‘I don’t know. Who can tell?’ said Luke thoughtfully. ‘She used nothing but her hands, twisting and pulling at my knee. I’m sorry we can’t find her now. I did so want to thank her—to let her see me run without a crutch.’
‘Well,’ sighed Giles, ‘maybe she’ll turn up again some day. She does, you know, in the most unexpected places.’
‘And always where she’s needed,’ Luke added with a nod.
‘It’s late,’ said Giles. ‘Let us get to bed now. We need rest. For tomorrow, Luke, we set out for the capital and fortune—tomorrow we ride with the King!’
Book 2
1 The King’s Finder
And so the next day Giles started out for the capital; and with his starting out there began for him a new life, the life of palaces and princes.
He never thought that it would be nine whole years, from that morning, before he would return to his father’s town. Yet so it was to be. It was not that he had no wish to come back. Indeed, he often planned to do so. But something always came along to prevent it. For his own life was a very busy and a very happy one; and in those nine years many strange happenings took up his thoughts and filled his days.
It must be said in Giles’s favour that he did not allow all the new splendour and glory to turn his head; which was very remarkable in one so young. For it became quite clear to everyone as soon as the King got back to his Court that the boy he had brought with him stood very high in the royal favour. Not only was the young knight, with his one esquire, given rooms in the King’s own apartments, but it was noticed that the King took him with him wherever he went. More than that, His Majesty, it seemed, often talked over important business of State with him—even before taking advice from his regular councillors and ministers; and he was always giving the boy important tasks to carry out.
And before long Giles was surprised to find that all manner of grand and high persons about the Court were most anxious to gain his favour and show great friendliness to him. Hoping to get him to put in a good word for them and their affairs with the King, they even tried to give him presents. That was how he came to be spoken of sometimes in the history of this particular king’s reign as the ‘Boy Chancellor’. For even princes of foreign lands who wanted to make treaties and trade agreements with this country sent secret messengers to Giles, with gorgeous gifts, before they made their business known to the King himself.