There were several other people in the hall, but none of them took any notice of Tom. He waited, feeling hopeful and fearful by turns. The earl’s conversation with his steward seemed to take forever. At last it ended, and the steward bowed and turned aside. Tom stepped forward with his heart in his mouth. “Are you Matthew?” he said.

“Yes.”

“My name is Tom. Master mason. I’m a good craftsman, and my children are starving. I hear you have a quarry.” He held his breath.

“We have a quarry, but I don’t think we need any more quarrymen,” Matthew said. He glanced back at the earl, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No,” Matthew said. “We can’t hire you.”

It was the speed of the decision that broke Tom’s heart. If people were solemn, and thought hard about it, and rejected him regretfully, he could bear it more easily. Matthew was not a cruel man, Tom could tell, but he was busy, and Tom and his starving family were just another item to be disposed of as quickly as possible.

Tom said desperately: “I could do some repairs here at the castle.”

“We have a wright who does all that kind of work for us,” Matthew said.

A wright was a jack-of-all-trades, usually trained as a carpenter. “I’m a mason,” Tom said. “My walls are strong.”

Matthew was annoyed with him for arguing, and seemed about to say something angry; then he looked at the children and his face softened again. “I’d like to give you work, but we don’t need you.”

Tom nodded. He should now humbly accept what the steward had said, put on a pitiful look, and beg for a meal and a place to sleep for one night. But Ellen was with him, and he was afraid she would leave, so he gave it one more try. He said in a voice loud enough for the earl to hear: “I just hope you’re not expecting to do battle soon.”

The effect was much more dramatic than he had expected. Matthew gave a start, and the earl got to his feet and said sharply: “Why do you say that?”

Tom perceived he had touched a nerve. “Because your defenses are in bad repair,” he said.

“In what way?” the earl said. “Be specific, man!”

Tom took a deep breath. The earl was irritated but attentive. Tom would not get another chance after this. “The mortar in the gatehouse walls has come away in places. This leaves an opening for a crowbar. An enemy could easily pry out a stone or two; and once there’s a hole it’s easy to pull the wall down. Also”-he hurried on breathlessly, before anyone could comment or argue-“also, all your battlements are damaged. They’re level in places. This leaves your archers and knights unprotected from-”

“I know what battlements are for,” the earl interrupted tetchily. “Anything else?”

“Yes. The keep has an undercroft with a wooden door. If I were attacking the keep I’d go through that door and start a fire in the stores.”

“And if you were the earl, how would you prevent that?”

“I’d have a pile of stones, ready shaped, and a supply of sand and lime for mortar, and a mason standing by ready to block up that doorway in times of danger.”

Earl Bartholomew stared at Tom. His pale blue eyes were narrowed and there was a frown on his white forehead. Tom could not read his expression. Was he angry with Tom for being so critical of the castle defenses? You could never tell how a lord would react to criticism. By and large it was best to let them make their own mistakes. But Tom was a desperate man.

At last the earl seemed to reach a conclusion. He turned to Matthew and said: “Hire this man.”

A whoop of jubilation rose in Tom’s throat and he had to choke it back. He could hardly believe it. He looked at Ellen and they both smiled happily. Martha, who did not suffer from adult inhibitions, shouted: “Horray!”

Earl Bartholomew turned away and spoke to a knight standing nearby. Matthew smiled at Tom. “Have you had dinner today?” he said.

Tom swallowed. He was so happy he felt close to tears. “No, we haven’t.”

“I’ll take you to the kitchen.”

Eagerly, they followed the steward out of the hall and across the bridge to the lower compound. The kitchen was a large wood building with a stone skirting. Matthew told them to wait outside. There was a sweet smell in the air: they were baking pastries in there. Tom’s belly rumbled and his mouth watered so much it hurt. After a moment Matthew emerged with a big pot of ale and handed it to Tom. “They’ll bring out some bread and cold bacon in a moment,” he said. He left them.

Tom took a swallow of the ale and passed the pot to Ellen. She gave some to Martha, then took a drink herself and passed it to Jack. Alfred made a grab for it before Jack could drink. Jack turned away, keeping the pot out of Alfred’s reach. Tom did not want another quarrel between the children, not now when everything had turned out all right at last. He was about to intervene-thereby breaking his own rule about interference in children’s squabbles-when Jack turned around again and meekly handed the pot to Alfred.

Alfred put the pot to his mouth and began to drink. Tom had only taken a swallow, and he thought the pot would come around to him again; but Alfred looked set to drain it. Then a strange thing happened. As Alfred upended the pot to drink the last of the ale, something like a small animal fell out onto his face.

Alfred gave a frightened yell and dropped the pot. He brushed the furry thing off his face, jumping back. “What is it?” he screeched. The thing fell to the floor. He stared down at it, white-faced and trembling with disgust.

They all looked. It was the dead wren.

Tom caught Ellen’s eye, and they both looked at Jack. Jack had taken the pot from Ellen, then turned his back for a moment, as if trying to evade Alfred, then handed the pot to Alfred with surprising willingness…

Now he stood quietly, looking at the horrified Alfred with a faint smile of satisfaction on his clever young-old face.

Jack knew he would suffer for that.

Alfred would take his revenge somehow. When the others were not looking, Alfred would punch him in the stomach, perhaps. This was a favorite blow, for it was very painful but left no marks. Jack had seen him do it to Martha several times.

But it had been worth a punch in the stomach just to see the shock and fear on Alfred’s face when the dead bird fell out of his beer.

Alfred hated Jack. This was a new experience for Jack. His mother had always loved him and no one else had had any feelings for him. There was no apparent reason for Alfred’s hostility. He seemed to feel much the same about Martha. He was always pinching her, pulling her hair and tripping her, and he relished any opportunity to spoil something she valued. Jack’s mother saw what was going on, and hated it, but Alfred’s father seemed to think it was all perfectly normal, even though he himself was a kind and gentle man who obviously loved Martha. The whole thing was baffling, but nonetheless fascinating.

Everything was fascinating. Jack had never had such an exciting time in the whole of his life. Despite Alfred, despite feeling hungry most of the time, despite being hurt by the way his mother constantly paid attention to Tom instead of to him, Jack was spellbound by a constant stream of strange phenomena and new experiences.

The castle was the latest in a series of wonders. He had heard about castles: in the long winter evenings in the forest, his mother had taught him to recite chansons, narrative poems in French about knights and magicians, most of them thousands of lines long; and castles featured in those stories as places of refuge and romance. Never having seen a castle, he imagined it would be a slightly larger version of the cave in which he lived. The real thing was amazing: it was so big, with so many buildings and such a host of people, all of them so busy-shoeing horses, drawing water, feeding chickens, baking bread, and carrying things, always carrying things, straw for the floors, wood for the fires, sacks of flour, bales of cloth, swords and saddles and suits of mail. Tom told him that the moat and the wall were not natural parts of the landscape, but had actually been dug and built by dozens of men all working together. Jack did not disbelieve Tom, but he found it impossible to imagine how it had been done.