by Jenny Nimmo
Once, Petrello would have buried his head under his pillow. He hated those howls; he hated knowing that they came from his own brother.
Tonight, Petrello was drawn to the window overlooking the garden. He knew that Cafal liked to wander there, between the flower beds. Perhaps the scent of roses helped to calm him.
Petrello looked down into the moonlit garden. A misshapen four-legged creature ran along the path, its large doglike head lowered between its bony shoulders. Now and again, it would stop and sniff the plants beside it, and then it would raise its head and howl at the stars.
Poor Cafal, thought Petrello.
A distant movement caught his eye. Something appeared at the edge of the forest: a black horse with a white star on its forehead. Petrello would have known that riderless horse anywhere. It belonged to Amadis.
A shout rang out. The Watch had seen the horse.
Petrello turned from the window. He hesitated. Should he go down to the courtyard? Yes, he must. Without waking the other boys, he tiptoed from the room and crept down the steps into the courtyard. The doors of the South Gate had been opened and the sharp cry of a horse in distress could be heard from outside. And then Isgofan galloped into the castle.
A guard ran to catch the horse’s bridle. Isgofan’s eyes rolled. He reared and snorted. He seemed unhurt, but terrified.
Petrello kept to the shadows, close to the wall. He saw two Gray Men run from the West Tower, on the other side of the gate. One was Chimery. They spoke to the guard in low voices. The guard handed Isgofan’s reins to Chimery, and then went back to the Watch Tower.
A stable boy appeared, rubbing his eyes. The Gray Men spoke to him, and the boy led Isgofan into the stables.
The chancellor’s men remained in the courtyard for a moment, talking together in low voices. All at once, Chimery laughed a deep, sneering chuckle. Petrello felt his blood turn cold. How could Chimery laugh while Amadis was either badly hurt or dead? And who would search for him, now that all the knights were with the king?
Mother should know. Petrello ran. Passing the door to the sanatorium, he heard a low growl. He stopped dead in his tracks, his heart thumping. Three pairs of glowing golden eyes approached him. The leopards were on guard. Whoever wished Rigg and Peredur harm would never get past Sun Cat, Flame Chin, and Star.
The leopards sniffed Petrello’s arms, his hands, his loose shirt. A continuous deep rumble came from their throats, and Petrello worried that the Gray Men would hear and look in his direction. But if they heard the leopards, they chose to ignore them. Perhaps they had already tried to pass them and given up.
As Petrello stood rigid in the shadows, he began to realize that the leopards’ attention was a show of friendship and protection, and their low growls were purrs of affection.
“I must go to the queen,” he whispered.
The leopards’ gleaming eyes fixed on his face for a moment, and then they let him pass.
He ran on, through the deserted second courtyard and on into Zobayda’s garden. A guard sat in the deep recess before the door to the Royal Tower, a lantern flickering beside him. When he saw the boy in his white nightshirt, he gave a cry and stood up, his pike at the ready.
“It’s me, the king’s son,” said Petrello. “I must see the queen.”
“What’s the world coming to?” said the guard. “It’s the middle of the night. Go to the nurse if you’re in pain.”
“I’m not,” said Petrello. “I have grave news for my mother. The horse Isgofan has come back from the forest without his rider, Amadis.”
“Amadis?” exclaimed the guard. “He has been hurt, then, and fallen, or …”
“Someone should go and search,” Petrello said breathlessly. “There is a moon, and perhaps Amadis isn’t far away. The chancellor’s men have seen the horse, but they’re doing nothing.”
The man looked concerned. All the guards liked Amadis; they admired him for his courage, his honesty, and his affinity with animals. “Better tell the queen, young man.”
The guard opened the heavy door and let Petrello through.
Petrello leaped up the steps, his bare feet making hardly a sound on the cold stone. The loud squeak of the door into the royal apartments made him wince. Once inside, he could hear the queen moving about in her bedchamber. Petrello knocked on her door.
“Who is it?” called the queen.
“Petrello. I must speak with you, Mother. Amadis … Amadis …”
The door was opened abruptly. “What has happened to Amadis?” The queen wore a blue cloak over her white gown, and her corn-gold hair hung in a long plait over one shoulder. She drew Petrello into the room. Again, she asked, “What’s happened, Trello?”
Petrello was frightened by the look of alarm in his mother’s eyes. A single candle burned on a chest by the door, its soft light illuminating the gold on the canopy above the bed, and casting long shadows on the queen’s pale face.
“Isgofan has come back.” Petrello was now afraid of worrying his mother even further, but he had to tell her the truth. “Amadis is not with him. The chancellor’s men know, but they are doing nothing.”
The queen gave a sharp intake of breath. For a moment, her hand covered her mouth, and then she said. “Someone must go and search for him.”
“But it will have to be a knight, a swordsman, and if the chancellor’s men won’t go, there is only Peredur, and he is too ill.”
“There is Running Hare,” said the queen. “Petrello, wait outside.”
Mystified, Petrello stepped out of the room. He didn’t close the door, however, and could hear the lid of a chest being opened, and then a rustling and a swishing. Another chest was opened with a bang, and then it was quiet in the room, except for a light metallic jangle, like the sound of a buckle on a belt.
“How do I look?”
Peredur gasped. A figure had appeared at the door of the bedchamber, not the queen; this was a young man in a fur cap, his rough shirt pushed into brown breeches. He wore the queen’s blue cloak, and a sword in a jeweled scabbard hung from his bronze-studded belt.
“Mother?” Petrello gulped.
The queen smiled. “I can still use a sword, as you have seen, Petrello. When I have gone, I want you to bring your brothers and sisters to this tower. You should all be together. The guard, Egbert, is loyal. He will protect you.”
“Protect us?” Petrello’s head was whirling. “Why? Who from?”
“Events have moved faster than I expected,” said the queen. “I was afraid this would happen. The chancellor’s men are no longer our friends.”
“I guessed,” said Petrello. “But I didn’t think they would harm us.” He found that he was shivering.
“Come with me; Egbert will accompany us.” The queen propelled her son to the stairway. She ran down while he followed, still shivering, shocked by the sudden turn of events.
The guard, taken aback by the queen’s unusual appearance, opened his mouth like a fish and let it hang there. But he seemed to know who she was.
“Egbert, I’m going to the stables,” said the queen. “Come with me, and then return here and guard my children.”
“Your Majesty.” The guard bowed his head and picked up the lantern.
They walked through the empty courtyards to the stables, and while Egbert led the queen inside, Petrello waited at the entrance. The queen eventually emerged on her favorite horse, a white mare called Elizen.
“Remember your brothers and sisters,” said the queen.
“Even Olga?” asked Petrello.
His mother frowned. “Perhaps not Olga,” she said. “She can look after herself.”
Egbert put down his lantern, ran ahead of the horse, and drew back the heavy bolts of the great doors. It often took two men to do this, but Egbert was a strong man.
Petrello watched his mother ride up to the gate, and then, all at once, a man moved out of the shadows and grabbed Elizen’s bridle.
“Thorkil, let me pass!” shouted the queen.<
br />
“I will not,” said Thorkil, his voice cold and hard.
There was a sudden moonlit flash. Petrello could hardly believe what he was seeing. His mother drew her sword so fast, Thorkil had no time to reach his own. There was a roar of pain as the chancellor let go of the bridle, and the queen galloped out into the night.
It was a moment so brief, it was almost as if it hadn’t happened. But it had. Something broke when the queen used her sword: a link between Thorkil and the king that had become as fragile as an eggshell. And for the king’s children, the castle was now a dangerous place.
Petrello didn’t wait to see what would happen to Egbert. He ran. First, to the girls’ bedchamber.
A candle burned low in a lantern hanging by the door. On Guanhamara’s pillow, he could see Zeba’s wild hair beside his sister’s sleek brown head.
“Guan, wake up!” He shook his sister’s shoulder.
Guanhamara raised her head and yawned. She looked up at her brother and passed a hand over her face. “What is it?”
“We must go to the Royal Tower.” He quickly told her everything that had happened while she sat up slowly, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and stared, unbelieving, at her brother’s face.
By now, Elin and Zeba were awake. Alarmed by the desperate urgency in Petrello’s voice, they too were yawning and climbing out of bed.
“You should have seen our mother, Guan,” said Petrello. “Her sword hand moved so fast I couldn’t see it, and Lord Thorkil was so unprepared, I think she might have sliced his finger off.”
“Good,” Guanhamara said sleepily. “If we’re going to the Royal Tower, then Elin and Zeba must come, too.”
“Take the clothes you need,” Petrello advised as he left the room, “and go quickly.”
He hurried on to his own bedchamber, and there he found the boys already awake.
“Trello, what’s happened?” Tolly rolled off his bed and landed on his bottom.
“We have to go to the Royal Tower,” Petrello told him. “The queen has commanded us.”
Gunfrid, unable to move his legs, looked at Petrello in alarm. “Must I stay here, alone?”
“No, no, Gunfrid. I’ll carry you!” Petrello pulled on his breeches, his boots, and his jerkin.
“Are you strong enough?” Tolly eased himself into his feathered cloak.
“Of course,” Petrello replied, uncertain now whether he could carry Gunfrid all the way to the Royal Tower. And then he remembered Cafal. He would carry Gunfrid.
Vyborn hadn’t moved. He sat glaring at his brothers, his cheek propped on his hand.
“Hurry, Vyborn!” Petrello raised his voice. “Don’t just sit there.” Seeing his words had no effect, he strode over to his brother’s bed and pulled off the covers.
“Why must we go to the Royal Tower?” asked Vyborn. “I’m too tired.”
“Because our mother said so, because Amadis has fallen off his horse and is maybe dead or wounded and our mother has gone to find him, and because she has no faith in the chancellor’s men.”
“Why?” asked Vyborn sulkily.
“I can’t explain,” said Petrello, exasperated by his pigheaded brother. “Move, Vyborn. For your own sake.”
“No!”
Petrello guessed what would happen, even as he began to pull Vyborn’s legs off the bed. He wasn’t surprised when the soft feet turned hard, and coarse black hair began to dapple Vyborn’s olive skin, but he’d forgotten the other boarish features, and gave a yell of pain when Vyborn dug a fast-forming tusk into his shoulder.
The boar sprang off the bed, knocking Petrello sideways. It charged past Tolly and went squealing out of the door, along the passage, and down the stairway.
“Why is he always a boar?” said Petrello, clutching his shoulder.
“No imagination,” said Tolly.
They grinned at each other, but couldn’t quite laugh.
Petrello ran to the bedchamber Cafal shared with their older brothers. Cafal was already dressed. He looked warily at Petrello and muttered, “What’s going on?”
“Mother wants us to go to the Royal Tower,” said Petrello. He tried to sound calm for he could see that Cafal was in quite a state. He had only just returned from howling at the stars.
“Go away,” said Cafal.
“It’d be better if the family were together, all in one place. Safer.”
“Safe from what?”
“From the chancellor’s men.” Petrello knew this wasn’t enough to get his brother moving. He had no option but to tell him everything.
Cafal watched his brother’s mouth. His frown grew deeper and his long face took on a beastlike aspect. Petrello felt uncomfortable in his presence. The thing that Cafal could become was much more of a threat than the boars and goats that Vyborn opted for.
“Mother gone?” Cafal screwed up his broad nose and began to breathe heavily.
Petrello took a step back. “She wants us to stay together.”
“No.” Cafal shook his head. “I’ll wait for Borlath.”
Petrello had noticed how his brother liked to look after the orphans. He decided to appeal to his better nature. “I can’t carry Gunfrid all that way. No one else can. And his chair will make too much noise.”
Cafal scratched his head. “I’ll do that. I’ll carry the orphan, but I’m not going to stay with you.” He darted Petrello a meaningful look from under his heavy brows. “Something might happen to me.”
Petrello suddenly understood. His brother couldn’t bear the thought of being seen in his beastlike form. “If you could just carry him, then, Cafal?”
Cafal nodded.
The girls and Tolly had already gone when Cafal carried Gunfrid down the echoing steps. Petrello led the way to the second courtyard, but before they reached the arch, Zeba peered around the wall and whispered, “I wanted to be sure Gunfrid was safe.”
“I’m safe,” said Gunfrid in a hushed voice. He patted Cafal’s head and Cafal gave an amiable grunt.
The castle was eerily quiet. Petrello sensed that they were being watched, and yet no one came to stop them. Looking over his shoulder, he saw why.
Two glowing forms were following them. Sun Cat and Star had left Flame Chin to guard the sanatorium while they protected the king’s children.
The leopards increased their pace. Now they walked on either side of the small group. When the Royal Tower was reached, they stayed at the door while Cafal carried Gunfrid up to the royal apartments. Petrello followed them. Walking into the queen’s bedchamber, he found his sister and Elin already sitting on the wide bed. Elin looked as if she had been crying.
Cafal laid Gunfrid beside the girls and strode back to the door.
“Stay with us, Cafal,” said Zeba. “We’ll feel safer with you.”
“You must. Our mother said so,” Guanhamara insisted.
“Let him go, Guan,” Petrello said quietly.
Cafal turned his head and gave Petrello a grateful smile. And then he was gone. Petrello ran down the steps after him. Before bolting the heavy door, he looked outside. Zobayda’s garden was bathed in a soft, golden light, its source the pale-haired leopard that moved silently about the flower-filled courtyard.
High in Zobayda’s tower, a candle still burned. Looking up, Petrello saw his aunt framed in the window. She raised a hand to him, and he waved back.
We’re safe tonight, Petrello thought, as he hurried up to the royal apartments, and maybe tomorrow. But what will happen after that? At the back of his mind lay a question he could hardly bear to consider. Will Mother and Father ever return?
The six children slept together on the wide royal bed, limbs tangled, toes touching chins. A mattress of soft foamy feathers cradled their bodies, and a thick woolen quilt kept them cozy.
This must be how a bird feels, when it is newly hatched, thought Petrello. He didn’t want to wake up, he was so warm, so very comfortable. He felt he could have stayed buried in those soft, embracing feathers forever.
He pulled himself out of his downy cocoon and sat up. The three girls lay at the other end of the bed. Zeba and his sister still had their eyes closed. They appeared to be fast asleep. But Elin had a hand over her eyes, and her shoulders were shaking.
“Elin!” Petrello whispered. “Elin, what’s wrong?”
He realized what a foolish thing it was to say, because so many things were wrong.
Without replying to Petrello, Elin rolled out of bed and ran to the window. She stood there, staring out at the forest, her tears falling freely, her clasped hands twisting and turning.
Petrello reluctantly left the bed and went to Elin’s side. “I know they say your father is always eager for a fight,” he said, putting a tentative arm around the girl’s shoulder, “but I’m sure he’s safe with the king. He’ll come back.”
Elin nodded. But she still wept.
“Our brave Knight Protectors will return and give the chancellor’s men such a beating, they’ll leave the castle and we’ll all be safe again.” Petrello even managed to convince himself. He felt so much better now.
But Elin wasn’t comforted. Her tears fell faster, and she took loud gasping gulps of air, her shoulders rising and falling with each gasp. She suddenly turned her tearstained face to him and sobbed, “But what about Amadis? He went alone, and Isgofan came back without him. Where were the wolves when he fell, Petrello? Where were the eagles and owls, the deer, the wildcats, and the serpents that live in the trees? Where were they all? They should have been protecting him.”
Elin’s sudden confession came as such a surprise, for a moment Petrello couldn’t reply. He should have guessed that she loved Amadis. He just hadn’t noticed. And then the answer came to him, and as he spoke, he knew it must be true. “They were there, Elin, all the creatures of the air and the forest. And they’re taking care of Amadis right now.”