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

covered with the dust of the road. Roger’s wrists stuck out from his sleeves, and Alice’s dress was patched in three places. For more than a year Mother hadn’t made new clothes for either of them because she couldn’t afford to buy cloth.
    Annoyed at the woman’s haughty look, Alice exclaimed, “My brother, Roger, is a wonderful singer! He knows all Mother’s songs. He can imitate voices and bird calls too.”
    “Oh, Mama, let’s share our food with these children,” the lovely girl begged. “They look hungry, and we have enough for all.”
    “Humpf! I suppose so, Aurore,” the mother answered with ill grace. Pursing her lips, she opened a leather pouch to take out bread and cheese and salted meat.
    Since Alice didn’t want to stare greedily, she pretended to watch a nightingale in a treenearby. Then she cried, “Look! Someone forgot to pick the apricots in those top branches.” In a flash she’d tucked the hem of her skirt into her belt and was climbing the tree.
    “Be careful!” Aurore cried. “You might fall!”
    “You don’t have to worry about Alice,” Roger told her. “She’s always climbing something or other at home—trees or walls or even the roof when it needs new thatch. Our mother calls her
La Guenuche
—the monkey in skirts.”
    Roger would rather have starved than climb the apricot tree. Heights frightened him, but Alice balanced easily in the top branches. She flung the ripe fruit to Roger until the tree was picked bare.
    “Come down now,
La Guenuche,”
Aurore called, laughing. “You’ve surely earned your share of supper. Hasn’t she, Mama?”
    “Humpf!” the older woman snorted, already eating. Her manners were quite elegant. She lifted dainty bits of meat to her lips on the point of a knife, and she spit each apricot pit into her hand before dropping it to the ground.

    “We’re on a pilgrimage to the shrine at Rocamadour,” Aurore told them. “We’ve already traveled a week.” As she spoke the young girl lowered her hood.
    Alice gasped at the beauty of Aurore’s hair. It was the color of the apricots. Thick, wavy, and shining, it had been woven into one long braid that hung over her shoulder. The older woman noticed Alice’s admiration and said, “Aurore will sacrifice her hair at Rocamadour. She’s offering it so that her father may be cured of an illness.”
    “You mean, cut off her hair?” Roger asked, appalled.
    “How else can she offer it, except to cut it off?” sniffed the woman, dabbing her lips.
    Roger felt deeply sorry for poor Aurore, who looked sad at the mention of her coming sacrifice. Alice, though, touched her own dark, tangled curls and thought how nice it would be to have short hair that never needed combing to get the snarls out.
    The woman stuffed each leftover crust back into the pouch. “We shall save these crumbs for any other beggars we meet on the way,”she announced. “Now you may sing for us, minstrel.”
    Roger had no wish to perform for such a wretched woman, but he’d promised to sing for his supper. Turning toward Aurore, he plucked the strings of his lute and began:
    “
A singer and a strummer,
Sweet are the tunes I play
For you to greet the summer
And dance the night away.
Let old folks drowse and slumber,
Youth loves a holiday.”
    Then, on the spot, he made up a brand-new verse:
    “The time will go by quickly,
I promise you, Aurore,
Your curls will grow back thickly,
E’er summer comes twice more.”
    Aurore’s sad look disappeared. “You’re right, of course, minstrel,” she said with a smile. “Shorn hair does grow back.”
    “We must leave now,” the mother fussed. “Come along, Aurore.”
    Until they were out of sight, Aurore kept turning around to wave and shout, “Farewell, minstrel! Thank you for the song! Farewell,
La Guenuche!”

“Which way do we go?” Alice asked.
    Roger hadn’t been paying attention, but Alice, as usual, had run ahead. She stood where the road forked, one part going left and