The Minstrel in the Tower

by Gloria Skurzynski

  For James Joseph Aim, a singer,

  and his sister Stephanie, who climbs

  1. The Cottage

  2. The Journey

  3. The Fork in the Road

  4. The Tower

  5. Lady Blanche

  6. Lord Raimond, the Baron

  7. The Lute

  8. Ever After

  Alice heard the sweet singing of a nightingale. It sounded so perfect that a real nightingale might have been fooled, but not Alice. Her brother, Roger, had whistled the bird’s song. It was their secret signal.

  “I’m up here,” she called.

  “Are you in that tree again?” he cried, seeing Alice in the top branches of a huge sycamore. “You know you’re not supposed to climb that high! Get down, you monkey.”

  “It’s nice up here,” Alice answered. “I can see so far! When Father returns from the Crusade, I’ll be the first to see him coming.”

  Roger leaned against the trunk of the big old tree. “If he’s ever going to come home at all,” he said, “this would be a good time for it, with Mother so sick.” It was the year 1195, and the Crusade had ended three years earlier. Mother, Roger, and Alice waited alone in their cottage, with only their elderly neighbor, Zara, to visit them. Since their mother had become ill, old Zara helped care for her.

  “You’d better come down right now,” Roger called, “before Zara starts looking for us. It scares her when she sees you up so high.” Under his breath he added, “It scares me, too.”

  Roger was eleven; Alice was only eight. He tried to watch out for her the best he could, but Alice was hard to keep up with. She never walked when she could run, and she never stayed on the ground when she could climb.

  “Children!”

  “What did I tell you,” Roger said as they heard old Zara shouting for them.

  “Children! Where are you? Roger, is Alice with you? Alice, answer me!”

  “Don’t let her know I’m up here,” Alice begged.

  Roger was not only good at bird calls; he could imitate people’s voices perfectly. In a voice that sounded exactly like Alice’s, he called, “I’m here with Roger, Zara. At the big tree.”

  “Both of you come inside at once!” old Zara cried sharply.

  “Something must be wrong!” Roger said. “Hurry, Alice!”

  She scrambled down the tree so fast that he couldn’t stand to watch. He turned away until he felt her next to him on the ground. Together they raced to the tiny cottage.

  When they reached the door, they stopped in dismay. Their mother had risen from her sickbed to sit in the center of the room. Her long yellow hair spread from her head to her waist like rays of sunlight. In her lap rested a lute. As she bent forward to pluck its strings, she sang:

  “My brother is a noble knight,

  An eagle guards his shield of white,

  My brother won’t forgive a wrong,

  His sword is steel, his arm is strong….”

  Old Zara stood wringing her hands. “I tried to make her stay in bed, but she won’t listen. She’s burning with fever.”

  “Mother!” Roger cried, running to her. “Go back and lie down!”

  Spots red as strawberries stained their mother’s cheeks, but her forehead and lips looked pale as winter. “Dear Roger,” she said, “let me sit while I can. Soon enough I’ll lie forever, in my grave.”

  Fear sent prickles over Roger’s skin. Alice looked frightened too. “Is Mother going to die?” she asked Zara.

  “There, there, child,” soothed the old woman. “When people get feverish, they say foolish things. You mustn’t worry.”

  As their mother stared at Roger and Alice, she seemed to come to her senses. “I’ve been dreaming,” she said, “about my brother, Raimond, in Bordeaux. It was such a real dream, I felt I could reach out and touch him.”

  “What brother?” Roger asked. “You don’t have a brother.”

  “The truth is, I do have one, and you must find him, Roger. Tell Raimond I beg his forgiveness, and that I leave you children in his care. Who else will look after you when I’m gone? Your father must be dead, or he would have come back to us long ago.”

  Dead! Roger’s fear turned to cold pain. He’d suspected Father might have died in battle, because most men had long since returned from the Crusade. To hear his mother say it, though, cut through to his heart. Maybe he didn’t have to believe her. Maybe old Zara was right—that feverish people said foolish things.

  Their mother had begun to pluck the lute again. With a sudden motion, she held out the instrument to Alice.

  “Take this to your uncle Raimond,” she told the girl. “Show him the eagle carved on the back. Ask him to come quickly. Quickly!” Her eyes grew wild, and then she fell into a faint.

  “Catch her!” Zara cried.

  “I don’t want her to die,” sobbed Alice as they carried their mother to the bed. Alice had no memory of her father, but her mother had always been there to hold her, to love and comfort her.

  “All morning she’s been talking about this brother, Raimond,” Zara told them. “It’s preying on her mind. I think she won’t get well until you bring him to her.”

  “I don’t even know where Bordeaux is,” Roger protested.

  “Three days west of here,” Zara answered. She wrung her hands. “So far away!”

  Alice was kneeling beside the bed. “Three whole days!” she exclaimed through her tears. “What will we eat?”

  “You won’t be going with me,” Roger said.

  “Yes I will!” She jumped to her feet. “Mother told me to. I’m supposed to take the lute to our uncle.”

  Roger could have argued that their mother’s mind wasn’t clear when she spoke those words. Yet in spite of himself he wanted Alice with him on the journey. All their lives they’d depended on each other for company. “All right,” he answered. “But if you come, you have to obey me. As for food…” He pointed to the lute. “That will buy our suppers.”

  “No, I won’t let you sell it!” Alice wrapped her arms around the pear-shaped lute. “Mother said—”

  “I know what Mother said. I’m not going to sell it. I’m going to play it. Mother taught me all her songs. I’ll sing for our suppers, like a strolling minstrel.”

  “I wish I could go in your stead,” lamented Zara. “But I’m far too old to make such a journey.” Her face puckered as she lifted the edge of her brown wimple to dab her eyes. “Don’t worry about your mother—I’ll tend her carefully while you’re gone. It’s you children I worry about! May heaven protect the two of you!”

  The sun hung halfway between straight-up noon and sunset. Since they’d started out from home Alice had been skipping ahead and running back, but now her steps lagged to match Roger’s.

  “I’m hungry,” she told him.

  Hunger didn’t bother Roger so much, but other things did. With each step the lute bumped him. Because they were heading west, the sun shone right into his eyes. Long before, the road had turned away from the river Dordogne, and since then they hadn’t found even a tiny brook they could drink from.

  “You said you’d sing and play for our supper,” Alice told him. “But we haven’t seen a single traveler. So how are we going to eat?”

  Right at that moment Roger noticed dust rising on the road ahead. “Someone’s coming,” he answered as though he’d expected it all along.

  “I hope they have food and water with them, and I hope they like lute music,” said Alice.

  The sun stood bright behind the travelers so that when they reached the top of a small hill, they cast long shadows. They wore dark, ankle-length hooded gowns and carried the round-headed staffs of pilgrims. Pilgrims walked the roads all over Europe to
pray at a single saint’s shrine or at a number of shrines and churches. Roger saw that the two coming toward them were women. One was old, the other barely past her girlhood.

  “Peace to you,” Roger greeted them, and both women echoed, “Peace.” Alice stayed silent, too awed by the beauty of the young girl to manage a greeting.

  “I’m a strolling minstrel,” Roger announced. “If you will share your supper with us, I’ll sing a song for you.”

  The older woman frowned, staring down her nose at them. Roger knew that he and his sister looked like tatterdemalions. Their shabby clothes were covered with the dust of the road. Roger’s wrists stuck out from his sleeves, and Alice’s dress was patched in three places. For more than a year Mother hadn’t made new clothes for either of them because she couldn’t afford to buy cloth.

  Annoyed at the woman’s haughty look, Alice exclaimed, “My brother, Roger, is a wonderful singer! He knows all Mother’s songs. He can imitate voices and bird calls too.”

  “Oh, Mama, let’s share our food with these children,” the lovely girl begged. “They look hungry, and we have enough for all.”

  “Humpf! I suppose so, Aurore,” the mother answered with ill grace. Pursing her lips, she opened a leather pouch to take out bread and cheese and salted meat.

  Since Alice didn’t want to stare greedily, she pretended to watch a nightingale in a tree nearby. Then she cried, “Look! Someone forgot to pick the apricots in those top branches.” In a flash she’d tucked the hem of her skirt into her belt and was climbing the tree.

  “Be careful!” Aurore cried. “You might fall!”

  “You don’t have to worry about Alice,” Roger told her. “She’s always climbing something or other at home—trees or walls or even the roof when it needs new thatch. Our mother calls her La Guenuche—the monkey in skirts.”

  Roger would rather have starved than climb the apricot tree. Heights frightened him, but Alice balanced easily in the top branches. She flung the ripe fruit to Roger until the tree was picked bare.

  “Come down now, La Guenuche,” Aurore called, laughing. “You’ve surely earned your share of supper. Hasn’t she, Mama?”

  “Humpf!” the older woman snorted, already eating. Her manners were quite elegant. She lifted dainty bits of meat to her lips on the point of a knife, and she spit each apricot pit into her hand before dropping it to the ground.

  “We’re on a pilgrimage to the shrine at Rocamadour,” Aurore told them. “We’ve already traveled a week.” As she spoke the young girl lowered her hood.

  Alice gasped at the beauty of Aurore’s hair. It was the color of the apricots. Thick, wavy, and shining, it had been woven into one long braid that hung over her shoulder. The older woman noticed Alice’s admiration and said, “Aurore will sacrifice her hair at Rocamadour. She’s offering it so that her father may be cured of an illness.”

  “You mean, cut off her hair?” Roger asked, appalled.

  “How else can she offer it, except to cut it off?” sniffed the woman, dabbing her lips.

  Roger felt deeply sorry for poor Aurore, who looked sad at the mention of her coming sacrifice. Alice, though, touched her own dark, tangled curls and thought how nice it would be to have short hair that never needed combing to get the snarls out.

  The woman stuffed each leftover crust back into the pouch. “We shall save these crumbs for any other beggars we meet on the way,” she announced. “Now you may sing for us, minstrel.”

  Roger had no wish to perform for such a wretched woman, but he’d promised to sing for his supper. Turning toward Aurore, he plucked the strings of his lute and began:

  “A singer and a strummer,

  Sweet are the tunes I play

  For you to greet the summer

  And dance the night away.

  Let old folks drowse and slumber,

  Youth loves a holiday.”

  Then, on the spot, he made up a brand-new verse:

  “The time will go by quickly,

  I promise you, Aurore,

  Your curls will grow back thickly,

  E’er summer comes twice more.”

  Aurore’s sad look disappeared. “You’re right, of course, minstrel,” she said with a smile. “Shorn hair does grow back.”

  “We must leave now,” the mother fussed. “Come along, Aurore.”

  Until they were out of sight, Aurore kept turning around to wave and shout, “Farewell, minstrel! Thank you for the song! Farewell, La Guenuche!”

  “Which way do we go?” Alice asked.

  Roger hadn’t been paying attention, but Alice, as usual, had run ahead. She stood where the road forked, one part going left and the other right.

  “I don’t know,” Roger said. There was nothing to show which direction led to Bordeaux.

  “We can’t go both ways,” Alice declared. She picked a daisy from the side of the road and began to pluck its petals one by one. “Left path, right path,” she said as she pulled each petal. “Left, right, left…” The last petal was a “right.”

  “We’re not going to make up our minds because of a daisy. That’s silly,” Roger said. “We’ll go left.”

  “It’s just as silly to choose left because the daisy said right,” Alice argued.

  Roger was tired and worried, and there was no way to tell which road really led to Bordeaux. One direction was as good as the other. “You promised to obey me, and I pick left,” he insisted.

  “Oh, all right!”

  An hour later the road had narrowed to the width of a lane. Trees grew so thickly on both sides that the branches met overhead. Around a bend, a fallen log blocked the path entirely.

  “You should have listened to the daisy,” Alice told him.

  “Well have to go back to the crossroads,” Roger confessed. He wished there were someone to blame besides himself. “It’s almost dark now, so we can’t go back till morning.”

  “Where will we sleep?” Alice asked.

  “This road—or what’s left of it—must lead somewhere. We’ll climb over the log and keep going till it’s too dark to see.”

  As the trees grew more dense and the night deepened, the forest seemed to speak. Crickets chirred, leaves rustled, small animals chittered, and an owl asked who dared intrude into his domain. Ahead of him Roger could hear his sister breaking through brush. Then all was silent.

  “Alice!” he called sharply. “Where are you?”

  “Just ahead. Keep coming. I’ve found something.”

  “What is it? Answer me!” Darkness dropped over the forest like a lid on a chest.

  “You’ll see when you get here,” she called.

  Roger blundered through the trees in the direction of her voice. Suddenly something small and warm grabbed his arm. He nearly yelled, but it was only his sister’s hand.

  “Over there—see the round thing that looks darker than the shadows?” she asked. “It’s a tower. We can sleep inside it tonight.”

  “No we won’t! Snakes and spiders nest in dark places, and I need to take care of you. We’ll sleep in the open.”

  “That’s even better,” Alice said. “The night’s warm enough, and I don’t have to worry about getting my dress dirty on the ground. It’s already dirty.”

  “At least it still fits you. You never seem to get bigger, the way I do.”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if our uncle Raimond turned out to be rich and would buy us new clothes?” Alice asked, gathering leaves for a bed.

  “He could turn out to be poor. Or he could turn out not to be real,” Roger said. “Maybe he’s just a dream from Mother’s fever.”

  Alice didn’t answer, and Roger realized she was crying. I shouldn’t have mentioned Mother, he thought, feeling sorry and clumsy. “Don’t cry,” he told her. “I didn’t mean what I said. I’m sure there’s an uncle Raimond. We’ll find him. Go to sleep now.”

  Roger sat against a tree and held the lute across his knees. He strummed it softly, hoping the music would soothe Alice so that she could
sleep without sad dreams. The tune he strummed was a Crusader song that reminded him of his father.

  Trumpets had blared, visors had flashed, and sword hilts had gleamed under the bright sky the day his father went away. Banners and shields bore coats of arms showing lions, griffins, falcons, or stars. Each man’s right sleeve wore the cross of a Crusader.

  Father had told Roger that the Crusade would be led by two kings: Philip of France and Richard the Lion-Hearted, who ruled the land of Aquitaine where they lived.

  When dozens of noblemen rode past, mounted proudly on their war-horses, Roger had cheered and clutched his father’s hand. Archers followed, some carrying crossbows, others bearing longbows. Then came hundreds of foot soldiers, with banners fluttering from their upraised lances.

  Father waited for the whole column to march by before he mounted his impatient steed and rode away. Watching him, Roger waved until every last Crusader disappeared over the edge of the hill. That was the last time he ever saw his father. He was six then.

  Now the tall, round tower loomed in front of him. Blacker than the night, it was an eerie shadow that pushed Roger’s doubts toward dread. Was his father alive or dead? Was Uncle Raimond real? With one arm across the curved body of the lute, he settled on the ground to wait for the night to pass.

  Sun on his face woke him. He’d slept longer than he’d meant to. While he rubbed his eyes he looked around for his sister, but she was gone.

  “Alice!” he shouted.

  “I’m in here,” she answered. “Inside the tower. Come see it.”

  Roger stood up to look at the tower from the outside. In daylight it seemed ancient. Its rough, weathered stones were furry with moss, and the peak of its cone-shaped roof had fallen in. What could it have been used for, he wondered. A prison? A place to worship moldy old gods? A defense against barbarians?

  “Come on!” Alice called.

  He picked his way over the remains of a wooden gate. Once it must have guarded the doorway to the tower, but it now lay rotting. Inside, he looked for his sister.