” William asked.

“Both,” said Jason in a low voice.

“Bring on your mysterious knight,” Sir Morlan roared at his host. Sir Simon stood up and nodded at William who jabbed Jason with his elbow. “Go for it,” he said, and Jason wobbled out of his hiding place.

Jason lurched around the edge of the courtyard with his visor bobbing up and down on his head, trying to balance the lance and steer the bike over the bumpy cobblestones at the same time.

Sir Morlan flipped up his own visor in order to see his opponent better. “What is this?” he roared in disbelief. “Sir Simon, you have made a fool of me. You have sent me into the lists against a mere boy and a
bumbling one at that. He cannot even afford a horse but must ride about on the wheels of a cart.”

The crowd burst into howls of laughter at the sight of Jason. They pointed and slapped their knees and guffawed. Sir Simon leaned against a friendly baron and wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. Tolliver came up next to William.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

“It's mean and nasty,” William said. “Everyone is making fun of Jason. And Sir Simon's letting them do it. I'm going to tell him to stop it.”

Tolliver grabbed his arm. “Wait. See what Jason does.”

Jason hadn't given up. He took his appointed position at the opposite end of the courtyard from Sir Morlan. Then he flipped up his visor. “Honorable Knight,” he shouted. “Are you ready to tilt against me or shall I declare victory by default?”

“Go, Jason,” William shouted, and from somewhere in the crowd, he heard Gudrin's voice echo the name. The name Jason spread from one person's lips to another until the air fairly buzzed with it. The buzzing escalated to a chant. “JA-SON! JA-SON!” Sir Simon rose and lifted his hands for silence.

“Let the joust begin. And may the best man win.”

“Man!” thundered Sir Morlan. “There is only one man here.” Without further warning, he gave his horse
a vicious kick and rode toward Jason, his lance at the ready. As the black stallion galloped the length of the courtyard, Jason once again struggled to get the bike moving on the uneven surface. He'd wobble along for a few feet, drop his foot from the pedal, push off again, and all this while the horse was bearing down on him. The crowd had gone completely silent.

“Move, Jason,” William whispered to himself. “For God's sake, move.” At the last moment, Jason ducked the parry of the lance and wobbled away in the opposite direction.

But Sir Morlan had pushed his horse to such a headlong gallop that he had to ride across the drawbridge and down a grassy slope to get the stallion turned around again. This gave Jason the time he needed to build up to cruising speed.

“Don't stop again,” William cried as Jason drew near on his second turn. “No matter what you do, keep pedaling.”

“I know,” Jason called as he swept past, his body hunched low over the handlebars. Now the lance was the problem. He couldn't seem to get it balanced right, so half the time the back part of it was dragging on the ground. He ducked two more feints by Sir Morlan, who roared with fury every time the bicycle circled him.

“Stand your ground, boy,” he cried. “I cannot see where the devil you are.”

“Precisely my plan, Sir Morlan,” Jason shouted back as he leaned into a corner.

The crowd clapped and rooted for Jason, who looked more like an irritating horsefly next to the snorting stallion than any kind of real challenger in the lists. Sir Morlan couldn't keep his eye on Jason long enough to unseat him, and Jason's stabs with the lance kept missing.

Deegan appeared. “Looks as if this will go on all day,” he said with a smile. “Jason Stubbs Hardy has lived up to his name. He is both stubborn and hearty.”

William groaned. “But will it ever end? All Sir Morlan has to do is dig his heels into that horse. Jason's been pedaling for ages and he's looking pretty tired to me.”

“Well, then, shall we even things up a bit, Muggins?” asked Deegan with a mischievous lift of his right eyebrow. “A little funning, a little confusion, some distraction for the eye?”

“What eye?”

“Why the eye of the horse, of course. Come along, my good fellow. Follow me,” Deegan cried, and catapulted himself into the courtyard with a series of increasingly tight handsprings. So swiftly did he rotate that he was soon nothing but a green blur streaking across the space.

William watched as the fool completed his first circle around the courtyard. It was crazy to do a tumbling
pass on the hard cobblestones, but as Deegan headed back in his direction, William's body tensed. He wanted to join the fool.

“He's coming back,” Tolliver cried.

When Deegan whirled past for a second turn, William cartwheeled into line behind him. The crowd roared at the sight of them, but William focused only on Deegan as if he could suck from him everything he needed—the energy, the timing, the courage to tumble on uneven cobblestones strewn with straw. It was a crazy and daring display but Deegan gave it his all and by the time they made their second circle together, William had found his old rhythm.

Deegan's idea seemed to be working. With a look of wild alarm, the horse turned this way and that, trying to keep all his attackers in view at once.

Sir Morlan cursed the poor stallion and tried to hold him in one direction while, at the same time, swiveling around in the seat to locate the boy. The horse's momentary confusion gave Jason the split second of advantage he needed, and he charged from the right flank, his lance balanced correctly in his arm for the first and only time. But he misjudged once again, and the lance got stuck in the space between the knight's leg and his saddle.

This was the final blow for the poor horse. He took off at a dead run for the drawbridge, with Sir Morlan
roaring at him to stop and Jason hanging on for dear life.

“LET GO, JASON!” William screamed as he came up from his last dizzying cartwheel. “LET GO OF THE LANCE!” But by that time, Jason seemed to be frozen in his peculiar position. The last they saw of him, he was headed across the moat, one hand steering the handlebars and the other clamped to the hilt of his weapon the way a drowning man clings to a piece of driftwood.

Up on the ramparts, the crowd rushed to the other side of the wall walk and called down reports. “They're over the moat, down the hill, now.” “We've lost them. They've galloped out of sight.”

A stillness settled over the courtyard. Everybody turned toward Sir Simon, who rose to his feet and looked around in a bewildered way.

Without any warning, Deegan came up behind William, picked him up with one easy lift and settled him onto his shoulders. William was too surprised to object. One minute he was on the ground, his mind in a blur, and the next, he was sitting high up like a boy at a holiday parade. They walked toward the drawbridge.

“Deegan,” Sir Simon shouted. “What are you doing?”

“Going to welcome home the hero,” Deegan called back without turning around.

“I wish you weren't leaving,” William said to the air.

“A fool cannot do the same tricks he did yesterday, my good William. And I have tricks for trade. You teach me yours, I'll teach you mine.”

“But what happens if—”

“If what?”

“If the ship comes back?”

“I am nothing but a fool, boy.”

“Will you know if we need you? Will you come then?”

“I come, I go. Half past yesterday, twenty minutes to tomorrow. I am the man of the moment, reinventing myself every day. I have told you before. A fool is not to be counted on.”

“Lucky you,” William muttered to himself from his perch.

“So, half-man, half-boy, what do you see?” Deegan said when he stopped in the center of the drawbridge.

“Someone's coming back,” came a shout from the top of the wall walk.

“Which one?” called a chorus of voices.

“It's Jason,” said William in a hushed voice. “Jason's the one coming back.”

“Sir Jason of Yorkshire returns,” Deegan announced in ringing tones, and once more the ramparts
sang with the chant of his name. “JA-SON, JA-SON.” William slid from Deegan's shoulders.

Deegan put a hand out and caught him by the arm. “You will not see me again for some time, half-boy, half-man,” he whispered with a strange kind of urgency. “And you will be angry with me.”

“Why?” William asked impatiently.

The fool shrugged and grinned at the same time, but he didn't answer. His face took on the expression of an irresponsible little boy and William didn't like it. He pulled roughly away and ran down the hill to meet his friend.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Jason nodded wearily. William took the bike from him.

“You can take the helmet off now,” he said, and Jason lifted it from his head. His glasses hung askew and one lens was cracked down the middle. Little drops of sweat ran down his temples but he didn't seem to notice.

“Good you did all that training.”

Jason managed a grin. “Best workout I've had in weeks.”

“What happened to Sir Morlan?”

“You saw how the lance got caught between his leg and the saddle. Down at the bottom of the hill, he shifted his weight enough so the lance fell out.”

“Then what?”

“He shouted at me that Sir Simon should meet him at the border. He was tired of playing games with a boy. Then he rode off.”

“Some boy,” said William, and he gave his friend a punch on the shoulder.

“Ouch,” said Jason. “That hurts. Everything hurts.”

From opposite corners of the wall walk, the trumpets rang out. With the creak of leather and the staccato rattle of hoofbeats against wood, the great procession was finally under way. Sir Simon, on Moonlight, was leading the entourage. When the group reached the two boys, Sir Simon put up his hand for silence.

“My noble friend, you have done well. In all my years in the lists, never have I seen such a joust.”

Jason bowed.

“Young William, our good friend and yours, defends himself with his body as he has already proved. But you are a squire in need of a weapon.” Sir Simon drew from his sheath a long thin sword with a golden hilt. “Sir Jason of Yorkshire, I leave you this. Use it wisely in defense of my kingdom until my return.”

Jason took the sword. He extended his arms and lifted the weapon for all to see. The sword glittered in the sun as he turned in a slow triumphant semicircle.
The people went wild with excitement. They chanted his name and stamped their feet at the sight of their new hero.

William stood aside to let Sir Simon pass. With a final wave, the knight loosed the reins on Moonlight and the impatient horse broke into a full canter. Soon the whole procession was thundering down the path between William and Jason. The dust rose with the incessant thrumming of their hoofbeats. The horseflesh and the brightly colored drapes and the flash of silver armor in the sun all blurred into one long noisy wall of sound and color that seemed to go on forever.

Life in the castle slowly returned to normal. Jason went to bed the afternoon that Sir Simon left and slept straight through until the next morning. The extra retainers hired for the feast wrapped up their meager belongings and took themselves home. The blacksmith and the cobbler packed their tools and trundled back down the castle path to their villages. For an entire day, a steady stream of people poured across the drawbridge, and the guard in the gatehouse did not bother to drop the portcullis except at night.

The instant Jason woke up, Tolliver began begging him for lessons on the bicycle.

“Is it all right if he uses yours?” Jason asked.

“Sure, it's fine,” said William. He left them together, with Jason starting in on his endurance lecture.

William found Gudrin down in the kitchen, preparing a tray for her uncle. They hadn't spoken since they first arrived at the castle and now William felt awkward around her. He wondered if she'd seen his tumbling exhibition.

“The place seems pretty quiet all of a sudden,” he said. “Did you see Deegan leave?”

She shook her head. “Nobody ever sees Deegan leave. One minute he's here, the next he's gone.”

“I wish he were still here,” William said. “What if the ship comes back or some enemy attacks from the border or Calendar's evil thing appears?”

“But what would Deegan do?” Gudrin asked. “He's nothing but a fool.”

William had heard that line too many times before. “How's your uncle?” he asked.

“Quite cheery this morning, actually,” she said. “He's been doing exercises. Says he wishes to be prepared to defend Sir Simon's castle and his honor.” She picked up the tray. “He wants to see you.”

Dick lived in a room at the very top of the inner gatehouse. When they arrived, he was trotting around the outer edges of the small circular space. A black cat was sitting under a table in the center of the room. He paid no attention to the man but concentrated instead on washing his paws.