The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop

Author:Elizabeth Winthrop
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 1985-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

William hoisted his backpack higher up on his shoulders and walked slowly across the rough wooden planks of the drawbridge. Sir Simon embraced him at the other end as one soldier embraces another.

“No matter what else happens, my boy, nothing shall erase this. You are a courageous person, a squire with the heart and soul of a knight.”

William nodded. He didn’t dare speak yet, thinking that his voice must have shrunk with his size. Sir Simon lowered the portcullis, and William heard for the first time the squeaky clank of the chains and the deep thud of the pointed wooden spikes as they hit the ground.

“Come. I shall take you to her. We can raise the drawbridge later.”

The knight led him across the main courtyard and into the covered passageway that connected the buttery and the kitchen on one side with the great hall on the other.

“Can we go through this way?” William asked. “I could never see into this room very well from up above.” My voice sounds perfectly all right, he thought.

Sir Simon nodded and turned left instead of right. The walls of the large banquet hall were hung with intricately woven tapestries. Animal skins of various shapes and colors were spread about on the floors. A long trestle table flanked by two benches took up one whole wall of the large room. William peered into the fireplace, which was as big as his closet at home. Two enormous black pots hung from hooks on one side. Up above, gaily decorated banners were draped over the balcony rail of the minstrels’ gallery, but William didn’t have time to stop and study them. The knight had already disappeared up the corner staircase. He led William along the wall walk to the curved door in the opposite tower.

“I gave Lady Elinore the master chamber, as I sleep downstairs on the kitchen floor to guard the fire,” Sir Simon explained as they stepped on to the landing. “Her room is right through here,” he said, indicating the door William was facing. “I shall leave you now.”

William stood there for a long moment, listening to Sir Simon’s footsteps retreating down the stairs to the kitchen. His heart was thudding in his chest. Mrs. Phillips was humming a tune that sounded vaguely familiar, and he stood for a moment more, listening, hoping it would quiet the pounding in his ears. What if she still refused to speak to him? “Get it over with,” he muttered to himself. He knocked.

The humming stopped.

“Sir Simon?” she called.

He didn’t answer but turned the hammered metal handle of the door and pushed it open.

She was seated in front of the fire with her back to the door, wearing a long blue robe, covered by some sort of tunic.

“I came,” was all he said.

“William,” she said. She put down her needlework and stood up.

This time there was no Silver Knight in his belt pack, and he hugged her as hard as he could, his nose buried in the rough linen across her chest.

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