This time there were two men instead of one. One carried the heavy tray of food, and I was hungry enough to be glad it was heavy, the other held a lantern, and stayed near the door. By the time the first man had put the tray on the table I had straightened up, and was moving toward him quite calmly.
“The Herr Fakat Zol,” he said, rather elaborately, “presents his compliments to the gnädigen Herrn, and regrets that he cannot entertain them at dinner.”
I have always read about heroes who remained calm in all emergencies, and now I had found that when one of them happened to me, I was not calm and therefore not a hero. I felt nervous and jumpy even after the men had gone and locked the door again, which was a little hard on my self esteem since it had been such a small emergency.
When I dared to look down again John was standing just where he had been when I handed him the acid. He had not moved even to pick up the things I had dropped.
“We missed by an eyelash having to dine with the Black Ghost,” I told him. “Come on up and eat.”
“Not on your life.” He shook his head, excitedly, “it would take half an hour to get me up there and down again. Have to rig up the sheets to climb by. Can’t spare the time. Give me some food through the hole, and I think we may make it before midnight. The moon will come up soon after, so we can’t risk it later.”
I gave him soup in a coffee cup, and two huge sandwiches with thick-sauced meat in them, and an apple. Then I smeared his plate with gravy, and a few edges of meat, to look as though he had eaten, and ate my own dinner. Later when John had finished the soup I rinsed the cup and gave him coffee in it. Then I put even the apple core back on the tray, and finally stuck the knife and fork he should have eaten with in some of the gravy. Altogether it was an artistic job, that tray. I took off one knife with a prayer that its absence would not be noticed.
I did not dare start work on the wall again until the tray should be taken away, and while I sat waiting idly I thought over Helena’s position, and decided that John was right about not wanting to get her out. She had been meddling very seriously in the affairs of a country that was as foreign to her as it was to us. The Rheatian government would probably not help her under the circumstances, the Alarians would hate her, and if she got out she would rush straight to Herrovosca. The Black Ghost, I felt sure, would release her when—and if—there was no further end to be served by keeping her quiet. That would be when Yolanda and Maria Lalena had been driven out of the country. And Conrad was right, of course, from every standpoint, especially that of expediency. An unpopular dowager and an unknown and inexperienced girl could not hope to keep peace and a throne in a tumultuous country like Alaria.