At the Crossing Places (11 page)

“Whatever boys say!
Whatever men sing!

They say they care
And sing how they hope,
They say they fear
And can scarcely sleep
They're so on fire.

Whatever boys say!
Whatever men sing!

They praise our pride,
They praise our fear,
Our bodies, our minds,
And unless we care
They'd rather be dead.

It's just cruel sport,
This praising and pleading.
They quicken our blood,
Loosen our feelings
And mean not one word.
Whatever boys say,
Whatever men sing
Are mouthfuls of air.
They mean not a thing!”

“That's not true,” I said.

“It is,” said Grace.

“Where did you hear it?”

“From a traveling singer. Inside my heart.”

Tom is right. It's not my fault that I'm Grace's half brother—but I wish she didn't feel so hurt.

M
Y SEEING STONE. MY CLOSE COMPANION.

No! It is more than that. I'm not Arthur-in-the-stone, but I know I'm seeing part of my own story.

“This fellowship!” King Arthur exclaims. “Was there ever a company such as this?”

Guinevere and Merlin and the king stand and look at the hoop of knights, one hundred and forty-nine of them, sitting at the Round Table.

“As keen as swifts,” says Merlin.

“What do you mean?” Guinevere asks.

“They'll quarter this green earth and tear the sky into blue ribbons,” Merlin says. “Or so they think.”

“We shouldn't begin this feast without some sign,” Guinevere says.

“She is right,” murmurs Merlin, and almost at once a beautiful white hart leaps into the hall. He has ten tines on his antlers.

And now a white scenting-hound bounds in, trailing a leash and, hard on his heels, thirty couple of black running-hounds.

It's too late now for the hart to mislead the hounds by doubling back on its tracks. First it circles the Round Table, then prances down the hall between two of the long trestle tables, dips its branches, and leaps back up the hall again.

But the scenting-hound is getting closer—and now it launches itself. It sinks its teeth into the hart's buttocks and rips away a chunk of flesh.

The white hart gasps and vaults. It crashes into a knight sitting at a refectory table, and as the knight falls, his arms open, he catches the scenting-hound. The hound snarls and wrestles, but it cannot break the knight's grip. He digs his fingers inside its collar, and now he grabs its leash.

The hart, meanwhile, escapes from the hall. He kicks up his heels and slams the door in the face of the black hounds. By the time the door has been opened again, the hounds have lost ground; the white hart may be able to outrun them or deceive them.

The knight gets to his feet, holding the scenting-hound on a tight leash. Without looking up, without even bowing to Arthur-in-the-stone, he strides out of the hall.

“A sign!” exclaims Guinevere. “A wonder!”

“Is this your doing?” the king asks Merlin.

Before Merlin can reply, there is a clatter of hooves, and a lady on a white palfrey trots into the hall and right up to Arthur.

“Sire,” she calls out. “Have you seen my white scenting-hound?”

“I have,” Arthur replies. “A knight led him out of here no more than two minutes ago.”

“He's mine,” spits the lady.

“You should look after him better,” Guinevere says.

“Are you going to stand by and see me wronged?” the lady yells at Arthur.

“What would you have me do?” the king asks.

Now an armed knight on a charger clops into the hall. Without
a word, he grabs the lady and heaves her, screeching, over his shoulder, and rides out of the hall.

“I'm glad to see the back of her,” Arthur says. “I've never heard such a vile noise.”

“A wounded hart and a stolen hound,” says Merlin. “A lady abducted. You can't leave things like this.”

“What shall I do?” Arthur asks.

“Call Sir Gawain,” Merlin replies. “Your own nephew! It's high time he rode out on his first adventure. Have him follow the white hart and bring him back to this hall, dead or alive. Ask Sir Tor to bring back the scenting-hound and that knight who stole him. And charge his father, Sir Pellinore, to come back with that lady and the knight who abducted her.”

“I will,” Arthur says eagerly.

“Enable your knights to ride out and right wrongs and tilt at the impossible,” Merlin says. “Their fame is your fame.”

H
E WAS LYING OUTSIDE THE ARMORY DOOR WITH THE
point of Lord Stephen's iron mace buried in his skull. His whole face was masked with blood, and his mouth was half-open and twisted.

When Simon and I rode in from Gortanore, everyone was out in the courtyard, standing around him.

“It was Alan!” shouted Rhys. “He came barging right past me, but I didn't think twice. You know how he is. He mounted Floss and rode her out bareback.”

“I was sewing in the solar,” Rowena said. “I heard him shouting he'd been tricked.”

“Alan's always shouting,” Sayer said.

“And threatening,” added Rowena.

Gubert inspected the dead man's dreadful head wound. “He made a good job of it,” he said, quite admiringly.

“It was Alan, then,” said Haket. He stooped and with his right forefinger closed the dead man's eyes. Izzie began to weep.

“He had it coming, mind,” Rowena said fiercely.

“Why?” Sayer asked.

“He's a Jew. That's why,” Rowena replied. “Pawning and that. If he loaned you one penny, you had to give him back two. Inside one year.”

“How do you know?” said Gubert.

“Alan told me,” Rowena replied.

“What's his name, then?”

“Jacob,” said Rowena.

“Where's Lord Stephen?” I asked.

“Over at Verdon. With Lady Judith.”

Simon and I walked right up to the dead man. There were dark strings of blood hanging from both his eyeballs and the tip of his nose.

“Jacob the Jew,” Haket informed us, and then he rounded on Izzie. “Stop sniveling!” he snapped.

“What shall we do?” I asked.

Haket rubbed his blubbery red mouth. “‘Thou shalt not steal,'” he said. “God's fourth commandment. This Jacob was a pawnbroker and a moneylender. He took poor people's possessions and paid them almost nothing for them. Then, when they wanted to buy them back with corn or livestock, he charged them double or three times as much. He was a thief, and thieves deserve to die.”

“But he was murdered,” Sayer said.

“I reckon we've seen the last of poor Floss,” said Rhys.

Haket waves his right fist. “‘Thou shalt not murder,'” he said. “God's third commandment. Hear what the Book of Numbers says: ‘If one man strikes another with an instrument made of iron, so that he dies, he is a murderer; and the murderer must be put to death.'”

“But Haket,” I said desperately. “What shall we do now?”

“He won't lie in our churchyard,” Haket said. “Jews aren't Christians. They're animals.”

“How can you say that?” I cried, my voice rising. After that, I
don't know quite where my voice came from, but I heard myself sounding quite calm again, the same as when I spoke to Alan after he'd shouted at Turold. “You're a hypocrite, Haket. It's you who's not Christian. You're not even merciful.”

Everyone looked at Haket to see what he would do.

“This poor man's dead—” I went on.

“He wasn't poor,” said Rowena.

“—and all you can do is vilify him. That and preach.”

“Have you finished?” said Haket coldly. “How dare you? God will punish you.”

“Simon,” I said, and I felt as though I were out of breath. “Lord Stephen ought to know. He ought.”

“Who do you think you are?” asked Haket between his teeth.

“I know it's a long way, and we've only just got back, but—”

“Dead men can wait,” Sayer said. “They got plenty of time.”

Simon stretched his arms above his head. “I'll go,” he said.

“And I'll ride with you,” said Rhys. “It's like a prison, this place.”

“Come on, then!” said Simon, and everyone except Haket and Gubert and Rowena headed for the stables.

Haket glared furiously at me, swung on his heel, and stalked away across the Yard.

“Rowena!” he called, without even looking over his shoulder.

I caught Rowena by the arm. “We can't just leave him here,” I said. “For the dogs and everything.”

“Do it yourself,” Rowena said.

“Rowena!”

“I hated him.”

“Why?”

“What he did.”

“What did he do?”

“Rowena!” Haket shouted for a second time, as if he were bringing a bitch to heel.

“Coming!” Rowena called, and she ran after him.

Suddenly my legs went weak beneath me. I'm glad I said what I did to Haket, but I felt afraid.

“Where can we put him?” I asked Gubert.

“You were brave,” said Gubert.

I shook my head and started to shiver.

Gubert bent down. In both arms he picked up Jacob, as if he were an empty barrel. Then he stepped into Alan's armory and gently laid him on the dressing-bench, with the iron spike still buried in his head.

“God have mercy,” I murmured.

We shuffled out of the armory and quietly closed the door behind us.

“I think there should be an eleventh commandment,” I said.

“Ten's enough for me,” Gubert replied.

“‘Practice what you preach.'”

Gubert nodded. “Haket's an animal himself.”

I shivered again, and then I began to gag. I ran to the latrines, but before I got there I was violently sick.

F
OR A LONG TIME, I COULDN'T GET TO SLEEP BECAUSE
I felt so cold. And then I dreamed I was still in the armory with Jacob, and he was lying on the dressing-bench. Then Alan burst in. He kept yelling at me and jabbing at me with one end of his quarterstaff…and then my dream woke me up. I pulled out my dirty saffron cloth. Lying beside the dozy fire, I cradled my seeing stone.

Sir Gawain is cantering across a heath and Gaheris, his own younger brother, is riding with him and serving as his squire. I'm sure it's Gaheris because his hair's so blond that it is almost white, and he's carrying a blue shield with a white cross on it.

The two brothers ride up to an enormous oak tree. Underneath its branches, two knights on horseback are fighting.

Sir Gawain rides right in between them. “What's all this about?” he demands.

“We're brothers,” one knight replies.

“That's even worse,” Sir Gawain says. “What are you fighting for?”

“Earlier today,” the first knight says, “a bleeding white hart raced across this heath. And a long way behind, a whole pack of black running-hounds was following it. My brother and I said that whoever runs that hart to earth will win great fame at King Arthur's court.”

“He will,” says Sir Gawain.

“I said I'd chase it,” the first knight continues, “but my brother argued with me. He said he was the better huntsman. So we're fighting to prove which of us is the better man.”

“But brothers shouldn't fight,” says Sir Gawain. “Unless you do as I say, I'll take you both on.”

“You've lost so much blood you're both worn out,” Gaheris says.

“Go to King Arthur's court,” Sir Gawain instructs them. “Put yourselves in the king's hands.”

“Whom shall we say sent us?” asks the younger knight.

Sir Gawain stares up into the oak, and through the oak at the white sky. “You can say,” he says, “‘the knight whose quest is the white hart.' Now! What are your names?”

“Sourlouse of the Forest,” replies the elder brother.

“I'm Brian of the Forest,” the younger brother says.

In the night-gloom of the hall, someone sighed, and then sighed again. I'm not sure who it was, but I think it was Rowena.

I've never felt afraid in the dark before, and I don't know exactly what I was afraid of because Alan must have been miles away, but I still felt glad that Simon and Rahere and Miles and Izzie and Rowena were all sleeping around me.

After a while, it was completely quiet again. All I could hear was hallooing and the sound of galloping hooves, as Sir Gawain and Gaheris chased after the white hart.

Now the two brothers are riding side by side along the bank of a whirling, dark river.

“Can you hear them?” Gaheris calls. “The hounds!”

The brothers spur their horses and gallop even faster.

On the opposite bank is a manor house, and the white hart is swimming across the river towards it. But the current is too strong for most of the hounds. It chops and churns around their heads, and sweeps them far downstream. Only three couple are able to struggle over to the far side.

“If that hart can swim across, so can Kincaled,” Sir Gawain shouts. And at once he urges his horse into the racing, deep water, and Gaheris follows him.

Sir Gawain is right! Kincaled's as strong as the hart, and so is Gaheris's horse. They cross the river and ride straight into the manor hall, followed by the three couple of dripping hounds.

There, the great hart turns and faces them. He has ten tines on his antlers, and there is nowhere left for him to go. While the hounds snarl and yelp, and Gaheris soothes and praises the hart, his beauty, his courage, his endurance, Sir Gawain quietly steps round behind him. Now he creeps foward. He raises his sword. He drives it from behind the beast's right shoulder deep into his heart.

At once a knight stalks into the hall, and his sword is drawn. He stares at the hart slumped on the floor and the hounds tearing at him; he scowls at Sir Gawain; and then with two swipes, forehand and backhand, he cuts off the heads of two of the hounds.

“How dare you?” shouts Sir Gawain.

“Dead!” says the knight in a stricken voice. “White of white! My own wife's gift to me.”

“They're hounds,” growls Sir Gawain. “That's their nature.”

The knight kneels beside the hart. “Your death will be costly,” he says quietly.

“You'd have done better to avenge yourself on me than on these dumb beasts,” says Sir Gawain.

“I've avenged myself on your hounds,” says the knight, “and now I'll avenge myself on you.”

The knight swipes at Sir Gawain, but Sir Gawain fends him off with his shield and then he thrusts straight at the knight's throat, and the knight trips over and falls on his back.

“Mercy!” he gasps.

Sir Gawain pinions the knight. “You've killed two of my hounds,” he says between his teeth, “and you can pay for them with your life.”

“I'll make amends,” says the knight. “Mercy!”

Now on her soft feet the knight's wife steps up behind Sir Gawain, and he hasn't seen her or even heard her. He unbuckles the knight's helmet so as to strike off his head. He forces the knight onto his knees and whirls his sword…

With a shriek the lady throws herself over her husband and Sir Gawain cuts off her head by mistake.

“My brother!” cries Gaheris. “What have you done?”

Sir Gawain covers his eyes with his left hand.

“You should have spared him,” Gaheris sobs. “A knight without mercy is without honor. You will never wash this shame away.”

Sir Gawain is so stunned that he scarcely knows what he is doing. He offers the knight his right hand. “Stand up!” he says. “I will spare you. I will show you mercy.”

“No, no!” the knight says hoarsely. “Saraide! I loved you more than my own life. Why should I care about mercy now?”

“Dear God!” Sir Gawain says. “I've never regretted anything so much. I had no quarrel with her.”

“My wife,” says the knight. “Saraide!”

“You are to go to King Arthur's court,” Sir Gawain says. “Tell the king how you yielded to the knight whose quest is the white hart. Tell him everything.”

“I don't care whether I live or die,” the knight says.

“You are to go,” repeats Sir Gawain.

“I will,” says the knight. “I swear it.”

“Now tell me your name,” Sir Gawain says, “before we ride our own ways.”

“I am Blamoure,” the knight replies. “Blamoure of the Marsh.”

“Take with you the two hounds you slew,” Sir Gawain says. “One in front of you and one behind you.”

The colors grew dim, the words faded…

What will King Arthur do when he hears that Sir Gawain has beheaded a lady? And how will God punish him?