The Palace Library (6 page)

“Do
not let us down,” added the Queen.  “Since you enjoy the King’s trust, make
sure it is deserved.”

As
the man left the room, Eleanor felt Sophie physically relax.

“Children,
I’ll offer you my best wishes.  You’ll have to use your own initiative,
but I’ll wait every day to hear of your successful return.

“Harry,
to you I give my signet ring.  It will prove who you are and will open
doors for you which would otherwise remain locked.”  With that she pulled
a ring from her finger and slid it onto Harry’s hand.  It was far too big,
so she turned and said, “Eloise, fetch my chain from the bedchamber so that
Harry can wear this around his neck.”

The
children had not noticed the girl Eloise before.  She had been sitting in
the shadows by the fire and came forward.  She would have been beautiful
except a scar had disfigured her from her ear to her mouth, giving her a
permanent sour smile on one side of her face.  When she returned with the
chain and it was slipped over Harry’s neck, the Queen turned to her with sudden
decision.  “Eloise.  You are to go with the children.  I charge
you with the care of their health and well-being, if necessary with your
life.  Be vigilant.”

Eloise
looked shocked and frightened, but said nothing.

To
the children she turned and said, “Eloise cannot speak.  She has no
tongue, but she is not a dumb girl.  Far from it.”

“Now
all of you, prepare yourselves.  You must leave before midnight. 
Follow the valley down towards Sarum on foot and you’ll find a coach waiting to
take you.  Above all, beware of traitors who will try to stop you.”

The
children were dismissed and as they left the room they felt frightened and
lonely and full of questions.  To make matters worse, lightning lit up the
cloister and made scary shadows.  Sophie kept close to them all to comfort
them.

Master
John tried to cheer them up, “You have the Queen’s confidence and so you have
my confidence too. I’m sure you will succeed and I’ll look after you until we
get to Axmouth, where one of the King’s ships will take you to wherever you
need to go.”

The
children knew the village of Axmouth, at least in their own time, so they hoped
there would be something familiar there.  And perhaps some clues.

The children sat in a stuffy
carriage after their journey on foot to Sarum.  The carriage surprised
them.  It was quite unlike the carriages they had seen on television
carrying our current Queen.  This carriage was like a great big wooden box
covered in metal bands and studded with great iron nails.  At each corner
was a wooden wheel bound with a circle of heavy steel.  Each wheel was
taller than Harry and the whole thing was drawn by four of the largest horses
any of them had ever seen.  From the outside, it looked most
uncomfortable.  Worse, it looked like a mobile prison.

Inside
was quite another matter.  Plush upholstery and rich red and blue material
lined the coach.  Compared to the quarters in the kennels, it was
luxurious. There were no windows to look out of, but only a couple of wooden
shutters to keep the cold winter weather out.  In a way it was like being
locked in a box, even if it was a comfortable box.  Grace, Eleanor and
Harry sat on one seat facing forwards. Master John and Eloise sat on the other
opposite to them.  Sophie was in the middle and had her head on Eleanor’s
lap.  Master John looked quite uncomfortable sitting there, unused to the
luxury of travelling in this way.  Next to him sat Eloise, still looking
quite terrified.

There
was no time wasted getting underway and the carriage lurched and swayed along
the rough roads.

It
was not long before Grace asked the inevitable question that she always asked
at the beginning of a journey.  “How long will it take us?”

“If
the road hasn’t been washed away in the rain and there are no unusual delays,
it should be no more than two days,” answered Master John.

“Two
days?” cried the children in unison.  “How can it take so long?” 
They were quite dismayed.

“This
is the finest carriage in England,” said Master John, “and we’re travelling
under the King’s protection. We won’t stop except to change horses.  I can
never imagine the journey could be made more quickly.  This carriage will
be our home together until then.”

To
the children, it was an age.  They had been thinking in modern terms and
knew the journey never took more than two hours, even in traffic.  They looked
at each other and sighed.

“At
least we can read our books to pass the time,” said Eleanor.

This
time it was Master John who looked surprised. “You can read?” he said. 
“At your age too?”

“We
all can,” answered Grace proudly.

“Well
I admire you,” he said.  “I’ve never learnt to read books, for it is only
the work of government that requires the clerics to read.  I can only read
my hounds and the coverts in the royal forest where we hunt.  My learning
is in nature and understanding what’s necessary to look after the hunt.”

“And
can you read, Eloise?” asked Harry, trying to be polite.  The girl shook
her head, but made no further effort to communicate.

“We
must give you your book, Harry,” said Eleanor suddenly remembering. “It seems
to have been such a rush that we’ve never had time, nor been able to tell you
about our books and Edgar.”

“Well,
I hope they give some clues about what we have to do,” replied Harry. 
“Let’s see it,” he added excitedly.

Eleanor
drew the slender volume out from under her cloak and gave it to Harry.  It
had a plain green cover and, being patient, Harry looked at what might be
written on it.  There was nothing there, so he opened the first page and
then the next and the next.

“What
is the book?” asked the girls.

“I
don’t know,” answered Harry.  He tried not to sound irritated or
disappointed. “I think it’s just a notebook, there don’t seem to be any words
on the pages at all.” 

“But
Edgar said it would give you wisdom when you needed it,” said Grace.

“Yes,”
said Eleanor.  “But he said something else.  It was a word I didn’t
understand and I can’t remember it.  Can you Grace?”

“No.”

“You’re
both a fat lot of good,” said Harry crossly.

“I
remember.  I remember,” answered Eleanor.  “It was ‘cryptic.’ 
Do you know what that means?”

“Yes. 
It means it’s like a puzzle.  We have to work it out.”  He stared at
the book, slightly relieved that maybe it wasn’t blank after all. 
“Perhaps the writing is just very faint.  I wish there was more light in
here.  Two days like this.  How can we read?”

“I
know,” said Grace and she pulled her own book out of a pocket. She laid it on
her lap and opened it up.  Everyone gasped except Eleanor who knew what to
expect.  The inside of the carriage lit up in the same way that the dome
of The Palace Library had been lit.  Stars shooting out of the book were
like silent fireworks.  The carriage was bright with twinkling light and
it was like being outside on a clear night with a full moon.

“Wow!”
said Harry.

Suddenly
Sophie caused mayhem.  Alert almost at once from sleeping, she sat up and
barked at the stars.  Then she thought the best thing to do was lie on her
back to look at the way the stars seemed to hover on the ceiling of the
carriage.  But there wasn’t really room for her to manoeuvre, so as she
turned she thumped her head on the door.  She whined for a moment and then
just comically turned her head this way and that whilst wagging her tail. 
She turned from noble royal dog to naughty puppy in seconds.

“Sophie!”
cried Eleanor.  All of a sudden the dog looked crestfallen in such a way
that she changed position and sat up again, treading on all their feet in the
process and placing her head on Eleanor’s lap. When they finally settled down,
it was Master John who spoke, “I would never have believed it, if I hadn’t seen
it.  If I hadn’t heard the Queen say that you’re not magicians, I would
tremble before you.  But you certainly do have powerful magic.  I
hope you heed the Queen’s advice about who you share this with.”

Eloise
trembled and looked worried.

“That
is really cool,” added Harry.  Let’s see if I can see any writing now.
“No.  Boring.  You show me your book, Eleanor, anyway.”

She
opened up her book and showed him the beautiful pictures.  As she did so,
Grace tipped up her book and the stars went out, causing Sophie to bark again.

“What’s
happening?”

Grace
put the book down flat again and they came back on, “Hey, it’s like a switch,”
she said.  “It’s groovy.”

“Yeah,”
said Harry, still annoyed that he seemed to have been given a dud book and
completely uninterested in pictures of plants. Then Harry shut the book crossly
and said, to no one in particular, “What are you little green book?”

Suddenly
gold lettering appeared on the cover.

Peto
, was the word.  Then it
vanished and was replaced by
Invenio
.

“It’s
Latin,” said Harry, “but I haven’t learnt these words yet.  I wish they
were in English.”

As
if responding to his wish, the gold words faded and were replaced in English:
I
seek…
Then:
I find.

“I
get it I think,” said Harry.  “Maybe if I ask the book questions, it’ll
give me answers.”

So
Harry opened the book, as the girls looked over him.  “What’s my name?” he
tried.

Know
thyself,
was the
answer.

Master
John was looking intently too, “Well you were told it was cryptic.  Try
something else.”

“Where
are we going?” asked Harry.

West
, was the word on the page. 
Harry spoke it.  Master John laughed out loud.  “Well I could have
told you that!”

“And
so could I,” added Grace as she pulled the gold compass and watch out of her
pocket.  “I must remember to wind it up each day!”

“That’s
beautiful,” said Harry, but ignoring her really, as he was far too interested
in the book now.

“Why
are we going west?” tried Harry.

To
fulfil the Prophecy.  The three children were silent.  Then Eloise
seemed to recover herself and nudged Harry’s knee.  She looked at him and
put her hands to her mouth as if she were singing. 

“What
do you mean?” asked Harry.

“It’s
no good asking Eloise that sort of question,” answered Master John.  “You
must ask her questions she can reply ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to by nodding or shaking her
head. She means read it out loud to us, since neither of us can read.”

So
Harry did, then he realised the next question he must ask.  Great Uncle
Jasper had mentioned the Prophecy and so had Queen Eleanor.

“What
is the Prophecy?”

This
time the book filled a whole page with words and when Harry turned the page
over he found there were more.  The words were in English but they were
difficult to read, written in a tiny gothic script.

Speaking
out loud, he strained over them.  “It’s a poem.  I can read some of
the words, but not all of them. 
Dragons
is here.  I wonder
what that means. 
Past World’s End
is here.  I’ll have to
concentrate to read this.”

The
journey continued as the children looked at their books in silence.  For
Master John and Eloise, it was late in the day and they soon fell asleep, John
snoring loudly.  But the three children had not only leapt in time, but
missed a great chunk of the day, so they did not feel at all sleepy. Instead
they turned to read each of their books.

An
hour or so later, Harry declared he had deciphered the poem, but he saw that
even then the girls had fallen asleep, so he closed Grace’s atlas to dim the
light and decided that it would have to wait until the morning.

The movement of the great
carriage could hardly be said to be rhythmic, but it was enough to lull Harry
to sleep after a while.  It was not as boring as being awake in the dark
anyway.  Strangely, it was stopping that woke them all up; or perhaps it
was the shouting.  There was a break to change the horses and a chance to
stretch their legs.  Dawn was just breaking, and since it was January and
usually it was dark when the children woke up to go to school, they reckoned it
must have been about seven in the morning. By the time they were back on board,
they were glad of the daylight from the open shutters, even though it was
bitterly cold.

Eleanor
was the one who asked Harry first, “So did you manage to read the Prophecy
then?”

“I
did,” said Harry, who was then deliberately silent for a moment.

“Well?”
said Grace.

“Well
what?” said Harry.

“What
does it say?” asked the girls.