Green Jasper

by K. M. Grant

For the first time, here in this hideous cell, he admitted to himself that Gavin was right. Ellie was not just his dearest friend; she meant far more to him than that. Gavin had accused him of being in love with her, and Will must now acknowledge the truth. Whether Ellie loved him in return or not, he could not imagine a future without her. For a second the admission filled him with a strange breathless exhilaration and the sensation that some niggling strain behind his eyes was dissolving away, allowing him to see straight for the first time since returning home from the Holy Land. He was a little dazed by the view. Yet the exhilaration vanished as quickly as it had arrived. What kind of a fool was he? Even if they escaped from their present troubles, Ellie was beyond his reach. He could never marry her. With King Richard’s blessing she had been betrothed by his father to his brother. Under King John she would be married to de Scabious.

  Will felt his heart grow tight. It would be intolerable to see Ellie married, even to Gavin. He kicked out at the wall. As Earl of Ravensgarth, he was due a wife of substance himself. Why should he not demand that it be her? After all, he outranked his brother now. That must mean something. But even as he concocted wilder and wilder plans—some involving declaring loyalty to John, others involving fleeing the country—he knew they were doomed to failure. He could not betray his brother or his rightful king. If he did, Ellie would despise him—and he would despise himself—forever. Will momentarily envied de Scabious. A man with no honor might do as he liked. He buried his face in his knees. For most of his life, Ellie’s marriage had not bothered him much. He had always known it was coming and had just accepted it, like war or the changing seasons. But now even the memory of their childhood intimacy, their whispered dreams under the Hartslove chestnut tree, their teasing of the monks, and the hours spent together in the stables contained elements of torture. How had he taken her so much for granted? He prowled around his cell again.

  When he could no longer bear to do this, he sat, and within minutes the damp crept into his bones. Fingers of light struggled through the high grille but were not enough to stop the cellar turning into an icehouse. Will could feel his breath freezing almost before it left his lungs. He still had on his traveling cloak and his thick, quilted jerkin and chausses, but they might have been made of paper. He should walk around again, he knew that, but in his misery he just felt about for the corner with the least water on the floor and curled up.

  Gethin came in with his daily ration of pottage, but Will was too sick at heart to eat it and, instead, hurled it away. Nobody came near him again, not even to collect the pottage pan. The day dragged on, and hours later, when it was nearly over and even the spluttering night torches that lit the tower had all but burned out, he threw back his head and howled like a wolf.

  The following morning there was no food, only water. “Punishment for keeping us awake!” shouted the sergeant through the door. “I’ll have you flogged if you make that noise again.”

  By noon Will’s hunger was acute. The sun was up, but the cellar was colder than ever, and he could hear himself beginning to wheeze. He shuffled about. He must eat or he would die. Dropping onto all fours, he found the pottage pan and began to search the ground for the bits of gristle that passed for meat in the slop that he had splattered against the wall. He found one or two pieces and forced himself to swallow them. He even licked out the pan. But there was nothing else, no matter how carefully he felt around. He sank down against the wall and, because there was nothing else to do, began to scratch at the bottom of the cellar wall with the pan handle. The wall crumbled surprisingly easily, but Will had made only a small hole when the tin bent and buckled, too thin to be of any real use. He poked his finger through the hole but could feel solid rubble behind, and sat, almost beyond shivering. The hole seemed to mock him, and he shut his eyes.

  It was hard for him to tell when he first became aware of the scraping. Time had ceased to mean very much. His brain registered something, then discarded it, but when the noise persisted, Will suddenly found himself listening acutely. Surely it was too loud for mice, and there was no squeaking.

  He broke out in a cold sweat. Oh Lord, he thought. Not rats. Please God, not rats. He drew his legs closer to his chest. After a little longer, he fancied he heard shallow breathing. Fighting the impulse to shrink away, he strained his eyes and peered down. It was impossible to see anything, but he felt a small movement in the stone. Yes. There it was again. It was not his imagination. Something not very large was trying to push its way through, using the hole that he had made.

  Ignoring the pools of water, Will lay down, steadying himself as tiny slivers of wall began to shave off. When a slightly larger chunk gave way, he grabbed what emerged. There was an indignant cry, and with disbelief and shock, Will realized that he was clutching a child’s fist. He held on, but even in his surprise he said nothing. The fist must belong to somebody. Let them speak first. From the other side of the wall, he heard sobbing.

  “No harm, no harm,” the child was saying. “I didn’t mean no harm.”

  Holding on firmly, Will whispered back. “Who are you?”

  There was a short pause. “I’m nobody. Just a village boy. Who are you?”

  “I’m nobody as well,” said Will. “Just a visiting knight.”

  “Funny place to be a visitor.”

  “Funny way of doing no harm.”

  There was another pause. The fist began to wriggle. “You’re freezing!” said the voice. Then, another question. “Are you the Hosanna-man?”

  “The Hosanna-man?”

  “The man who stayed in our cowshed?”

  “Are you Elric, son of Peter, the cowherd?”

  “Suppose I am?” The arm to which the fist belonged began to tug.

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Will. “Not yet. Elric, how have you managed to crawl up here and get behind this wall?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Why not? And anyway, I have your hand. I can wait.”

  There was some more sniffing and tugging before Elric replied slowly and unwillingly. “You don’t know much about building, do you?” he said. “How do you think they got the stone up here to build this place? They didn’t drag it all up that hill. Some of it came from here. They quarried for stone, see, and left a passage behind, a big one, and this one branching off. They stopped this one up when they had finished, and most of it has fallen in, so nobody uses it now except us—me and my friends, that is. We play here when we’ve finished our chores.” Elric stopped. “You won’t tell, will you? My ma says it’s dangerous, but then she’s always fussing.”

  “Who on earth would I tell?” Will kept his voice very low. “Did you say it just went to this cellar?”

  Elric was coy. “Why do you want to know? You are stuck where you are. And anyway, what’s left of the tunnel is too small for you. I’ve had to push through the rubble to make this bit big enough for me.”

  The arm pulled back, but Will would not release it. “Elric,” he said, taking a gamble, “I am the Hosannaman. We are friends, aren’t we? I would like to trust you with some of my secrets, just as you have trusted me with yours. Can I do that?”

  “You trust me?” retorted Elric, his voice distorted by the wall. “Why should I trust you, more like. In the village they say you came to find out who was loyal to Richard and his men. Anybody loyal to John will be hanged, they say, if the king returns. My da supports John. He says Richard has done nothing for us.”

  Will tried a different tack. “Did you like my horse, Elric?” he asked.

  Elric sounded enthusiastic. “Well, yes. He is a lovely horse, the nicest I ever saw.”

  “I swear,” said Will, “on my horse’s life that my visit to your village had nothing to do with getting people hanged.”

  “Where’d you get him—Hosanna, I mean?”

  Will smiled. “It’s a long story,” he said. “One day I will tell you, and perhaps by then you will have a horse of your own.”

  “A horse? Me?” Will
could hear the boy snorting. “Fat chance. People like me get an ass if we’re lucky, or the loan of a mule if we become servants in a monastery.” But some of the hostility had gone out of his voice. Will relaxed his grip. Immediately the hand vanished, and Will swore as he heard the scrabbling noises of full retreat.

  Soon, even these scratchings died away, and Will was left with just a child’s fist–sized hole and the memory of small, warm fingers.

  He’ll not come back, he thought disconsolately. Everything will be a game to him.

  Gethin came to collect yesterday’s pottage pan, which he had forgotten. When he saw the crumpled handle, he was disconcerted, shaking his head at Will. But he did not call the sergeant. Instead, he straightened the handle out before shutting the cellar door, and Will found himself resentfully grateful.

  A little later, after he had scraped his fingers badly and been forced to give up trying to pull more bits out of his side of the wall, Will heard more noises, and this time when he sensed the fist emerge, he did not touch it. “Hosanna-man?” came the whisper. “Hosanna-man?”

  Will lay down. “I’m still here.”

  “I have brought you something,” Elric said, “because I liked your horse and I liked your squire, and you did stop those men from killing me.”

  Will was touched at Elric’s order of priorities. “What have you brought?” he asked.

  Elric withdrew his hand, and Will heard a careful tapping sound. The boy had brought a small hammer, and he knocked down enough wall to allow Will to peer through. But it was no good. Will abandoned attempts to see and instead inserted his hand cautiously, using it as a feeling torch. There was something wet, then sharp teeth.

  “Ouch!” he exclaimed.

  “Don’t put your fingers in my mouth!” Elric whispered. “I wasn’t expecting it. I have to lie flat on my stomach.”

  “All right,” said Will. “Take my hand and guide it.”

  Elric took his hand, and Will could feel the rough stone sides of a tiny passage, just big enough for a very skinny child. In front of Elric’s arms was a bundle. “We’ll have to make the hole bigger to get it through,” he said.

  Will thought for a minute. “What if de Scabious’s soldiers open the door wide enough to see it?”

  “What’s the matter with your brain?” asked Elric. “We’ll push all the stone out on your side, then with some of the muck and slime, we can make a bit of paste, enough for you to cover the hole and make it look as if the wall is just crumbling a bit. Didn’t you play hide-and-seek with your brothers before you became a knight?”

  “I played mainly with a girl,” said Will.

  “Phuh!” said Elric. “That’s shocking.”

  Will couldn’t help grinning. “Yes, shocking,” he agreed. “Right. Let’s get started.”

  Elric was small, but he was determined. The two of them worked without speaking, occasionally making contact with each other’s disembodied hands. Will felt like a mole. Before long, the hole was big enough for the bundle, which Will opened at once. Inside was a whole loaf of fresh bread, a small flagon of ale, and a wizened apple. A feast.

  “Thank you,” Will said, truly touched.

  “But goodness, Hosanna-man, I don’t know how you are going to eat them in there. The smell in your cellar is something awful,” said Elric cheerfully.

  Will blushed in the dark. “There is no drain,” he said. “I am forced to live like an animal.”

  “Not like a cow,” Elric said. “They smell nice.”

  “Yes,” agreed Will. “We humans can write poetry and sing songs, but we are filthy creatures for all that. Now, Elric, do you think there is any way I could get out through your tunnel?”

  Elric considered and his voice was doubtful. “We could pull down the stones all the way back,” he said. “But the roof might cave in. Even with the tunnel this small, odd bits fall on top of me—more every time I come through.”

  Will considered. “How far is it to the big tunnel you told me about?”

  “About half as far as from my house to the cow barn. Where this tunnel joins the main tunnel, there is a kind of cave.”

  “And you can easily walk from there down into the village?”

  “Well,” said Elric, “you can stand in the main tunnel, but it’s very steep. It comes out behind our house. But if you go the other way, you come out into that small chamber with the tapestry. Do you know where I mean?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s a room off the main hall. There’s a big tapestry on the wall.”

  “How far is it from the cave to this tapestry room?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The tunnel winds round quite a bit. If you say sixty Paternosters, you are there.”

  “Sixty Paternosters?”

  “Yes,” said Elric, suddenly sneezing from the chill and the dirt. “Sometimes my friends and me have bets to see who can get to the castle and back quickest. Some of us sit in the cave and count our Paternosters. Sixty is the quickest so far. Sixty there and sixty back, that is.”

  “Can you really count to sixty?” Will was impressed.

  “Well, something like sixty,” said Elric cautiously. “You use all your fingers and thumbs six times. Any dunce can count to six.”

  Will made no comment about that. “Your friends might be cheating,” he said instead.

  “I can tell you only had a girl to play with,” said Elric pityingly. “Boys would never think of cheating. And anyway, we always have to bring back some of the tapestry threads. I had to be careful the other night. The dust is something awful, and we have taken so many threads now that there is a bit of a hole—we don’t want to get caught.”

  “You were playing there the other night?” Will wished very much that he could see Elric’s face.

  Elric ignored the question because he was full of one of his own. “Hosanna-man, is King Richard really dead?”

  “Actually, nice as ‘Hosanna-man’ is, my name is really William—Will.” Will felt it best to avoid questions about Richard. “And although I am at present a half-frozen prisoner lying in a pool of human dung, I am the Earl of Ravensgarth.” But he couldn’t resist. “No. I do not believe King Richard is dead.”

  “Well, he soon might be,” said Elric. “When I was behind the tapestry, I heard Prince John tell Constable de Scabious to see to it.”

  Will almost choked. The king was alive! He knew it! His blood began to stir, and then, at once, he was filled with dread. De Scabious might be a coward, but he was cunning and would be desperate. His whole future depended on Richard being dead, just as Will’s depended on him being alive. In prison Richard would be easy prey for a professional assassin looking for gold. Will’s heart raced.

  “Elric,” he said, trying to conceal his agitation in case he frightened the boy off, “does anybody else know what you heard?”

  “No,” said Elric. “I told you. My da and ma would kill me if they thought I came up here.”

  “Oh yes,” said Will. “But, Elric, do you ever see the girl in the castle—you know, the young one with auburn hair who walks about with a fat old nurse?”

  “Sometimes,” said Elric. “If I help my ma carry the laundry back.”

  “Do you ever speak to her?”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? The sergeant would hang me.” Elric’s voice was full of fear.

  “Of course,” said Will. “Sorry.” His frustration grew.

  But Elric was nothing if not inventive. “If I brought you a quill and parchment, you could write. Ouch!” He banged his head on the stones above him in his excitement. “I could come to the tower with my ma and see if I could pass your girl a letter in among the clothes. I could do that.” His voice echoed around the cellar. “I could steal the quill and parchment from the priest.”

  “Sssssh!” said Will. “They would roast you and hang you if they found you now.” There was a pause. “Ellie’s not my girl. And anyway, I can’t write.”

  “You can’t write?” Elric was i
ncredulous. “I thought knights were supposed to be clever. Even I can write my name. An old man in the village taught me. I think he was a monk once. We used to throw stones at him because of his strange accent, and one day he ran and caught me. I thought he would beat me, but he just asked my name and taught me to write it. He’s dead now, but I’ve not forgotten.”

  Will was hardly listening. “Look,” he said. “I know it might collapse, but could we try to make this tunnel bigger? I can’t escape, since if de Scabious finds me missing, who knows what he might do to Ellie and Old Nurse—she’s the fat old lady—and Hosanna and Sacramenta. But just being able to get out of this cellar for a bit—”

  “Sacramenta?”

  “Sacramenta is Ellie’s horse. De Scabious’s men caught her, and she is being kept in the stables here. She’s Hosanna’s mother. But never mind that. If I could get out into the tower itself, first of all I might not freeze to death, which I certainly will soon, and maybe I could speak to Ellie myself.”

  “We could make the tunnel bigger,” said Elric without much enthusiasm. “But if the roof does fall in …” His alarm was evident. “I don’t want to be buried alive!”

  “Ssssssh, Elric! We will be very careful,” Will said as gently as he could, sensing that the boy was about to take off. “I would never, ever, leave you buried alive in the tunnel. I promise you, on my own life.”

  There was silence, then Will heard the scraping sound again. “Are you going now?” he asked quickly.

  “No, Hosanna-man, I’m digging,” said Elric, “although I will have to go soon. I told my da I was going to gather kindling. We really need tools, but I am just seeing how well the stones come away.”

  Will smiled. Elric dug for two Paternosters, after which the stones began to fall in.

  “Stop! Stop, Elric!” Will waited for the cascade to dwindle to a trickle of pebbles and mud. “We can’t be safe unless we have some light. Next time you come, can you bring a flint and taper? I think the light would be too dim and too low down for anybody to notice from the tower courtyard.”

  Elric’s voice was muffled. “I’ll come back tomorrow”—Will just caught the words—“if I can.”