down the hill beside the sedan chair. She had undone the leather curtain so that the king could see out, and she was holding a slow and disjointed conversation with him.

“Do I know you?”

“I carried your train at Your Majesty's coronation. A fine affair it was. All those oranges dangling on the pillars of Saint Paul's—”

“Oh, do call me Uncle Dick, my dear girl.”

“Sure, if you say so, Your Maj—Uncle Dick—and the congregation all munching on almond cookies—”

“And, havers, I'd no say no tae one o' they almond cakies at this present.”

“Maybe they'll have some over yonder,” said Dido hopefully, scanning the spiky outline of the monastery perched on its mount, fitfully glimpsed through gusts of snow.

Lot's black horse had been harnessed between the two rear carrying poles; the poor beast was so tired and shocked that it offered no resistance to this unusual arrangement, did not even take fright at the two bears who padded companionably alongside. The sheep, docile and humble, trailed in the rear, and old Harry rode Simon's Magpie. Simon and Father Sam bore the two front carrying poles, and the whole party proceeded at a cautious and creeping pace down the zigzag path, which was both steep and slippery The gale had not abated; driven snow scoured their faces and their goal seemed a daunting distance away across a wide expanse of island-studded white flatness, which appeared and disappeared behind clouds of sleet and spume.

Father Sam was explaining to Simon why it had taken him such a long time to make his way to the viaduct.

“The Saxon Army, poor dear fellows, their commander Egbert Wetwulf is so very much taken up with what they call 'reflection prowess'—a very worthy tactic I am sure it is, very worthy indeed, never a doubt of that—it puts the whole army in thought accord with one another, hardly any need for speech, they tell me, and of course that is excellent, excellent; it turns them truly into a band of brothers. But, ye see, while they are, as they call it, reflecting—they sit cross-legged and pass into a deep, deep trance; some of them even levitate, rise a little way into the air—but that, d'ye see, means they are somewhat immune to outside influences; they hardly see nor hear. Well! So there they all were! And I could see that if they were not roused from that insensibility, they might very likely freeze to death in such weather as we are having. And if the Burgundians were to arrive at such a time—it hardly bears thinking of. So I felt it my duty …”

“A good thing you did,” Simon agreed. “I suppose Lothar must have grabbed one of their spears as he rode by. I wonder how he knew we would come this way?”

“I imagine Lady Titania Plantagenet must have told him.”

“Why? I thought she was on the king's side, devoted to him.”

“She has—had—the gift of augury.”

“What's that?”

“Foretelling what is going to happen. She must have known what would come to pass …up to a point at least. Your young friend has it too.”

“Dido has? I don't get it.”

“Not a comfortable gift,” said Father Sam, shaking his head. “At present, in Dido it is only latent …like that wretched boy with his wolf persona. He, at least, is no loss. Nor his scatterbrained sister. A pity she had not come across the Saxon Army. She would have done better with them. A set of excellent, high-minded lads. I told them it was their duty to go and argue with the Burgundians before engaging in warfare and they agreed to try that method….”

“Is that the railway up there?” the king asked Dido. “Do you think I could be in time to catch the five-thirty train to Back End Junction, where I might change and get the express to King's Cross?”

Dido was cautious.

“I wouldn't depend on that, your Maj—Uncle Richard, sir. If I was you, I'd stay overnight at the Priory. I daresay the monks in that place are a very decent set of 'welcoming fellers and will cook you a fine dinner.”

She certainly hoped so. It seemed like a hundred years since those cucumber sandwiches.

The king was anxious and melancholy.

“Do I belong here?”

“Not here, perhaps, Your Royalness, but soon we'll find where you do belong.”

“I have left myself behind—”

“You'll find yourself, I reckon, when you're in a nice bedroom with a cup of hot soup inside you….”

“My dear … I wonder if you can advise me. I feel I am very close to my latter end. What I chiefly wish to know is this: In the next world I shall find my two dear wives waiting: my dearest Edelgarde, the mother of Davie, and my equally dear Adelaide. Now, shall I have to introduce them to each other? Or will they have become known to each other already? And what about my son?”

Dido gave this some careful thought.

“Don't you reckon, Your Maj—Uncle Dick—that everybody knows everything, once they get there? And don't need to be told nothing?”

“Yes. Yes … I believe you may be right. I do hope so. That would take a great weight off my mind. Another question that troubles me: this religious establishment whither we are tending. Do you ken if they harbor any nightingales in their policies?”

“Policies?”

“Estates, demesnes—”

“You got me there, Uncle King. But—even spose they have nightingales—ain't they birds that sing in summertime? Not very likely they'd be yodeling around in weather like this.”

“Oh,” said the king sadly. “I wonder if you are right.”

Dido wondered why His Majesty had such a wish for nightingales. Something to do, perhaps, with that business the old archbishop had been clacking on about— the coronet ritual? Mercy, what a long time ago that seems, thought Dido, the old gager and his tea things in his spooky little hidey-hole on the bank of London River. Only a few days ago …

She was reminded of the archbishop's riverside retreat, because they had now arrived at just such another bankside area—a dank willowy neighborhood with clumps of reeds and bulrush and a wooden slipway running down under the flat white surface of snow-covered ice. There was a tumbledown open-fronted shed, with a bench, under a clump of willows, and a bell hanging on a rope from a branch.

“Do we ring the bell?” asked Simon.

Father Sam shook his head.

“There'd be no point. The bell's for the ferry. But there can be no ferry so long as the Middle Mere is iced over. What we have to discover is, will the ice bear us?”

Simon pried a sizable rock from the side of the track and hurled it as far as he was able onto the ice. Nothing happened.

“But one rock isn't as heavy as two horses and five people and a sedan chair.”

“And two bears,” said Dido. “And a flock of sheep.”

“Send the bears out,” said Father Sam. “See if the ice will bear them.” He laughed heartily at his own joke, but Simon was scandalized.

“Why put them at risk? They didn't ask to be sent to this country. I'll go.”

“No, no, my boy, that would not do,” Father Sam said hastily. “You are next in succession to the throne. Harry had better go.”

“I can't swim,” grumbled Harry.

“I'll go,” snapped Dido, who found this discussion a silly waste of time. “I swim like a herring—though let's hope I don't need to.”

She set out with caution on the ice, which, under a couple of inches of snow, was extremely slippery. And, once she was fairly out in the channel, away from sheltering banks and thickets, the wind, icy and buffeting, made it hard to keep upright.

Peering ahead, she saw clumps of rush and snow-covered islets. And, from time to time, between gusts of snow, she had a glimpse of the high-arched monastery buildings climbing the steep slope on the far side of the channel. To her right the high silhouette of the viaduct appeared and disappeared in the storm. Somewhere down there, under the ice, between those tall stone legs, lay a shattered carriage and four horses and some drowned people. A grim thought. Not that any of em's much loss, thought Dido. Lot and Jorinda—what a pair! And the two old gals—one of em at least as bent as a buckle. The duchess was certainly no angel and t'other one, according to Simon, seemed to have been playing both ends against the middle.

Now, rounding an islet sprouted over with frozen willow wands, she could see her way clear ahead. This was probably the main channel, where the current would be strongest and the ice was likely to be thinnest. Wish I had a pair of skates, thought Dido. She remembered a winter in London when the Thames had frozen, and in Rose Alley where she lived there had been only one pair of skates among seventy children. Belonged to Sindy Rogers, the ironmonger's kid, but she let us all have a go. Didn't take long to learn. Hey, there's a feller in black a-waving on the far shore. Does he mean yes, it's all rug, come along? Or does he mean go back, the ice won't hold ye? Well, I'm a-going and hope for the best. If the ice won't hold, he can blame well jump in and haul me out.

But the ice did hold. And in another five minutes Dido was safe on the farther bank, having her hands enthusiastically shaken by a long-legged lad in monk's robes, who cried, “Welcome! Welcome to the Priory! Welcome indeed! Father Mistigris would be here himself to 'welcome you, but a ship has foundered on the seaward side of Otherland Bank and all the brothers are down there helping to rescue the crew. But I see there are others of your party…. Do you want to signal them to come, now we know the ice will carry them?”

Dido said dubiously, “One of em's the king. And he's sick, in a great clumsy carry-chair. And there's a pair of bears. And two horses …and a flock of sheep. I dunno if 'twill be safe to fetch the king across in that contraption; it's mighty heavy. But he's awful sick and like to die.”

“I'll fetch a stretcher from the barn,” said the boy. “I'm Brother Mark, by the way. We quite often get sick people coming here.” He disappeared, running toward a stone, thatched building, and came back in a minute with two poles and a canvas sheath. Meanwhile the sheep had decided, on their own initiative, to amble across and were now clustering hopefully outside the barn. “Yes, go in, go in,” Brother Mark absently told them. “There's plenty hay inside.” And the flock at once did so. “Now let us cross and get your friends.”

Mark had also brought out two pairs of skates made from deer's antlers. He passed a pair to Dido, who gratefully put them on.

“Say, thanks, Mark, that'll make a power of difference.”

The skates did indeed make a difference, and they were able to cross the channel in a few minutes. The party on the other shore had seen the stretcher and waited.

“That was well thought of, Mark,” said Father Sam. “I doubt the sedan would be too heavy. But I trust that our royal friend, wrapped in his quilts on the stretcher, will take no harm if the crossing be done as fast as possible.”

With everybody helping, the exchange was made and the king, wrapped in coverings, was borne across the channel by Simon and Father Sam, wearing the skates. Mark brought the king's bag of needments; Dido and Harry led the horses, who slid and whickered nervously on the ice and were kept at a safe distance behind the sick man in case their weight proved too much. The bears followed independently, studying the ice as if they hoped to find fish under it.

“Brother Isaac will take care of them,” called Mark. “He is a great fisherman. Now I fear we have to climb three hundred steps.”

The bears and horses were left in the barn, and the rest of the party took turns carrying the stretcher up the steps, which was far more arduous than the trip over the frozen channel.

“It is because of floods and pirates,” panted Mark as they approached the great arched doorway that led into the monastery courtyard. “Floods never rise as high as this, and pirates climb so slowly that everybody has time to hide.”

He led them through some very untidy cloisters and past the Priory chapel to a big bare community chamber with a view of the sea through large unglazed windows. Dido gasped as she looked from one of these; the drop on the seaward side of Otherland Mount was sheer— three hundred feet down to the tossing waves below. Far to her left she could see the curve of the great shingle bank running round to Wan Hope Point. And, between gusts of snow, she could also see a ship rolling and pitching, slewed over on her side, half smothered by huge white waves that came galloping in toward the hostile shore. Tiny black figures on the beach were hauling on ropes from the ship, but their efforts seemed puny compared with the might of the elements. The sea's roar could be heard, even from this height, and the scream of the wind.

Mark shook his head. “They can probably rescue the crew,” he said, “but I'm afraid the ship is done for.”

“I don't see many monks down there,” said Dido.

“There are only nine of us left now. But come this way and I'll show you the guest chambers and the kitchen.”

The guest chambers were a row of little rooms, probably monks' cells, on the landward side of the Priory. And just as well too, thought Dido, or the guests would hardly get a wink of sleep with the sea roaring away like it is. On the steep hillside running down to the Middle Mere, there grew massive trees, forest oaks, ilex and sycamore; their boughs heaved and swung in the gale, but they protected this side of the Priory from the worst of the tempest. Here the king was installed in a quiet little room with a narrow white bed. While Simon and Harry were attending him, Mark said to Dido, “Come and I'll show you the kitchen and you can brew up something hot for the poor old gentleman. Matthew, the kitchen brother, is down at the wreck, but Brother Isaac, the cellarer, will show you where to find things.”

The kitchen, farther along on the same side of the building, was a large room, almost completely bare, with little to show its function except for some holes in the stone wall containing a pile of earthenware bowls, and a fireplace that held a pile of gray ash with one red spark.

“Brother Isaac will be down below in the pantry”

Dido was anxious to check out the pantry, as she could see nothing in the kitchen that would provide a hot drink for the king. Mark led her down a steep flight of steps to a room that seemed to be cut out of the hillside below the kitchen. It had holes for windows looking out onto the big trees and the Middle Mere, and more steps led out to kitchen gardens, orchards and dairies. It was also most satisfactorily furnished with piles of root vegetables, strings of onions and herbs, great earthenware vats of milk, barrels of cider, cheeses and sacks of grain and flour. Dried fish hung in bunches. Dido, who had learned to make chowder while on board a whaling ship, helped herself to onions, potatoes, milk, butter, dried parsley and bay leaves, fish and peppercorns.

“You got any dried salt pork?” she asked Mark. But he shook his head.

“We are vegetarians—except for the fish,” he said.

“I'll manage without, then.”

Now Brother Isaac came climbing up the stair from the kitchen gardens. Dido could see why he was not out with the others rescuing the shipwrecked sailors, for he was desperately lame, could only just drag himself along sideways. It did not seem to trouble him; he was a cheerful little man and beamed at Dido.

“You need a box to work on,” he said. “Mark'll find ye a box.”

It seemed the kitchen was furnished with boxes and bits of timber salvaged from shipwrecks, which were later burned up for firewood. There had not been a wreck for some time and the supply was running low, but Isaac said cheerfully, “Plenty coming now! Not that we mean harm to the crew, don't think it!” he added. “But they are Burgundians, after all, come to invade our country, so if they get wrecked, they have only themselves to thank.”

“Oh, so it's a Burgundian ship?”

“Yes, my lovey, they all speak Burgundy French, and they will be asking for beef stew and red wine, which we don't have. But Sir Thomas will see to it that they all get sent home again.”

Dido had not the least idea who Sir Thomas might be, nor did she care. Mark found her a wooden packing case that had contained candles; on this she chopped up onions, fish, potatoes, celery, herbs, then added beans and corn. She blew up the kitchen fire with some kindling supplied by Brother Isaac and set a nourishing soup to simmer.

Brother Isaac said, “I'd help ye, but I can see that ye are managing just fine without my interference, and I'm all behind with my praying; there's extra prayers required for those poor souls on the ship, and then there's the sick man in the guest room—did ye say he was the king? Ah, then he'll need a deal of praying, I reckon, to smooth his way into the next world—not that I ever heard any harm of the poor gentleman, but he must have a whole pack of cares on his shoulders. And my prayers take twice as long as the other brothers', for I can't kneel, with my infirmity, so I have to manage on a prayer frame that Brother Mark made me. Eh, he's a handy young fellow, so he is.”

The prayer frame was a triangular structure, padded with sheep's wool.

Tis becoming a bit bald, the padding. I need more wool, so I do.”

“We brought some sheep,” Dido said. “You're 'welcome to their wool. I'm sure Simon will agree. I dunno where he picked up the sheep.”

Brother Isaac was delighted to hear about the sheep. 'Tis blankets I'll be weaving for all the brothers.”

While her soup was simmering over the kitchen fire, Dido went along to see how the king was settling. She found him restless and fretful. Simon had gone down to the beach to help the rescuers and old Harry had fallen into exhausted sleep.

“Where is Titania?” pleaded the king. “Where is my coronet? I want to go home! I want to go home. I don't belong here; I don't belong.”

Dido wondered sadly where he did belong; what place was it that he thought of as home? Certainly it could not be this bare and windy monastery.

“When can I catch the train to King's Cross? Why don't I hear any nightingales?”

“Dear Uncle King, I don't reckon there's a-going to be a many nightingales here, so close to the sea. Can't you make do with seagulls? There's a plenty of them.”

“I want to go home!”

“We're all going home,” Dido improvised.

“We are? When? When?”

“When we come to our journey's end!”

For some reason this reply seemed to satisfy the king, and he lay silent for a while, clasping Dido's hand.

In a very low voice, she sang him one of her father's songs:

She saw Simon peering round the door and tiptoed out to him.

“The old feller's gone to sleep…. Why is he so set on having nightingales?”

They moved a little way down the passage. Simon said, “Aunt Titania, the old lady who looked after him lately, she foretold that he would hear nightingales singing before his death.”

“She was one of the two who got killt in that carriage?”

“Yes. I always thought she loved the king. I'd never dreamed that she was in some way connected with Baron Magnus, with Lot and the duchess. Perhaps her story about nightingales was a lie … to encourage him to stay alive till that other fellow with a Saxon name came from the north…. Poor Cousin Dick!”

“Or maybe she went to spy on them all at Fogrum Hall, see what they were up to. I guess we'll never know,” said Dido.

“She must have meant to come back to Darkwater when she packed the king's bag of needments. I see she put her own embroidery things in as well. I don't suppose you do embroidery, Dido, do you? You wouldn't have a use for them?”

She shook her head. “Learned to knit, I did, aboard the whaler. But I'm no hand with a needle.”

“She also packed this thing among the embroidery silks. What do you think it is?”

Simon had in his hand a small convoluted object made of ivory

“Oh, I know what that is,” said Dido. “My aunt Tinty had one. It's a hearing aid. But the king's not deaf, is he? He seems to hear all that's going on. I wonder if it works.” She fitted the object into her ear and exclaimed, “My stars!”

“What's up?”

Simon tried it and was equally startled. “I can hear birds singing!”

“Hey!” said Dido. “I'll lay you a gross of guineas those are nightingales!”

Simon and Dido stared at each other.

“She was going to fool him—when the time came,” Dido said.

“How wicked!”

“Do you think she meant to kill him?”

“When the right moment came, perhaps. She had been giving him some drug in his food that made him see ghosts. But she needed to have the archbishop of Wessex at hand—and he's dead, poor old boy, killed by Magnus's people.”

“Yes, Father Sam told me. I saw him, old Whitgift, only a few days ago; he wanted me to find the king …and you, cos you're the next in line. Is that really so, Simon?”

“Well, I believe so,” he said gloomily. “Though old Aunt Titania did seem to have this other candidate up her sleeve, somebody called Aelfric of Bernicia. But he seems to have been kept away by bad weather.”

Father Sam joined them, wet and exhausted from helping with the wreck.

“Well, we got them ashore, all ninety-nine of them,” he said cheerfully. “All but the captain—he would stay by his ship, silly fellow. They are all in the 'warming room, drying off, and Brother Matthew says your chowder is done, Miss Dido, and may he move it off the fire so he can brew the Burgundians something hot? Father Mistigris has gone off to send for Sir Thomas.”

Dido went to rescue her chowder. Simon said, “Who is Sir Thomas? What does he have to do with the shipwrecked sailors?”

“Sir Thomas Coldacre. He and the duchess of Burgundy made the arrangements to fetch all these Burgundians here; so he can just take charge of them now,” said Father Sam.

“Sir Thomas will have to be told that his granddaughter is dead.”

“I doubt if he'll grieve much for her, poor silly girl. Nor for Lothar, who was never anything but bad news. The duchess wanted to put Lot on the throne, but that would have been really disastrous. You'll make a better job of it, my boy”

“But,” said Simon reluctantly, “even if I do have to take on the job, we can't go ahead or do anything without the new archbishop of Wessex—and who in the world is that? Maybe there isn't one. How could there be?”

“Oh, that's no problem,” said Father Sam cheerfully. “It's meself.”

“You, Father Sam?”

Twas the king's job to appoint me, and he did that. I came top of the list of six chosen by the Convocation of Wessex Clergy last month. All we need now, to carry out the requirements of the succession ritual, is the coronet itself. I dare say old Lady Titania was hunting for it when she went off to visit the duchess at Fogrum; there had been a rumor that it was left in Lady Adelaide's desk.”

“No, it wasn't there,” said Simon. “Dido told me. She happened to look in the desk and all she found was a diary. And Fogrum Hall is burned down now, so if the coronet was there, it's gone for good.”

“Well, well. Perhaps it will turn up here,” Father Sam said hopefully. “After all, Alfred himself was here, hiding from the Vikings, in the year 878, and left the monks a charter to prove it. I'll ask Father Mistigris when I see him. Now I had best go back to those poor Burgundian fellows, who are quite shocked and exhausted. They'll know better another time, if they are asked to invade someone else's country….”

He strode away, dripping, and Simon returned to the king, who said piteously, “Simon! I want to go home!”