The Minstrel in the Tower Read Free Page A

Roger yelled. He dashed from the tower and grabbed the lute from Simon, who toppled to the ground in surprise. Before Roger could run away, Odo’s arm flashed around his neck, and Odo’s dagger pricked his throat.
    “Leave my brother alone!” Alice screamed, hurling herself at them.
    “By my whiskers, another one!” Simon exclaimed. He caught her in his long, skinny arms and held her straight out in front of him. Her feet flailed the air helplessly.
    “This is the first time my prayers have been answered so swift,” said Simon. The words whistled through his missing teeth. “‘Give us a couple of servants,’ I said, and here they be! A fine pair of ragamuffins. All shabby and dirty, so they can’t belong to anyone.”

    “We belong to ourselves!” Roger shouted. “Let us go!”
    “We’ll set you both down, but don’t try and run,” Odo said. “You’re ours now. I always wanted a pair of servants.”
    “By my toenails, won’t it be fun to give orders for a change, ’stead of always taking them!” cried Simon. “Boy! Hunt up some firewood. Girl! Pluck the feathers off those quail. Then cook them.” Simon winked. “That’s the way to treat servants, eh, Odo?”
    “Right you are, Simon. Haw!”
    Surely the men wouldn’t keep them as they were threatening to! As long as Odo waved that dagger, though, Roger didn’t intend to argue. While Alice plucked the birds, he gathered firewood, watching for a chance to speak to his sister.
    “Bring your flint and help me start the fire,” Odo called to Simon. The two men busied themselves striking the blade of the dagger with the flint, and Roger moved closer to Alice.
    “Let’s run,” she whispered.
    “They’d catch us. The lute will slow me.”He didn’t want to leave it, not yet. Not until he decided how much actual danger they were in. “Wait a while. We’ll see what happens.”
    After the fire was lit Odo said, “Servant girl, turn those birds on the spit. Nice and slow, so they won’t burn.” He scratched his raggedy clothes as though he had fleas, and turned to Roger. “Servant boy, while the birds cook, you strum us a song with that tune-twanger of yours. A gallant song for the likes of us, eh, Simon?”
    “Right you are, Odo. One about fine, noble fellows, such as you and me.”
    “Haw!” laughed Odo.
    Roger tried to remember a song about gallantry. Most of the verses his mother had taught him were love songs. Then he thought of the one she’d sung on the day they left home:
    “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.”
    Simon’s jaw, with its missing teeth, dropped open. “Where did you learn that?” he demanded.
    “From my mother.”
    “Your mother! Who is your mother?”
    “She’s just my mother. My father’s wife. My father is a Crusader.”
    “The Crusades have been over for a long time,” Odo said.
    Simon stared hard at Roger. Then, in a strange, slow, crablike motion, he circled the fire, never taking his eyes from Roger’s face. Closer and closer he came, staring all the while.
    Roger scrambled backward, holding the lute, but Simon kept coming. Suddenly the man pounced. “Got you!” he cried. “Grab the girl, Odo!”
    When Alice tried to run, Odo caught her ankles and tripped her.
    “O-ho, Odo, my friend,” crowed Simon. “We’re going to live like kings after all. I’ve just figured out who these two are.”

“That ought to do it!”
    The two men leaned one more log against the old gate. They had fitted it into the doorway and piled logs and rocks and brush and everything within reach against it, so it couldn’t be budged. The tower was sealed.
    “Now, Simon, tell me why we’ve locked up those two,” Odo demanded. From inside, Roger and Alice could hear everything that was said.
    “Ay, I will,” replied Simon. “Until a few years ago, I served a baron whose name was Lord Raimond. I might still be