Conor lifted the princess, dragging his friend upright.
‘What?’ she said grumpily. Then the smoke filled her windpipe and any words dissolved into a coughing fit.
Conor stood straight, feeling the massive flag flap and crackle in the wind.
‘It’s like a big kite, Isabella,’ he rasped, words like glass in his throat. ‘I will hold you round the waist, like this, and then we move to…’
Conor never finished his instructions, because a further explosion, funnelled by the tower caused a massive updraught, plucking the two children from the parapet and sending the flag spinning into open air like a giant autumn leaf.
The circumstances were unique. Had they jumped, as was Conor’s plan, they would not have had enough height for the flag to slow their descent. But the updraught caught in their makeshift kite and spun them up another hundred feet, and took them out over the sea. They hung there, in the sky, at the plateau of the air tunnel. Weightless. Sky above and sea below.
I am flying, thought Conor Broekhart. I remember this.
Then the flying finished and the falling started, and though it was drastically slowed by the flag, it seemed devilishly swift. Sights dissolved into a kaleidoscope of fractured blues and silvers.
The flag caught a low breeze and flipped. Conor watched the clouds swirl above him, stretching to creamy streams. And all the time he held on to Isabella so tightly his fingers ached.
He was crying and laughing and he knew it would be painful when they hit the water.
They crashed into the ocean. It was painful.
When he saw his daughter on the parapet, King Nicholas had tried to scramble up the tower like a dog climbing out of a well. In seconds his nails were torn and fingers bloody.
Victor Vigny had dragged him away from the wall.
‘Wait, Nick. This is not over yet. Wait. The boy… he’s…’
Nicholas’s eyes were wild and anguished. ‘What? He’s what?’
‘You have to see it. Come now. We need a boat, in case the wind takes them.’
‘A boat? A boat? What are you saying?’
‘Come, Nick. Come.’
Nicholas howled and dropped to his knees as his daughter flew into the air.
Victor watched, amazed. This boy. He was special, whoever he was. Maybe nine, no more than ten. What ingenuity.
The explosion took them high, Victor watched their trajectory and then set off for the pier at a run, dragging the king behind him.
‘The flag could drown them,’ he puffed. ‘The frame will collapse and the flag will wrap around them both.’
The king had recovered himself and soon outstripped the others through a trader’s gate and down to the jetty. There were already half a dozen boats on their way to the fallen flag. The first to reach them was a small quay punt, sculled across the wave tops by two muscled fishermen. A line of slower vessels trailed behind them to the pier.
‘Alive?’ Nicholas roared, but the distance was too great. ‘Are they alive?’
The flag was pulled from the sea and wet bundles rolled from it. Victor caught the king and gripped his shoulder tight.
The little punt spun in a tight circle and the fishermen pulled for shore, their oars kicking spume from the water. The news travelled faster than they could, passed from one boat to the next. The words, inaudible at first, became clearer with each fresh call.
‘Alive. Alive. Both of them.’
Nicholas sank to his knees and thanked God. Victor smiled first, and then began to clap with delight.
‘I came to teach the princess,’ he shouted to no one in particular. ‘But I will teach that boy too, or perhaps he will teach me.’
CHAPTER 2: LA BROSSE
Conor Broekhart was quite the hero for a time. It seemed as though everyone on the island visited him at the castle infirmary to listen to the tale of his improvised glider, and to knock for luck on the gypsum cast on his broken leg.
Isabella came every day, and often brought her father, King Nicholas. On one of these visits he brought his sword.
‘I didn’t want to jump off the tower,’ Conor objected. ‘I couldn’t think of another way.’
‘No, no,’ said Nicholas. ‘This is the Trudeau ceremonial sword. I am making you a peer.’
‘You are making me appear?’ said Conor doubtfully. ‘Is this a magical trick?’
Nicholas smiled. ‘In a way. One touch of this sword and you become Sir Conor Broekhart. Your father then becomes Lord Broekhart; of course your mother will become Lady Broekhart.’
Conor was still a little worried about the crusader’s blade five inches from his nose.
‘I don’t have to kiss that, do I?’
‘No, just touch the blade. Even one finger will do. We will have a proper ceremony when you are well.’
Conor ran a finger along the shining blade. It sang under his touch.
Nicholas put the sword aside. ‘Arise, Sir Conor. Not straight away, of course. Take your time. When you are well, I have a new teacher for you. A very special man who worked with me when I flew balloons. I think that you, of all people, will really like him.’
Balloons!
As far as Conor was concerned the king could keep his peerage, so long as he could fly balloons.
‘I am feeling much better, Your Majesty. Perhaps I could meet this man today.’
‘Steady on, Sir Conor,’ laughed the king. ‘I will ask him to drop by tomorrow. He has a few drawings you might like to look at. Something about heavier-than-air flying machines.’
‘Thank you, Your Majesty. I look forward to it.’
The king chuckled, ruffling Conor’s hair.
‘You saved my daughter, Conor. You saved her from my carelessness and her own tinkering fingers. I will never forget that. Never.’ He winked. ‘And neither will she.’
The king left, leaving his daughter behind. She had not spoken for the entire meeting, indeed she had not said much to Conor since the accident. But today some of the old light was back in her brown eyes.
‘Sirrrrr Conor,’ she said rolling the title around in her mouth like a hard sweet. ‘It’s going to be more difficult to have you hanged now.’
‘Thank you, Isabella.’
The princess leaned in to knock on his cast.
‘No, Sir Conor Broekhart. Thank you.’
Someone else came to see Conor that day, late in the evening when the nurse had shooed his mother home. The infirmary was deserted save for the night nurse who sat at her station at the end of the corridor. She drew a curtain round Conor’s bed and left a light on so that he could read his book.
Conor leafed through George Cayley’s On Ariel Navigation, which theorized that a fixed-wing aircraft with some form of engine and a ruddered tail could possibly carry a man through the air.
Heavy reading for a nine-year-old. In truth Conor skipped more words than he knew, but with each pass he understood more.
Engine and tail, he thought. Better than a flying flag at any rate. And fell asleep dreaming of a shining sword wrapped in a flag, sinking in Saint George’s Channel.
He awoke to the sound of a boot heel scraping on stone, and the heavy sigh of a large man. A sigh so guttural that it was almost a growl. This was a sound to make a boy decide to pretend that he was still asleep. Conor opened his eyes the merest slit, careful to keep his breathing deep and regular.
There was a man in his bedside chair, his massive frame swathed in shadows. By the red cross on his breast he saw it was one of the Holy Cross Guard. Marshall Bonvilain himself.
Conor’s breath hitched, and he covered it with a small moan, as though plagued by night terrors.
What could Bonvilain want here? At this hour?
Sir Hugo was the direct descendant of Percy Bonvilain who had served under the first Trudeau king seven centuries before. Historically the Bonvilain’s were high commanders of the Saltee Army and were also given leave to assemble their own Holy Cross Guard, which at one time was used to conduct raids to the mainland or hired out to European kings as professional soldiers. The current Bonvilain was the last in the line and the most powerful. In fact, Sir Hugo would have been declared prime minister some years earlier when King Hector died, had not a genealogist discovered Nicholas Trudeau eking out a living as an aeronaut in the United States.