Free Death in the Castle by Pearl S. Buck Page A

knew everything, with their low cunning. It was part of their power over their rulers, to find out the secrets, the weaknesses, the youthful sins, the private follies, and use them when the time came.
    He pressed his horse into a gallop and left the men staring after him. When he was out of their sight he pulled the ring from his forefinger and put it into the pocket of his coat. Then he reined his horse into a quiet trot again, and felt his lips tremble. Where could he find strength to sustain him, where gain wisdom to guide him? He was alone and lonely as only the rulers can be—must be, for how could he demean himself to ask from anyone the help he needed? There was no one his equal or, for that matter, his superior—no one living. Only his ancestors could give him courage, and to them he now turned.
    He followed the road to Starborough village and to the church that had been built long ago for the devotions of a sovereign and his court. In it lay the dust of all the Sedgeleys since the day they had been given the right to lie there. He knew already where his own dust would lie—in that far corner to the east, where a shaft of sun fell through the prism of the rose window.
    He dismounted, tied his horse to the hitching post and walked into the shadowy quiet of the church. It was empty and he strode up the aisle. Then he saw that it was not empty. The old vicar was standing before the altar, working at one of the tall silver candlesticks. He turned, startled, and put out his hand.
    “Sir Richard, this is unexpected, but pleasant. I am just mending a bit of the candle here. One of the choirboys knocked it off during choir practice last night, but the candle’s quite good if I can just … they are shockingly dear, these large altar candles …”
    “Let me help you,” Sir Richard said.
    “Ah, don’t trouble yourself,” the vicar said. “Though I could do with a bit of help if you would just hold the candlestick … while I …”
    Sir Richard grasped the heavy candlestick with both hands while the vicar lit a taper and held it to the candle to melt the wax enough to insert the broken bit. Sir Richard looked at the kind old face so near his own. He could remember the days when he was a boy and the vicar had come as a young man to Starborough village.
    “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I came here hoping for help for myself—not expecting you, of course—but just to—perhaps meditate a bit, near the graves of my ancestors. I am in great trouble.”
    The vicar did not look up. “Are you? I’m sorry to hear that, Sir Richard. Somehow I don’t associate you with trouble. You’ve always been a good man.”
    “It’s not that kind of trouble,” Sir Richard said. “Nothing I’ve made for myself.”
    Nothing he had made for himself? Yes, it was hardly fair to call that brief episode on a languid summer’s day, when he had met Elsie in the forest gathering wild strawberries, that hasty moment of physical excitement in a boy’s body, a trouble that he had made for himself.
    “Your seed is valuable—don’t waste it,” his father had said bluntly. “You’re not only my son and heir. You’re the son and heir of a noble line.”
    If his father had not been so crippled by war wounds, if he had been able to have other sons, how differently might he have spoken! But there was only himself, precious as the crown prince, his father’s one hope of immortality. And had his father not pressed his ambition so heavily upon him, might not he, Richard, have been a different youth, less rebellious in heart, his repressed emotions less violent?
    “Whatever your trouble is,” the vicar was saying, “if I can help I’ll be glad … There—I think that’ll hold. Set it down carefully, if you please, and we’ll let the wax harden. Sit here in the choir stalls, Sir Richard, and tell me …”
    But Sir Richard had wandered to the alcove where the Sedgeley tombs were placed. He was looking at the stone profile of