Ghost Knight Read online

  Great. But to me Old Sarum was interesting for another reason. I knew from Ella that Longspee had died there.

  Old Sarum is a strange place. Bonapart clambered all over the sparse wall remnants and told us that the rubble to our left had once been a cathedral and that the pile to our right was formerly a palace. But all I could see were trees, bent by the constant wind, and a bare hillock on which tourists wandered among crumbled walls. And all the time I thought of Ella. We’d never fought before. It felt horrible.

  As we climbed the steps that supposedly had once led to the royal palace, I asked Bonapart about the room in which William Longspee had died. But he only raised one eyebrow (he always did that when he didn’t know the answer to a question) and launched into a speech about the military failings of Longspee, especially as the commander of the English right flank during the Battle of Bouvines. I pretended to be listening, but I let my eyes wander over the hills, the same hills Longspee’s eyes had seen, and I wondered whether Bonapart was talking about the battle I’d experienced in William’s body.

  Eventually we walked back to the bus, and the wind attacked us as if all the vanished inhabitants of Old Sarum had ganged up to drive us from their hill. Bonapart walked in front of me, desperately trying to brush his sparse hair back down over his balding scalp.

  “Erm, Mr. Bo—uh, Mr. Rifkin?” I said, trying to keep pace with his hectic steps. “Do you know anything about Longspee’s murderer, Hubert… erm…”

  “Hubert Erm?” he repeated contemptuously. “Hubert de Burgh, regent of England, second-most powerful man after Prince John? Yes, I do indeed know a lot about him. And there is no proof that he poisoned Longspee.”

  “It was definitely him,” I retorted. “But that’s not what I want to know about. Did you ever hear anything about him stealing Longspee’s heart?”

  Bonapart gave one of his little arrogant laughs. “William Longspee’s heart was buried in Lacock Abbey by Ela of Salisbury,” he said. “In a silver urn bearing the crest of Salisbury. Trust me, Whitcroft, Hubert de Burgh had far more important things to do than to steal the heart of a second-rate illegitimate son of the king.”

  I would’ve loved to tell him what I’d heard from Hubert de Burgh’s own mouth, but instead I just mumbled, “Thanks, Mr. Rifkin. Very interesting,” and wished that the wind would blow the last hairs off his arrogant skull for what he’d said about William. I was annoyed with myself for asking Bonapart in the first place. But who else could tell me about the heart?

  After we got back to school, I immediately resumed my search for Ella. But then I heard from one of the girls in her class that she hadn’t come to school that day. I have absolutely no idea what drove me to the school chapel after that. I don’t believe in angels you call on in emergencies, nor in saints who have nothing better to do than to help eleven-year-olds with their history tests and other problems. (Angus very firmly believed in saints and angels. Before every test he always turned to Saint Angus MacNisse.)

  No, I think I only went there because I wanted to be by myself for a while. The chapel is usually not the most crowded of places, and I had some thinking to do: about Ella, Longspee, and his stolen heart. I wasted no more thoughts on Stourton. Yes, I know, not very smart. I know that now.

  I squeezed into one of the narrow wooden pews and stared at the colorful glass windows, racking my brain as to how I might still help Longspee and also make up with Ella.

  The lion mark on my hand had become more distinct again. I told myself that was probably not going to last if I kept being such a useless squire. Then, suddenly, I heard something rustling behind my back.

  At first I thought the boy standing in a pew two rows behind me was one of my fellow students. The old-fashioned clothes he was wearing should have immediately made me suspicious. Yet his face seemed familiar. I was positive I’d seen it somewhere before. And when I looked at him more closely, I felt the same shudder I’d felt when Stourton’s servants had stood underneath my window. Once you’ve seen a ghost, you keep seeing more. I do believe they’re everywhere. Maybe they’re the reason we sometimes suddenly feel sad or angry. Maybe love, pain, and fear don’t fade as quickly as walls and stones. Yes, people disappear, just like the palace and cathedral of Old Sarum. But what if everything they experienced lives on? Like a smell, or the shadow beneath a tree? Or a ghost…

  By now I’ve seen a good dozen ghosts. You see them only if they want you to, and I guess to most of them I’m just not that interesting. This ghost, however—the one I suddenly saw behind me in the school chapel—had been waiting for me. Just for me. I knew it as soon as I saw him. And as he came toward me, I also remembered where I’d seen his face.

  Hanging in the hallway by the school chapel is a painting of four choristers, all of them a little younger than I was then. I’d always thought that the second from the left had evil written all over his face. I wasn’t wrong.

  He stopped next to me, and I could see the pews behind him through his gown. I remember thinking, Oh, great, not another ghost! But when he raised his pale hand and showed me the lion mark, there were no thoughts left in my head.

  “Why did you call him?” His voice sounded hoarse, as if he didn’t use it very often.

  I got up and squeezed out of the pew. He was smaller than I was, and after my experiences with Stourton, I wasn’t really afraid.

  “Who are you talking about?” I asked, though of course I knew the answer. I thought to myself, Jon, you’re getting better at talking to ghosts. My counterpart sneered. I could see through his face as through tattered cloth.

  “Don’t play stupid. I bet you my place in hell that he asked the same price of you that he asked of me. Am I right?”

  He laughed. It sounded awful, and his face quite literally nearly dissolved into laughter.

  “Let me through!” I said, pushing past him. But he immediately stood right in front of me again.

  “And where are you trying to go? Admit it. He tried to get you to find his heart too. Our Saint William!” His face became so contorted that it resembled that of a cat more than that of a boy. “I called on him to protect me from one of my teachers. I was tired of the constant beatings, and I had heard about the knight who sleeps in the cathedral and who has sworn to protect the weak and all that.” He bared his teeth just as Stourton had done. “Oh, he did help me. He had my teacher kneeling in front of him, sobbing, and the man never touched me again. But then I had to go and find the knight’s accursed heart. And when I found it, what did I get?”

  Through his chest I saw the pews.

  “He killed me!” the chorister hissed at me. “And he’ll probably do the same to you.”

  Then he was gone.

  And I was alone again, staring at the spot where he’d just been standing. Liar! I thought. I hope Longspee skewers your black heart, just as he did with Stourton’s.

  Around me everything seemed to whisper, He killed me. Killed. Killed!

  No. No, it couldn’t be true.

  “Come back!” I called, looking around the empty chapel. “Come back, you filthy liar.”

  “Whitcroft?”

  Mrs. Tinker, the school secretary, was standing in the chapel doorway. Everybody called her Tinkerbell, though she wasn’t tiny at all. Quite the opposite. She barely fit behind her desk. But whenever you were unsure which classroom you were supposed to be in, or when you needed a bandage, you went to see Tinkerbell. She knew everything about the Bishop’s Palace.

  “Mrs. Tinker, do you know anything about the boys in the painting out there?” I asked.

  Tinkerbell turned in the doorway and looked at the picture. “Oh, those. Of course,” she said. “The one on the right became an operetta singer in London—he had quite a fine reputation. The second on the left is the chorister who fell out of the window. I always try to feel sympathy for him, but…”

  “He fell out a window?”

  “Yes. Broke his neck. Back then there was a rumor that somebody had pushed him. But he
was supposedly alone when it happened.”

  I felt as if the ground under my feet were ripping open.

  “I was looking for you, Jon!” Tinkerbell continued. “Zelda Littlejohn called. She asked whether you had seen Ella. Which is a little strange, since Ella didn’t even come to school today. But I promised I’d ask you.”

  “No,” I muttered. In my mind I saw the chorister falling out a window. “No, I’ve been looking for her too.”

  Tinkerbell shrugged and turned toward the stairs. “Well, let’s see whether her grandmother has meanwhile found out where she is.”

  Hard to believe, but my mind was still not sounding the alarm. It was far too busy trying to process what the dead chorister had told me.

  “Maybe Ella is with her parents,” I said, following Tinkerbell down the stairs. “Her grandmother doesn’t really get along with them.” Ella had told me that her mother and Zelda argued at least three times a week.

  But Tinkerbell just shook her head. “No, her parents are off on tour again this week. Somewhere in Scotland, as far as I know.”

  That was the moment when I finally realized.

  Something had happened. Something terrible.

  My heart began to race so fast that I became nauseated. I forgot about the dead chorister and what he’d said about Longspee.

  Could it be that William really was a murderer?

  I suddenly no longer cared.

  In my head there was only room for one question:

  Where was Ella?

  ELLA’S UNCLE

  I ran all the way to Zelda’s house. I didn’t care whether I was expelled from school for playing truant a second time. I didn’t care about anything. Where was Ella?

  As I stumbled into the living room, Zelda was sitting on her sofa, surrounded by toads, a letter in her hand. She had taken off her glasses, and her eyes were red from crying.

  “What is it?” My mind pictured Ella run over by a truck or drowned in the millpond.

  Zelda held the letter toward me. The handwriting looked strange and clumsy, as if someone who usually writes with the right hand had used the left.

  At first I didn’t understand a word of what I was reading, but when the meaning slowly dawned on me, I had to sit down right where I was, on Zelda’s carpet. My knees just gave in (and I nearly squashed two toads).

  Zelda Littlejohn: Bring the Hartgill boy to the Kilmington cemetery at nightfall or your granddaughter will be in hell by sunrise.

  Underneath the words was a sketch of a coat of arms. It was smudged, as if a clumsy finger had touched the wet ink, but I still recognized it. I had last seen it on a dead horse’s blanket.

  “But that’s… impossible!” I stammered. “He’s dead. I mean, for real this time. We saw it. Longspee killed him.”

  Zelda noisily blew her nose.

  “Sir William Longspee? Jon, why didn’t the two of you tell me about this? That’s Lord Stourton’s crest, but ghosts can’t write letters.”

  Zelda looked at me accusingly, and she had every right.

  So I told her everything. How Ella had gone into the cathedral with me on Friday night, how we’d called Longspee, and how he’d rescued us from Stourton and his servants. I left out only the parts about the dead chorister and the stolen heart. I just couldn’t get myself to call Longspee a murderer.

  Zelda listened. She was dumbfounded. When I got to the end of my story, she looked as if she’d like to kill me just as much as Stourton did.

  “How could you not tell me about this, Jon?” she hollered. “And what was Stonehenge about, then? We didn’t go there for Viking treasure, did we?”

  I dropped my head. I couldn’t look her in the eye.

  “That’s a different story,” I mumbled. “Really. It’s got nothing to do with Stourton.” I got back to my feet. “How could he kidnap Ella and write a letter, Zelda? He’s a ghost. He can’t even hold a pen.”

  “Holy stinkwort, how would I know?” Zelda said. “The ghosts I know don’t hunt children or have demon hounds. They utter a few hollow groans and are gone as soon as you shout at them. What kind of mess did you get Ella into, Jon?”

  She started sobbing into her soggy handkerchief again. I just stood there and stared at the letter still clutched in my hand.

  Suddenly there was a knock at the door. I spun around as if Stourton had just poked his bony finger into my back. Zelda, however, dropped her handkerchief with a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, good. That’s my son,” she snuffled. “I called him as soon as I got the letter. Come in, Matthew!” she called, rubbing the back of her hand over her teary eyes.

  “I really hope this is urgent, Zelda!” I heard a voice behind me. “I was in the middle of performing a root canal when you called. So, what’s happened to Ella?”

  I turned around, and there he was.

  The Beard.

  I’m pretty positive I’ve never looked so stupid in my whole life, and I hope I never will again. At least The Beard didn’t look particularly sharp either when he saw me standing in his mother’s living room.

  “Oh, Matthew, you still have that horrid beard!” Zelda said, struggling up from her sofa. “How often do I have to tell you that you look like an idiot with that on your face?”

  “You know why I have it, Mother,” The Beard said, trying to force a halfway-sensible expression onto his face. “Or do you think the scar just disappeared meanwhile?”

  “What scar?” I muttered.

  “Bah, just a little accident from when he was still helping me with my ghost tours.” Zelda squeezed a hasty kiss onto The Beard’s cheek. “Jon, you tell Matthew the whole horrible story. I need some coffee. I can’t think straight anymore. I cried myself out of my last bit of sense.”

  She blew into her handkerchief once more and hobbled off, leaving me alone with The Beard.

  For the longest while The Beard and I just looked at each other in uncomfortable silence. I couldn’t believe he was Zelda’s son. He didn’t even seem to mind the toads, which I thought was particularly strange for a dentist.

  “Well, if this isn’t a surprise!” he finally managed to say. “So, Jon, what happened to my niece? Did you get her into some kind of mischief, as you like to do with your sisters?”

  Ah! No more camouflage. Open war. I could handle that.

  “Nothing would’ve happened to her if you hadn’t made sure Mum sent me here!” I shouted at him. “Really smart, sending me into a city where there’s a dead murderer waiting for me. Without Ella I would now be dead myself. But how could I know he’d come back to get her and not me?”

  Of course, The Beard had no clue what I was talking about, but at least he was now looking gratifyingly worried.

  “What are you saying? Who got Ella?”

  I gave him the letter and told the whole story all over again. While I was talking, he caught some toads—maybe it calmed him—and I tried to get used to the idea that The Beard was Ella Littlejohn’s uncle. I would’ve loved to ask her whether she hated him as much as I did. But Ella was gone, and I was as sick with worry as if I’d eaten three whole bowls of that hideous mushroom soup the school serves on Wednesdays.

  Where had Stourton taken her?

  Was she still alive, or had he already turned her into a ghost?

  Could he do that?

  Zelda came back with the coffee. I was just telling The Beard how Longspee had driven his sword through Stourton’s chest. I admit, The Beard didn’t ask one stupid question. In fact, he listened as quietly as if I were explaining which of my teeth hurt when I ate ice cream. When I finally stopped, he just gave me a nod, as if he listened to stories about murderous ghosts and dead knights every day.

  “Sadly, it all makes perfect sense,” he said, dropping into the threadbare armchair that was usually reserved for the toads. “Stourton grabbed Ella instead of Jon because she’s not a boarder and therefore he could get to her more easily.”

  “But how could he kidnap a child and write a letter?” Zelda
cried. “He’s nothing but a shadow!” She tried to pour her coffee, but her hands were shaking so badly that The Beard took the pot from her.

  “I’ve always told you, Mother, you have a far too positive notion of ghosts,” he observed, also pouring a cup for himself. “How could he write the letter? First possibility: Our murderous ghost lord has scared a living man into capturing Ella and writing the letter. Second possibility…” He hesitated and shot me a quick glance.

  “What?” I asked testily. “You think I’m not old enough for your ‘second possibility’? I bet you’ve never been chased by a five-hundred-year-old killer or fought with his demon hounds.”

  This came out of my mouth in such an aggressive tone that Zelda looked at me in surprise. She still believed I’d just met her son for the first time.

  “The second possibility,” The Beard continued, unfazed, “is that Stourton literally scared a man to death and has given one of his servants use of the body.”

  “Use of the body? Ghosts can use dead bodies?” My voice was now no more than a terrified croak.

  Zelda put down her cup and sat bolt upright on the sofa.

  “No, they cannot!” she said very clearly. “Stop telling the boy such stories, Matthew. You know I think this is utter nonsense. These are fantasies. Superstitions. Nothing else. Stourton has probably frightened some poor farmer by riding out of his barn at night, and he scared the unfortunate fellow into writing the letter and catching Ella as she came out of school.”

  The Beard reached for his coffee (which he drank without sugar, of course!) and took a long sip.

  “But… but I still don’t understand why he… why Stourton’s still here!” I stammered. “Longspee sent him to hell. I was there!”

  The Beard’s mouth stretched into a grim smile. “But you said Stourton left his skin behind?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, he’s a peeler.”

  Zelda rolled her eyes, but The Beard was clearly on to a favorite subject. Only once before had I heard him speak with a similar passion—when he’d explained to my mother the effect lemonade has on children’s teeth.