The Secret of the Swords by Frances Watts

CHAPTER 1

    â€˜T HOMASINA? ’
    Tommy ignored the voice calling her. ‘Go, Sir Benedict!’ she whispered.
    â€˜Thomasina!’
    Tommy knew it would be Mrs Moon, the cook, angry because she wasn’t standing at the long table peeling mountains of potatoes with the other kitchen girls. Instead, Tommy was standing at the kitchen doorway, watching the knights practising in the great courtyard.

    Clank, clank. The courtyard rang with the sound of sword against armour.
    Sir Benedict and another knight, Sir Hugh, were teaching the squires how to fight.
    â€˜Now I thrust,’ Sir Benedict called. He lunged forward with his sword.
    Sir Hugh then drove his sword at Sir Benedict.
    â€˜Now I parry,’ Sir Benedict explained, as he blocked the blow with his own sword.
    The squires, who were boys training to be knights, copied Sir Benedict’s moves with their wooden practice swords. So did Tommy, with the small paring knife she was meant to be using on the potatoes.
    â€˜Hooray!’ Tommy cheered softly as Sir Benedict, Flamant Castle’s bravest knight, raised his sword to signal the end of practice. The sun glinted off the steel blade, and for a moment Tommy imagined that she was the one holding her sword aloft. That she was the castle’s most daring knight, its most skilled sword fighter.
    â€˜Ouch!’ Tommy cried, as a hand grasped her ear and twisted it hard.
    â€˜So there you are, Thomasina,’ Mrs Moon scolded. ‘I should have known you’d be watching the knights again. You’re meant to be peeling potatoes, not dreaming in doorways.’
    â€˜Sorry, Mrs Moon,’ Tommy murmured. She turned to follow the cook back into the gloomy kitchen with its smoke-blackened stone walls.
    But Mrs Moon blocked her way. ‘Not so fast, girl. I’ve got another job for you. Since you clearly prefer the courtyard to the kitchen, you can sweep it.’ She thrust a broom at Tommy.
    Tommy gaped at the cook in astonishment. ‘Sweep the whole courtyard? But the courtyard is huge! It will take me forever!’
    â€˜You’d best get started then,’ Mrs Moon said.
    With a sigh, Tommy took the broom. As the knights led the squires away, she trudged across the flagstones to the far side of the courtyard. The castle walls and towers reared high above her, and she could just see the guards keeping lookout from the battlements.
    â€˜I bet those guards don’t care whether the courtyard is dusty,’ Tommy grumbled to herself as she began to sweep. ‘And I bet the knights don’t either. They’re worried about more important things, like keeping Sir Walter’s castle and lands safe.’ Flamant Castle belonged to Sir Walter the Bald and his wife, Lady Beatrix the Bored.
    Tommy was so busy grumbling that she didn’t notice what was going on nearby until she heard an indignant yowl.
    Looking up, she saw a stocky boy with bright red hair. Tommy had seen him before, though she had never spoken to him. He was one of the boys who worked in the armoury, where all the weapons and armour were repaired and stored.
    â€˜Don’t know what he’s got to yowl about,’ Tommy muttered. ‘He gets to spend all day with the swords and bows while I’m scrubbing pots in the scullery and chopping vegetables in the kitchen.’
    Her thoughts were interrupted by another yowl, and then a low hiss.

    Tommy pushed her mop of hair out of her eyes and looked at the boy again. This time she noticed that he was holding one of the wooden practice swords. He was jabbing the tip of the sword at a black and white cat he’d trapped in a corner, and it was the cat who was yowling.
    â€˜Hey!’ Tommy called. ‘You leave that cat alone.’
    The red-haired boy turned around. ‘Who’s going to make me?’ he sneered. ‘You?’ He jabbed the cat again.
    This time the cat mewed pitifully and Tommy, who loved animals, ran towards the