RAMPION IN THE BELLTOWER by Merrie Haskell page 7/8
Rampion had changed into clothes still damp from their earlier washing and fallen asleep against her grandfather's knee when the older carilloneur heard a set of footsteps climb the steps to the clavier room.
"My liege," the grandfather said, dropping chin to chest--his best seated bow.
"Johannes," said the prince warmly, wearily.
"It is good to see you alive and well, my liege."
"And you, Johannes," said the prince. He looked down at Rampion, still asleep.
"You are wondering, perhaps, about the bells?"
The prince gave the grandfather an assessing glance. "I remember the rumors about your daughter, before she ran away, and the new rumors when she returned."
"Ah," the old man said, and wondered how he would save his granddaughter from the accusations that most certainly would follow.
"I've dreamed of Rampion often in recent weeks," said the prince. "I wondered what it meant. I think now, perhaps, it was God's message that she would save my life."
Rampion came awake without stirring, her dark eyes opening to look at the prince. He held a hand out to her. "Will you watch the moonrise with me on the parapet?"
She blushed and took it. "Excuse us, Grandpa," she said. They stepped out onto the eastern parapet, leaving the grandfather alone with his thoughts once more.
They did not stay out as long as he expected, and when they returned, their hands were still joined.
"I beg you to have a seat, my liege," the grandfather said, eyeing them.
"I do not think you should call me liege, Johannes, if I am to call you Grandfather now. Or Grandpa, as Ramp says." The prince's eyes gleamed. The grandfather had always liked his patron's sense of humor, until now.
"I see the way of it," the grandfather said. And he did. Who would be an apprentice carilloneur when she could be a princess? At least the prince would marry the girl. No prince would call his mistress's grandfather "grandpa."
Seeing the concern on his face, Rampion laughed, as clearly and as joyfully as the ringing of the Saint Barbara, the grandfather's favorite bell of the first octave.
"You'll see, Grandpa," she said.
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