Read Online The Minstrel in the Tower by Gloria Skurzynski - Free Book Online Page A

he didn’t have to believe her. Maybe old Zara was right—that feverish people said foolish things.
    Their mother had begun to pluck the lute again. With a sudden motion, she held out the instrument to Alice.
    “Take this to your uncle Raimond,” she told the girl. “Show him the eagle carved on the back. Ask him to come quickly. Quickly!” Her eyes grew wild, and then she fell into a faint.
    “Catch her!” Zara cried.
    “I don’t want her to die,” sobbed Alice as they carried their mother to the bed. Alice had no memory of her father, but her mother had always been there to hold her, to love and comfort her.
    “All morning she’s been talking about this brother, Raimond,” Zara told them. “It’s preying on her mind. I think she won’t get well until you bring him to her.”
    “I don’t even know where Bordeaux is,” Roger protested.
    “Three days west of here,” Zara answered. She wrung her hands. “So far away!”
    Alice was kneeling beside the bed. “Three whole days!” she exclaimed through her tears. “What will we eat?”
    “You won’t be going with me,” Roger said.
    “Yes I will!” She jumped to her feet. “Mother told me to. I’m supposed to take thelute to our uncle.”
    Roger could have argued that their mother’s mind wasn’t clear when she spoke those words. Yet in spite of himself he wanted Alice with him on the journey. All their lives they’d depended on each other for company. “All right,” he answered. “But if you come, you have to obey me. As for food…” He pointed to the lute. “That will buy our suppers.”
    “No, I won’t let you sell it!” Alice wrapped her arms around the pear-shaped lute. “Mother said—”
    “I know what Mother said. I’m not going to sell it. I’m going to play it. Mother taught me all her songs. I’ll sing for our suppers, like a strolling minstrel.”
    “I wish I could go in your stead,” lamented Zara. “But I’m far too old to make such a journey.” Her face puckered as she lifted the edge of her brown wimple to dab her eyes. “Don’t worry about your mother—I’ll tend her carefully while you’re gone. It’s you children I worry about! May heaven protect the two of you!”

The sun hung halfway between straight-up noon and sunset. Since they’d started out from home Alice had been skipping ahead and running back, but now her steps lagged to match Roger’s.
    “I’m hungry,” she told him.
    Hunger didn’t bother Roger so much, but other things did. With each step the lute bumped him. Because they were heading west, the sun shone right into his eyes. Long before, the road had turned away from the river Dordogne, and since then they hadn’tfound even a tiny brook they could drink from.
    “You said you’d sing and play for our supper,” Alice told him. “But we haven’t seen a single traveler. So how are we going to eat?”
    Right at that moment Roger noticed dust rising on the road ahead. “Someone’s coming,” he answered as though he’d expected it all along.
    “I hope they have food and water with them, and I hope they like lute music,” said Alice.
    The sun stood bright behind the travelers so that when they reached the top of a small hill, they cast long shadows. They wore dark, ankle-length hooded gowns and carried the round-headed staffs of pilgrims. Pilgrims walked the roads all over Europe to pray at a single saint’s shrine or at a number of shrines and churches. Roger saw that the two coming toward them were women. One was old, the other barely past her girlhood.
    “Peace to you,” Roger greeted them, and both women echoed, “Peace.” Alice stayed silent, too awed by the beauty of the young girl to manage a greeting.
    “I’m a strolling minstrel,” Roger announced. “If you will share your supper with us, I’ll sing a song for you.”
    The older woman frowned, staring down her nose at them. Roger knew that he and his sister looked like tatterdemalions. Their shabby clothes were