‘Waggonwright, Sir.’
‘Waggonwright—no, I don’t like that so well. But never mind. It has an honest sound. Does your father make wagons?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty. He was once master of the biggest workshop in this town. But bad times came upon him and his trade has dwindled down to almost nothing.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the King. ‘I remember you told me. Don’t let me forget to send him the money I promised. How old are you?’
‘Nine and three-quarters, Your Majesty.’
‘Do you know what a knight is?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Well, Giles, I’m going to make you into a knight. It’s all against the rules and customs, at your age. But I’m going to make you one just the same—for your bravery in the service of the Crown.’
‘Bravery, Your Majesty?’ asked Giles with a puzzled look on his face. ‘What bravery?’
‘Didn’t you risk your silly little neck jumping in front of my horse? You nearly got skewered in half a dozen places.’
‘I don’t believe I’d have dared if it hadn’t been for Luke, Sir,’ murmured Giles.
‘Well, and if it hadn’t been for you, young man, I wouldn’t be standing here now. Godfrey, lend me your sword.’
The Count stepped forward, unbuckled his belt and held out his sword-hilt within reach. The King drew the bright, shiny blade out of the scabbard and turned again to Giles.
‘Kneel down, boy,’ said he. ‘Don’t be alarmed. We’re not going to chop your head off. This is just the ceremony we have to go through.’
Giles dropped on his right knee and bowed his head. He felt the sword touch him lightly on the shoulder and he heard the King say solemnly: ‘Arise, Sir Giles.’
He got up, wondering if he were dreaming. But even while he wondered, the King spoke to him again.
‘Sir Giles Waggonwright,’ said he, ‘we wish to attach you to the Royal Household. Some duty must be found for you. Now, tell me: what can you do best?’
Sir Giles scratched his head in a most unknightly fashion and a very blank look came over his face.
‘I’m afraid I—er—hardly know, Your Majesty,’ he stammered.
‘Come now,’ said the King. ‘We can all do some things better than others. Think. Think hard.’
For a full half-minute Giles thought hard. Then his face brightened with a new thought.
‘I’m very good at finding things, Your Majesty,’ said he. ‘My mother always sets me hunting when she loses her thimble. And my father, if he mislays a chisel or a hammer, always calls on me to get it for him. Indeed he has often said I never was good for anything but finding.’
A quiet titter of amusement ran through the courtiers that stood about the King. But His Majesty clapped his hands and almost shouted:
‘Finding, did you say? How splendid! That’s the very thing. It couldn’t be better. Because, do you know what I am best in?—Losing things. I lose everything. Papers, letters, riding-whips, dogs, gloves, hats, books, everything. So, you shall be the King’s Finder.’
His Majesty raised his hand for attention. Everyone stopped whispering, and no sound disturbed the silence in the long room.
‘We wish,’ said he, ‘to create a new office in the Royal Household. It is to be known as the King’s Finder, and shall, in order of honour and precedence, come between that of the Chief Equerry and the Keeper of the Great Seal. This young knight, Sir Giles Waggonwright, shall be the first to hold it. Please see,’ he added to one of the messengers at hand, ‘that the Lord Chamberlain is notified of the appointment as soon as possible.’
The King then declared the audience at an end. And everyone gladly followed him out into the dining-hall of the castle, where a grand supper had been prepared for the whole company.
The next day, Giles’s family was brought to the palace by royal command. Anne, with her father and mother, was quite overcome by the sudden dazzling importance that surrounded her brother, the boy-knight. They were most graciously treated as the private guests of His Majesty and took lunch with the King himself. The father was presented with the money that had been promised, enough to pay all his debts and to make a new start in business besides. The King asked Giles’s mother for permission to take her son with him to his capital beyond the mountains, promising to look after him well and to allow him to visit his family whenever he wished. He wanted to take Anne also, to be a maid of honour to the Queen Dowager, his own mother. But the parents could not bear to be parted from both their children at once; and it was agreed that perhaps later, when Anne was older, she should be sent to join her brother in the Royal Household.
Luke, too, turned up a little later and was brought to see the King. For fear of arrest he had been keeping out of the way till he had heard of the Duke’s flight. Giles was indeed glad to see his friend again and asked that he might be taken, too. So the King appointed him as esquire to Giles himself. It seemed that all knights had one esquire at least in their service; and thus Luke joined the royal retinue as right-hand man to the King’s Finder.
Giles asked the lame boy if he had seen or heard anything of Agnes the Applewoman. But he could give no news of her. And though the Haunted Inn was searched again from cellar to attic, and Giles kept the King’s shell constantly in his pocket hoping to hear her speak of him, no word of her, of where she had gone or what she was doing, could be learned. And they were forced, for the present, to give up hope of reaching her. Giles was sorry about this, because he wanted the King to meet her also.
‘You know, Luke,’ he said, ‘I think His Majesty should have her, too, in his service. He needs clever people. And, after all, she is the one who should be thanked for everything—even the King’s safety. For it was she who gave us the shell and told us what it could do. Do you suppose that wretched Duke did her some mischief before he took to flight?’
‘No, I don’t believe so,’ said Luke. ‘I fancy I’d have heard of it if she had been taken. What I think is that she is more scared than ever of being charged with witchcraft. You see, now that she has made me completely well, when I was supposed to be a hopeless cripple, they’d likely say that she had used some magic on me or performed some trick with the Devil’s help.’
Then, for the first time since he had seen his friend again, Giles noticed that he no longer carried a crutch.
‘Oh, Luke!’ he cried. ‘Can you use both your legs now?’
Luke drew himself up squarely on both feet, firm and even.
‘I’m a whole man now, Giles,’ he laughed. ‘I haven’t used the crutch since I lost it. It was when you leapt out to give the King the shell. I lost it between the legs of that soldier who was going to strike you down. Then I ran like the mischief down the street lest I’d be caught by the guard. And I never noticed that I had used both legs—nor even thought of the crutch I’d left behind—till I reached a hiding-place.’
For a moment Giles stared dumbfounded at the happy face and the strong and healthy figure of his once lame friend. Then he murmured as if to himself:
‘ “Giles, the patron saint of cripples,” that’s what the King said. It was after him that I was named. Yet it was Agnes that did it, Agnes the Applewoman—Shragga the Witch! Listen, Luke, do you think maybe she is a saint, instead of a witch, a saint in some disguise—perhaps the Patron Giles himself?’
‘I don’t know. Who can tell?’ said Luke thoughtfully. ‘She used nothing but her hands, twisting and pulling at my knee. I’m sorry we can’t find her now. I did so want to thank her—to let her see me run without a crutch.’