"What's that noise?"

Deep within the forest Peter and the two slaves halted. Their horses whinnied, made nervous by the noises to the west. Andrew and Philip glanced at each other and nodded.

"It's coming from the garden. It's the night of the Great Remembrance."

Peter looked askance at them. "What remembrance?"

"We ought to go there at once," Philip said. "It is a gathering of those who trust in the Lord of Hosts. It is a time when we hear the great story of our past. The dark lords suppress all talk about the Lord of Hosts. They hope that this will make us forget about him. But we could no more forget him than we could forget our parents or"—he exchanged a significant look with Andrew—"our children."

Peter did not understand at all but saw no reason to argue. They rode slowly towards the garden, guided only by the newly risen moon as they went along the darkened trails in the forest.

It was not long after—in fact, only a few moments later—that they rode into the garden. Peter recognized it instantly from the night they had spent there—it felt like ages ago. But the place was no longer abandoned. A group of men in green milled about excitedly. And who was that old man who seemed to be the center of attention? Why had Philip and Andrew rushed to speak to him?

And who was that woman in white, sitting on the throne? She looked vaguely familiar. And then Peter stared with astonishment. What on earth was Julia doing on that throne?

Julia became dimly aware of movement on the edge of the garden. Three new people had arrived. Two were slaves, doubtless late for the ceremony, but the other was different, his hair much fairer than the raven locks that surrounded him. Peter!

She clasped her hand to her mouth. She had never thought to see him again. She had never wanted to see him again. He was her brother, but he had betrayed her…hadn't he? Julia was rooted to the spot, frozen by indecision. Part of her wanted to rush and embrace her brother; the rest of her wanted to run away from him as quickly as possible. And so she turned her head away from her brother.

Peter stared at his sister, wanting to embrace her—an emotion he could not recall ever feeling before. Yet she showed no interest in him. Was it that she was afraid of him? Or that he had done something wrong? Surely she realized that he had tried to save her life! Like Julia he stood still, not knowing what to do.

For some moments all was still and silent. Then Gaius strode forward, took Julia by the hand, and led her toward her brother.

"I think there has been some misunderstanding between you," he said with his characteristic simplicity. Julia's eyes flashed angrily.

"I think it is rather more than a misunderstanding, Gaius. I would call it a betrayal."

Gaius nodded. "Ah," he said. "And so it might seem to one who did not fully understand what he had seen. Come. Let us sit together and talk awhile." He turned and gestured them toward the pond that still shone silver. Peter and Julia sat down beside him at the bank, trying very hard not to look at each other.

"Peter, why don't you begin?" Gaius asked gently. "Tell us what has happened these past two days."

Peter took a deep breath and then found that he didn't really know where to begin. But, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Julia, he knew that he had to begin with her.

"I didn't know what to do," he said. "I thought they were men of reason. I thought they were"—he gulped—"scientific. And they told me I could be a prince." He glanced at Julia shyly. "The lords had told us we were condemned to death—something about treason, I think. I decided to make a deal with them. I told…I had already told them how to make gunpowder, and all they needed was something to fire it in." He paused and again glanced sideways at Julia, who was trying her very best to look as though she were ignoring him.

"I told them I would show them how to make a cannon if Julia was set free."

Julia's eyes flashed open. So she had misheard…

"They agreed. I was put under house arrest while I designed the cannon, but I designed it so that it would fail. I would be there at the testing, and hoped that I might be able to get away in the confusion of the explosion that I knew would occur. I knew I might not have been able to, but I was happy to take that risk."

Gaius nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"The captain of the guard insisted on firing the cannon. It was then that I realized I would be able to escape. I walked towards the horses and took my chance. I had left a bag of gunpowder open near the cannon. The sparks from the explosion would have made that explode as well. Nobody could see anything because of the smoke and I was able to get away on a horse." Peter shrugged and started picking absentmindedly at the blades of grass around his knees.

"And now, Julia," said Gaius, ever so gently, "perhaps you might tell your brother how you experienced things."

Julia was not sure what to say. What she had learned in the last few moments had made her deeply ashamed. She ought to have trusted Peter. He got things wrong, but he had not let her down. There was a world of difference between failure and betrayal.

"We were in that Great Hall and we had just been condemned to die. Then I caught snatches of a conversation…I thought Peter was making a deal to save his own life. I had no idea that he was trying to save mine instead."

"What happened next?" the monk prompted.

"I was taken to a prison cell. They called it the Death Cage." She fell quiet for a moment, and then spoke quickly, staring her brother hard in the eye. "I was about to lose my life and I believed I had already lost my brother. I don't know which would have been worse. And then I remembered the Lord of Hosts. I called to him and he sent me rescue."

Tears pricked at Julia's eyes, and she too developed a sudden interest in the grass. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, and then she picked up her head and looked at Peter. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Come now," said Gaius. "The time for tears and distrust is passed, and we have more important work ahead of us. Lukas!" He called over, and Lukas detached himself from his band of men and made his way over to the pond. He knelt beside Gaius, nodding his head in a brief greeting to Peter.

"The time to fight is upon us," said the monk. "But first there is the matter of the children."

"As soon as we fight, they'll die," said Lukas simply. Gaius nodded, agreeing.

"So we'll have to free them first!" said Peter, and Julia raised her head and smiled at him. "Which leaves us with just the small matter of finding where they're being held."

"Ah," said Lukas. "Now in that, I believe, I can be of some assistance. Geoffrey!" He called out, and one of his men hurried over. "We need information on the children. Tell Gaius of your scouting mission."

Geoffrey was a sturdy man, not yet forty, and his arms rippled with muscles. His face was stoic as he spoke.

"There is a building that nestles against the hillside below the castle. We had always assumed it to be a storehouse for grain—for all we know, it was a storehouse until we escaped and they took the children—but on our last patrol outside the forest we noticed that the guards outside it had been trebled. It is surrounded by high walls, so high that two grown men could not see over them if one stood on the other's shoulders. The only entrance is a gate set into the walls. We could never hope to break it," he said.

"And you're sure the children are being held there?" asked Julia.

"So much as we can be, my lady," said Geoffrey. "What other reason could they have to guard it with so many men?"

"And how do we get the children if we can't get through the door? Do we climb the walls?"

"I think not, fair one," said Lukas. "The children would never be able to follow us out—not silently. And we could not risk the notice of the guards."

"This would be a perfect time for a bit of your gunpowder," said Julia, and Peter gave a sound that was almost a laugh.

"Would you take us there?" he asked Lukas. "Maybe we'll see something…maybe we'll find a way."

Lukas glanced at Gaius, who nodded his approval. He stood, holding out a hand to help Julia to her feet. 

"You'll have to keep up," he said. "You must move silently. And you must move swiftly."

They stood just below the brow of a wooded hill, looking at a building in the near distance. Peter shaded his eyes, so that he could see better in the late morning sun. They had been walking all night, but far from being exhausted Peter was eager—perhaps a little too eager, in Julia's mind—to storm the prison.

"How far is it from here?" he asked, his eye keen on the building.

"It is a half hour's walk, Lord Peter," replied Lukas. "And we would not be seen for the first twenty minutes, as we would be passing through the wood. But once we are beyond the trees, the guards will be able to see us. We would not be in danger, as there are too many of us. But the guards inside the building would be forewarned. The whole building would be tightly locked down by the time we got there."

"And there is no way of approaching it without being seen?" asked Julia.

"No, my lady. We would have to walk there by night if we were to avoid being detected." He paused, sensing their disappointment. "There are twelve of us. There could be as many as twenty guards, and they all have swords. We have nothing but wooden staffs. They will have the advantage over us, and it is only a fool who goes into battle without the advantage. Even if we did manage to take them by surprise, they would soon recover. I'm not sure that we can win this one. And remember, they may have orders to kill the children if the building is attacked."

Peter peered hard into the distance.

"There seems to be a stream leading from the wood to the compound. Do you think someone could crawl along its banks without being seen?"

Lukas took a few steps forward, examining the stream and its steep banks with the trained eye of a master woodsman. He nodded.

"The banks seem high enough—enough to hide someone if they stayed flat as they worked their way round. They could make it to the outside wall and report back on what they found."

Peter considered his options. It might work. They would have to find the source of that stream inside the wood, and see whether its banks were high enough to act as a cover. He sighed. His first major military operation was not going to be easy.

Julia heaved a massive sigh—a sigh that indicated she was done playing and ready to go to work. 

"Come on," she said. "We can't waste any more time considering this; we've got to act. We need to get those children back to their parents." She looked at Peter and he looked back at her, and both children broke into enormous grins as they thought the same thing at exactly the same time. "Come on," she said again, and held out her hand to him. He took it in his and they began walking out from between the trees, leaving Lukas and his men behind.

They heard them spluttering—heard their protestations and the hissed orders to stop, to come back into the safety of the trees, not to throw their lives away just to play at being heroes. And then, as they walked out of the woods and into the full sunlight, the orders stopped as Lukas and his band of men melted back into the safety of the forest.

Peter and Julia walked on together, hand in hand, until they were close upon the gate. So close they could have run to it…but now the guards had seen them, and had drawn their swords. They looked at each other, their fair hair tousled by the breeze, clenched each other's hands, and screamed.

The guards sank to their knees, hands clamped tight over their ears as the screams reverberated through the air. 

And then, above the noise of the screams, one could hear a cracking—faint at first, and then louder. If the guards had been looking they would have seen a fissure in the wall, and they would have seen that fissure grow until the walls fell down in a great cloud of dust.

And when the dust cleared, the walls were gone and the children were free.

They were hopelessly bedraggled—all of them dirty and too thin, but they were safe. They walked slowly, as if in a daze, the younger ones clenching the hands of their older brothers and sisters. They didn't recognize the fair-haired strangers standing before them, but then Lukas and his men came out of the forest and the children broke into a run, laughing as they ran into their waiting arms.

Continue to Chapter Seventeen.