Song of the Gargoyle Read Online Free PDF Page A

plunged the whole kingdom into mourning.
    The people had mourned not only for the sorrow of their beloved old king, but for themselves as well. For a people ruled by an aging king whose only heir was a little granddaughter, who was then a child scarcely out of infancy.
    Tymmon had grieved in particular for poor little Princess Arnica, a slight, pale child whom he had often seen at play in the inner courtyard. She seemed to him a lonely child, and knowing that she, like Tymmon himself, had been motherless since infancy, he had always felt for her a special sympathy. And with her father’s death she had become a royal orphan. It had seemed strange and terrible to Tymmon that God could have allowed such sorrow to come to a child of such noble birth. And it seemed even more tragic that her father had died at the hands of a scurvy band of brigands, instead of in glorious battle as would seem right and proper for a royal personage such as Prince Mindor of Austerneve.
    Brigands had indeed been a terrible scourge in all of the North Countries. But on further thought it seemed unlikely to Tymmon that the five intruders had been brigands, since their arms and armor had been that of noblemen and the brigand bands were said to be made up of commoners—renegade peasants and deserters from the ranks of ordinary foot soldiers.
    The five knights could, of course, have been recent arrivals or even simply visitors to Austerneve. Noble visitors to the castle came and went constantly, and many of them were unfamiliar to Tymmon. But that possibility made the taking of Komus even more senseless. Why would some outsider, someone who knew little of Austerneve and its people, capture and carry away a court jester—a person of no rank or importance although a great favorite of the old king? That was a question that returned again and again. Why would anyone abduct a simple court jester? Why Komus? And then—why my father?
    “My father,” Tymmon whispered, and the words caught in his throat, and ached there with a raw, throbbing pain. He swallowed hard and shook his head angrily, but the ache remained. And when he probed the pain, saying “my father” again and then again, it only grew stronger.
    “My father,” he said aloud, and somehow the saying was not in his present, almost manly voice, but in the high-pitched tones of a child. High-pitched, and trembling with emotions that were also not of the present, but filled instead with old, almost forgotten feelings of unquestioning love, and admiration—and pride.
    He had been proud of Komus then—back then as a child of six or seven years. Proud of the way Komus the jester was known and greeted by everyone in the castle and village as well. Proud that Komus could read and write, as few in Austerneve could, and that he could make music on lyre and rebec and flute that set people dancing or brought tears to their eyes. But that had been years ago, and since that time Tymmon’s thoughts and feelings concerning the court jester of Austerneve had undergone many changes.
    But other, sharper, pains finally demanded his attention, bringing him back to the tiny cramped hollow in which he lay. He was, he began to realize, not only cold and stiff but very hungry as well. Loosening the knots that held his pack, he brought out the cheese and bread and broke off small pieces, reminding himself to eat sparingly as it might be long before he was able to find other food. But the bread was dry and rough, and without water or wine to wash it down he found it hard to swallow even that small allowance.
    The hours passed at a slow, painful crawl. The wind remained strong and cold, and all that day there was no sunlight to turn Austerneve Tor into a gigantic sundial, as it did in better weather when the castle’s shadow reached out across the village of Qweasle as the afternoon wore on.
    Now and then Tymmon slept briefly, only to awake in horror from threatening dreams. Cold and thirst and the ache of cramped