my hearing aid,” lamented the king. “And my keys—where are the keys of the palace?”

The first twenty times the king had put forth this question, Simon had offered a truthful answer: “Your Majesty never had a hearing aid. And the keys of Saint James's Palace are back in London in the prime minister's pocket or with the lord chamberlain.”

But as rational answers did not satisfy the king any longer, Simon now said, “Look, here are your keys,” showing him a bunch borrowed from Harry the aged porter, and, “Here is your hearing aid,” displaying a lump of candle wax, warmed at the fire and squeezed into a complicated shape. With this the king would be satisfied for a short time; then he would ask the questions again.

In the past two days the sick man had become distinctly weaker—more rambling, more confused, less able to do anything for himself. And where in the world was Madam? She had gone off into the woods yesterday afternoon, as was her habit, but she had not come back when the time came to put the king to bed. Simon had had to do that, assisted by Mrs. Wigpie, the elderly housekeeper. Nor had Lady Titania come back at breakfast time.

“It's not a bit like Madam to stop away overnight,” fretted the housekeeper. “Tis not like her at all! I jest pray she isn't caught in a flood; they say half the country this side of Wan Hope Height is underwater, and the lake level rising all the while. What'll we do if the dam goes, Mester Simon? We divna stay here; the auld hoose'll be flooded up to the second floor. What shall we do with His Grace?”

“We'll have to move him somewhere else. And I believe we should do it today. Is there a cart or a carriage?”

“Nay, Madam took the dogcart and the auld pony There's only your Magpie and the carry-chair—and all they blessed sheep.”

The sheep were another cause of worry. What would become of them if the level of Darkwater Mere suddenly rose by twenty feet? The only bright spot in this anxiety was that the sheep now had such total trust in Simon, they followed him whenever he went out of doors. Which could be a nuisance at times.

“What is the carry-chair?”

Leaving the king in the care of Harry—all the other old servants seemed to have vanished, frightened away by the threat of a flood—Simon accompanied Mrs. Wigpie to a harness room next to the empty coachhouse, where he found an ancient leather sedan chair.

“Twas used by Madam's granfer, time he busted his hip out hunting,” explained the housekeeper.

The sedan chair had carrying poles front and back and was intended to be borne by two men. But it also had two iron wheels underneath. Simon tested its weight, lifting one of the poles, and wondered if he would be able to pull it along with the king inside it.

“Harry could help ye, happen,” suggested Mrs. Wigpie.

Simon dragged the sedan chair out into the main courtyard. Even without a passenger it was fairly cumbrous, for it had a solid wooden framework, and the seat, roof, sides and front flap were made of massively thick leather, probably ox hide. There was a wooden step for the passenger's feet, and a strap to hold him in position. Just as well, Simon thought, considering how frail and shaky the king had become. All we need is for him to fall on his nose.

“But where can we take him that's safer than here? Oh, I do wish Aunt Titania were back!” Simon exclaimed, half to himself. But then he recalled that mysterious note discovered in the old lady's work-basket. Who was Cousin Aelfric? Barnard Castle lay far to the north in the principality of Bernicia, which was ruled by Oswin Cantaguzelos. Oswin was no friend of King Richard, because he sided with the rulers of Elmet and Lindsey, lands that lay immediately north of London and were in constant dispute about boundaries and customs duties. Could Titanias cousin Aelfric be another contender for the English throne? If only the king were in his right mind! If only it were possible to ask him these questions! But in his present state that was not to be thought of; if he was able to understand at all, they would only distress him dreadfully.

“I'm afeered summat bad's overtook poor Madam. 'Tis not like her to stay away so long wi'out leaving word. And 'tis my thought that we should get His Worship away directly. Look at the level of the watter, Mester Simon; 'tis up to the bridge already. In another hour or so, the bridge'll be underwatter.”

Mrs. Wigpie was right, Simon saw.

“If only it didn't rain so hard! We must take the chair over to the door so that His Majesty isn't exposed for more than a couple of minutes.”

They did this; then the king was wrapped in several quilts with an oiled silk cover over all, and Simon, with Harry's help, carried him downstairs to the courtyard door. This was by no means an easy task. The king had become so thin that he was not very heavy, but the thinness made his joints and skin acutely sensitive, and he whimpered and groaned and exclaimed that the pain was atrocious, they were killing him, where in the world did they think they were taking him? In the rain too!

Were they mad? Where was Aunt Titania? What was going on?

Some of the layers of quilts had to be peeled off, or they would never have been able to pack the patient and his wrappings into the sedan chair.

“Where are we taking him?” asked Simon, when His Majesty had been strapped in, and the apron-front buttoned into place, despite the passenger's cries that they were putting him in prison, they must let him out at once, it was a monstrous crime to fasten him up so, in the dark too!

“I reckon we'd best carry him to Father Sam's chapel,” Harry said. “That is uphill from Darkwater. Twon't be flooded out yet awhile. And Father Sam will surely know the likeliest spot to keep clear of the floods.”

“Can you help me to carry him as far as that?”

Harry shrugged. “Never know till you try,” he croaked.

“What about you, Mrs. Wigpie? Will you come along with us?”

The old housekeeper shook her head. “I'll stop here, boy, up in the attics. I've carried a dozen lardy cakes up there, and apples and watter for tea. An' I carried your beautiful picture up there and all His Grace's bits and pieces. The attics won't flood. But here's a little bag of needments Madam packed up for him—in case of flooding—with his toothbrush and nightshirt and his hearing aid.”

“I thought he didn't use a hearing aid,” said Simon, ashamed that he had not thought of these simple necessaries himself.

“No, but Madam said he would soon need to, and that time'll soon be here…. And if Madam should come back before the flood, I can tell her where ye've gone. Now make haste! Watter's over the bridge this very minute.”

She was right. Old Harry grabbed the two front carrying poles, Simon took up the rear pair and they splashed through an inch of water that was flowing over the timbers of the bridge.

The sedan chair, with the king in it, was very heavy. At first it was almost more than Simon thought he could manage, and he was extremely worried about old Harry.

“Can you do it?” he called.

“Got to, han't I?” Harry called back.

Going in front, Harry chose the way and struck up a footpath that led away from Darkwater Mere. “'Tis a shorter way to Saint Arling's Chapel, but over high ground. More of a climb, see, but us won't be flooded this way, nor like to meet any unfriends.”

Simon had let out the mare, Magpie, on a long leading rein, and the owl, Thunderbolt, perched on her saddle. He had considered harnessing Magpie between the carrying poles, but dismissed the idea. However, to his amusement and Harry's astonishment, they had not gone more than a hundred yards from Darkwater Farm when the flock of sheep came bustling after them. A dozen sheep squeezed together under the sedan. The height of their backs from the ground was just enough to support its floor and the carrying poles. And this made an immense easement to the weight on the human carriers' arms and shoulders.

“Well, by gar!” exclaimed Harry. “In all my born, I never knowed such a thing! They blessed wethers makes a fair heap of difference. Reckon they'll keep His Grace right snug in there, as well!”

In fact it was plain that the warmth from the wool and the trotting animals underneath him had a very soporific effect on the king; for the first ten minutes, a stream of complaints and lamentations had issued from inside the chair, but these soon died away.

“You don't think he's dead inside there?” Simon queried anxiously. Harry peered through the peephole.

“Nay! Sleeping like a dormouse!”

The sheep too were silent; the only sound made by the procession as it snaked along the woodland path was the squelch of a hundred feet, human and animal, on the sodden, rain-soaked forest floor. Simon was worried about the weather. The rain, which had been continuous for three days, was showing a tendency to change its character; the gray, sullen sky now came wandering down in snowflakes.

“How long will it take us to get to Saint Arling's Chapel this way?” he asked Harry.

“Matter o' forty minutes—don't we meet no hindrances.”

There were remarkably few hindrances at present, Simon thought, mentally crossing his fingers. The forest seemed strangely empty; there were no rabbits to be seen, no squirrels, no foxes, no deer. Could they all have fled, seeking higher ground? The only wildlife he thought he saw, a couple of times, and that a long way off in the dim distance, were two bulky shadowy creatures, far too large for foxes and the wrong shape for deer—could they possibly be bears? The idea was so unlikely that he did not even mention it to Harry.

But now there came a small interruption to their quiet progress: The owl, Thunderbolt, suddenly and silently took off from Magpie's saddlebow, lifted into the boughs overhead and returned next moment to perch on Simon's shoulder, clutching a white pigeon.

“Well, I'm blessed! What have you brought me now, Thunderboy?”

“Pears to me that pigeon be carrying summat a-wrapped round is ankle!” called Harry. “Best we stop a minute and you take a look, Mester Simon.”

Conveniently the path here twisted between hip-high boulders. Harry and Simon were able to rest the carrying poles on these rocks and take a much-needed rest; and the sheep gratefully strayed away to munch the greenery on the forest floor.

Thunderbolt gently let go his hold on the pigeon, who seemed uninjured but affronted at his sudden capture and shook his disturbed feathers to rights before fluttering away. A small packet had been attached to his leg, wrapped in oiled silk. Simon undid the wrappings and unfolded the paper inside them. He read: “Dear Cousin Titania: Snow and terrible weather up here hinder our troop setting sail at present. Best you go to F.H., as I told you in my last letter, to see what they are up to. Pray do your best to keep you-know-who alive. Aelfric Bloodarrow.”

Oh, dear, thought Simon. Nobody is as simple as they seem. Not that Aunt Titania did seem particularly simple. Where is F.H. and what can she be doing there?

Frowning, he showed the paper to Harry, who said, “Nay, I'm no scholard, Mester Simon. And don't-ee read it out loud to me; trees have ears, I'm thinking…. Best we be on our way.”

But before they could move on, an arrow sang between the trees and stuck quivering in the path just ahead of the sedan chair. A voice cried, “Halt! Don't move!”

Simon hastily slipped the paper into his pocket, just as a fair-haired man moved out onto the path ahead of them. He was dressed in tattered gray-green clothes that were a cunning match for the autumnal foliage still hanging on the branches. He had an arrow notched in his bow, and looking past him, Simon could see a number of other men, similarly dressed, similarly armed, in among the trees.

“Don't move!” the man warned again. “Our shafts are tipped with devil's claw juice; one of these through ye and you'd turn up your toes afore you could take another step.”

“Who are you?” Simon asked quietly. “And by what right are you stopping us?”

“URSA, that's what we are, young mister,” said the man.

“URSA, what is URSA? I never heard of it.”

“You shall, very soon, young sir! URSA will soon be a power in this land.”

“What is it?” asked Simon again. He looked questioningly at Harry, who shook his head.

“United Real Saxon Army!” said the man proudly. “Soon, I tell ye, you'll be hearing more of us. We're a proper match for all those Armoricans and Burgundians.”

“But why are you stopping us?”

“We aim to put down the tyrants. We need money.”

“We are not tyrants! We are taking a—a sick friend to Father Sam at Saint Arling's Chapel.”

“Let's see your sick friend.”

With great caution, Simon undid the buttons of the sedan's leather apron front.

The green-clad man peered in and was evidently somewhat taken aback at the sight of the king's pale, sleeping countenance. Plainly he did not recognize it.

“Wha—who—is it dinnertime? Where am I?” quavered the king.

“Don't worry, Cousin Dick, we shall be with Father Sam directly,” Simon reassured him.

“I'm thirsty! I have a pain in my toe! A pain in my tooth! I'm hungry!”

“Very soon, dear Cousin Dick, we shall be able to take care of all those things. Will you kindly let us pass?” Simon said to the green man. “You can see that our friend is very ill.”

Querying looks passed between the green man and his mates in the trees.

“Got any cash on you?” he asked hopefully.

As it happened, Simon had a hundred pounds on him, in paper money, which had been hastily thrust on him by the lord chamberlain when he had been asked to search for the missing king. But he was certainly not going to part with it to these fly-by-night characters.

“I could let you have a couple of pounds,” he said cautiously “But what do you want money for? How do I know you'd make good use of it?”

He noticed Harry give him a warning glance.

“Us'ud take meditation lessons,” said the man unexpectedly. “Into meditation in a big way, us Real Saxons be! Oswin there, he can rise right off the ground when he's meditated for half an hour or so. Alwyn can too.”

“What do you need meditation for if you're an army?”

“Binds us together like brothers.”

“Oh, very 'well!” said Simon. He pulled two gold sovereigns from his pocket. “Here you are. Now will you allow us to go on our way?”

“Certingly, guvnor,” said the man heartily. “And very much obliged to-ee. You be our brother now. Don't-ee go below this height, mind, in the woods, for the dam's due to bust anytime—there she goes, hark!” he added, as a distant dead sound, between a throb and a thump, quivered through the forest. “Now the water'll come up in a hurry, and bad luck to all the roe deer and foxes that haven't shifted their quarters already….”

“Talking of animals,” said Simon, “you live in the woods; have you seen any beasts that look like bears lately?”

The green man grinned. “The bears was the Burgundians' big mistake,” he explained. “Ordered em from Muscovy, they did, and a pretty penny they Rooshians asked for em, so I'm told—and they all took sick, no use to anybody, so they turned em loose in the woods. Boots was what they had ordered, but bless your soul, they Rooshians don't understand a word of Burgundian, simmingly, and bears was what they got. Thank you, young mister, a safe journey to ye.”

He and his comrades melted away among the trees. Then, suddenly, he was back again. “They sheep, gaffer? They be yourn?”

“Why, yes,” Simon said. “I bought them—paid for them. Why?”

“If ye didn't want them, we could find a use for em.”

“I do want them.”

“No matter.” He was gone again.

Simon and Harry picked up the carrying poles. The sheep reassembled themselves under the chair.

“When, when shall we get there?” fretted the king.

“Very, very soon now, Cousin Dick. I can see the spire of Saint Arling's Chapel ahead, past those holly trees.”

As they struggled on—both Simon and Harry exhausted by this time, and even the sheep seemed tired— Simon suddenly said, “I wonder what was the matter with the bears?”