The Marus Manuscripts (8 page)

More calmly, King Lawrence and General Liddell spoke to each other. They had the look of two conspirators hatching a dangerous plot. The king was emphatic about what he wanted done. General Liddell finally saluted and marched out of the room.

The king staggered to the side of the bed and threw himself facedown onto the thick cushions. The room was still for a moment. Then a shadow moved in the window. The curtains parted, and a woman Anna had never seen before stepped out. She glanced nervously at the king on his bed, then crossed the room and leaned against a wall next to a bookcase. Watching the king closely, she reached over to the chair rail that lined the wall and pressed something along the top. A secret door in the wall opened, and she
slipped out of the room. The secret door closed, and the wall looked as solid as it had before.

Anna trembled for a moment, and then the room disappeared, replaced by her face in the mirror. She looked pale. Her knees felt weak, and her arms ached from clutching the washstand tightly. Composing herself, she splashed water on her face again, dried off, and then stepped into the hallway to go to her room.

The Old Judge stood there, waiting for her. “Are you well?” he asked.

Anna swallowed hard. “Yes, sir, I am,” she said.

“You look shaken,” he said.

She avoided his gaze as she walked past him. “I’m all right,” she affirmed.

But she knew his eyes were on her as she slipped into her room. In bed, she pulled her pillow close.
What are these scenes I keep seeing?
she wondered.
Why am I seeing them?
She eventually closed her eyes for a night of restless sleep.

A
t home once again, Darien sat down at his piano and played songs that were alternately mournful and passionate. Kyle sat nearby and watched him. Darien’s playing wasn’t an idle amusement. He was thinking as he played, trying to decide what to do next.

Kyle shifted in his seat nervously. “What are you going to do?” he eventually asked.

“A very good question, lad,” Darien said. He stopped playing, closed the lid on the piano, and rested his elbows there.

“If you think the king tried to kill you, you’d be crazy to stick around,” Kyle said. “Shouldn’t you escape while you can?”

Darien shook his head. “What about the wedding tomorrow?” he asked. “I can’t simply disappear in the night without an explanation. What would I say? ‘Oh, sorry, but I couldn’t marry the princess because the king tried to kill me with a crossbow.’ It would be an accusation—my word against the king’s.”

“What if you just don’t show up?”

“Another scandal. How could I insult the princess and her royal family like that? The entire nation would be up in arms.”

Just then, they heard a light tapping at the French doors leading to the garden.

Kyle’s face brightened. “I’ll bet it’s Prince George,” he said. “He’ll know what to do.”

Darien crossed over to the doors but didn’t open them. Instead,
he stood next to the wall and carefully lifted the curtain for a peek. His face registered surprise, and he quickly opened the doors. Princess Michelle, dressed in a black cloak with a hood, rushed in. Kyle, also surprised, stood up.

“What brings you here, my princess?” Darien asked.

“We haven’t much time,” the princess said. “They’re on their way.”

“Who is?” Darien asked.

“General Liddell’s guards. They’ve been instructed to arrest you.”

“On what charge?”

“Treason.”

“That’s insane!”

“Insane or not, it’s what my father wants.”

Darien fumed. “No one will believe it,” he insisted. “How could they prove such a thing?”

“You underestimate my father. He has it all worked out. They’re going to claim that the man who tried to assassinate you outside Krawley had learned that you were hatching a plot to overthrow the king. You had him killed to keep him quiet.”

“I didn’t have him killed! The soldiers there will attest to that.”

“What soldiers?
General Liddell’s
soldiers?” the princess asked, shocked at Darien’s naïveté. “They’re duty bound to whatever the general and the king tell them. You must leave—
now.
”

Darien eyed her warily. “You’re the king’s daughter. Why should I believe you?”

The princess opened her mouth to speak, but tears fell from her eyes instead. “I know my father wanted me to marry you so I’d keep an eye on you for him. And I know you’re marrying me only because the king wants you to. No one stopped to ask
my
feelings, though. And the truth is, I love you. I have from the first time I met you.”

A sympathetic smile crossed Darien’s face, and he took the princess’s hands in his and kissed them both. “I’m humbled and undeserving of your love, my princess,” he said.

A hard pounding at the front door interrupted their tender moment. Darien, Princess Michelle, and Kyle raced into the hallway just as Edward, the head servant, made his way to the door.

“Wait!” Darien told him. “You have to stall them, Edward. Tell them I’m in bed. Give me time.”

Edward’s dull expression didn’t change as he bowed slightly and answered, “Yes, sir.”

The three of them turned and raced up the steps to the second floor and Darien’s room.

“What do we do now?” Kyle asked after Darien closed and locked the door.

Darien quickly pulled the covers down to the foot of the bed and then went to the corner of the room, where he grabbed a suit of armor that stood there indifferently.
Do they have suits of armor in every room?
Kyle wondered.

“Help me,” Darien said to Kyle. Together they pushed the armor onto the bed. Darien yanked the covers over it. He then dimmed the light in the room so that it genuinely looked as if someone were asleep in the bed. “There,” he said. “Sleeping like a baby.”

Deep voices shouted in another part of the house. Darien went to the window and threw it open. Satisfied that no one was waiting below, he turned to Kyle and asked, “Are you coming?”

“Where else would I go?” Kyle said.

Darien then turned to Princess Michelle. “It’s going to look bad for you,” he said sympathetically. “Liddell’s men will wonder why you’re here. Tell them I threatened to kill you if you didn’t help me. Attempted murder won’t surprise them if they think I’m a traitor.”

Michelle nodded silently.

Darien kissed her. “I suppose our wedding day will have to wait,” he said with an ironic smile.

She smiled sadly as a tear slipped down her cheek. “I suppose it will,” she agreed.

Heavy footsteps invaded the hall just outside the room. Someone jiggled the handle, then began to break down the door.

“Farewell,” Darien said to Michelle. Then he hoisted Kyle out of the window, where he grabbed on to a branch of a nearby tree. Darien started to follow, then stopped. “I’ve forgotten my pistol and my sword!” he exclaimed. “Where are they?”

“You don’t have time!” Michelle said firmly.

Darien frowned, then leaped to the tree. He and Kyle climbed down to the ground and ran off into the night.

In her dreams, Anna saw a woman standing in a bedroom. It wasn’t the king’s bedroom this time—this room was smaller and more modest—but it was the same woman she had seen before. The room wasn’t lit very well, so Anna had a hard time making out the shadows. The woman moved to the bed and sat down. Someone slept under the covers. Whoever it was didn’t stir. Anna had the impression that the woman was a nurse taking care of someone ill.

The bedroom door was suddenly thrown open. Several men stood silhouetted in the doorway. They were dressed as soldiers, with guns in hand and swords at their sides. The woman stood up and crossed quickly to the men before they could enter the room fully.

The men stopped, surprised to see the woman there. She gestured in appeal to them and then back to the bed as if to say that they shouldn’t disturb the sleeper. One of the men waved his arms anxiously at the woman and also pointed to the bed. The woman
responded. Finally the man waved her aside and approached the bed with his sword drawn. He threw back the covers. A suit of armor glimmered in the dim light.

Dreams have no sense of time or place. Just as Anna saw the suit of armor, the scene quickly changed to a dark wood. A man Anna didn’t know moved hastily through the trees. He was followed by a boy.

“Kyle!” Anna gasped.

Kyle and the man emerged from the woods and stood for a moment on the crest of a hill. They looked out over a valley that Anna recognized. In the distance, she saw the town of Hailsham. Kyle and the man headed for the town.

Seconds later—or was it minutes or an hour?—Anna was awakened by a knocking sound. She sluggishly crawled from her bed and ventured out to the main room of the Old Judge’s cottage. The Old Judge, still fully dressed as if he’d never gone to bed, held a lamp high and opened the door.

“Hello, Darien,” he said warmly as the man in Anna’s dream stepped in. They clasped hands and shook vigorously. Then the Old Judge said, “And you must be—”

“Kyle!” Anna cried out as she rushed to the door.

Kyle turned to his sister, a stunned expression on his face. She gave him a long, hard hug.

M
orning came just as Kyle and Anna finished swapping stories of their time in Marus. They were both amazed at their respective adventures and wondered anew about their reason for being in Marus at all. Anna didn’t tell Kyle about her bizarre dreams. Nor did Kyle mention how he’d saved Darien’s life three times. They talked instead about the effect their disappearance would have on their family.

“Do you think Grandma and Grandpa are worried?” Anna asked.

“Probably,” Kyle said. “Maybe the police are looking for us.”

But there was nothing they could do about it. Both were resigned to that fact. What neither of them dared mention, though, was the possibility that they might never get back to their own world. That was a worry they didn’t dare put into words.

Meanwhile, in another part of the cottage, Darien told the Old Judge everything that had happened with King Lawrence, including the attempt to kill him with the crossbow and the narrow escape from his bedroom thanks to Princess Michelle’s warning.

The Old Judge listened and nodded thoughtfully. “This was inevitable,” he said.

“Was it?” Darien asked.

“You were chosen by the Unseen One. Lawrence knows it but won’t accept it. What man would?”

“But the king has nothing to fear from me,” Darien said firmly.

“Oh, but his madness tells him he does,” the Old Judge said. “He knows you’ve been chosen to replace him.”

“I don’t know that. No one ever told me I was chosen to be king.”

“Perhaps you won’t admit it openly, but you’ve known in your heart that it is true,” the Old Judge said, casting a steely gaze at the young man. “Don’t you remember when I secretly went to your father’s house? Do you think it was for a cup of tea and a pleasant chat? I was sent there by the Unseen One to find you.”

“I remember,” Darien said quietly. “You laid your hands on my head and claimed I was chosen for an important purpose.”

“To be king.”

“And now King Lawrence wants to see that it doesn’t happen. Nor will I force it to happen. I will not lift a hand against him. You know I won’t.” Darien folded his arms resolutely.

The Old Judge smiled like a shrewd negotiator. “We’re in the hands of the Unseen One.”

“I wish someone would tell me who the Unseen One is,” Kyle said as he and Anna walked into the room.

“Your sister will explain it as you walk to the village,” the Old Judge stated.

“We’re going to the village?” Anna asked.

The Old Judge waved her on. “Yes. Bring me back a newspaper. I’d like to see what the king is saying about the cancellation of the wedding.”

The children complied, and on the way to the village, Anna told Kyle what she could about the Unseen One.

“The Unseen One must be God,” Kyle said, coming to the same conclusion that Anna had.

“Yeah, but here the Unseen One seems so . . . well, it’s like He really does things here.”

Kyle thought about it for a moment and then said, “Grandma and Grandpa say God does things in our world, too—but you have to believe in Him in your heart to see what He’s up to.”

Anna remembered the dream she had where the Old Judge said almost the same thing to her. “You must have faith,” he’d said.
Do I have that kind of faith?
she asked herself.

“I get the feeling there aren’t a lot of people left who believe in the Unseen One,” Kyle said.

“I get the same feeling,” Anna agreed. “The Old Judge says that King Lawrence and the rest of the country have come up with some kind of do-it-yourself religion. He says it’s man-made and that everyone thinks that things just happen because they happen—sort of like fate with a capital
F
. But the Old Judge thinks the king believes in it because he can’t stand being rejected by the Unseen One. If he pretends the Unseen One doesn’t exist, he’ll get to be king longer.”

They reached the village, and Anna slipped into a corner shop that sold groceries, tobacco, and newspapers. When she returned to the street, she was ashen-faced. She handed the newspaper to Kyle.

“Plot to Overthrow King Thwarted!” the headline in the
Sarum Herald
shouted in large, black type. The article went on to say that a plot to overthrow the king had been exposed just in the nick of time. For security reasons, the wedding had been canceled. Though it didn’t say so directly, the newspaper hinted that General Darien may have been part of the plot. The royal family was leaving the capital city for a safer place until the extent of the plot could be determined.

“The king didn’t waste any time, did he?” Kyle said.

Inside the paper were stock black-and-white photos of the royal family. In the center of one page was a photo of Darien and Michelle
on stage in the Great Hall on the day the king announced the wedding. Anna put her hand to her mouth with alarm.

“What’s the matter?” Kyle asked.

“Is that really the princess?” she said.

“Yeah.”

Anna shook her head and spoke so softly that Kyle had a hard time hearing her as she observed, “Weird things are happening here.”

Kyle looked curiously at his sister. “Like what?” he asked.

She led Kyle down Hailsham’s main street toward the road that would lead them back to the cottage. When they reached an open field, she said, “I keep having dreams, seeing things.”

Kyle sounded annoyed at having to wait so long for that statement. “Everybody sees things in their dreams,” he said.

“But these are real things,” Anna explained. “I saw the king in his bedroom having an argument with that General Liddell guy. I saw the princess, too. She was in the bedroom spying on them. She escaped through a secret door. And then I saw her in another bedroom.”

Kyle said impatiently, “She was in Darien’s room. She helped us escape. I told you the story. I think you’re getting mixed up.”

“No. I saw what happened
after
you escaped from his bedroom.”

“That’s impossible.”

Anna shook her head. “Soldiers came in, and the princess stopped them. There was someone in the bed—or that’s what I thought. But the soldiers pulled the covers back, and it wasn’t a person. Someone had put a suit of armor in the bed.”

Kyle’s face went pale. No one had mentioned the suit of armor back at the cottage. There was no way Anna could’ve known about it. “You dreamed that?” he asked.

“Sort of,” Anna said, relieved that Kyle seemed to believe her now. “But it’s more like a daydream than a dream. It’s like . . .” But the words to describe it escaped her. She couldn’t say any more.

“Maybe it’s because we’re in this country,” Kyle offered.

“Maybe it’s the Unseen One. The Old Judge said that I’ve been brought here for a reason. If I was, then you were, too. You came here before I did, remember? We were chosen for a reason.”

“What kind of reason?”

Anna shrugged. “The Old Judge said something about us being a voice and a protector. Maybe he meant that
I’m
the voice and you’re the protector.”

Kyle thought about that for a moment.
Protector.
It made sense—and his face reflected the realization.

“What are you thinking?” Anna asked.

Kyle told his sister about the three times he had saved Darien’s life. He concluded, “I get this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. And then the next thing I know, somebody tries to hurt Darien and I save him.”

Anna shuddered. “This is very strange.”

“Anna . . .” Kyle hesitated as if he wasn’t sure he should say more. But he did. “Do you believe in the Unseen One?”

Anna considered her answer carefully, then said, “There’s no other way to explain all the things I’ve seen with the Old Judge, or in my dreams, or our being here. So, yes, I believe in the Unseen One.”

They walked on silently for a while. The cottage appeared just ahead.

Eventually, Kyle asked, “Do you think the Unseen One is on our side? I mean, if we’re here for a reason, will the Unseen One take care of us and get us home again?”

“I hope so,” Anna said, then added, “I think so.”

Kyle sighed deeply. “I hope you’re right.”

Back at the cottage, Darien read the newspaper, then threw it across the room. “This is unbelievable!” he snarled.

“Unbelievable?
Predictable
is the better word,” the Old Judge said.

“At least they didn’t say you were a traitor,” Kyle said to be helpful.

Darien frowned. “They didn’t say it outright, but they implied it. People will be watching.”

“The king will pay me a visit,” the Old Judge said. “Of that you can be sure.”

“Why?”

“Why not? He’ll know that you’ve come to see me.” The Old Judge scratched at his beard. “Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to sneak up on us already.”

Darien shook his head. “He’d send someone to arrest me. He wouldn’t come all this way himself.”

“All this way? He’s just over the hill.”

Darien looked at the Old Judge quizzically. “What are you talking about?”

“Think about it, son. If they left Sarum for security reasons, where would they go? The king’s country estate—and that’s all of two miles from here. It is peaceful and secure. Being so close, the king will not resist coming to me.”

“Let him come,” Darien said. “I won’t be here.”

“And where will you be?”

“At the king’s country estate,” Darien said simply.

“What?” Kyle asked. “Are you nuts? I mean, are you nuts,
sir?
”

“If the royal family is there, that would include George. I want to see him.”

“To what end?” the Old Judge asked.

“He’s my friend,” Darien replied. “I want him to know that these allegations are all lies.”

“If he’s your friend, he knows it already,” said the Old Judge.

“And I want to see if he can speak to the king,” Darien continued. “Maybe there’s a way to appease him, to make him see that I am not his enemy.”

The Old Judge scrutinized Darien’s face. “You say that so sincerely,” he said. “Do you believe it? Do you believe King Lawrence will ever allow you to return to his court?”

“I want to believe it’s possible, even if it’s impossible.”

The Old Judge placed a hand on Darien’s shoulder and said gently, “The wheels are in motion, my son. Nothing can be the way it was.”

Darien didn’t reply but went to the door and pulled it open. Kyle followed.

“Don’t go, Kyle,” Anna said as he and Darien walked out. “You’ll get caught—or hurt.”

Kyle looked back over his shoulder and smiled bravely. “Me get caught?” he said lightly. “I’m in the hands of the Unseen One.”

“That doesn’t mean the Unseen One won’t let you get caught,” she said.

But the door closed and they were gone.

The Old Judge was right. Shortly after Darien and Kyle left, a handful of soldiers came to the cottage and demanded to see Darien. The Old Judge said truthfully that he wasn’t there. When the soldiers declared that they would search the house, the Old Judge blocked their way, fixed a dark eye on them, and said, “You must find it terribly funny to think that Darien would hide in an old cottage like this.”

To Anna’s amazement, the soldiers began to laugh. “Yeah, it is funny,” the captain said as his laughter turned into side-splitting hysterics. The soldiers guffawed uncontrollably, to the extent that they sank to their knees and rolled on their sides. Some of them doubled over with stomach cramps from laughing so hard, and others couldn’t breathe. After a few minutes, the captain begged the Old Judge for mercy.

The Old Judge said, “You desire mercy? Then leave this place and you’ll have it.”

Between chortles and gasps, the captain commanded his men to withdraw. They helped each other up from the ground and stumbled away, their laughter still echoing through the valley as they went.

Anna looked at the Old Judge with an unspoken question.

“Weak-minded men,” the Old Judge said offhandedly. “We’ll see how the next batch hold up.”

“The next batch?”

Sure enough, two hours later, another company of soldiers arrived. They were a harder-looking bunch than the previous men, with expressions that said they probably hadn’t laughed in years. The officer in charge seemed to know the Old Judge. “None of your tricks,” he barked. “We want Darien.”