“No, he’s not,” said the jailer. “He’s just plain Bartholomew now.”
“To hell with your distinctions, jailer. Where is he?”
“How much have you got?”
“I’ve no money, so don’t bother asking for a bribe.”
“If you’ve no money, you can’t see your father.” He resumed sweeping.
Aliena wanted to scream. She was within a few yards of her father and she was being kept from him. The jailer was big and he was armed: there was no chance of defying him. But she did not have any money. She had been afraid of this when she saw the woman Meg give him a penny, but that might have been for some special privilege. Obviously not: a penny must be the price of admission.
She said: “I’ll get a penny, and bring it to you as soon as I can. But won’t you let us see him now, just for a few moments?”
“Get the penny first,” the jailer said. He turned his back and went on sweeping.
Aliena was fighting back tears. She was tempted to yell out a message in the hope that her father would hear her; but she realized that a garbled message might frighten and demoralize him: it would make him anxious without giving him any information. She went to the door, feeling maddeningly impotent.
She turned around on the threshold. “How is he? Just tell me that—please? Is he all right?”
“No, he’s not,” the jailer said. “He’s dying. Now get out of here.”
Aliena’s vision blurred with tears and she stumbled through the door. She walked away, not seeing where she was going, and bumped into something—a sheep or a pig—and almost fell. She began to sob. Richard took her arm, and she let him guide her. They went out of the castle by the main gate, into the scattered hovels and small fields of the suburbs, and eventually came to a meadow and sat on a tree stump.
“I hate it when you cry, Allie,” said Richard pathetically.
She tried to pull herself together. She had located her father—that was something. She had learned that he was sick: the jailer was a cruel man who was probably exaggerating the seriousness of the illness. All she had to do was find a penny, and she would be able to talk to him, and see for herself, and ask him what she should do—for Richard and for Father.
“How are we going to get a penny, Richard?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ve nothing to sell. No one would lend to us. You’re not tough enough to steal. ...”
“We could beg,” he said.
That was an idea. There was a prosperous-looking peasant coming down the hill toward the castle on a sturdy black cob. Aliena sprang to her feet and ran to the road. As he drew near she said: “Sir, will you give me a penny?”
“Piss off,” the man snarled, and kicked his horse into a trot.
She walked back to the tree stump. “Beggars usually ask for food or old clothes,” she said dejectedly. “I never heard of anyone giving them money.”
“Well, howdopeople get money?” Richard said. The question had obviously never occurred to him before.
Aliena said: “The king gets money from taxes. Lords have rents. Priests have tithes. Shopkeepers have something to sell. Craftsmen get wages. Peasants don’t need money because they have fields.”
“Apprentices get wages.”
“So do laborers. We could work.”
“Who for?”
“Winchester is full of little manufactories where they make leather and cloth,” Aliena said. She began to feel optimistic again. “A city is a good place to find work.” She sprang to her feet. “Come on, let’s get started!”
Richard still hesitated. “I can’t work like a common man,” he said. “I’m the son of an earl.”
“Not anymore,” Aliena said harshly. “You heard what the jailer said. You’d better realize that you’re no better than anyone else, now.”
He looked sulky and said nothing.
