by Eoin Colfer
‘Who are you talking to, Conor?’
Conor was about to protest that he had not been talking, when he noticed that his lips were already moving.
‘Oh, I was just thinking aloud. When I am nervous, I sometimes…’
Isabella smiled kindly. ‘You really are a scatterfool, aren’t you, Sir Conor?’
Conor relaxed. She was teasing him. Familiar ground.
‘I am sorry, Princess. Will you have me garrotted?’
‘I prefer hanging, as you well know.’
Conor took a deep breath and bared his soul. He did it quickly, like jumping into the ocean, to get the pain over with.
‘I came because you told me this tea was part of a royal courtship.’
Isabella had the grace to blush. ‘I may have said so. I was teasing.’
‘I see that now. Too late to save me from embarrassment.’
‘Christian’s father has business here. I am doing my royal duty, that’s all. No courtship.’
‘None.’
Conor’s shoulders slumped. At least now, he did not feel like a participant in some kind of race.
‘So you built up your courage, and came charging up here to declare your love?’
‘Well I…’
Do not panic. Do not panic.
‘Something like that.’
Isabella moved to the balcony and stood leaning on the carved balustrade, dark hair flowing down her back, white fingers on the stone. Beyond and below, the Wall lights were popping on like a regiment of orderly fireflies.
I should speak now, while she is turned away. It will be easier without her eyes on me.
‘Isabella, things are… Things are changing for us… between us. And that’s good. That’s as it should be. Natural. It’s only natural that things change.’ Conor groaned inwardly, this was not going very well.
Say what you want to say.
‘What I want to say is that perhaps our days of climbing chimneys are over, although I like climbing chimneys, but perhaps there are new things to do. To share. Without the company of Danish princes.’
Isabella turned to him, and her mocking smile was not as steady as it usually was.
‘Conor, you are such a scientist. Is there not a shorter, more concise way, to say all of this?’
Conor frowned. ‘Perhaps there is. I would have to do a few experiments. I am new to this and I feel clumsy.’
Isabella made a show of pouring some lemonade from a jug. ‘I am the same, Conor. Sometimes I feel as though we have made our own world here, and I have no wish to leave. Everything is perfect. Now, it is perfect.’
Conor smiled tentatively, coming back to himself. ‘So, I am not to be executed.’
‘Not today, Sir Conor,’ the princess said, handing him the glass. ‘After all, you rescued the princess from the tower. There is only one way for that fairy tale to end.’
Conor choked on a mouthful of lemonade, spraying his pig-dung-stained trousers.
‘An interesting combination of smells,’ commented Isabella.
‘Pardon me, Princess,’ said Conor. ‘I am amazed by your friendly reception. I imagined myself trussed up by Danish guards by now.’
Isabella turned her brown eyes full on him. ‘Conor, I could search the world for another swashbuckling scientist, but I doubt if I would find one like you.’ The princess realized that she had said a little too much, and felt compelled to add, ‘Even if you are a lanky-limbed, overbrained oaf.’
Conor accepted the first half of the compliment with a smile, and the second half with a grimace.
‘I feel exactly the same,’ he said. ‘Apart from the scientist, lanky-oaf part. You know what I am trying to say.’
‘Yes, Sir Conor,’ said Isabella, teasing him with his title again. ‘I do.’
CHAPTER 4: TREASON AND PLOT
Conor did not return home after his meeting with Isabella; he was too elated. He felt as though his heart were half its previous mass. Somehow, against all the laws of science, just sharing his thoughts with the princess seemed to make him lighter. So even though he was already late, Conor decided to preserve the feeling by passing an hour alone in his favourite hideaway. Somewhere he had not been for several months.
More times than he could remember, Conor’s parents had forbidden him to climb the keep turret. In general, he respected their wishes, but every boy has some secret transgression that he cannot surrender. For Conor, it was his perch high in the eaves below the north-east turret. This was the place where he felt closest to his nature, where he felt that the race for flight could actually be won by a boy and his teacher.
But this evening he was not thinking about heavier-than-air flying machines as he squeezed out through a medieval murder hole, and clambered along the ivy to the wooden trestles that had been put in after the chemical fire in Nicholas’s apartment. Tonight he was thinking about Isabella. Nothing specific. Just contented, warm thoughts. As soon as his back rested on the tower’s familiar mouldings, Conor felt a familiar peace settle over him. He was surprised to find the spot a tight squeeze. Soon, he would outgrow this hiding place, and he would have to find another high spot to dream of flight.
Conor sat, watching the sun set over the ocean, sharing the view with the dozen or so gulls that hoped against hope that someone would leave an open barrel of fish inside the curtain wall. Across the bay he could see a large fire somewhere in Kilmore, and the beam from the Hook Head lighthouse already cast its cone of light across Saint George’s Channel. It was a beautiful early summer night and presently the narrow patch of water between the Saltees glimmered with moonshine as though bridged.
Directly below his feet, a team of guards were running a cannon drill. And on the Great Saltee Wall, Conor was sure he could see his father striding between watch posts, dark cloak flapping behind him.
He was not tempted to call out. Better to delay his next punishment for this offence as long as possible.
Conor, I could search the world for another swashbuckling scientist, but I doubt if I would find one like you.
He smiled at the echo of the words in his mind.
Conor’s thoughts were interrupted by a regular scraping along the stone inside the tower. Feet on the steps. In all his climbs to this lofty spot, the only footsteps Conor had ever heard on those steps besides his own were his father’s coming to fetch him down. Declan Broekhart was fifty feet below on the Wall, and so it could not be him.
Conor twisted slightly in his cramped position, so that he could hang back on a creeper and peep in through the murder hole’s leaded glass. The wind caught his hair as he leaned from shelter, and he had a sudden powerful recollection of how he used to adopt this same position as a younger boy.
I would pretend to fly. I remember that.
Conor smiled at the memory.
Soon, there will be no need to pretend. Victor and I will design the machine, and I will fly it past Isabella’s window.
A figure moved inside the turret. Conor saw a shadow first, made jumpy by a jarred lamp, then the dark shape of the lantern held low to light the steps only. Shards of light flickered across the deep folds of cloth and face. The colour red sprang to life under the light. A red cross. Then a heavy brow and glittering eyes. Bonvilain.
Conor stayed still as a gargoyle. Bonvilain had almost inhuman perception. He could spot a seal’s head in stormy seas. The marshall would have good reason not to approve of Conor’s loitering so close to the king’s offices, and could justifiably shoot him as a traitor.
I will sit without breathing or stirring, until the marshall is well gone. Then home quickly.
The sight of Bonvilain’s sharply shadowed features had quite sucked the joy from the evening. That would have been the end of the day’s adventures, had not something else gleamed in the lamplight. Something that Conor knew well. A long-barrelled revolver, with a band of pearl grip poking from below Bonvilain’s fingers.
It was, without the shadow of a doubt, Victor’s Colt Peacemaker. T
his was extremely curious. Why would Marshall Bonvilain be prowling the serving passages of the castle with Victor’s pistol?
You’re making a mistake. That can’t be Victor’s gun.
But it was. Conor’s keen eye had picked out enough detail to know he was not mistaken. He had studied the gun countless times, breath fogging the glass case.
There must be a thousand explanations for this. Just because you do not know the reason, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
It was true and sensible, but Conor was a boy and a scientist, the most curious breed of human alive, and he could no more turn away from this than a convict could ignore an open door. If Bonvilain had Victor’s gun, then his teacher should know about it, and know why. His teacher had long suspected that the marshall was not to be trusted and here could be the proof.
Conor waited several moments, until the last light of Bonvilain’s lantern danced past and darkness had closed behind the marshall, then swung himself monkeylike to the sill built into the murder hole, an action that would have had his parents clutching their hearts in shock.
Had the window creaked on his way to the murder hole? He couldn’t remember as it hadn’t been of vital importance at the time. Conor tested it with a gentle prod. No creaking, just a slight rasp of dust in the hinges. Safe enough, surely.
He slipped inside, arms first, walking along the floor with his hands until his feet dropped to the floor behind him.
Conor crouched on the uneven granite, listening. The sound of his own breath hitting the stone seemed enormous. Bonvilain would hear it surely.
But no. The marshall’s footsteps continued at their previous pace and Conor could see faint flickers from the lamp ahead. He turned his face to the light, and followed Bonvilain up the spiral staircase on all fours, feeling his way, staying low.
This passage led to the serving door in King Nicholas’s own apartment, which was bolted shut and guarded whenever the king was in residence, but when Conor slid his head round the corner, the door was unguarded and wide open. No guard meant no king. And if King Nicholas was not in his apartments, why would Bonvilain be skulking around up here, armed with another man’s pistol?
A myriad reasons. There are things that you do not know. For example, King Nicholas may have asked for the gun so that he could have a replica made for Victor, to complete the set. A birthday present.
Unlikely, but possible.
Conor crept through the doorway, quiet as the curious breed of tailless Manx cat that had taken hold on the island. The light ahead was dim, but steady. Bonvilain was still. Had he heard something or was he listening to something? Waiting or spying?
Conor’s stomach twinged. He should go back now. Really. Interfering in the marshall’s business was a serious business. Bonvilain was never reluctant to cry traitor, and good men had been gaoled for less.
But the revolver. Victor’s revolver.
Half a dozen steps more, Conor promised his prudent half. I will peek round the next bend, then retire. Little or no risk.
Not exactly true, but Conor proceeded nonetheless, searching out every step with probing fingers before mounting it. He hugged the floor and wall, seeking the darkest shadows and inched his face around the final twist in the stairs.
Bonvilain was half a dozen steps above; the lantern rested at his feet, casting sharp triangles of light upwards. His face appeared demonic in this light, but it was just the angle. Surely.
Suddenly Bonvilain’s head turned towards Conor’s position, and he had to fight every instinct not to stand up and flee. He was invisible, cloaked by the dark. After a long breathless moment, Conor realized that the marshall’s main intention was not to cast his eyes down the stairway, but to move his ear closer to the wall. He was listening to something. Or, more likely, someone.
And another detail, in his left hand a dark lump. Light glinted on a chiselled edge and Conor saw that Bonvilain held a brick. He had removed a small brick from the wall and was eavesdropping on whoever was in the king’s apartment.
Words floated down the stairwell, and because of the turret’s acoustics they were as clear to Conor as they doubtless were to Bonvilain himself.
The king’s voice. And Victor’s. So the marshall spied on his own king.
Conor closed his eyes and strained his ears, trying to make sense of what he heard, when what he should have been doing was running just as fast as his young legs would carry him. Running to fetch his father.
Inside the king’s apartment, Victor Vigny was seated in one of a pair of Louis XV armchairs by the fireplace. The main door crashed open and in bounded King Nicholas, balancing two frosted tankards on a tray. With great pomp and much bowing Nicholas I presented Victor with a cold glass of beer.
‘That is fantastic,’ said Victor after a deep swig. ‘Colder than the backside of a polar bear. The refrigerator is working well, I see.’
Nicholas sat and took a drink from his own glass. ‘Perfectly, though the ammonia is a little dangerous. Those Germans need to find a new gas.’
‘Someone will,’ said Victor, wiping away a foam moustache. ‘That’s progress.’
‘Can you imagine the benefits of reliable refrigeration?’
‘You mean beyond cold beer?’ joked Victor.
Nicholas rose to pace the floor, the subject of progress never failing to excite him.
‘We can trade with the United States. Fresh produce. And we can export too.’
‘Diamonds don’t need freezing,’ quipped Victor.
‘Other things. The Plantago. And we can freeze produce out of season, in a giant warehouse. Strawberries and salmon all year.’
Victor was suddenly serious. ‘You, my good friend, have bigger fish to worry about.’
‘What have you heard?’ asked Nicholas, sitting once more.
Victor sighed. ‘It is as bad as you feared, and worse. My man on Little Saltee tells me that Bonvilain works the prisoners to death. As far as he can tell, many of the inmates are guilty of nothing more than vagrancy. We can’t prove it yet, but by my count at least half of the diamonds go missing between the mine and the treasury.’
‘Dammit,’ swore Nicholas, hurling his glass into the fireplace. ‘Bonvilain is a plague. A blight on the Saltees. He treats the islands as his personal property. I must be rid of him.’
Victor nodded towards the fireplace. ‘A fine beginning. Crystal in the grate should have the marshall quaking in his boots.’
The king’s eyes flashed fire for a moment, but then he settled, and looked towards the grate, perhaps regretting the loss of a cold beer.
‘How long have we been together, Victor?’
‘If I answer this, will a speech be next?’
‘Oh, I am missing my beer now.’
Victor relented. ‘Twenty years, Nick. Every fair in the blessed United States, and now the top of this fine castle.’
‘All that time and what have we achieved? Victor, we can help people here. Not just a few shillings to the needy, actually help. Make things better forever. It’s all in the machines. We can build them. Look at young Conor Broekhart. Have you ever seen a mind like that?’
‘I know it,’ said Victor with a touch of pride. ‘Isabella knows it too.’
Nicholas smiled. ‘Poor Conor.’
‘I think poor Conor has no idea of the hoops Isabella will trot him through.’
The king could not stay happy long. ‘Damn him! Damn Bonvilain. He is a tyrant. I am the king, am I not? I will be rid of him.’
‘Careful, Nicholas. Sir Hugo has the army on his side. Declan Broekhart is the only one who could sway them. The men look up to him. We should invite him to one of our talks.’
The king nodded. ‘Very well. Tonight. I cannot wait another day. I will see Bonvilain in prison before the month is out. The future will only wait for so long. This island is trapped in the Middle Ages because of that man. His guards are murderous thugs and his justice is self-serving and vicious. After seven hundred years, the alliance between
the Trudeau and Bonvilain families is about to come to an end.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Victor, tipping back the rest of his beer.
Bonvilain came through the serving door with the Colt already extended, walking with confident measured strides. There was no overblown villain’s preamble, Sir Hugo had been in too many life-or-death situations for that. He allowed himself one sentence only.
‘Victor Vigny, you have killed the king.’
Both Frenchman and monarch reacted quickly, neither bothering with protestations or pleadings. There was murder in Bonvilain’s eyes, not a single doubt about that. Victor hurled his body across the room to shield his friend, while Nicholas’s right hand dropped to the Smith and Wesson revolver that he always wore slung low on his hip in the American style.
Victor, the younger man, almost achieved his goal, but no matter how quick the man, the gun is quicker. Bonvilain fired and the bullet clipped the webbing between the Frenchman’s outstretched thumb and index finger, which deflected the bullet slightly, but not enough to save the king. Nicholas fell back in his chair and was dead before the Smith and Wesson dropped from his fingers.
Bonvilain grunted, satisfied, then picked up the king’s gun and turned it on Victor Vigny, who lay on the hearth rug, blood streaming from his hand.
‘You almost made the distance,’ said Bonvilain admiringly. ‘Commendable effort.’
Victor looked into the marshall’s eyes and knew his own life was over.
‘So, I am the murderer?’ he said.
‘Yes. You shot the king with your own gun. There is a test they are developing in Scotland Yard that can match the bullet to the gun. I shall have an expert shipped over. I have also employed a Dutch handwriting expert to forge letters from you to the French government detailing the Saltee defences. I ask you, do these sound like the actions of a man who has trapped the islands in the Middle Ages?’
‘Nobody will believe that I killed the king,’ protested Victor. ‘He was like a brother to me.’
Bonvilain shrugged. ‘Not many knew that. You were his secret spy, remember? Spying on me. Now, to business. I am sure you have a dirk in your boot, or a Derringer in your beard, or some other spy trickery, so fare thee well, Victor Vigny. Tell your master that the alliance between the Trudeau and Bonvilain families continues a while longer.’