Isabella had the grace to blush. ‘I may have said so. I was teasing.’
‘I see that now. Too late to save me from embarrassment.’
‘Christian’s father has business here. I am doing my royal duty, that’s all. No courtship.’
‘None.’
Conor’s shoulders slumped. At least now, he did not feel like a participant in some kind of race.
‘So you built up your courage, and came charging up here to declare your love?’
‘Well I…’
Do not panic. Do not panic.
‘Something like that.’
Isabella moved to the balcony and stood leaning on the carved balustrade, dark hair flowing down her back, white fingers on the stone. Beyond and below, the Wall lights were popping on like a regiment of orderly fireflies.
I should speak now, while she is turned away. It will be easier without her eyes on me.
‘Isabella, things are… Things are changing for us… between us. And that’s good. That’s as it should be. Natural. It’s only natural that things change.’ Conor groaned inwardly, this was not going very well.
Say what you want to say.
‘What I want to say is that perhaps our days of climbing chimneys are over, although I like climbing chimneys, but perhaps there are new things to do. To share. Without the company of Danish princes.’
Isabella turned to him, and her mocking smile was not as steady as it usually was.
‘Conor, you are such a scientist. Is there not a shorter, more concise way, to say all of this?’
Conor frowned. ‘Perhaps there is. I would have to do a few experiments. I am new to this and I feel clumsy.’
Isabella made a show of pouring some lemonade from a jug. ‘I am the same, Conor. Sometimes I feel as though we have made our own world here, and I have no wish to leave. Everything is perfect. Now, it is perfect.’
Conor smiled tentatively, coming back to himself. ‘So, I am not to be executed.’
‘Not today, Sir Conor,’ the princess said, handing him the glass. ‘After all, you rescued the princess from the tower. There is only one way for that fairy tale to end.’
Conor choked on a mouthful of lemonade, spraying his pig-dung-stained trousers.
‘An interesting combination of smells,’ commented Isabella.
‘Pardon me, Princess,’ said Conor. ‘I am amazed by your friendly reception. I imagined myself trussed up by Danish guards by now.’
Isabella turned her brown eyes full on him. ‘Conor, I could search the world for another swashbuckling scientist, but I doubt if I would find one like you.’ The princess realized that she had said a little too much, and felt compelled to add, ‘Even if you are a lanky-limbed, overbrained oaf.’
Conor accepted the first half of the compliment with a smile, and the second half with a grimace.
‘I feel exactly the same,’ he said. ‘Apart from the scientist, lanky-oaf part. You know what I am trying to say.’
‘Yes, Sir Conor,’ said Isabella, teasing him with his title again. ‘I do.’
CHAPTER 4: TREASON AND PLOT
Conor did not return home after his meeting with Isabella; he was too elated. He felt as though his heart were half its previous mass. Somehow, against all the laws of science, just sharing his thoughts with the princess seemed to make him lighter. So even though he was already late, Conor decided to preserve the feeling by passing an hour alone in his favourite hideaway. Somewhere he had not been for several months.
More times than he could remember, Conor’s parents had forbidden him to climb the keep turret. In general, he respected their wishes, but every boy has some secret transgression that he cannot surrender. For Conor, it was his perch high in the eaves below the north-east turret. This was the place where he felt closest to his nature, where he felt that the race for flight could actually be won by a boy and his teacher.
But this evening he was not thinking about heavier-than-air flying machines as he squeezed out through a medieval murder hole, and clambered along the ivy to the wooden trestles that had been put in after the chemical fire in Nicholas’s apartment. Tonight he was thinking about Isabella. Nothing specific. Just contented, warm thoughts. As soon as his back rested on the tower’s familiar mouldings, Conor felt a familiar peace settle over him. He was surprised to find the spot a tight squeeze. Soon, he would outgrow this hiding place, and he would have to find another high spot to dream of flight.
Conor sat, watching the sun set over the ocean, sharing the view with the dozen or so gulls that hoped against hope that someone would leave an open barrel of fish inside the curtain wall. Across the bay he could see a large fire somewhere in Kilmore, and the beam from the Hook Head lighthouse already cast its cone of light across Saint George’s Channel. It was a beautiful early summer night and presently the narrow patch of water between the Saltees glimmered with moonshine as though bridged.
Directly below his feet, a team of guards were running a cannon drill. And on the Great Saltee Wall, Conor was sure he could see his father striding between watch posts, dark cloak flapping behind him.
He was not tempted to call out. Better to delay his next punishment for this offence as long as possible.
Conor, I could search the world for another swashbuckling scientist, but I doubt if I would find one like you.
He smiled at the echo of the words in his mind.
Conor’s thoughts were interrupted by a regular scraping along the stone inside the tower. Feet on the steps. In all his climbs to this lofty spot, the only footsteps Conor had ever heard on those steps besides his own were his father’s coming to fetch him down. Declan Broekhart was fifty feet below on the Wall, and so it could not be him.
Conor twisted slightly in his cramped position, so that he could hang back on a creeper and peep in through the murder hole’s leaded glass. The wind caught his hair as he leaned from shelter, and he had a sudden powerful recollection of how he used to adopt this same position as a younger boy.
I would pretend to fly. I remember that.
Conor smiled at the memory.
Soon, there will be no need to pretend. Victor and I will design the machine, and I will fly it past Isabella’s window.
A figure moved inside the turret. Conor saw a shadow first, made jumpy by a jarred lamp, then the dark shape of the lantern held low to light the steps only. Shards of light flickered across the deep folds of cloth and face. The colour red sprang to life under the light. A red cross. Then a heavy brow and glittering eyes. Bonvilain.
Conor stayed still as a gargoyle. Bonvilain had almost inhuman perception. He could spot a seal’s head in stormy seas. The marshall would have good reason not to approve of Conor’s loitering so close to the king’s offices, and could justifiably shoot him as a traitor.
I will sit without breathing or stirring, until the marshall is well gone. Then home quickly.
The sight of Bonvilain’s sharply shadowed features had quite sucked the joy from the evening. That would have been the end of the day’s adventures, had not something else gleamed in the lamplight. Something that Conor knew well. A long-barrelled revolver, with a band of pearl grip poking from below Bonvilain’s fingers.
It was, without the shadow of a doubt, Victor’s Colt Peacemaker. This was extremely curious. Why would Marshall Bonvilain be prowling the serving passages of the castle with Victor’s pistol?
You’re making a mistake. That can’t be Victor’s gun.
But it was. Conor’s keen eye had picked out enough detail to know he was not mistaken. He had studied the gun countless times, breath fogging the glass case.
There must be a thousand explanations for this. Just because you do not know the reason, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.