The Minstrel in the Tower Read Online Free Page B

“Call half a dozen men-at-arms to saddle their horses,” he ordered. “We’ll set out for the forest at once.”
    “Does that mean you believe this urchin, my lord?” asked the young knight.
    “I’m not certain. But nothing will be lost if we look for the tower.”

No one, horse or rider, seemed to know which direction to take. Sitting in front of her uncle on his tall gray palfrey, Alice was as lost as the knights.
    “Perhaps we’re close enough to the tower that if we call out, your brother will hear us and shout an answer,” the baron suggested. “Then we can follow his voice.”
    “No!” She shook her head. “Simon and Odo would hear too. They’d take Roger and run away.”
    The forest stood thick around them. To save time, the knights had bypassed the roadto ride straight through the woods, but now no one knew which way to go.
    “Can you whistle a nightingale’s song?” Alice asked Lord Raimond. “I can’t. Roger tried to teach me, but my whistle is too windy.”
    Lord Raimond smiled. “When I was a lad, I was better than anyone at bird calls.”
    “Then do a nightingale, please,” Alice urged him. “Nice and loud.”
    After he did as she asked, another nightingale answered faintly in the distance, twice more.
    “That’s Roger,” Alice said with a sigh of relief. “He’ll go on whistling like that till we get there.”
    “Ride in single file and keep the horses quiet,” the baron warned his men. “We want to take the outlaws by surprise.”
    They needn’t have worried. When they rode into the clearing, Simon and Odo lay slumped against the tower wall, fast asleep. The remains of a roast pheasant lay between them.
    Alice slid down from the baron’s horse and ran to shake them awake. “Where did you hide our lute?” she demanded.
    With snorts and splutters, the two ruffians rose to their knees. “How’d she get loose?” asked Odo, still fuddled from sleep. “She’s in the tower! Each day I’ve heard her talking to the boy.”
    Inside the tower Roger called loudly, “Is that you, Alice? Make them let me out of here!”
    When Simon saw the baron’s men aroundhim, he leaped to his feet. “That’s my son you hear, my lords!” he cried. “By my nose, the boy’s been such a scoundrel lately that I locked him up, for punishment, like. Keep quiet in there, son!”

    “Suppose you set the boy free.” The instant Lord Raimond commanded it, his men lowered their long lances to point at Simon and Odo.
    Gibbering with fear, the culprits fell over each other in their haste to pull away the brush that blocked the door. As soon as Roger bounded out, Alice hugged him. Then she begged, “Help me find the lute, Roger! If we show it to our uncle, he’ll have to believe us. The eagle on our lute matches the one on his banner.”
    Roger could not help staring at the knights. They seemed to spring right out of his memory. Though none of them wore armor—only metal helmets and leather breastplates—they loomed large and bold, like the men Father had ridden with. Their horses pawed and snorted impatiently, just as those long-ago battle horses still did in the shadow images of Roger’s mind.
    Which was his uncle? He wanted to ask Alice, but she was off looking for the lute. He searched the knights’ faces for a sign.
    “I see it!” Alice exclaimed. “It’s up in that tree. No wonder I couldn’t find it before! They’ve hidden it high in that oak.”
    Suddenly he knew with absolute certainty. His uncle was the tall, stern man who sat quietly astride his horse, studying Roger.Straight blond hair showed beneath the rim of the man’s helmet. A narrow mustache and beard circled his firm mouth.
    “I’ll climb the tree to get the lute,” Alice said.
    “No,” Roger answered.
    He’d mastered his fear of heights once before, when he came down the tower stairs in the dark. Now, with his uncle watching to learn what kind of boy he might be, he had to conquer the fear for good.
    “You stay