The Minstrel in the Tower by Gloria Skurzynski

Alice heard the sweet singing of a nightingale. It sounded so perfect that a real nightingale might have been fooled, but not Alice. Her brother, Roger, had whistled the bird’s song. It was their secret signal.
    “I’m up here,” she called.
    “Are you in that tree again?” he cried, seeing Alice in the top branches of a huge sycamore. “You know you’re not supposed to climb that high! Get down, you monkey.”
    “It’s nice up here,” Alice answered. “I can see so far! When Father returns from the Crusade, I’ll be the first to see him coming.”
    Roger leaned against the trunk of the big old tree. “If he’s ever going to come home at all,” he said, “this would be a good time for it, with Mother so sick.” It was the year 1195, and the Crusade had ended three years earlier. Mother, Roger, and Alice waited alone in their cottage, with only their elderly neighbor, Zara, to visit them. Since their mother had become ill, old Zara helped care for her.
    “You’d better come down right now,” Roger called, “before Zara starts looking for us. It scares her when she sees you up so high.” Under his breath he added, “It scares me, too.”
    Roger was eleven; Alice was only eight. He tried to watch out for her the best he could, but Alice was hard to keep up with. She never walked when she could run, and she never stayed on the ground when she could climb.
    “Children!”
    “What did I tell you,” Roger said as they heard old Zara shouting for them.
    “Children! Where are you? Roger, is Alice with you? Alice, answer me!”
    “Don’t let her know I’m up here,” Alice begged.
    Roger was not only good at bird calls; he could imitate people’s voices perfectly. In a voice that sounded exactly like Alice’s, he called, “I’m here with Roger, Zara. At the big tree.”
    “Both of you come inside at once!” old Zara cried sharply.
    “Something must be wrong!” Roger said. “Hurry, Alice!”
    She scrambled down the tree so fast that he couldn’t stand to watch. He turned away until he felt her next to him on the ground. Together they raced to the tiny cottage.
    When they reached the door, they stopped in dismay. Their mother had risen from her sickbed to sit in the center of the room. Her long yellow hair spread from her head to her waist like rays of sunlight. In her lap rested a lute. As she bent forward to pluck its strings, she sang:
    “
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
….”
    Old Zara stood wringing her hands. “I tried to make her stay in bed, but she won’t listen. She’s burning with fever.”
    “Mother!” Roger cried, running to her. “Go back and lie down!”
    Spots red as strawberries stained their mother’s cheeks, but her forehead and lips looked pale as winter. “Dear Roger,” she said,“let me sit while I can. Soon enough I’ll lie forever, in my grave.”

    Fear sent prickles over Roger’s skin. Alice looked frightened too. “Is Mother going to die?” she asked Zara.
    “There, there, child,” soothed the old woman. “When people get feverish, they say foolish things. You mustn’t worry.”
    As their mother stared at Roger and Alice, she seemed to come to her senses. “I’ve been dreaming,” she said, “about my brother, Raimond, in Bordeaux. It was such a real dream, I felt I could reach out and touch him.”
    “What brother?” Roger asked. “You don’t have a brother.”
    “The truth is, I do have one, and you must find him, Roger. Tell Raimond I beg his forgiveness, and that I leave you children in his care. Who else will look after you when I’m gone? Your father must be dead, or he would have come back to us long ago.”
    Dead! Roger’s fear turned to cold pain. He’d suspected Father might have died in battle, because most men had long since returned from the Crusade. To hear his mother say it, though, cut through to his heart. Maybe