The Mirror's Tale (Further Tales Adventures) Read Free Page B

it. We must do something. You need to name your successor before long, and how can you even choose between them now? Ones a monster, the other’s a … a
mouse.
”
    There was another pause, the longest yet. Bert realized that he was trembling, down to the tips of his fingers and toes. He squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t do it, Father, he thought.
Don’t listen to her. Well be good, I promise. I’ll stop getting Will into trouble, I swear it.
    His fathers voice again drifted out into the night. “Which would we send?”
    “Will, I suppose,” his mother said. “He won’t misbehave and embarrass us the way Bert would. Will’s clever enough, but he’s as meek as a lamb without his brother to follow.”
    Bert swallowed hard and felt a lump in his throat the size of a paving stone. He looked back toward Will, who couldn’t hear any of this. His brother waved his hand in a mad circle, urging him to come back. But Bert couldn’t go yet. He had to hear what his father would say. Send Will to The Crags? They couldn’t—didn’t they know how scared Will got whenever he left the castle grounds? Bert leaned even closer to the window.
Father, please…
    “No,” his father said at last. Bert let out a long, grateful sigh. His mother began to protest, but his father cuther off. “But that was the last act of foolishness I will tolerate. Tomorrow I’ll tell them they have one final chance. And if they misstep one more time, I will do exactly what you propose.”
    A wide smile flowered on Bert’s face, and he straightened up, ready to return to his room. He was dizzy with relief.
That was a near miss,
he thought.
Will’s going to faint when he finds out.
For a moment their world had been like a crystal bowl teetering on the edge of a shelf, about to shatter into a million pieces. It seemed safe once more until a harsh voice called out from below.
    “You there! What are you up to?”
    It was a watchman in the courtyard. Bert’s chest was against the wall, and he twisted his torso to look down at the fellow, hoping the man would shut up once he saw it was only the baron’s son. He tapped his forefinger against his lips. And then his father’s head popped out of the window, like a jack-in-the-box, just a foot from his face.
    The baron screamed. Bert yelped, and the fingers of his other hand slipped out of the crack that he was holding onto. His father tried to grab Bert’s arm as he toppled away from the wall, but only caught Bert’s sleeve, which tore and slipped through his fingers. Bert looked with wild eyes toward his brother who gritted his teeth and tightly gripped the rope in his fists. Bert fell, and when the rope went taut between them, Will was tugged neatly out the window as if he was divinginto a pond. Bert tried to scream again, but said only
“Ooof!”
as the knot around his waist bit into his stomach. He swung like a pendulum toward a point somewhere under his own room, bouncing and bumping along the rugged face of the wall. Will held the rope long enough to flip himself upright again, but lost his grip and slid down the cords length until he straddled Bert’s shoulders. Above them Bert could hear Will’s bed scrape across the stone floor, and they sank a few more feet until they nearly reached the courtyard, where the watchman approached them with his sword in his hand and a bemused expression on his face.
    Bert had the urge to laugh until he heard the furious voice bellow down. “Spying? On your own father? That was the last straw! You hear me?
The very last straw!
”
    “It’s only for a few months,” the baron said, when the wailing quieted to the point where he might be heard.
    “No!” the boys shouted. They were standing against a wall when their father broke the news, but in their shock they slid down and hunched on the cold stone floor.
    The baron glared at them. “Enough of your insolence. This decision will not be undone. I’ve sent word ahead to your uncle Hugh that Will is