But Giles did not make many enemies; in fact, those five courtiers who tried to disgrace him could be said to be almost the only ones he had. On the other hand, he had a great number of very good friends. These were not by any means all picked from among the great. With the freedom which his peculiar duties gave him he was able to chat and hobnob with whom he chose. In that he was like the King himself, who was perhaps the only other person at the Court who did not have to be careful about his dignity with those beneath him in station. Thus the two had many strange friends in common.
One of these was the Chief of the Palace Cooks. He was a monstrously fat man, with a very jolly face which looked as though it was made from well-tanned leather. Both Giles and the King used to visit his kitchen at any odd hour of the day, not only to enjoy his excellent pastries and sweetmeats, but also to listen to his ridiculously funny stories. He had been in charge of the palace kitchen long before the King was born and had prepared his porridge for him when he was a baby. He had an enormous memory which, in spite of his being sixty years of age, only seemed to remember the merry things in life and to forget the sad ones.
Another of their queer friends was a gardener. That is, he was a gardener when he was in the King’s service. What he was at other times no one knew. He was something of a mystery. And he was known as Geoffrey the Gipsy. It was never proved that he was a real gipsy—nor, certainly, was he a regular gardener. There was nothing regular about him. It was said that he, too, had first been brought into the royal service in the days of the King’s father, whose great hobby had been raising roses—white ones in particular. In searching his country for people skilled in rose culture, the old King had come upon Geoffrey somewhere and set him to work in his gardens. He quickly proved himself to be such a wizard with the flowers that he became quite an important person; and his royal master gave him all sorts of liberties and special privileges not granted to his other servants.
The young King always remembered his father with a very real love and admiration. And he wished that the palace rosaries should be kept up in the best possible state in memory of him. And so even now the queer Geoffrey (who was sometimes spoken of as the ‘Rose Doctor’) was often still to be seen dreamily pottering around the terraces on the south slope of the castle hill, a pruning-knife or trowel in his hand—and always alone. For the other gardeners at the castle would have nothing to do with him, nor he with them. But he never stayed for long. Some strange wandering call seemed to be for ever tugging at his heart. And sooner or later he would come to the King and say:
‘Your Majesty, I’ve got to go.’
The King always expected this. And without argument he would let him depart, quite sure that in his own mysterious way the Gipsy would know when the roses needed him again and would return in time, of his own accord. Geoffrey was strangely well read for a man of his kind. He seemed to know most of the Greek and Latin poets by heart and was full of a great knowledge of life, which gripped the young minds of the King and his Finder by its unboasting but fearless honesty. Hours and hours they spent with him while he trained the ramblers, chatting of everything under heaven, from moles and marriages to music and the siege of Troy.
Geoffrey was a great enemy of War. And he was always looking forward to the day when it and its unjust evils should pass from the world for ever. This, in those times when men still thought that killing was the greatest if not the only work of heroes, was brave and independent thinking. Especially when spoken out before a prince who kept a large army of his own. And long afterwards Giles often wondered how much the Gipsy’s words shaped the thoughts and ambitions of the King. For the time came when the people looked back upon the days of this young man’s kindly rule and spoke of them, with a sigh of reverence, as the Reign of Peace.
It would seem surprising perhaps that the King did not more often carry the Whispering Shell himself. But, as he had found when it was first given him, it was, during the ordinary hours of the day, almost worthless for his own use. The great number of voices all over his kingdom—and outside his boundaries as well—all talking about him at once, made a babel that no one could understand. It was therefore at night time when most folk were asleep that Giles brought the shell to the royal apartments. There, with the cares of State over for the day, the King would listen in comfort to learn if any stayed awake to talk about him.
Sometimes he would hear nothing of importance, would lay it aside, and after a game of chess with Giles, retire to bed. And other times he would hear disturbing voices of evil, more and still more of these everlasting plottings within his kingdom. These messages would often force him to have someone imprisoned, punished or banished from the realm. The hours of darkness are the time when envious men get together to hatch plots. And many a night he swore to Giles that he would one day smash the shell to atoms and for ever silence its whisperings of treachery and ill faith. But then when he heard something that helped him in the good government of his kingdom, he would change his mind about this powerful, mysterious thing that had come to him out of the sea.
Once or twice he heard of coming wars. The voices of other kings in neighbouring realms, talking with their ministers and commanders, discussing whether they should, or should not, take up arms against him. Here the shell played a peculiar part. For it allowed him to see through other eyes into the causes of war, the things that led up to suffering and death for thousands, growing in the minds of men who lived, as it were, with the right hand always on the sword-hilt. And to this young prince, whose greatest wish was to keep peace and happiness always in the lives of his people, it seemed almost as if he were himself far away in those foreign kingdoms, present there, taking part in the arguments he listened to. Often he saw justice in what these men of the other side had to say. And sometimes he heard their plans of battle and arrangements for attacking his borders. And that was partly the reason that he was able to become a preventer, rather than a maker, of wars.
One afternoon Giles, in spite of all his care to keep the shell from the eyes and knowledge of the Court, had a curious accident. He was sitting in one of the garden pavilions, where he thought no one would be likely to disturb him, listening to the shell himself. He was hoping to hear word of his sister and parents whom he had not seen for a very long time. Suddenly the Princess Sophronia appeared at the door. She saw he held a shell to his ear; and before he had time to stuff it in his pocket she grabbed it from him and listened to it herself. She expected, of course, to hear nothing but the roaring of the sea. But as luck would have it, two people in the castle were talking of her that very moment. One was her own tiring maid and the other was a groom attached to a foreign prince who was visiting the castle at the time. This prince, it was said, was going to marry the Princess Sophronia. And because it now seemed likely that she would some day be queen of a big country, many people about the Court were saying more flattering things about her than usual. The groom wanted to marry the Princess’s tiring maid, hoping it would help him on in the world. He was saying at this moment:
‘When that most gracious, generous, beautiful and noble lady, your mistress, the Princess Sophronia, is wedded to my master, would it not be indeed fitting that you marry me so that we may live together in the same country?’
At that the King’s aunt closed her eyes and purred with delight. For to this empty-headed woman flattery of any kind was the breath of life. Then, without another word to Giles, she departed, taking the shell with her.
But she had not reckoned on the peculiar duties and liberties of the King’s Finder. That night Giles waited outside her bedroom door till he heard the Princess snoring. Then he went in and removed the shell from beneath her pillow without waking her.
Next day she came and indignantly accused him of stealing it from her. With polite respect he told her that it was His Majesty’s property and he had been bound, as the King’s Finder, to get it and take it back.
But Sophronia was a determined, if not a beautiful, Princess. She stuck to Giles for hours, begging and demanding that he give it to her. He became afraid that she might go talking and complaining about it all over the castle. Therefore he struck a bargain with her. He said the King had spoken lately once or twice of some day not wanting the shell any more. So if she would swear to keep it a secret, and it was still unbroken when the King had done with it, he would promise it would be hers.
The time came much sooner than he expected when he had to make good this promise.
That same night Giles took a late supper with the King in his apartments, as he often did. When the dishes had been cleared away the King asked for the shell and held it to his ear. Presently Giles left him for a moment to go and speak to Luke. And when he returned the shell was on the table and the King was marching back and forth like a caged lion.
‘Why, Your Majesty,’ Giles began, ‘what has—’
‘Oh, don’t “majesty” me!’ yelled the King. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here. Majesty! I wish I’d never heard the word. I wish I’d been born poor, like you, Giles. At least you’ve never had people plotting against you all your life. Lying to your face and scheming behind your back—scheming to kill you like a dog! And my own flesh and blood it is, my own flesh and blood, hoping, wishing, praying for my death. Prayers for His Majesty the King! That’s what I heard first. The monks over in the Abbey at their midnight devotions. Then this. More prayers for the King! Hah! Hah! Hah! Prayers for the King’s death! My own flesh and blood—and a woman at that—praying someone to stick a knife in my ribs!’
He dropped on to a couch and ran his fingers through his hair like one distraught.
‘It’s too much, Giles,’ he groaned presently. ‘I can’t bear it any more. I can never listen again. Let them come and slaughter me, here, in my sleep if they will. But I’ll listen to no more plots from them and lie awake nights wondering whether I should behead them before they murder me. Who can I trust? Tell me, who?’
The King’s voice rose again to something near a shriek. ‘ Who? —You, my mother, Barbara and Luke. Who else?—No one.’
Giles moved forward to say something. But the King’s voice ran on again brokenly, madly. His hand suddenly shot out pointing to the table.
‘And there lies the trouble, Giles: the shell! It has robbed me of my faith in all. When shall I find peace again? Kill it! Take that battle-axe from off the wall—behind you. Smash it! There’s a curse in it! Smash it into powder, I tell you!’
Giles hesitated a moment, trying to find words to soothe the wildness of his master’s mood. Then in a flash the King leapt up, snatched the shell off the table and hurled it with all his might through the open window of the tower. With a great sigh he dropped down upon the sofa again and a sudden calm came upon him as though he had at last rid himself of something evil.
But the keen ears of the King’s Finder were listening. Listening for a distant crash. The night was still. He knew that if the shell fell into the courtyard from that tremendous height it would be broken in a thousand pieces. If, on the other hand, the King’s raving strength had thrown it farther still, it would fall into the garden where the softness of flower beds, moss or turf might save it from destruction. It would take some seconds to fall, Giles told himself. And as he waited in the silent room he found he was thinking of Agnes. Were the shell destroyed, it would be for the best; if it was saved it would mean its work was not yet done.
And then, still listening for the answer to the question in his mind, he suddenly knew that he had waited over-long—past the time for it to fall. It had dropped into the garden—without a sound.
Giles moved over to the bowed figure sitting on the couch.
‘Your Maj—’ he began; and then checked himself. He laid his arm across the King’s shoulders.
‘Good friend,’ he whispered gently, ‘some people you will always have about you whom you can trust, and no man these days can boast of more than that. Remember them: forget the others. Get you to bed now and rest safe—safe in the friendship that does not betray. By your leave we will dismiss the grooms. And Luke and I will sleep across the threshold of your door.’