‘I am feeling much better, Your Majesty. Perhaps I could meet this man today.’
‘Steady on, Sir Conor,’ laughed the king. ‘I will ask him to drop by tomorrow. He has a few drawings you might like to look at. Something about heavier-than-air flying machines.’
‘Thank you, Your Majesty. I look forward to it.’
The king chuckled, ruffling Conor’s hair.
‘You saved my daughter, Conor. You saved her from my carelessness and her own tinkering fingers. I will never forget that. Never.’ He winked. ‘And neither will she.’
The king left, leaving his daughter behind. She had not spoken for the entire meeting, indeed she had not said much to Conor since the accident. But today some of the old light was back in her brown eyes.
‘Sirrrrr Conor,’ she said rolling the title around in her mouth like a hard sweet. ‘It’s going to be more difficult to have you hanged now.’
‘Thank you, Isabella.’
The princess leaned in to knock on his cast.
‘No, Sir Conor Broekhart. Thank you.’
***
Someone else came to see Conor that day, late in the evening when the nurse had shooed his mother home. The infirmary was deserted save for the night nurse who sat at her station at the end of the corridor. She drew a curtain round Conor’s bed and left a light on so that he could read his book.
Conor leafed through George Cayley’s On Ariel Navigation, which theorized that a fixed-wing aircraft with some form of engine and a ruddered tail could possibly carry a man through the air.
Heavy reading for a nine-year-old. In truth Conor skipped more words than he knew, but with each pass he understood more.
Engine and tail, he thought. Better than a flying flag at any rate. And fell asleep dreaming of a shining sword wrapped in a flag, sinking in Saint George’s Channel.
He awoke to the sound of a boot heel scraping on stone, and the heavy sigh of a large man. A sigh so guttural that it was almost a growl. This was a sound to make a boy decide to pretend that he was still asleep. Conor opened his eyes the merest slit, careful to keep his breathing deep and regular.