Ghost Knight Read online

  My whole body was shaking; I couldn’t stop it. Around me the dark fog lifted, and I could again see the boardinghouse at the end of the garden.

  “Ella?” I said in a trembling voice.

  I didn’t dare turn around. I was too afraid I would find her dead on the grass behind me. My heart skipped with joy when I heard her voice next to me.

  “Oh, that’s disgusting!” she said. And there she was, dry leaves in her hair and a few scratches on her forehead, but she was alive—and she was staring with revulsion at Stourton’s empty shell as it dissolved in the evening sun.

  The last rays of sunshine also made Longspee fade. I could barely see him as he pushed his sword back into its scabbard.

  “Thank you!” I stammered. “Thanks. We…”

  Longspee just nodded silently. He gave us the shadow of a smile, and then he was gone.

  The setting sun flooded the garden with red and gold. I couldn’t see a trace of the fight, except for a few broken twigs and some enormous paw prints that were branded into the grass.

  I heard Alma Popplewell call, “Jon?” Her voice no longer sounded as if it came from another planet. “Jon!”

  “Here! We’re in the garden!” I called back, surprised at how normal my voice sounded.

  Ella’s knees were probably just as wobbly as mine as she walked back to the house.

  “Your mother’s on the phone, Jon!” Alma called toward us. “I can’t believe you were in the garden. Did you see that smoke? I wonder who’s been burning God-only-knows-what in their garden again.”

  Ella and I exchanged a quick look. We couldn’t believe that Alma didn’t see on our faces what had happened, but she only paused at seeing the leaves in Ella’s hair and the mud on my jeans.

  “There were two dogs,” I said. “Horrible beasts. But we chased them away.”

  “Dogs?” Alma cast a worried look into the garden. “Oh! They sometimes chase the ducks in the park, and then they jump over the wall. They really should forbid people from taking them off the leash in the park. Use the phone in the office, Jon. Ella can try some of the dessert I just made.”

  Dessert. My mother on the phone. Life did go on.

  After what had just happened, it felt very strange to answer questions like “Have you made any new friends?” and “How’s the food?” Instead, I wanted to ask her, “Mum, did you have any idea how dangerous it would be for your son in Salisbury?” But I restrained myself. Longspee had sent Stourton to hell, and everything was okay.

  My mother sounded happy. Her son had just survived an attempt on his life by a ghost lord, all because she sent him to what was the most dangerous place on earth to be a male member of her family, and she just talked about her vacation with The Beard and how nice he was being to my sisters. Never mind. I didn’t care. I was just glad that I was alive and that nothing had happened to Ella. And that all this was now over.

  “So, what do you say, Jon?”

  Oops, I’d missed something.

  “Say about what?”

  “About a nice weekend for just the two of us? I’ll come up next Friday and I’ll stay until Sunday evening. You know, we have the builders in the house because Matt urgently needs an office; otherwise I’d have loved to have you here. But don’t you think it might be even nicer to have a few days just to ourselves? We could drive to Stonehenge, go for a walk, and have dinner in the Old Mill. We had only a few hours when we came to see the school, but this time we could also do the evensong in the cathedral. I’ve never been to the cathedral in the evening. It’s probably magical, don’t you think?”

  “Probably,” I mumbled, and I suddenly realized that I missed her terribly. I wanted to tell her everything that had happened to me in the past week (even though I was positive she wouldn’t believe a word of it). I wanted her to meet Angus and Stu and Ella—yes, especially Ella. Though… maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Mothers can be embarrassing when they meet your friends, especially if the friends are girls. And suddenly the realization flashed through me like lightning. Hold on. She couldn’t come. She was a Hartgill, like me. And? asked the more reasonable part of my brain. Stourton was gone, dissolved, or whatever you called it when ghosts died. It was over. And hadn’t Zelda said he was only after male Hartgills?

  “Jon?”

  I stared at the phone.

  “Yes, I’m still here, Mum.”

  “Do you want me to come?”

  “Sure.” As long as The Beard didn’t come as well….

  Relax, Jon Whitcroft! It’s over. No more dead murderers, no more black dogs. Now the only problem left in your life has a beard, and she said she wouldn’t bring him. I looked at my hand. It was bleeding. I must have grazed it on the wall.

  Ella poked her head through the door. She was holding two mugs of hot chocolate. Alma made excellent hot chocolate. Her desserts weren’t quite so excellent.

  “I’ll call you during the week,” my mother said, “as soon as I know which train I’m taking. Shall I bring you anything?”

  “Sweets,” I mumbled, still staring at my injured hand. “Chocolate, licorice, gummy bears…” All of which were forbidden in the domain of the Popplewells, but she didn’t have to know that. Maybe Angus could lend me one of his cuddly toys to hide my stash in.

  Ella raised her eyebrows when she heard my list. She despised gummy bears and licorice—which was perfect. When you’re eleven, there’s nothing worse than having a friend who likes the same sweets as you.

  Alma let Ella stay for the movie that was showing in the common room. It was some old horror flick with ghosts that looked like floating bedsheets. It wouldn’t have scared even a second grader. But Ella and I couldn’t laugh about it. We sat next to each other and tried to forget the ghosts we’d just met in the garden. And yet we both knew that we’d still remember them when we’d be as old as Zelda.

  Still, on that evening we actually believed that Stourton and his servants had disappeared from our lives forever, thanks to Longspee. But, as we were soon to find out, even Ella had a thing or two to learn about ghosts.

  THE STOLEN HEART

  Both Ella and I decided that it was best not to tell Zelda or Ella’s parents about our adventure. Had we told them, I would have understood completely if they’d banned her from ever seeing me again.

  “We’ll tell them when we’re eighteen!” Ella whispered after the movie. “And they definitely won’t believe us.”

  Edward Popplewell walked Ella back to Zelda’s house. The path across the dark sheep meadows is already quite creepy on a normal evening, and on that evening I was sure Ella was particularly grateful for the company, even if Edward explained Salisbury’s medieval irrigation systems to her along the way.

  As I crawled into bed, I missed Angus’s sleepy hums and Stu’s sighing the name of some girl above me, but rarely had a night been sweeter. My fear was still like a fresh scar, but for the first time in days I was again sure I’d be alive to see my twelfth birthday. I went to the window anyway, just to make sure there were no bloodless faces staring up at me. I gave a start when I saw something move by the garbage cans, but it was just Alma, who was taking out the trash.

  It was a clear night and there were so many stars in the sky, it looked as if they were having fireworks up there to celebrate that Longspee had taken care of Stourton. I wondered where he was now. Back in the cathedral, waiting for another desperate boy to call for his help? I would have loved to have known more about his life and those things he needed to cleanse off his soul. I would have liked to repay him for what he’d done for me. But more than all of that, I just wanted to see him again.

  And? What are you waiting for, Jon? I thought. Go to him. This is the night to say thank you. You’ll probably never feel as brave as this again.

  No sooner thought than done.

  I stuffed a few of Angus’s cuddly toys beneath my duvet to make it look as if I were under it. Then I put my clothes back on and, carrying my shoes in my hand, I snuck past the Popplew
ells’ door and down the stairs. Luckily, our wardens always left the key in the lock. I pulled it out, hoping I’d be back before anyone noticed anything.

  This time around, the close stayed empty of people and ghosts as I ran across it toward the cathedral. The wall surrounding the cloisters is so high that not even an adult can climb over it. Fortunately, I found a tree with a big branch that reached over the wall, and I crossed it hand over hand. As I dropped onto the flagstones on the other side, I landed so hard that for a moment I thought I might’ve broken my ankle. But the pain quickly subsided, and the ghost of the mason’s apprentice also stayed away. Nothing moved between the columns, and the moon painted silver patterns on the grass. The doors to the cathedral were, of course, locked and stayed shut, no matter how hard I pulled at them. What had I expected?

  “Longspee?” I whispered, pressing my ear against the ancient wood.

  A breeze drove through the branches of the cedar, but apart from that all was still. I sat down on the stones, my back against the locked doors, and stared at the lion on my hand. The mark had faded. Of course—it had served its purpose. I would never see Longspee again. I felt tears flooding my eyes. Great! Ever since I’d come to this place, I’d started crying more easily than my little sisters. I wiped my sleeve over my face and squeezed the lion mark.

  “Why are you crying, Jon?”

  I looked up.

  Longspee was looking down at me. His tunic was still covered in blood.

  “It’s nothing. Absolutely nothing,” I muttered, scrambling to my feet. I was so happy to see him. So insanely happy.

  “That’s what my sons always said when I caught them crying. Do not be ashamed of your tears. I have shed many in my lifetime, and there were still not enough.”

  The sword he’d rammed into Stourton’s chest was hanging from his side.

  “What?” He followed my eyes. “You look as if you’ve never seen a sword.”

  I had seen swords. Dozens. In movies and in museums. But I’d never seen one used in real combat. It had been terrible, even though those had been “only” the swords of ghosts. I couldn’t take my eyes off the sword.

  “It’s probably quite heavy, isn’t it?”

  “Oh yes. I still remember how quickly my arms began to ache after my brother first handed me his sword. My fingers were too short to close around the hilt, and after my first training I couldn’t even lift a spoon.”

  “Your brother? The Lionheart?”

  “I had many brothers. More than any man would need, and all of them older than me. And stronger. They never grew tired of making the lives of their father’s bastards miserable. But our stepmother protected us… the only one she’d let get away with anything was John.”

  His stepmother. Eleanor of Aquitaine. Bonapart had, of course, told us about her. And John was John Lackland, Prince John. The man who had hunted Robin Hood, if he’d really existed, which Bonapart denied most emphatically. I wanted to ask Longspee about his stepbrother, but he seemed lost in his memories. He looked down the dark cloisters as if he could see his brothers between the columns.

  “Can I… may I hold your sword?”

  Yes, I know. Very childish. (Though, if I’m honest, I’d probably ask him the same today.)

  Longspee laughed. It wiped all the sadness off his face.

  “No. Have you forgotten? This is the sword of a ghost. It is but a shadow, like me.”

  “But your ring!” I pointed at the mark on my hand.

  “The seal remained with me. Death wants to make sure I fulfill the oath I took. All else, though, is nothing but shadow and darkness.”

  He looked at me. “Darkness taints my soul like soot, Jon. I wish I could once again have a soul like yours: young, untainted by rage, envy, and false ambitions. No more memories of bloody deeds to stay with me forever, no cruelty to shame me through eternity, no betrayal that took from me my trust in myself.”

  I dropped my head. Young and untainted? I thought of the gravestones I’d drawn for The Beard, and all the countless deaths I’d imagined for him.

  Longspee laughed quietly, then went on in a conspiratorial whisper. “What am I saying? Of course, you know of all these things. When I was your age, I wanted to kill at least two of my brothers. And I pushed my father’s mistress down a staircase. Which earned me the worst beating of my life.”

  It felt good to hear his confession. But I still couldn’t take my eyes off his sword.

  “I still wish you could teach me,” I mumbled.

  “Teach you what?”

  “Fighting.”

  He eyed me thoughtfully.

  “Yes, when I was as young as you are now, I also wanted to learn nothing else. At your age I already knew quite a lot about it. I was not even seven when I became a squire.” For a moment his shape blurred, as if he were fading into his memories.

  “There’s only one way for me to teach you something about fighting,” he said finally. “I’m not sure whether it’s the best way, and you may learn a few things you didn’t want to know about.”

  “What way is that?” I asked.

  Longspee looked at me as if he was unsure whether he wanted to show it to me.

  “Jon Whitcroft becomes William Longspee,” he finally answered, “for a few heartbeats….”

  “How?” My voice was barely more than a whisper. There was nobody in the whole world I would rather have been, even though he was a dead man.

  “Come closer!” he said.

  I obeyed. I stepped so close that the light surrounding him made my skin look as pale as his, and his coldness seeped through my clothes.

  “Closer, Jon!” he said.

  It felt as if I were melting. I was in another body, even younger than mine, with a belt, a leather breastplate…. And there was another knight, as tall as Longspee, with a sword in his hand. He attacked me. I also had a sword, short and heavy. I yanked it up, but not nearly quickly enough. Pain. Blood trickled down my arm. A voice: “Geoffrey! He is your brother!”

  “And?”

  The pain was horrible. I could barely think. Where was I? Who was I?

  I felt my body grow. Now I was strong and tall, but there was even more blood. And even more pain. There were swords, many swords, lances, knives, and horses. I fought. This time the sword was so long, I had to hold it with both hands. I felt my arms ram it into another body. I heard my own breath, labored and much, much too fast. I could feel rain on my face; it tasted salty. I smelled the ocean. I slipped in the mud and fell to the ground. Something dug into my leg. An arrow. I screamed with pain, or was it rage? There was blood in my eyes. Was it my own, or another man’s?

  “Jon!”

  Somebody called my name, over and over.

  “Jon!”

  I felt cold and then warm again. I stumbled backward until my back made contact with a wall. I could still feel the arrow in my leg. My fingers felt for it, as if they had to convince themselves that it wasn’t still there. My eyes, however, looked for Longspee.

  He was barely visible. The light that usually surrounded him was gone. He was a shadow, nothing else.

  “I was nearly killed in that battle.” His voice seemed to come from far, far away. “There were many battles like that one, so many. And all that remains is the pain, the fear, and the noise. Fighting the French. Fighting my own countrymen. Fighting for my brothers, and fighting against my brothers…” Longspee’s voice seemed to come out of the walls, from the tombstones that lined the cloisters, from the flagstones under my feet. “All that violence—whitewashed, because we were fighting for a just cause. Our cruelty was our holy weapon, as holy as the martyrs’ bones we liked to wear around our necks. And now here I stand, covered in blood, bound by my own oath, caught between heaven and hell, and separated from the only one who could drive away this darkness.”

  I felt his sadness as painfully as I had just felt the arrow.

  “What can I do?” I stammered. “Is there something I can do?”

  Longspe
e’s face was still all darkness. For the longest while he did not answer me. And when he did, it was not the answer I’d wanted to hear.

  “Go home, Jon!” he said, his shadow melting into the walls of the cathedral. “Forget William Longspee. He is cursed. Cursed by his own oath and another man’s deceit. He has lost his heart and the one he loves. And without her there can be no path out of this darkness.”

  And he was gone.

  “No. Wait!” My voice echoed so loudly through the ancient hallways that it gave me a start. I listened in the night, and there was no guard, no priest. But also no dead knight.

  I fell to my knees. It was the only thing I could think of. Ella would have been proud of me.

  “Longspee!” I called. “William Longspee. Come back! A knight has to stay with his squire.”

  Nothing. Only a crow fluttered up from the old cedar tree, cawing noisily, probably complaining about the racket I was making.

  Gone.

  I knelt, feeling the sword in my hand, the mud under my feet, his heart in my chest. Get up, Jon! I told myself. This time he’s gone for good. But just as I got to my feet, I heard a voice behind me.

  “A dead man has no need for a squire, Jon Whitcroft.”

  “Oh yes!” I stammered. “Definitely.”

  “Yes? And what for?”

  Go on, Jon, or he’ll be gone again.

  “To fulfill your oath,” I spurted out. “To polish the marble on your tomb, to keep you company, to… to… find the path out of the darkness, and the one you love. Whatever! There must be something I can do.”