But she had not reckoned on the peculiar duties and liberties of the King’s Finder. That night Giles waited outside her bedroom door till he heard the Princess snoring. Then he went in and removed the shell from beneath her pillow without waking her.
Next day she came and indignantly accused him of stealing it from her. With polite respect he told her that it was His Majesty’s property and he had been bound, as the King’s Finder, to get it and take it back.
But Sophronia was a determined, if not a beautiful, Princess. She stuck to Giles for hours, begging and demanding that he give it to her. He became afraid that she might go talking and complaining about it all over the castle. Therefore he struck a bargain with her. He said the King had spoken lately once or twice of some day not wanting the shell any more. So if she would swear to keep it a secret, and it was still unbroken when the King had done with it, he would promise it would be hers.
The time came much sooner than he expected when he had to make good this promise.
That same night Giles took a late supper with the King in his apartments, as he often did. When the dishes had been cleared away the King asked for the shell and held it to his ear. Presently Giles left him for a moment to go and speak to Luke. And when he returned the shell was on the table and the King was marching back and forth like a caged lion.
‘Why, Your Majesty,’ Giles began, ‘what has—’
‘Oh, don’t “majesty” me!’ yelled the King. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here. Majesty! I wish I’d never heard the word. I wish I’d been born poor, like you, Giles. At least you’ve never had people plotting against you all your life. Lying to your face and scheming behind your back—scheming to kill you like a dog! And my own flesh and blood it is, my own flesh and blood, hoping, wishing, praying for my death. Prayers for His Majesty the King! That’s what I heard first. The monks over in the Abbey at their midnight devotions. Then this. More prayers for the King! Hah! Hah! Hah! Prayers for the King’s death! My own flesh and blood—and a woman at that—praying someone to stick a knife in my ribs!’
He dropped on to a couch and ran his fingers through his hair like one distraught.
‘It’s too much, Giles,’ he groaned presently. ‘I can’t bear it any more. I can never listen again. Let them come and slaughter me, here, in my sleep if they will. But I’ll listen to no more plots from them and lie awake nights wondering whether I should behead them before they murder me. Who can I trust? Tell me, who?’
The King’s voice rose again to something near a shriek. ‘Who?—You, my mother, Barbara and Luke. Who else?—No one.’
Giles moved forward to say something. But the King’s voice ran on again brokenly, madly. His hand suddenly shot out pointing to the table.
‘And there lies the trouble, Giles: the shell! It has robbed me of my faith in all. When shall I find peace again? Kill it! Take that battle-axe from off the wall—behind you. Smash it! There’s a curse in it! Smash it into powder, I tell you!’
Giles hesitated a moment, trying to find words to soothe the wildness of his master’s mood. Then in a flash the King leapt up, snatched the shell off the table and hurled it with all his might through the open window of the tower. With a great sigh he dropped down upon the sofa again and a sudden calm came upon him as though he had at last rid himself of something evil.
But the keen ears of the King’s Finder were listening. Listening for a distant crash. The night was still. He knew that if the shell fell into the courtyard from that tremendous height it would be broken in a thousand pieces. If, on the other hand, the King’s raving strength had thrown it farther still, it would fall into the garden where the softness of flower beds, moss or turf might save it from destruction. It would take some seconds to fall, Giles told himself. And as he waited in the silent room he found he was thinking of Agnes. Were the shell destroyed, it would be for the best; if it was saved it would mean its work was not yet done.
And then, still listening for the answer to the question in his mind, he suddenly knew that he had waited over-long—past the time for it to fall. It had dropped into the garden—without a sound.
Giles moved over to the bowed figure sitting on the couch.
‘Your Maj—’ he began; and then checked himself. He laid his arm across the King’s shoulders.
‘Good friend,’ he whispered gently, ‘some people you will always have about you whom you can trust, and no man these days can boast of more than that. Remember them: forget the others. Get you to bed now and rest safe—safe in the friendship that does not betray. By your leave we will dismiss the grooms. And Luke and I will sleep across the threshold of your door.’
3 Geoffrey the Gipsy
The King never spoke of the shell again nor did he ever tell what member of his family he had heard speaking that night. It is likely, however, that he took some steps to protect himself against the plot, because nothing ever came of it. He was not destined (as were so many of his line before him) for a death by violence.
The next morning Giles was up early. But he made no sound. He was standing motionless at the open window while he waited for his sleeping master to stir. He was reminded of his first awakening in this castle, years before, as he gazed down over the palace courtyard, the sloping gardens and the great city beyond, all murky and dim in the half-light of dawn.
Presently he noticed someone moving among the flowers and bushes below. It was Geoffrey the Gipsy with a spade upon his shoulder. A moment later the figure paused, standing now, Giles calculated, at just about the spot where the shell would have fallen last night. Geoffrey stooped and picked something up from the ground. And the Finder suddenly leant out over the sill, screwing up his eyes as if to make out what manner of thing it was. But at that moment the King stirred upon the bed, turning with a sleepy sigh. At once Giles left the window and came noiselessly to his master’s side.
Later in the morning he took a stroll through the garden. By now the sun was well risen and the warm bright air was sweet with the scent of flowers. He sought out the Gipsy and found him grubbing at the roots of a white rose.
‘Did you happen to find anything around here this morning?’
‘Why, yes,’ answered the gardener, straightening up. ‘A shell. I was wondering how it got here.’
He wiped earthy hands upon his apron, stepped over to his jacket that hung from the limb of a tree and drew the shell from the pocket.
‘It’s a beauty,’ he said as he held it out.
‘Thank you.’ Giles took it and instantly turned to go.
But after a few steps along the terrace the King’s Finder bethought him he had perhaps been a little ungracious. The Gipsy, with whom he nearly always spent a minute chatting when he met him, might even think himself suspected of keeping something not his own. Giles did not want to talk about the shell to Geoffrey—who of course could not know anything of its strange powers. But he would not have him offended for the world. He turned and came back to the stooping gardener.
‘Do you believe in magic, Geoffrey?’ he asked, plucking a sprig of lavender from a bush that overhung the path.
‘Why—er—yes,’ said the Gipsy, ‘if by that you mean, Sir, anything we can’t understand or explain. But, don’t forget, a whole lot passes for magic with us which is simple enough to birds and beasts. Every day something we thought had the Devil in it is shown to be naught more than our own simple-minded ignorance. “Must be magic,” says Man, as soon as he grows tired of trying to understand a thing. Like children! What’s more magic than the way a flower grows out of a seed, I’d like to know?’