Three to See the King

all hours.
    What I didn’t realize was that this was just the beginning. That afternoon I spotted another person, far away to the south, making his way in the same direction as the others. From then on the sightings became increasingly frequent. Almost every day Mary Petrie would return from her walk and report that she’d seen more travellers going by, sometimes in pairs or on their own, but most often in groups. I saw them too, and I found their movements quite interesting to watch. It was the manner in which they just kept on going that fascinated me, always at the same relentless pace, rarely pausing unless someone had fallen behind, and never changing course. Invariably it was towards the west.
    There was something else I noticed as well. Often they moved in single file, one after the other, and when they did I could see that many of them were carrying burdens. At such a distance I couldn’t tell for sure, but these looked very much like pieces of tin.
    12
    I didn’t really like going on the roof, not if I could help it. It seemed a bit high to me, and I’d actually never been up there before. Nonetheless, one afternoon I found myself clambering round on top of the house as if it was second nature. This was all to do with the chimney, of course, and Mary Petrie’s insistence that it still needed lengthening.
    ‘No point in doing it yet,’ I said, when she raised the subject. ‘It’s practically autumn now and we won’t be opening the shutters till spring.’
    ‘Oh yes, and then you’ll find another excuse to put it off,’ she replied. ‘I want it done now.’
    ‘We haven’t got a ladder.’
    ‘Look!’ she snapped. ‘Do you want me to go up there and sort it out myself?’
    ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
    I wasn’t sure how I was going to lengthen it exactly, but I decided that if I went on the roof and carried out an examination, then she’d probably be satisfied for the time being. Having seen Simon, Steve and Philip all go up there without a ladder, I knew it must be possible. I waited until she’d gone for a walk, however, before I tried. To my astonishment I found it quite easy once I’d managed to scramble over the eaves, and by the time she came back I was an accomplished climber. I made sure she saw me at work with a tape measure, checking the length of the chimney against its diameter, as well as taking a note of the circumference. Then I tried to get down, and found I couldn’t.
    She’d already gone inside when I made this discovery. The trouble was, when I dangled my foot over the eaves I couldn’t find anywhere to place it. At the same time I felt sudden beads of sweat developing all over my body. I sat there trying to keep calm and puzzling how the others had found it so easy. When I thought about it I realized they were simply more used to it than I was, especially Steve, who’d done countless alterations to his house. It just needed practice, that was all, so after a while I tried again. It was no good, though. The moment I began my descent the beads of sweat returned and I had to go back up. Now I was certain I was stuck.
    Just then my eye was caught by the sight of some travellers in the distance. Such people had become so commonplace over recent weeks that if I’d seen them from the ground I’d have barely given them a second glance. From high up here on the roof, however, they appeared in a new perspective, and therefore held my gaze a little longer. Long enough, in fact, for me to notice that they weren’t heading west, as I would have expected, but directly towards me.
    Peering more intently I saw that there were three of them, and that they were walking single file in the steadfast purposeful way I’d come to recognize amongst these migrants. Why, I wondered, were they coming to my place? I was about to call Mary Petrie and warn her when something about the first of the three attracted my attention. At the same instant I knew it was Simon Painter. Behind him strode Steve Treacle and Philip Sibling.
    The effect of seeing my former friends was to propel me onto my feet, completely forgetful of my fear of heights, and turn away from them. They were sufficiently far off for me to pretend not to have seen them coming, so I fumbled in my pocket for the tape and then proceeded to take all sorts of measurements around the roof. I recorded, for example, the dimensions along the eaves, the rise of the roof above the gutters, and the distance between