The Brothers Lionheart
How easily Dodik could have seen her as she went flying over the wall.
But he didn’t. He was probably standing there talking, neither seeing nor hearing anything. Mathias was keeping watch, and he did not lower the lamp.
We saw Bianca disappear and I pulled at Jonathan because I wanted him to go quickly back to the hiding place. But Jonathan didn’t want to. Not yet. It was such a lovely evening, the air cool and pleasant to breathe. He had no desire to creep back into a stuffy little room. No one could understand that better than I, who had lain for so long in the kitchen at home in town.
Jonathan was sitting in the grass with his arms around his knees, looking down toward the valley quite calmly. One might have thought that he was considering sitting there all evening, however many Tengilmen were patrolling the wall behind him.
“Why are you sitting there?” I said.
“Because I like it,” said Jonathan. “Because I like this valley at dusk. And the cool air on my face---I like that too. And wild pink roses that smell of summer.”
“So do I,” I said.
“And I like flowers and grass and trees and fields and forests and beautiful small lakes,” said Jonathan. “And when the sun rises and when the sun sets and when the moon is out and the stars twinkle and a few other things that I can’t remember at the moment.”
“I like those things too.”
“Everyone likes them,” said Jonathan. “And if that’s all people ask for, can you tell me why they can’t have peace and quiet without a Tengil coming along and destroying everything?”
I couldn’t answer that. Then Jonathan said:
“Come on, we’d better go in.”
It had gown dark. You couldn’t see Mathias any longer, only the light from the lamp.
“He’s holding it up high. No Dodik there,” said Jonathan. “Come on.”
But just as we began to run, the light from the lamp sank like lightning and we had to stop suddenly. We heard horses approaching at a gallop and then how they slowed down and someone spoke to Mathias.
Jonathan gave me a little nudge in the back.
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There was once a king who was very powerful. He had great influence over the wild beasts and animals. Now the tortoise was looked upon as the wisest of all beasts and men. This king had a son named Ekpenyon, to whom he gave fifty young girls as wives, but the prince did not like any of them. The king was very angry at this, and made a law that if any man had a daughter who was finer than the prince's wives, and who found favour in his son's eyes, the girl herself and her father and mother should be killed.
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