He must feel the power of the Belt, as I feel his evil, Lief thought. He is wary of us. He is biding his time, waiting for us to let down our guard. But he does not dream that Kirsten would dare to betray him. That is our strength.
‘Do you know where the source of his power lies, Kirsten?’ he murmured.
Kirsten stared at him blankly.
Lief sighed inwardly and tried again. ‘Is there a place in the castle that Bede visits often?’ he asked. ‘Somewhere you cannot follow?’
Kirsten shivered. She did not move her head, but her eyes slid sideways, towards a small arched door in a shadowy corner of the great room.
‘He goes there,’ she breathed. ‘When he returns, he is—stronger.’
‘Then that is where we must go,’ Lief said. ‘How can it be done?’
Kirsten shook her head hopelessly.
‘There must be a way!’ Lief hissed. ‘Help us, Kirsten! If not for yourself, for Mariette!’
Kirsten bowed her head. Lief, Barda and Jasmine exchanged rueful glances. Bess had called Kirsten a proud beauty. She was still very beautiful, but she was proud no longer. Bede had broken her spirit.
Then Kirsten raised her head again. Her eyes were still dark with fear, but for the first time a tiny spark seemed to glimmer in their depths.
‘I will try,’ she murmured. She turned until she was facing Bede.
‘My lord?’ she called softly.
Bede’s song broke off. He opened his eyes.
Lief, Barda and Jasmine saw Kirsten’s back tense. They saw her raise her hand to her throat. They prayed that she would not lose her nerve.
Stiffly she gestured towards a door set in one of the side walls—the wall closest to the arched doorway.
‘Your guests are tired, and wish to rest, my lord,’ she said. ‘May I take them to a bed chamber?’
There was a long pause.
‘If that is their wish,’ Bede said, without expression. He closed his eyes again, and began to strum the harp once more.
Slowly, silently, her eyes fixed upon him, Kirsten stood up and began backing towards the door that led to the bed chambers. Lief, Barda and Jasmine stood up, too, and began backing after her.
Bede’s golden voice followed them.
Fair as the day is my Kirsten,
Sweet as a flower she is…
Kirsten glanced quickly behind her and changed direction slightly. Now, instead of backing towards the bed-chamber door, she was moving towards the arched door in the corner.
Lief’s heart thudded. What a risk she was taking! At any moment Bede could open his eyes, and see…
But Bede’s eyes remained closed. He sang on, raising his voice, as if he wanted them to hear every word of his song one last time before they left him.
Her goodness banishes evil.
She is too perfect for one such as I…
Lief glanced over his shoulder. Kirsten had nearly reached the arched door. A few more steps…
‘Perhaps poems do not have to rhyme,’ Jasmine whispered. ‘But surely the words of a song should rhyme. A song like that, in any case.’
‘It is no song at all,’ Barda muttered. ‘It sounds as if he wrote it in two minutes. Certainly he took no care in writing it down. Yet he repeats it endlessly, as though it were the best song ever sung!’
Lief heard the tiny click as Kirsten lifted the latch of the door. He felt a cold breeze on the back of his neck. Again he looked over his shoulder.
The door was opening.
Inside was darkness. And from the darkness streamed a sense of evil so strong that his stomach seemed to turn over.
Kirsten met his eyes and beckoned, urging him to make haste.
Bede’s voice rose again, echoing through the great room.
A poor, plain man I am,
Far, far beneath her…
Barda and Jasmine are right, Bede, thought Lief in disgust. Your famous new song is very poor, and I wish I could tell you so. Bess boasted that your rhyming was perfect. But you have not even bothered to try. Every line ends with a completely different sound. ‘Kirsten’, ‘is’, ‘evil’, ‘I’, ‘am’, ‘her’…
His scalp prickled. He looked back at Bede.
Bede’s eyes were open. He was staring straight ahead, at the paper lying abandoned on the floor beside the tray. He was singing the final lines of his song, his voice lilting, despairing.
But her heart is my prisoner,
To me she can refuse no help,
For she adores me…
Lief stared. He could not believe what his mind was telling him.
Taken together, the last words of every line of Bede’s song formed a message.
Kirsten is evil. ‘I am her prisoner. Help me.
18 – The Guardian
Lief stood frozen to the spot. Suddenly, shockingly, everything had turned upside down. Images were flashing through his mind—signs that should have made him suspicious, but which he had ignored. The hasty writing on the paper. Bede’s burning eyes fixed to his own. Kirsten shrinking back from his helping hand. The little arched door swinging open so smoothly at Kirsten’s touch…
And now, from the back corner of the vast room, he could see what had not been visible to him when he kneeled in front of Bede.
The ends of the long golden chains which twined around Bede’s neck and wrists were hidden beneath the cushions on which he lay. There was no doubt in Lief’s mind that they led to strong steel rings fixed to the stone floor.
Nothing was as it had seemed. When he had heard the four notes that spelled Bede’s name, he had been hearing not triumphant boasting, but a desperate cry for help. Bede had been calling Bess, trying to tell her he was still alive, and needed her.
Bede was the captive. Kirsten was the gaoler. The evil in the room was not his, but hers.
Why, then, had Kirsten shown them the arched door, and opened it? For Lief knew without doubt that somewhere within that foul darkness lay the Sister of the North.
‘Make haste!’ Kirsten hissed from the doorway.
Lief felt Jasmine tug anxiously at his arm.
‘Treachery,’ he breathed. ‘Be ready.’
He felt Jasmine stiffen. Her fingers tightened, then released him. She had heard.
Lief turned around to face Kirsten. She was beckoning urgently.
He moved to her side. Now that his eyes were opened, he saw how she slid quickly between the partly open door and the wall, to avoid his touch. He saw how tightly her hand gripped the doorknob.
‘You first,’ she whispered to him.
And suddenly Lief understood her plan. Kirsten feared the Belt of Deltora. She knew that closer to the Sister of the North she would be far more powerful. That was why she wanted him to go through the door.
Once I am in there, she will slam it after me, and lock it, Lief thought grimly. I will be trapped with the evil inside. Jasmine and Barda will be out here, unprotected. Kirsten will destroy them, and then come for me.
His mind was racing. He had to foil Kirsten’s plan—take her by surprise. But she would certainly recover very quickly. She might attack them, or she might use Bede as a hostage to force them to surrender.
He had to let Bede know that his message had been understood, so that he was ready to escape.
But how? How could he communicate with Bede without alerting Kirsten?
Then, suddenly, he knew.
He turned to Jasmine. ‘Ay andastand! he said, loudly enough for Bede to hear. ‘Ya wall bay frayd. Bay rady ta ran!’
Jasmine’s eyes widened in astonishment. Then, realising what he was doing, she tossed her head as if in annoyance.
‘I am not afraid,’ she snorted. ‘You do not have to speak the language of the forest to calm me!’