The Battle for the Castle by Elizabeth Winthrop Page B

adventure.”
    â€œWho will guard the kingdom while he’s gone?”
    â€œDick and young Tolliver and Gudrin. And you two, I expect. That’s probably why you’re here.”
    â€œHow about you?” Jason asked.
    â€œI shall accompany my noble lord. No proper knight goes jousting without his fool in the hopes that he shall make some opponent appear foolish. I’m rather looking forward to it. There shall be a feast of fools and we shall have our own kind of joust. One trickster outdoing another.”
    â€œWho’s Gudrin?” asked William.
    â€œTolliver’s cousin, Dick’s niece. We had a terrible plague of the milk sickness last year, and Dick’s wife and her sister died on the same day.” Deegan leaned over and picked two wet leaves from between his toes.
    â€œIs Calendar still alive?”
    â€œSo many questions,” Deegan said with a frown. “No, the poor soul. She was sent to live in a convent just the other side of the forest. With the Sisters of the Holy Cross. She died there not long ago. Some people say that at the end she had gone quite mad.”
    â€œMad?” William asked.
    â€œCrazy in the head, not right.” Deegan tapped his own head with a skinny finger one, two, three times, like a woodpecker driving a hole into the bark of a tree.And every time he tapped, his head moved a little more to the left until he ended up with one ear resting on his shoulder. “Foolish,” he added, grinning at them from this sideways position.
    Nobody said anything more until Jason broke the silence. “Time to get moving,” he announced. “We want to make the castle by nightfall.”
    â€œEasily done,” Deegan said with a shake of his shoulders. “I shall go along with you. I was sent to find Gudrin. She’s been out in the fields hunting herbs for two days and Dick wants her home.”
    â€œIf you keep your feet up, you might be able to ride on the handlebars,” Jason said, picking up his bike.
    â€œA kind offer, dear sir, but I think not.” Deegan was eyeing the bicycle a little nervously, William thought.
    â€œGo on ahead,” William said to Jason. “I’ll walk my bike for a while.” Jason pushed off, obviously happy to be moving again.
    Once they had gone a little way down the path, Deegan said, “You are
the
boy, aren’t you?”
    â€œYou said half-man and half-boy,” said William.
    â€œTrue. But you are the boy from before. The one they speak about. Muggins. Legendary vanquisher of Alastor. The tumbling fool. The best disguise of all, in my opinion.”
    A little shiver of excitement ran down William’sback. So they hadn’t forgotten. He was a legend. He wished Deegan had said this in front of Jason. “Yes,” he said, trying to look modest but not feeling it one bit. “I am that boy.”
    â€œAnd are you still a tumbler?”
    â€œNot as good as I used to be. I’m getting too old for it.”
    â€œHalf-boy and half-man,” said the fool again. “I never made it across from one side to the other. I shall tumble and fool my life away.” He did a quick handstand. His bare dirty toes wiggled along in the air like upraised hands until he righted himself.
    â€œSo Tolliver and this Gudrin both lost their mothers and their grandmother in one year,” William said slowly.
    â€œIt has not been an easy time,” Deegan said. “And Dick’s taken it the hardest of all. He has moments when he acts like his old self, but the losses in his family have aged him. I expect we shall be needing your help in the days to come.” The fool’s face grew quite serious.
    â€œFor what?”
    The tall man shrugged. “Nobody knows precisely. Calendar tried to warn us before she died, but then visions are often mistaken for madness. That’s why Sir Simon had her sent to the convent. Her ‘fits,’ as he called them,